Commitment Issues by Ali Ryecart
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Elliot
My eyes are sore and gritty, I’m tired, and I have a headache. Again. I’ve been at my desk all day and I’m as stiff as a plank, and I need to move around a bit before I plunge back into work.
Pulling open my office door, I’m taken aback to find the outer office empty. My eyes find the wall clock. Of course it’s empty, it’s probably been empty for a couple of hours. Everybody’s gone, home or to meet friends, and here I am stuck in the office on a Friday night. Not that it wasn’t my choice.
I haven’t seen Freddie, or spoken to him, all this week. He’s busy with his preparations for leaving, and I’ve been immersed in work. And God, don’t I just miss him. I miss coming home and finding him there, dinner cooking, making my house feel like a true home. I miss waking up with him curled up next to me, one arm across my body and holding on in a vice-like grip as though he can’t bear to let me go.
But everything’s changed.
He no longer stays the night, but goes home after we’ve screwed ourselves senseless, nothing more than passionless, mindless rutting, before he’s tugging on his clothes, almost falling over himself in his desperation to get away.
Back at my desk, the columns of figures on my computer screen are beginning to blur. It’s just gone eight in the evening, and I’ve been here for fourteen hours, and it’s time to go home. I close down my computer. I want to call Freddie, want to talk and laugh at the kitchen table as we eat dinner together, easy in each other’s company. But we’re not easy, not now, and I resign myself to heating something I’ll drag from the freezer, and the company of the TV and my dog.
Out on the busy street, I’ve not taken more than a couple of steps towards the Tube station, when my mobile pings. My heart rate soars at the thought that it’s Freddie, only to plummet when I see the name.
James.
I ignore it, because I’m in no mood for my friend’s acerbic wit, and I’m just about to stuff the phone back in my pocket when it pings again with another message, and this time I do open it up.
Ring me now you miserable bastard.
I groan, because if I don’t obey his missive, it means I can look forward to a growing list of increasingly foulmouthed, and increasingly imaginative, text messages.
“Where are you?” His first words, barked at me down the phone.
“And good evening to you, too.”
“Wherever you are,” he says, ignoring my barbed response, “forget all about it and come and join me for a drink.”
“Not tonight. Sorry. The last few days have been a complete bitch. I’ve been at my desk since dawn, so I’m going home—”
“To an empty house, the scrapings from the back of the freezer, and the company of an arthritic, ugly dog who farts a lot.”
“Jasper isn’t ugly, and he doesn’t fart.” He is and he does. I can say those things about him, but nobody else can, including James. And anyway, how does he know the house will be empty and that I’ll be rummaging for something vaguely edible from the back of the deep freeze?
“I’m at The Breakers Yard,” he says, referring to the Soho bar where we often meet. “I’m going to order you a G&T, which I expect you to be here to drink.”
* * *
As soon as I walk into the bar, I spot James. He ’s lounging back in his chair, talking and smiling up at a young guy who’s hovering next to him. They both burst into laughter, and James beckons to him to lean down, and when he does, James whispers something into his ear. The guy’s eyes grow wider and he nods, and seconds later he’s gone. As though sensing I’m there, James looks over and gives me a self-satisfied smile.
“I don’t think I need to ask what that was all about,” I say, as I sit down opposite him.
“That sounds very suburban.”
“That’s because I am suburban at heart,” I snap. “You forget that that’s where I come from. “
“You’re very tetchy this evening.” Ignoring my snap, he pushes the promised G&T towards me.
“I’m just tired, that’s all. Work’s been difficult and — and there’s been other stuff.” I pick up my drink and take a large slug, the alcohol immediately slamming into my empty stomach.
“The other stuff being Freddie, I assume.”
“What do you mean by that?” I put down my half-drained glass. James’ lips lift in a tiny smile as he stares at me.
“I’ve heard about his news. I had lunch with Cosmo a day or two ago, and he told me. So Freddie’s decamping for the year to the land of snow and ice and big, butch Vikings. How do you feel about it?”
“There’s nothing to feel about it.”
“Really? You like him, so you must feel something.”
“Yes, you’re right. I do. I feel happy for him because it’s everything he wants. It’s the first step towards a new phase of his life. And that’s how it should be. Our arrangement was only ever a very loose, casual thing.” I grab my glass and down the rest of the drink.
“You might be able to lie to yourself but you can’t lie to me.”
“I’m not lying. Why would I be lying?” The alcohol’s swirling in my bloodstream, and my tone’s truculent, and yes, tetchy, because of course I’m lying, and the little runt knows it, because he knows me inside out. But James doesn’t rise to the bait. Instead, he just looks at me, cool and assessing as always, but I’m not going to crumble.
“I’m happy for him,” I say, my voice low. “I’ve got to know him, and yes I like him perhaps more than I should or I ever meant to. But the fact is, he’s leaving just as I always knew he would. I only hope we can stay friends.”
Friends. The word’s hydrochloric acid in my stomach.
“Friends? That’s very amicable and civilised. Will you still like to be his friend in six months’ time when he introduces you to Sven or Lars or whoever his Scandi boyfriend turns out to be? Will you still feel like being his friend then?”
My head snaps up and I meet James’ eyes. He’s looking at me like I’m an idiot, and there’s more than a hint of a sneer in his voice. Anger wells up within me, but it’s not anger at him, it’s anger at myself, because his words are a sharpened arrow, piercing through all my bullshit.
Yet I still try and tough it out. “I don’t know what you think you’re getting at.”
“Oh, I think you do,” James says, his voice dropping, and growing gentler. “Elliot, casual’s not you. It never has been. You’ve always been very… Let’s say traditional in your outlook.” His lips twitch.
“Boringly suburban you mean?” Because what he says is true. It’s not that I’m a stranger to hook-ups, but they’ve been few over the years. I’ve always been monogamous and committed, with all my boyfriends. I may have been royally shafted by Gavin, but it can’t alter who and what I fundamentally am, and what I want.
James shrugs. “There’s nothing wrong with that, I suppose. It’s never been what I’ve wanted and it never will be, but different people look for different things. But one thing I do know is that leopards don’t change their stripes—”
“Spots.”
“Spots, stripes, or underpants, you know what I mean.”
“I’m not sure I do, but I think you’re going to tell me anyway.”
“How right you are, because you know how much I like the sound of my own voice.” He leans across the table, his face serious and determined yet, when he speaks, there’s a hesitancy to his voice, an undercurrent of unsureness. It’s what makes my muscles tense and my skin tingle, because this a James I’ve only rarely seen.
“You can call this thing with Freddie whatever you like. An arrangement, an agreement, or any other bloodless, clinical term you can think of, but—”
“But what? What exactly should I call it, James, other than what it is? What we’ve been doing has suited us both. It’s what you suggested, after I split with Gavin. Remember? I’m having no strings fun, yet now you sit here and tell me that’s not me. You can’t have it both ways.”
James says nothing. I’ve silenced him, and I can’t remember when, or if, that’s happened before.
“Look,” I say, scrubbing my fingers through my hair. “You’re making something that isn’t complicated, well, complicated.”
“But it is complicated, despite everything you tell me and you tell yourself, complicated is precisely what it is. Can you honestly tell me that you’ll happily wave Freddie goodbye as he skips off to Norway?”
“Yes. That’s exactly what’s going to happen.” I keep my gaze locked on James, as ice forms in my stomach.
“Then I wish you luck with that,” he says quietly, “because I think you’re going to need it.”
