Ironically since he was at fault, the incident led him to decide to break off with me. A few days later, when I hoped that we would be able to put the tiff behind us, he told me a friend had persuaded him to go up to Manchester to work on the construction of a new shopping centre. Top rates of pay were on offer because the project was behind schedule. Guessing that this was an excuse to finish the relationship, and hoping to make him tell me so unambiguously I asked directly, 'Are you going because of what happened in the pub on Friday night?'
'No, it ain't that. This is my chance to make some real money. With some savings behind me maybe I could be somebody, build up a business for myself even.'
'Will you be back at weekends?'
'Sundays is when they pay the best overtime rates. There should be a good few weeks' work up there. Won't know exactly until I get there.'
If not goodbye forever, it was goodbye for an indefinite period. 'When are you going?'
'Probably go up tomorrow. Might as well get started.'
Although we brought each other to perfunctory orgasm in bed that night, we gave each other little pleasure. Two days later I tried his portable 'phone number, but one of Andrew's staff at the garden centre answered. Tom had used that 'phone since we first met, but now had left it behind because it belonged to Ferns and Foliage. He had denied me even the pleasure of wishing him well and saying that if we bumped into each other we should say hello and be friends.
Andrew invited me to a restaurant for dinner the following Saturday, saving me the misery of not knowing what to do on my first Saturday night without Tom for over a year. He told me that Tom had travelled up to Manchester by train, had kept on the flat above the garden centre, but he had heard nothing more from him.
The next weekend I went to visit my sister and stayed overnight. Of my previous social life, prior to my affair with Tom, there was little to go back to. Old friends had, not surprisingly, found others to have meals with or go with to concerts or the theatre, and I reconciled myself to being on my own much more. In gay pubs and clubs picking anyone up somehow proved impossible for me, and my expeditions ended, however late the hour, with my return to Chiswick alone.
My friendship with Andrew survived; he and I occasionally went together to see a film or a play, and we continued to have Sunday dinners together. Neither of us mentioned Tom.