546

Esmé didn’t answer her phone, so Jason left her a message.  She’s probly in a lecture, he thought.  He sent her a text message as well.  He wanted all his friends to be together when he told them.

Esmé was old-fashioned about using her smart-phone in lectures.  She turned it to silent when she was in one.  So she only saw the message when she went to get lunch in one of the uni cafés.  She had a prac until 5, but she could walk from the uni to Brunswick Street and get to the café by 5.30.  She texted back her acceptance.

She wondered what he wanted to tell her.  He was special.  She was in love with Keith but Jason was kind and he had a lovely smile and he treated her as a real person.  Keith and Jason and their friends might not be perfect, but they were incomparably better than her father—and her mother, too.  But she thought more charitably of her mother now.  Even though she was still angry at her mother for not protecting her when she’d been abused, she understood intellectually, if not in her heart, how afraid her mother must have been.  She thought back to an article she’d read in the newspaper, about battered women and how they often went back to their husbands because they had no alternative, financially, or stayed with them because they were afraid.  The article said that nearly a hundred women a year died in domestic violence.  She could believe it.

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Episodes 1 to 500 (without pictures, 20 episodes per chapter)   

466

“Men … well … wai’re a bit sluttish, ya knaow.  We loik a lot of sex, and wai aren’t always too pa’ticular about how we get it.  Some men prefer it without ties, with strangers.  I dunno.  Oi had that when Oi was on the straits.  Oi got enough fuckin’  with paiple who didn’t care about mai.  Paiple who despised me.  They thought that because Oi naided the money Oi was a nothin’.  But sex is noice.  Very noice.” He smiled suddenly, quickly and endearingly. “ And if ya can do it with someone you loike … someone you love … then it’s seriously good.  Aiven a nice blaoke ya pick up in the pub.  Long as he doesn’t look down on ya.  Long as there’s somethin’ there.  Some spark.  Though Oi’m getting’s a bit sick of that too, if ya wanna knaow.  Oi love Tom.  And Oi reckon Oi’m getting’ half in love with you, Esmé.  But Oi naid … fuck it, Ezz, Oi naid men in moi loife.  Oi daon’t wanna hurt ya, and Oi’m sorry Oi have.  But Oi could never be one hundred per cent straight.  Never.  No matter how much you main to me.  If Oi promised ya Oi would, Oi would be lyin’.”

Esmé looked at him for many heartbeats.  “I don’t know, Keith.  I can’t.  I … I need time to think.”

Keith looked bleak.

Esmé reached down and slapped his cheek lightly. 

“Stop it.”  She felt much happier than she had before.  I’m getting half in love with you. But the more rational part of herself argued forcibly for normality—a boyfriend who was straight, who loved only her, who wouldn’t pick up men in pubs.  Like they’re all queuing up, she thought cynically.  “I said I’d think about it.”

“Can wai go on bein’ friends?”  Keith looked so anxious she almost gave in right there.

“Maybe.  We’ll see.  Now drink up your coffee and go away!”

“Oi haven’t got any!  Honestly, the service in this place!”

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Episodes 1 to 460 (without pictures, 20 episodes per chapter) 

464

“Ah.”  Keith tensed but he didn’t let go of her hand.  “I knaow I’m a bit of a slut, Ezz.  Oi … Oi’m gay, maostly.  Ya knaow that.”

“Yeah.  I know.  I’m just being silly.”

“Nao, not silly.  But just because Oi pick up a blaoke an’ we do the daid doesn’t mean I love him.  That Oi’m his friend.”

“You love Tom.”

“Yeah.  But Tom took me off the straits.  He saved me. He saved moi loife.  And yeah, we fuck. Nao.  Oi’m wrong.  We make love.  Loik you and Oi do.”

Esmé didn’t speak.

“Moi mum and dad were the one-marriage toipe.  Ya knaow, faithful until daith.  But they didn’t love each other.”

“My parents didn’t either.  I think mum was in love with dad.  But she was so frightened of him.  And he didn’t love her.  He was a narcissist.”

“Your dad was a cunting prick and I hope every minute of his loife is a torment and agony.  But that’s not the point, Ezz.  You can have the form of the ideal, marriage.  But maybai not the reality.  What matters is that ya love each other.”

“And do you?”

“Of course.  I love you and I love Tom.”

“You love Tom more.”

“Daon’t torment yaself, Ezz.”

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Episodes 1 to 380 (without pictures, 20 episodes per chapter)