Page 4 of The Moment I Met You
‘Why does anyone support Chelsea?’ I ask. ‘In fact why does anybody watch sport at all?’
I don’t really mean it, but Harry is a slave to anything involving grown men chasing balls and it’s fun to poke the bear. He fakes a horrified look, and replies, ‘I shall ignore you said that, Elena. Like religion and politics, it’s something we just shouldn’t discuss.’
We walk on and find ourselves emerging from the tangle of streets back out into the square. I drink in the sound of laughter and the bright colours and the flower-drenched trellises and the sun-scorched stone, and decide that I am a little bit in love with the place. I have been feeling the tug of wanderlust recently, and this is only adding to it. London seems light years away, and I think perhaps I’d like to keep it that way. I’ve enjoyed my time in the big city, but I feel the need for change.
Everywhere around us we see smiling faces, busy people. Kids are milling around, either helping their parents or dashing in and out of the bustle, some smiling shyly, others waving and giggling. The footballers are still kicking around near the coach and we are greeted with welcoming cries by everyone we see, in Spanish, English, a mix of the two.
I see Jorge and Sofia inside the taverna, and the various members of our coach party scattered about, shopping and drinking and taking photos.
‘It’s a hive of capitalist activity, this place,’ says Harry, as he looks around. ‘Bet it’s dead as a doornail until the coach gets in.’
‘Probably,’ I reply, distracted by a pair of purple butterflies dancing around the gentle splash of water in the fountain. The fine spray makes them look like their wings are patterned in gold lace, and it is mesmerising.
‘Am I right in assuming,’ says Harry, apparently not as mesmerised, ‘that you’re going to want to look inside that church?’
I have to laugh at the expression on his face. I think he’d be happier if I suggested he should give Jorge a donkey ride around the village instead. It has become very clear on this trip that my love of ‘rotting old buildings’, as he puts it, is something he cannot understand. It just does not compute – a bit like my views on football, I suppose.
He has tried hard to go with the flow, and managed to fake it through the first two or three, but by this stage he is so transparent that he’s incapable of hiding his dread.
I know he was quite happy in Puerto Vallarta, at the hotel. So was I – at least for some of the time. But what can I say? That wanderlust again. I just couldn’t see the point of coming to the other side of the world and only doing the same things we’d be able to do in Benidorm.
So I dragged him away from the piped music and daily games of water polo, and into the big, wild world. The world that doesn’t always come with air con and a minibar.
For me, it’s been a glimpse of another side of Mexico, another side of life – and possibly a taste of what my world could look like in an alternate reality. I have half-formed plans, ideas that are right now just tiny seeds, tentative shoots into a different future.
But for now I am here, in a beautiful village in a beautiful place, with my boyfriend, who is dancing impatiently by my side and eyeing up the tequila stand with a lustful gaze.
‘Of course I want to go into the church!’ I reply, widening my eyes at him. ‘Why wouldn’t I? And I know there’s nothing you love more than an intricately carved baptismal font …’
He blinks rapidly, trying to formulate a positive-sounding response, and I can’t torture him any more.
‘Well let’s look at the stalls, shall we? Maybe have a drink? Then see where we end up …’
Truth be told, I’m not feeling brilliant myself – I have a tummy ache that is probably the fore-runner of starting an inconvenient period, and I’m pretty tired. I’m happy to stroll around and then sit still for a while.
‘Good idea, Batman,’ he says quickly, leaning forward to kiss me on the forehead. He has had a last-minute pardon from enforced culture, and he is happy about it.
He is more relaxed here, on holiday, than he has been for ages. Mainly, I suspect, because he is away from his job. It’s not my job, so I have no right to feel so strongly about it, but I do – over the years I’ve seen how it’s changed him, how it’s started to dominate his life. How it’s sucked so much of the fun out of him – the carefree, kind Harry I fell in love with.
I don’t want to sound hypocritical, because it’s his work that pays for our fancy flat and our nice car and these holidays. My teaching salary certainly wouldn’t. The thing is, I’ve never cared about stuff – I’d be just as happy living in a tiny studio and having picnics in the park instead of trips to Mexico as long as we were happy together.
Harry cares, though. Harry is a man of immense charm and immense determination – he is able to talk most people into most things, and often leaves them thinking it was all their idea in the first place. He’d probably make a great politician, which isn’t necessarily a compliment, is it?
It also makes him great at his job, working for a management consultancy firm that specialises in making businesses ‘leaner and more efficient’. I think he has persuaded himself that it’s a force for good, his work – that it’s allowing companies to function better and longer, that it is securing economic longevity, building a solid future for generations to come. If that all sounds like it’s out of a marketing brochure, then it probably is – but Harry can actually talk like that and make it seem convincing.
Over the last year, though, I have started to want different things. To wonder if we fit as well as we once did. If it is even natural to expect two people who fitted at eighteen to fit years later. Most teenaged relationships don’t last, and there’s a reason for that – we are ever-changing, especially at that age.
He’s never understood why I’d want to work in a school for children with special needs. He’s never understood how I could be satisfied with so little money. I’m not saying that one of us is right and one of us is wrong – but maybe we have simply grown apart, and want different things from our futures.
Perhaps I am too aware of how our life together seems predictable, mapped out. How mine is getting sucked into his. I go to work events and parties with Harry, where I am always the least glamorous of partners, and I hate them. I hate the conversations, the braying laughter, the competitive edge.
I hate the way they compare their cars and holiday homes and investments. Every time I hear it, every time I see Harry joining in, I can’t help thinking about the reality of ‘lean and efficient’ for the people on the receiving end of it.
Money, as Harry once told me, isn’t the only point of work, but it is a way of keeping score. And Harry is scoring well. He is a rising star, on track for greatness – I’m just not sure I want to be on that track with him. Not sure I want to see all that charm, all that intelligence, used in a way that makes me cringe. Of course, it’s not up to me to decide Harry’s future, but it is up to me to decide mine.
Harry’s not stupid, and he’s not emotionally blind, much as he pretends to be when it suits him. I’m sure he’s noticed the distance opening up between us, sensed me edging away. So far, it’s only been in little ways – saying no to nights out with his colleagues; getting the bus to work instead of a lift. Sending off for a brochure for a language course at the local community college; looking at volunteering opportunities in places that Harry wouldn’t want to even visit, never mind live.
I suppose I’ve been, without even noticing it that much, making myself more self-sufficient. A subtle withdrawal rather than a drama. Drama doesn’t work with Harry – whenever we have argued, which has been rare, he has always convinced me he was right. Fighting with him is like running up a down escalator – it’s exhausting.
