They don’t want a crime conference being raided for any reason. It would look silly, somehow.
Getting back to the food. Then there is the salady stuff for the twenty or so token women who want salady stuff—unless they are trying to be macho, in which case they’ll opt for the stroganoff. I almost feel like contacting them and asking them what they will want on the day. It’s winter, so it could be hot for all I know. The weather has been unpredictable so far this year. Like my feelings. Up and down in emotional turmoil.
What am I doing flirting with someone at work when I have this fabulous guy at home? Or at least living fifteen miles from me. OK, we don’t have sex. We haven’t for years. But that’s because he wants to save himself now until we are married. But he hasn’t proposed, and I’m not waiting for ever. But apart from that he is fine. And, oh, yes. He’s quite mean with money. But that’s because he is saving for the future. Supposedly our future. So we have a future. So everything will happen soon. But not now. It’s just that not now has been happening for a long time, and I’m becoming an I-want-it-now girl. And I think, if I asked John nicely, he would give it to me. Paul, alas, would not.
Perhaps the only fireworks I’ll see this month will be the ones on the fifth. Hey ho.
5th November
Fireworks. Party. A friend of Paul’s. All our friends were originally friends of Paul’s. All my friends are still my friends. But not of Paul’s. They don’t like him very much and I don’t think he likes them either. He likes to be around people he knows. It’s just that I find them all so incredibly boring. The interesting ones don’t last. The girlfriends who have some fire to them. Some substance. Don’t last. Well, they last for about six months and then disappear into the never-never land of ‘it wasn’t meant to be’. But I liked those ones. Instead I’m always left with the boring ones who are destined to be together. Attached at the hip. Happily having charted their life and two point five children, they won’t have to say much. So they don’t. Fun fun fun.
Fireworks at a friend’s home. This friend had wanted to build his own house and was doing so in Surrey. He’d bought a plot of land that overlooked a valley but also overlooked a motorway and railway line which on a clear day, you could hear loudly. He talked about his architect a lot. Eight to dinner. Patrick and Peter, twins; Kate, Patrick’s other half; Kelly—Peter’s. Then there was Connor and Shelley—who no one liked and everyone talked about when she left the room. I’d known Shelley from nursery school days, but we’d never swapped toys or anything. She’d moved away, then for some inexplicable reason my parents had moved to where her parents had moved ten years later. And we’d ended up at the same comprehensive. Paul and I had bonded through our mutual loathing of her. It had been over a dinner in Versailles.
Paul was talking about friends.
He mentioned a girl called Shelley who was going out with his best pal Connor.
For some reason I said, ‘Not Shelley Beale?’
‘Yes, Shelley Beale. She’s horrid, isn’t she?’
‘Totally. Even the Sunday School teacher said she probably had three sixes on her head.’
‘Match made in heaven, then.’
Mutual disappreciation society was duly formed. Everyone in the ‘group’ hated her, but I was the only one to be honest enough to be cold. Bullshit was never my forte. Not in personal relationships anyway. But perhaps these days I was kidding myself.
As I stood, waving my sparkler about, listening to Paul pontificate about life and love and stuff, I thought, Fuck, is this it?
Text message:
Hi, there. Are you having fireworks like me today? John
Respond:
Yes, but it’s boring the fuck out of me. How you?
Message received:
1/2
Me fine. Pity you’re bored. Been thinking about you a lot. Amanda has been giving me a hard time about seeing you and contacting you again and she’s a good friend of Medina, so she knows if you call my office. How are your …
2/2
… nipples?
Respond:
Nipples erect and firm. Must be because I’m cold. Anything of yours erect and firm John?
Oops, perhaps I went too far. Perhaps I shouldn’t have said that. Perhaps I should delete all messages received just in case Paul happens to look through at some stage for his loving ‘I am thinking about you’ messages and spots a nipple one.
Message received:
Yes. When can we meet?
Respond:
What’s happening with you and Amanda?
Message received:
She’s moving out next month. She has found her own flat. I helped her look for one.
That was helpful of him.
Message received:
I’m feeling filthy. I wish I could stick my long hard cock in your mouth.
Christ. And I’d thought I was going too far.
Respond:
That’s a bit heavy.
Message received:
Sorry Sarah, I think I’ve sent you a message by mistake. Pierce.
Respond:
Don’t do it again.
I decided to call John rather than risk e-mailing Pierce John’s messages and vice versa. I was just going to ask John how big Amanda’s flat was.
‘John, thought it best we speak rather than texting all the time.’
‘Nice to speak to you, Sarah. When would you like to meet? This Saturday?’
‘I can’t do weekends.’
‘Why not?’
‘Oh, just busy.’
‘With the boyfriend?’
‘No. We’ve split up, actually.’ (Why did I say that? That’s a lie. Why did I say that?)
Bullshit. I know exactly why I said that. Deep water here, babes. Mind you, this could make me less attractive in his eyes. I’m not so unattainable any more. I read it somewhere that men who are womanisers—which I had been told reliably by at least twenty of the men and women I worked with that John was—prefer those women who are otherwise attached. Perhaps this was a good thing. Perhaps he wouldn’t like me so much. That and the fact I was due to leave work soon through voluntary redundancy. So perhaps I told him this to get rid of
