of a better phrase. On the few occasions that I saw you with Mark, that was never there. What happened with Hamish? I’m sure you told me.’
‘Oh, you know. Fizzled out.’
‘Shame. But you’ve got Mark now. You can’t always have the fairy dust. No one can. It’s just not realistic. Two years living in the same place, a year and a half going out before that. It’s not to be sniffed at. And neither of us is getting any younger. I mean, it’s still all going OK, isn’t it?’
‘I suppose so. So you love Martin, then, do you?’
‘He’s wonderful.’
I’m not sure, but I think a simple ‘yes’ might have been the appropriate answer to that question. I think I’ll keep the Mark holiday stuff to myself. This is becoming a disturbing conversation and I don’t want to stick anything else into the bubbling cauldron that we’re stirring here.
‘The thing is, Alexis, things are not going badly with Mark or anything, but he’s done this thing that has made me think…’
And like an idiot, I spill the whole thing to her. No matter who I’m talking to, I just cannot keep my mouth shut about it. What is wrong with me? She gives me a ‘pregnant woman sympathetic look’ as I will later come to think of it.
‘It’s just men, dear. He’s still young. He’s going to do things like this.’
OMG – she sounds just like my mother! I have to respond to that one.
‘He’s a year and a half older than me, and I don’t do things like this!’
‘Just let him get it out of his system. Once he’s back, you’ll settle into your routine again and it’ll be as if it never happened. Try and imagine if it was me that asked you to go on a holiday with me…’
‘Yeah, I’ve been through that one. And we took a couple of guys with us who were friends of yours. And Mark couldn’t come. In fact, he hadn’t actually had a foreign holiday for six years. I’d feel bloody awful about it. I’d feel like a real cow. I’d tell you that under no circumstances would I go with you. I’d tell you that I couldn’t do that to Mark. I’d tell you that I’d be afraid he’d leave me or something. I’d suggest that you found someone else to go with you, or just the three of you went. It wouldn’t kill you, would it? Just the three of you?’
I’m going crazy. I’m talking about this fictitious scenario like it’s real.
‘Really, Chloe, Forget it. You’ve got a nice, stable guy there. He’ll look after you. You’ve been with him too long to let it all fall apart now. Two years; something must be going right. Have you spoken to anyone else about this?’
I nod. I’m starting to feel beaten. I feel that maybe I’m crazy and what Mark has done is just a ‘guy thing’, to be classified alongside his computer games and Autocar collection.
‘What did they tell you?’
I take a deep breath. ‘My mother said it’ll be a fortnight next time and he’ll be taking some nice girl with him. My boss said he could have said ‘no’, but took the decision not to; my co-worker called him a little shit and my agent said that if someone did that to her, she’d walk out of the front door and never return.’
Alexis smiles and shakes her head from side to side. I’m not quite sure what this head shaking is meant to indicate, but I look at her expectantly in case it’s something good. I need something good. Something mediocre would be acceptable at the moment.
‘You’ve had four pieces of advice, now take five. Stay with Mark. You won’t regret it. All of your friends have had pretty emotional responses to this. In the main, they’ve told you what they would do under those circumstances. But they’re not you. They’re different people, all with different histories and different experiences. You have to listen to your heart on this, Chloe. It’ll tell you what to do and I know you’ll do the right thing.’
I’m sure I’ve read somewhere that you lose 10% of your brain function when you’re pregnant. I wonder if it’s true.
After we’ve had dinner and said our goodbyes, I take the long way back to the tube station so I can clear my head a little. I walk along the whole of Oxford Street and back, sometimes stopping to look in a shop window.
Alexis said I’d