Just before he left us, Istvan pointed out the no smoking signs on all the buildings. But there is an area round the back of the dining hall, with log seats and an ash bin. We settle ourselves down and Gabriella lights up.
DSC03220
‘So,’ she asks, ‘What do you think of Istvan? First impression?’
‘Well, he’s obviously very keen on you…’ then, seeing her blank expression: ‘He likes you a lot. He’ll do anything for you. And', warming to the theme, ‘he’s much better looking than Laszlo’.
‘Yes, I knew you were thinking so. I could see it in your face, the way you reacted when you met him at the airport’.
Good god, am I THAT transparent? I shall have to careful around this woman, she’s clearly a damn sight too perceptive.
‘He has those beautiful deep blue eyes’ she adds. ‘He’s a very handsome man’.
Well, I wouldn’t go THAT far, but, humour the woman, she’s a friend, after all.
‘Lovely hair’ I say. I like grey hair on a man. When they get to my age, I figure it’s a bonus if they still have any at all.
‘He’s a little short’.
‘Well, maybe, but that doesn’t really matter. And a little...’ I make a curving gesture with my hands over my tummy, ‘but men of our age, what do you expect? And he’s very charming.’
‘And he has a very good job. A well-paid job’.
‘And a lovely weekend house’ I add. I don’t know about his weekday house, somewhere in Budapest, presumably.
We fall silent for a while. And then:
‘And what about T*?’
Aka the Crazy Frog.
I’m taken aback. It’s a long time since I’ve heard anyone say his name, and I’m shocked by my own reaction.
The longer the pause lasts, the harder it is to think how to end it. I shrug and stare at my feet, conscious of her eyes on me.
‘He doesn’t answer my emails. Not for, ooh, ages. Not since before Christmas’.
Not strictly true, I got that comment from him on Facebook last week but I’ve put that out of my mind. It was nothing.
She puts her hand on my shoulder.
‘Did everybody know?’ I ask.
‘Yes’, Stark, rather brutal. Maybe she didn’t understand what I meant. It’s possible. But I have this feeling again of being completely transparent, of our colleagues and friends watching me tear off little pieces of my heart and throw them at his feet, for him to trample them into the ground. I can’t meet her eye, or I will start crying. And yet, I don’t care, really I don’t. It’s not about him, it’s about me, the embarrassment, the shame, the humiliation.
‘Ach’, I say, ‘It’s fine, it’s fine, no problem.’
‘You know’ she says, ‘with the married ones, it’s never good, because you only know one side of the story’.
I really don’t need to hear this.
‘And he’s too short’, she adds. Hell, what does that matter?
‘We have a saying in Hungarian: Step over it’.
‘I’m over it, really I am. I’m just angry with myself for being so stupid.’
Always that same feeling. Bloody idiot. Why do you do this to yourself?