Reasons to Be Cheerful by Nina Stibbe

Author:Nina Stibbe
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Published: 2019-07-22T16:00:00+00:00

A week or so later JP was away at a BDA event and Andy had come up to my flat at lunchtime. He laughed at my descriptions of the party, especially The Hite Report and reproduction talk, but was most interested to hear about JP’s collection of antique barometers. I’d been about to send him out to the Lunch Box for sandwiches when he suddenly, alarmingly, suggested we go out for lunch. He’d suggested going out for meals a number of times before and, as usual, I rejected the idea.

‘A sandwich is fine,’ or, ‘We could have soup,’ I might say.

And he’d always say, ‘Or we could go out.’ Meaning, go to a café.

And I’d say, ‘No.’ Forcefully, and with no ambiguity.

It occurred to me then, that lunchtime after Tammy’s party, that my continually declining Andy’s offers of going out for a meal might be the thing that was preventing our relationship from flourishing. Could Andy be taking my reluctance to dine out as reluctance–might he equate eating together publicly with commitment? I don’t suppose he thought in those precise Woman’s Own terms, but maybe something along those lines.

I explored the topic.

‘You really like eating out?’ I said, in the style of a question.

‘I haven’t done it much, but yeah, it seems a nice thing to do.’

‘But it’s so expensive.’

‘Yes, I suppose, but you don’t have to be flashy about it.’

He told me he’d never eaten out as a child, not anywhere, ever, not even on the motorway, nor at school, nor in a hotel, and so it was a huge treat. His first time had been the Mercurial Christmas lunch on his first year there, and it had been so much fun, he’d been almost overwhelmed by feelings of joy and well-being. He rambled on about this rather too long. It was clear that dining out was his idea of bliss, and while it wasn’t exactly my idea of hell, it was far, far from heaven.

‘Why?’ he said. ‘Aren’t you keen?’

‘We used to go out with my father a lot, as children,’ I explained. ‘It was quite stressful sometimes.’

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