Polly James - Would Like to Meet

“I’ve never heard such a dumbass reason for splitting up, in all my life,” he says. “And I think one of you is lying, or both of you. Which one of you is seeing someone else?”

That possibility hadn’t occurred to me until now, but if one of us is, it isn’t me. Not when Mr Suave’s not real. I think I may be about to cry again.

It seems that one of Dan’s colleagues had a spare room going – really cheap – so Dan says he’d have been a fool if he hadn’t taken it. He also insists that Joel was wrong about him seeing someone else, though he was right about the other thing: I’ve got no friends. Well, I have, but even though I’ve rung all of them over the last few days – while Dan’s been supposedly working late – they all went on so much about how long it had been since the last time I called, that I ended up not telling any of them that he and I were splitting up. They might have thought it was the only reason I was bothering to phone them now.

It was, I suppose, but that’s not the point. They’ve all posted that thing on Facebook about it not mattering how long it’s been since you last spoke to an old friend, so I’d assumed that was genuinely how they felt. Obviously, it wasn’t, so things are already looking pretty desperate on the friends front by the time that Joel gets home from work.

He sits down on the sofa next to me, and kicks off his shoes while I stare in disbelief at his socks. One says, “Fuck” and the other says, “Off”.

This is what you have to endure when your son refuses to go to university, and insists on working in a super-hip streetwear store instead, one where all the staff are required to talk in gangsta-speak even if they’ve never been anywhere near a gang. The whole thing drives Dan mad, and Joel’s still in the middle of a fairly incomprehensible explanation of how he uses the socks to swear at his boss without him being aware of it, when I lose the will to listen and decide to phone Theo and Claire, instead.

They’re neighbours, rather than friends, but Dan and I have probably socialised more often with them than with anyone else over the last ten years (mainly because that keeps us close enough to home to prevent Joel throwing parties while we’re out). I think they’re all right, though Dan’s never been keen on Claire.

When she answers the phone I tell her my news straight away. There’s no point giving myself the chance to chicken out, even though I know it’ll make the whole thing feel much worse once someone other than Joel knows.

“Good God,” says Claire, and then she repeats herself. After that, there’s quite an uncomfortable pause before she adds, “I assume you won’t be coming to our dinner tonight, if that’s the case?”

I’d forgotten all about it, what with what’s been going on with me and Dan, and I’m about to confirm we won’t be there when I wonder if I’m being stupid. You’re probably supposed to start as you mean to go on, when you’re trying to rebuild your messed-up life.

“Well, I guess I could come by myself,” I say to Claire, after taking a few deep breaths. “Seeing as I’m still going to be your neighbour, at least until Joel decides it’s time to move out.”

It sounds as if Claire snorts at the remoteness of that ever happening, but then she pulls herself together and says, “That’s great! See you in a couple of hours.”

Her voice sounds a bit weird when she says it, but I don’t give that any further thought, until the phone rings ten minutes later, and Joel answers it. He sounds very charming and un-gangsta-like while doing so, which is reassuring, but what happens next isn’t reassuring at all. The caller is Theo (of Theo-and-Claire ), and he’s obviously drawn the short straw, given that he’s the one making this call.

“I’m so sorry, Hannah,” he says. “Claire asked me to tell you she was so stunned by your news, she completely forgot to mention there’s been a problem with the catering, so we’ve had to cancel the dinner party. We’ll reschedule it for another time.”

“Oh, that’s a shame,” I say. “Seeing as it was for your anniversary, and that’s today, isn’t it?”

Their twenty-seventh wedding anniversary, the same one that Dan and I celebrated less than a year ago, not that Theo gives a toss about that.

“Oh, yes,” he says. “It is today. Another year of the life sentence without parole done and dusted. Oh. Um. Sorry, Hannah. A bit insensitive in the circumstances.”

Theo’s not usually so tactless, but he doesn’t sound himself at all. In fact – at the risk of sounding like the Fembot – I don’t believe a word he’s just said about the dinner being cancelled, and that impression’s strengthened when he adds that Claire says why don’t I pop round and have a quiet drink with her next week instead?

“I’ll be away on business then,” says Theo, “so she could use some company when she’s on her own. Oh. Ah, I guess you probably could, as well.”

I’m going to borrow Joel’s socks and wear them during my next visit, if Theo keeps this up. Claire always makes guests remove their shoes.

* * *

When I get off the phone, Joel’s even more furious with Theo and Claire than he is with me and Dan, when I tell him what’s just happened. First he describes the pair of them as “tossers”, and then he invites me to accompany him and his girlfriend Izzy to the cinema, but I refuse. Three’s company at the best of times and, anyway, I ought to go round to Pearl’s. It’s not fair to tell outsiders about me and Dan when I haven’t told her yet.

* * *

I drive across town, while trying to work out the best way to handle what’s bound to be a tricky conversation, but I’m still clueless by the time that I arrive. However I put it, Pearl isn’t going to take my announcement well. She’s always been very fond of Dan, and she knows better than anyone what it’s like to end up on your own after a long-term marriage, since her husband died three years ago. They’d been together for the previous forty-five, roaming the world due to Clive’s job as a senior diplomat. That’s why I visit Pearl so often these days, because I know how much she hates being on her own, especially in the evenings, and she’s bound to be even more lonely now that she’s living somewhere new.

I pull into a parking space directly outside the Elysium Retirement Home, which Pearl renamed “Abandon Hope” when Dan and I moved her in on New Year’s Eve. I can’t see why she called it that, as it looks like a stately home to me. The diplomatic service look after their own, unlike Halfwits , and I’ll be lucky to afford something the size of one of the broom cupboards in a building like this when I retire.

* * *

I push open the main doors, then walk across the lobby and into a wide carpeted corridor that leads to Pearl’s new ground-floor flat.

“It’s open,” she shouts, when I ring the doorbell. “As long as you’ve brought some money with you, that is. We’re not messing about with buttons or IOUs tonight.”

That makes no sense whatsoever, until I open the door to reveal a dozen elderly people playing poker.

The cocktails are flowing and there are already plenty of competitors for the title of drunkest OAP, though Pearl’s not one of them.

“I pride myself on being able to hold my drink, Hannah,” she says. “Unlike some people I could mention. Now let me introduce you to the Hopeless gang.”

There are loads of people in Pearl’s flat, and I doubt I’d recognise any of them again, except for Albert and Fred, who I end up sitting between. Albert looks like Pope Francis, the nice one from Buenos Aires, while Fred looks more like the Child Catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang . I must count as a child, given the disparity in our ages, as that’s the only reason I can think of to explain why I keep finding Fred’s hand creeping up my leg under cover of the tablecloth.