Amanda’s Wedding. Jenny Colgan

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       Three

      All the way back on the tube we yabbered and yabbered, genuinely thrilled to see each other again. He told me about his trip across America: the larks he got up to in New York; the English pop-star he bumped into in a deserted part of Montana and what great mates they became; his awful jobs and the amazing characters he’d met. His voice had taken on a new American tinge. I didn’t mention the fact that I hadn’t changed jobs, or flats, or, despite appearances, got it together at all since he went away, instead embroidering wildly the love lives of several mutual acquaintances, some boring parties and a hilarious imaginary cat of Fran’s (I was getting desperate by that stage). Neither of us mentioned the inauspicity of his leaving; it was as if he’d simply been away, perhaps on business, perhaps for a fortnight, perhaps in prison.

      We turned up at home at half past midnight. The flat was ominously quiet, which meant that Linda was wide awake, listening to our every move. However, it was a special occasion, so I pinched her bottle of vodka anyway, called in sick with a midnight vomiting fit (unpleasant but effective), and fell into bed with my big – OK, slightly smelly – darling, who managed to make me buzz all over before passing out for fourteen hours.

      The following day I watched him sleep, and the time just drifted by. Maybe they should put beautiful sleeping males in airport waiting rooms.

      He woke up dazed, stared at the ceiling for a second, then rolled over and grabbed me with a grin.

      ‘Oh, Mel, darling. I will be yours for ever …’

      This was more like it.

      ‘… if you’d make me a bacon sandwich. Two bacon sandwiches. And some fried eggs. I am starving.’

      ‘That’, he said twenty minutes later, after I’d emptied the fridge of Linda’s food, ‘was the best bacon sandwich I have ever had. Americans just cannot make a bacon sandwich. They put it in brown bread and cover it in crap.’

      ‘What, like vegetables?’

      ‘Yeah!’

      ‘You’re right – bloody Americans and their healthy eating! That’s why they’re all in such fantastic physical shape.’

      He giggled, then took my face in his hands. Here it came.

      ‘Gee, Mel, it’s good to be back. Americans … they never mean what they say. I never feel I can talk bullshit with anyone as much as I can with you.’

      ‘I think that’s possibly the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me,’ I said gravely.

      He laughed, and ruffled my hair.

      ‘I mean … I behaved like a complete dork, Mel. I’m sorry. I really am. What I did to you, it really bit. You know, I had no idea what I was doing. With all my parents and stuff … I can find it really hard to open up … and I got scared. I was so worried you were going to … just ignore me. Which I would probably have deserved.’

      ‘Yes, you would.’

      ‘You’re special to me, you know.’

      ‘I do know. And if you ever EVER do anything like that again, I’m going to impale a testicle on each arm of a pair of scissors and start snipping.’

      He winced. ‘Is that nice?’

      ‘You’ll see.’

      And that was it. I was very happy.

      The next week passed in a blur – a dirty-sheeted, stupid, giggling, New York-time blur. I finally got it together to go into work, but was so glowing and smiley that I got away with more murder than usual. Even the secretaries couldn’t hurt me. No one in the world had ever been as happy as us, ever, and in fact could have no idea what it was like. I floated around, occasionally stopping to pity people for not being as happy as me.

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