Nicci French: Your Place and Mine
It hurt so much. A punch in the guts.
Make those doubles, will you? Two beers as well.
I thought it was all going so well.
What did I do wrong? Was it me?
Maybe I never got over Steph. You know.
Nothing's been the same since.
No. It wasn't me. It was just a hiccup.
Terry's really nice.
It's going to be all right. I'm going to make it all right.
I think she knows were we stand. Or don't stand or whatever.
I'll not let on I know. I'll smile and smile.
It was never a big deal with her. Just a bit of fun.
It's not like it was with Rob. That was wrong from the beginning. I can see that now.
She doesn't suspect. Why should she?
I can make this work.
Why am I even worrying about this?
We're right with each other. Right for each other.
The question is, what should I do next?
I knew from the moment we met; I have to trust that instinct.
I don't want to hurt anyone.
The way he looks at me, the way he touches me. I won't let him go.
But not wanting to hurt anyone, that's just a kind of cowardice.
I'll give him another chance.
I'll give him another chance without even telling him that's what he's getting.
I need to get fit. Join a gym.
I'll get my hair cut, buy that top I saw.
Stop drinking so much.
After this evening.
Thanks.
Cheers.
I'll make him a meal at my place.
Lasagne I think.
Something comforting.
Sort out my life.
A bottle of red wine.
I'm just drifting.
He'll see it's me that he wants.
And Terry is part of that drift.
And I know what I want. Even more this time.
I mean, this job. It's not what I planned for myself.
Some things are precious and you have to fight for them.
It's easier for other people.
Or maybe it just seems that way.
What would it be like if I had someone to talk to about this?
Is it your round or mine?
A mother, or the sort of friend you tell everything to.
If there's two units or three in this drink, that makes - what? - like eighteen or twenty so far.
Over a couple of glasses of wine.
Gossip.
Sharing secrets.
A couple more and I'll have done all my drinking for this week in one go and I can get on to next week.
I sometimes wonder what the words would be like if I said them out loud.
What was I saying?
Easier for other people.
That's right.
The way I sound, the things I do, they're not the same as what I'm like inside.
Other people get together and they have sex and they move on.
It's like a transaction.
Everybody's happy.
I thought he'd seen that.
I thought he understood me.
There's whassisname in the office.
Geoff, that's right.
He once told me he'd slept with more than two hundred women.
The relationship needs to develop.
If you count from when he was a teenager, that's about twenty a year.
Is that right?
That's like two a month.
We could go away together.
If it was just us, it would be OK.
It's not so much how he finds the new women, it's steering them to the exit door.
A weekend in Paris.
In Rome.
A little hotel by the sea.
Hand in hand, staring into each others' eyes.
Swapping secrets.
He wouldn't want to lose me.
It's like bottles.
What do you do with the used ones?
All you need in life is just one person to understand you.
To see what you're really like.
That's something worth fighting for.
Decluttering.
That's what my life needs.