It Started With A Tweet(53)

She looks up at my head and I’m sure she’s starting to spot them. ‘I hadn’t noticed.’

‘That’s because I rip them out when I see them, but the buggers keep coming back. Oh my God,’ I say, clapping my hand to my mouth as Enrique Iglesias’s ‘Hero’ comes on the radio. My cheeks immediately flush red at the memory.

‘Why have you turned beetroot?’

‘I slow danced to this with Russell Barns.’

If I close my eyes I can still feeling him grabbing my bum as we shuffled awkwardly around the community centre where my friends were having their birthday party.

‘Ooh I remember him, he was the one with the really long curtains,’ she says, shrieking with laughter.

‘Yeah, and the undercut. He was one of the most popular boys in our year,’ I say proudly.

‘Did you snog him?’

‘No, I wish. He later got off with Amy Johnson.’

‘The one who had all those coloured braids in her hair?’

‘Oh, yeah, she did. Those friendship-bracelet-type things.’

We’re both lost in our thoughts of nineties nostalgia before Rosie interrupts to give me a top up. ‘More Baileys?’ she asks, holding up the bottle, and I look down in surprise to see that my glass is empty.

‘Yes, please. You see, even back then my love life was a mess. I couldn’t even seal the deal with Russell Barns.’

‘Everyone’s love life was a mess back then, that’s the whole point of being a teenager.’

‘Then if that’s true, why has everyone else sorted theirs out and I haven’t?’

Rosie nudges the box of chocolate fingers towards me as if it’s going to make it all better. I bite into one, and for a second I think she might be on to something.

‘Not everyone’s sorted. They might seem it on the outside, but just because they’ve had their happy ending doesn’t mean they’re living happily ever after.’

Rosie looks sad, and I don’t think it’s helping that ‘Wind of Change’ has started playing, seemingly echoing our mood of melancholy.

‘Yes, but at least they’ve had the happy ending and have something to work with. I haven’t had a date with anyone that I wasn’t introduced to by my phone for years. I have to find men using an app. I mean, I’m not ordering a bloody pizza, I’m trying to find a soulmate.’

‘I’m married and I can’t remember the last time Rupert and I went on a date. Sure, we go to client dinners and dinner parties with friends, but I don’t know when we last went out just the two of us, where he didn’t cancel because he was working.’

‘But at least you get to share a bed with someone at night. I haven’t slept in the same bed as someone in over two years.’

‘You haven’t had sex in over two years?’

‘Of course I have,’ I say, looking at my sister like she’s an idiot. ‘My love life’s not that much of a disaster. I just mean I didn’t stay overnight and didn’t have the whole fall-asleep-in each-other’s-arms-until-your-limbs-go-numb experience.’

‘Then I don’t think I’ve done that for years either. Rupert is definitely not a cuddly sleeper.’

‘I don’t understand how I can live in a city of eight and a half million people and still be desperately lonely.’

‘I don’t understand how I can live in a flat with the love of my life and still be lonely.’

I look up at Rosie and see her blink back some tears.

‘I don’t understand how our girls’ night in got so depressing so suddenly,’ I say, trying and failing to lighten the mood. One minute we were up and now we’re so far down that I’m afraid if they play ‘Everybody Hurts’, we’ll be throwing ourselves into the well, and not to retrieve our phones.

‘Is it really that bad between you and Rupert? I thought he was just mad at you for buying the house?’

‘It’s worse than that. I mean, we still love each other, it’s just .?.?. When I was working I wouldn’t even have noticed that there was a problem; we’d be out at the crack of dawn and back after sunset, we’d grab a ready meal, collapse in front of the telly for an hour or so and head off to bed. It didn’t matter if he worked late as I’d probably be doing the same. We’d both just update our joint Google Calendar with plans with friends without consulting each other, just assuming that if we were free we’d go along with it. But, somehow with me leaving my job and having time for myself, I’ve realised how little time we actually made for each other.’

‘And that’s why this house is so important?’

‘If I could just make him see that we could run a business where he wouldn’t have to work all the hours, then we could have a real life. One where I’d be happy to have children.’

‘I’ve never wanted to ask,’ I say, treading carefully, as I’d often wondered if they’d had problems conceiving, ‘but do you want children?’

‘Rupert really does, but I don’t, at least not yet. I don’t want to be a single parent, which is effectively what I would be if Ru carried on as he is. He wouldn’t get home in time to see the kids go to bed; he’d be like a weekend dad. I want us to be parents together.’