The Way It Never Was by Lucy Austin Read Free Book Online Page B

clearly spends a great deal of time doing dancing moobs in the gym mirror, instead of quietly getting on with the business of life, he’s been kissing his ‘guns’ and is confident – ridiculously so. No sooner do I try and interrupt with an anecdote of my own than he sits there feet tapping, clearly waiting for me to finish so he can come back with his own equivalent story. Seriously, he should just put his hand up and be done with it. It’s the Chris show and I can’t imagine he’ll actually stop long enough to find out what I think at all because you know what? He couldn’t give a toss.
    ‘So how do you know Anna?’ Chris leans in to me flirtatiously, making me reel in shock that he’s finally asking me a question. And now that he is, I’m attempting to hurriedly dislodge a stringy bit of mozzarella from halfway down my throat so I can splutter something before his next anecdote.
    ‘I met her in an Australian hostel a few years ago,’ I say, thinking at this point Chris might ask a few more questions about this time, only to find Anna then starts telling the exaggerated story about how she rescued me from being hit by a surf board on Bondi Beach (or rather, she casually assisted the lifeguards in hoisting me on a rescue boat to avoid my bikini bottoms going up my arse). But no, not even my story of being knocked unconscious by a learner surfer called Dale generates a two-way conversation with Chris. He prefers to use us as prompt cards to talk shop some more.
    ‘I’ve travelled a lot too you know,’ he declares. In between noisy mouthfuls, he proceeds to tell us how he doesn’t like conventional places like Australia, but prefers to step off the beaten track.
    ‘Not like the rest of us plebs,’ I joke, only for Anna to kick me under the table. Yes, it turns out that travel bore Chris is one of those that doesn’t so much as follow a guidebook, as chuck it out the window and write a new one, sucking on a second-hand biro in deep thought, halfway up a mountain with only a goatherd for company.
    Pouring a ridiculous amount of wine into my glass, possibly to help me anaesthetise this experience, Stan interrupts Chris’s monologue. ‘Most places are fairly well trodden these days mate. Give us an example of where you’ve been.’ Stan is so right. I used to think I was really ‘out there’ travelling around Australia, only to stay in some tree top hostel and discover the guest book full of hundreds of comments about ‘discovering myself’ and ‘never wanting to leave’ – along with a loo that hadn’t been unblocked since 1984.
    ‘Well, the last place I went to was Afghanistan.’ Talking painfully slowly, making us wait a lifetime for him to finish his mouthful as though we are hanging onto his every word, he then tells us how it was the hardest thing he’d ever done, so hard that they had to have armed guards with them at all times. We all sit there not saying much because quite frankly, how do you follow that? My anecdote about my last minute break to Corfu is hardly going to stand up to that, nor will my time with a load of expats in Sydney.
    Stan briefly widens his eyes at me by way of expressing an SOS signal, as Anna brings out the next course with a rather strained looking smile, which implies that even she too is finding this all this effort a little hard going for a Monday night.
    ‘This is delicious Anna,’ I lie, politely chomping my way through the bland pulses with watery rice that has a consistency not too dissimilar to baby food. What with my recent dinner date with Dan, this is officially my month for eating average fayre. The men both murmur in agreement, and I can’t help but wonder if it resembled some of the food that Chris was forced to eat on that holiday of his.
    ‘I like cooking,’ Anna declares which irks me a little, as it’s a blatant lie. ‘No, correct that. I love cooking!’ Stan catches my eye again and raises one eyebrow as he knows he’s the foodie round