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Chapter 27
“So they offered you a job? That’s amazing!” Charley says, down the phone. I’ve called her with the update, as promised.
“No, they haven’t offered me the job, but they’ve ‘encouraged me to apply’, which isn’t far off. I had a chat with Peter as well. He was surprisingly nice about it all. I think he realises he’s been a complete dick to me. Shame it took him so long.”
“Does he know you’re going for his old job?”
“No, I thought that might be rubbing unnecessary salt in the wound.”
“Good point. I really hope you get it, though. It sounds perfect for you, and it will be nice to have you around more, instead of travelling all the time. Have you heard anything from Toby?”
“Not a thing, and he still isn’t answering my calls. I don’t know what to do. I can’t even go to the studio and confront him, like I did with Ed at his office that time, because there’s no guarantee he’ll be there. I could be sitting outside for weeks if he’s away on a job. I can’t tell you how much I’m missing him.”
“Try.”
“What?”
“Try to tell me how much you’re missing him. I have a theory.”
“It feels,” I start, “Oh, I don’t know. It feels like a part of me is missing, does that make sense? If I’ve had a dream with him in it, which I do a lot, I feel all warm and fuzzy when I wake up, and then reality comes crashing in and it’s like a punch in the gut. Thank goodness I don’t have any deadlines looming, because I’m completely unable to focus on anything except him. I keep wondering what he’s doing, what he’s thinking, who he’s with. Sometimes I just sit, staring at the phone, willing it to ring and be him.”
“Mm. That’s what I thought,” she says. “Has it occurred to you that you might be in love with him?”
“What?? God, no!”
“OK, answer this. What do you think it would be like to kiss him?”
“Oh, I’m sure he’s a good kisser!” I say, confidently. “He’d be gentle, but not sloppy. He wouldn’t be one of those guys who rams their tongue in your mouth as if they’re trying to force feed it to you, but it wouldn’t be flopping around like a piece of raw liver either.”
“I worry about your imagery sometimes. And what do you think he’d be like in bed?”
“He’d be a considerate lover,” I tell her. “He’d be attentive, wanting to make sure that everything was right.”
“So, to recap what we know so far. You miss him so much you practically feel like you’ve lost a body part. You fancy him. You’ve obviously thought about what he’d be like as a lover and your descriptions are very positive. This doesn’t sound like ‘just good friends’ to me. Face it, you are in love with him. I’ve never heard you speak about a man like this before. Surely you can recognise the symptoms? You must have been in love before, how does the way you feel now compare to that?”
I cast my mind back through my previous relationships and try to remember how I felt about them.
“Are you still there?” Charley asks.
“Yes, sorry, just thinking. Do you know what, I don’t think I have?”
“Have what?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever been in love. I’ve been in ‘like’, and I’ve been in ‘lust’, but I’ve never felt the way I do now about any man, ever.”
“That’s love.”
“Fuck.”
“Yep. Question is, what are you going to do about it if he won’t take your calls?”
“I need a way to get him to answer,” I say to her. “In fact, I need more than that, because what I really need is to talk to him face to face. I know! You could ring him for me, and tell him he has to meet me.”
“Oh no. Leave me out of this.”
“But I went and got Ed for you!”
“Yes, and you’ll never know how grateful I am, but the difference is that you did that behind my back. I never asked you to get involved and, if I had, I’m pretty sure you would have been just as robust with me as I’m trying to be with you. Come on, Mads. Where’s all that resourcefulness you normally have?”
