Excerpt
The Two of Us
Prologue
People ask: How long have you been together? How did you meet?
You’re sitting at a table, fizzing with the defiant ostentation of new love (is that what it is? Is it love already?), laughing too loud and kissing more enthusiastically than is de rigueur in a quiet country pub, and someone will say, Put her down! Get a room! You make a lovely couple, or some variation on the theme.
You’re surreptitiously nibbling your new girlfriend’s earlobe when a voice says, They serve crisps at the bar, you know. If you’re hungry. You turn and apologize to the large middle-aged lady at the adjacent table. She laughs good-naturedly, then shuffles her chair sideways so she is now sitting at your table. And here it comes . . .
So, she says, How did you two lovebirds meet?
In the last week, we must have been questioned about the particulars of our romance on half a dozen separate occasions. On other nights and afternoons we have told increasingly pale shades of the truth: We work together; Blind date; I cut his hair; Book club. But now, emboldened by wine and routine, Ivy leans forward and says in a conspiratorial voice: It’s awful; I’m best friends with his wife. But . . . she places her hand on top of mine . . . you’re a woman of the world, you know what it’s like. When you have to have something?
The woman – ruddy-faced and emanating a warm aroma of cheese and onion – she nods, says, Aye, well, yes, you have a nice . . . you know . . . night, and shuffles back to her own table.
Because the truth is, the truth is too long a story to tell a stranger in a country pub when all you want to do is finish your drink and get upstairs to your room. And anyway, how we met is academic – you don’t ask how the rain began, you simply appreciate the rainbow.
People talk about chemistry, and perhaps it was – something molecular, something transmitted, something genetic. Whatever the mechanism, there was something about Ivy that immediately made me want to not sleep with her. And what higher compliment can a scoundrel pay a lady? Not that it matters, but at the time I was going through a phase where I wasn’t looking for any kind of commitment beyond those to personal hygiene and discretion. I had broken up with my girlfriend six months earlier, I was young, I was free, I was . . . well, let’s just say I was being generous with my affections. Then along came Ivy with her handsome, uncontrived beauty, trailing pheromones, nonchalance and easy humour.
Not that any of that matters. What matters is that we met. And what matters most is what happens next.