Nick laughs.
“So how has your week been?” he says, and I wonder whether to tell him about Amanda and the pictures she doesn’t know she’s going to be doing, and I do tell him because it’s a good story, and he laughs and laughs, and I’m having a good time. In fact, I’m having a much better time than I thought I would be.
You see, the thing is that since the other night, the night I spent with Nick, every time I thought about him I thought about the sex. I never really thought about him as a person because sex objects don’t need to have personalities, do they? But sitting here, in the early evening warmth, I’m surprised that Nick’s so nice, so easy to be with, so laid-back.
And then Nick tells me about his week. He tells me that once again he did a mailshot, this time to eight publishers, sending them the first three chapters of his masterpiece, and that already he’d had one rejection letter saying interesting concept but “not for us.”
“Would you ever consider going into another field?” I venture, wondering why he’s bothering if he’s no good at it.
“Nah.” He shakes his head. “Well, maybe. If something interesting came along I suppose so, but this has always been my dream.”
“But how do you live?”
“What d’you mean?”
“Where do you get money from?”
“Her Majesty’s Government,” he says proudly, and I blanch.
“You mean you’re on the dole?”
“Yup.”
“Oh.” I’m speechless, and as I sit there wondering what to say next I think of how Jules would laugh. From Jon with his Mazda MX-5 to this. Oh dear. What the hell am I doing here?
“I don’t mind,” he says, laughing at my face. “Even though you, apparently, do.”
“It’s not that I mind,” I say, and I decide not to tell him that I’ve never met anyone before who’s on the dole. “It’s just that it seems a shame to waste your talents.”
“But I’m not wasting them. I’m waiting for them to be recognized.”
“Oh,” I say. “Well, that’s okay, then.”
“So,” he says, after our fourth drink (I got two rounds, I’m not that stingy, particularly given that he’s on the dole), “are you hungry?”
And I realize that I am. Starving.
“There’s a really nice pizza place around the corner. I thought we could walk up there and have some dinner.”
“Mmm.” I nod my head vigorously. A little too vigorously, perhaps, because those lagers have gone straight to my head. “That sounds perfect.” And we get up and start walking, and it’s not round the corner, it’s practically the other side of bloody London, and after about twenty minutes I say, “Nick, where is this place?”
“Nearly there,” he says. “God, you’re hopeless.”
“I’m not,” I say, and playfully slap him, and he turns to me and grabs me, saying, “Don’t you slap me, young lady,” and I giggle as he tells me my punishment is to kiss him, and I reach up and give him a quick peck on the lips, and he stands back and smacks his lips.
“Nope,” he says. “That wasn’t enough.”
I give him another kiss, just slightly longer, and he stands there again and shakes his head, so I move over again, and this time he opens his eyes and looks at me as I’m kissing him, and before I know it, it’s turned into a huge, delicious, yummy snog, and my stomach turns upside-down.
And it breaks the ice—the little there was left. I don’t notice the last twenty minutes of the walk because we’re holding hands and stopping every few minutes to kiss each other passionately, and we’re giggling like teenagers and I’ve forgotten all about my hunger and my aching legs, and suddenly Nick turns to me and asks how my legs are.
“They’re fine,” I say, having stopped moaning about the walk the minute he kissed me.
“You don’t want a piggyback?”
“You’re crazy!” I laugh. “No, I don’t want a piggyback,” but before I know it he flings me over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift and runs down the road, while I scream delightedly and bang his back to let me down, which is sort of what I want but only because I’m worrying that I’m too heavy, and then we’re there, and you know what? I wish this walk could go on forever because I can’t remember having had this much fun in ages.
And we have a tiny cozy table in one corner with a candle in a wax-covered bottle in the center, and everyone else in there looks exactly like Nick: young, trendy, struggling, but they’re all smiling, and I wonder whether perhaps I could get used to this, this world away from the smart, posey bars and restaurants I’m used to, where the people seem to be more relaxed, unconcerned about dressing to impress, and whether Nick’s way of life isn’t so bad after all.
The waiter comes over to take our order, and he obviously knows Nick and there’s much shaking of hands and “good to see you’s,” and then Nick tells him what he wants while I sit there thinking, you should have asked me first, and then I think it really doesn’t matter, and I say that I’ll have a pizza fiorentina and a side salad, and Nick orders a bottle of house red.
As soon as the waiter goes, Nick gets a slightly serious look on his face and sighs.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
There’s a silence.
“Okay,” he says finally. “Do you think it’s time we should have that talk?”
Oh shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. I knew this was too good to be true. This is the time he tells me he doesn’t want to see me again.
“Well,” I say hesitantly. “I didn’t think we had anything to talk about, but if there’s something on your mind perhaps you’d better get it off your chest.”
“Okay.” He nods. And then he sighs. And then he doesn’t say anything and I start feeling sick.
“Look,” he says. “The thing is,” and he stops and looks at me and then takes my hand over the table, but after about two seconds I pull away because I know I’m not going to like what he’s about to say and I don’t want to have my hand in his while he’s saying it.
“Jesus,” he says. “This is so difficult.”
“For Christ’s sake,” I say, my nervousness giving my voice a loud, sharp edge, “will you just say it?”
“Okay.” He nods. “The thing is, I’m not ready for a relationship.”
I don’t say anything. I don’t need to. I’ve heard it all before.
“But”—and he looks up—“I really like being with you.”
“So what are you saying?”
“I don’t know.” He sighs and shakes his head. “I think what I’m saying is that I need you to know that I’m not ready for commitment. I’m not really ready for a relationship. I’ve been single for a while, and I’m really enjoying it and I’m not ready to give that up.”
“So is this it?”
“Well, no,” he says. “Because I really like you and I want to keep seeing you, but I just don’t want you to get the wrong idea.”
“But, Nick, I’m not ready for a relationship either,” I say, which is true. “I’ve been single for a while and I’m in exactly the same position.” He looks relieved. “And I know that you’re not The One, and I know I’m not The One for you, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t enjoy each other.”
The relief on his face is spreading. I swear, I can practically see his shoulders relax.
“So you’re okay with that?” he says.
“Absolutely.” I nod firmly. “We like being with each other, we have lovely sex, so let’s just relax and enjoy it for as long as it lasts.”
“Libby,” he says, reaching over the table and kissing me, “you’re fantastic!”
And I blush and I think to myself, there. That wasn’t so bad. And at least it will stop me from falling for him. Not that I would, you understand. It’s just that now I definitely won’t. There’d be no point.
And we have a lovely dinner. No, that’s not actually quite true, because although I can’t speak for Nick I know that I hardly noticed the food, I was far too busy kissin
g him over the table and holding his hand under the table, but it was lovely. The evening was lovely. He was lovely.
And you know the nicest thing about it? The nicest thing was to be with a man on a Saturday night. To pretend that we were a couple. To pretend that I’m as good as the rest of the women in here, that I’ve got a man too, that I’m not some sad, single, lonely woman out with the girls again on a Saturday night.
You probably think I’m mad. I know Jules thinks I’m mad, because there are advantages to being single. When you’re busy and sociable and meeting men and going on dates, it’s the best thing in the world and you wouldn’t want it any other way. But, when all your single girlfriends suddenly seem to have boyfriends and you’re the only one who’s on your own, it’s as miserable as sin. You phone your partners in crime and ask them if they’ll go to a bar with you on a Saturday night, and they apologize profusely and say they’re with Steve, or Pete, or Jake, but they can meet you for a coffee in the afternoon. If you’re lucky they’ll glide in on their own with huge smiles on their faces and sit and regale you with tales of how wonderful He is; and if you’re unlucky they’ll drag Him along so you’re forced to make small talk with someone you don’t know, as your friend gazes into His eyes, enraptured by every boring thing He comes out with, and you make a move as quickly as is decently possible.
And you spend Saturday nights on your own or, worse, at dinner parties they’ve organized when more often than not they’ve been let down by the creepy spare man they’ve invited for you, so it’s three couples and you on your own and you spend the whole evening feeling like shit.
But tonight I’m one of them. I belong! And you know what? I love it.
We finish dinner and walk back to Nick’s flat, because it’s presumed that I’ll be staying, even though neither of us has mentioned it, because what, after all, does “enjoy each other” mean, if not sex? And Nick leads me up a path to a tall, redbrick Victorian building, and there are slatted blinds on the window at the front. I can just about see through, and it doesn’t look horrible, it looks lovely.
A light’s been left on, and okay, it’s not quite my taste, but I can see that it’s nice, not the hellhole I expected at all. And I walk through the front door and, as Nick riffles through the envelopes on a table in the hall, I put my bag down by his front door and wait.
Nick looks up and starts laughing. “That’s not mine,” he says. “I’m upstairs.”
“Oh,” I say, flushing and picking up my bag. “Sorry.”
And we go upstairs and he unlocks the door that really is his front door, and I walk straight into what I presume is the entire flat, and it’s horrible.
Not that it’s dirty, at least not on first sight, it’s just that it’s so messy, and untidy, and uncoordinated. There’s an unmade futon at one end, which I presume doubles as a sofa when Nick can be bothered to make it, which he evidently didn’t do this morning because the duvet’s still crumpled up at the bottom, and there are piles of papers and magazines everywhere. And I mean everywhere. You can hardly walk and, as I pick my way across the room, I think that the piles of papers are probably preferable to the floor, because the few bits I can see are swirly orange and brown pub carpet, and I sit gingerly on an armchair that’s obviously seen better days. Far, far better days. A long time ago.
The furniture all looks as if it’s been picked up at junk shops, which it undoubtedly has, and it’s falling apart, and shelves have been put up haphazardly everywhere, and there are so many books that they’re stacked up instead of neatly lined up like in my flat, and it’s a dump.
A bloody dump.
“Would you like some tea?” Nick says, disappearing into what must be the kitchen, and I get up to follow him in there but he comes back out and says, “Stay here. The kitchen’s a mess. I’ll bring it out to you,” and I wonder what the hell the kitchen can be like, and decide that as long as I’m here I’m never setting foot in it.
“Sorry it’s a mess,” he says, bringing out the tea in two chipped mugs. “I meant to tidy it today but didn’t have time.”
“It’s fine,” I say, racking my brain to try to come up with a compliment. “It’s exactly what a writer’s flat should look like.”
“You think?” he says, obviously chuffed.
“Definitely.” I nod.
“It suits me,” he says. “But I do need to clean it up a bit more often.”
I keep quiet and sip my tea.
And then he comes and sits next to me and starts stroking my back, and I put my tea down and lean into him and after a few minutes forget about the flat, forget about the mess, forget about everything except the feeling of his hand on my back, and I turn around to kiss him, and, I suppose, one advantage of this place is that it only takes a second to move to the futon, and I don’t even notice the state of the sheets because Nick’s pulled my T-shirt up and he’s undoing my bra and mmm. This is lovely.
And I unbutton my own jeans, furiously tugging them off, not wanting to waste a second, and then I watch as Nick unbuttons his, and I watch, mesmerized, as his cock stands straight out of his boxer shorts, and Nick watches me watching him stroke his cock, and then I lean forward and kiss the tip, and he groans, and I push him back so he’s on his knees, and I open my lips and take the tip in my mouth, then the whole of the shaft, and he exhales very quickly.
After a while he whispers for me to stop or he’ll come, and he pulls me up and our tongues mesh together with passion, and he strokes my breasts before moving one hand down, over my underpants, and it’s my turn to exhale loudly, and he teases me for a while, and then he pulls the fabric aside and yes, that’s it, his fingers stroking my clitoris, reaching inside me to make them wet, to help them slide, and with the other hand he circles my breasts until he reaches the nipples, and he pinches them and I moan and sink back on the bed.
And then all our clothes come off, and I can’t take this anymore, I insist he put a condom on and enter me NOW, and he does and it’s better, God, so much better than I remember, and as he moves in and out I suck his neck, and I wonder why it’s never felt so good before, and then I stop wondering because Nick pulls me up to change position, and I look confused because why move when this feels so good, but he whispers, “You’ll see,” and he turns me around and enters me from behind, and as he does he moves one hand down to rub my clitoris at the same time, and suddenly I’m moaning in rhythm with him, and I feel the build-up and then I’m making these incredibly animalistic sounds as the most intense orgasm of my life sweeps over me.
And afterward I’m exhausted, and I do something I’ve never ever done before. I fall asleep in his arms.
“So Libby dear,” says my mother, pouring the tea out of her best china teapot. “How was last night?”
You know, it’s an extraordinary thing but here I am, twenty-seven, independent, mature, sophisticated, yet the minute I step through my parents’ front door I regress to being a surly teenager, and I feel the same exasperation at my parents’ questions now as I did ten years ago.
“It was fine,” I say, determined to be nice, not to let them get to me.
“And?” my mother says with a smile.
“And what?” I grunt, picking up the delicate teacup.
“And is he nice?”
“He’s okay.”
“If he’s just okay why are you going out with him?” She trills with laughter, and pushes her hair behind her ears—a nervous habit I’ve unfortunately inherited.
“I’m not going out with him,” I grunt. “We just went out last night.”
God, I think, mentally raising my eyes to the ceiling. What would she say if I told her the truth? If I told her that yes, I went out with someone, and then we went back to his place and shagged each other senseless until we both fell asleep, and then in the morning had tea in bed (sorry, my romantic notions of breakfast in bed were slightly ambitious, given that the only things in Nick’s fridge, he grudgingly admitted, were a six-pack of beer, a tub of butter and
half a pack of bacon that was meant to have been eaten three months previously), then had sex again, and that I came straight here (again, we never managed that walk because Nick wanted to watch the football, so I amused myself reading back copies of Loaded).
“And what does he do?”
“He’s a writer.”
“Ooh, a writer. How exciting. What does he write?”
She may be irritating, but I can’t tell her the truth. “He writes, er, he writes articles.”
“What sort of articles?”
“For men’s magazines.”
“That’s nice. He must be successful.”
“Yes. Mum?” I’ve just thought of something to change the subject. “I thought you had chocolate marzipan cake.”
“Oh, silly me,” she says, standing up as I breathe a sigh of relief. “I completely forgot. It’s in the kitchen.” And she disappears while I catch Dad’s eye and smile as he rolls his eyes to the ceiling.
And then Mum comes back out and says, “Does your young man have a name?”
“He’s not my young man, and yes. His name’s Nick.”
“Nick,” she repeats, thinking about it. “Nicholas. Oh, I do like the name Nicholas. Where does he live?”
“Highgate.”
“Very posh,” she says, and I think how she’d have heart failure if she saw his flat. “He must be doing well if he can afford to live in Highgate. Has he got one of those lovely big houses, then?”
“No, Mum,” I sigh. “No one I know lives in big houses, you know that. We all have flats.”
“Of course you do,” she says. “So have you been there? Is it a nice flat?”
“Give her a break,” says my dad, putting down the paper. “It’s early days, isn’t it, Libby?” and I nod, smiling at him with relief.
“I just worry about you,” says Mum, smoothing down her apron and sitting down. “When I was your age I was happily married and you were three years old. I don’t understand all you girls. So independent.”