Junction X by Erastes (digital ebook reader .TXT) 📗

how he was—I normally did—or perhaps he was expecting me to touch him. I wondered why he hadn’t touched me, although I was grateful that he hadn’t. I tried to imagine reaching out to him, the way I had with the imaginary Alex earlier and I just couldn’t even see me doing it. Whatever Phil and I had started one night on a wine-soaked beach in France was gone as completely as a popped soap bubble.

“Where are we having this pint, Eddie,” he said, pulling me out of my reverie, “London?”

I realised how far we’d come, past the seafront and almost as far as we could go without having to turn around. This was the bohemian section of our local area, filled with fishing sheds, cobbled streets and tatty fishermen’s pubs which had become the haunt of the local student population. I drove into the tiny car park of The Lobster Pot and we said nothing to each other until we were seated, with our pints, in a dark corner booth.

“So, what’s up?” he said, finally. The foam had stuck to his lip a little. Once I would have wanted to kiss it away.

I was prickly—unnecessarily so, I realise now. I’d sought him out, after all. “Nothing.”

“Crap.” He put his glass down with a thump and the barmaid looked over at us, startled. I remember she was wearing pink and her eyes were beautiful but ruined with black clumps of mascara which stuck to her eyelashes like soot. “I know you well enough.”

I could have bluffed it out. I could have said nothing at all, but I knew that I was going to tell him; I had known it from the first moment I’d told Mrs. Tudor I was going out.

“We shouldn’t have lost touch before,” he said. “I’m beginning to wonder why we ever bloody moved.” He looked at his drink as if he hated it. “Come on. You and I could always talk.”

His eyes were soft and I was pleasantly warmed by his concern, for all that he was deluding himself. We’d never really talked. “There’s nothing…wrong exactly. I’ve…” I could have stopped right there. “I’ve met someone.”

He looked at me as if I’d said I was a Martian, his face frozen in the look of intimate regard he’d been holding. Slowly, his face went blank as he sat back. Far too late—for the ice had already broken beneath my feet—I realised that I hadn’t considered that he might take it badly, given his own circumstances.

“Forget it,” I said. As if he could. “I shouldn’t have… I…you and Claire.” I couldn’t say anything and I could feel my ears growing hot with embarrassment.

“I’m still registering the shock,” he said finally. “I thought you and Val were…you know she’ll kill you, right? With her bare hands. Or a tennis racket. Just make sure she doesn’t find out.” He laughed then.

A peculiar feeling swept over me—I could not have said what it was, although it felt like emotion draining through my body, taking the strength from my legs. I don’t think I could have stood up at that moment. I hadn’t realised he’d be so amused, and I wished I’d said nothing.

“You dog, Eddie. It’s always the quiet ones.” He leant forward a little and licked his lips. If I hadn’t known before now that I no longer desired him, I would have done then, for in the gloom and with that leering expression, he looked brutal. “Come on, then, tell me everything. Where did you meet her? It’s not someone from the typing pool?”

He was my best friend, and yet he didn’t know me at all. In the seconds that followed, as I stared at his mouth, red and open in expectation of the tittle-tattle he waited to hear, I realised he’d never known me, had never cared enough to think about his actions. I don’t know why I was surprised, now when I look back on it. I’d always accepted that he was an opportunist, a climber. I was just someone he clambered over on his way up. This didn’t come to me all at once, of course; it filtered through to me over the next couple of weeks.

He tried to get me to talk, and trod on my toe under the table. “Come on,” he said, “you can’t leave me in suspense like this.”

I grabbed the empty mugs and went back to the bar. I felt sick. There was one person in the world that I believed I could confide in, I thought. One person I knew would understand. I hadn’t been planning on giving out any names, but I’d wanted to talk about Alex to someone. What’s the point of being infatuated if you couldn’t talk about it?

While the barmaid filled the glasses, I pulled myself together and, by the time I went back to the table, I had it under control.

“You’re a tease, Edward Johnson,” Phil said, with a smile that meant more than it seemed. “I’ve always thought so.”

I was lying to my wife and lying to myself, so what harm could lying to Phil do? I looked him straight in the face and gave him the conspiratorial face I’d seen on other men. Sharing a dirty little secret. Giving him what he wanted. I was good at that. I could sell; that’s what I did.

“No. No one at work. No one you know.” It was a good start and, so far, true. “I’m not sure where it’s going.”

“Going?” He looked amazed. “Christ. Ed, you are amazing—you take everything so seriously. You’ve got a beautiful wife, great kids, good job. You’ve got me—and now you’ve got a bit on the side?”

“Shut up!” He was too loud and I wanted to hit him. Hearing Alex (even mistakenly) talked of in that way made me angry.

“And you are worrying about it already? How long has this been going on? You still haven’t said where you met her.”

“And I’m not going to, either.”

“You can trust me, Ed.