Love Always

How you are. If you’re OK.’ He nods.

Suddenly I can feel anger rushing into me. ‘Wel – I’m not OK, no.’

He looks a bit surprised. ‘Real y?’

‘Oli, what do you expect me to say?’ I drop my hands into my lap and look at him, wil ing him to understand. ‘Of course I’m not OK. My business is on the verge of going under. My grandmother’s just died. My whole family’s going into melt-down –’ I begin, and then stop, I’m not getting into that now. ‘And my husband’s left me.’

‘You threw me out, I didn’t leave,’ he says promptly, as if it’s a quiz and he knows the answer.

‘Grow up, Oli,’ I say, feeling a release of anger and riding it, loving the sensation of feeling something, anything again. ‘Is that al you’ve got?

Stil ? “You threw me out.”’ I am mimicking him. ‘You’re such a fucking child.’

He stares at me and shakes his head. ‘Nice.’ He looks as if he’s about to say something else, runs a hand through his floppy brown hair, stops.

‘Never mind. I’m sorry. Shouldn’t have said it, OK?’

‘No.’

‘No, it’s not OK? Or no, I shouldn’t have said it?’

‘Both. You pick.’

It has become so easy for us to start sniping at each other, these past few months. I don’t know where it came from. We know each other too wel and take no pleasure in that familiarity. It’s little things but they grow. I am bored witless by his al eged devotion to Arsenal. I don’t believe it either, he was never into footbal at university or when we were friends in our twenties, and al of a sudden he’s their number one fan, along with every other media wannabe in his office. No chance he’d support Grimsby Town, for example, who happen to be the nearest team to the vil age where he grew up – no, not nearly sexy enough.

While we’re on the subject, I hate the way he always orders pints now when he’s with blokes. He doesn’t like beer that much. He likes wine. He actual y used to love cocktails, but he has to be seen to be one of the lads, to fit in with the metrosexual guys in his office who think it’s fine to look at porn and find Frankie Boyle hilarious. I think that’s pathetic. Be a real man. Have the courage of your convictions and order a damn Southern Comfort and lemonade, you big pussy.

I shake my head, ashamed I’m thinking these things, and I look at him. He has his arms crossed and his face is blank, as though he’s shutting down, just as he always does when we have a row. Perhaps he doesn’t want to push it, but I can’t help it.

He changes the subject, wisely. ‘How’s your mum?’ he says. ‘Is she al right?’

Oli is very good about my family. He gets it. His father left his mother when Oli was eight, and she raised him pretty much by herself.

‘Mum’s OK. Ish.’ I wonder what’s going on at Summercove tonight. I hope Mum is keeping it together and hasn’t gone mad and attacked Louisa with a silver candlestick. Like Cluedo. I smile, and then I think, That’s not funny. I feel a bit mad al of a sudden. I look at him, at his face, the face I know so wel . His glasses are crooked, his hair is sticking up on end. I smooth my skirt with my hands. ‘She’s Mum, you know. A bit of a nightmare. But I think she’s holding it together. I hope so.’

Oli gives me a curious look. ‘You don’t have to always hold it together, you know,’ he says. ‘Everyone gives her a hard time. I feel sorry for your mum.’

I’m on my mettle. ‘You don’t know what she’s like.’

‘I do, because you’ve told me. Many times,’ he says, and then he bites his tongue, clamping his mouth shut. There’s a silence again, and I can hear my heart beating.

‘I’m sorry, I’ve obviously been real y boring about it,’ I say snappishly. I hate the tone in my voice.

Oli blinks impatiently. ‘Come on, Natasha,’ he says, as if to say, You’re being childish now. He jiggles his legs im patiently. ‘I probably don’t know what I’m talking about. Your family is a mystery to me.’ He has his palms out in a conciliatory gesture and though I know he learned this on a negotiation training course a couple of months ago I nod, because he’s right, though it irritates me.

‘They’re a mystery to me, too.’

‘I’m sure they are.’ Oli smiles and shakes his head.

I wish I could confide in him, with an ache that surprises me with its intensity. I wish we were here and it was normal again.

I would tel him about the meeting at the bank. Work out what we were going to do about it, the two of us. I would tel him about the diary and what Octavia said. Maybe we’d sit at the table and read it together. I could ask his advice, talk about where we both think the next part is, whether Mum knows about it, what I should do. I would ask about his day, about the little things that have been bothering him: whether the ad agency was happy with the campaign they put together for a new brand of peanut, or the pitch they’re doing for a big trainer company, and how the new guy from Apple who’s joined them is working out, and what he had for lunch that day and whether he remembered it’s his moth-er’s birthday in a week’s time, and . . .

We were so close, we used to joke about it. I hated it when the door closed behind him as he left for work in the mornings. I missed him al day.

He made the demons go away and the happy, sane Natasha I wanted to be stay in the room. I was even glad when he had the stomach flu and was off for two days, isn’t that dreadful? I didn’t go into the studio for two days either, I stayed at home with him and we watched Die Hard and Hitch, his favourite films, and I made him chicken broth. We both longed for the weekends, forty-eight hours together, just the two of us, Oli and Natasha, walking down Brick Lane hand in hand, cooking up a storm in the kitchen, bickering over what shower curtain to get, what dish was nicest at Tayyabs, whether to watch The Godfather Part II again or The Princess Bride.

We were our own unit of one. Joined together to make one. Both from broken families, both looking for love and