“Can you love two people at once?” Her eyes were looking away as the words came out of her mouth. I blinked for a moment before looking down at my coffee.
“What do you mean? Love in what sense?” I was aware of a slight sweat on the back of my neck.
“You know what sense I mean.” Her fingers lightly gripped her spoon, stirring it anti-clockwise and then clockwise, the rhythm of it clinking against the cup momentarily distracting me.
“Well?” Her voice wasn’t quavering. It wasn’t emotional, simply direct. Matter of fact.
I swallowed.
“I think… well I think some people can. I’m not sure how but I think they do. Whether they act on it or not… that’s a different matter.” I looked up towards her face, hoping that her eyes would turn to me. They didn’t.
“That was very diplomatic… though I suppose that makes sense.” Emotion had crept in, but it was more dismissive than offensive.
“You spend all your time spreading bullshit and helping us make their bullshit sound reasonable that I’d have been surprised if you’d just been honest.” Now her eyes flickered up. The flames of anger were creeping around the edges, waiting to explode into the centre of her iris.
“I don’t think that’s entirely fair. I can be direct. I can be honest. I thought you’d have known that by now, you of all people.” I met her gaze. There was a brief pause. We seemed to stare not at one another but almost through one another. She broke away first, turning to look down at her drink, her fingers still teasing the rim of the cup, swishing this way and that as if she were stirring it.
“Then be honest with me. Do you now or have you ever loved two people at once?” The eyes went back upwards, her eyes flashing not with anger but with something else. It was less anger but nor was it pity – a kind of melancholy, a resignation as to my answer.
I shifted in my seat for a moment, unsure what to say. How can anyone answer a question like that?
“No,” I said my eyes flickering between her and the wall behind her. Like too many modern cafes it was a reproduction of a picture that must be worth far more than either our salaries or everyone in the café’s salaries combined or even the whole building. It was meant to add an air of sophistication to the place. Instead, it made me feel cheap and second hand.
“I have never… I have never loved someone at the same time as you or anyone else.” I had to get to the nub of it because that’s what she was asking me. She let out a snort.
“And do you think I’m lying? Why would I lie to you Sarah?” My hand lay flat on the table, the fingers slowly reaching out till my fingers touched the base of her cup. She moved it away from them.
“Because that’s what you do professionally. Or are speechwriters simply innocent travelling players who strut and fret upon the conference stage but for a brief time before there is nothing but silence?
I might have mangled that paraphrase.” She smirked for the first time since this conversation had started. Her dimples broke the lines of her face allowing the curve of her mouth to become apparent. It was a delicate, slight curve- the kind that is only noticeable if you stare at it for a while. I’d stared at it for too long, across conference tables and in meetings, hoping to see it flicker towards me once. To see the parting of the lips and the slight, upward tilt of the head as she laughed.
“I think… I think speechwriters convey meaning. I think we help make emotions make sense, allow the policy to speak. Give music to the words. It’s like a great opera, without the score, without that music then Tristram’s…” I was cut off by a derisory snort. That smile again, broader this time and opening more of her mouth so her teeth peaked through.
“What?” My voice’s pitch heightened slightly, the cheeks reddening just a tinge more than they should have. She looked at me with some of the hostility gone.
“God, can you ever have a conversation without talking about opera? Do you always have to try and act like you’re at some cherry swilling evening? I’m trying to ask if you’ve ever loved more than one person at once and you turn it into some Radio 4 snooze fest.” She brought her cup back to her mouth.
So. It really was about us. More specifically about me. I sighed, breathed inwards and turned back to her.
“You want honesty? Then yes. I think you can love more than one person at once. I think you can desire more than one person at once as well. You can feel that quickening of the pulse when you see them, that gnawing desire to touch them and to feel their fingers with yours, to look in their eyes and to see and think of nothing but them and only them. I think that’s all true. Doesn’t mean you or me or anyone has to act on it though. And whilst we’re on the subject,” I had grown warm to my theme now and wasn’t even really looking at Sarah anymore who had turned away from me, “What’s to say that it is wrong to have those feelings? Why can’t someone have them? I’m sure you have them. Hell, I bet you’re feeling them right now about someone else and you have the audacity to come out and try and make this about me!” My fist hit the table much harder than I had intended it to. The cups jangled and the liquid spilled. I could feel heads turning. Whispers flitting towards us. I gulped, grabbed a napkin and began to wipe up the spilled liquid on the table.
Sarah turned to look at me, her voice smaller, quieter than before, like the voice of a child.
“I’m pregnant.” My hand stopped. I looked at her, my mouth open. The sweat that had previously been pricking at the back of my neck returned and I felt a churning in my stomach.
“I’m…. what? You’re pregnant? You’re pregnant? Actually, pregnant?” My face looked worse than I hoped it would because Sarah seemed taken aback by the state of it.
“God, I knew telling you would be difficult but I didn’t imagine it would be this hard… please, don’t keep staring at me like that.” Sarah’s eyes went down. She bit her lip, her brow furrowed in concentration, trying to think what to say next.
“Listen…” I paused again trying to think of the right words to say, the right words that could summon up how I felt. Everything seemed to lack reality suddenly – the table in front of me, the art on the back of the café, the whole situation seemed to lack a certain boring, predictable certainty that it had a moment before.
“No, you listen,” her eyes turned to mine, tear pricking the corner of them – I somehow knew what she was going to say next. “It isn’t yours.”
I sat, staring at the table.
“Who… who’s is it?” My voice lowered, my mind trying to work out who it could be; who she could possibly have found to love, to be in love with other than me. Maybe an arrogant thought but the one I was feeling right then.
Her gaze shifted, looking out at the window on the dull rain thwacking.
“No one you would know.” Her voice had resumed an air of distance. Before it was jokey, accusatory distance. Now it became frosty. The chill from her was one that had I been any closer I’d have felt frostbite from.
“It is, isn’t it. That’s why you are so… so awkward about this. God it’s someone I like, isn’t it? The kind of man I’d say, “Oh you’d be perfect for Sarah, sure I’ll set you up.” Deny it.” My voice had become higher and harsher at the same time. There was a part of me that wanted to pull her towards me; to kiss her on the cheek; to hold her in my arms, and another that wanted to kill her on the spot.
“Look, this is difficult enough for me as it is!” Her eyes betrayed anger for the first time. There was a true flash of it, of something that was as far from love as possible. Deep in her eyes there was an anger and hatred I hadn’t seen before and never thought could be directed towards me.
“And it’s a big bed of roses for me.” I turned to look down at my cup. The liquid left in it seemed to have turned a darker colour, the warmth fully gone from it.
I brought my head back up, sighing. I knew how this would end. I should have known at the start of the conversation, but these last few agonising moments gave me all I needed to know.
“Look, what I said earlier. I think it is true. You can love two people are once but eventually loving them breaks your heart and you end up with nothing but a trace of love, a faint impression of it. So, I’ll do us both a favour.” I stood up and took one last sip from the cup. It was cold now, the taste not registering with me anymore. Sarah looked for a moment as if she were going to say something but stopped herself.
“Bye.” I said putting the cup back on the table and walking towards the door. Opening it, I turned for a brief moment back to the table where Sarah was still sitting, cup in hand staring out of the window. I lingered for a moment wondering whether I should go back and say something else, take back what I had said. Then I remembered how I’d felt when we’d first started talking. The perspiration on the back of my neck. I smiled, closing the door and walking into the pouring rain.
Friends of Bylines Network
There has never been a greater need for grassroots journalism that investigates the stories that really matter, holds power to account and champions the voices of everyday citizens. We are proudly powered by volunteers but what we do isn’t free.
STAND WITH US for independent, citizen-led journalism that makes democracy stronger, and you will even get some exclusive benefits.
