‘Not everyone thinks like that. Some are big on complaining.’ I think of Natalie, who was always telling me I wasn’t doing things right. My parents are the same.
‘Are you speaking from experience?’ Of course Lydia is straight in there with the questions. Normally I wouldn’t answer but what the hell, we’re buried in the bowels of a bus, nothing’s normal.
‘I was thinking of my mother … and my ex-girlfriend. But mainly my mother. She complains a lot. I’m late. I’m early. I’m not wearing the right suit—’
‘Don’t tell me she doesn’t love your Brioni suit?’
I laugh. ‘In the right circumstances, yes, but if I turn up to Sunday lunch in the wrong sort of trousers—’
‘No!’ says Lydia with mock horror. ‘There are wrong sorts of trousers? Why didn’t I know this?’
When she says it like that, I realise how ridiculous it is. ‘My mother notices that sort of thing. Apparently it’s disrespectful not to be correctly attired when someone has invited you to lunch.’ I pause and add, ‘She just has high standards.’
And suddenly I’m defending my mum and I’ve no idea why. It’s bugged me for most of my life that she and my dad have this perverse snobbery and narrow, self-defined expectation of how you should behave.
‘So what sort of trousers are wrong for Sunday lunch? Not that I’m expecting an invite.’
‘You know…’
‘No, I don’t know. I have no idea.’
‘If its lunch in the garden then chinos might be acceptable but not shorts. Not at lunch.’
‘Right and if lunch is in the house?’
‘If it’s in the dining room, then trousers with a shirt.’
‘With a shirt. You don’t go topless then? Or is that if you eat in the kitchen?’
I laugh out loud. Her teasing makes me forget the fuss that Mum and Dad can make if you don’t do things the way they should be done. They’re really good at laying on the emotional blackmail.
‘We never eat in the kitchen. Always the dining room.’ I put on a slightly snotty scandalised tone, the sort my mother would use. I wait for Lydia to take the piss. Our short acquaintance is enough for me to know that she is not one to hold back. To my surprise though, she doesn’t say a word. The silence makes me think that she’s digesting this fact and I wonder what she’s thinking.
‘You said your ex-girlfriend complained a lot. Is that why she’s an ex?’
‘No,’ I say, surprised by the change in direction of the conversation. ‘I’m used to complaints. I’m good at ignoring them.’ Which is a lie. I’m just good at avoiding them and working out which ones I can put up with.
‘How long were you with her?’
Shit. Easy question. Difficult answer. I shift a little, conscious that my bum is a bit numb. I do a quick count. How do I sum it up? The time we dated, or do I include the last part where we were just friends but benefits crept in?
‘Are you counting on your fingers?’
It might have been nine months if I count the booty calls – which she made too, to be fair. I go with ‘Seven or eight months.’
‘Seven or eight. You’re not sure?’
Now I shift uncomfortably and it’s nothing to do with the numbness in my backside. ‘I thought it was over, but she didn’t get the memo.’
‘You sent her a memo?’ Lydia sounds half amused and half appalled. ‘I’ve heard of break-ups by text but not by memo.’
‘No, of course I didn’t.’ There’s another one of those guilty pauses. ‘I might have given her mixed messages.’
Lydia’s straight onto it. ‘Let me guess, the classic “I don’t want to see you anymore but I’m happy to keep having sex with you”?’
How does she know? But it was mutual … or so I thought. I found out later I was very wrong about that.
‘I didn’t lead her on. I made it clear. But she…’ Am I really going to say this out loud? ‘She said I was emotionally unavailable.’ I can’t believe I just admitted that. It’s been going round and round in my head for weeks. I guess a female perspective on it might be useful. God knows my mates, Griff and Rob, have no insight. They just take the piss and use the phrase on every possible occasion.
‘Hmm, is that what emotionally unavailable means? Making it clear in word but not in action?’
I’m not sure what she means. It’s like I’m high up on the trapeze without a safety net.
‘Although to be fair,’ she continues, ‘you’re good at making things very clear.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ I ask even though I probably shouldn’t.
‘You’re very good at switching off your emotions. I’ve seen you do it. The portcullis comes down. Your eyes go blank.’
‘When have I done that?’ I try to say it casually, but it comes out defensive because I know I do it… Shit. I’ve walked right into no man’s land. The thing that we’ve both been skirting around since the day we met in Barcelona.
‘You don’t remember?’
‘Don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Or rather, I know exactly what she’s talking about and I don’t want to go there. It will involve peeking under the covers to see what’s really there. I want to ignore what happened.
‘Tom! Get real. You know exactly what I’m talking about. We had sex. A ton of it.’
In the dark I wince. Sex in the bedroom. Sex in the bathroom. The kitchen. Even the hall. The recollection of the pure heaven of sliding into her the very first time, that absolute sensation of relief, of being whole, stiffens my cock.
