The Further Adventures of a London Call Girl (29 page)

Not because it makes me feel stupid not to know how to do them – if I were cleverer, I might feel stupid, but ignorance is indeed bliss – but because it seems that not a year passes without some new scientific study proving how such games improve one’s odds of avoiding dementia in old age. As this is something that is not uncommon in my family, naturally I’m concerned.

Never does a study come out saying what constant novel-reading does for one’s grey matter as the years pass. Probably obliterates all the neurons, with my luck.

Anyway, it was with some relief that sudoku was welcomed into my house, because it’s something I can do that will hopefully decrease the chances of mistaking a set of keys for my family in the decades to come. Also, I’ve tried introducing the Boy to it, on the scientifically unproven but hopeful theorem that engaging his mind more in his spare time might keep him from being so easily impressed by girls even dimmer than myself.

Unfortunately, he’s what my mother would call a ‘toe-tapper’, someone with so much nervous energy that you’re lucky if he keeps focused on a non-physical activity for more than three nanoseconds. On the plus side, this means we can resort to sex in lieu of conversation; on the minus side, the same.

We were in the bath reading magazines this afternoon (mine from an outdated Sunday paper; his a comic), and it occurred to me that it was probably the longest we’d been sat in the same place in weeks, if you don’t count the bed (and to be fair when in bed it’s rarely sitting that’s taking place). I thought it might be a good time to introduce him to sudoku.

‘It’s like this, you see. You can have the numbers one to nine on a single line …’

‘Nnn hnn,’ he mumbled, putting down his reading material.

‘Then you have them in a square, and in a column.’

‘Yes,’ he said, absently pawing me. I could feel him getting excited.

‘Would you mind taking your hand out of my crotch?’

‘Okay,’ he said, resting his hands on my breasts.

I put the paper aside and wriggled up onto his lap, but it was no use. By the time we’d finished, the floor – and the puzzle along with it – was soaked. So much for sudoku. Perhaps it is time someone conducted research into the mind-preserving properties of heavy petting.

vendredi, le 29 juillet

Some intimate acts are too intimate for me. Toilet habits, for one.

The Boy has no concept of doors like normal people have. He either pounds around slamming them (not out of anger; he just does) or leaves them open at the most inappropriate moments. Such as when using the toilet.

This morning I woke to the sound of his feet leaving the bed and hitting the floor (boom) then his going towards the toilet (boom boom boom boom) then throwing the seat up (thank goodness for small mercies! he remembered! boom) and, finally, sweet release. I can’t bear the sound and put the pillow over my head.

Having a man in the house means thinking about the toilet more than I consider strictly good for me. Such as when cleaning: how do they manage to get urine on the bottom of the seat? And when friends are over: surely, dear God, he will remember not to leave the toilet door open?

It’s not that I’m squeamish about waste products. People have weed on me, I’ve defecated on a client. But that’s the point – those are acts so privileged, so intimate, and if lucky so well paid you wouldn’t dream of doing them on a daily basis without a standing contract with a supplier of industrial cleansers. If the Boy ever wanted to void himself on me, in the act of love, that would be fine. For some reason, having to listen to it at other times freaks me out.

You know, he has never expressed interest in watersports. For a man who seems to take such pride in his steaming emissions, I find it odd.

He lumbers back to the bed. ‘Do you have to do that?’ I hiss from under the duvet. He thinks it’s funny.

After four years I can only just bear the thought of him using the toilet in my presence. If I’m in the shower. If the curtain is pulled. If the noise of the water is so loud I don’t hear anything.

But if we’re going to live together, I’m going to have the door fitted with a spring hinge. Man-tinkle hitting the porcelain is not an appropriate alternative to an alarm clock.

samedi, le 30 juillet

Unmarried couples living together. A modern perversion and leading cause of the sky-high divorce trend, if the right-leaning papers are to be believed. I can sympathise. There is nothing so unnatural to the human state of being as being tied to one person in domestic cohabitation indefinitely. Looking at one naked body for the rest of your life, it simply isn’t right.

Which is why I had such a thrill when a package came through the door today – unmarked, brown paper wrapping.

Glorious porn. Bouncing tits, shining cocks, come by the bucketful. If I can’t arrange a threesome yet, at least a girl can window-shop.

dimanche, le 31 juillet

The Boy woke up in a mood. He rolled out of bed early, monopolised the toilet for half an hour. I could hear him tearing through all my bags in the cupboard – what the hell? If he came across that box of condoms, I could only imagine what he’d think. At least it had never been opened. He pounded downstairs without so much as a ‘Good morning.’ Goodness knows why. He left with no explanation and no clue as to where he was going, or when he’d be home.

My stomach turned over. Oh, we weren’t going to start down this route again, were we? Fucking hell. I know these things take time, but I had hoped at least that most of the past was firmly where it belonged – behind us – and we could begin to be together, like a real boyfriend and girlfriend.

I toyed with my phone. The number had been programmed into it for ages, of course; it was always there as a back-up. In case everything went tits-up and I really needed some collateral.

I brought the contact list up and cycled through the numbers – there it was, under S. Susie. I dialled the number.

My heart was beating fast and hard, the blood rising up my neck. The phone on the other end rang and rang. No answer. Finally it went to answerphone. I hung up, no message. It was then I heard the front door slam.

‘Thank God for that,’ I heard the Boy say in the hallway. I quickly locked the screen on my phone and shoved it under a sofa cushion.

‘Are you okay, dear?’ I could hear the high, false note in my voice.

‘I don’t know whether it was something I ate,’ he said, coming through to the sitting room. ‘But I’ve had the runs something terrible all morning.’

‘Oh, honey,’ I sighed. ‘Why didn’t you say?’

‘It’s a little bit embarrassing. Besides, I went though the cupboard in the bathroom and couldn’t find anything for it.’

‘Is everything okay now?’

He shook a small paper bag from the corner chemist. ‘Just in the nick of time,’ he said.

I couldn’t have agreed more.

dimanche, le 31 juillet (later)

The phone rang. I clocked the number: Susie. My heart started beating violently. Let it go to voicemail or answer? I answered the phone.

A sharp Southern voice, a bit of a lisp. ‘Hiya, this is Susie. Did you ring?’

‘Pardon?’ I was taken aback for a moment; did she know who it was she’d called?

‘I had a call from this number this morning. This is Susie. Were you trying to reach me?’ Not a hint of the haughty, playing-at-posh woman that Georgie had been. Just some girl. I looked around – no sign of the Boy. Must be upstairs reading, thank goodness.

I hesitated. After all this time, I could finally settle a score, make her know that I was the real girlfriend, had been all along. Then I remembered all the trouble phoning Georgie had caused. And even if Susie didn’t hang up on me and straight away dial the Boy, who would no doubt tell her a pack of lies, what right did I have? I knew they were over. Maybe she even had good memories of him. Maybe the thought of him still made her happy. She wouldn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know. A few more details, but whom would that help?

‘It was a misdial. I wrote down a wrong number. Sorry about that.’

‘Oh, okay,’ she said. She sounded so young.

‘Well, bye, then,’ I said. And hung up.