The Dating Detox (31 page)

‘That’s a relief,’ I say.

‘Can I read your stories?’

‘No,’ I reply. ‘Absolutely not.’ He smiles at me and we start kissing again. After a few minutes I pull away again. The talking is almost as good as the kissing, and I want more of both.

‘I adore you,’ he says, then looks a little shocked at himself. ‘Sorry, that was a bit, uh…’

I smile at him, and a warm feeling rushes through me. ‘Good. I should hope so.’

‘Cocky…’ he murmurs and we get lost in kissing for awhile, till I pull away.

‘Tell me more about you, then…what do you do?’

‘Oh, Minxy, my job is so boring, it makes 30 years of writing copy to sell shit look like a night at Studio 54 in 1979.’

I laugh. ‘Well, why are you doing it, then?’

He thinks. ‘I’m quite good at it. And I do enjoy it most of the time, though I’ve been travelling too much recently. I was trying to lightly stalk you for the last few months and I couldn’t, and Mitch wouldn’t even give me your number, he said you’d castrate him if he gave it out again…’

‘Aww, how sweet,’ I say. We start kissing again.

Jake pulls away and continues. ‘Where was I? Oh yeah, my job…and it’ll get me where I want to be, which is living around the world, you know, meeting people…I lived in New York for three years, I’d love to go back there. I’m not sure this pesky recession will help me do that, though.’

‘Oh lucky you. I’m dying to live in New York.’

‘You’d love it,’ he agrees.

‘Where did you live?’ I ask.

‘Well, I lived in the Upper East Side at first, then I moved in with a friend from uni who works over there, Paul. That was downtown, in the West Village.’

‘How awesome,’ I sigh enviously.

I’m overcome by the urge to know everything about him. We talk and talk and talk, about our families, and our childhoods, and books, and movies, and music, and our friends, and London, and travel, and holidays, and tell funny stories, and tell sad stories, and then kiss some more…We talk, and kiss, and talk, and kiss and then kiss quite a lot more, until the grey dawn starts peering in the sides of the windows. It’s an unwelcome reminder of reality. I feel like we’ve been in some kind of surreal dreamworld all night.

At some point around 5 am, we get very sleepy and cuddle up under the duvet together.

‘I was going to try to take all your clothes off and ravish you, just so you know,’ mumbles Jake as we fall asleep.

‘You say the sweetest things,’ I mumble back. And then we’re asleep.

When we wake up, we’re snuggled up tightly together under the duvet. I’m wrapped in his arms. The sun is up, and the room is depressingly light. It’s almost 9 am. My head feels like someone is hammering nails into it.

‘Mmm, this is good goddamn snuggling,’ says Jake, kissing the back of my neck. ‘We fit together like Pringle crisps.’

‘Is that seriously the best you can come up with?’ I reply. My head, ow, ow my head.

‘Well, spoons are boring.’

‘Spoons ARE boring,’ I agree. Oh my God, why did I drink so much wine?

We lie in silence for a few minutes. The intenseness and intimacy of last night’s soul-baring session are gone. I feel sleepy, extremely hungover, kind of uncomfortable, and very shy. He knows practically everything about me now; even more than Bloomie or Kate. At least I didn’t tell him how I feel about him, thank fucking God for that. And yet I’ve never felt so completely exposed—and no, I’m fully dressed. (Dude, you know it wasn’t that kind of night. Which I’m glad about now, as I’d feel even worse.) I pull the duvet over my face to hide in it a little bit. Oh alcohol remorse, how I hate thee.

We lie in silence for a few moments.

‘So,’ says Jake, nuzzling my neck again. ‘I want to see you tonight. And every night this week.’

Just for a week? Then what happens?

I think this and almost say it aloud. And in a split second, I am hit by what I can only describe as emotional vertigo. I feel like I’m about to jump off a cliff with no safety net, no bungee rope, no parachute, nothing…Every instinct I have, every instinct that made me invent the stupid, stupid Dating Sabbatical crashes into me and all I can think is: this is never going to last beyond a few weeks or a few months, it never does, so why take the risk?

It’s not just that I’m blindly obeying the Dating Sabbatical. But I couldn’t bear to be dumped by Jake. And I couldn’t bear to lose everything I’ve worked so hard to achieve. My happiness at work, my emotional equilibrium, the quiet satisfied feeling that seems to have appeared entirely as a result of not having any kind of dating distraction…I need it. If I date Jake it would all disappear. And I’d have to start again from scratch when he dumped me and build myself back up. I can’t do that again.

Better to not start anything with Jake. Far, far better. Better to stay single and alone for a little bit longer, so I can protect the rest of my life and keep it just the way I want it.

I’m very awake now. My heart is racing and I’m dying to get the hell away before anything can happen. Or not happen. Or happen. Or not happen. Definitely better for it not to happen.

‘Darling…are you awake?’ he says, pulling me in to him tightly. I pull away and bury my head in the duvet. Oh God, get me out of here. ‘Minxy?’ he says, pulling the duvet away. ‘Are you OK?’

‘Yes…’ I can’t open my eyes. He’ll be able to see how I’m feeling. ‘But I can’t see you this week.’

‘Why not? Busy? Cancel your plans, I am infinitely more important…’

‘No. I—I can’t see you this week.’

‘Why?’

‘I just can’t…’ I take a deep breath. May as well pull out the big guns. ‘I’m on a Dating Sabbatical.’

‘Oh, come on…after all this? Mitch told me about that at his party and I almost didn’t believe him. Still?’

‘Yup.’ Fuck. He knew the whole time.

‘Don’t tell me it’s because of that jackass…the Pink Lady guy?’

‘No, it’s not him, it’s really not. I just—I’m not ready. I’m simply not ready.’

‘That’s rubbish. You are ready. I know you are.’ He pulls me towards him and starts kissing me. I kiss back for a few seconds,—well, it’s pretty damn good kissing, as I think I’ve mentioned once or twice—and then pull away again.

‘No. I’m serious, Jake. I don’t want a relationship. I don’t want to get involved.’

‘You’re already involved,’ he says. ‘Come on—’

‘No,’ I say firmly, sitting up in bed. ‘No. I don’t want to. I don’t want to.’

‘Look,’ he says, sitting up and taking my hands in his. ‘No one wants a shit relationship. No one. You don’t need a Dating Sabbatical to believe that. But everyone wants a good one…Don’t you think we should see each other again, just to see—to see what happens?’

‘No. I can’t—I just can’t.’ I snatch my hands away and get up off the bed. ‘I think you should go.’

‘You’re kicking me out?’ He looks shocked.

‘Yes. Yes, I don’t know what—I’m—this is all too—too fast.’

‘Fast? Are you fucking serious?’ I don’t say anything. I really don’t know what to say. Jake looks at me and shakes his head. I’ve never seen him look like that before. His habitual crinkly-eye smile has disappeared into a frown of disbelief and disappointment. ‘This is…pathetic. You’re just…I don’t know…scared.’

‘What! I’m not scared!’ I say, raising my voice. ‘I just don’t want to get involved with you! Why can’t you understand that?’

‘Bullshit!’ he shouts back. ‘You’re fucking petrified. You just want to bumble along and ignore life and not aim for anything and not risk anything, ever again. And all it boils down to is that you don’t trust me because of every other idiot you’ve been out with who dumped you.’

I can’t believe he’s saying this. ‘How dare you take things I told you and turn them back on me like that?’ I scream. ‘You don’t even fucking know me! I have no fucking reason to trust you. And now I have a reason to absolutely
not
trust you. You’re a jackass.’

‘I thought the term you always used was bastardo,’ he snaps, getting off the bed.

How dare he. And bastardo. That clearly comes from Mitch, the fucking bigmouth.

‘Fine. Bastardo. You’re clearly a total fucking bastardo. And better I found out now than later, that’s all I can say.’

‘You’re the fucking bastardo,’ he interrupts. He’s standing in the middle of the room looking at me. I can’t bear to look at his face, so I get back on the bed and bury my head in my hands. ‘Every time I’ve seen you, it’s amazing, it’s fucking amazing, we had that click from the beginning and you know it…and then you ran away. Every time we met. And now you’re doing it again.’

How can he say these things? How can he shout at me like this? I don’t know what I expected, but not this…

I feel like bursting into tears, but I’m also furious. The two emotions battle it out for a second. Fury wins.

I look up at him and start talking, as clearly as I can through my anger. ‘Look. It’s my business, damn it, if I don’t want to date you. I don’t want to rush into anything. You should fucking well respect that.’

‘This is pathetic and…you—are an idiot—I can’t believe…’ He throws his hands in the air as if searching for the right word. But I don’t want to hear any more.

‘Get the hell out of my room, Jake. Get. Out.’

‘Fine.’

He turns and walks out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

I flop back down on the bed, and stare at the ceiling.

Fuck.

I don’t know how long I’ve been lying here for.

Hours.

OK, probably not hours.

I keep running over the past day in my head. The car trip, the pub, the dinner, the kissing, the talking…everything was…perfect.

And then in about one minute and thirty seconds he lost his temper and I lost mine and boom, all over. I start to cry, but then stop myself. What am I crying about? It’s fine. It’s so fine. It was kind of like an entire relationship in fast-forward. The thrilling anticipation, the flirtatious banter, the kissing, the insecurity, the shouting, the break-up. Thinking that makes me laugh. Almost.

It’s not fine. I feel ill. Seriously, I have an ache inside, in my chest and feel like I’ve been punched. Not that I know what that feels like, obviously, but I imagine that if someone punched me really, really hard in the middle of my chest, it would feel something like this. Oh, fuck.

I hear the front door slam, and then a car door slam. I jump off the bed and hurry to the window. I see Jake’s car speeding down the driveway.

Oh, fucking fuck.

I scrabble through my overnight bag for some Panadol, have a quick, very hot shower, and put on clean jeans and a hoodie
that I only wear with turbo hangovers. My face is a blur of stubble rash and red, mildly puffy eyes, so there’s really no point in make-up. If there was a theme today, it would be Blister.

I look in the mirror and point sternly at myself. One night of conversation and some kissing. That’s all it was. So just get over it right now and do not feel bad for one goddamn second.

I walk into the hallway the same second I see Laura coming out of Eddie’s room.

‘Hi!’ she whispers elatedly. ‘Oh my God, your friend Eddie is so, so nice! How are you feeling? Did you kiss that Jake guy last night? He’s so nice too! Oh…oh no, what’s wrong?’

I sit down on the top step and bury my face in my hands again, willing the tears not to come out. Oh, God. I can’t face this.

Laura sits down next to me and reaches over to give me a side-hug. I lean against her and sigh deeply.

‘I kind of fucked it up.’

‘I think you guys can work it out…whatever happened,’ she says, hopefully. ‘I mean, I think…he’s so nice and funny, and a bit sharp, you know, but I don’t mean that in like, a mean way. He’s…I just thought he was just like you.’

‘Oh, God,’ I say. That was so not the right thing to say. ‘No, no, I don’t want a boyfriend, you know, so it’s good that nothing is happening. Or that it happened and it’s over. It’s a good thing.’

‘Maybe you should talk to him…?’ says Laura.

I take a deep breath. ‘He’s left. I can’t.’ I turn to look at her, and smile. ‘Thank you, though. You and Eddie is exciting, isn’t it?’

She smiles shyly. ‘Yes! He’s just lovely! We’re going out on Tuesday.’

I smile as sincerely as I can, though it feels like it’s hurting my face to try. ‘That’s great.’

Bloomie comes out of her room. She looks very pale. It must be the hangover. ‘Hello, darlings. I hope you slept better than I did. Anyone for breakfast?’

‘Oh, thanks, but I’m going to have a shower! I’ll see you down there in a bit!’ Laura scurries off.

Bloomie walks over, looking closely at me. She’s very good at reading my face. It’s annoying. ‘So I guess you should tell me where you disappeared to last night and everything that’s happened since.’

I sigh. ‘You have no idea. Why didn’t you sleep?’

She sighs back, and I notice that her eyes are bloodshot. ‘You have no idea either. Let’s go downstairs and talk.’

The kitchen is, predictably, chaos. Plates, food, glasses, bottles, clothes, mud, grass, cigarette butts, sweets, and a disturbing amount of floury footprints (I guess we didn’t clean up as well as we thought we did) are everywhere. I fix Bloomie and I some (perfect) coffee as she makes a token attempt at cleaning up, and we head outside to the garden table with the pack of cigarettes Bloomie always stashes in her bag for the morning after. We settle down, light up, and both look up at the same exact moment.

‘Oh…my…God…’ we say in unison.

The beautiful garden has been garrotted. It would appear someone undertook trench warfare overnight, moved all the troops out by dawn and left a quagmire of filth-encrusted misery behind. The slope where the tobogganing took place has a deep, muddy crevasse straight down it. The grass is a heap of mucky little hills, with dirty dried detergent lather here and there. The flower beds look violated. Entire bushes are torn up and upended. Bottles and glasses and discarded bin-liner lawnboggans are everywhere, some broken, some whole. Eddie’s mother is going to have a fit.

‘That garden looks like my head,’ I comment.

Bloomie turns to me. ‘So what happened with Jake?’ I tell her everything. At the end of the story I wonder what she’ll say, but she doesn’t say anything very much.

‘Did you touch him in naughty places?’ is about all she asks.

‘Not really,’ I say. ‘I kept thinking we’d get around to that later,
and we just kept talking and kissing. And then we fell asleep. Drunk, I guess.’

‘Mmm…So what next?’ she asks.

‘Nothing,’ I say. ‘Dating Sabbatical business as usual. Every man I touch turns into a bastardo, it would appear, I’m like some kind of fucked-up Midas person.’

She gives me a frowny-smile and shakes her head. ‘If I had the energy, I’d tell you what an idiot you are.’

‘So what happened to you last night?’

She shrugs and takes a deep breath. ‘Eugene and I…He caught me checking my BlackBerry in bed last night. I thought he was asleep. He lost his temper and said he doesn’t think I really meant what I said about him being as important as work. ’Cos I promised him I wouldn’t bring it this weekend. I don’t even know why I checked it, I swear, but to him it means I lied…And I told him to get a fucking grip…And he said I was selfish and ridiculous…’

‘Fuck,’ I say. ‘That’s awful. Are you OK?’

Bloomie puts her face in her hands and starts to sob. ‘We broke up. He slept in Benoit’s room and I think he’s already driven home to London.’

‘Oh, fuck,’ I say again, and put my arm around her heaving shoulders. Bloomie crying always freaks me out. It’s like seeing your mum cry. We finish our cigarettes, light new ones, and she keeps crying.

‘I don’t know what…to do. I just don’t know what to do,’ she keeps saying, through her tears. I don’t know what to say, so I just keep my arm around her shoulders and every now and again take her cigarette from her hand and ash it for her. After a few minutes, she seems to run out of tears. She sits up, takes a deep breath, and wipes her eyes with her sleeve. ‘Let’s clean up the kitchen and get the fuck out of here,’ she says. ‘Don’t tell anyone yet. I can’t take it.’

‘Why don’t you just call him?’ I say. Today is the day of speaking
my mind. ‘For God’s sake, Bloomie…he just lost his temper. And you broke a promise…’

‘Fuck him,’ she says.

‘He forgave you for storming out of Ziani’s like a dick last week. You should forgive him. He was drunk. It was a wine fight.’

‘He’s an idiot.’

‘He’s not, he just wants to know he’s important to you…You’re the idiot, darling. Every time someone does something you don’t want them to, you lose your rag. That’s not how life works. You have to give a little…’ This is possibly the harshest thing I’ve ever said to Bloomie, so I try to make it sound as nice as possible. She stares into space for a few seconds. ‘Come on, Bloomie. You know he loves you. Be a man. Call him.’

She looks at me. ‘Be a man?’

‘Whatever.’

She reaches to her back pocket, pulls out her phone, and calls him. I get up off the table and start walking back into the house to give her some privacy.

‘Hi…it’s me…’ is all I can hear her saying.

My God, none of us have a clue what we’re doing. I’m sure it’s not meant to be this hard.

Back in the kitchen, I find Kate hunched over the cafetiere, muttering ‘98, 99…100’. On ‘100’, she presses the plunger down.

‘Freak,’ I say. I look around quickly to see if we’re alone and I can tell her about Bloomie, but we’re not; I can see figures in sleeping bags over in the living room. So instead I whisper: ‘Perry?’ and she nods a quick yes. We do a little high-five and pour ourselves coffees.

‘What else is gossip?’ I ask.

‘Well, Eddie and Laura snogged…Fraser broke up with Tory and then she went to bed with Conor. That’s probably the biggest news…’

I can’t help laughing at this.

‘Two men in one night? God, she really is a ho…Poor darling Fraser.’

‘Mitch and Tara, obviously. And you and Jake.’

‘Yes,’ I sigh. ‘Me and Jake.’ I try, in as few whispered words as possible, to tell her what happened last night and this morning. She interjects ‘No!’ and ‘Really?’ at the appropriate moments, and when it comes to the end, she starts doing her worried frowny face.

‘It’s better to not chance it, I think, rather than risk losing everything else I’ve achieved,’ I finish. I do feel a teeny bit self-righteous about it, and I’m surprised that Kate and Bloomie aren’t acting more impressed with my decision. Isn’t it great that I’m taking control of my life? How much better my life is without the distraction and worry of dating? I’m about to ask Kate this, but as if she can read my mind, she simply sighs and shakes her head.

‘You’re an idiot. That’s not how life works.’

Isn’t that exactly what I just said to Bloomie?

My thoughts are interrupted by a soft purring sound.

‘What the sweet hell is that?’

We look around the kitchen, but no one is there. I glance down into the living room, and see a few bodies huddled under sleeping bags, but the purring sound isn’t coming from there, either. Suddenly, it gets louder. Kate holds her hand up for silence, listening intently.

‘Wait…it’s coming from under the…’ She bends down, and starts giggling. ‘Oh dear.’

Underneath the table is Sam, fast asleep, fully dressed, using a loaf of bread for a pillow and with a teatowel tucked under his chin. This cheers me up greatly, for some reason, and I crawl under the table and start prodding him.

‘Wake up…wake up.’

‘Mum, I’m wearing my retainer…’ he mumbles, and then opens one impossibly bloodshot eye. ‘Oh, it’s you. Oh God, the pain. The paaaain…’

I lie down on the floor next to him. ‘Me too.’

‘Where’s Ryan?’

I sigh. Jake Ryan. Jake goddamn Ryan. Anything I say will get back to him, I know, so I decide to not say too much.

‘He left.’

‘He what? How the dickens does he think I’m going to get home?’ He opens both eyes, and tries to get up, then closes them and lies back down on his bread pillow. ‘Oh God. Not moving for awhile.’

‘Can I get you a coffee?’

‘Yes. One of those perfect ones Ryan was telling me about yesterday. He says you are mistress of the caffeine.’

Oh, hell.

I make the perfect coffee for him, and he sips it under the table loudly, saying ‘Ow’ every now and again. Kate and I start to make breakfast and tidy some of the mess away as everyone trickles down from their rooms and the living room. I think back to yesterday, and the fishpun breakfast making, and everything seems very dull and grey in comparison.

Fraser strides into the kitchen, still wearing his new jeans shorts. They’re so short that I can see he’s a boxers man.

‘It’s the only pair of jeans I had,’ he says, as we all fall about laughing. ‘Fantastically comfortable. I might wear them more often. Right, I’m going back to London.’

‘You OK, darling?’ asks Kate, giving Fraser a hug as he heads out the door, fried egg sandwich in hand.

‘Oh, yes. Think I dodged a bullet with Tory there,’ he says. ‘But I’ve already got an internet date lined up for Thursday, so all is not lost.’ He smiles at me, and I try to smile back. ‘You OK, treacle?’ he asks. I nod, then shake my head, then shrug. He pats me on the shoulder, which is Fraser’s equivalent of a hug. ‘Last I saw you, you were wrapped around a young man,’ he says to Kate.

‘Mmm…’ she says, a combination of pride and sheepishness.

‘I saw him as I went to the khazi earlier. He was leaving with the twins.’

‘I’m devastasted,’ says Kate lightly, but I can tell she is relieved. Sometimes you kiss someone just to have done it, rather than to do it. If that makes sense.

Suddenly Bloomie runs in from the garden, sprints through the kitchen and into the hallway. I can hear her feet pounding up the stairs. Then a door slams.

Kate looks at me quizzically. ‘I’ll tell you later,’ I mouth.

Neil wanders in from the living room. ‘Morning, girls! That smells fantastic. Can I help? I’d love some toast. Oh, and I’ll put the kettle on for tea. Lovely.’

I’m amazed. I’ve never heard him say so much in one go before.

‘Hi, Neil…Uh…how are you this morning? Where’s Harriet?’

‘I wouldn’t know,’ he says cheerfully. ‘She went off with Ant last night and I haven’t seen her since.’

‘What? I mean…gosh. I thought you two were…’

‘Nope,’ he says, filling up the kettle. ‘She acted like it, but I’ve never even kissed her. Felt obliged to stick with her though. She’s quite bossy when she wants to be.’

‘No kidding,’ I say.

‘Yep!’ he says, jauntily buttering some toast. ‘Anyway. Had an excellent night. Ended up playing poker with Benoit over a bottle of whiskey. I’m going to pop out now and get another one to replace it. Toodles.’

I get the giggles at this, for some reason, and with all of my strength put myself on auto-pilot. I just need to keep quiet and enjoy everyone else’s hangover till it’s time to go home, and then I can think about Jake and everything that’s happened. Oh hell, Jake. I wonder what he’s thinking. I mean, I’m so glad I chose the Dating Sabbatical so I don’t have to wonder what he’s thinking.

‘Kaaaaaaaaaaaaate,’ bleats Sam from under the table. ‘Can I have a cuddle?’

‘No,’ she snaps. ‘You smell.’

‘Pleeeease.’

‘No.’

Sam puts a long arm out and grabs her ankle as she walks past, and she shrieks and starts to giggle. Ah flirting. How I will miss thee.

Eddie and Laura come in, hand in hand. Eddie’s reaction when he sees the garden is not as extreme as I’d expected.