Pulse

metaphorical port at this stage and the ladies were to retire – that they’d sit around talking about love and we’d sit around talking about sex?’
    ‘When I was a boy, before I knew anything about girls, I used to look forward to them equally.’
    ‘You mean, boys and girls?’
    ‘Cunt. No, love and sex.’
    ‘ Voices . Keep them down.’
    ‘Is there anything to match that, do you think, in the field of human emotional endeavour? The force of longing for sex and love when you haven’t had either?’
    ‘I remember it all too well. Life just seemed … impossible. Now that was pain.’
    ‘And yet it didn’t turn out so badly. We’ve all had love and sex, sometimes even at the same time.’
    ‘And now we’re going to put on our coats and go home and have one or the other and next time there will be a show of hands.’
    ‘Or a hiding of hands.’
    ‘Boys never stop being boys, do they?’
    ‘Does that qualify as passive-aggressive?’
    ‘I can do active-aggressive if you’d prefer.’
    ‘Leave it, sweetie.’
    ‘You know, this is one evening when I don’t want to be the first to go.’
    ‘Let’s all go together, then Phil and Joanna can discuss us while they clear up.’
    ‘Actually, we don’t do that.’
    ‘You don’t?’
    ‘No, we have a ritual. Phil clears, I stack the dishwasher. We put on some music. I wash up the stuff that won’t go in the dishwasher, Phil dries. We don’t discuss you.’
    ‘What charming hosts. A veritable Trimalchio and Mistress Quickly.’
    ‘What Jo means is, we’re all talked out. We discuss you tomorrow, over breakfast. And lunch. And, in this instance, probably dinner as well.’
    ‘Phil, you old bastard.’
    ‘I trust no one’s driving.’
    ‘I don’t trust anyone’s driving either. Only my own.’
    ‘You’re not really?’
    ‘I’m not a complete idiot. We’re all walking or cabbing it.’
    ‘Actually, we’re going to stand on the pavement discussing you two for a while.’
    ‘Was that really tongue, by the way?’
    ‘Sure.’
    ‘But I don’t like tongue.’
    After he had closed the front door, Phil put on some Madeleine Peyroux, kissed his wife on the apron string round the back of her neck, went upstairs to a darkened bedroom, cautiously approached the window, saw the others standing on the pavement, and watched them until they dispersed.

Trespass
    WHEN HE AND Cath broke up, he thought about joining the Ramblers, but it seemed too obviously sad a thing to do. He imagined the conversation:
    ‘Hi, Geoff. Sorry to hear about you and Cath. How’re you doing?’
    ‘Oh, fine, thanks. I’ve joined the Ramblers.’
    ‘Good move.’
    He could see the rest of it too: getting the magazine, studying the open-to-all invitation – meet 10.30, Saturday 12th, in car park immed. SE of Methodist Chapel – cleaning his boots the night before, cutting an extra sandwich just in case, maybe taking an extra tangerine as well, and turning up at the car park with (despite all his warnings to himself) a hopeful heart. A hopeful heart waiting to be bruised. And then it would be a case of getting through the walk, saying cheery farewells, and going home to eat the leftover sandwich and tangerine for his supper. Now that would be sad.
    Of course, he carried on walking. Most weekends, in most weathers, he’d be out with his boots and pack, his water bottle and his map. Nor was he going to keep away from all the walks he’d done with Cath. They weren’t ‘their’ walks, after all; and if they were, he’d be reclaiming them by doing them by himself. She didn’t own the circuit from Calver: along the Derwent, through Froggatt Woods to Grindleford, perhaps a diversion to the Grouse Inn for lunch, then along past the Bronze Age stone circle, lost in summer months amid thebracken, all leading to the grand surprise of Curbar Edge. She didn’t own that, nobody did.
    Afterwards, he made a note in his walking log. 2 hrs 45 mns. With Cath it used to take 3 hrs 30 mns, and an extra 30 mns if they went to the Grouse for a sandwich. That was one of the things about being single again: you saved time. You walked quicker, you got home and drank a beer quicker, you ate your supper quicker. And then the sex you had with yourself, that was quicker too. You gained all this extra time, Geoff thought – extra time in which to be lonely. Stop that, he said to himself. You aren’t allowed to be a sad person; you’re only allowed to be sad.
    ‘I thought we were going