Written 1 December 2018
It was blustery, cold and the sporadic rain was icy and heavy when it hit, but I'd agreed to go to Pablo’s, and I'm nothing if not a woman of my word.
I loved him to bits, but he did possess a level of pathos that could be quite trying, and he couldn't cook. Nevertheless, I popped my umbrella up and headed over.
He answered the door with a sigh. I greeted with a hug and a kiss on two cheeks. You know an evening is going to be difficult when the first sentence uttered is “What's wrong?”
Oh, well, the risotto lacked salt, the honey glazed carrots had caught in the oven, and forget about the raspberry soufflés, there wasn't a chance they were going to rise. Besides the cooking, Geraint hadn't called him back, and there was a write up on his latest show that made no mention of his genius.
“I mean, you would hope they'd at least poise the question?”
I waited patiently for him to take my coat and serve me a drink, but this gesture didn't appear to be forthcoming, so I threw my coat over the back of a dining chair and poured a generous glass of wine.
After 30 minutes of complaining, Pablo eventually asked me how I was. I told him okay. The divorce was coming along smoothly. Alice liked her new school. The shop could be doing better, but considering the state of retail, it wasn't too bad.
He listened, nodded, agreed when he was supposed to agree. He wasn't really taking it in. He continued to look sulky, like just by me talking I'd deprived him of something he felt entitled to.
After the risotto, which indeed was a little lacking in salt, Pablo popped the question.
“Why don't we get married?”
“Besides the fact that I'm already technically married and your gay?”
Pablo was lonely. That was all. He had lots of friends, but most found him too much. The complaining, the theatrics. And I listened. He wasn't looking for an intimate partnership, just someone with a little patience.
He cried on my shoulder a while, confessed to cheating on Geraint, hence why they weren't talking. I baked the soufflés, which didn't rise, and I stayed with my struggling friend for two more bottles of wine before disappearing into the wind to relieve the babysitter.
And despite the pathos, the melancholy, I had a really smashing evening. Pablo was many things, but he was never boring, and I was flattered to be his sound board for his apparently infinite list of problems.