embarrassment. Rob shrugged: Well, where was I supposed to look ? The woman slumped on to the padded seat that he had just vacated and said to herself, ‘I feel so stupid.’ It was at this point that Rob realised he had encountered her before. It was Jo, the girl he had met at the party and, once again, she was in tears.
Four key scenes in the life of Jo Richards from the six weeks before she burst into tears in front of Rob
One
‘If you’re going to be like this,’ said Sean, ‘I’m going upstairs.’
‘Go!’ yelled Jo. ‘Just don’t slam the door.’
It was one o’clock in the morning and thirty-two-year-old Jo Richards fumed silently as her boyfriend stormed into the hallway, pausing only to slam the door behind him. Jo sank into the sofa and wanted to cry so much that the effort involved in holding back the tears was almost a good enough excuse to give in to them. As far as she was concerned, she wasn’t being ‘like’ anything. What did it mean anyway? What was she being ‘like’? The only thing she was being was a nice, proper girlfriend. She wasn’t – and never had been while they had been together – the type of girlfriend to nag (more than moderately), whine (more than the basic amount needed when she was talking about her problems) or be clingy (she’d not once moaned about him spending more time with his friends than with her).
All she’d asked Sean was whether he would be around the following weekend because she was thinking of booking somewhere for them to go. They were both quite broke and although she would have preferred to stay in a hotel or a bed-and-breakfast in the countryside, she had been considering Wales under canvas. That was how much she wanted to spend quality time with Sean: she was prepared to go camping. Jo hated camping. She’d never seen the point of exchanging a perfectly good bed for a tent, some plastic sheeting and the hard, damp ground.
When Sean had replied that he didn’t know what he was up to that weekend, Jo had pointed out that therefore he lacked an excuse not to spend it with her. He had lost his temper and told her that this was ‘typical’ of the way things had been between them recently. Then Jo had said, as forcefully as she could, that spending the weekend away with your partner was not meant to be a form of punishment.
Under normal circumstances she would have gone after him and made him talk to her. She’d never understood the male propensity to yell when they were winning an argument, then shut down when they were losing (or, in this case, remove themselves from the scene). Left to his own devices, she was sure, he would stay upstairs sulking under the guise of listening to music or playing on the computer without wondering how she was feeling. How could he just leave the room in the middle of an argument? If it had been Jo who had stormed out she wouldn’t have been able to settle in a million years. She couldn’t sulk to save her life. She could brood, but that was different. She could sit and dissect the argument until she arrived at the usual conclusion that everything was her fault. This time, however, she didn’t. Who was at fault wasn’t the point any more. The point was this: was Sean being deliberately vile to her in the hope that she would get sick of him and kick him out? No one could get as irate about nothing as Sean had without having an ulterior motive. Things hadn’t been right between them since they had had that argument at the party and she’d locked herself into the bathroom for more than half an hour. It was obvious he had a plan: he’d been staying out late with his friends, drinking too much, smoking too much and generally being a slob for weeks. Suddenly it all fell into place: he was trying to goad her into ending their relationship because he was too much of a coward to do it himself. What he’d failed to factor into his plan was that when Jo had agreed to let him move in with her, it had not been a casual
Four key scenes in the life of Jo Richards from the six weeks before she burst into tears in front of Rob
One
‘If you’re going to be like this,’ said Sean, ‘I’m going upstairs.’
‘Go!’ yelled Jo. ‘Just don’t slam the door.’
It was one o’clock in the morning and thirty-two-year-old Jo Richards fumed silently as her boyfriend stormed into the hallway, pausing only to slam the door behind him. Jo sank into the sofa and wanted to cry so much that the effort involved in holding back the tears was almost a good enough excuse to give in to them. As far as she was concerned, she wasn’t being ‘like’ anything. What did it mean anyway? What was she being ‘like’? The only thing she was being was a nice, proper girlfriend. She wasn’t – and never had been while they had been together – the type of girlfriend to nag (more than moderately), whine (more than the basic amount needed when she was talking about her problems) or be clingy (she’d not once moaned about him spending more time with his friends than with her).
All she’d asked Sean was whether he would be around the following weekend because she was thinking of booking somewhere for them to go. They were both quite broke and although she would have preferred to stay in a hotel or a bed-and-breakfast in the countryside, she had been considering Wales under canvas. That was how much she wanted to spend quality time with Sean: she was prepared to go camping. Jo hated camping. She’d never seen the point of exchanging a perfectly good bed for a tent, some plastic sheeting and the hard, damp ground.
When Sean had replied that he didn’t know what he was up to that weekend, Jo had pointed out that therefore he lacked an excuse not to spend it with her. He had lost his temper and told her that this was ‘typical’ of the way things had been between them recently. Then Jo had said, as forcefully as she could, that spending the weekend away with your partner was not meant to be a form of punishment.
Under normal circumstances she would have gone after him and made him talk to her. She’d never understood the male propensity to yell when they were winning an argument, then shut down when they were losing (or, in this case, remove themselves from the scene). Left to his own devices, she was sure, he would stay upstairs sulking under the guise of listening to music or playing on the computer without wondering how she was feeling. How could he just leave the room in the middle of an argument? If it had been Jo who had stormed out she wouldn’t have been able to settle in a million years. She couldn’t sulk to save her life. She could brood, but that was different. She could sit and dissect the argument until she arrived at the usual conclusion that everything was her fault. This time, however, she didn’t. Who was at fault wasn’t the point any more. The point was this: was Sean being deliberately vile to her in the hope that she would get sick of him and kick him out? No one could get as irate about nothing as Sean had without having an ulterior motive. Things hadn’t been right between them since they had had that argument at the party and she’d locked herself into the bathroom for more than half an hour. It was obvious he had a plan: he’d been staying out late with his friends, drinking too much, smoking too much and generally being a slob for weeks. Suddenly it all fell into place: he was trying to goad her into ending their relationship because he was too much of a coward to do it himself. What he’d failed to factor into his plan was that when Jo had agreed to let him move in with her, it had not been a casual
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