‘Dad.’ Oh, the agony. I knew this would happen.
‘Serious?’ Jasper maintained his gleaming grin. ‘We’re in a relationship, yes,’ he said. ‘And I would describe it as serious, but perhaps she’s the one you should be asking.’
‘It’s early days,’ I muttered. ‘Playing it by ear.’
‘Very sensible,’ said Dad. ‘Thanks for a lovely meal. Now I think Jean’s champing at the bit to look around this house of yours.’
The tour took some of the pressure off. Jasper and I both enjoyed talking about the furnishings and artworks, slipping into our comfort zones with gratitude.
In the hallway, Mum and Dad made their apologies and said they really had to get back for the dogs now, and could they drop me off? But Jasper said he’d take me home, and I was glad, because I had things to say to him.
* * *
‘There, that wasn’t too painful, was it?’ he said briskly, pointing the key at his car and bleeping the locks.
‘I think you could have waited,’ I said. ‘It wasn’t fair to spring it on me – or them – like that.’
‘Love, you’d have put it off for ever.’
Perhaps he was right. Perhaps I had a reason for that, though. Did I have a reason for it?
‘No, I wouldn’t,’ I said, getting into the car. ‘But I might have waited until I knew a bit more about you.’
He looked up from the ignition, his eyebrows aloft.
‘You know everything about me,’ he said. ‘Everything important. Nobody knows me like you do.’
‘I didn’t even know the house was inherited,’ I said. ‘You never talk about your parents, except to say that your Mum wants to meet me. You never talk about your past.’
‘It’s not very interesting, that’s all,’ he said, reversing on to the driveway. ‘The present’s much more so. The future’s even better.’
‘Why don’t you talk to me?’
‘Sarah, what the fuck? I talk to you all the time.’
‘Only to give orders.’
‘No.’ He looked at me, exasperated. ‘What is this? A tiff?’
‘At least it’s normal. Couples do argue. It’s part and parcel of a relationship.’
‘I don’t know what you’re trying to say, but I wish you’d say it.’
‘I’m saying … I don’t know what I’m saying. I feel rushed and unsettled and uncertain about things.’
‘Uncertain?’ The look in his eyes would haunt me, before he turned them back to the road.
‘I don’t mean about you. I mean … I don’t know what I mean. It’s all happened so fast and so weirdly. My friends meet guys who text them and flirt with them and ask them out and maybe stand them up so the whole thing starts again and then there’s the “who will call first” stand-off and then maybe, after weeks, months, it starts to look viable … you know …’
‘You want that?’
‘No,’ I admitted. ‘Actually, I hate all that game-playing crap. But it’s just, oh, Jasper, sometimes it just seems too good to be true. And I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop. Do you know what I mean? It isn’t you. It’s me.’
He laughed, but there was not much mirth in it.
‘Isn’t that the classic brush-off line?’
‘I don’t mean it that way.’