My Secret Lover

shirt.
     
    We win! We are in love, and I have
redeemed myself, if I needed redeeming, because I knew that the most populous
city in North America was Mexico City, not New York.
    And Andy’s supposed to be the expert
on geography!
    I didn’t tell him that Richard Batty
read it out of a Key Stage 2 book the other day. I just sort of sat there
smiling, as if it was my native intelligence.
    I do have native intelligence as a
matter of fact. It makes me good at knowing what sort of answer they’re looking
for. For instance, I know that the answer is unlikely to be New York because
that’s what everyone would think. So even if I hadn’t had inside knowledge, I
might well have guessed Mexico City.
    Actually, I probably would have said
Chicago or Miami, if I’m being totally honest.
     
    *
     
    Our prize is a bottle of Malibu, which is fine because I can put it into the next tombola at school, and will feel
like I’m doing something for charity. Last week it was a big jar of pickled
eggs, which Andy appropriated because he said he knew someone who liked them.
He confessed later he’d been referring to Honey but didn’t want to say in case
Paddy was offended. I think pickled eggs is probably worse than dog food,
myself, but it’s the winning that counts not the taking prizes!
     
    ‘Mexico City!’ says Andy, admiringly,
as he bends forward to take the first slurp of his second pint without lifting
the glass from the table.
    Does everyone have particular habits
that their partner finds almost intolerably irritating? This bending forward
and slurping is one of Andy’s that fills me with a kind of seething inner rage,
only for a second or so, so not really worth drawing to his attention and, in
fact, totally irrational on my part, since it’s not unsanitary or antisocial.
It’s just that pints are for picking up. I’m the sort of person who likes to
chink glasses whether a toast is called for or not. What does it matter if it
foams all over your fingers? Andy cannot bear to spill a drop.
    This is the point where the ‘in love’
changes to ‘loving someone’, although it doesn’t feel like I thought it would.
    It’s not what it’s like in the
movies, but then they do not make movies about plain people falling in love.
They do not make movies about plain women full stop. Even when they do, they
use Michelle Pfeiffer. Mother Teresa, The Movie would star Michelle
Pfeiffer although Robin Williams would actually be a better likeness, and
what’s he really done since Mrs Doubtfire ?
    Michelle (Pfriend not Pfeiffer,
obviously) says my problem is that I want my life to be like Barefoot in the
Park. Nobody gets Robert Redford, she says, not even Demi Moore in Indecent
Proposal, but that doesn’t mean you have to settle for Woody Harrelson.
    Andy is nothing like Woody Harrelson,
by the way, and I believe some women find Woody attractive. As they do Andy. In
the league tables Andy would probably come above me.
    And anyway, I haven’t fancied Robert
Redford since I was a teenager.
    It’s been Gary Lineker for some time.
Since Italia ’90, as a matter of fact. Michelle, who doesn’t like football,
thinks I’m joking. Which is fine because I don’t want her knowing all my
thoughts.
    It was that smile when he’d scored a
goal.
    It just looked like pure happiness.
     
    ‘Are you coming in?’ Andy asks as I
park outside his flat.
    ‘Not tonight,’ I say. ‘I’ve got a lot
of preparation for tomorrow.’
    ‘Go on,’ says Andy.
    He’s had two pints of Boddingtons and
he’s looking at me in a slightly predatory way. Andy is quite highly sexed,
which is another one of his plus points. None of that really-it’s-fine,
it-doesn’t-matter, there’s-probably-too-much at-stake, we’ve-drunk-too-much,
not-slept-enough, it’s-a-much-commoner-problem-than-you-think and
a-cuddle-is-sometimes-just-as-intimate stuff for us.
    ‘I’ve locked Honey in the kitchen,’
he says.
    This is Andy’s version of soft music
and champagne cooling in an ice bucket.
    ‘OK, then,’ I say, switching off the
engine.
     
    The first time I came to Andy’s flat,
he opened the door and said, ‘As you can see, I’m a minimalist.’
    Which made me laugh more than the
remark demanded. We had just won our first quiz. I was overexcited and nervous.
    Andy’s interpretation of minimalist
is no comfortable furniture and lots of wires everywhere. Did I mention that
Andy was in computers? He’s the kind of brains end of a website design