Page 22 of The Lucky Escape

‘Two more?’ the waiter asked, pointing a pen at our table. Patrick looked at me. I looked at the waiter. The waiter looked between us as if to say,I can’t decide for you, can I?

‘Go on then,’ I capitulated, passing over the empties. ‘Shall we eat, too?’

Patrick nodded.

‘Do you have pizza?’ I asked the waiter. ‘Or burgers?’

‘Both,’ she replied.

‘Pizza,’ Patrick said. ‘Good old-fashioned margherita pizza?’

‘Biggest you’ve got,’ I agreed. ‘And can you bring a bucket of mayonnaise out with it? Thank you.’

Patrick looked at me and uttered, ‘Mayonnaise?’ as if he was disgusted by the very thought of it.

‘I’m not defending my condiment choice to you,’ I stated. ‘And, please, continue with what you were saying … I’m interested in where this is going, because it still sounds to me like you’re one big player.’

‘Where was I?’ he mused.

‘We expect too much of each other,’ I supplied, feeling guilty all over again about how much that resonated.

‘Oh, we do,’ he warned. ‘But we’re all having bloody iAffairs, too. There’s three people in every relationship! You, them, and bloody technology. We’re glued to our phones and wonder why our partner doesn’t feel glued to us.’

‘You didn’t even put your phone on the table,’ I said. ‘Do you even have one with you?’

Patrick patted his coat on the bench beside him. ‘In there somewhere,’ he said. ‘You deserve my full attention, after all.’

He really was a charmer, but I let him get away with it because he was also totally charming.

‘So we’re all addicted to tech,’ I repeated. ‘We’re not having sex because we don’t feel connected … You’re really painting a rosy picture of modern life here. I’m full of the joys and hopes of living.’

‘My point is: intimacy is about connection. And I took this course on it because I wanted to feel more connected to …’

I thought he might tell me about his ex, or exes – I thought I was about to get a morsel of real and concrete information from him about his romantic history. It was strange to know so little about how he’d spent his time in the twenty-ish years since we’d seen each other last. I knew about how he’d got Delhi belly when he’d done yoga teacher training near the Nepalese mountains, and that he’d had a bunch of jobs buthadn’t really stuck at anything because work was just that to him: work, not a career he had to excel at. First it was recruitment, and now he sold insurance. He was so … I don’t know. In the moment? I’d zoned out as he’d told me why he’d taken the course. Damn.

‘We did a lot of study around intimacy being about trust, and teamwork. I mean, think of your best platonic relationship – the person you trust most in the world.’

‘Oh, easy,’ I interrupted. ‘That’s my sister, Freddie. Or my best friend Adzo.’

‘And have you had sex with either of them?’

‘I presume my silence can be your answer.’

‘So you get my point. Those relationships are intimate because of the trust, and being a team. Being present. Demonstrating your care for them and sharing parts of yourself. Your thoughts, your hopes, your dreams, your fears.’

‘Who do you share that stuff with?’

He thought about it. ‘All kinds of people,’ he settled on. ‘I mean, we’re sharing now, aren’t we?’

I didn’t know what to say. Suddenly it was like a date, but this wasn’t adate.That would be crazy. A date, right now? No. I picked up the candle holder that had appeared in the middle of the table and passed it between my hands. I was never dating again – that’s what I’d said. And anyway, it obviously wasn’t a date for him because he’d barely made the sartorial effort. I’d even noticed a little paint in his hair, and across his clothes. I could have been having this conversation with anybody. Couldn’t I?

‘It’s cool we get to hang out,’ I said, avoiding his gaze. ‘All those memories. I was sofreeback then. I loved it. I really did.’

‘But you never came back …’

‘And you stayed right until the last year of school? I think I’m jealous.’

‘It obviously wasn’t as much fun without you there.’

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