If You Change Your Mind

“…….and so he had me up against the wall and he looked as if he was about to knife me. I couldn’t understand a word he was saying either, and T. had disappeared - the bastard. All I did was ask if there was anywhere I could buy some blow. Fuck me - I’m never going back the Dordogne again if that’s how they treat their visitors”

He broke off suddenly, looked up from his drink, and then nudged me

“Are you listening or what?”

We were in the Old Black Lion after getting back from Harley Street. I suppose I must have given him the impression that I wasn’t very interested in hearing about his trip to France, but I was really, I just felt odd. I think it must have been a combination of relief at being told I didn’t have cancer after all, plus all the Bacardi and coke I’d drunk since we’d got there. I put my glass down; and sighed;

“Yes of course I am. Did you find out what he was saying in the end? See? I was hanging onto your every word. And don’t poke me like that either - it hurt.”

I rubbed my arm and gave him an injured look, even though it hadn’t really been painful at all.

“Yeah – I did once T had come back from the loo, which he took a suspiciously long time to do by the way. Turned out they were Communists and wanted to give me a lecture about wasting my life – you know, the opium of the people and all that kind of thing, so not a lynch mob after all……might just as well have been though. I’ve never been so frightened in my life”.

He laughed, and ran his fingers through his hair, pushing his fringe out of his eyes. It immediately flopped back down again and he shrugged and drank some more beer.

“The rest of the time was fine then? Apart from that I mean?” I suddenly wished I’d been there too

“Well – mostly, except when I got ill; and then T’s grandfather fixed up the doctors for us. He was really nice this time around.”

I grinned – the only time I’d ever met him had been when he’d hung out of his window and told us to go away, years before, when Joel and I had been in Paris together, and T had told us to go and look him up and then forgotten to let his grandfather know. I looked across at Joel.

“I would have loved to have gone along you know”

I wasn’t sure he’d heard me at first, because he was peeling the foil off his beer, and someone had just put the jukebox on, so I repeated myself. This time he looked up;

“Well – you were swanning around with someone else weren’t you?”

He said it lightly, but it reminded me of how he’d seemed a little distant at first, after all that. In fact … things had only started to feel normal quite recently. I cleared my throat;

“Next time –let’s go together, ok?”

“What? France you mean? Ok.”

Neither of us said anything for a minute, then Joel spoke;

“….in the meantime….do you want to come up to the cottage again? We could go in the week, when no-one else is around…..I could make sure”

“Ok…that would be nice….. they’re hardly going to notice at college are they ……..oh god! not Abba ”

I glared in the direction of the jukebox. That was the trouble with pubs – sometimes the music was ok, but often it was shit, like now., Take a Chance on Me was blaring out of the speakers, completely wrecking the atmosphere.

Joel looked at me and stood up, He was smiling again,

“One more drink? We can pay the paper bill tomorrow – I’m sure mum won’t mind”

On the way home, Joel suggested stopping at the bookies, because he said he was feeling lucky, which made me laugh;

“I think pissed is a more accurate word. Ok…. but only if you stop singing that horrible song.”

And then we linked arms because the West End Lane was pretty steep and really we were both quite drunk by then and headed for William Hill