Conversations with Friends(76)

I don’t know. What is ours sustained by?

That’s it! That’s exactly what I mean. Nothing. Do I call myself your girlfriend? No. Calling myself your girlfriend would be imposing some prefabricated cultural dynamic on us that’s outside our control. You know?

I thought about this until the film was over. Then I said: wait, so does that mean you’re not my girlfriend? She laughed. Are you serious? she said. No. I’m not your girlfriend.

*



Philip said he thought Bobbi was my girlfriend. We went out for coffee together during the week, and he told me that Sunny had offered him a part-time job, with real wages. I told him that I wasn’t jealous, which disappointed him, though I was also worried it was a lie. I liked Sunny. I liked the idea of books and reading. I didn’t know why I couldn’t enjoy things like other people did.

I’m not asking you if she’s my girlfriend, I said. I’m telling you she’s not.

But she obviously is. I mean, you’re doing some radical lesbian thing or whatever, but in basic vocabulary she is your girlfriend.

No. Again, this isn’t a question, it’s a statement.

He was crinkling up a sugar sachet in his fingers. We’d been talking for a while about his new job, a conversation that had left me feeling flat like a soft drink.

Well, I think she is, he said. I mean, in a good way. I think it’s really good for you. Especially after all that unpleasantness with Melissa.

What unpleasantness?

You know, whatever weird sex thing was going on there. With the husband.

I stared at him and I was at a loss to say anything at all. I watched the blue ink of the sugar sachet rub off onto his fingers, etching his fingerprints in thin blue ridges. Finally I said ‘I’ several times, which he didn’t seem to notice. The husband? I thought. Philip, you know his name.

What weird thing? I said.

Weren’t you sleeping with both of them? That’s what people were saying.

No, I wasn’t. Not that it would be wrong if I was, but I wasn’t.

Oh, okay, he said. I heard all kinds of weird things were going on.

I don’t really know why you’re saying this to me.

At this, Philip looked up with a shocked expression, and he reddened visibly. The sugar sachet slipped and he had to pinch it quickly with his fingers.

Sorry, he said. I didn’t mean to upset you.

You’re just telling me about these rumours because you think, what, I’ll laugh about it? Like it’s funny to me that people say nasty things behind my back?

I’m sorry, I just assumed that you knew.

I breathed in deeply through my nose. I knew I could walk away from the table, but I didn’t know where to walk to. I couldn’t think of anywhere I would like to go. I stood up anyway and took my coat from the back of the chair. I could see Philip was uncomfortable, and that he even felt guilty for hurting me, but I didn’t want to stay there any longer. I buttoned my coat up while he said weakly: where are you going?

It’s okay, I said. Forget about it. I’m just getting some air.

*



I never told Bobbi about the ultrasound or the meeting with the consultant. By refusing to admit that I was sick, I felt I could keep the sickness outside time and space, something only in my own head. If other people knew about it, the sickness would become real and I would have to spend my life being a sick person. This could only interfere with my other ambitions, such as achieving enlightenment and being a fun girl. I used internet forums to assess if this was a problem for anyone else. I searched ‘can’t tell people I’m’ and Google suggested: ‘gay’ and ‘pregnant’.

Sometimes at night when Bobbi and I were in bed together, my father called me. I would take the phone into the bathroom quietly to answer it. He had become less and less coherent. At times he seemed to believe that he was being hunted. He said: I have these thoughts, bad thoughts, you know? My mother said his brothers and sisters had been getting the phone calls too, but what could anyone do about it? He was never in the house when they went over. Often I could hear cars passing in the background, so I knew he was outside. Occasionally he seemed concerned for my safety also. He told me not to let them find me. I said: I won’t, Dad. They’re not going to find me. I’m safe where I am.

I knew my pain could begin again at any time, so I started taking the maximum dose of ibuprofen every day just in case. I concealed my grey notebook along with the boxes of painkillers in the top drawer of my desk, and I only removed them when Bobbi was showering or gone to class. This top drawer seemed to signify everything that was wrong with me, everything bad I felt about myself, so whenever it caught my eye I started to feel sick again. Bobbi never asked about it. She never mentioned the ultrasound or asked who was calling me on the phone at night. I understood it was my fault but I didn’t know what to do about it. I needed to feel normal again.

*



My mother came up to Dublin that weekend. We went shopping together, she bought me a new dress, and we went for lunch in a cafe on Wicklow Street. She seemed tired, and I was tired too. I ordered a smoked salmon bagel and picked at the slimy pieces of fish with my fork. The dress was in a paper bag under the table and I kept kicking it accidentally. I had suggested the cafe for lunch, and I could tell my mother was being polite about it, though in her presence I noticed that the sandwiches were outrageously expensive and served with side salads nobody ate. When she ordered tea, it came in a pot with a fiddly china teacup and saucer, which she smiled at gamely. Do you like this place? she said.