MEGAN NICOL REED on intimacy

on intimacy

The story of you and me is elaborate, practised. Asked how we got together, we sigh. It’s long, I say. You object. I tell it better though. Admit it. Better with words, more generous with the detail. And it’s a good story. Jokes, pathos, sexual tension. Worth the telling. I think about it sometimes, the arbitrariness of how we met. Of how anyone meets. Of what would’ve happened if we’d seen it all there spooling out before us. The children we would have, the friends we would make, the houses we would share, the fights and the lovemaking, the bills and the illnesses, the holidays, pets, chores, parties. What would we have done? What would anyone?

The other night I came home, itchy and hot, filthy and foul. Three hours in a paddock, watching our daughter ride, feeding out hay to podgy ponies. You were having a lovely time, entertaining a young guy you have befriended recently, three bottles of wine in. I was resentful, remorseful, even before I opened my mouth and rudely spoiled everyone’s fun. He texted you the next day. To say thank you. To say he loved the way you were with our children, with me. To say that he aspired one day to be the man you are, to have what you have. And I saw you; saw us, suddenly, through different, kinder eyes.

We have understood lately what it is to be the sandwich generation. Caught between the competing demands of our children, your ailing mother. Three weeks ago, just as I was feeling like the school holidays would never ever end, she was admitted to hospital. And I have been awed by how seriously, how tenderly you have taken your duty, scarcely leaving her side, cajoling her to eat, to drink, though it’s questionable whether she even knows who you are much of the time.

Late last year, invited to a dear friend’s 50th, we puzzled over what to do. We had looked forward to this night for a long time and yet it clashed exactly with our daughter’s big show, the dance she had been feverishly rehearsing. We suggested perhaps her grandparents might go in our place, but were shot immediately and emphatically down. Eventually we negotiated we would drop her off, go to the beginning of the celebrations, come back for the performance and leave again at intermission. By the time we returned for take two we were frazzled and far from merry. There was nowhere to park and when I said you had missed a couple of potential spots you bit my head off. Re-entering the party, seething, separate, I saw a couple we hadn’t seen in ages. They asked where you were. Who cares, I said, though I was watching you out the corner of one eye, necking a beer.

And so then, of course, I told them about

I told them about how we’d argued. How neither of us would ever speak to anyone else the way we’d just spoken to each other. That’s intimacy, though, isn’t it, said our friend.

how we’d argued. How pathetic it was. How neither of us would ever speak to anyone else the way we’d just spoken to each other. That’s intimacy, though, isn’t it, said our friend.

When anyone chooses anyone, it’s a weighing up, a compromise, a decision to uphold. It’s a renunciation that unless you reach some agreement, or behave very badly, from here on in, theirs is the only body you will ever fondle. Twenty years ago next month, we chose loyalty, you and I; we chose kindred appetites, openness and reliability. We chose peace. If I’d seen our lives unfurling back then, I’d still have chosen you. I’d choose you again and again and again.

FOLLOWING ON

Oh, exclaimed Alison on reading last week’s column about JOMO, just relax! “Don’t look for hidden meanings and subtleties. You’ll drive yourself crazy. Who cares anyway in the big scheme of things? Does it matter what a friend ‘really’ meant? Go with your gut. Best not over-analyse. I want you to be happy! You can NEVER please everyone, just a few will do.” Rose, meanwhile, writes she, too, is a reformed wild child. “I don’t do weed, LSD or vodka anymore and I consider a good night one with a homecooked meal and the family. I suspect the discontent is connected to a sense of self-worth that one has to be young and sexy … With the world taking a steep dive towards extinction; being introspective is perhaps a sensible approach, and a way of finding ‘being’ without tottering into a gutter with a bevy of fellows.” Do write. megannicolreed@gmail.com