Phil, if you asked. Oh, yeah, Ben would say, Phil’s a nice guy. Don’t know him that well.
Ben was my boyfriend. Had been for years. Ridiculously, on and off since we were fifteen. In fact it was a bit of a joke. We’d met at school, gone out for a year, split up for a year, got together in the sixth form, got a bit more serious, split up for our gap years, and ended up going to the same university together. We hadn’t intended to, but I had to go through clearing because I hadn’t got my grades and the only place I could read history was at York, where Ben was. I’d worried slightly that he might think I was following him up there, but he was very cool, totally relaxed, and after the first year we were back together again, and then for the next three. There were the inevitable jokes about us being a little married couple and joined at the hip, and girlfriends asked me if I’d ever been out with anyone else, but we shrugged it off. Then in London we were still together; at parties, concerts, suppers, always Ben and Poppy, Poppy and Ben.
It wasn’t that unusual. It was cosy too. But when Jennie came back to the flat we shared in Lavender Hill one evening, pounding up three flights of stairs, coat flying, cheeks flaming, like the cat who’d got the cream, crying, ‘I’ve met him! I’ve met the man I’m going to marry! He’s called Dan and he’s a wine trader and he’s a bit older than me and I love him, I love him – and oh, my God, I’ve never felt like this before. Never!’ – when I looked down into her shiny eyes as she flopped on the sofa, I wondered if I ever had. Felt that sheer, unadulterated, in-loveness. That euphoria. And when she’d gone to meet Dan for dinner in Chelsea – Ben and I could only afford the pub – still wrapped up in her happiness, I’d felt a bit flat. A bit jealous. Jennie hadn’t had a boyfriend for a couple of years, was always bemoaning the fact, but now it seemed she’d not only landed on her feet, but leaped ahead of me; sprung up the ladder, trumping me with not just a boy next door of our own age, but a proper romantic hero, who sent flowers to her office, took her on proper dates to restaurants, was older, sophisticated, and what’s more, adored her.
And then Ben had come round complaining he’d had a shitty day, kicking his shoes off like we were married, slumping down in front of the television, while I made us spag bol in the kitchen and while Jennie sat in Tante Claire, toying with artichokes and blushing prettily. And when I brought supper in to eat on our laps in front of Friends, Ben had his feet up on the sofa, was yawning widely and scratching his balls, and for some reason I flipped; I snapped at him about not being a bloody waitress. Then a few weeks later, I split up with him.
A guy in my office, in my PR agency, had been flirting with me for months. An attractive guy called Andy: slightly rough around the edges, not strictly my type, but rather thrilling, very good-looking. Hot. Andy and I had a fling. A very exciting one in his flat in Docklands. He was only the second man I’d ever been to bed with, and he whisked me off to nightclubs – admittedly more Brixton Sound than Annabel’s – and we had a laugh. We drank a great deal, smoked in Ronnie Scott’s and I thought I was living. I think I knew his family were a bit shady but I never met them. And then one night, over dinner, he admired the jewellery I was wearing; it was quite good because it had been Mum’s. A heavy gold chain and a bangle she’d always worn. And he asked me why I didn’t accidentally lose them and claim on the insurance? Because it had never occurred to me. But after that – and it took some time for the penny to drop – one or two other things did. Like the way Andy gambled a lot and spent nearly every Sunday night playing poker. And a few weeks later we argued about something, and he pushed me. Not hard, but I fell against the wall.