managed to do this, Lib?’
‘This?’
‘Yes, sit with a bottle of wine and catch up. It feels like for ever.’
‘Well, no, I mean, it is a long time,’ I say, not wanting to remind him that I’ve cancelled two of our most recent planned meet-ups at short notice (just couldn’t face going through with it) and that he’s cancelled three himself (last-minute restaurant emergencies). ‘But you’re right, life is busy. And, of course, you have Tash to prioritize, too.’ I take another large gulp from my glass. ‘How is she, by the way?’
‘Tash? Oh, she’s great. She’s always great.’ He picks up his own glass. ‘I mean, obviously, there’s always the issue of—’
He stops because, almost as if it’s been eavesdropping on us or something (I mean, it couldn’t have, could it?), his phone starts to ring.
‘Oh!’ he says. ‘It’s Tash! Sorry, Lib, would you mind if I …?’
‘Not at all!’
‘I mean, I usually call her around this time every evening, when she gets off her shift at the hospital …’
‘Olly, I don’t mind! Honestly! Answer it.’
‘Thank, Libs.’ He picks up the ringing phone. ‘Hey,’ he murmurs into it. ‘You OK?’
That murmur – low, intimate, the tone of voice you only ever use with your Significant Other – makes me want to cry.
But, thank God, it’s right at this moment that a waiter appears bearing two large platters of food, which he places on the table in front of me. I mean very specifically in front of me, in fact, with a somewhat lascivious smile and an assurance that if there’s anything, anything at all, that I’d like his help with, I only need to—
‘Yeah, thanks, Didier,’ Olly says, breaking off his phone call for a moment to speak, rather sharply, to the waiter. ‘I’m sure she can manage to find her way round a plate of cheese on her own … Sorry, Tash,’ he adds, into the phone again, ‘just fending off an ardent Frenchman … no, no, not for me! I’m having a bite with Libby …’ There’s a short pause. ‘Tash says hi,’ he tells me.
Of course she does, because Tash – annoyingly – is nice and friendly and downright perfect.
‘Hi, Tash!’ I trill back, waving a hand, pointlessly, because it’s not like they’re on a FaceTime call or anything.
And then I make a gesture at Olly, which is supposed to indicate that he should just carry on with the phone call, that I’m perfectly fine – delighted in fact – to be sitting here tucking into plates of delicious cold meat and cheese, and that everything is just so fine and dandy in the world that I’m only inches away from leaping up on to the table and kicking off a rousing chorus of ‘Oh Happy Day’.
Because I think I might need to go way over the top just to avoid giving the slightest hint that I’d actually rather crawl under the table and miserably hiccup my way through ‘Where Do Broken Hearts Go?’
This is why I should never have come this evening; why I should just have made up some spurious excuse and cancelled again.
The thing is, it’s not like I’m not well used to sitting across a table from someone I’m in love with who isn’t in love with me back. Dillon O’Hara, for example, whom I remained convinced I was in love with despite the fact that our relationship was a car crash, with him in the driving seat. And not even just Dillon: as an incurable romantic, especially one who spent most of my life convinced I was an unattractive frump compared to my stunning little sister, I’ve enjoyed a long and fruitless history of falling in love with men who wouldn’t have noticed me if I’d been standing in front of them stark naked with a sign hanging around my neck reading Available and Desperate: Please Apply Within.
The difference – the colossal, heart-shattering difference – this time, with Olly, is the knowledge that this isn’t how it should have been. That thanks to a disastrous combination of cruel fate and my own stupidity, he and I have passed each other by like ships in the night.
In fact, it hurts so much to dwell, even for a moment, on the role played by my own stupidity that I think I need to shift as much of the blame as possible on to the Cruel Fate part. Because otherwise it’s just too sickening to endure. Like Juliet would have felt if she’d woken up beside a lifeless Romeo in the tomb and realized that she’d absent-mindedly put a poison bottle next to the orange juice in the fridge. Bad enough her soulmate is doomed to be lost to her for ever; soul-destroying to confront the fact she just should have been paying more attention.
‘No, of course,’ Olly is saying, into the phone. ‘And I meant to … well, what time will you be home? … no, I imagine I’ll head straight back after I’m finished here … OK, I’ll Skype you then … no, of course … of course … of course … OK, bye,’ he adds, finishing up with a swift, ever-so-slightly guilty-sounding, ‘Love you,’ before putting the phone down. His gaze remains fixed on the tabletop for a moment, almost as if he’s avoiding making eye contact.
I swallow, hard. ‘Everything OK?’
‘No, of course,’ he says, echoing exactly what he’s just said repeatedly to Tash. (It’s an odd phrase, actually, now I come to think of it. I mean, isn’t yes the more usual companion to an of course? Still, it’s not for me to analyse it. It’s between them.) ‘Tash is just … well, she’s a little bit fed up with us never seeing each other, that’s all.’
‘Oh, Olly, I’m really sorry. Look, you should go home right now and Skype her—’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ he says, rather sharply. Then he inhales, as if to reset himself, and picks up his champagne glass again, gripping the stem. ‘Sorry, Lib. I just mean that me going home and Skyping her isn’t really going to address the issue. It’s much more about the fact that we live three hundred and fifty miles away from each other and we both work all the hours God sends.’
‘No,’ I say. ‘Of course.’
‘I mean, she’s worked weekends the last three weeks in a row, and obviously I’m always busy too …’
‘Sorry, Ol. Long-distance is hard, I know.’
‘It is. But it shouldn’t feel this …’ He thinks about this for a moment, sadness passing over his face. ‘Impossible.’
He looks so wretched that, even though the cause of it is his missing Tash, I shunt my own pain to the side for a moment.
‘I think you probably just need to find a way to make more time, Ol, to be honest with you. I mean, I know how busy you are, but is there any way you can take a Saturday night off and go up to Glasgow? If you left straight after the lunch service, you’d only miss dinner, and then you’re closed on Monday night and Tuesday lunchtime, so you wouldn’t even have to come back until early afternoon on Tuesday—’
‘Woah.’ Olly holds up a hand, looking slightly surprised. ‘Have you been thinking about this already, or something?’
‘No, it just seems kind of obvious, doesn’t it?’
‘Not really. It’s not just that I need to be at the restaurant for actual service, Lib.
