he slept with someone else.’
It sounds so weird when you speak those words. They’re such a cliché but you never expect to be saying them out loud, and in relation to your own life.
‘He what?’ Jay looks blank, as though he doesn’t understand the words.
I swing my legs off the side of the bed. ‘She’s a client. It was after a conference.’ I am looking for my shoes. I can say it out loud if I just disassociate myself from it, completely pretend it’s not happening.
‘But . . .’ Jay is frowning. ‘But it’s you two. You’re like my perfect couple. You can’t split up.’
‘We’re not a perfect couple.’ I want to cry. He looks bewildered. I say gently, as though it’s him I’m breaking up with, ‘Things . . . things have changed. I don’t know him any more.’
‘But – you’ve known him for ever, Nat. He hasn’t changed.’ I met Oli at college. He was the first person – the only person – to tell me my green eyes in my sallow skin were beautiful. We were already friends by then. It was in the student union bar; we were both in Dramsoc, celebrating the end of our successful run of HMS Pinafore with a themed nautical party Oli had organised. I think I fell in love with him a little bit then, though we didn’t get together for years after that. Six years, in fact. I hugged him, when he said it. He looked so pleased, he was easily pleased back then.
I have to remind myself of this now, but Oli wasn’t a cool kid when I met him. Over the years, he transformed himself from an earnest young man from a small Yorkshire village with a spluttering manner of speech and a terrible habit of blushing. Now his enthusiasm is much more high-octane. He likes doing the deals, meeting the clients, pressing the flesh; he wants people to like him, I guess. He always did. I used to find that intensely endearing. Until the way he got them to like him turned into shagging them. That I don’t find endearing.
‘But that’s just it,’ I say. ‘I don’t think I do know him any more. Even before he told me about . . . about it. Things haven’t been right. With either of us.’
Jay stares at me. He looks as if he’s about to say something, and then stops. We’re both silent, listening to the rumble of conversation from downstairs.
It seems such a long way away from here, that London life we have, full of expensive meals and hospitality suites, the cool flat with its seventies film posters on the walls and the bright red Gaggia espresso machine. From our disinte-grating marriage and secrets that we – both of us – have been keeping from each other. Small secrets, biting the lip here and there, not talking, not telling the truth, the kind of secrets that grow and grow until they fester within you, and you can’t go back and make them right. We started lying to each other too long ago for that. I see that now I’m here, far away from it all.
I draw my legs up and hug my knees. ‘Open the curtains,’ I say.
‘It’s getting dark, you know.’
‘I know.’
The light is fading and the moon is just appearing, full and yellow. The sky is gun-metal grey, the sea an oily lavender-black. It feels too soon for it to be dark; we’ve only just got here. Suddenly I wish with all my heart I could stay, that I didn’t have to go back to any of it, to tomorrow. We are silent for a moment, Jay sitting next to me, and above the voices downstairs I can hear the faint roar of the sea outside, like a shell against my ear.
‘We should go down,’ I say. ‘Sure, in a minute.’ Jay wrinkles his nose, and takes his watch off his wrist, holding it in his hand, an old habit of his. ‘What you going to do, then? Are you going to kick him out?’
‘He’s gone already, that was the night he told me.’ Two weeks ago.
‘Seriously? And you didn’t tell anyone?’
‘He wants to come back, he didn’t want to leave. He keeps saying how sorry he is, what a mistake it is.’ I drum my fingers on my forehead, and
It sounds so weird when you speak those words. They’re such a cliché but you never expect to be saying them out loud, and in relation to your own life.
‘He what?’ Jay looks blank, as though he doesn’t understand the words.
I swing my legs off the side of the bed. ‘She’s a client. It was after a conference.’ I am looking for my shoes. I can say it out loud if I just disassociate myself from it, completely pretend it’s not happening.
‘But . . .’ Jay is frowning. ‘But it’s you two. You’re like my perfect couple. You can’t split up.’
‘We’re not a perfect couple.’ I want to cry. He looks bewildered. I say gently, as though it’s him I’m breaking up with, ‘Things . . . things have changed. I don’t know him any more.’
‘But – you’ve known him for ever, Nat. He hasn’t changed.’ I met Oli at college. He was the first person – the only person – to tell me my green eyes in my sallow skin were beautiful. We were already friends by then. It was in the student union bar; we were both in Dramsoc, celebrating the end of our successful run of HMS Pinafore with a themed nautical party Oli had organised. I think I fell in love with him a little bit then, though we didn’t get together for years after that. Six years, in fact. I hugged him, when he said it. He looked so pleased, he was easily pleased back then.
I have to remind myself of this now, but Oli wasn’t a cool kid when I met him. Over the years, he transformed himself from an earnest young man from a small Yorkshire village with a spluttering manner of speech and a terrible habit of blushing. Now his enthusiasm is much more high-octane. He likes doing the deals, meeting the clients, pressing the flesh; he wants people to like him, I guess. He always did. I used to find that intensely endearing. Until the way he got them to like him turned into shagging them. That I don’t find endearing.
‘But that’s just it,’ I say. ‘I don’t think I do know him any more. Even before he told me about . . . about it. Things haven’t been right. With either of us.’
Jay stares at me. He looks as if he’s about to say something, and then stops. We’re both silent, listening to the rumble of conversation from downstairs.
It seems such a long way away from here, that London life we have, full of expensive meals and hospitality suites, the cool flat with its seventies film posters on the walls and the bright red Gaggia espresso machine. From our disinte-grating marriage and secrets that we – both of us – have been keeping from each other. Small secrets, biting the lip here and there, not talking, not telling the truth, the kind of secrets that grow and grow until they fester within you, and you can’t go back and make them right. We started lying to each other too long ago for that. I see that now I’m here, far away from it all.
I draw my legs up and hug my knees. ‘Open the curtains,’ I say.
‘It’s getting dark, you know.’
‘I know.’
The light is fading and the moon is just appearing, full and yellow. The sky is gun-metal grey, the sea an oily lavender-black. It feels too soon for it to be dark; we’ve only just got here. Suddenly I wish with all my heart I could stay, that I didn’t have to go back to any of it, to tomorrow. We are silent for a moment, Jay sitting next to me, and above the voices downstairs I can hear the faint roar of the sea outside, like a shell against my ear.
‘We should go down,’ I say. ‘Sure, in a minute.’ Jay wrinkles his nose, and takes his watch off his wrist, holding it in his hand, an old habit of his. ‘What you going to do, then? Are you going to kick him out?’
‘He’s gone already, that was the night he told me.’ Two weeks ago.
‘Seriously? And you didn’t tell anyone?’
‘He wants to come back, he didn’t want to leave. He keeps saying how sorry he is, what a mistake it is.’ I drum my fingers on my forehead, and
Similar Books
