The Last Year Of Being Single

I locked it away. We weren’t as intimate. We got up at ten a.m. on Sunday mornings and always met friends and had lunch out. Paul stopped going to church.

As an Irish Catholic, he had felt an impact on him greater than he or I could have imagined. The relationship strained under the weight of guilt and reprehension.

Paul—‘You should have told me you weren’t on the Pill.’

Sarah—‘I was on the Pill. I was just unwell and it obviously didn’t work.’

Paul—‘The Pill always works. Now I’ve got to live with it as well.’

Sarah—‘Are you honestly telling me you wouldn’t have had sex with me that weekend if I’d told you there was a chance the Pill might not work? It was a lovely weekend and I didn’t want to spoil it.’

Paul—‘Well, you did, didn’t you?’

Sarah—‘It was a shared responsibility.’

Paul—‘You didn’t give me the option to share it.’

Sarah—‘I didn’t think there was danger.’

Paul—‘You knew there might be.’

Sarah—‘You’ve slept with girls who weren’t on the Pill before.’

Paul—‘That was different.’

Sarah—‘How different?’

Paul—‘I knew about the risk and I took it. I was given no option here.’

Sarah—‘That’s not fair, Paul. Give me a break.’

Paul—‘Why should I? You didn’t give me one.’

Tears. Both of us.

Within the next six months the sex died. I quietly mourned. In silent desperation I would get up and go to work and come back home and go for a workout and organise birthday parties and Christmas drinks and dinner parties and be the devoted girlfriend and feel very lonely. And I knew he felt lonely too but I couldn’t reach him any more and somehow he didn’t want to be told I loved him any more. I loved this man in a spiritual as well as emotional sense. Paul had only a single bed, and we would snuggle up, spoon-like, so close all night. Somehow we managed to sleep and it was fine. We would ring and text each other every day. E-mails were long awaited.

Paul—message received Thanks for a lovely evening. I love spending time with you. I wish we could have spent more time together but there will be other times I know. xx

Sarah—sent You are a wonderful human being. Think of me in lacy black knickers. Nothing else. That’s how I’ll be when you meet me at the door 6pm tonight. Maybe … xx

After dinners out or the cinema the last message would always read something like:

Paul—message received Night beautiful. You are very special to me. Thanx for putting the sun into my summer. And I wish you were here with me in my bed. Lots of love. xx

After work lunches or meetings he would always remember and send:

Paul—message received Hi gorgeous one. Hope lunch went well. Wish I’d been there. You are fabulous. Thinking of u. xxx

We’d go to weddings and listen to the vows. I never caught the bouquet, but friends would always ask in their subtle-as-a-brick sort of way ‘So, when are you two getting married?’ It was a naff cliché and we both ignored it, but as years progressed it started to bug. Breeding insecurity and resentment and cutting communication of how I felt, because I knew it might open the wounds of the abortion again. Which he never talked about. Even when others opened a conversation at one of the many dinner parties we went to and were talked at.

He had been my white knight in his Golf GTI. He had helped me to gain confidence about my body and sexuality. And then he had taken it away. He didn’t feel it was right any more and so we didn’t have sex any more. We hugged naked. We occasionally, in drunken stupors, made love or had sex, but he was always slightly irritable in the morning—as though I had made him to do it against his will. I had tempted him against his better self.

We started to organise dinner parties. To meet his friends and acquaintances. Some of whom initially talked about Gillian a lot, but who eventually realised that Sarah existed too and she was a person in her own right. Paul told me he loved me every day. He e-mailed and texted and called and wrote and every day I felt loved. But not physically loved. Not touched. Which doesn’t matter. Sex isn’t everything. But when you don’t have it at all, it gradually becomes everything. And he hugged me a lot. But it wasn’t like the first nine months. I’d got the chastity belt without even realising it was on.

So by September I was feeling a bit tired of a no sex, no going anywhere relationship—despite the fact I still deeply loved him. I was happy in my little world.

Meeting Paul for lunch today. Our favourite. The Punch Bowl. Posh country restaurant with fine wines. I remember Paul took me here first when we started going out. Arrived at twelve midday. Stayed until six p.m. in the evening. Romantic. Then we walked to the cricket ground and watched them play. Perfect. Fell in love with him.

Five years going out with each other. Perhaps he will propose. Perhaps he will go down on bended knee at the restaurant where we went on our return from that French trip. Perhaps it will be a birthday—his or mine—or perhaps a Christmas or perhaps a holiday overlooking a golden sunset or perhaps at dusk when music is playing in the background. Or perhaps at a concert while the music is live and throbbing. I’ve gradually forgotten to wonder any more. Forgotten to think that maybe this month he will ask me. I didn’t want to ask him. Not even in a Leap Year. Still thought that naff.

Anyway, I knew I would be with him for a very long

time. Perhaps not a lifetime. But still for a long time. But not quite like this.

We arrived at twelve midday. We left at two p.m. Food was good. Fine wines still fine. Conversation still OK. Ish. But less room for gaps somehow.

Sarah—‘How are you, Handsome?’

Paul—‘Very well, Pixie.’

He still called me Pixie. It was an endearing nickname.

I liked it. Felt perhaps when it was in my forties it might not be so appropriate.

‘I will always think of you as my little pixie, Sarah,’ he would say. ‘Even when you’re not little or pixie-like any more.’ Ahhh. Warm gooey feeling inside. Perhaps this was the real thing. Perhaps. Had got fingers burnt before with David, so did I want to do this again?

Paul—‘What would you like to eat? The usual? Melon with Dover sole and new potatoes—right?’

Sarah—‘OK, OK, I know I always have the same thing, but I like it.’

Paul—‘Why don’t you try something new?’

Sarah—‘I have and I don’t like anything else on the menu. We could always go to a different restaurant. And you would think in five years they would have changed the menu a little more than they have. But they tell me it works, so why change it?’

Paul—‘OK.’

Sarah—‘How is work?’

Paul—‘Fine—busy. Love working with Richard. He’s fun and he’s thinking of getting married to Caroline. But she’s a fickle girl; she likes someone else and keeps going back to him.’

Sarah—‘Perhaps it’s not meant to be.’

Paul—‘He’ll win her over, I know.’

Sarah—‘Do you still love me?’

Paul—‘Of course I do. We’ve been through a lot together and I still love you very much. I sometimes sit and think that we could so easily have split at the time of … well, you know … and we didn’t. I love you so much I ache sometimes. I hope you realise that.’