Love Always

‘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.’

I’m not sure it is for him, and I can’t blame him either. Your relationship is in your home. Your home is where the two of you are for the most part.

And your home is where you have your stuff and where you chil out after a bad day. Even after everything that’s happened, our flat is stil our flat. It’s where I have my books, where my clothes hang in cupboards, where I keep the letters Granny wrote me, the postcards Jay sent me, the Zabar’s mug I bought in New York with Cathy. I liked having space to put stuff, letting our things mingle together. In Bryant Court, Mum and I improvised almost everything. Her chest of drawers was the trunk she had at boarding school and our clothes hung on a wire rack she bought at a fair; the shelves in the kitchen were too narrow to store anything other than smal spice jars, which was ironic as neither of us ever cooked and we lived on takeout or ready-meals and occasional y pasta. So our plates and glasses and mugs were al stacked in a corner, the cutlery in a large patterned glass jar she’d got in Italy.

‘It’s a marriage, not just a home,’ Cathy says sternly. ‘For both of you.’

We had a home together, the two of us, until Oli went and ruined it. But the thing is, I think I want that home, I want us to be together. I don’t want to be out there again. I think I do stil love him. That’s the trouble.

Chapter Twenty-Three

After Cathy leaves, I do some tidying up and sorting out. I put things away, I arrange my tools in my drawer under the workbench. I update my contacts folder on my laptop (a new state-of-the-art Mac, which I convinced myself – helped by Oli, it’s true – I had to have for work, when any old computer would basical y have done). I