Chapter 19 #2
‘Well. I used to think there must be someone out there for me and that I’d like to meet him.
But there isn’t. I’ve been on a lot of dates, with a lot of very different men, and I mean—’ I shake my head ‘—as a romance writer I know my tropes and over the years I’ve encountered pretty much all of them, and every single relationship that I’ve had, short and long, has ended in failure.
It’s me. They just all end. Clearly it’s something about me, like there’s something about my parents.
Obviously I’ve been hurt and miserable at times, and I don’t like to upset other people, so now I’m just not doing serious romance, and I’m always very transparent about that if I meet someone and we get on and go on a few dates. I’m only up for something casual.’
Basically, I’m not lovable and I don’t think I’m capable of loving properly either. I can’t say that out loud quite so baldly to Jake, though. It’s like I can’t admit it in such basic terms.
He shakes his head. ‘You know, I feel really angry with the people who’ve made you feel this way. It isn’t about you, it’s about them.’
I shake my own head. Jake is wrong. There’s very clearly a common thread and I am that thread.
‘Look at me,’ Jake continues. ‘I’ve been married and it was a disaster. When my ex-wife left me she cited one of your books and said that I didn’t match up to the hero. I mean, that’s ridiculous. My actual wife left me for a fictional hero.’
‘You’re better than any hero I’ve ever written.’
‘Well, thank you, but that isn’t true. I’ve read your heroes and they are great. But my point is…’ He pauses for a moment and frowns, clearly having confused himself.
I wait.
He recovers and nods. ‘My point is that my marriage just wasn’t right. It was both of us. Well, and the fact that she was sleeping with her tennis coach, which I found out afterwards.’
‘It wasn’t my books then, was it, you muppet. It was that she was having an affair.’
‘But did she have that affair because of your books?’
I shake my head, definitively. ‘No. I cannot believe that she did. As I’ve said before, my view is that thinking you love a fictional character more than you love your partner is a symptom not a cause.’
‘Maybe. And I think we’ve strayed a long way from my point, which was actually that even though I have had a disastrous marriage, I still believe that there’s a happy ending out there for me.’
‘Okay. Well. Maybe it’s about optimism,’ I say. ‘Or realism. I don’t know.’
‘You’re saying I’m optimistic and you’re realistic?’
I shrug. ‘Maybe.’
‘Realistic or pessimistic?’
I glare at him.
‘Sorry,’ he says.
‘Apology accepted,’ I say coldly.
‘Really sorry?’ he wheedles.
‘Fine. Apology really accepted.’
‘Good?’
I nod, rolling my eyes.
‘Do you fancy fish and chips before we each go home?’ he asks. ‘Not to change the subject hugely. But I’m hungry and we still need to bitch about Sonja.’
Sonja called me today, and I’m guessing she called Jake too.
I would obviously like to eat fish and chips with him.
I love being with him and I’m not going to be with him much from now on and I’d like to spend a bit more time with him.
And I would really like to get us back on good, friendly terms before we go our separate ways rather than finishing with a conversation like the one we’ve just had, which did not feel totally amicable at the end. And, yes, we do need to bitch.
‘Sounds good,’ I decide.
And so we order the fish and chips and Jake moves the conversation on to cooking, which is a lovely, easy thing to talk about, and then he says, ‘So, Sonja.’
‘Yes. Cannot stand the woman.’
‘Same. She told you that they’re going to continue with the weekly montages, but longer ones, using footage from the weekend, and then in a few weeks’ time we’ll be required to go back on the show for a final hour-long live interview?’
‘Yep,’ I say. ‘Torture.’
‘Agreed. And I don’t think there’s really anything we can do other than go along with it and then be ecstatic to walk away. I think she basically holds all the cards.’
‘At least we now know that she’s properly evil and we should be very wary.’
Jake nods. ‘Yeah. I was mad to state my thoughts when we went on the first time. I would like to reiterate, for the record, that firstly I know I shouldn’t have said that stuff and secondly I do now realise I was wrong.
About your books. They’re great and of course they don’t generally break up marriages. ’
‘Love the way you put the “generally” in there,’ I can’t resist pointing out.
‘Yeah, there’s only so far I can go in admitting I’m wrong.’
I smile at him and say, in my best patronising tone, ‘Well, it’s good that you realise that.’
‘I’m going to ignore the patronisation and agree.
It’s also good—’ He stops himself from finishing his sentence and I assume that he was going to say something about the weekend or us having got to know each other and then thought better of it given our conversation earlier. ‘Would you like another glass of wine?’
‘That’s really kind but I think I’m good with water.
’ I’m a complete lightweight alcohol-wise and I do not want to give in to the immense temptation I’m feeling right now to tell him I was being ridiculous and invite him home with me so we can have more amazing sex.
If he declined the offer that would be mortifying.
And if he accepted that would be very bad. So water it is.
I don’t want to leave things on the optimism-pessimism slight dispute, so I ask about the weekend in Dublin Jake said he had planned, and from there we begin to chat.
It’s a little awkward, but I think we’re both working at it, aware that we are going to have to meet again from time to time (maybe quite regularly if Lizzie and Dan stay together), and we want it to be as easy an experience as possible.
It isn’t that easy right now, though. I feel as though I want to drink in every single one of his mannerisms, turns of phrase, facial expressions, store them away so that I can get them out sometimes and revisit them over the coming months during which I know I’m going to question myself and what happened here.
I also just want to leave so that I can get home and do some wallowing, because over the course of only one weekend Jake has managed to get to me in a way that I can’t remember anyone else ever doing.
Eventually our fish and chips are finished, and with it our polite conversation.
It’s so polite. As the server takes our plates away, we’re literally talking about the modules we took at university. It’s basically a mundane sharing of not-at-all-sensitive-or-indeed-particularly-interesting trivial information.
We walk – politely – back to Waterloo together, say our – polite – goodbyes, and take our separate Tube (Jake) and train (me) home.
I do wallow that night, and I don’t have as much rest as I would have liked, given how lacking in sleep our weekend was, so when I wake up on Wednesday morning, I feel as though I’m just going to be staggering through the day, desperate for bed again in the evening.
So I’m not delighted (which makes me feel guilty) when I get a message from Lizzie in the early afternoon saying that she wants to convene an ‘emergency discussion’ with me and can I do this evening.
I reply immediately, panicked that something has happened between her and Dan and she’s going to be devastated again.
Are you okay?
Her response is also immediate.
Yes I am. Are you though?
What? Has there been another newspaper article or something? Or is the latest Wake Up Britain montage out and is it unfavourable to me? Lizzie doesn’t know anything about our weekend, so she can’t be referring to that.
After quite a lot of toing and froing we establish that Lizzie genuinely is fine but that she thinks I am not fine but won’t say why. We agree that we’ll meet tomorrow evening so that I can get some sleep tonight. I’m so tired I’m practically seeing bunting round the edges of my vision.
On my way round to Lizzie’s flat the next evening, I’m still in two minds about whether or not I’m going to tell her about what happened with Jake.
On the one hand I want to talk about it and on the other it’s still too raw.
When I do tell someone, Lizzie’s probably the first person I would tell; she’s very kind, very sensible, very caring and always discreet.
Maybe another time, though. When I’ve digested it all a bit further.
Lizzie greets me by holding me by the hands at arm’s length and studying my face closely, before pulling me into a long hug, so I’m immediately feeling a little uneasy. (Clearly she’s convened this evening to talk about me, not her, but I don’t want to talk about me.)
‘Okay, we need wine and then you need to tell me everything about the weekend and you and Jake.’
‘Erm…’
Lizzie pulls me into her kitchen and over to the table.
‘So you and Jake,’ she says.
‘Erm,’ I repeat.
‘Dan told me. Jake told him.’ Ohhhh.
‘What did Jake say?’
‘In a nutshell that at the beginning of the weekend you were still quite hostile towards each other but by the end of Saturday you’d started getting on very well.
And that then you had two amazing nights together and Jake felt like it could be the start of something big, but you told him you don’t want to begin any kind of romance because your relationships never work out and you don’t want to get upset when this one finishes.
’ Lizzie finally pauses for breath, unscrews the lid of a bottle of red wine and fills our (quite large) glasses to the rim.
‘Good summary,’ I say, weakly.
‘What did you mean, though?’
‘Exactly what you just said.’
Lizzie frowns. ‘Basically that you know that every relationship you start will finish? So you don’t want to start one with Jake because it will finish and you’ll be upset?’
‘Yes?’ I really don’t know what’s not to understand about that.
‘But why would it finish?’
‘Because my relationships do finish.’