The Men in her Life

and smashed into the skittles. STRIKE. The television screen lit up with her name and a cross and she leapt triumphantly in the air. The strike had given her as good a feeling as any deal she had ever made. She was born to bowl.
    As she sat down again she wondered why she hadn’t bet more on the roll of that ball. Why just for the summer, why not for ever? With Matt she could enjoy the simple pleasures of life. Sex, food, and bowling. Sod the career, sod the age difference. At one o’clock in the morning in a seedy bowling alley in Finsbury Park , with a Budweiser in one hand and a cigarette in the other, Holly felt as happy as she had ever been.

    ‘If you wanted me to get you a muffin, you should have said,’ Matt said as he slid into bed beside her later that night.
    ‘What?’ Holly opened a bleary eye.
    He had discovered a place called the Canadian Muffin Company and bought three or four muffins in brown paper bags every day.
    ‘They’re not a bit like real muffins,’ he would tell her, biting into a double chocolate chip, or macadamia nut fudge, ‘more like cakes really.’
    The excitement he derived from something so ordinary delighted her. He had a very sweet tooth. Whenever she popped out for cigarettes and enquired whether she could get him anything, the reply would always be a Twix or a Yorkie, and it made him sound so young, she would wish she hadn’t asked. It must be the difference between boys and girls, she thought. Girls grew out of chocolate and into diets and cigarettes at puberty. He was always getting up in the middle of the night to eat. At first she had thought it quite amusing that he was burning off so much energy with her that he had to keep refuelling, but persistent lack of sleep was making her less tolerant.
    ‘I just wish you’d eat something properly, not take a bite and discard it when you fancy a cigarette...’ He propped a pillow behind him and sat with his arms folded.
    ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Holly told him, turning over.
    ‘You never finish a meal. It’s the same in restaurants. You order all this food and then you pick at it and then you light up. I’ve never been out with anyone who smoked,’ he added.
    Holly couldn’t decide whether to be angry with him for giving her a hard time, or flattered that he considered they were ‘going out’.
    ‘I’ve never been out with anyone who didn’t,’ she said, ‘can we please go back to sleep?’
    ‘I’m not tired,’ Matt told her.
    ‘Well, go and walk the streets, or go to a club, or buy yourself some more food, but let me get some rest...’
    ‘All right, I will,’ he said, scrambling out of bed and pulling on jeans and a T-shirt. He said it as if it were a threat.
    She smiled, listening to the exaggerated noise he made stomping downstairs and banging the front door behind him, then she turned over and closed her eyes, seeing him sauntering around an almost deserted Trafalgar Square , kicking at imaginary stones on the pavement in that spoilt boyish way he had when something wasn’t quite to his taste. She sighed, tried to relax. Were they going out? Seemed such a silly teenage phrase for it. Was he living with her? Were they having a relationship? Was she being a complete fool? Did she care?

Chapter 27

    Holly wanted someone to tell. Constant sex interrupted only by going to work was fantastic, but it was all body. Unless she had a conversation with somebody soon, she thought she would literally lose her mind. She sent Matt out to see a film, giving him the money for the ticket, which she felt slightly odd about even though she told herself it was only redistribution of wealth, not payment for services rendered.
    Holly picked up her phone, trying to decide who to ring. Clare was obviously not the person although Holly owed her a phone call. She had rung to let them know that Ella had arrived safely, and then rung again, obviously wanting to talk. Holly had struggled to make appropriate noises as Matt was particularly keen on making out while she was on the phone. Not Mo either, although Mo had rung several times leaving hesitant messages like spoken postcards.
    ‘We had a lovely time in Ireland . Hope you’re well. Love Mum.’
    ‘Hope you’re OK. Give me a ring when you have a mo. Love, er, Mo. ’
    Simon didn’t deserve to know about her affair, because he hadn’t told her about his. Colette’s answerphone was on.
    ‘It’s Holly. Ring me to find out whether I’m having