Nomance, T Price [bookreader .TXT] 📗

card company girl had been alot more polite. In fact, her impeccable courtesy had quite thrownhim at the time and he had only blown his top after he put thephone down and realised he still didn’t have any credit.

Elaine hadn’t been halfas scrupulous about keeping him from blowing his top over thephone.

Having turned him downwithout having to think about it, she went on to think about it andout of pure youthful exuberance she told him their relationshipwould never work out because he ate meat and she was a strictvegetarian.

‘But it doesn’tmatter,’ he had told her.

‘Oh, it does, Gwynne.It does.’

As bad luck would haveit, Elaine seemed to read the same magazines his sister did andthese had loads of stuff in them about vegetarianism. She prettywell repeated it all now, word for word. Gwynne had to wait tenminutes before he could put his side of the argument again.

‘But, it doesn’tmatter.’

There was a pause herebefore Elaine tried a different way at getting him exceedinglyannoyed.

‘You see, Gwynne, it’swhat I believe in.’ She made that sound so pathetic – as if big,strong Gwynne was pulling her snivelling little convictions apart.As if, in fact, she wasn’t having a whale of a time. She crankedhim up good and proper by adding, in her teeniest, weeniest voice,that she must sound like such a silly little girl, but she had tobelieve in something, didn’t she?

Gwynne assumed she wasasking for a balanced opinion. ‘No. Because it doesn’t matter!’

That was the veryessence of his argument. He couldn’t have stated it more plainly.And yet, there was no answer, apart from what might have been – ofall things – a half-stifled yawn at the other end. God, she wasthick! He would have to go through the whole thing with heragain.

‘Don’t you get it? Itdoesn’t matter.’

Elaine had sighed, ‘Youreally do have to try harder to express yourself. Men have tonowadays, Gwynne. Try watching more daytime discussions on thetelly and you’ll get the right idea. As it is, you wouldn’t lastfive minutes on Trisha’s Morning Show.’

And, going by her toneof voice, it didn’t sound like Gwynne was about to last any longeron Elaine’s Mobile Phone.

‘But – ’

‘No.’

‘All right,’ Gwynnesaid, defeated.

Elaine, however, hadwatched enough soap operas to know that arguments did not have toend quite this equably.‘Listen, Gwynne. Go vegetarian yourself andwe’ll give it a try.’

Even though Gwynnethought this over with lightening speed and came up with thecorrect answer – that he would indeed go vegetarian – he didn’tcome close to articulating it before a squeak of naked panicvibrated the telephone cable and Elaine began talking so fast shegobbled like a turkey. ‘Remember though, to be a real vegetarianyou have to leave off meat for at least a whole year. That’s twelvemonths.’

Gwynne was choked intoa cretinous silence.

And yet, after all, theconcept of waiting for a year was not altogether too strange tohim. An actual example came to mind. There had been a girl at hisschool who was famous for promising she would wait a year for herboyfriend to get out of Wormwood Scrubs Prison. And she had too!So, it was humanly possible to wait for a year. Only, where wouldElaine be in all this? He would be the one proving his devotion bywaiting for her, but he would also be the one expected to live offcarrots and peas and not get any sex.

As near as damn itbanged up in jail!

Gwynne felt betrayed bythe blatant unfairness of Elaine’s demand and he voiced a final,desperate plea for justice, ‘But, it doesn’t matter!’

One year ago, Elaineanswered by slamming the phone down on him.

Thinking about it now,Gwynne found to his amazement that he should have promised to wait.The year thing had come and gone almost like it was inevitable. Andalthough Elaine, in a final act of defiance, had later got backtogether with Tony, surely they must have split a second time bynow – no doubt citing irreconcilable differences.

You see, Gwynne couldnot believe that Tony was a vegetarian. Not with biceps like that.And with her strong beliefs, Elaine must have given up trying toreform him, even if he did have a car. Perhaps, then, there wasstill a chance for him and her?

The question was,should he try phoning again?

That depended. Could hebe so damned sure, after all, that Tony did eat meat?

With a spoonful ofmilky cereal suspended in front of his open mouth, Gwynne rackedhis brains to recollect what he could about the finer details ofTony’s diet. He had seen Tony stuffing himself with sandwiches atrehearsals often enough, but, somehow or other, he had never onceasked him what he had on them.

Idiot!

Well, his one recourse,at this late stage, was to concentrate with all his might and tryto conjure up a visualisation of Tony’s sandwiches in the hope ofcatching sight of the filling.

He closed his eyes andstrained.

Then he strainedharder.

The dense bone aroundhis temples creaked with the tension and . . . and . . . but it wasno good. Gwynne could do no more than glimpse the outer crusts.

In truth there is amystery at the heart of all things.

Shoving the cereal intohis mouth, he sensed that this mystery-of-life thing wasresponsible for the unaccountable workings of fate.

Gwynne had been taughta hard lesson about the unaccountable workings of fate when he’dhad the good fortune to find that wallet down Hyde Park.

The money had enabledhim to buy a guitar, and his buying a guitar had led to his joiningthe band. And his being in the band had led to his getting bootedout of the band. But only after it had led to his meeting Elaine.And his meeting Elaine, of course, had led to his getting turneddown by Elaine.

In this way his goodluck had contrived to do the precise opposite of what good luck wassupposed to do – twice over!

Now, that couldn’t bemere coincidence, could it?

‘How come I get all theshit and nobody else does?’ He asked himself, delving once moreinto the mystery at the heart of all things. As mysteries go,however, it was even tougher to swallow than the meat on Tony’ssandwiches. For not only did other people not get the shit, whatthey did get was