This is not where I expected journalism to take me.
Admittedly, journalism has taken me to some strange places. Council meetings that lasted longer than some minor wars. Flooded roads. Charity fundraisers. Court corridors. One memorable afternoon in a village hall where three separate people accused each other of sabotaging a scarecrow competition.
But I did not expect it to take me here.
Friday evening. Heading into the Lakes. Driving towards a fire station where I am welcome enough to bring dinner. Planning to spend the night in my girlfriend’s flat while she works a twelve-hour shift, so I can be there when she comes home in the morning and remind her to eat before she tries to survive on tea, toast and professional stubbornness.
Girlfriend.
It’s been six months since we agreed to give it a try, but the word still does something to me.
Not because it is new exactly. Six months is long enough for the shape of it to have settled around us. Long enough for toothbrushes to appear in both bathrooms. Long enough for the drive between Carlisle and Fellside to become familiar in weather, darkness, traffic and the exact lay-by where the signal drops every single time I am trying to say something sensible.
But sometimes the word still catches me.
Girlfriend.
Pippa Hart, Watch Manager, breaker of journalists, woman who once told me she did not need anyone to improve on being alone and then somehow let me try.
My phone rings through the car speakers just as the road begins to climb.
I answer with one touch on the steering wheel.
“Please tell me you’re calling to say you miss me,” I say.
“I’m calling to ask about the lasagne,” Pippa laughs.
“Romance is alive.”
“It’s alive. It’s just hungry.”
I smile. “Is this you or Kev?”
“Kev is emotionally invested.”
“Of course he is.”
“Is it from Tom’s restaurant?”
“Obviously. I’m reckless, not suicidal.”
There is a pause, and I can hear station noise behind her. Voices. A door. The faint clatter of something metallic.
“Good,” she says. “Kev says if you’d brought supermarket lasagne, you’d have to eat it in the car.”
“That seems fair.”
“He also wants to know if there are mushrooms in it.”
“If Tom served lasagne with mushrooms in his restaurant, the ghosts of his Italian ancestors would never let him sleep again.”
“I’ll pass that on.”
“Please do. With gravity.”
Her laugh is quiet.
It is not much. A breath, really. A little crack in her working voice. But I know how to hear it now.
