Chapter 2

"I don't really know," I said, eventually, "and I suspect that Debbie has a rather different take on things, but ... there was just so much expectation around ... at least for me ... we'd both got into expecting that somehow we were going to get together – that it would all be really simple and easy and stuff – and, somehow, it just hasn't been. I mean, since her ex-partner died, she's been up here, then I was in hospital, then we had the Big Crisis meeting and ... well, after that it was all going to be OK, wasn't it?"

I paused while Kath waited, looking a trifle exasperated, thinking back to the evening we'd spent with Carla's Hal, immediately after he'd pitched up at our big confrontation with our other funders and saved the day. How we'd all gone back to the office, then on to a pub, finally to a restaurant ... as you do. And it had been good between the two of us – Debbie and me, I mean – at least for the evening. But come the end of the night, we'd both gone our separate ways, which was just odd, in retrospect. I mean, we'd just announced to the world that we'd be living together and yet we still hadn't even slept together ... like we were saving ourselves for something or the other.

I tried to put that in words, finally sort of lamely concluding, "And I think that may not be that far from the truth – I mean, by the end of the evening, we'd both had a fair amount to drink, someone – I – had to take Hal back to his hotel – while Debbie ended up helping Naz get Seffi back to their place – and, you know, it just wouldn't have been special, if you see what I mean..."

"Well," she said, in a serious but amused tone of voice, "I've known you to be a little more articulate, but ... yes, I can see how that could have happened. What I can't see is how the two of you – both sensitive, intelligent human beings – couldn't have sorted things out the next evening. Or sometime in the past couple of months, at least, for god's sake..."

"Yeah, well," I conceded, moodily. "Maybe that's another point – I mean, our relationship has always had a sort of undercover quality – I think the world of the woman, I really do, but all the time I was getting to know her she was, of course, looking after Phil, so it was never really appropriate to discuss the 'us' stuff ... and I think it just got to be a habit."

I waited for her to say something – something helpful, something consoling, something ... whatever. But she didn't, so eventually I went on.

"And then, of course, the problem with making a lot of tacit assumptions about a relationship is that you're never quite sure whether they're shared assumptions ... which then makes it really risky to articulate them – in case you are wrong. So we've never really talked about the future – even though we're committed to sharing a flat in the new place. Hell, we're supposed to be sharing a flat this evening and somehow I don't think that's such a brilliant idea, given the way things are."

That got me a nod, and a comment on how it was sometimes a good idea to go back a bit before you tried to go forward.

"Oh, I know," I said, after a while, "the problem is more how far back to go. I mean, things have been sticky for a while – right back to her paranoia about Niusha, which was ridiculous – yeah, OK, maybe not from her point of view – and then the last couple of months – when I've been away most of the time, Debbie always seemed to be away or otherwise engaged when I was around ... until, now, we can't even agree on work stuff. I mean, the first thing she said to me after we'd got most of the vans unloaded this afternoon was something about the fucking budget projections – on the first night in our new 'home', you know? I mean, how fucking romantic is that?"