Part 19 (1/2)

'This is the second Simply Red song on this tape. One's unforgivable. Two's a war crime. Can I fast-forward?' I fast-forward without waiting for a reply. I stop on some terrible post-Motown Diana Ross thing, and I groan. Laura plows on regardless.

'Do you know that expression, 'Time on his hands and himself on his mind'? That's you.'

'So what should I be doing?'

'I don't know. Something. Working. Seeing people. Running a scout troop, or running a club even. Something more than waiting for life to change and keeping your options open. You'd keep your options open for the rest of your life, if you could. You'll be lying on your deathbed, dying of some smoking-related disease, and you'll be thinking, 'Well, at least I've kept my options open. At least I never ended up doing something I couldn't back out of.' And all the time you're keeping your options open, you're closing them off. You're thirty-six and you don't have children. So when are you going to have them? When you're forty? Fifty? Say you're forty, and say your kid doesn't want kids until he's he's thirty-six. That means you'd have to live much longer than your allotted three-score years and ten just to catch so much as a thirty-six. That means you'd have to live much longer than your allotted three-score years and ten just to catch so much as a glimpse glimpse of your grandchild. See how you're denying yourself things?' of your grandchild. See how you're denying yourself things?'

'So it all boils down to that.'

'What?'

'Have kids or we split up. The oldest threat in the book.'

'f.u.c.k off, off, Rob. That's not what I'm saying to you. I don't care whether you want kids or not. I do, I know that, but I don't know whether I want them with you, and I don't know whether you want them at all. I've got to sort that out for myself. I'm just trying to wake you up. I'm just trying to show you that you've lived half your life, but for all you've got to show for it you might as well be nineteen, and I'm not talking about money or property or furniture.' Rob. That's not what I'm saying to you. I don't care whether you want kids or not. I do, I know that, but I don't know whether I want them with you, and I don't know whether you want them at all. I've got to sort that out for myself. I'm just trying to wake you up. I'm just trying to show you that you've lived half your life, but for all you've got to show for it you might as well be nineteen, and I'm not talking about money or property or furniture.'

I know she's not. She's talking about detail, clutter, the stuff that stops you floating away.

'It's easy for you to say that, isn't it, Mzzzz. Hot Shot City Lawyer. It's not my fault that the shop isn't doing very well.'

'Jesus Christ.' She changes gears with an impressive violence, and doesn't speak to me for a while. I know we nearly got somewhere; I know that if I had any guts I would tell her that she was right, and wise, and that I needed and loved her, and I would have asked her to marry me or something. It's just that, you know, I want to keep my options open, and anyway, there's no time, because she hasn't finished with me yet.

'Do you know what really annoys me?'

'Yeah. All the stuff you just told me. About the way I keep my options open and all that.'

'Apart from that.'

'f.u.c.king h.e.l.l.'

'I can tell you exactly - exactly - what's wrong with you and what you should be doing about it, and you couldn't even begin to do the same for me. Could you?'

'Yeah.'

'Go on, then.'

'You're fed up with your job.'

'And that's what's wrong with me, is it?'

'More or less.'

'See? You haven't got a clue.'

'Give me a chance. We've only just started living together again. I'll probably spot something else in a couple of weeks.'

'But I'm not even fed up with my job. I quite enjoy it, in fact.'

'You're just saying that to make me look stupid.'

'No, I'm not. I enjoy my work. It's stimulating, I like the people I work with, I've got used to the money . . . but I don't like liking it. It confuses me. I'm not who I wanted to be when I grew up.'

'Who did you want to be?'

'Not some woman in a suit, with a secretary and half an eye on a partners.h.i.+p. I wanted to be a legal-aid lawyer with a DJ boyfriend, and it's all going wrong.'

'So find yourself a DJ. What do you want me to do about it?'

'I don't want you to do anything about it. I just want you to see that I'm not entirely defined by my relations.h.i.+p with you. I want you to see that just because we're getting sorted out, it doesn't mean that I'm getting sorted out. I've got other doubts and worries and ambitions. I don't know what kind of life I want, and I don't know what sort of house I want to live in, and the amount of money I'll be making in two or three years frightens me, and . . . '

'Why couldn't you have just come out with it in the first place? How am I supposed to guess? What's the big secret?'

'There's no secret. I'm simply pointing out that what happens to us isn't the whole story. That I continue to exist even when we're not together.'

I would have worked that out for myself, in the end. I would have seen that just because I go all fuzzy around the edges when I don't have a partner, it doesn't mean that everybody else does.

4. (In front of the TV, the following evening.) ' . . . somewhere nice. Italy. The States. The West Indies, even.'

'Excellent idea. What I'll do is, tomorrow I'll get hold of a box full of mint Elvis Presley 78s on Sun, and I'll pay for it that way.' I remember the Wood Green lady with the errant husband and the amazing singles collection, and feel a quick pang of regret.

'I presume that's some kind of sarcastic male record collector joke.'

'You know how broke I am.'

'You know I'll pay for you. Even though you still owe me money. What's the point of me doing this job if I have to spend my holiday in a tent on the Isle of Wight?'

'Oh yeah, and where am I going to find the money for half a tent?'

We watch Jack Duckworth trying to hide a fifty-pound note he won on the horses from Vera.

'It doesn't matter, you know, about the money. I don't care how little you earn. I'd like you to be happier in your work, but beyond that you can do what you like.'

'But it wasn't supposed to be like this. When I met you we were the same people, and now we're not, and . . . '

'How were we the same people?'

'You were the sort of person that came to the Groucho, and I was the sort of person that played the records. You wore leather jackets and T-s.h.i.+rts, and so did I. And I still do, and you don't.'

'Because I'm not allowed allowed to. I do during the evenings.' to. I do during the evenings.'

I'm trying to find a different way of saying that we're not the same people we used to be, that we've grown apart, blah blah blah, but the effort is beyond me.