Page 24 of Mad About You

12

The next morning, Harriet walked into the kitchen to find a vision of domesticity: a plate on the island heaped with assorted pastries, a bunch of lilac stocks in a vase, the smell of fresh coffee, Radio 4 trickling out in the background.

‘Peace offering,’ Jon said, from a vantage point behind a newspaper at the far end. ‘There’s more than a cup left in the cafetiere.’

‘Thanks,’ she said, neutrally, and helped herself.

The stage management of the scene meant Harriet could only think of Lorna’s voice in her head.He bought you, and what’s more, he knew he was doing it.

‘Do you want any help moving? Two cars are better than one.’

‘It’s fine, I can manage,’ she said. ‘Thank you though.’

She hoisted herself onto a stool at the island and chose a bun that looked like it was wearing a toupée of grated cheese. It felt rude to decline Jon’s provisions and rude to carry anything out of the room, so she was stuck picking at it in the tense atmosphere, wearing the false-insouciant air of a teenager who’d come in well past curfew last night and certainlywasn’t going to mention it if her parents didn’t. As Harriet tried to chew silently, she considered that was probably the motive behind its purchase: forcing her to have breakfast with Jon. He no doubt meant well, but these minor manipulations were making her even more desperate to be free.

‘From the Bakehouse?’ she asked. ‘Really good.’

She nearly added she’d miss Roundhay then knew it would sound like a jibe that she wouldn’t miss Jon. She would miss Jon. Just not enough.

‘Harriet,’ Jon said after a minute or so, and she tensed, having suspected something was coming. ‘Can I say something?’

She nodded while chewing:yes, of course.And thinking:here’s the price of the baked goods.

‘I’m not proud of what I did with my family. Not telling them upfront, I mean. Or how I behaved last night. I’ve been quite shellshocked by our finishing, but it’s not an excuse.’

Pause.

‘On my deathbed, I won’t want any of this to be playing in the highlights reel. I’ve taken a step back and looked at myself harder.’

He smiled to indicate ‘joke’ and Harriet gave a reciprocal tight smile. She could feel a big fatbutcoming. Coming in the air this morning, as Jon’s hero Phil Collins almost had it.

‘I laid awake most of last night thinking about us, about what went wrong.’

‘… OK,’ Harriet said.Please don’t let this be another attempt to appeal her decision.She had empathy for Jon’s pain but no way to fix it.

‘The thing is – and not in a nasty way, I hasten to add – you think I’m a bit daft, a bit self-parodic. Or un-self-aware at least,’ Jon said. Harriet swallowed hard and opened her mouth to argue and he motioned for her to stop. ‘Let me get to the end. I know you do, most people do. It’s partly my own fault for actively giving that impression. It’s a protective layer I developed, I think. Being something of an apprentice Alan Partridge. But be careful who you pretend to be, you are who you pretend to be, and all that.’

He cleared his throat. ‘What I’m saying is, I know I can seem … straight-edged and even foolish, but I’m not.’

Harriet nodded, not sure what to make of this speech, what move it was in the game of break-up Battleships.

‘… Because I’m not stupid, I know there’s some part of you that you won’t let me near. I don’t know what it is. I don’t know if it’s to do with the loss of your parents, or why you’re so deliberately vague about most of your twenties. Or if it’s to do with that jewellery box you won’t let out of your sight.’

Harriet remained rigid and impassive, but her skin felt numb.

‘… But by keeping it secret from me – I don’t think you realise that it set me up for failure with you from the start. I wish you hadn’t. If you’d let me help, I would have done everything I could to help. For whatever reason, you wouldn’t or couldn’t allow me to try. I think it’s a huge loss for both of us. If you ever change your mind and want to talk, even if there’s no way back for the two of us, I’ll be there for you. Even if …’ Jon took a shaky breath, ‘Even if it’s some pointin the currently unimaginable future for me, where either or both of us are with other people.’

Pause.

‘That’s it. That’s all I wanted to say.’

Harriet said nothing because she was fairly stunned by this and couldn’t begin to work out how to respond.

‘I’m guessing you want to go this week without a brouhaha, or speeches, so other than this one, I will respect that,’ Jon said, into the ensuing silence.

‘Thank you,’ Harriet said eventually, in a slightly hoarse voice, wishing she wasn’t so dumbly inarticulate in these moments.

She could’ve contradicted Jon. He deserved better than her lies.

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