sent a reply:
I’m just on my way home. Give me half an hour? C
Friday 5 December 2003
Friday night, and all my friends out in town, getting drunk and flirting and shouting and dancing . . . Waving at strangers and bent double laughing, knees squeezed together in delicious hysterical agony, at the lad who’s tried to jump over a trash can in the Market Square and landed flat on his face . . . Walking from one bar to the other holding each other up, trying to pretend we’re less drunk than we actually are, although we’re more drunk than we were in the last place because of the cold, the fresh air . . . Having serious discussions in bathroom stalls, holding your friend who’s crying because she thinks he doesn’t like her anymore and anyway he’s such a twat, he doesn’t deserve you . . . Repairing makeup again, crowded around the neon-lit mirror, the floor skiddy with water from the sinks, at least one of them always full and blocked with tissue . . . At the end of the evening holding back someone’s hair, probably Claire, she’s such a lightweight, at least she made it into the bathroom this time, while later some poor girl nobody recognizes sits barefoot on the steps outside, legs splayed at odd angles, mascara-streaks down her sorrowful cheeks, her shoes on their sides next to her, her bag hanging around her neck . . . Walking home together arm in arm because there’s no money left for a cab, too late, too early, if it wasn’t winter it would be light by now, not feeling the cold because we’re so full of vodka and friendship and love for each other and anyone else who’ll stand still long enough . . .
I wasn’t out tonight, though, I was at home with Lee. He turned up at my house at seven, with three shopping bags and a tagine. He shut me out of my kitchen and I sat watching television, hugging my knees and drinking the frosty-cold white wine he brought with him, listening to him singing along to the radio, lots of banging of cabinet doors and rattling of pans.
He’d told me he wasn’t working again until Tuesday. I thought of the long weekend stretching ahead of us like a beautiful promise, all the places we could go together, falling asleep with him, waking up with him still there, and shivered with delight.
Every so often the kitchen door opened and he emerged with something else for the table—silverware, bread, some small pots of something unidentified with spoons sticking out of them.
“Anything I can do?”
“Sit there and look beautiful.”
I thought about the girls. They’d gone to the opening night of the Red Divine, a nightclub in a converted chapel. It had finally managed to open despite complaints from former worshippers, who failed to see that if they hadn’t stopped attending services the chapel would still be a thriving Christian oasis in the seething heathen mass of the town center, instead of a state-of-the-art club with three bars, leather seating and a VIP area. They’d wanted to call it Angels and Demons but that part at least had been vetoed by the licensing department at the council. There was one bonus, though: the local newspaper said that all the people who’d put in a complaint had received VIP tickets to the opening night.
I was dying to see the inside of it. Next weekend?
The kitchen door opened again, a rush of warm air and the sound of voices on the radio against sizzling, the smell of something spicy and meaty and delicious.
He didn’t even look flushed, just cool and completely in control, humming to himself as he put out some serving spoons and arranged the place mats in preparation for something hot in the middle of the table.
“Sure I can’t help?”
He came over to me and bent to kiss me. I snaked my arm around his neck to pull him closer, but he untangled himself. “Don’t distract me, I’m nearly done.”
I went back to the television with a smile on my face. My mouth was watering.
Monday 3 December 2007
I knew I only had thirty minutes to do all the checking, so that meant I couldn’t rush it, I had to do it properly first time. No mistakes. Everything six times, get the pattern right.
It was all right.
I made it up the stairs half an hour after I’d sent him the text. I hadn’t even managed