‘Mate, I’m sorry. Here any time you want to talk.’
‘Thank you.’
Ade looked at Matt and then said, ‘You been watching the cricket?’
Matt nodded. He could do cricket chat while he ate his roast. And then he was going to go home and think hard.
Twenty-Three
Lily
‘We shouldn’t have come for Greek food.’ Aaliyah poked at the olives with a cocktail stick. ‘It’s too soon after we ateactualGreek food.’ It was Wednesday evening, four days on from when Lily had last spoken to Matt – going by last time it would be several weeks before she stopped measuring everything by that – and they were in a restaurant in Acton. ‘So tell me everything about your dad.’ This was the first time Lily had seen Aaliyah since the wedding because she’d cancelled all her weekend plans to visit her dad both Saturday and Sunday.
‘There isn’t that much to tell yet. The doctors still aren’t sure what the prognosis is but he’s stable and he’s obviously in good hands, and we’re hoping for the best. I visited him this afternoon and he was in good spirits.’
‘Fingers crossed.’
‘I know.’
‘You’ve had so much on your plate recently,’ Aaliyah said. ‘How’s… everything else?’
‘Shit, actually. Matt and I got together, I thought, in Greece. We talked about why we split up before. We almost got over it, but not quite. And then it all happened again. AndGodI miss him.’
‘So whydidyou split up?Whatall seemed to happen again?’
A good half hour later, Lily came to the end of a quite phenomenal monologue and took a long sip of water to soothe her throat after all that talking.
Aaliyah shook her head. ‘So basically you love him, it sounds like he loves you, but when you went out you were never together that much because of work and so you never opened up to him the way you did with us, and you worried that if you did you might become like the fragile child you used to be again. And you thought maybe he would have thought less of you or you would have thought less of yourself. And now you know that isn’t true but you still think you can’t have a relationship because you’re rarely in the same place at the same time.’
Lily nodded and tried not to sniff.
Aaliyah handed her a napkin. ‘I just want to say that you’re quite bloody obviously the same person whether you talk about stuff or not. You aren’t one of my best friends because your asthma’s now under control. You’re one of my best friends because I had the opportunity to meet you and you’re fab and funny and loyal and great company. You’ve just spent a long time telling me about your love-life disaster with some misery about your parents thrown in – notthelightest of topics – and you still made me laugh and you kept me interested and you stopped at least twice to ask how I’m doing with work and the kids and basically you’re completely bloody wonderful. And when other people have issues you’re amazing. And when people don’t have issues you’re also amazing. And Matt obviously thinks so too and I’m thinking you should spend more time together and take things from there.’
‘Thank you. I thinkyou’reamazing. But it isn’t physically possible for me to spend enough time with Matt. Literally, whenever I’m not working, it turns out that he’s going to be away. It was always like that in the past and apparently it’s the same again.’ Lily dabbed underneath her eyes with the napkin.
‘Let’s leave the rest of this disgusting inauthentic moussaka and go to the pub.’ Aaliyah drew her into a hug.
The pub wasn’t a lot better.
‘I’ve been ruined by Greece.’ Lily pointed at her glass of red. ‘This is just horrible. It must be the atmosphere in the restaurants out there and the scenery that makes everything taste so good.’ Maybe she’d also been ruined by feeling miserable about Matt.
She wouldn’t be ruined forever. She’d got over Matt before and she’d get over him again. Although was it harder when you were older?
Aaliyah took a sip from Lily’s glass. ‘No, that’s just shit wine.’
Lily pushed the wine away. ‘Maybe we should get going. I’ll see you at the weekend.’
As they left the pub, Lily’s phone rang. She pulled it out in case it was her mum.
‘It’s Matt.’ Aaliyah was looking over Lily’s shoulder completely unashamedly. ‘You should answer it and speak to him.’
‘I don’t know.’ Lily stared at the screen.
‘Why?’
‘Well, what’s the actual point? We’re never in the same place at the same time.’
Her phone stopped ringing and Lily felt her spirits sink even lower.
