To Be Someone by Louise Voss

stitches.
    “Is your mum always that, um, keen to meet your friends?” Toby asked as we sat down on a wooden bench.
    “Basically, yes—the male ones, anyway. She’s just desperate to get me hitched. She’s already been hopeful that I’ll get something together with the physio, the shrink, or the surgeon. It’s so embarrassing.”
    “Don’t worry,” Toby said. “Mothers will be mothers. So haven’t you ever been married? ”
    I took a slurp of tea. “No. I almost came close to it once—quite recently, actually. But thank God I saw the light. Vinnie was a serial-philandering, commitment-phobic, dishonest asshole.”
    Toby laughed. “So you’re obviously still fond of him, then.”
    I managed a smile, a rare reaction to the mention of Vinnie’s name. But I didn’t want Toby to think I was a freak for never having been married. “I know, mad, isn’t it. I picked a right dud. Of course, I had loads of, like, casual boyfriends and stuff, when I was in the band—no shortage of offers—but we were on the road for so long, it seemed a bit pointless having long-distance relationships. We just had no time to ourselves. And men did sometimes try and take advantage. I suppose I never really wised up to their little tricks.… ”
    I trailed off awkwardly, but Toby didn’t seem to mind my slagging off his gender. I changed the subject. “How long have you been married, then? ”
    “Five years,” Toby replied. “We were together for four years before that, too.”
    “So Kate wasn’t the girl you were with when we met before, after that interview?” I asked cautiously, remembering the silly slapper who’d been all over Justin.
    Toby laughed hollowly. “Thank God, no. That was Lorraine. My first nightmare relationship.”
    “What happened?” I wondered if “first nightmare relationship” meant “first of many nightmares” or “first relationship, which just happened to be a nightmare.”
    “I bought a flat so we could live together. It was a lot more than I could afford, but she insisted we get it and said she’d pay a third of the mortgage. To cut a long story short, I ended up paying for everything because she said she was skint. Next thing, she announced she’d saved up two thousand pounds and was off to New York on holiday without me.”
    I was appalled. “That’s outrageous!”
    “Yeah, I suppose it was,” said Toby glumly. “Plus it turned out she was having an affair, although by the time I finally kicked her out, I didn’t even care. I just wanted rid of her. But it was fine in the end, because I met Kate quite soon afterwards.”
    I felt a pang in my chest at the mention of his wife. Suddenly I didn’t want to hear any more about Toby’s love life.
    “Toby?”
    “Yeah?”
    “Do you have many, you know, friends? ”
    Toby considered the question. A sparrow hopped onto a nearby tub of crocuses and watched us suspiciously.
    “Well, not really. It sounds weird, but Ruby’s my best friend, and she’s two. And Kate, of course. The pair of them have always been enough for me, in the friends department. I have a good mate called Bill, who was my best man, and a couple of university friends I see occasionally. And that’s about it—Kate’s much more sociable than me. That’s why I’m here now, actually; there are two of her art school buddies in with her and it was getting a bit crowded in there.”
    Nice, I thought. Glad that I could provide a bit of backup entertainment to pass the time. I’d been sort of hoping that he might include me in his list of friends.
    “What about you?” Toby asked. “You’ve got tons of cards in your room. I bet you’re really popular.”
    I snorted. “Oh yeah, and my room’s overflowing with visitors—not. Apart from my mother, who doesn’t count. What does that tell you?”
    Toby looked in my eyes. “It tells me that you and Sam were so close, and you were so tied up with the band from such a young age, that you might not have had the time