Page 145 of Pansies

As he lay there, among the takeaway boxes and empty bottles, he realised that maybe part of the problem was the fact all this was new to him. He’d broken up with people before, of course, but it had never mattered because he’d never cared. So he’d had no practice. He’d never fallen in love. Never been wrecked by it. And built up no calluses on his heart.

This was basically his adolescence. Every boy he should have pined for and been with and moved on from. Except for the fact he was thirty years old and had never felt so alone or broken.

* * *

By Thursday he’d come to the conclusion that you couldn’t actually die of being miserable. He’d also decided he wasn’t going back to work for J.D. Jarndyce.2 He had no idea what he was going to do instead, but at least he’d made some kind of decision. And he’d made it for himself. Not for Fen or his friends or his parents. Or even the ugly little seaside town that was the only place he’d ever really been happy. Probably he wouldn’t go back there—once he would have been too scared, and now it would be too full of Fen—but there had to be some other place in England he liked. With a coastline and a job for someone with a BA in maths, a master’s in econometrics and mathematical economics, and seven years in the city behind him.

He could even get a dog. In this fantasy future, where he would have enough time to care for one. Make lasagne a lot. Learn to make something that wasn’t lasagne. Presumably at some point, he’d stop hurting. Stop dreaming of silver-gold hair and long legs tangled round his. And stop feeling like the best time of his life would always be a single week.

So when a text from Greg arrived, suggesting (apparently in all seriousness) that they spend their Friday in a cabaret andcocktails club that was previously a Victorian toilet, Alfie decided he might as well take advantage of having nothing to do and invited everyone to come round for dinner instead. Responses ranged fromDo what?toCan you even cook?but eventually they agreed to the experiment. Kitty even asked to bring her new relationship prospect. Her exact words.

By the time his friends turned up, Alfie was running only slightly late and hadn’t turned Canary Wharf into a smoking ruin, so he was calling it a win.

“I was going to bring you a bottle of something,” was Greg’s greeting. “But then I realised you’d only sneer at the vintage, so my gift to you”—flourish—“is me.”

Alfie gave him a one-armed hug because the other hand had an oven glove on it. “I don’t suppose you come with a receipt?”

“How very dare you, Alfredo. You should want to put me in pride of place and treasure me forever.”

Kitty’s new relationship prospect turned out to be a tallish, handsomish man in his early forties, with brown hair, brown eyes, and an air of studied normality. His name was Charles Randall (he was one of those men who did not lightly bear diminutives—definitely a Charles, not a Charlie) and when Greg—rather naughtily—asked him what he did, he said he was attached to the diplomatic service.

“Oh my God!” Greg gazed at him entranced. “Youarea spy.”3

He smiled pleasantly. “Well, if I was, I’d probably have to kill you now.”

“It would be the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to me.”

Kitty sat down at the table where Alfie had never dined. “You said that about Burning Man.”

“That was more of an intense sexual-spiritual experience.”

“I don’t think I know you well enough for that,” murmured Charles, as he slipped into a chair next to Kitty.

Greg smiled at nobody in particular. “Give yourself another five minutes or so. It’s probably as long as you’ll need.”

Alfie glanced up from his saucepan. “What’s the matter with you?”

“He’s decided he’s shallow,” sighed Kitty, with mingled sympathy and exasperation. “Because you and I both met people we didn’t completely hate the prospect of being with.”

“About that—” Alfie began.

But Greg cut him off. “It’s true. I don’t do anything and I don’t have to do anything…which means I probablywon’tdo anything. And nothing bad or interesting has ever happened to me. So while I’m fun to flirt with, what’s going to happen to me when my arse droops and I’m not hot anymore?”

“I don’t know.” Alfie thought about it. “Maybe you could get a cat.”

Greg made a distressed noise. “I’m serious.”

“So am I. I mean, not about the cat. But serious that you’re being stupid. You’re, what, twenty-four?”

“Nearly twenty-five.”

“Not exactly over the hill, then. And you don’t like relationships anyway.”

“I don’t know what I think about relationships anymore.” Greg was staring at the wall. “Mainly I feel that I’ve failed at them—which could become relevant if I decide I want one and don’t know how to get it.”

Kitty gave him a look. “Yes, Greg, that’s called life. Wanting things, and not being able to figure out how to get them.”

“Urgh.” Alfie pulled some newly bought plates off the drying rack. “Tell me about it.”

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