Intimacy. Yes, I do mind. But I let him hold my hand anyway.
7:20 p.m.
“Your soup’s getting cold,” he says.
Fine by me.
“Not having any more?”
“Saving myself for the main course,” I tell him.
“Oh,” he says, disappointed but understanding.
Makes me want to smack a frying pan off his jaw.
At least he’s let go of my hand.
I get a flash of him panting. In my ear. Sticky breath, getting faster and faster. I’m moaning, telling him he’s the best, oh, yeah, the fucking best.
He likes it when I swear.
He comes and then he cries.
Wets my hair.
Every time.
Every year.
After dessert.
7:21 p.m.
He’s talking. He’s bought a boat. Not a fancy yacht, oh no. He laughs. Tells me about his boat.
I nod and smile, tuned out, wondering what I’m missing on TV.
White noise, his voice.
I smile from the heart, ‘cause that rhymes.
Get a smile back, bless him.
I wonder if he’ll be hard or if I’m going to have to play with him first.
7:22 p.m.
So excited babbling about his new boat, he spills soup on himself.
I grab a napkin, dab at his chin.
He likes that.
I wonder what precedent I’ve just set.
He excuses himself, says he has to change his shirt.
At least he doesn’t ask me to do it for him.
I offer to clear the plates away.
He won’t let me.
Always the gentleman.
7:25 p.m.
Back again wearing an almost identical shirt.
Took him long enough.
I heard the toilet flush, though. All that soup. Runs right through you.
Voila!
Must be the onions.
“You had enough?” he asks.
“Plenty,” I say, only just managing to keep my hand from patting my stomach. A false gesture if ever there was one and I’m a better actress than that.
“Sure you don’t want a hand?” I ask as he starts clearing away the plates.
“Just stay where you are,” he says. “Keep looking beautiful.”
7:27 p.m.
Still smarting from that comment.
Beautiful.
Bastard.
7:28 p.m.
The casserole dish is on the table, steaming.
Beef stew. Yep, same as last year.
Predictable, is our James the Sarcastic.
Smells good, though. I’m going to have to eat.
I don’t want to. I want to punish him.
He might like that.
“Shall I be mother?” he says.
We know he’s going to be mother. I don’t know why he asks. “Yeah,” I say. It’s a role that suits him.
He slops some of the stew onto my plate. “More?” he says.
I nod. I hate myself.
7:29 p.m.
The beefs tender, melting into soft strings in my mouth. The sauce is sharp, peppery.
I swallow. Lick my teeth.
“Good, darling?”
Darling.
Have to play along. “Yes, dear,” I say.
He puts his hand on mine again.
“This is nice, isn’t it?” he says.
“Lovely,” I tell him. Fuckwit.
7:30 p.m.
The phone rings. It’s persistent.
He doesn’t move.
“Answer it,” I say.
“Not tonight,” he says. “This is a special night. We don’t want any interruptions.”
So maybe you should have turned off the ringer.
“It’s annoying,” I say. And it is. Least he could have done was set up his answer machine to take it. At home, four rings is all you get. If I don’t pick up by then, you’re on to the machine.
Still ringing.
“You don’t have an answerphone?”
“Yeah,” he says.
“So how come it hasn’t kicked in?”
“Dunno,” he says. “Takes a while.”
I lay down my knife and fork. “Go sort it,” I say. “Turn it off.”
He looks sheepish as he gets out of his seat. “May as well answer it, then,” he says.
Course, by the time he gets there, it’ll have stopped. I’d bet on it.
The phone’s at the other end of the room. Amazingly it’s still ringing when he picks it up.
“Hello,” he says. Then gives his number.
Doesn’t say anything else.
Just listens.
Then puts the phone down gently, like it’s hurting.
7:31 p.m.
“Wrong number?” I ask.
He shakes his head, still standing there, hand on the receiver, receiver in its cradle.
“Not much of a conversationalist, then?” I say. “What did they say?”
He makes his way back to the table, silent.
“Well?” I say.
“You won’t believe me,” he says. He looks bemused, like a stranger just hit him with a fish.
“You’d be surprised,” I tell him.
“It was a man,” he says. “I didn’t recognize his voice.”
He stops. Bites his bottom lip.
“I don’t have all night,” I say. More to the point, he doesn’t have all night. He isn’t paying for that. Just till midnight.
“He said my name.” He looks at me. Looks away.
“And?” I make a circular motion with my fingers to try to speed him up.
“He told me I had thirty minutes to live.”
7:32 p.m.
That’s weird, I have to admit.
“Why would anyone say that to you?” I ask him.
He doesn’t answer, just sits at the table staring into his plate. He picks up his fork, holds it for a second, drops it. It clatters against the plate.
“Maybe it was a wrong number,” I say.
He says, “He said my name.”
“Maybe it was another James Twist,” I say.
He doesn’t bother to answer. We both know that’s unlikely.
“It’s a joke, then,” I say.
That piques his interest. “You think?”
“Sure,” I say. “A friend, a colleague.”
“I don’t think so,” he says.
I spread my fingers, palms up. Why?
“I don’t have any friends,” he says. “And I haven’t worked in ten years.”
7:33 p.m.
Well, well.
“You’re not an architect?” I ask him.
He shakes his head.
“Were you ever an architect?”
He shakes his head again.
“What did you do? What was your last job?”
“Postman,” he says.
I can’t believe I’m angry at him, but I am.
“You’ve been lying to me for years,” I say.
“Sorry,” he tells me.
“How can you afford to buy a new boat?”
He doesn’t answer.
“That was a lie too?”
“Yes,” he says.
“What about this place?”
“My mum pays for it.”
“Oh,” I say. “She didn’t die when you were four?”
7:34 p.m.
It can’t be helped, I suppose. The guy I didn’t like wasn’t the guy I thought he was.
Interesting.
“If it’s not a friend or colleague,” I say, “then maybe it’s a member of your family.”
“Just me and Mum,” he says.
“And it wasn’t her?”
“It was a man,” he says.
“What happened to your dad?”
He pulls a face.
For a second, I don’t know what he’s doing, or why. Then I realize it’s involuntary. A spasm. I’ve never seen him do that before.
He does it again, his eyes screwing up tight, lips curling.
Like he just sucked a grapefruit.