Behaving Like Adults Read Free

whole day. I want to make this clear, I wasn’t
attracted
to Stuart – I’m not an insane sadomasochist who doesn’t know Hitler’s CV when she sees it – but Nige was right.
    I
was
still fond of Nick, dangerously fond. We’d gone out for five years, most of which were good, great even. And then, we’d coasted. We were two parallel lines, always close but never together. Occasionally, we’d have a passionate row, during which many promises would be made. But not kept. Nick admitted that he didn’t know how to make an effort in a relationship. I was his first, as he put it, Big One. Incidentally, when I say ‘effort’, I don’tmean he didn’t send enough roses or stud the walls with little love notes (although he didn’t). I mean he didn’t talk much, wash enough or seem to take particular pleasure in my company. Don’t do me any favours.
    But, if I had to pinpoint the single factor that drove me to Stuart, it was the Febreze. As Claudia and Nige hummed about me, murmuring, ‘Go
on
, Holly, oh
please
, it’ll be
fun
, etc’, I thought of Nick, too lazy to shower, spraying his stinky feet with Febreze (‘Safely eliminates odours on fabrics and kills the bacteria that cause them’). And then a ripple of hard-done-by billowed airily through me and I thought, ‘Ah, why not? What harm can it do?’
    How long have you got?

Chapter 2
    I THOUGHT I was good at reading people. Is there anyone in the world who
doesn’t
think they’re good at reading people? I shouldn’t have trusted myself. My judgment had already proved faulty with Nick. Why did I presume to know Stuart? The truth is, I’d painted my life into a corner. Instead of freeing me, every choice I’d made hemmed me in. It’s a pity to regret, but I did. I needed an escape. And if you’re dying in a desert, you’ll see hope in air and dust.
    I refuse though, to begin with Stuart. He’d love that, if I began with him. The best way to gall people who wish you ill is not to give them space in your head. There’s a great put down in
Casablanca
, where Peter Lorre says to Humphrey Bogart, ‘You despise me, don’t you?’ He replies, ‘Well, if I gave it any thought I probably would.’ I think that’s funny. So, I’ll start with me and Nick. Five years ago, when I met Nick, he was helping a duck.
    I was driving through one of the quainter parts of London and I saw this duck waddling along the pavement. A thin young man with a cigarette hanging out his mouth sauntered behind at a respectful distance from madam’s tailfeathers, ushering her away from the road. Everyone was ignoring them. Londoners are good at this. We can ignore
anything
. That disappoints me. I get a kick when I say hello to the ticket guy at my tube stop, and he says, ‘All right, darlin’,’ and gives me a high five. It turns my city into a village.
    Anyhow, I got the urge to offer the man and the duck a lift. I decided there was no way this guy was a lunatic, ashe was helping a duck. So I swerved across the traffic and buzzed down my window. ‘Excuse me,’ I said, launching into one of the silliest sentences I’ve ever spoken, ‘do you and the duck need a lift anywhere?’ Then it struck me that the duck might be his pet. He could be taking her for a walk, and I’d just busybodied in there. In the smarter parts of town you can act like a complete nut and get away with it, so long as you own the matching bag.
    So I was grateful when the man took the cigarette out of his mouth and smiled. ‘It’s very kind of you,’ he said, ‘but I think being in a Golf might scare her. I wouldn’t want her getting in, you know, a flap.’ He giggled at this bad joke, which made me smile, he then looked at me again. ‘But you could always leave the car and help me get her back to the pond.’ I parked on a