My Secret Lover

up to lick my hand.
    Bernard used to talk about the bears
in Canada actually. Although I didn’t know the book then, obviously.
     
    ‘Bastard!’ I say.
    ‘BasTARD!’ says Joanna.
    I love my sister.
    We’re getting towards the end of the
second bottle.
    ‘Do you find it easy to share with
Vlad?’ I ask.
    ‘Share? What exactly?’
    ‘Living space. Secrets?’
    ‘We’ve got quite a lot of living
space, so that helps, as does having a good secretary.’
    ‘So that’s your recipe for a
successful marriage.’
    ‘If it is successful.’
    ‘Everything you do is successful.’
    There’s a pivotal moment with alcohol
when clarity turns to melancholy and there’s no return.
    ‘Oh Lord, not this again,’ says
Joanna.
    Alcohol never has the same effect on
her because she only really wets her lips.
    ‘And you’re pretty
    ‘It’s what’s inside that counts,’ she
says, patiently. ‘Not if you want to be a newsreader. Name one female
newsreader who’s not pretty. There, you see, you can’t. Or reporter? Not one.
Even Orla Guerin is beautiful, in a haunted kind of way.’
    ‘Would you want to be a newsreader
though?’
    ‘That’s not the point.’
    Joanna looks bewildered.
    ‘And you’ve got a proper career,’ I
say sulkily. ‘You’ve got a career.’
    ‘I’ve got a job. You’ve got a proper
career.’
    ‘Would you want to be doing what I
do?’ Joanna asks.
    ‘I don’t even know what you do! That
is my whole point. You know things ‘Things?’
    ‘The three economic tests for the
Euro—’
    ‘I think it’s five, isn’t it?’ says
Joanna.
    ‘You see, you ARE a proper person,
and I’m... shit!’
    ‘What?’
    ‘The senior teacher’s interview!’
    ‘What?’
    ‘I’ve got an interview for a proper
career tomorrow. That’s why I’m not drinking, except I am and now I’m drunk and
I can’t even drive home!’
    ‘I’ll get you a taxi.’
    ‘You can’t solve my life with taxis!’
I’m shouting now.
    ‘I know. I know,’ says Joanna, she
puts her arms around me. She’s been dealing with me for a long time.
    ‘The point is that I make an attempt
to be a proper person and it goes wrong before I’ve even started.’ I blub
against the shoulder of her suit. It’s extremely fine wool, probably Armani.
    ‘Why do you want to be a senior
teacher anyway?’ she asks gently.
    ‘Because it’s the sort of thing that
a proper person of my age does.’
    ‘But it’s bound to be all admin,
isn’t it?’
    ‘Now you’re the expert on teaching as
well?’
    I sniff.
    ‘Have some water and go to bed. I’ll
wake you up early and you’ll be fine.’

35
     
    ‘You are a proper person and you will
be a wonderful senior teacher,’ says Joanna, slamming my lime-green door and
blowing me a kiss. ‘Drive carefully!’
    I am a proper person who will be a
wonderful senior teacher.
    It sounds a bit like one of Fern’s
mantras, but designed especially for me by someone who actually knows me.
    I’m feeling surprisingly calm.
    I am a calm proper person who is
perfect for a responsible job.
    I’ve got plenty of time.
    It’s actually quite nice driving up
the A40 at this time in the morning.
    Slight sharpness in the air.
    Talking to Joanna really cleared my
mind and I do not have a hangover.
    Cy and Ry jumping on my bed at 5.30
reminded me why I wouldn’t want children and I now understand about the
Japanese cartoons.
     
    I am a calm person stepping into my
shower at home.
    I am a smart person with an aubergine
trouser suit from the Per Una range, size 14, that fits perfectly.
    If I breathe in.
    I am a calm person who has two
recently recovered ribs, don’t forget, so shouldn’t punish herself, and who
might find it easier to put on shoes lying back on bed with leg in the air.
    Can’t reach feet.
    I am an unflappable person who has
realized that she must take off trousers, put shoes on, then put trousers on
again.
    Yes!
    I am a proper person in a bit of a
hurry now, who’s caught the hem of the left trouser leg on the heel of her
shoe. But only at the back, so no-one will notice if I don’t trip on it.
    Still masses of time.
    I am a slightly vain person who
should have worn flat shoes for driving but didn’t want to risk forgetting the
proper pair like she once did to a wedding, although scuffed brown suede
flatties wouldn’t look so weird with aubergine trouser suit as they did with
floaty dress and lilac straw hat.
    I am such a calm person, I didn’t see
the new set of