Page 84 of Don't You Forget About Me

I nod.

‘He doesn’t strike me as the forgetful type.’

‘Well,’ I draw breath, gird my loins, and say, in a ‘subject closed’ sort of airy tone: ‘What possible reason could he have for pretending to forget me?’

As I know from the discussion in Rajput’s, the view is he could have plenty reason, but I take a leaf from Lucas’s playbook and sound decisively certain.

Incredibly, combined with the free shots that Kitty suddenly materialises with, it works.

27

‘I don’t wish to be melancholy, but at thirty-one, I wonder how many more years I have left until the pursuit becomes undignified,’ Rav shouts in my ear, as we suck on our drinks and survey the dancefloor.

‘Don’t be downhearted. It was always undignified.’

Four has become two: Clem’s being chatted up by a Jarvis Cocker lookalike. Jo’s gone outside to field a lengthy phone call from Phil. We suspect a reunion pends.

‘He’s Bobby to her Whitney,’ Clem had said, ‘Let’s hope he doesn’t get her into smoking crack.’

We’ve briefly talked to a friend of a colleague from Rav’s work called Julia who I can tell likes Rav, but when I mention this he says:

‘Nothing in common.’

‘Nothing in common’ is Rav’s catchphrase dismissal.

‘You know you say you want to meet this super bright woman who can wear a red trilby and wants to do the Inca trail and so on?’

‘Yes?’

‘Youare super bright.Youlook good in a red trilby, and can go to Peru any time you like. Why not accept a woman who isn’t these things, and be these things yourself? Let her bring other things.’

‘Are you saying I should be the woman I want to date in the world?’

‘Exactly this.’

‘Hmm. I mean, I suppose … I see your point.’

Fifteen minutes later, Rav is in a circle of acolytes on the dancefloor, Night Fever-ing away, Julia circling him.

‘Your hair is priddy,’ says a man nearby, in an American accent. ‘Kinda like – prom hair?’

I turn to see a heavy-set, bearded, thirty-ish man in a pink shirt, with a friendly, open face.

‘Ed,’ he says, proffering his hand.

‘Hi, Ed. Georgina.’

Ed has moved from Minnesota to lecture on American literature at the university. We talk animatedly about writing, about Sheffield, I tell him about Share Your Shame, half-shouting behind cupped hand.

For the next twenty minutes, he tells me about Minnesota. Aaaaand for the next twenty minutes after that, too. My part is over.

All of a sudden, in American Ed, I see the ghosts of relationships past. It’s not often, in your life, you step outside a pattern you create, and see the pattern.

It’s not Ed’s fault, but this is how every fling in my twenties began: with some nice enough lad liking me, and me feeling duty bound to reward that.Give him a chance.

I already know how the first date for pizza goes, and the second in a wine bar, and the sex after that. Me astride his sturdy form, like I’m in a canoe, doing fake moans to hurry it along while he mashes my breasts together as if he’s building sandcastles.

Trying desperately to convince myself we complement each other and I’m falling in love and maybe This Is It and you know, as Mum says, if you want kids. By month four, when he’s discussing what package holiday we should book next summer and it sounds as appealing being held on remand in HMP Barlinnie, accepting it’s time to pull the plug before I really hurt him. Realising that you don’t become a writer by dating one. Or a comedian, or anything else for that matter.

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