We agreed to meet at the Soho House bar at 8 pm. He texted me to ask if we were snacking or if I had eaten. I said, “Of course I’m starving.” When he arrived he was wearing black jeans and a black sweater: he looked exactly like Daniel Craig in the role of James Bond. I had spent half an hour waiting (I usually arrive early), surrounded by couples chatting, and now I was one of them. We went to dinner and had the most frank conversation I’ve ever had with a man. I’ve always been too insecure to defend myself.
‘Why did you cheat on me for four weeks? I told you I felt happy for the first time in my life and then nothing.
He said he had read the comments under my column about him raising me on my birthday. “Everyone condemned me. Rightly so, since I let you down. But I don’t have a lover or girlfriend. And I need you to be in London. I can’t do long distance. I work in the office every day. You would be giving up many things, your house, your horse. If you lived in London, we’d be living together by now, I’m sure. I want to travel, one day have a house in Italy and spend months there. (I’m imagining Mini Puppy using an ice pack chair.)
My column had harmed him enormously. “But you’re not identified,” I screeched. However, he had told a couple of friends he would see me and they obviously did their homework. “They told me, ‘You have to get over Liz. “She writes about you.” And, of course, they whispered so many negative things about me in his ear; As he said, people love to give bad news. It’s hard for him that my online profile is huge.
I’m so in love with him, I enjoy feeling normal, dressed, that I told him that before he cheated on me I had been thinking that the disaster of leaving London, losing everything, was worth it because it led me to him. I only met him because a mutual friend had helped me get a mortgage. And then he left. Now he was crying and I told him that my job means I have no life: ‘Are you asking me how I can be available? This is how.’
He said he wouldn’t be sitting with me if he wasn’t a writer. That if I stop writing, the haters will have won. ‘Do I care? Not precisely. I’m here, right?
We went up to my room. He starts kissing me as soon as we get into the elevator. We have sex and I find myself clinging to him.
And then at 1am he says something but I can’t hear him (my headphones hiss when I kiss them, as do the ones on the nightstand). So I’m sitting on the bed in my thong, while he’s next to me, now fully clothed, texting. It’s like a crazy romantic comedy.
Him: ‘I’m going home now. I don’t like the morning, checking in, taking a taxi. That’s why I go now and we make our plan, okay?
Me (sorry, I’m pathetic): ‘Okay, but I want to be with you.’
Him: ‘But we are together. Next time, I want you to accept the simple and come stay with me. I love everything about us. You are really beautiful. Your body is beautiful. Your fame, your success, is something I have to understand. I never expected to meet someone like you. I am very happy that you gave me another chance. We start again. But you will sacrifice a lot.
Me, at 3 in the morning, just: ‘Are you sure you haven’t gone home because you live with a woman? Feel vulnerable.’
Him: ‘I don’t have anyone. Except you. But give me our own private space that you don’t share with anyone but me.
The next morning I text him. ‘Again, I’m sorry for writing negative things, but the silence confused me. I could write that we finished it last night because of the distance, my writing? It’s my fault you disappeared. We need to spend more time together before I decide on London. You know everything about me, every thought, but I don’t know you… yet. You can see the confusion I’m in because I didn’t touch dinner.
Him: ‘Firstly, thank you for a lovely evening. Yes, I loved you. As for the spine thing, you know how to handle it. I wish I had brought you home last night. To dispel your fears. I agree that we need to talk and meet more before making life-changing decisions. I was being selfish.’
On the train home, I start ordering festive food from Riverford. Men’s things. I Google the pine trees of Norfolk Island. My first Christmas in my beautiful house, which is finally finished, and someone to share it with!
And then he texts, “I can’t celebrate Christmas.” But I will text you every night.