I light up in bed, then send Rachel a text.
Have to say, I’m not a fan
Okay
Don’t want to sound bitter, but you can do better
You don’t know him
Do you??
I’m sorry if he made you feel uncomfortable
He didn’t. But it should worry you that he tried.
She doesn’t reply.
53.
Rachel
December 2007
One evening close to Christmas, Oliver and I have just got home from a night out with Giles and Lola when he says, ‘Can I ask you something? It’s about Josh.’
I make us both a mint tea while Oliver switches on a lamp, flips through my CDs. There is no jazz, so he picks blues, an album that probably once belonged to Lawrence.
Oliver and Josh met for the first time in the pub a couple of nights ago. Just briefly, while we were all at the bar. An encounter so fleeting that neither of us even mentioned it afterwards.
But Josh texted that night, to let me know exactly what he thought of Oliver. I read his messages, surprised to see they were uncharacteristically acerbic, then deleted them straight away.
‘Giles mentioned something earlier, about Josh being twenty-nine,’ Oliver says from the sofa, as I pass him his tea. ‘I said I thought he was your age, then he got all flustered and told me to talk to you about it.’
I sit down next to him. It’s actually surprising, to be honest, that all this hasn’t come out before tonight, given that we’ve been seeing each other for nearly three months now.
‘You’re thirty-seven,’ Oliver prompts, as if he thinks I might have forgotten.
‘I know,’ I say, with a loose smile.
‘Okay, I mean, hardly an enormous age gap,’ he says slowly. ‘But there’s obviously something going on here. Can you fill me in?’
So I do, because it’s only fair. I tell him everything, apart from where Josh got the pill.
Oliver listens intently the whole time I’m talking, never taking his eyes off me. When I’m done, he leans back on the sofa and clips out a breath, loosens his shirt collar. ‘So Josh is actually your age, chronologically. But he looks twenty-nine, and will do for the rest of his life?’
‘Yep.’
‘Wow. Talk about a head-fuck.’ He glances over at me. ‘That’s why you left?’
I nod.
‘You should have stayed. Had yourself a toy-boy.’
I swallow. ‘That’s not funny.’
There’s a slight chill to the air now. I reach to the back of the sofa, pull Emma’s Peppa Pig blanket over my knees.
‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘Look, for what it’s worth, I actually agree with your stance. You’d be mad to take a pill like that. I can’t think of anything more horrifying than living indefinitely, frankly.’
