Love Always

‘OK.’

‘Nice to see you, Cathy,’ he says. ‘Nat – see you later. I want to hear about it.’

I nod, and turn back to Cathy as the door closes. ‘I’m sorry about that. Blithely inviting him in when you’re in the middle of tel ing me about Jonathan. Go on.’

‘He’s so lovely.’ Cathy gazes at the shut door. ‘Who, Ben? He’s got a girlfriend,’ I say. ‘I don’t mean like that.’

‘Yeah, right.’

‘No, I don’t. He’s just lovely.’ She sighs. ‘Why can’t al men be like him, eh? I don’t get it.’

I think about Ben, who I’ve known vaguely for years because of Jay, and his floppy hair and thick jumpers. I’ve never real y thought about him in that way. ‘He’s adorable. But he’s a bit like a big sheep, don’t you think?’

‘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 . . .’