He was busy, unfortunately. He’d been asked to stay longer in London, so at least his job was going well.
I took the voice mail off in case he rang. Which it immediately did. My heart leapt – God, he’d got back to me quickly. However, it was Alex.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Please, for God’s sake. We were a bit pissed round the flat, and it got out of hand. I should have sent a cab for you.’
‘You creep. You completely embarrassed me in front of my friends.’
‘Who?’
Suddenly, I wasn’t sure I wanted him to know I’d been out with Angus on my own.
‘Just Angus and Fran – we went over to Fraser’s.’
‘Fran?’
‘Yes, why?’
‘Ehm, no reason, I thought I saw her on the tube last night.’
Bugger it, what a stupid lie.
‘Ehm, I didn’t mean Fran, I meant Holly.’ I named another friend I scarcely saw these days.
‘Right.’
There was a pause, and I was sure he knew I was lying. But he obviously decided to ignore it.
‘Do you forgive me, pumpkin?’
I sighed.
‘Why do I feel like I spend the whole of my life forgiving you? I’m getting sick of this.’
‘What do you mean?’
I became very conscious of Janie and Steve on either side of me, ears on poles.
‘Well, you know, I’m just …’ I heard myself saying it: ‘I’m not sure I want to put up with this kind of behaviour any more.’
There was a silence. Suddenly I felt very, very cold inside. Where had this come from?
‘Look, I …’ I could hear Alex run his fingers through his hair, like he did when something irritated him. He took a deep breath. ‘Can we talk about this?’
‘Not now.’
‘Fine. Any time. Can I meet you from work? We’ll go for a drink, maybe. I think … we need to talk.’
My heart was in my throat. Was this it? I mean, it was all so sudden. One minute I’d been planning to give him a hard time about being so selfish, and the next I seemed to have inadvertently started the chain which would eventually lead to the break-up process. It always started with ‘we need to talk’, always. Unless of course they simply left the country. God, I wasn’t sure about this at all.
‘Sure, whatever,’ I managed to say, casually. Stage two, agreeing to the need to talk.
He named a place, and trembling, I wrote it down, put the phone down and stared into space in disbelief.
Janie was agog. ‘Oh my God, did he just dump you?’
‘No,’ I said crossly. ‘I nearly dumped him, as a matter of fact. He’s currently pleading for his life.’
Her eyes widened. ‘Why would you dump him?’
‘Because he’s a selfish son of a bitch who only pleases himself?’
Her expression didn’t change.
‘Have you ever dumped anyone?’ I asked. She shook her head mutely.
‘What do you think might be grounds for dumping someone?’
Still silent, she shrugged. I managed a half-smile.
‘Don’t worry. I’ve got a substitute.’
Her eyebrows nearly reached her hairline.
Cockney Steve was deliberately ignoring all this girlie chat – or had been, from the moment he found out I wasn’t on the receiving end.
‘Have you ever been dumped, Steve?’
‘Course not.’ He flushed to the roots of his over-gelled hair.
‘Have you ever had a girlfriend, Steve?’
‘Fuck off!’
‘Are you sure you’re not gay? Lots of people who work in marketing are, you know. Look at the colour of the walls.’
He fingered his gold chains and muttered at me.
It made me feel better, but didn’t solve the problem. What in the hell was going on? This was beginning to feel like a very fucked up time in my life.
God, I’d spent months drooling over Alex, waiting for him to come back to me. Which he had. And now, well, I didn’t know what I was doing at all, or even how I felt. I loved him, but he was driving me crazy. More than anything, I wanted someone to come along and point me in one direction and say, This way. This is the way to go to be happy. Go this way.
I didn’t think that was going to happen. But I phoned Fran anyway.
‘I’m thinking of finishing it with Alex,’ I said to her as soon as she picked up.
She gasped. ‘Why?’
‘What do you mean, “why”? You think he’s a good-for-nothing cocksucker. Isn’t that a good enough reason?’
‘No, I mean, why now?’
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