chapter six

Ed’s World

‘Someone called for you,’ Ed, my new flatmate, said, with only his head stuck around my bedroom door. His long blond hair hung like grease-sodden chips around his thin face, his eyes watched me like I was an alien species.

I’d been living here a week and was still becoming acclimatised to the houseshare experience, so spent a lot of time in my bedroom, reading, working on seminar stuff or watching TV. I didn’t want to get in their way, what with being new girl in the house and all.

Ed and Jake, my two flatmates, seemed nice. From what I remember of being a flatmate, though, a week wasn’t enough to tell. Most flatmates were fine, friendly and fun – until you borrowed a splash of their milk and suddenly you’d been bashed over the head and buried before you could say ‘carpet that doesn’t show bloodstains’.

I hadn’t done the housesharing thing since I left Leeds, six years earlier. I’d lived with Whashisface Tosspot for a year when I was in London, but that was different, I felt at home there. It was ‘our place’. When I bought my own place and our relationship finally ended, I’d had over two years of being able to walk around naked, if I so wished, and as it turned out, I did so wish, quite often. I was no weirdo naturalist/naturist/flasher, it was simply easier to know I could roll out of bed and answer a call of nature or put on the kettle without scrabbling about for a dressing gown. Especially since I lived on the first floor and most of my windows were obscured by trees. That’d all changed the day I went to fill the kettle wearing only a pair of black knickers and a casual glance to my left, out of the six-foot sash window, had shocked me twice over.

Shock one: The creepy man who lived downstairs had cut down all the trees that obscured the view of my windows.

Shock two: A queue of people at the bus stop below were staring open-mouthed at my floppy tits and black tanga briefs.

I’d developed a closer relationship with my dressing gown after that.

Flashing the neighbourhood not withstanding, I enjoyed living alone. I could leave the bathroom door open to hear the stereo or TV when I was in the shower; I could talk to myself out loud all the time, and I didn’t have to rely on other people to pass on my messages.

At the time of Ed’s appearance with my message, I was curled up in bed, watching an episode of Angel on video.’ (This, of course, meant drawing the curtains, putting on my side lights, changing into my pyjamas, surrounding myself with junk food and beer. Watching Angel was like taking part in a ritual. Ed was privileged, I was usually out to callers when it started.)

‘Oh? Who?’ I said to Ed, having pressed the mute button on the TV remote.

‘A bloke. Dan? Um . . . Derek? Drew? Yeah, Drew. Said he’d call you back later or you should call him back when you’d stopped, er,’ colour rose in Ed’s cheeks, ‘stopped, er, creaming yourself over, er, Angel.’

‘The git!’ I replied. Was too outraged to be embarrassed by my outing by my so-called mate. Ed was obviously going to find out about the man in my life at some point, he wasn’t meant to be told that said man only existed in the nineteen-inch world of my telly so soon into our living relationship.

‘When did he call?’ I asked Ed.

Ed coloured some more, his eyes shifted about. ‘Um, this afternoon. Meant to, uh, write you a note but couldn’t find a pen. Then I forgot. Sorry.’

‘Don’t worry about it. Come in,’ I shifted up to make room on the bed for him to sit, ‘if you want.’

Ed pushed open the door, came in, perched himself on the very edge of the bed, only a fraction of an inch of his butt was on the bed. Ed was doing a PhD in English at The Met and he was into heavy metal. His clothes suited his hair and his heavy metal reputation: dirty blue jeans, black T-shirt with a lurid, heavy metal band picture on the front. Over the top he wore a red and black lumberjack shirt. But, under the dirt and grease, under the clothes, he was the cutest boy. Young and untouched by life. It showed in his clear green eyes, his smooth skin and the contours of his face. He just needed a wash and blow-dry all over.

Ed glanced at my TV screen, smiled when he saw what I was watching. ‘Is he your boyfriend? This Drew bloke,’ Ed asked, refocusing on me.

‘No,’ I replied. ‘Just an old mate. That’s a mate I’ve known for a long time, not a mate who’s old.’

I was rewarded with one of Ed’s blank stares. They were a natural miracle: his clear green eyes would glaze over, his face would become flat as he stared at you. Maybe he was computing something behind that look or maybe he was wondering if he should make a run for it. ‘Do you have a boyfriend?’ he asked, coming out of his stare.

‘No, I’m currently between relationships and boyfriends. What about you? Are you seeing someone?’

He nodded grimly. ‘No.’

I inhaled deeply.

Ed was on the verge of confessing something deeply personal to me. He was going to do to me what people had done to me on buses, trains and in cafés and pubs for years: invite me into their world. Drag me into their life; their innermost secrets.

On one level, it was flattering, I was trustworthy enough to know people’s secrets. But on almost every other level it was bizarre. Perfect strangers giving me flashes of their hearts. Telling me things they didn’t even tell their best mates. It was also exhausting because I couldn’t just listen, walk away. I had to listen, then I had to give my opinion, advise, get involved. Hence my Commandments. Hence walking around without making eye contact. It was easier all round to appear miserable and moody than to start getting involved.

At this point in the night, though, I was too tired to fight it. I had to go with it. Take one giant leap into Edness. And besides, he’d earned the use of my ear, by bringing my bags upstairs on the day I’d moved in. I’d just not get involved. Listen. No involvement. I could do that.

‘Complicated is it?’ I prompted.

‘No. Not really. It’s quite uncomplicated. I love her, she doesn’t know I’m alive.’

Your typical stalker scenario, then.

‘She’s doing a drama MA at The Met too. Her name’s Robyn. You might’ve seen her. She’s been on telly and stuff, she’s so beautiful.’

Definitely your typical stalker scenario, then.

‘But it’s more than that. She’s so funny. I’ve spoken to her, I’ve spoken to her loads. She’s almost a friend. She’s really nice, and clever, and interesting a—’

‘You really don’t have to justify your feeling for her to me. You like her, that’s all that matters,’ I interjected before he ran out of adjectives. For an English student his vocabulary was distinctly third rate.

Ed’s whole persona relaxed. ‘Most people I tell think she’s just wank material cos she’s so beautiful.’

‘I believe you like her. But, can I just say, even if she was just wank material, that’s OK too. Some of my best relationships have been based solely on physical attraction. That’s how these things happen sometimes. Not that your thing with, er,’ shite, what was her name, what was her name, ‘Robyn! is like that.’

Ed, who now he’d unburdened his soul obviously felt more at ease with me and in my room, rested back on his elbows, turned his head upwards and stared wistfully at the ceiling. ‘She’s perfect.’

I wanted to say that no one is perfect; to label someone as perfect was to set yourself up for disappointment when the one fatal flaw in their character that proves them to be imperfect makes an appearance. One look at Ed’s face was enough to tell me he didn’t want to hear that. Most people didn’t want to hear it. They’d much rather get their expectations up, then have them dashed.

‘She reminds me of this line from a song, “I feel so lucky loving her, tell me what else is magic for?”.’

He was quoting Robert Palmer. Ed, heavy metal Ed, was quoting Robert Palmer. I’d underestimated his feelings for this woman. No one reached for Robert Palmer lyrics unless they were more than knee-deep in the mire of love.

Without warning, my heart started to race. Really pound, hammering and hammering against my rib cage. The sound filled my ears and made me quiver slightly. This was what Ed was feeling for this Robyn one. The emotions he felt ran deep, that was obvious. Robert Palmer had been the first clue to how he was feeling. How he looked now, the expression on his face, was the next clue.

Beyond his limited vocabulary flowed unfathomable seas of emotion. She made him smile, inside and out. He wanted to make her laugh, he often thought of something and wanted to call her to tell her about it. Sometimes he’d lie on his bed, replaying their conversations, enjoying the fact that he’d spent time with her, not knowing that hours had passed while he lay there. She made his heart beat faster by just entering the room.

And his lust. She wasn’t just wank material but . . .

Every cell in my body pulsated with his passion. I was suddenly, inexplicably turned on. I hadn’t felt like this in a long time. Not even when I’d last had sex, it wasn’t like this. Every part of me burnt with lust. A cold shower wasn’t going to cure this. How Ed got through the day with all this pumping through him I didn’t know. Watching Angel now would be a bad idea – I’d probably end up dry-humping the TV screen.

If anything, Ed was understating his feelings. Maybe he just didn’t have the right words to explain how much he felt. Well, with me he didn’t need to. Sitting next to him told me how he felt.

‘So, she doesn’t know you’re alive, what are you going to do about it?’ I asked.

Ed froze for a few seconds, then his head creaked around to face me. ‘Do?!’ He’d screwed up his face. ‘Do?!’

‘Are you going to ask her out?’

‘Don’t think so,’ he scoffed.

‘Why not?’

‘Erm, possibly because she goes out with actors and businessmen, she even went out with a duke once. Those are the kind of men she goes out with – famous, important men, not people like me.’

My legs ached from sitting cross-legged. I prised my lower limbs apart, stood up a little shakily because they weren’t used to being contorted like that and shook them out to get the blood circulating again. ‘How do you know she doesn’t go out with people like you if you’ve never asked her out?’ I asked Ed.

‘I just do,’ he said with the conviction of a man who knew someone was totally out of his league.

‘What if she doesn’t go out with people like you but actually goes out with you.’

‘She wouldn’t.’

Seeing as I was in love with someone who happened to be a 250-year-old vampire that lived only in my telly, I didn’t think of anyone as out of my league, so didn’t see why Ed, when he knew this person, should think like that. I mean, if I knew I was going to end up with said vampire, then why shouldn’t he at least ask this woman out?

‘There’s this expression us old folk use,’ I said, staring at Ed. ‘It goes something like, “Faint heart never won fair lady”. Be a coward about this and you’ll be dreaming about you and her until you read about her wedding in Hello. Besides, the worst that can happen is she’ll say no.’

‘No, the worst that can happen is that she laughs in my face, tells me to piss off then emails all her friends and they laugh at me too. Or she could publish my picture on the Internet with a transcript of our conversation, so the whole world will laugh at me,’ Ed replied.

‘Or she could say yes and turn out to be a total cow, which’ll mean all this time you’ve loved her from afar has been wasted on some silly bint. That’s the worst that can happen.’

‘No, the laughing thing is definitely the worst.’

He had a point. I took my seat back in the bed, covered myself with the duvet again. ‘I know how you feel.’

Ed smirked. I’m sure he thought I had no idea what love of the unrequited sort was all about. He’d be surprised. My unreturned affections hadn’t been exclusively aimed at fictional TV characters.

‘No, really I do,’ I reassured Ed. ‘I spent over nine years in love with someone and, it’s a long, loooonnnnggg story, but the short of it is, I’m between relationships. And, sometimes, I mentally kick myself when I talk to him. Or he leaves messages with my new flatmate.’

‘Ohhhh . . . Drew! He’s Drew?’

‘Yes. He’s Drew.’

Drew and I had been in the same psychology classes and I’d had a major thing about him since we were assigned to work together on a project in first year. We’d become friends after that assignment, but despite us being very close friends, I’d never really known how he felt about me. On the one hand, we’d spend hours on the phone often talking about sex (some of our conversations were so pornographic they bordered on phone sex), we’d sit too close, hug for too long, stare too much. He’d often turn up at the house I shared with three other people with a six-pack of beer and a video and we’d cuddle up in my bedroom and watch it. On the other hand, nothing happened. Ever. Not during college, not after college. I sometimes got the feeling that he was thinking about kissing me, thinking about taking our relationship to the next level, particularly when we were lying on my bed watching something he’d taped, but it was all just think with him. He never did anything. I did consider kissing him, of course, but I was never sure how it’d be received. You see, if there was one thing I’d learnt about men, it was that if they liked you enough, nothing, except possibly an act of God – and even then it was a close-run thing – would stop them making a move. So, why did Drew never just lean down and cover my lips with his, even when his arms were holding me close to his chest? Because he didn’t like me enough, was the short answer.

Still, even though I knew this, even though I had this short answer, I was confident that would change over time. He went out with other people, I’d see other people but none of those relationships ever lasted. Because the two of us were going to end up together, weren’t we? When we were single, we’d flirt till it hurt, all preparation for us getting together, I thought.

Three years ago, he met his girlfriend, Tara. Met her, then rang me up in a tizzy saying, ‘Ceri, it’s happened, I’ve met her. I’ve met the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with. I’ve met The One.’

I’d always listened with interest when he’d met other women. It was the kind of interest that came from knowing it’d never last because, well, they weren’t me. He and I were meant to be. It was written in the stars, in the Domesday Book, practically anywhere you looked it said ‘Drew & Ceri 4 ever’. This time had been different. I could hear it in his voice. The excitement and joy and shock that he’d met his ideal woman. He was in love. After two hours, he was in love. She was, indeed, The One. And she wasn’t me. Or like me in any way. (Whashisface Tosspot asked me to move in with him about six hours after I got that call from Drew. By all rights, I should’ve taken to my bed with a bottle of wine and a box of tissues, instead, I’d gone to meet Whashisface Tosspot. Maybe I’d suddenly realised that now my long-term plan for happiness was heading off into the sunset with someone else and I needed a back-up plan, a sunset companion of my own, Whashisface Tosspot became it. It could’ve been that, but personally, I favour the Jedi Mind Trick/Work Of The Devil explanation.)

I’ll never forget the sudden horror that rushed through me when I heard Drew’s words. It’d hit me, right then, that we weren’t eventually going to end up together. That maybe, if I’d told him earlier how I felt, things would’ve turned out different. I didn’t want that for Ed. Or for anyone. ‘What if’ was no way to live your life. ‘Always regret the things you did do, never the things you didn’t,’ someone once said. They weren’t wrong.

‘I’ll tell you Ed, nine years of unrequited love that results in nothing more than friendship hurts, quite a lot. Hate to see you waste your twenties like I did, mate. Ask her out and if she says no, at least you’ll know. You can find someone else to lust, I mean, love.’

Ed was silent for a very long time, he pursed his lips slightly and his eyes clouded over, he was thinking very hard by the face on him. My eyes strayed back to the TV screen and to the gorgeous but silent David Boreanaz. I jumped guiltily when Ed rejoined me in the land of the speaking.

‘You really think I should ask her out?’

‘I do,’ I replied. ‘I would. But only because I know now that the one thing more painful than rejection is looking at yourself day after day and wondering “What if”. There’s this line in Strictly Ballroom that I remind myself of whenever I start to chicken out of stuff. It goes, “A life lived in fear is a life half-lived”. And, let’s be honest, who wants to live half a life when you can have a whole life? That’s like eating half a chocolate bar when you’re hungry enough for a whole one and you’ve got a whole one in your hand.’

‘All right, all right, all right,’ Ed mumbled, nodding slowly.

‘Anyway Ed, I’ve got to watch Angel now, but feel free to stay.’

Ed smiled at me wryly. ‘Is that OK?’

‘Course. But no talking.’

‘Are you sure you don’t want to enjoy it, you know, alone.’ Ed waggled his eyebrows suggestively.

I grabbed a pillow and thwacked him with it. ‘Listen you cheeky get, you ask out actress woman then you can take the mick out of me and how I run my love life, all right?’

Ed grinned, accepted my proffered can of beer and lay back on my bed.

Bless you, but you still need a wash and blow-dry.

What if ?

I asked myself that a lot. A lot. I still, for example, thought: What if I’d taken English lit A-level instead of politics A-level? Would I be the politically-minded journalist I’d become before I ran away to Leeds? Or would I be someone else? Would I have become interested in Psychology or have done an English degree? And what if I’d done an English degree, would I have met Jess? What if I’d never met Jess . . .

Thinking ‘What if’ always made me homesick. And after talking to Ed, I started feeling homesick. Not for London, I had nothing to be homesick about in London. My parents, my sister, my brothers, their various families, a few friends were there. I’d left them behind, but since I didn’t live with any of them, I didn’t miss them. In fact, I’d probably start to see them more now I didn’t live within an hour’s journey of them. Two hundred miles apart was probably exactly what I needed to inspire me to see my family more often. No, I was starting to feel homesick for my time in college. To see all the people I’d gone to college with. Pastsick, really.

After Ed gave up on Angel and went off to bed (or to play heavy metal quietly), I got my photo albums out and lay on my bed looking through them. Pictures of my room in halls, pictures of the living room in my last student house, three streets over from where I was now. In that pic, I’m stood by the stone fireplace, wearing my floor-length blue velvet, long-sleeved ball dress. Specially bought – at a bargainous £10 in Oasis – for my graduation ball.

I flicked on a few pages and there was a picture of me and Drew at the graduation ball, a few hours later. Him in his smart black tuxedo, black bow tie, his razor-cut blond hair and cheekbones making him look rather effete. I was so in love with him when that picture was taken. At least I thought I was in love with him. That fierce, all consuming love hadn’t changed until, what, three years ago. Like I said to Ed, I spent most of my twenties in love with a man who didn’t even know I was alive. We had our heads close together, in the picture, my jet black bob almost touching what was left of his blond hair, our faces glistening with sweat because we’d spent half the night dancing and we were both flashing 100 watt smiles at the camera. Drew’s arm was slung casually around my shoulders. I knew exactly what I would’ve been feeling – quivery and giggly, thinking, ‘Oh, GOD! Drew’s touching me in front of a camera! It’s a sign! He does love me really. Tonight could be the night.’ I stroked my fingers across the plastic covering the photo, as I got another pang of pastsickness. Awww, young Drew, young Ceri. So bloody stupid. We didn’t even get less stupid the older we got. Well, I didn’t.

After the initial shock of Drew meeting ‘The One’, which resulted in me moving in with Whashisface Tosspot, I’d gone into denial. I’d hung up the phone, sat staring into space for ages until I reached a very important decision: I’m not going to think about it. At all. Drew, my love, my long-term plan for happiness had met his dream woman, so the best course of action was to enter denial, quietly and calmly, without any fuss, and not think about it.

Since I’d decided not to think about it, I could think about nothing else. It was always there at the back of my mind. Kicking away, dancing up and down, waving a red flag, demanding attention. When I woke up in the morning, when I got ready for work, when I sat at work, when I came home from work. When I made dinner, when I ate it, when I watched telly, when I was having sex, I thought about it. My stomach churned; dipping and rising, spinning and twisting. I found it hard to eat without feeling sick afterwards. I’d be sat at my desk, editing copy and find my right leg perched on the ball of my foot, bouncing nervously up and down. And all because I’d decided not to think about it.

Three months later, exhausted by the effort and nausea involved in not thinking about it, I decided to think about it. I decided to let myself off the hook, stop being such a brave little martyr and go into the pain. Go into it, embrace it, accept it. I was, at least, allowed to cry about it. I picked a weekend when Whashisface Tosspot went away to his parents’ (of course, they had a huge house in the country but he was always pleading poverty). As he drove off very late Friday night, I got myself all the tools for grieving I’d previously denied myself – a couple of bottles of wine, a multipack of tissues and some appropriate CDs – and took to my bed.

Except, my mind, twisted as it was, refused to collapse. Refused to let me cry and wallow and give in to how much pain Drew’s news had caused me.

As I lay under my duvet, Can’t Live If Living Is Without You playing on loop in the background, there was no emotional retching. No physical heartbreak. No tears. No open-mouthed ugly cry. Not even when I squeezed really hard. All that came to me were all the negative things about him. About this Drew, this man who I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with.

My brain kept dredging up examples of his caddishness any time ‘but I love him’ thought of rearing its pathetic head. How he’d cuddle up with me, but never made a proper move on me. How he’d go out with other people and flaunt it in my face (how many times had I heard how great his latest woman was, how sexy, how good in bed? Too many, that’s how many). How he’d disappear from my life if he met someone else and only call me to ask for advice when they were going through a hard time. How he’d give me the cold shoulder for days if I snogged someone and would refuse to listen to anything about them, at all.’ (When I’d admitted I’d been seeing Whashisface Tosspot for three months, Drew had blanked me for a whole month. Didn’t return my calls, didn’t text or email me, ended calls after a minute if I caught him in. Nada, for a whole month.)

It wasn’t just that, though. I started remembering how most of his girlfriends hated me, would be blatantly rude to me, probably because he told them that I had a thing about him. How he didn’t come to visit me when I was in hospital for a week with pneumonia – even though the hospital was only a twenty-minute bus ride away. How he’d once forgotten my birthday. Me, his best mate, he’d forgotten my birthday. How he’d got all our mates together for a do one Christmas after we’d all left college – and neglected to invite me. On and on my mind went. By the end of the weekend, I actually hated Drew. Every time I thought of him, I mentally growled. He was an emotional tease. He’d get me all whipped up, let me believe that some way along the line we’d be together. It wasn’t all his fault, though, I’d been led on by all those movies and books which propagated waiting it out. Which told you that if you just hung in there long enough, he’ll realise that you’re the one for him and give up going out with supermodel-types who’ll smash up his car windscreen because he didn’t call. (Yes, one of his girlfriends did that once and I’d gone with him to get it fixed.) No, he’ll discover he wants to be with the woman he comes running to emotionally and physically when he’s single.

Suddenly, I realised he’d been a bastard to me but because I thought I loved him, I hadn’t wanted to see it. And this falling for ‘The One’ was the final act of treachery as far as I was concerned. It was all right for him to go meet his perfect woman, all right for him to fall in love, all right, even, for him to realise he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. But why the bloody hell was I the first person he called up about it? Because he had no respect for me or the feelings he’d nurtured in me, was the short answer. (I was good at short answers, but this was the first time I’d actually paid attention to one.)

Drew, my beloved, was a bloody bastard who wasn’t worthy of my love or attention.

By four o’clock Saturday afternoon I’d thrown back my duvet, leapt out of bed and called up a couple of friends to meet me in Soho for a late lunch. Three of us had sat in a café on Old Compton Street, London, drinking wine and eating cake. It’d mutated to going to a pub, going to a club, then staying at a friend’s house in Fulham. We’d then gone for a pub lunch and got some more drinks in. By the time I got home, Whashisface Tosspot was back – unimpressed by how legless I was at six o’clock on a Sunday evening – and I’d re-entered my place called denial.

Except, this time, when I decided NOT TO THINK ABOUT IT, I really didn’t. I wasn’t nauseous and jumpy. I’d crossed the desert, the wide, barren landscape that was my feelings for Drew. I’d made it through the hardest times, the mirages of plentiful water supplies that were his jealousy at me seeing other people; I’d made it over the sand dunes of hurt that left me feeling worthless when he met someone else; and I’d survived those months of craving for the merest drop of affection to wet my lips on when he blanked me. Now, thanks to a weekend of negative thinking, of being surrounded by nothing except the cacti of his bad behaviour, I could see the other side of that desert and I was almost there.

Two months later, I finally reached the other side of the desert when someone called and asked if I’d spoken to Drew recently and I realised I hadn’t needed to shove him to the back of my mind because he hadn’t even entered my mind.

When you’re so infatuated with someone, like I was with Drew, it’s very difficult to see them for what they really are. But once I’d made that desert crossing, Drew stopped being the man who could do no wrong. He also stopped being the man who would one day wake up and find he loved me, because it was not going to happen. Once I could see him clearly, he became a good friend. A proper friend with no undercurrent of ‘What if ?’ He became a friend because, well, I can forgive my friends most things, but I couldn’t forgive the man I was supposed to love for not even liking me enough to make a pass at me. How embarrassing was that? He could cuddle me, he could flirt with me, he could talk sex with me, but he couldn’t even close his eyes, think of Leeds, and kiss me full on the mouth.

Part of me clung to the notion that Drew was the one who got away, that I wouldn’t feel this for anyone else – three years on, I could see that I really didn’t want to. Because that wasn’t love. Love is a two-way street, except with me and Drew it had been totally one way. If he’d loved me, even a little, he wouldn’t have emotionally teased me.

I flicked through more pages in the photo album. We all looked so young.

I stopped over a picture of me that Drew had taken a few days after our final exam. I was lying on the grass in Hyde Park with sunglasses on, a huge smile on my face and sticking two fingers up at him. I looked quite good then, even if I say so myself. I was happy. I’d just finished my finals, I had a few weeks to go until the results. The world was my lobster. A group of us had gone to the park to play a game of rounders and I’d taken a break, lay on the grass not caring about getting grass marks on my short red dress (with white cycling shorts under it for decency).

As a shadow fell over me, I opened my eyes and found Drew stood over me, his camera poised. Just as he hit the button, I’d stuck my fingers up at him.

I didn’t look that different in that photo, actually, not if you looked at the photos of me then. But when you looked at the photo then looked at me . . . I was older. Not particularly wrinkly (wrinkles weren’t a worry of mine), just older; I suppose I’d done a lot and it showed on my face. I’d run a department on a women’s magazine. I’d found out that love had to be two-way for it to mean anything. I’d discovered that I’d much rather stay in with a video than go out ‘on the pull’. And then, of course, I lived with a man I’d torn out of every photo he’d managed to infiltrate. This was against everything I ever believed in, I loved to take photos, to take snapshots of every time of my life. To have it there to look back on if I ever got pastsick. With Whashisface Tosspot, I just couldn’t bear to be reminded of the biggest mistake of my life. It was bad enough that I’d slept with him for two years, did I really want to look at him too? No, was the short answer to that, too.

I slammed shut the photo album. Didn’t I just say to Ed that ‘What if ?’ was no way to live a life? Erm . . . maybe I didn’t say it, but I’d meant to. And, constantly dipping into my photo album was no way to live a life in Leeds, either. Yer have to look forwards I reminded myself.

And I will, right after I’ve watched a couple more episodes of Angel . . .