Talking to Addison

‘How nice for you.’

‘Hey, maybe we could double date some time – Finn and I and you and …’

Kate put her paper down.

‘Do you really think so?’

I tried to imagine the situation and couldn’t.

‘Oh, I’m sorry, aren’t you seeing him again?’

She immediately bristled.

‘Of course I am. I expect John and I will be seeing each other on a regular basis.’

‘John? John what?’

She affected disdain.

‘Oh, I don’t recall.’

‘Sounds made up to me.’

‘What sounds made up?’ mumbled Josh, wobbling in unsteadily like a new-born kitten.

‘John Nobody – Kate’s new love.’

‘Oh God – another one,’ said Josh, spooning sugar into his coffee.

‘WHAT do you mean by that?’ said Kate ferociously.

‘I don’t know – how many suave pretty-boy married men have chatted you up this year and not given you their last name in case you dig them up out of the phone book?’

‘John is not married. I could tell.’

Josh and I glanced at each other.

Suddenly the phone rang, and we all jumped three feet. Kate hopped up, then, when she realized we were watching her, feigned a leisurely gait.

‘Ehm … I’ll get that … probably the office.’

‘Probably Relate,’ I said, ‘calling you in as a witness.’

Josh and I peered round the kitchen door as she furiously motioned us away. Her expression quickly revealed her disappointment, however. She covered the mouthpiece with her hand.

‘It’s Addison’s mother.’

‘I’ll get him,’ I said quickly, and rapped on his door.

‘Hrh?’

‘Addison, it’s your mum.’

‘Can you tell her I’m out?’

‘I don’t think that’s going to work.’

‘He’s in,’ said Kate down the phone.

‘Can you tell her … I’m … busy.’

‘He’s busy,’ said Kate. ‘Yes, he’s eating. No, much the same. No, no sleep, no. OK, I’ll tell him.’

She hung up.

‘When’s the last time you spoke to your mother, Addison?’ I asked him.

There was silence from behind the door.

‘Not since he’s been here,’ whispered Josh.

‘I normally speak to her,’ said Kate. ‘She sounds all right most of the time.’

‘Right.’

Kate bent down to pick up the post. As she did so, something slid out from the pocket of her exquisitely fresh Meg Ryanesque pyjamas.

‘What’s that?’

‘Nothing,’ she said, grabbing it, but it was clearly her little mobile phone.

‘That pesky office, eh?’ said Josh.

‘Erm, right.’

I thought it would take me three minutes to get ready, but of course I had forgotten about my black eye, now puce and vermilion, and found myself in a desperate, excited rush whereby no matter how I tried I couldn’t seem to get it together to leave the house. I’d forgone the Alice Cooper style for a prolonged attempt to whiten it out, which was now making me look like one of those eyebrowless sci-fi entities. I toyed with buying an eye-patch and pretending I was starting an early eighties revival, but it would take too much explaining, and, given that I’d only met this bloke for two minutes, I wanted to appear as non-mad as possible.

I still hadn’t decided what to do about the nurse thing. After all, I had kind of got this date under false pretences, and it also meant he was a bit of a perv. I hummed and hawed and stomped around a bit, which was clearly annoying Kate. Normally on Saturdays she was up at eight, dashing to gyms and swimming pools and popping into the office and Joseph and the Fifth Floor at Harvey Nicks and going to exhibitions whilst Josh and I lay on the two squashy old sofas in the living room, watched black-and-white films, and ate Jaffa Cakes, but it was eleven thirty and she wasn’t dressed yet. As well as the mobile, her pager was placed on the kitchen table and she seemed to have been reading the same page of the paper for some time.