Nicci French: Your Place and Mine
If he were to ask me how many lovers I'd had, what would I say?
It's the kind of thing you ask each other in a relationship after all, the awkward, intimate conversation you have to get past.
What time do you have to be at the airport?
You give each other secrets and confidences, make confessions.
That's how it goes.
I guess you have to hope it'll be about the same for both of you - that he won't say 250, while you say three.
Have you got time for a last one - one for the road?
But if he asked me, I think I'd lie.
I'd say something like: oh, around ten, I haven't actually counted, something like that.
Or the air.
And if he asked for details, I'd be vague, dismissive; I'd shrug as if it didn't really matter.
You're a lucky sod, going away for six months.
What wouldn't I give to get out of my life for six months?
Woman of the world, that's me.
Sunshine, beaches, not knowing where I was going to be the next night.
If he asked how many men I'd been in love with, what would I say then?
Would I tell him the truth, that I'd been in love with two people in my whole life, and that one of them was him?
And no one else knowing either.
I'd sort my head out.
I'd start again, be someone new.
No, of course I wouldn't tell him that.
Not just yet, anyway.
God, I'm going to have a hangover in the morning.
And if he asked me about the other one, the one before him, about Rob, what would I say then?
That he looked a bit like him?
That he didn't understand what I was offering him?
I don't mean to get sentimental, but it's meant a lot to me, being able to talk to you.
I don't think about Rob so much anymore.
No, it has.
It helps to say things out loud.
Not since meeting Larry.
Sometimes, though, I wake in the middle of the night and remember what he looked like the last time that I saw him.
I remember his face then, the way that he looked at me.
God, I feel drunk.
If Larry asked me how it ended, I'd say something like: oh, you know, it just didn't work out.
Time to decide what I'm going to do.
I know what I'm going to do.
I don't know why other women don't get bothered about it.
They think that because they're on the Pill or using some device, taking precautions, that it doesn't matter what they do to their bodies.
It's just like having a drink for them.
It's like a child having an ice cream or going on a swing.
How can they do that?
I'm not normally good at talking about these thing.
I'm going to miss you.
I was going to say that we'll get together when you're back but I'm going to bet you something.
When you get to Oz or when you're on some Thai beach, you're going to like it so much you won't come back for years.
If ever.
I'm right, aren't I?
I can see it by your expression.
It's not really the men's fault.
Thanks, I'll have a double.
That's what they're like.
They can be turned on by anything.
It's the fault of the women who let them get away with it.
They don't value themselves.
The thing is that normally I'm not very good at talking about things like this.
I just keep it to myself.
The version I give other people is one that I've improved a bit.
You're the only one I've told about all this.
No one else knows.
I'm glad about that now
When I told Rob I loved him, he said I was being ridiculous, that we hardly knew each other.
Well, that was that.
It wasn't just the idea of being rejected.
It was being laughed at, made a figure of fun.
With me, it's always been a new start tomorrow.
I told myself I'd never let myself get caught, get opened up, by another man.
Then I met Larry.
He pursued me, courted me.
I didn't want to give in, but he almost made me.
Tomorrow I'll stop procrastinating.
Ho ho.
I've thought and thought about it and I've decided that I can forgive him for being unfaithful to me.
It's like in the song: he's just a man.
No, but seriously.
Tonight for once I'm going to be clear.
It's just a matter of facing up to it and being honest with each other from now on.
Draw a line.
It's a good start.
He wants to see me.
I felt a bit taken for granted, him assuming that I can just pop out this evening, as if I was sitting at home with nothing to do, waiting for him to call.
I've been so stupid in the past.
Tonight I'm going to be clear and I'm going to be clinical.
He sounded as if he'd had a couple.
He'd probably been thinking it over.
It's really the kindest thing, like pulling off a plaster quickly, in one go.
I suggested the Coach and Horses.
I told him it had a famous romantic view across the canal basin.
It'll be a new beginning.
I didn't say it was where I'd been with Rob.
You'vegot the right idea.
You never know.
That wouldn't do.
I might follow you.
There are some things he wouldn't understand.
Yes.
Cheers.
I'll see you on the beach.
Goodbye.
Goodbye, mate.
It's been days now since Laurence ended it.
It wasn't so bad.
Not as messy as the last time.
I've washed all the sheets, to get rid of his smell, and I've burnt the sweatshirt that he left behind.
He's gone.
And there's already someone else who's got his eye on me.
I've seen the way he smiles at me.
Something is going to happen.
I know.
I've not given up hope.
You can always begin again.
That's part of being human.
I've been checking the paper every day.
It was there this morning.
Only small.
It was fine.
Canal Body Identified