Harriet Evans - Love Always

‘What?’ Cathy laughs. ‘You’re insane. I think he’s real y cute. Those big brown eyes. That smile. He’s got a lovely smile. If he had his hair cut . . .

Wow, he’d be absolutely gorgeous. Pow.’

She mimes an explosion with her hands. I sigh. Cathy has such weird taste in men. ‘Come on. Tel me. I’m sorry. You and Jonathan.’

‘Yes.’ She sighs. ‘It was odd. I don’t get it.’

‘OK, so what happened?’

‘OK. We had a good dinner. Good conversation.’

‘Where did you go?’

‘Kettner’s. I don’t like it there now though, since the makeover. They’ve done it up like a whore’s boudoir. It used to be so great.’

I nod, a shiver running down my body. Kettner’s, in Soho, was our favourite place. Oli and I, I mean: we used to meet there al the time when we lived on opposite sides of the city. Cheap beautiful pizzas and a lovely champagne bar. Chintzy, seaside-hotel decor, old-fashioned service and a pianist playing jazz standards. Now it’s been ‘done up’, the menu’s been changed, and I think it looks awful.

Oli and I went there in November, and had a bad evening. Terrible, in fact. It was our first night out for a while and, to cut a long story short, it began when, during a conversation about the merits of our flat, I used the phrase, ‘because we might want a bigger place some day, if we have children’, and it ended with me leaving the restaurant and taking a very expensive cab al the way home on my own. Oli wasn’t ready for the ‘if we have children’ conversation, you see. Apparently, being married for two years doesn’t mean you’re ready to even talk about it.

‘Kettner’s did used to be so great. But anyway. Did anything happen?’ Ah, did anything happen , possibly the most-asked question in London.

‘Sort of.’

‘Like what?’

Cathy shifts in her low chair, looking down at the ground, so I can’t see her face. She is bad at the details. ‘Wel , I mean, it was unsatisfactory.’

‘How?’

‘Wel , we had quite a lot to drink. And we kissed, outside Kettner’s. And he lives in Clapham too, so we got a cab home. But it was odd.’ She wrinkles her nose. ‘We got to his and he could have asked me in, and we’re in the back of the cab, you know –’ she mouths the word snogging –

‘and we’re kind of –’ again, she mouths what I think is doing stuff under each other’s clothes , but I don’t want to check and interrupt the flow – ‘And he chucks a twenty-pound note at me and says, Oh, thanks for a lovely evening, and then gets out!’ She’s practical y squeaking in outrage at this.

‘He chucked a twenner at you?’ I say. ‘Like you’re a prostitute and he’s paying you in cash for letting him feel you up?’

‘Exactly!’ she shouts. ‘I mean, I think it was for the cab, but you know – wow, way to make me feel cheap!’

‘Who paid for dinner?’

‘We split.’ There’s a silence. ‘I don’t think that means anything though.’

‘Me neither. What does he do?’

‘He’s a . . . wel . He’s a dancer.’

‘He’s a what?’

She takes a bite of her quiche. ‘He’s a dancer.’

‘What kind of a dancer?’

‘He’s in The Lion King .’

‘He’s a dancer in The Lion King ,’ I say. ‘You snogged a dancer in The Lion King .’ I’m nodding. ‘What part does he play in The Lion King ?’

Cathy stil isn’t looking at me. Her voice is shaking. ‘I think he’s a giraffe.’

We both col apse with laughter, and my stool rocks alarmingly. I steady myself with one hand.

‘And you don’t think he’s . . .’

‘He’s not gay!’ Cathy says in indignation. ‘He’s bloody not! He says that’s real y irritating, that everyone always assumes he must be, and that it’d be much easier for him if he was!’ She pauses. ‘Apart from with his parents. They’d disown him.’

‘Why? What’s with his parents?’

‘They’re very strict Baptists. They think homosexuality is a sin.’ Cathy shakes her head. ‘They sound kind of awful. Very repressive. He grew up in Rickmansworth,’ she adds, as if the two are connected.

‘Right,’ I say, though I now have severe doubts about Jonathan the dancing giraffe from Rickmansworth with the repressive Baptist parents.

‘Wel , maybe he’s just shy . . .’ I trail off. ‘How was the snogging?’

Cathy looks around again. ‘It was OK. You know? Sometimes it’s just not that great. And we were quite drunk.’

‘But you like him?’

She stares into space. ‘Yeah, I do. He’s real y funny. And we have nothing in common. I like that. He’s different from me.’ She shifts in her chair again. ‘Everyone at work’s just like me. Always in suits. Serious. Reads the FT .’ She pushes her lips out. ‘That’s why I liked his profile, and when we were emailing. He just sounded real y fun.’ She stops. Her voice is soft. ‘I just want to meet someone, you know? And it’s hard.’

I remember the last date I went on before I ran into Oli. A man with a signet ring and fat, sausage-like fingers, talking about himself al evening and how his friends thought he was ‘completely crazy, up for anything, me!’ Yel owish blond thin hair, red face like a baby, eyes that looked anywhere but into mine, and I sat there in silence and thought to myself, Perhaps he’ll do, perhaps I’m being too picky, that’s what everyone says.

‘I know,’ I say. ‘I know it’s hard.’

‘Ha.’ Cathy looks at me. ‘Like you’d know.’

‘Oi,’ I say. She claps her hand over her mouth. ‘Shit, Nat, I’m real y sorry!’ Red stains her white cheeks. ‘That’s so tactless of me!’

I lean forward on my stool and pat her head, which is al I can reach. ‘It’s fine! Honestly, don’t worry. I wouldn’t know, anyway. I haven’t been out there for ages.’

‘Do you think you wil be, soon, then?’

‘Don’t know,’ I say, stretching my fingers out in front of me. ‘We need to talk. He keeps cal ing, he wants to meet up again. I just haven’t wanted to see him.’

‘He wants to come back, doesn’t he?’ Cathy asks. I nod. ‘Of course he does!’ she says, relieved. ‘You and Oli – you’re together for ever! I mean, you can’t split up!’

‘He slept with someone else,’ I say. ‘Don’t you think that’s a big deal?’

Cathy knits her hands together. Normal y so sure of herself, she looks around. ‘Yes, of course it is. But if you’re asking me if it’s something to end your marriage over . . . I don’t know. I’m not in it.’ She smiles, knowing it’s a bad answer. ‘I can’t make that judgement.’

‘Wel , I am in it, and I have made that judgement,’ I say. ‘I just don’t know if I can be with him again.’

‘Wow.’ Cathy opens and shuts her mouth. ‘Seriously? But your life – together.’

‘I know.’ My throat is dry. ‘Weren’t you going to start trying for a baby soon, too?’ Now I am knitting my fingers together. I can’t look at her, I don’t want to lose it. I push down the sound I want to make, push it back down somewhere at the back of my throat. ‘No.’

‘Oh. I thought you were.’

‘Wel , we’re not. He doesn’t want to. He said he wasn’t ready.’

Cathy flicks a look at me from under her lashes, and doesn’t pursue this. Instead she says, ‘Do you think he’s sorry?’

‘Oh, yes,’ I say. ‘I think he’s very sorry he’s been chucked out of his nice flat with the big TV and al his DVDs and crap and someone who knows how he likes his coffee in the morning. I think he misses that a lot.’

‘Come on,’ Cathy says. ‘It’s more than that.’