Julia Gets a Life (20 page)

            ‘Mmm...’ Howard agrees. ‘I’ll have to remember the brand.’

            Okay, Julia. You’re just out of practice. I lean slightly to one side and pat the sofa.

            ‘Come along, ‘I say, ‘come and sit down with me.’

            He does. Success! Now I need to consolidate. So I pull back the arm that did the patting and drape it across the back of the sofa, the hand only inches from the back of Howard’s neck. I am just about to offer it up for the lightest of speculatory strokes when he turns towards me, looks me straight in the eye and says,

            ‘I think we’ve got our wires crossed.’

            Just like that.

            I whip my legs round and back on to the floor. Which is where Howard is now looking.

            ‘I mean....I don’t mean
our
wires, as such. I mean...’

            ‘You mean you don’t find me attractive.’ Which sounds really tight assed, but you don’t have a script to hand in these situations, do you? God!
All
that talking, and I managed to overlook his pheromones. Or absence thereof. How did that happen?

            ‘Oh, no. God, no. It’s not that...it’s just that...’

            ‘Howard, are you already going out with someone?’

            ‘No! Well, yes, I am, I suppose. Yes. Yes, I am. Just.’

            ‘Just?’

            ‘Only just. Started going out, I mean. Look, the thing is, I really, really like you, and I...’

            Oh, please. Not that old bedsock of an excuse.

            ‘But you’ve started seeing someone else.’

            Howard stands up and moves a few feet away. Is he expecting me to deck him? Should I?

            ‘Julia, I don’t know quite how to tell you this. The thing is, when you broke up with Richard and we started, well...’

            ‘And
you
asked me out.’

            ‘Not asked you out so much as asked if you fancied
going
out, which is...’

            ‘No different at all! Look, why are you splitting hairs? I don’t understand what you’re getting at. If there’s some girl you’ve already..’

            ‘There’s no
girl
, Julia. His name is Nick.’

            ‘I’m sorry?’

            ‘Nick. I’ve known him a long time, of course, but...’

            And then I fainted.

            Okay, I didn’t actually faint because you don’t really faint in those situations, do you? But I could have done. I felt like I wanted to. I was certainly dizzy (I stood up too quickly). Swaying slightly, I said,

            ‘What? You mean you’re
Gay
?’ in incredulous tones, which is exactly what you would say in response to a man telling you he has a boyfriend, but which was stupid, plainly. Of course he meant he was gay. And then I sat down again and said ‘oh,’ and Howard came and sat down beside me and put his arm around me (not a
sniff
of hesitation now), and gave me some coffee and he said how sorry he was if - no,
that -
I got the idea that there was anything romantic between us, and that he hadn’t meant that to happen, and that he was a bit embarrassed about last week and how we’d both had too much to drink and how he’d hoped (assumed) that I’d just shrug it off as us being drunk and...and...and...

            And so that’s that. Nick is the local co-ordinator for Earth Patrol, one of those thrusting ecological-warrior type charities, and he and Howard met through a school initiative some years back. And they play rugby for the same club. But neither of them acknowledged how they felt about each other because neither of them, up to a month or so ago, had ‘come out.’ Nick had even been involved in a couple of long term heterosexual relationships, but they had both, ultimately, come to an end, because he felt unable to make the necessary commitment.

            And now he and Howard are an item. And funnily enough (oh, I’m laughing fit to bust, me) I was a bit of a catalyst. Howard had, he tells me, always thought a lot of me; always felt we ‘connected’, apparently. Feels for me in every way that it is possible to feel for someone apart from sexually. That if I were a bloke....Oh,
God
. And he was very upset about what happened with Richard. He had wanted us to become friends because he thought we would be good for one another - that we could support one another. And there was George Michael, of course. Howard rather likes George Michael. It was a
big thing
, he tells me, when George Michael came out. Like a portent, about him and Nick. Personally, I think George Michael sucks.

            I sat and listened for a good hour or so, while Howard told me all about it, then we washed up together and drank cocoa in the kitchen. Then I went home.

            Once inside (deep breaths, deep breaths, mantra, deep breaths) I feel better. Home is security, reliability, all things predictable and safe, Pringles etc. I remember four things. I am

            Strong

            Warm

            So lovely

            A small glow in Howard’s day

            And because to shout and scream and call Howard a bastard (
another
one) would mean that I am really none of these things, I find myself wanting very much to forgive him all the angst he has caused me. It will, I know, be a learning experience. It will, I appreciate, mean that we can stay friends. It will, I accept, take a while to take in, and it will be, I realise, painful. In the meantime, I must learn to look on the bright side. I have a friend who trusts me enough to open his heart to me. I have a friend who is gay. My life will be enriched. I am part of the real world.

            But once again, I am in bed alone and crying. The real world sucks as well.

*

            Saturday morning. Lots of sun, lots of birds singing, lots of good old fashioned summertime ambience generally. All things considered the no hangover bonus has the edge on the no sex downer. I may feel sick, but at least I don’t feel
sick
.

            Then I look down and see, on the floor beside the bed, my dress, my stockings and my trendy grey undies, looking swizzled, mis-shapen, cast off and forlorn.

            Who am I kidding? I feel like the pits. I should have plumped for the hangover. At least it would have concentrated my mind elsewhere.

            And isn’t it strange? Eighteen years of marriage end and I spend at least half of the time I should spend grieving, in daydreaming about
lurve
, sex and exciting new horizons. Yet dumped after three dates by a bloke I only just realised I even fancied and I feel awful. I am much more vulnerable and insecure than I had led myself to believe. I am a poor, sad little person. I am doubly rejected. I am not desirable. And I have a big slug-like vein up the back of my leg.

            I’m just re-considering the whole purpose of my existence when a bang and a crash heralds the return of my children. My children who love me, at least.

            ‘Mum? You up?’ Max.

            ‘Good party?’ Emma.

            ‘No and yes,’ I quip chattily. There is no point in not continuing with the charade. I am a mother. I must laugh at adversity and put on a brave face at all times.

            ‘Did you have a lovely time at Dad’s?’ I burble on, as their feet fall like boulders up the stair treads. ‘I was just wondering if we should do something today. Go out somewhere maybe. The beach, perhaps. We could give Lily a call. I’m sure she would like a day out...’

            Max comes in and sits on the bed.

            ‘Do we
have
to?’

            ‘Well, I just thought....’

            ‘Mum, I’ve already promised my friend that I’ll go to town with her this afternoon...’

            ‘No matter,’ I say brightly. ‘It was just a thought. There’s plenty of things I should be getting on with here. Let’s have a nice cooked breakfast, shall we?’

            ‘Dad took us to MacDonalds on the way home.’

            ‘MacDonalds? Your father?’

            Yeah,’ says Max. ‘Unreal, or what?’

            ‘I think he’s beginning to realise what normal fathers do,’ says Emma, sagely. ‘Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Not when you’re an absentee father and have to be nice to your kids. Mum, look...’

            I am blinking.

            ‘...I could call and cancel. It
would
be nice to go out somewhere together, wouldn’t it, Max?’

            I shake my head gently, lest tears fly out and soak them.

            ‘No, no. You don’t want to let your friend down, Emma. You guys stick with your plans. I’m busy busy busy.’

            An hour later, however, Max realises that he has left his new Playstation game (
Death and Amputation Rally
6
) at his father’s and reminds me that the world will come to an abrupt and bloody end if he does not have access to it for the duration of the weekend. And just as Richard has learned to appreciate the importance of skills such as underwear husbandry and food shopping, so I have learned to show more sensitivity in matters relating to that part of the male fore brain that controls mindless recreational pastimes. So I volunteer to drive him round to retrieve it.

            Richard’s flat is in one of those streets full of houses that are still wired up for servants, but that have evolved into crumbling piles that house sixteen well -proportioned flat-ettes. Filled mainly, presumably, by the offspring of the sort of people who may well have once had bells themselves.

            I pull up outside number seven. Because it is on the wrong side of the street, I am kerbside. Max gets out and jogs up the path to a front door that opens onto what is, I assume, like a second home to him, but that is none of my business, not part of my life. The feeling is strange, and slightly unsettling. I almost want to drive around the block while I wait for him. But Richard comes out. He smells freshly showered. He has aftershave on. He says;

            ‘Off you go then, Max. hurry along. I’m sure your mother has better things to do than hang around here.’ Then he dips to speak to me.

            ‘Good do?’ he enquires, clearly assuming my puff pastry features are the result of a wild night. He isn’t, I note, affecting a martyred tone today. Hmmm.

            ‘So so,’ I say. ‘I’ve been to better. Anyway...thanks for having the kids..you know...’

            ‘You don’t have to thank me,’ he says, quick as you like. ‘They are my children too.’

            ‘I know, but...’

            ‘No buts.’ He waggles a finger. Then squints up the street into the sunshine. And says;

            ‘So!’

            What’s with this ‘so’ all the time? I glance in the mirror and see a car pulling into the kerb behind me. Richard straightens.