Part 16 (1/2)

'Well that's definitely what you want.' I don't know why I am saying this. Of course I want a quick no-mess divorce, if I have to be divorced. There's no point in losing my dignity on top of everything else. But I feel sore.

Bella seems to be concentrating on breathing slowly and deeply. Eventually I relent.

'Let's do the mutual consent thing.'

She grabs the ball and runs with it.

'The procedure is the same for all types of divorce. From issuing pet.i.tion to decree absolute is fourteen weeks. It can all be done through the post. There's no need for any court appearances.'

I sign the paper that will lead to our divorce.

Bella flashes a broad smile and I know I should be sharing her enthusiasm. After all, the divorce will simplify my life too. 'It's a good thing that neither of us owns anything because if we did it gets more complicated.'

'I own my flat and a car,' I tell her.

'Do you really?' She's astonished. 'I was always worried that all you'd ever own was your guitar.'

'I know.'

'Still, it doesn't matter. Both those a.s.sets are in your name presumably, and obviously I don't want to make any claim on them.' She blushes again, because we both know she's just said whatever I own Philip can buy and sell ten times over.

'I have a pension too,' I tell her. 'I started it when I was twenty-four. I'm not sure what it will be worth when I retire.' Why am I telling her this? Do I want to impress her with my stab at respectability? Jesus help me, I want to impress her.

'Well, maybe we'll need to draw up a doc.u.ment to say we have no claim on each other's a.s.sets. Just to be on the safe side,' says Bella. 'We want to do everything properly.'

I resist adding, 'This time.' I know Bella would never claim any money from me and I don't need a legal doc.u.ment to guarantee that.

'What will you do when we're divorced?' I ask.

'I'll remarry Philip,' she says calmly and then she swallows back her G&T.

'Will you tell him, about... me?'

'Good G.o.d, no,' she says emphatically. 'I'm planning on telling him there was some hiccup in our paperwork.'

More lies. 'Do you think he'll believe you?'

'I can be very convincing. Another drink?'

I accept. Bella owes me so much that the least she can do is buy me a few lousy drinks.

When she comes back to the table she is carrying the drinks and three large bags of crisps.

'Tomato flavour,' she says with obvious glee. 'I haven't seen tomato flavour crisps since we were about seventeen, so I bought loads. They used to be your favourite.'

'They were your favourite,' I correct her.

She shrugs and smiles, 'Well, we both liked them. Tuck in.'

It amazes me how many truly appalling social situations can be eased by the introduction of food and drink. The annual school production used to be shamefully painful until one of the staff alighted on the idea of selling wine and boxes of Maltesers in the interval. Suddenly, the kids' terrible stutters and two-left-feet syndrome became less insufferable. Would anyone ever manage to get through a funeral without the promise of egg sandwiches and alcohol at the end? Similarly, Bella and I seem to find each other's company more palatable after a few units and a bag of crisps.

'Thanks for asking us to go to Vegas,' says Bella. She's half grimacing and half grinning.

'Laura thinks we need an opportunity to bond,' I explain. 'I was depending on you turning it down.' I'd been furious that Bella hadn't put her famed skill of bulls.h.i.+tting into play and had failed to pull out of the hat an effective excuse for not coming. Things are complicated enough without a cosy holiday for four.

'Sorry. Are you dreading it?'

I was until about three minutes ago when Bella became Belinda again and bought me three packets of tomato flavour crisps. Crisps which she's munching, and have stuck between her teeth. She puts her finger in her mouth and digs around, presumably for the soft stuff that's stuck at the back. I watch her until she becomes self-conscious. 'Sorry, not very polite of me.'

We both know we've shared intimacies that blow away public tooth-picking. Recently, I've spent a fair amount of time thinking about those intimacies. I've dwelt, with Gollum-like obsession, on our first time and our last time. I've calculated that over the years we must have had s.e.x approximately a thousand times. I'm working on an average of four times a week for the first year, then three times a week for the following five. We cut a lot of cla.s.ses.

We had s.e.x in every way imaginable, or at least in every way we could have imagined back then. Shy s.e.x, saucy s.e.x, sweet loving, dirty loving, marathon loving, inside, outside, stood up, on chairs, on couches, in cars, on beds, lots of different beds single beds and friends' parents' beds featured quite heavily in the early years. It all seemed like b.l.o.o.d.y brilliant s.e.x.

Until Edinburgh. Then we had more and more quick s.e.x, tired s.e.x and angry s.e.x. It is odd, isn't it, that the last time you have s.e.x with anyone you rarely know it's that. We did it the day she left a duty-fuelled quickie that we pretended was about wis.h.i.+ng me luck before the compet.i.tion. We'd got into the habit of my taking her from behind. She knew that I couldn't last as long in that position, it got it over quicker for her and she didn't have to look at me. Even remembering her firm a.r.s.e bobbing up and down doesn't make that flashback palatable.

'Do you go home much?' I ask, pus.h.i.+ng all carnal thoughts away. Far away.

'No. You?'

'My mum moved back to Blackpool to be near my nan. I visit her every month or so.'

Bella stutters, 'b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l, I do my best to avoid my family for at least a couple of years at a time.'

'You must visit at Christmas?'

'No, actually, the snow always puts me off.'

'What do you do instead?'

'I go skiing.'

'That doesn't make sense.' She shrugs. 'How are your brothers? Are they still fis.h.i.+ng?'

'Martin and Iain are. Not on our own boat any more. They work in town for a bigger one. Rob packed it in. He hurt his back somehow. I can't remember the details.'

'What does he do now?'

'Watches TV.'

'And Don?'

'Don's otherwise engaged.'

'They're all well, though, on the whole?'

'I suppose so,' she mutters grumpily. 'To be honest I got fed up of looking after them when I lived with them so I'm quite keen to leave them to their own devices now.'

I ignore her pique. 'Is your dad well?'