Straight Talking (18 page)

We decide to make a food hamper ourselves, because Emma is a foodie, and what better place to shop than this designer emporium? I hold the wicker hamper and Adam walks around the food section, picking out jars of chocolate truffle sauce, of succulent olives stuffed with anchovies, of olive oil swimming with chilies and peppers.

We fill the hamper, both thrilled with our original present, and then we walk over the road to the brasserie for breakfast.

The waiter leads us to the table and instead of sitting opposite me Adam comes to sit next to me, our backs against the wall.

“It’s too far away from you,” he grumbles, and he kisses me quickly on the lips. I order coffee, orange juice, scrambled eggs, and smoked salmon. Adam orders coffee, orange juice, fried eggs, bacon, and toast.

We cover the table with the Sunday papers we’ve bought on the way, and Adam keeps prodding me to hear a story he’s just read in the tabloid.

“I never knew he was having an affair. God, I can’t believe he can still get it up,” says Adam in amazement over an aging politician caught spending the night with a young girl.

And then Adam reads me an article about Simon’s magazine, about the rise in circulation, about the scoops they keep getting. Simon. A name I haven’t thought about in ages.

“Have you spoken to him recently?” I ask, curious to know how Simon would react, whether he knows about us.

“Briefly,” says Adam. “I told him about us, I wanted him to hear it from me.”

“Was he OK about it?” Please don’t let him be OK about it, please let him be jealous, let this cause him pain. Not that I care about him anymore, it would just be sweet revenge.

“I think so. He even suggested we go to his flat for a drink, said it was time we put the past behind us and were all friends.”

“Is he fucking mad?” I’m outraged.

“That’s what I said,” says Adam, grinning.

“Do you think he was serious?” I find this hard to believe.

“Unfortunately I do. I said I didn’t think that would go down too well with you, and he said it was a shame we couldn’t let bygones be bygones.”

“What an asshole.”

We sit in silence after that, punctuated with our idle chat about the stories we are reading, and then I immerse myself in a feature and when I’ve finished I look up and Adam is sitting there watching me and smiling. He puts a big arm around me and squeezes me to his chest.

“Have I ever told you how much I love you?”

“Yes. All the bloody time,” I groan, but I’m basking in this love. Oh, how I’m basking.

“Oh, OK,” he says, removing his arm. “I couldn’t remember, that’s all,” and he picks up a piece of toast, taking a big bite as I start laughing.

There’s a table in the corner where four girls are sitting. One of them is facing us and I catch her eye. She gives me a wry smile and I recognize that smile. I recognize that smile as the smile I used to give when I caught the eye of a woman who was loved.

A smile that says congratulations. A smile that says I want to be like you. I want to have your relationship. I smile back at her and I reach over and give Adam a huge kiss on the cheek. I ruffle his hair as he looks at me in surprise because I so rarely initiate affectionate gestures. “I think you’re wonderful,” I say and I give him a big smacker on the cheek. He grins happily and goes back to his paper.

Clip number three:

Did I mention that Mel is now living with Martin? Well she is, and it’s great, and Martin treats her like a queen.

Mel hasn’t, thank God, become what I dreaded, she hasn’t abandoned anyone, and nor does she only see me during the day. The first flush of romance swept her off her feet somewhat, but that’s what it’s supposed to do, and now she’s settled down into a proper relationship.

A fulfilling relationship. A relationship where they love one another.

Adam and I and Emma and Richard—the three couples—have come to their flat for dinner. We are sitting in the living room and I am looking around—this is the first time I have been here—and I am looking at Mel and Martin.

She loves him, I think. She is in love with him, I think. She is passionate about him, I think. I know this because she tells me, they cannot keep their hands off one another, she thinks he is the best-looking man she’s ever seen. She has found her lid.

And I look at Emma and Richard, at the way Emma always has to have some part of her body touching Richard’s—French manicured fingers resting on his leg, an arm casually flung round his shoulder, a hand running affectionately through his hair—and I wonder why I don’t do the same thing.

I look at Adam and think, you are Adam. You are still safe, still reliable, wonderful in bed and wonderful to me. What is it exactly that is missing? Why can I not just settle down in this comfortable security? Why can I not, as Jennifer Mason once said, be content? Maybe I am. Maybe this feeling is so unfamiliar I don’t recognize it. Could you be my lid? Could I be your pot? We move into their kitchen for dinner. Pine, pine, everywhere I look there is pine. Pine kitchen cupboard doors, thick pine floorboards, an old Victorian scrubbed pine table.

A spice rack on the wall, wooden hooks with assorted pots and pans hanging from them. Clean but well-used. A kitchen that likes to be cooked in. A kitchen that smells like home.

Martin, surprise surprise, is a vegetarian, and the four of us, Emma, Richard, Adam, and I, discussed this in the car on our way over.

“But I’m starving,” I said. “What if it’s all brown rice and bloody lentils?”

“If it is we’ll stop and pick up some Chinese or something on the way home,” said Adam.

“Vegetarian is very healthy actually,” said Emma.

“Not if you live on pastry, eggs, cheese, and bread,” offered Richard.

“Well no, I suppose not,” she agreed, “but brown rice and vegetables are a fantastic diet, it really flushes out the system.”

“Emma! Please, do we have to?”

“Sorry, darling,” she flushed, and Adam and I exchanged a brief look. Emma again being the subservient woman, not wanting to offend Richard, letting him take charge.

“Oh God, Chinese,” I groaned. “Oh Christ, you’ve just started a major Chinese craving.”

Adam chuckled. “Spare ribs,” he said dreamily, knowing they are my favorite.

“Crispy seaweed.”

“Deep fried crispy beef.” It was Richard’s turn.

“Noodles with roast pork,” I added, as my stomach rumbled menacingly. “Do we have to go? I want Chinese,” in my best little girl voice.

“Yes we have to go, but if you behave yourself then we can have Chinese later.”

“You’re not serious?” said Emma.

“Why wouldn’t we be?” Adam looked at her in the rearview mirror.

“You wouldn’t really eat
two
meals?”

“My woman has a huge appetite.”

“I wouldn’t mind if you put on a bit of weight actually. You’re looking a bit thin at the moment.” Richard pinched a millimeter of skin on Emma’s thigh, unaware that her life, with the exception of Saturday lunchtimes, is spent on a permanent diet, permanently trying to look the very best she possibly can for Richard. Terrified he’ll leave her for someone younger, or prettier, or thinner.

But the meal is a delight. A cheese strudel, the cheese speckled with chives oozing out of the puff pastry, swimming on a tomato coulis. An assortment of salads and a home-made tiramisu for pudding. I’m stuffed, and Adam keeps grinning at me across the table as I keep helping myself to more. Grazing. A lick here, a spoonful there. Emma has a tiny portion of everything, and then leaves half of it on her plate, and Richard devours as much as I do, happy I think to have found a fellow pig.

And Mel and Martin are a delight. The six of us quickly get over the initial awkwardness, because Martin, Richard, and Adam don’t know one another, really, but they soon become friends-in-the-making. How could they not? How could anyone resist Adam’s easy charm, Martin’s soothing voice, Richard’s well-meaning humor?

Mel whisks Emma and me aside after dinner, to show us a new painting she bought.

“You’re so good together, you know,” she says to me. “Who would have ever thought it?”

“Look who’s talking. You and Martin are fantastic.”

“Yes,” agrees Emma, “you are,” but I can tell she’s thinking, why doesn’t she say that about us? What’s wrong with Richard and me, so I hurriedly add, “And you, Emma. You two are the envy of all of us. God, I spent years hoping I’d meet someone like Richard, someone who treated me the way he treats you.”

Her face lights up. “Really?” Incredulous.

“Really. And Mel’s got it now, haven’t you, Mel?”

She smiles happily. “It almost makes all the rubbish I put up with from Daniel worthwhile.”

“What do you mean?”

“I wouldn’t be in this relationship if it weren’t for Daniel. It took me ages to realize it but because Daniel was so awful to me, it made me aware of what I was looking for, even though I wasn’t really looking.

“But I knew that I would never put up with less than the best. Martin adores me, he thinks everything I do is magical, and that’s what I deserve now. That’s what we all deserve, and both of you?” She looks at Emma. “You’ve got Richard and you’re the most perfect couple I know. And you,” she looks at me, “you’ve got Adam who is so besotted he can hardly think straight.”

“I know,” I sigh. “I should be the happiest woman in the world but I still feel there’s something missing.”

“Not that old passion thing again?” Emma looks at me curiously.

“Not exactly. I mean our sex life is unbelievable. Seriously, I never dreamed Adam would be such a good lover, and I’m really happy with him. There’s something that I just can’t quite put my finger on. I don’t know,” I shake my head.

“Tash,” Mel says, gently putting a hand on my arm. “Love can be many things. There is no such thing as a perfect love, and what you have with Adam is what most women dream of achieving. You have to wake up and recognize what you’ve got, how special it is.”

I nod but I don’t say anything. I know she’s right, I just don’t know how to wake up.

The four of us analyze Mel and Martin’s relationship all the way home until Adam suddenly screeches to a halt outside a parade of shops.

Richard leans forward, “Why are you stopping the car?”

“Just popping into the takeout to get some Chinese for Tash.”

“But she ate loads,” says Emma, before clapping her hand over her mouth. “Sorry,” she says, “I didn’t mean . . .”

“I’m stuffed,” I laugh, holding my stomach before hitting Adam playfully on the arm, and we drop Emma and Richard off and drive home to go to bed.

No sex tonight, a few chapters of the book I bought the other day and sleep.

Just as I’m drifting off to sleep, Adam’s hand reaches for mine under the duvet and he squeezes it gently.

Now do you get the picture?

18

Oh Christ, I hate hen parties. A gaggle of women, all pissed, all acting like a bunch of blokes who don’t know when enough is enough.

Jilly is one of my researchers and she’s getting married. Yup, this little kid of twenty-two is getting married, while I, a sophisticated woman of thirty, am still on the shelf, except I’m not quite as dusty as when we first met.

So here we are, at some Godforsaken dive in the West End, some nasty, tacky, seedy nightclub where Jilly has managed to wangle VIP passes, so we get to sit in an empty VIP lounge overlooking the dance floor.

Half the people here are from work—mostly researchers—and half are her friends from way back when. I’m sure they’re sweet, really, but right now they are looking the worse for wear, and I’m not entirely certain I’m going to make it through the night.

I should be drinking. I should have consumed, as the others have, the best part of a bottle of wine over dinner. I should have held the wine bottle, as the others did, and licked the glass rim, taking the bottle deep into the back of my throat and bobbed it up and down, gone down on a bottle.

I should have, as the others did, gotten progressively more and more drunk until even the waiters shot our table nervous glances and refused to come over unless they absolutely had to, and when they did they stood there brushing away the women’s hands from their crotches, their bottoms.

I should have shrieked with laughter at the clothes the other girls made Jilly change into when we left the restaurant and headed over to the nightclub. A dress made out of a black garbage bag, with pictures of soft willies, cut from soft-porn magazines, stuck all over it, and a hat covered with condoms. In her hand was a huge vibrator, a thick black plastic cock that Jilly is using as a magic wand.

I should have laughed, but I didn’t, I wanted to go home.

“Abracadabra,” Jilly slurs in front of the doormen standing menacingly outside the nightclub. “Abracadabra,” and she waves the vibrator at them while the rest of the girls clutch their stomachs with laughter, shrieking at her antics. The doormen manage a vague smile, and when we produce our VIP passes they stand back and let us in.

“Hen night,” I say with a weary air as we troop past, me being the only sober one there.

“I’d never have guessed,” says the burly black doorman with a knowing smile, and we walk upstairs, or should I say stagger.

I can’t be in central London, I think, looking around at the people in the club. Who
are
these people? Where do they come from? It’s a world away from everything I know, and I feel so old. The music is deafening and surrounding the dance floor are packs of men, fresh-faced youths on the make, not talking, just looking, searching around for a woman who might go home with them.

A few brave souls are strutting their stuff on the colored glass squares that flash every few seconds, women in tiny sequined mini-dresses, crop tops, hot pants, acres of fake-tanned legs and black platform sandals.

I feel so old. The boys, for they
are
boys, stand around drinking from bottles of beer, and Jilly pulls her friends onto the dance floor to jeering from the onlookers.

I wish I were at home with Adam.

I hit the dance floor in a half-hearted fashion, and stand there idly bopping away to the latest chart sounds. I have to look as if I’m enjoying myself, I have to make some sort of an effort.

“You all right?” shrieks Jilly, whirling round to face me. “Loosen up, Tash, have a drink.” She offers me her champagne bottle and I pretend to swig but in fact only a few drops enter my mouth. I hand the bottle back and Jilly whirls off, straight into the arms of a boy, a boy who fancies himself as a young blade, a boy who pulls Jilly close and immediately puts his hands on her buttocks, all the while looking over her shoulder at his mates and winking.

They writhe together, his hands squeezing her bottom, his crotch pressed against hers, and she pushes him away to tip back more champagne. But he follows her, he thinks she could be a conquest, and within seconds he has his arms round her again, same position.

I go to the bar, find a spare sofa on one side and collapse, chin in my hand, bored to tears.

“Wanna dance, love?” A tall, greasy Italian-looking guy is standing over me.

“No thanks.”

“Mind if I sit here?”

He squeezes in next to me and introduces himself as Maurizio, a twenty-five-year-old waiter who’s Italian but was born here. He also drives a Ferrari. Or so he says. By way of introduction.

“Sorry, Maurizio, I’m married,” I say, standing up. “But good luck. I hope you find what you’re looking for.” I don’t hang around waiting to see his expression, I melt into the crowd and try to find Jilly.

I wish I was at home with Adam.

And then Jilly falls upon me screaming with laughter, and drags me to the front of a tiny stage I hadn’t noticed to watch the cabaret. I look around me and see that all the faces pushed to the front are female, eyes bright with anticipation as the music starts and a fireman walks onto the stage.

Oh shit, I knew it, I bloody well knew it. What good would a hen night be without a stripper?

“Which one of you gorgeous gals is Jilly?” Our party screams and all hands point to Jilly, grinning at the fireman, who, it has to be said, is really rather dishy.

He pulls Jilly up onstage and the music starts. Never taking his eyes off her face, he undoes his jacket and lets it drop to the floor, gyrating to the music and grinding his hips. If he didn’t look like such a wanker he’d be quite gorgeous, but his dance moves are more than a little ’80s. In fact, if I didn’t know better I’d think he’d come here straight from a gig with the Village People.

His shirt comes off, and then Jilly has to unzip his trousers. I groan, I know what’s bloody coming next, don’t I? Sure enough, he puts his hands around Jilly’s head and forces her face into his jockstrap-covered crotch while he grinds his hips into her face.

He lets her come up for air and she’s grinning. She loves this. Sensible, organized Jilly is pissed as a newt and she’s loving every second of this attention.

Need I tell you more? Oh all right, yes the baby oil comes out, yes she shoves her hands down his jockstrap to massage it in (after massaging his pecs of course). Yes, the jockstrap does eventually come off and no, we aren’t disappointed.

There. Happy? When the cabaret finishes I can’t cope with this anymore. This is not my scene and all I can think of is getting home, pulling off these bloody high heels and climbing into bed with Adam.

Adam is probably fast asleep now. It’s one o’clock and as I sit in a taxi winding its way through London I picture him, warm, sleepy, tucked up in bed, and I can’t wait to get home and climb into bed with him.

I tiptoe into the bedroom, and unless my eyes are mistaken there’s no Adam. Where the hell is Adam? I feel a pang of unease, a small voice saying perhaps he’s gone for good, but that’s ridiculous, that’s the old insecure Tasha talking, the old insecure Tasha who used to worry that every man was going to leave. That’s not Tasha who basks in the comfort of her newfound relationship.

But all is explained by the red flashing light on my answering machine.

“Hey Toots, I’m not staying tonight because I don’t want to be woken up by you staggering in and throwing up all over the duvet. I’ve gone back to my flat, yes, my flat, I’d almost forgotten I had a flat, and I’ll see you tomorrow. Drink lots of water before you go to bed and take a couple of aspirin. I won’t call too early. Love you. Bye.”

I’m smiling as I get into bed. Smiling because he makes me laugh, and because I miss him. I really miss him, and it’s strange sleeping on my own again after all these shared nights.

This doesn’t mean I’m in love with him, you understand, it’s just that I’ve become accustomed to him. That’s all.

“I’ve been thinking of asking Adam to move in with me.” I exhale loudly, and then inhale more quietly, taking in the soothing smell of the lavender oil burning in the corner of the room.

Louise doesn’t say anything, just nods, encouraging me to continue.

“I’ve got really used to having him around, you know? I know this might seem like a huge step but maybe if I see him more, maybe I’ll start to fall in love with him.”

“You’re not in love with him?” One eyebrow is raised.

“No.” I sigh deeply. “There’s still this passion thing.”

“Why do you think the highs and lows that you’ve experienced in the past are so important, hmm?”

“That’s all I’ve known.”

“Does that make it right?”

I don’t say anything and she continues, “Does that make you happy?”

“No,” I grudgingly admit, “but there’s still something missing. It’s too comfortable.”

“Is there something wrong with comfortable?”

“No. Comfortable is, well, it’s comfortable. Comfortable isn’t love. Comfortable isn’t passion.”

But comfortable is nice. Comfortable has changed me, even in the space of these last few months, comfortable has made me a different person. I’ve noticed it and my friends have noticed it.

My cynicism has gradually started to disappear, so slowly I barely even noticed it. But I notice that I’m softer, more gentle, not so quick to judge people.

You
must have noticed a difference since when we first met, surely? Yes, I’m still full of the sharp retorts, the biting comments, except I’m learning to hold my tongue a little more, and actually, if I’m telling the truth, I don’t think of them nearly as often as I used to.

I think that chip on my shoulder has started to go, I think perhaps that I have started to like myself. And in liking myself, I’m learning to like my world. It’s not such a bad thing. Is it?

The phones are going crazy at work and I can’t concentrate on a damned thing.

“The next time this thing rings I’m going to bloody scream,” I say to Jilly, who’s still finding it difficult to look me in the eye after the escapades of her hen night a few days ago.

(For your information the fireman turned out to be straight, single, and desperate for sex. He spent the rest of the night snogging Jilly on the fire escape, and her friends rescued her just before anything serious could happen. What fun and games eh? The wedding’s still on, this Saturday. God help them.)

“What?” I scream into the receiver.

“Calm down, it’s only me. Bad day?”

“Oh Ad, this bloody phone just never stops.”

“Shall I call you later?”

“No, of course not. I wanted to have a chat with you anyway.”

“Uh-oh. I hate those words, it always makes me think of when I was a little boy and my father used to say, ‘We need to have a talk.’ I always knew I’d done something wrong.”

I smile into the receiver. “Well, you haven’t. It’s just you know how we’ve talked about spending so much time together, and how you keep forgetting that you have a flat because we never go there?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I’ve just been thinking that maybe it would be a good idea if you came to live with me.”

There’s a silence and I think, oh shit, this isn’t a good idea after all.

“Ad? I mean, if it’s a crap idea then say so, but it just seems crazy having two mortgages when one of us could be renting out their place, and you spend so much time at mine I thought maybe you should move in. Ad?”

“Fantastic idea! Brilliant! Yes. I’d love to!”

“Really?”

“Absolutely! When can I move in?”

“Whenever.”

“OK, whenever it is. I’ll start moving my stuff in tonight. In fact, I can leave work early today. If I start to clear the flat now then next week I’ll go to an agent’s and put it on the rental market. Perfect!”

We say good-bye and I sit there thinking, what have I done. This is a serious commitment. I’m about to make the biggest commitment of my life to a man I’m not in love with. Am I completely bloody crazy or what?

The rest of the day passes all too quickly, and I can’t quite believe what I have just done. Calm down, Tasha, I keep telling myself. If you hate it you can always tell him to leave. You can always say you need some space.

You can spend your whole life thinking you want commitment. You grow up with a clear idea of exactly what it is that you want, and yet when you have it, when it’s there, attainable, on your doorstep, you change your mind.