Page 52 of Not in a Million Years

I nodded again sympathetically. Next to me, Daniel was listening, silent and still.

‘It wasn’t cool,’ she went on. ‘I wasn’t cool. And after a bit, Andy got fed up. He totally lost his rag with me. He called me all sorts of horrible names. That was when we were out for dinner at that swanky place on the waterfront – that’s why they remembered us, and they knew I was working in the area. I feel so ashamed. He’s right – it was bigoted of me, or bi-phobic or whatever.’

‘Hey,’ Daniel said. ‘You know you’re allowed to feel insecure in relationships. It’s not the crime of the century.’

‘Yeah, I know. But it was why I felt insecure that was the real problem.’

I said, ‘So if you could go back and change things, keeping in mind what you just told us, would you somehow not feel insecure any more?’

Miserably, she shook her head.

‘Insecurity doesn’t come out of the blue,’ I said. ‘Were there things that happened to make you feel like that with Andy specifically, or is it a regular thing you’ve experienced in other relationships?’

‘It was more a thing he said.’ Ash looked down miserably into her tea. ‘He said he wasn’t sure our relationship would last, like, forever. I mean, no one can be sure of that. But I was falling for him, and he said he wasn’t sure he could only be with one person forever. He said monogamy isn’t natural. And he said he’d only ever been in love the once, and it wasn’t with me.’

We said what we could to reassure her – that she was allowed to have boundaries, that Andy probably hadn’t been the right person for her, that you’re allowed to end things with a person for whatever reason, if it doesn’t feel right.

I’m not sure our words reassured her, but we’d done what we could, and we left shortly afterwards.

Walking back along the seafront to our hotel, Daniel paused and gazed out over the sea. ‘Hey, look at that.’

‘What? The boat?’

‘Yeah. It’s a new one. It’s not the same superyacht that was there before.’

‘New day, new oligarch,’ I said.

Daniel laughed. ‘That’s not just any oligarch, though. It’s my oligarch.’

‘What, you keep one as a pet?’

‘Don’t be daft. That’s the Meridia. It’s the boat I did the cabinetry on. Belongs to an Estonian tech billionaire. He’s actually a decent guy – I might drop him a text and let him know I’m in the area.’

‘Wow,’ I said. ‘Friends in high places, or what?’

We turned away from the water and carried on walking, shoulder to shoulder, falling into step with each other.

After a bit, Daniel said, ‘What she said about Andy only having been in love with one person. Who do you reckon he meant?’

Nineteen

Then

2009

It was a Sunday in January – one of those miserable days when Christmas seems like a distant memory, but winter still feels as if it will last forever. In fact, the following day was the much-vaunted Most Depressing Day of the Year, so at least there was that to look forward to.

Andy and I had arranged to walk over to Tate Modern to see an exhibition there, not because we particularly wanted to, but because at that stage practically anything that would alleviate the smothering tedium of the endless, cold, drizzly month had to be worth trying. But he’d texted me at about eleven in the morning to say he wasn’t feeling well, and could he just come and hang out at mine instead.

Which was fine by me – I had a cold, too, and the prospect of not leaving my cosy flat, flopping on the sofa drinking hot chocolate and watching Antiques Roadshow (of which Andy was passionately and bafflingly fond) seemed like a pretty decent plan to me.

But when he arrived that afternoon, I realised instantly that it wasn’t a cold that was the problem. He was white and shaking, with deep lines of tension around his mouth and dark circles under his eyes that looked like they’d been gouged out of his face by an overenthusiastic 1950s housewife wielding a melon baller. He wasn’t dressed in his usual quirky style, but in grey tracksuit bottoms that had seen better days and were far too long for him, a jumper with Snoopy on the front, and an equally oversized tweed coat. When I opened the door, he headed straight for the sofa, clutching a two-litre bottle of Fanta and unwrapping a scarf from round his neck.

‘Jesus Christ, Katie babe, I feel like all kinds of shit. Don’t know where I ended up last night but I lost my coat and I must’ve fallen over because the knees of my trousers were all shredded and covered in oil.’

‘Did you not make it home?’

‘Didn’t I tell you? Mum and Dad have sold the flat. I’m crashing at Tall Matt’s. These are his.’

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