My Secret Lover

performance in HMS Pinafore that he attacked the role with gusto.
‘Isn’t it stretch? Any stretch of the imagination?’ I ask. One of the media
types is telling them all about a survival course he’s been on where they
pretend to kidnap you.
    ‘Basically, the plot goes like this...’
    I nod at Andy as if I’m interested.
    ‘Don Alfonso sets out to test the
fickleness of women. He lays a bet with Guglielmo and Ferrando I shall have to
ask Joanna for the correct pronunciation.
    ‘I was elected leader of my group,’
says the media type who’s got his back to me, ‘but unfortunately my strategy
led to us all being summarily executed!’ Laughter from the media table.
    ‘...they disguise themselves,’ says
Andy.
    ‘As what?’
    ‘Albanians.’
    ‘You’ll have to get a badly fitting
leather jacket.’
    ‘Eighteenth-century version,’ says
Andy.
    ‘I’m not buying you any more tights,’
I tell him.
    I sometimes wonder about Andy. It’s
not the first pair.
     
    Even if I haven’t spent the evening
with him, I can tell how much Andy has had to drink by how randy he is. One
pint makes him wink occasionally, two and his legs press against mine on the
tube back, three, his arm goes round my shoulder and four, he’s trying to touch
my breast under cover of my jacket, too drunk to realize that it’s quite
obvious what he’s doing to the man in a suit sitting opposite who’s talking on
his mobile phone.
    ‘There’s something wrong with the
tube... again,’
    Suit’s saying. ‘I’m on a semi-fast to
Watford now, but I had to wait an age.’
    I know for a fact that this isn’t
true. I watched several trains leave Baker Street as I waited for Andy to
emerge from the Gents.
    Suit sees me glaring at him and
retaliates by staring at my chest. I’m wearing a stretchy pink v-neck by Jasper
Conran at Debenhams, and I can tell without looking down that one of my nipples
is erect, and one is still soft, and I’m a bit old to get away with that sort
of asymmetry in public.
     
    Is this going to be my life?
    Andy’s fallen asleep, and I’m lying
wide awake and sober next to him. We’ve had good sex. He even said I love you
when he came, which was nice, although when he doesn’t open his eyes I always
suspect he’s thinking about someone else.
    Is this how it’s going to be?
    My car is outside and I have not
drunk alcohol. I could go home.
    I’m feeling less and less ready for
sleep, and in the pitch darkness of Andy’s bedroom, the question of whether I should
go home is mutating from simple choice to existential dilemma.
    What does it say about me that I
don’t want to wake up next to my lover on Sunday morning?
    What does it say about our
relationship?
    Would it be worse to be lying alone
in bed on Saturday night, free, independent, with the curtains open, but
without sex or marriage?
    Old maid, unmarried daughter,
spinster of the parish?
    On balance, yes it would be worse.
    I look at Andy’s sleeping face, and I
feel warm and protective towards him. Men look so vulnerable asleep, and he’s
in the snore-free bit of the cycle.
    But I’m still going to go home.
     
    There’s a tanker discharging in the
all-night petrol station, which means they’re not allowed to serve customers.
    Since when was a Creme Egg a safety
risk? It’s not as if I’m asking for matches, or even cigarettes.
    Last summer they had a proper hold-up
with a gun. I later recognized the perpetrator from his photo in the Gazette as one of the first boys I ever taught. He only got eighteen months because
he’d nicked the gun from Woolworths (it was silver with a red handle which must
have made him look about as terrifying as the Milky Bar Kid, but it’s difficult
to see at night). He’s served his sentence now, because I saw him the other day
behind the counter in a kebab shop. I suppose that counts as rehabilitation.
    The all-night teenager refuses to
meet my eyes through the window but that may be because I have shouted and
there is actually a sound link.
    ‘I’d settle for a Crunchie!’
    No sense of humour either.
     
    The services on the A40 have run out
of Creme Eggs, even though it’s over two months to Easter, which must mean that
it’s not just me. I choose a Bounty ice cream instead, and the coconut reminds
me that there is a bottle of Malibu standing on the small pine cupboard next to
my television.
     
    Seems a shame to open it for just a
glass. And I don’t really like the taste.
     
    *
     
    I have