Page 32 of One Night With You

‘How so?’

‘Investigating how other people live like somebody, somewhere, might give you a clue on how to live your life.’

‘Oh, JP,’ I exclaim. ‘I’m counting on it!’

He laughs.

‘Do you think I’m an awful person?’ I find myself saying. I can’t not. I have to know if he thinks less of me now – Abe’s long-suffering girlfriend, who I never met, who I wondered about, sometimes. Did she know about me? Her boyfriend got me pregnant. I’d hate me, if I wasn’t me.

‘Why on earth would I think you’re awful?’ JP says, and I can see he means it. ‘I think you’ve had a rotten time of it, and I can understand why you’d feel how you do.’

‘Thank you,’ I reply, softly.

‘But …’ he adds, and my heart sinks – I was waiting for the kicker, for the other shoe to drop. ‘I do think life is shorter than we think, and I’d hate to see you miss out on something special because of this …pledge, you’ve made. Despite your reasons.’

‘Fair point,’ I concede.

‘The minute I met Shelley,’ he says, and I’m curious as to where this is going. ‘And the minute I met Amelie, something clicked. With both of them. It was like opening up a new notebook and starting properly. Does that make sense?’

‘I think so …’ I say. ‘As if everything before meeting them just faded into the background? Wasn’t important anymore?’

‘Exactly. Because it all brought me to them.’

‘Hmm,’ I muse, not sure how I feel about that. ‘Are you one more port away from telling me to keep the faith, that love happens to everyone eventually, that my guy could be out there right now, wondering the exact same things, and we’re just destined to be in the same place at the same timeif only I can learn to trust in the mysterious ways of the world and stay open instead of closing myself off …?’

‘You might well take the Michael out of me, girl,’ he chortles. ‘But I’m not the one keeping my heart in a cage for a year to prove somepoint. It’s a muscle – and we have to exercise our muscles to make them stronger or else they seize up. The heart must be used, or we risk losing its capacity.’

I think of Nic, suddenly. Maybe the next person I have a cute moment with I’ll give a chance. It can still be The Year of Me, with added flirting just for fun. Right?

‘Bang bang, I’m dead,’ I say, clutching my chest like I’ve just been shot. ‘If you were a younger man, I’d challenge you to a fight over what you’re coming out with. Christ alive.’

‘Privilege of the old.’ He nods. ‘Being able to say it like it is.’

‘That’s why I’m so pleased you’re letting us film finding Amelie. The way you see the world … you’re going to make other people, the people who watch this, hopefully, understand their own world a bit more too, you know.’

‘I don’t know how much use I’ll be. Or if we’ll even find her. But it’s for William, really. He’s a bit aimless since graduating. It’s already given him a bit of purpose, thinking he can make his old Gramps happy.’

I start to clear away our empty glasses and dirty plates. I can sense JP is getting tired, but is too stubborn to tell me so. It makes me smile that he thinks he’s doing all this for his grandson, but his grandson thinks he’s doing it for JP.

‘I should think I’d like to see it all in action, you know,’ he says, before I pick up the tray with everything on it. ‘How the sausage is made, so to speak. I’m interested. The way you talk about it has piqued my interest.’

‘You want to come to campus?’

‘Am I allowed?’ he asks.

I consider it. I don’t see why not. He’s a lovely man, and it’s not like he’s any trouble. If he’s part of the independent project, he can go wherever we go. Janet, the course supervisor, wouldn’t disagree with that, surely.

‘I’ll check with Harry,’ I say. ‘Just no more truth bombs aboutmylove life, okay? Your clarity is very inconvenient for those of us who’d like to blame their crappy love lives on matters of the heart being complicated.’

He laughs. ‘All I’m saying is, darling – almost doesn’t count. It’s the ones whoaren’tafraid to commit to us that do.’

‘Almost doesn’t count? I like it.’

‘Plenty more where that came from.’ He winks, sleepily.

‘No … seriously, JP … I think you’ve just hit the nail on the head.’

He blinks and waits for me to go on.

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