Jane Green: Bookends

I like to think that if I had met Martin with the wisdom and cynicism of my current thirty-one years, instead of the romanticism and dreams of twenty-four, there are two things that would have been different.

The first is that I would never have slept with him in the first place, because now I know that these course lecturers regularly look for someone as I was then: a young shy girl, preferably rather plain, who would be flattered and impressed with their false charm and attention.

The second certainty is that when the relationship continued after the four-day course, I would have known that those times when he said he couldn’t see me because he was working, those nights when he’d rush out of bed after sex and leave, the fact that he never gave me his telephone number, only a pager, meant only one thing.

Of course I should have known he was married. But you see what you want to see, and you hear what you want to hear. I didn’t know better. I was so flattered, so swept up by someone, anyone , telling me I was beautiful, I didn’t stop to think about anything else.

Si knew. Although he didn’t say anything at the time. He once tentatively asked me if I thought he might be married, and I was so furious with him he never brought it up again. Until I knew for certain. At which point Si sniffed and said, ‘I told you so.’

‘I hate it when people say I told you so,’ I said.

‘I know. I’m sorry. But I told you so.’

And so it went on.

The whole Martin Malarkey (Si’s expression, not mine) lasted two years. Two years that gradually wore me down until there was almost nothing left. Two years that shattered my dreams of romance and everlasting love. Two years that taught me never to open myself up again for fear of getting hurt.

In fact the only good thing to come out of it was the weight loss. Even after he confessed he was married, I continued to believe that he loved her but wasn’t in love with her. I believed that she had happily consented to his wishes to sleep in the spare room and that they hadn’t had sex for two years. I believed that the only reason he was staying was because of the children, but as soon as they started school he would leave.

I believed this until I found out she was pregnant again. Don’t ask me how I found out – a long and complicated story – but I did, and Martin denied it until he could see I wasn’t buying the lies any more, and then it was over.

So, as I was saying, the weight loss. I couldn’t eat. Quite literally. Could. Not. Eat. For weeks.

‘You know you’re becoming a lollipop,’ Si would say. ‘You have this huge hair and a little sticky body. Please eat this,’ he’d beg, proffering home-made coconut pie with chocolate sauce, or treacle tart, or salmon fishcakes. ‘We’re worried about you.’

Josh and Lucy would invite me over for dinner and exchange concerned glances when they thought I wasn’t looking, too busy sighing and poking at pastry with my fork.

Finally Si dragged me up to Bond Street. ‘We might as well take advantage of the fact that you now have hipbones,’ he sighed, pulling me into Ralph Lauren.

‘But I’ll never wear this,’ I kept hissing at him, although I had to admit, if I were into clothes and had unlimited finances, I probably would have bought them.

Eventually we settled on Fenwick, much to Si’s horror, and I bought a couple of size 10 trousers and a tight sweater, just to keep him happy, although I was slightly smug about not having to buy a size 14 for the first time in years.

‘You’re a woman,’ Si said in disgust, shaking his head in amazement. ‘You must understand the concept of retail therapy.’

I wore the trousers for a while, until I started becoming happy again, and soon I was back to my normal size and the trousers were given to my secretary. And since then I haven’t really been involved with anyone.

There have been a few, but they’ve always been too short. Or too tall. Too handsome. Not handsome enough. Too young. Too old. Too rich. Too poor. Quite frankly these days I prefer a good book.

‘What about Brad?’ Si asked me one day.

‘Brad who?’ We were sitting at a café in West Hampstead, with Josh and Lucy, and a pile of the Sunday papers. It’s become a bit of a tradition with us now. One o’clock at Dominique’s, every Sunday, for coffee, croissants, scrambled eggs and papers.

We were all engrossed. I was stuck into the Sunday Times News Review, Josh had the Business section, and Lucy was reading Style. Si had the magazine.

‘Brad who? Brad who?’ he said indignantly. ‘There is only one Brad,’ he finally exclaimed, adding, ‘Brad Pitt. That’s who.’ Si held up a picture of said man caught in a paparazzi snap coming out of a restaurant.

‘What about him?’ Lucy asked.

‘What about him for Cath?’

‘Yes,’ I said slowly, as if talking to a child. ‘Because Brad Pitt would dump Jennifer Aniston for a short, plain, mousy…’

‘You’re almost blonde,’ Si interrupted. ‘And he loves blondes! Remember Gwynnie.’

Josh put down his paper and looked at Si, shaking his head. ‘Si, what on earth are we talking about? What is this conversation? Have you gone mad?’

‘No. I just meant that Cath finds fault with every man who even goes near her, and he’s completely perfect, but she’d probably find something wrong with him too. Wouldn’t you?’ He looked at me.

‘’Course,’ I said, examining the picture before exclaiming very seriously, ‘His hair’s too greasy.’

Josh and Lucy gave up introducing me to their friends a long time ago, but men never seemed to be much of a priority after Martin.

Not that I relished spending the rest of my life by myself, but I wasn’t, not with Si, not with Josh and Lucy.

Damn. Si will be here in fifteen minutes and the place looks like a tip. As you would expect, Si’s flat, despite being in the less than salubrious area of Kilburn, is immaculate. Not particularly smart, I grant you, but only because Si’s work is so irregular he can’t afford to re-create the room sets he drools over in Wallpaper magazine.

Mine, on the other hand, is a mess. The flat itself is in a mansion block, and therefore lovely and large, but interiors have never been quite my thing, and the fact that most of the furniture was passed on by elderly relatives or well-meaning friends has never particularly bothered me.

It bothers Si, though. Every time he comes over he sits on the sofa, growing more and more fidgety, before getting up and re-arranging . He pulls books off the bookshelf and arranges them in neat little piles on the coffee table, together with whatever bowls he can find.

He plumps up cushions and rummages around in my wardrobe for old scarves, which he drapes over furniture. Si’s a big believer in draping, although he claims he hates it and is resorting to desperate measures to hide the ‘hideous pieces of crap’. He collects mugs that are gathering mould, and, shooting me filthy looks, takes them into the kitchen, stands them in the sink and covers them in hot, soapy water.

He has been known to get the vacuum out of the cupboard and do the entire flat, but, as he says, hoovering has never been his favourite job. Give him a pair of rubber gloves and a can of Pledge, however, and he is as happy as anything.

I run around the living room, gathering papers, videos, books, and stack them in a precarious pile next to the sofa, well out of Si’s view. The mugs are literally thrown into the sink, and then I remember the bed and rush in to shake out the duvet.

‘Only real sluts don’t make their bed,’ Si said one day, after which point I have tried to remember to make it. At least when he’s coming over.