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Judith peered out from between her fingers. “Have you got a—a tissue?”
“Of course.” Polly jumped up and found the tissue box on top of the fridge. She couldn’t help a surreptitious glance at the clock. 7.45. There was no way she would make Fremantle by eight, even without Judith’s arrival.
She could wave goodbye to her night of rampant sex.
A gaping hole threatened to open up inside her but she stepped right over it.
“What happened?” She handed over the box and Judith ripped out a bunch of tissues, stuffed them against her eyes and then blew her nose noisily.
“We were planning next year’s holiday—correction,Iwas—Mark never does a thing towards holidays. I’ve been trying to discuss if for weeks, and Mark just keeps being evasive. So tonight I had the two websites up and I said, ‘okay, it’s either Scotland or Greece’. And you know what he said?”
Polly shook her head.
“He said ‘neither’.”Judith’s voice escalated, finishing on a wail as her eyes squeezed tight and tears shot out in all directions.
“Oh hon, maybe that just meant he didn’t like the options.”
“I asked him that,obviously,” Judith came back almost vehemently as she swiped at her eyes. Probably best to back off and let her just get it off her chest,Polly decided. “I said, ‘Mark sweetheart, if you don’t like my choices, then I’m happy for you to choose a destination, but you know you haven’t exactly shown a whole heap of enthusiasm.’ He wouldn’t look me in the eye, but his face went this kind of grey colour and I got this horrible sense of dread in my stomach.”
Polly sat very still.
“I had to dig it out of him.” Judith hiccupped. “I asked, ‘What’s wrong, sweetheart?’ about a thousand times. He just sat there like he’d lost his voice. And then finally he said… he said… ‘I just don’t want us to go on holiday’. So, you know, I said, ‘Okay, we won’t go.’ And then he said, ‘Full stop.’ He even saidfull stop, likewho even says that?”
“Does he want to go away on his own, maybe?”
Judith balled the tissues in her hands. “I asked that too. I said, ‘okay then, we can take separate holidays for a change’, and after ages he said, ‘no, I don’t want to take a holiday on my own. I want to live on my own. I don’t want to be with you, Judith’. I mean, he never calls me Judith, I’m always Smidge.”
Polly tried not to look aghast. Smidge did not work on Judith.
They stayed silent for a long moment, while Polly digested and Judith snuffled.
“Is there anyone else?” It had to be asked.
Judith shook her head. “That’s the problem. I almost wish there was, but I don’t think so.”
Admittedly, the idea of socially challenged Mark having someone on the side didn’t add up. Unless it was one of his nerdy online gaming mates. Falling in love online. That happened all the time, though how you could start something without touching and tasting first was hard for Polly to fathom.
Judith glanced up out of puffy eyes. “We had a talk a little while ago, about… about … you know…”
Polly gave an encouraging eyebrow waggle. “Sex?”
“Yep. After you asked me—you know—in the pub, I realised maybe it wasn’t that good between us any more, so I went home and asked, and he—“ she let out a strangled little cough— “he said, like, it’s not that high on his agenda. He’s too stressed or something, though what he’d be stressed about, god knows. Must be trying to win at those stupid computer games.”
Polly found herself lost for words. How could a guy prefer gaming to spending time with Judith?
“He said he needs space to find himself, develop his own interests.”
Polly’s eyes sprang wide. “He actually said that?”
“Uh-huh.” By now Judith had turned the clump of tissues into a papier mâché sculpture.
“He’s only got two interests. Television and gaming.”
“Perhaps that’s the problem. Maybe he feels I’ve stunted his growth. That I’ve smothered him.”
“Nonsense. You’ve given him so much space he practically lives in a parallel universe.” Polly took Judith gently by the shoulder. “Look at me, Jude. You deserve so much more. You deserve to have someone worship the ground you walk on, to want to have crazy passionate sex with you every day and make oodles of babies with you.”
Judith gave a grimace. “I don’t know if I think that’s possible.”
