Gemma Townley - When in Rome...

Since then, we probably stay in more than we go out, which I actually love, but there’s still a bit of me that wants to be the person who would prefer the Albanian film evening.

David arrives at eight-thirty with fish and chips. I carefully arrange the food on two large white plates. (I always try to re-create the look of food in expensive restaurants. So the fish goes on top of the chips, with the mushy peas kind of circled round them, interlaced with the ketchup.

Actually, a lot of really smart restaurants serve fish and chips and it’s not like it’s that much better than the stuff you get from the chip shop; the only difference is presentation and ambience.

So by re-creating the presentation I’m sort of making our night more of a postmodern ironic statement. At least that’s what it said in some magazine article I picked up on how eating in is the new eating out, and really I think it’s true.) We position ourselves on the sofa, food resting on cushions.

“Nice day at the office?” I’m not really expecting an answer, but I always ask the question.

David looks distracted for a moment. “Mmmm. No, not really.”

It’s not like David to say anything other than “Oh, not bad,” so I look at him quizzically.

For a moment he looks like he’s about to tell me all about it, but then the music for “Frasier”

starts and my eyes flicker away for a second or two. By the time I’ve refocused on David, the moment has gone.

I tell him about my star turn today over the Pensions Bulletin research, and he laughs, but I don’t mention my lunch with Mike. If things are tough at work, he’s hardly going to be in the mood to hear about his girlfriend going out to lunch with her ex. And anyway, I’m not going to see Mike again, I think to myself as I nestle into David’s shoulder.

I don’t think about it again until later that night as we’re falling asleep. “You haven’t heard from Mike, have you?” David murmurs. Suddenly I’m wide awake.

“No,” I lie, trying to work out why David would think that I had. “Why would I?”

“Oh, nothing,” David says, rolling over. “It’s just . . . I don’t know. You will tell me if he tries to get in touch with you, won’t you?”

Does he know about the lunch? Why would he ask that?

“You’re not jealous are you?” I ask hesitantly.

“Jealous? Why on earth would I be jealous?” David says incredulously. I start to sulk slightly, but then figure that he’s hardly going to admit that he’s jealous. I know I should be feeling bad but instead I feel like a femme fatale.

But before I can sink into dreams of men fighting over me, David turns on the light and looks at me intently. “Look, I just don’t trust Mike,” he says seriously. “So tell me if he calls you, okay?”

I don’t ask him if e-mails count.

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I don’t hear from Mike until Friday. All week I have been telling myself that I am relieved that he hasn’t tried to get back in touch. But my stomach has been lurching every time I get an external e-mail, just in case it’s him.

I’m on the phone to Candy, arranging a shopping and gossip session for the following afternoon when I hear the familiar“ping .”

Candy and I are discussing the relative merits of Kensington High Street and Oxford Street. (I favor Ken High Street. Oxford Street is too busy, and anyway, my favorite shop on Oxford Street is Top Shop, and I’d never be able to go in there with Candy. She buys things featured inVogue instead of searching the high street for rip-offs like the rest of us.) I absentmindedly go to my email inbox, and there it is.

MIKE MARSHALL: So, I went away. Now it’s Friday afternoon and you can’t tell me you’re still busy. I feel like getting drunk tonight, fancy joining me?

My heart starts beating. I’m meant to be going round to David’s tonight. Iam going round to David’s tonight. At least I think I am. I mean, of course that’s what I want to do, but it could be a good idea to meet Mike, just to, you know, reinforce the fact that he wants me and can’t have me. If you think about it, that would actually be really good for David, too, because it would show Mike that David is way better than him. And if I don’t go, he might think I’m too scared to go, that I don’t trust myself around him, which is obviously ridiculous because I don’t find him attractive anymore. Really. And David won’t mind, I’m sure.

“George? Are you still there?” Candy has always called me George rather than Georgie. I think it started at school—though we lived near each other during my Kensington Church Street phase, we went to different schools, and Candy liked being able to tell her friends at school about her friend George, without mentioning that I was actually a girl. I’ve had a couple of odd meetings with people who went to school with Candy who looked really astonished to find out I was

“George.”

I realize I haven’t been listening to Candy for five minutes. “Sorry, something’s just come up,” I say. “So, tomorrow at twelve?”

Candy is not happy. She was at the beginning of some story or other and is obviously annoyed to have lost my attention. “Fine,” she says casually, as we agree on a meeting place (Oxford Street—arguing with Candy, I remember in time, is hopeless).

I stare at my computer screen and read Mike’s message again and again, searching for the meaning behind it. Could it be that he is actually interested in me again? Why now? Having made no effort to contact me in years, why is Mike now so keen to see me? Of course, it’s possible that he saw me with David and realized how much he missed me, but somehow that doesn’t entirely ring true. I mean, he could have anyone, why would he come back for me?

Perhaps he has some ulterior motive? In the past I’d have assumed he wanted to borrow money, but now he seems to have enough of his own, so it must be something else. But what?

Only one way to find out, I reason, and hit the Reply button.

GEORGIE BEAUCHAMP: I suppose I could meet you for a couple of drinks. The Atlantic Bar at 7?

As I hit the Send button I feel a pang of guilt. The Atlantic Bar is where Mike and I always used to go. It was too expensive for us to actually drink there, but we would hang out anyway, and he would steal drinks from the bar for us. I wish I had suggested somewhere more neutral, but reason that changing the venue now would be worse. I don’t want to acknowledge to myself or anyone else that what I’m doing is of any consequence.

Not wanting to talk to David directly about it, I send him an e-mail, blushing at my lie as I send it.

GEORGIE BEAUCHAMP: Hi gorgeous, do you mind if I don’t come round tonight? Going for drinks after work for someone’s birthday. I’ll see you tomorrow evening? Seeing Candy in the afternoon, so wish me luck! xx

About thirty seconds later, the phone rings.

“You’re seeing Candy? I didn’t know you two were still friends.” It’s David.

“Hello to you, too. Just because I haven’t seen her for a while doesn’t mean we’re not friends anymore. Why should you care anyway?”

“Nothing. I don’t care. I just thought it was a bit odd, that’s all, suddenly seeing her again.”

“David, is everything all right?”

“Of course it is. You have a great time tomorrow. I’ll come round afterward, shall I?”

“Yes, come round about six. And give me loads of compliments because I’ll be feeling dreadful after spending time in changing rooms with Candy.”

“Gorgeous girl. You’re much prettier than that skinny creature. See you then.”

Gorgeous girl. When David says that, I know he actually means it. So why am I getting so excited about meeting Mike tonight?