'No Offence' by George Terry
Posted by sregan | Filed under prose
"Are you cold?"
"I'm always cold," she said, smiling politely.
I carried on spinning the salt shaker, watching it falter like a spinning top on the grubby table. She'd be staring at her feet right now, with her head cocked to one side.
"If you want to move away from the door, you know, we can go further in." She crossed her legs and shook her head.
"I'll warm up soon."
The cafe was empty; we were too late to catch the builders on their way to work, and it was still far too early for the students. Without background noise our conversation, sparse as it was, seemed almost dead.
"How have you been?"
"Can't complain. Yourself?"
"Yeah, you know, fine."
We'd spent two years together. Two years - and now we couldn't find the words to fill a minute.
"How's, erm...?"
"Jacob?"
"Yeah, that's the one."
"Jacob's an arsehole."
"Oh." I'd never met Jacob but she'd rung me once when she was pissed to tell me that she had a new boyfriend. I think she was asking if I fancied going out for a drink with the two of them.
"What happened?"
"He was an arsehole. Why do I always go out with arseholes?"
She paused.
"No offence."
Some was taken.
"You seeing anyone at the moment?" I felt like I was being probed.
"No. No, I think I've had enough of relationships." I didn't bother adding, "For the time being." It didn't need to be said.
Everything we said to one another was punctuated by long periods of silence - we'd look at our feet, blow into our tea, pretend to yawn, look at the hangings on the wall, the carvings in the tabletops, the papers by the door, but we'd never look at each other. I don't think I made proper eye contact more than once the entire time.
We sat like that for a while - I'd forgotten about my tea and let what was left go cold.
"Another?" I asked her.
She shook her head.
I checked my phone: I had three voicemail messages. The first two were from my housemates; it sounded like one of them was eating at the time. They were both asking if I could grab a TV license for the house later while I was in town. The last one was older, a message I'd forgotten from about a year ago. It was from her. A year ago she and I were still together - that was the best part, about a year ago. She was asking why I hadn't come to see her tonight; saying that she missed me, and that she had some really important news about the house we hadn't yet bought. It was a long message - she looked up half way through and caught me silent on the phone, looking at her and wondering how we'd changed so much, and when it happened, and why, more than anything else why it had happened in the first place, because I don't think either of us really knew.
I hung up.
"Who was on the phone?" She pushed her cold tea towards the centre of the table.
"You," I said, without really meaning to.
- George Terry
