I stop outside The Sweet Jar Hotel, feeling stranded and utterly stupid, and also decidedly tipsy, in this unfamiliar town. Silly Josie, assuming that seeing each other regularly, and going on holiday together and, latterly, him embarking on home improvements for me meant that we were actually a couple. I feel sometimes that the world is speeding ahead of me and I’m blundering along in its wake.
‘So we’re not exclusive,’ I remark.
Lloyd has the decency to wait a moment, possibly to choose his words with care. ‘Josie, look… I like you a lot. I really do. I think you’re lovely and sweet and?—’
‘Sweet?’ I bark at him.
‘But I think we’re at quite different stages.’
‘Fine,’ I snap. ‘It’s fine.’
‘I’m still doing your kitchen shelves,’ he adds quickly. ‘They’re looking great so far! I’ll get them finished in the morning, you’ll be so pleased when you come home?—’
‘No, just leave them,’ I cut in.
‘What?’
‘Get out of my flat right now, Lloyd.’
‘But—’ I sense him frowning, perplexed by my unreasonableness. ‘Don’t want me to finish them properly?’
‘No, I don’t!’
‘Okay, okay, no need to shout?—’
‘Just lock up and put your keys through my letter box.’ With a gulp, I finish the call and scrunch up my eyes as if, when I reopen them, I’ll have turned into a sensible woman fully in control of her life.
30
Ridiculously, the hotel bar has closed. I consider firing off a furious letter to the Pontefract Gazette, if such a paper exists. But instead, I grab Shane’s arm as we make our way, a little woozily, up to our room.
As we navigate the stairs, I’m trying to figure out how upset I really am, and what I’m feeling. It’s not heartbreak, I know that much. It’s not even on the fringes of it. Viewing the situation through a blur of sugary booze, I’m not sure what it is. It seems funny, almost, as Shane and I make our way along the corridor. How slapdash of Lloyd, to missend a message! He’s so meticulous with his work, and how he stores his tools and shaves in the morning and rolls a joint perfectly – like they’ve been factory-made. Yet with messaging – even though he double-thumbs like a youngster – it’s all typos and half-written nonsensicals, or they’re not sent at all: ‘Sorry babe, I thought I’d replied!’ In a wider sense, his communications skills aren’t the best, and I realise I don’t actually know the man, not really.
Shane swipes our key card and we step into the room. ‘Well, it’s not the van, at least,’ I announce.
‘No, it’s not.’ A pause settles, and he looks at me as if he wants to say something else.
‘What is it?’ I ask.
‘It’s just—what we said in the pub.’
My breath catches. ‘About what happened?’
‘No, not about that. I mean… it just feels a bit weird, that’s all.’
I look at him, not understanding. ‘You mean being here? Staying in a hotel together?’
He looks away and my heart seems to thud. ‘No, it’s not that either. I don’t know. I s’pose it’s sunk in, that’s all. That soon we’ll be heading back south?—’
‘Yes, I know.’
‘And this’ll all be over.’
His words seem to float around us. So he hasn’t had enough of this, after all. Something new wells up in me and my heart quickens. ‘It needn’t be,’ I say quietly.
‘Needn’t it?’
‘No.’
