He looks pensive. ‘So, what you’re saying is, don’t give up?’
‘Sorry,’ I say, feeling chastened. ‘Didn’t mean to patronise.’
‘No, gosh, you didn’t. I genuinely can’t hear that enough.’
I wonder, suddenly, if this is his deal-breaker: that he wants to have kids. If that is his red line, dating-wise. I can’t probe him on it, though. We have done nothing more than share some erotically themed drinks. It would feel way too presumptuous to ask if I should walk away now, because one day he will want to start a family – and I cannot promise him that I will, too. It’s simply not something I’ve had to think about, ever since having Emma and splitting up with Lawrence.
But there is something I need to make clear – even at the risk of firmly killing the mood.I should put my cards on the table, Oliver. I’m not really looking for anything at the moment. I’m just so busy, with work and my daughter...
Because that, actually, is the truth. I just can’t picture how I would find the time to fit a relationship into my life as it stands.
Something else is also true, though. Which is that I do not, in fact, want to say any of that right now. Because I have really missed dressing up and drinking silly cocktails and flirting with a handsome man and feeling desired.
Later, in the cold at the cab rank, Oliver kisses me, his lips laced with Kahlúa and raspberry from the cocktails. He slips a hand through my hair, ribboning it between his fingers, his body inching in as the kiss starts to deepen.
I have missed my moment, I realise, to warn him I am everything he is not looking for. I should have been upfront about that from the start. But I wonder, now, if it even matters. If we might not have ended up doing this anyway.
Three taxis come and go, and I’m chilled to the bone by the time I eventually make it home. But for the rest of the weekend I cannot stop smiling, and checking my phone.
50.
Josh
December 2007
‘Wilf?Wilf. For Christ’s sake, I know you’re in there.’
After five minutes of banging on Wilf’s front door and disturbing his neighbours and attempting to say,It’s okay, I’m a friendin Spanish, it inches open, just a crack.
‘Go away.’
‘I can’t,’ I say, resisting the urge to shoulder-barge my way in. ‘I’d have to catch a plane. And I’m not doing that for another forty-eight hours.’
‘I don’t want to see you. I’ve put all that stuff behind me, Josh.’ Wilf lowers his voice to a hiss. ‘Do you know how hard it was for me to hide from them?’
‘Yes, because it’s taken me this long to track you down.’
In the end – and I will never admit this to a soul, not even Rachel – I paid a private investigator an extortionate amount of money to do in a matter of weeks what I’d failed to do in four years.
I doubted the guy at first. Told him all about Wilf’s IQ, then grilled him on exactly how he planned to find him. To which he said in a withering monotone, ‘Does he cope well with uncertainty? Can he deal with a life entirely lacking in routine?’
‘Er, no. The opposite, actually.’
‘Then that Mensa membership means fuck all, mate.’
As soon as Wilf lets me in, my relief pivots without warning to anger. So much time spent worrying about his welfare, being stalked in my own home, abruptly cut off and unable to talk tohim. I shove him, hard, both hands to his chest. ‘You fucking abandoned me.’
Red-faced, and apparently equally furious, Wilf shoves me back, with surprising force. I have to grab the edge of the doorway to keep my footing.
I straighten up and we regard each other, breathing hard. It’s my move, now, apparently.
Tension sharpens the space between us. For a moment, this could go either way.
No. I shudder out a breath, turn my back. I didn’t come all the way out here to have a fist fight with the guy who saved my life.
Without invitation I move into Wilf’s living room, the ceramic tiles chilling my feet through my socks. ‘Seriously, did our friendship mean nothing to you? You knew people were after me and you slunk away like a fucking coward. They broke into my flat three times. I was followed home from work, I got silent phone calls—’
‘That’s why Ileft, you idiot.’
