the skinny Asian lad with the Morrissey quiff and the discreetly peacocky clothing as such. He is coolly analytical and unsentimental and probably the ideal person to have around if you get yourself involved with a technicolour fountain of dysfunction like Robin. Though there’s now been enough alcohol-fuelled deconstruction I think we might’ve turned your run-of-the-mill selfish arse into a Shakespearean villain.
Jo chews the inside of her lip.
‘I thought Robin was very idio … idio …’
‘Idiotic?’ Clem says.
‘No … like, idi …’
‘Idi Amin?’ Rav says.
‘No, a word for individual that isn’t individual!’
‘Idiosyncratic?’ I say.
‘Yes! I didn’t like how rude he was to you though.’
I frown. ‘I honestly thought it was teasing.’
I prize my capacity to take a joke. It’s painful to think my friends were cringing for me, and that I don’t know where the line should be.
Clem purses her mouth.
‘And whenever you gave an opinion about anything, Robin was straight in there with “maybe the people who disagree have a point” or “maybe you were too touchy”. I spotted it right away as a psycho ex used to do it to me. Constant undermining. They don’t want you to trust yourself on anything.’
Oh, God. She’s right. At first I was bowled over by Robin’s iconoclastic take on my life – yet the solution, now I think about it, was always that I should fix my attitude and stop being such a princess. Wow, I’ve chosen a smart cookie and a challenge here, I congratulated myself, look at how he’ll just come right out and say it. Not: why is this bloke never on my side?
I gave Robin so much leeway because I thought he was ‘Other’ – an emissary from a cleverer, more rarefied and liberal world than that of Georgina the Waitress. Anything I disliked was down to having not caught up with the latest trend yet, not being an artist with an artist’s temperament. I realise, as per the Lou conversation, he was always subtly reinforcing the idea I was two steps behind.
‘He’s this loaded posh boy and his idea of showing you a good time was you trekking out to the flat his parents bought him to get high and listen to his drivel,’ Clem says. ‘Did he ever take you anywhere?’
Ah. No. Again, I told myself that was a sign of how gloriously unmaterialistic he was – not short of funds but uninterested in spendy dinners, showing off, roostering round town, trying to bedazzle me with his wealth. He wanted to talk about cerebral things. (Himself and his work.)
I’m sucking down wine fast and writing myself an internal memo about how an athletic ability to find the positive – the sort that’s drilled into girls especially: be grateful, smile! – isn’t always a good thing. Sometimes you should ask yourself why you’re having to.
And I’m reflecting on other signals I successfully blocked out. The first time I properly introduced Robin to the gang was Clem’s thirtieth. I’d thought Clem spent the whole night on the other side of the room to circulate, that Rav got lordly drunk due to the units in a pitcher of Dark and Stormy and that Jo was quiet due to pre-menstrual issues. Meanwhile, a visibly bored Robin said he ‘wasn’t good in crowds’.
I grimace into my glass:
‘I hope you don’t think I dated a tosser because he’d been on television once or twice.’
‘Oh, no,’ Rav says, ‘We think you dated a tosser as you thought he was something out of the ordinary, am I right? Which, y’know. He was …’
Jo adds: ‘It’s not as if the rest of us are doing any better.’
I wasn’t going to say it but it’s not usually me who brings a cuckoo into the nest. My few boyfriends in my twenties have been albeit-unthrilling, unsuited-to-me, but nice enough guys.
Meanwhile Rav’s carousel of internet dates end up being hard to distinguish from his therapy list – ‘Only I can’t charge for my time’ – Jo is long-term hung up on the charismatic neighbourhood rotter, Shagger Phil, and Clem believes romantic love is a concept designed to subdue and enslave humanity. She’s rarely seeing anyone long enough for us to meet him.
Rav goes to give Clem a hand at the bar for round three and Jo, from under her blunt, glossy brown fringe – her current dip-dyed style is two thirds cappuccino shade vs one third cappuccino foam (she’s a hairdresser) – says: ‘You’re coping very well. I hope we’ve not been too full on.’
‘Oh, thanks. Not at all. I’m appalled by myself to be honest. I’m wondering if he’d not done this, how long I’d have gone on telling myself we made a good couple. Only we were never a couple.’
The excitement of the night and the adrenaline of unmasking Robin’s audacious act is fading, and I’m left with a hollowed-out feeling inside.
‘You were! A couple, I mean.’
‘We weren’t, Jo. I glommed on to someone I thought was cool.’ I rub my temples and resist the urge to bang my head on the table. ‘I didn’t feel feelings, that’s the worrying part. I’m wondering if I’ll ever actually fall in love with anyone now. Perhaps this is it. Least worst options and growing the fuck up.’
I’ve entered the maudlin stage of red wine soakedness.
‘You will find someone! You could have your pick, you really could.’
I hesitate, worrying at the beer mat in front of me. You can say more to someone you’ve known for twenty years, who knows the bones of you. Who knows where you came from.
‘I don’t know if there’s anyone I want to pick. I’ve never fallen for anyone …’ I plough on, unable to meet her eye, reckless in drink: ‘Well, maybe once. When very young and stupid. But turns out it didn’t mean anything.’
‘… Richard Hardy?’ Jo whispers, quizzical, but respectful. Oh God. The danger of someone having known me this long.
As soon as I’ve started this conversation, I realise I don’t want to have it, not now, not ever. The name being spoken has caused my insides to seize up. I make an indistinct ‘mmmm’ noise.
‘I see his photos sometimes. Is it Toronto where he lives now?’
‘Mmmm. I think he moved to Canada, yeah,’ I say, and wish my glass wasn’t empty, so I had a way of keeping my mouth busy.
Jo pats my arm. I can feel her working out what to say and I don’t know how to stop her.
‘I didn’t know that you—’ she starts, and I cut her off.
‘Where has Rav got to? Is he trampling the grapes for this wine?’
She looks round, and I know she senses there’s something amiss, but that this moment will have passed before she’s even started to wonder what it might be.
