Maybe things between us will feel more normal, for want of a better word, if we justchatrather than plunging straight into the deep stuff.
My mind is actually quite blank, though. Nadia would be astonished if she could see me now; when I’m with her – well, with most people actually, including Lola the first time we met – I’m not usually at a loss for words or conversation topics. Well, apart from with Nadia when we’d just had sex, but that was different. And even then wecouldhave talked, it was more just that wedidn’t, because we couldn’t talk about what weshouldhave been talking about.
‘So you like a Caesar salad,’ I say after much searching for words.
‘I do.’ She elongates thedoso that it’s almost two syllables, which makes me laugh, and that feels better.
‘Do you cook a lot?’
‘Tom,’ she admonishes. ‘We aren’t here to talk about cooking.’
‘Right. Whatarewe here to talk about?’
‘Us. Obviously.’
I nod because that’s fair enough. Although we can’t talk about us forever. But, no, obviously she just meansnow.
I wait, because I feel like I’ve said some stuff aboutusand Lola hasn’t, so I’d like to hear now whatshehas to say.
‘We should have got together ten years ago,’ she says. ‘Then and there.’
‘We couldn’t, though?’
‘Because you were moving to New York.’
‘And also,’ I point out, ‘because you were in a relationship and pregnant.’
‘Relationships end,’ she says.
I kind of ignore her words because I’ve realised that I haven’t yet asked about her child (children perhaps), which feels terrible. I’ve been too overwhelmed by seeing her again.
‘The baby you were expecting,’ I say. ‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t ask. What did you have?’
‘A boy. He’s ten now.’
‘What’s his name?’
‘Tom.’ She smiles at me as though she’s conferring the most enormous compliment on me. ‘He’s looking forward to meeting the person he was named after.’
I know it’s a bad reaction but all I can do is stare at her. I want to be flattered but… I’m a man she met and had an amazing evening with ten years agowhileshe was with the baby’s father… and she named him after me? I amnotflattered. I’m disturbed.
I wonder what Nadia would be thinking if she were a fly on the wall right now. I think she’d be aghast but would also struggle not to laugh a bit at the utter ridiculousness of my situation.
And whyismy situation so ridiculous?
Well. I suddenly realise everything.
My situation is ridiculous because I don’t want to be here at all. I want to be with Nadia. I want to tell her all about this. I want to tell her everything. Always. I don’t care about any of the stupid things I had in my head about us not having that much in common, or her man detox. I just want to be with her.
Oh fuck.
I’ve been such an idiot.
‘Tom?’ Lola’s eyes are narrowed. ‘What were you thinking about?’
I ignore her question and ask, ‘Why did you contact me again this year? And was it because of your son that you couldn’t make it to Waterloo on the twenty-first of June?’ I realise that whatever her answers are I won’t even care; I will just want to tell Nadia so that she knows the end of this pathetic little story, because I owe her that given how involved she’s been all the way through.
‘Because we always said we’d meet after ten years and you just popped into my head. And, no, I had Tom sorted; he was staying with my parents for the night. No; my bloody husband came home. He was supposed to be on a golf weekend but because of rain he came home early. And when I said I was going into town to meet a friend, he said he’d catch the train in with me and go and see his brother. So I told him my friend had cancelled. It wassooooannoying.’
