Читать книгу William’s Progress - Matt Rudd - Страница 35

Anastasia frowns when I ask for a week’s holiday, makes a barbed comment about lack of dedication and storms off to her lunch interview at the Ivy with the Dalai Lama. I storm off to lunch at the pub with Johnson, but I am momentarily perked up by a text from Andy, best friend but strangely busy for the last six weeks. Can he join us for lunch?

‘Hello, stranger,’ I say when he walks in.

‘Congratulations,’ he replies, but he isn’t looking me in the eye, which is unlike him. People say that on becoming a parent, you lose friends, even best friends, because all you can talk about is nappies, sleep routines and birth stories. Friends without children have very little interest in these things. In fact, some of them would rather not hear anything about it at all. They would prefer to remain in denial about the whole messy topic until as late as possible. I assumed that the reason Andy hasn’t been in touch at all since the birth was because he doesn’t want to know what may await him if he ever goes out with anyone long enough to marry them and have children. And I don’t blame him. If he would rather steer clear of me while all I can talk about is Fallopian tubes and nappy rash, so be it.

But here we are in the pub – him, me, Johnson – like old times. And he isn’t avoiding. He’s just oddly nervous.

‘I have some news of my own,’ he says after I’ve tried hard to have a whole conversion without mentioning tubes or rashes. ‘I have a new girlfriend.’

This is hardly news. I’m convinced Andy, an incurable but dastardly romantic, only forged a career in the diplomatic service so that he could fall in love with as many girls in as many different countries as possible.

‘This time, it’s serious. I think she might be the one.’ He has said this before, many times, which Johnson and I point out in unison.

‘Yes, but this is different.’

‘…because you and she share a bond, even though she speaks only Farsi and you speak only nonsense?’ asks Johnson.

‘…because you and she transcend the boundaries of simple geography, even though you live in Tooting and she lives in Islamabad?’ I add.

‘No, because it’s Saskia,’ he whispers into his pint.