Despite the half-joking eyeroll, he can’t hide his frustration.
I wait till we’ve sat down and started eating before saying, “Are you finding your sister’s decision hard to accept?”
He shoots back, without even looking up from his plate, “Would you find it easy? Would anyone?”
I take a bite of the macaroni-cauliflower cheese mix. It’s good and works. Osian must think so too because he’s eating fast, taking big bites.
Choosing my question carefully so as not to offend him, I ask, “You had no idea your sister was bi?”
“Bi?” He takes a long pull on his beer. “Oh, no, she’s not bi. According to her, she’s a lesbian – always was. The eleven-year marriage and three children were all just a blip – a mistake.” He pushes his plate away, still half-full.
“You know,” I say, as gently as I can, “some gay people struggle with accepting they will have a different sexuality. Oftenthey make themselves try to have a conventional marriage and family.”
“Yeah, that’s what she said. That she tried but couldn’t go on lying to herself.” He pushes his chair back and gets up. It’s clear he’s not going to eat because he’s scrunched up his paper napkin and thrown it over his food. When he sees me doing the same he quickly says, “Stay, I’m just going to get another beer.”
Telling him not to drink on a half-empty stomach would probably annoy him. So I just clear the table and move to sit on the leather sofa. If my apartment wasn’t in chaos, I’d have suggested we move there because my sofa is of good quality linen, not this masculine leather monstrosity. Unfortunately, my place has clothes and shoes flung everywhere – a testimony to my hurricane of choosing what to wear so I can look like I grabbed the first thing.
Osian comes back with a fresh bottle and, seeing me on the sofa, comes to join me. Not too close, but close enough that I can smell the malty dry lager and can see the five o’clock shadow on his jaw.
He sinks deep into the sofa and brings his legs up to cross on the coffee table. It’s such an unconscious automatic move, he must sit like this all the time. Even the books and papers on his coffee table are in two stacks to left and right, keeping the centre for his legs.
“It’s not that I don’t have sympathy for her sexual choices,” he says, as if continuing a conversation. “I’m sorry she had to suppress her real self for so long. But what I do find unforgivable is how they both have given up so completely. It makes a mockery of marriage and commitment. Even love. When you make promises, you keep them no matter how difficult. No one promised life was going to be a party with balloons andstreamers.” He waves a hand in the air as if wafting imaginary balloons. “If you’re going to throw away your vows like that, why make them in the first place?”
He drops his head back on the leather headrest. “How could she have loved someone enough to promise to spend the rest of her life together if she didn’t really mean it? Which was the lie? The first marriage or this new one?” He turns his head, still on the back of the sofa, to regard me.
He keeps looking at me, waiting for an answer.
“Maybe neither is a lie. People do change. You said an eleven-year marriage?”
He nods slowly, still watching me.
“Eleven years is a long time. Sometimes people just grow apart.”
He seems to consider this as he brings the bottle to his lips and drinks again, his Adam’s apple working up and down. Then he smiles. A self-deprecating grin. “I guess in many ways, I’m still the boy who played tennis. When you put on your whites and grab your racket, you have to focus on one thing: the game. You keep going no matter how hard it feels, how much pain you feel. You can’t afford to change your mind.” He blows out a long, slow breath. Then glances at me and his smile becomes real. His face relaxes. “Thank you.”
“What for?”
“Putting up with my hissy fit.” His gaze stays on me. Relaxed. As if he’s enjoying looking at me.
We’re close enough that I can hear him breathe; it’s a very intimate sound. Normally I only hear men breathe like this when we’re… well, in bed. To break the strange tension, I get up topour myself another glass of cold elderflower fizz. In fact, when I get back to the sofa, I’d better sit sideways, with my legs folded in front of me. A casual, less parallel position that doesn’t look like two people lying side by side in bed.
I sit, turn ninety degrees sideways and lift my legs up. The move upsets my full glass and spills half of it over my leg and the sofa; a stream of liquid slides down towards him.
We both jump away from the spill but too late; there’s a wet stain on Osian’s beige trousers.
“I’m sorry. What a fumble-tumble.” I snatch several tissues from the Kleenex box on the table.
“Fumble-tumble?” he asks, half-laughing.
“My dad used to call me that because I used to be clumsy. Thank God I’m so much better now,” I crack sarcastically while wiping. The leather sofa makes the water run down channels in the surface and get everywhere. “Sorry it’s all over your sofa and your clothes,” I moan, trying to prop myself up on one hand while wiping the cushion.
“It’s okay. I have had far worse things spilled on me.” He takes the tissues from me and tosses them into the waste basket near him. “Sit down and stop fussing.” He puts a hand on my knee to keep me from getting up.
Reluctantly I subside and criss-cross my legs again.
“Over this last week, the kids spilled everything – milk, juice, toothpaste and even spag-bol.”
“What did you do?” I ask, pretending not to notice Osian’s hand is still on my knee.
