I was nervous and worried about it the whole night while we were at a club. I had a fair bit to drink but I didn’t want to be so drunk that I wouldn’t know what was happening. When we got back, I looked at Paul’s bedroom as if I was seeing it for the first time. I’d been in there before, as we all used to hang out there when we were round at Paul’s house, but this time was different. This time it was just us.
The double bed had a bold patterned duvet on it, and had been neatly made up – did his mum do that, I wondered? Would I be expected to make it again in the morning? Would I still be there in the morning?
I nervously sat on the edge of the bed while Paul cleaned his teeth. I wanted him to come in quickly and make a big joke about it. I wanted it to be over quickly so that we could relax, so that I could relax. But it was a different Paul who came back from the bathroom. He walked over to me, sat down on the bed and took my hand. He brushed my hair out of my face and tucked it behind my ear. There weren’t any jokes. This mattered. To both of us.
He kissed me and I felt myself get tense. He must have felt it too, because he asked, ‘Are you all right, Linz?’ I answered quickly, ‘Yeah, fine, absolutely fine.’ Paul moved away from me a little and took my face in his hands. ‘I can’t believe you’ve made me wait six months for this,’ he said, ‘but if it’s not what you want, I’ll wait longer. You have to be ready, babes. You have to be sure.’
He was so tender with me that all of the worry just left my body. The next moments were private, memories that we made together that I want to keep for me. But it was quite a shock when I realized something else had happened that night, something more than just having sex with him.
I’d fallen in love with Paul Hunter.
For a few weeks, I was the happiest girl in the world. Paul was very attentive and we went everywhere together, announcing our relationship to the world. I thought about him the whole time and found it difficult to concentrate at work, but he seemed to be thinking about me all the time as well. We were just typical young lovers. We’d jump into bed at every opportunity and we were so compatible it seemed the most natural thing in the world. I was on a high, looking forward to all the wonderful days and nights we would share together and counting the hours until I would see him again. I looked forward to our relationship getting deeper and deeper as we got to know each other better. If I had any slight worry, it was that he wasn’t looking for someone to settle down with at that stage; he wasn’t even looking for a long-term girlfriend, let alone someone to marry – but he didn’t know what I was like once I made up my mind about something. And once my heart had decided it loved Paul, who was I to argue?
The snooker season was starting up again and players were getting their practice in and beginning to rev up for the professional year ahead. Paul was practising in earnest and I would often pop in to The Manor to see him during my lunch break, or even in between appointments. We could meet for lunch and have a quick chat on the phone whenever we liked because he didn’t have a boss leaning over his shoulder. To an outsider, he might have looked like a young waster hanging around the snooker tables all day every day, while his girlfriend slaved away. I worked long hours as a full-time beauty therapist, plus all my evening work teaching at the college and sometimes seeing private clients as well, while Paul had a flexible timetable. Of course, if anybody had stopped for more than a few seconds, they would soon have realized that he was a lot more than that – his talent was incredible, even to a non-snooker aficionado like me.
However, I wasn’t the only person who was hanging around Paul. One day in October, when Paul and I had been together properly for about four weeks, I walked into The Manor to see Gemma sitting in the café having a coffee. My heart gave a bit of a jolt but I told myself it was nothing. When I said to Paul, casually, ‘Oh, I just saw Gemma outside,’ he didn’t seem to bat an eyelid. ‘Did you say hello?’ he asked. ‘I don’t think she saw me,’ I replied, and told myself to forget all about it.
The following week, though, I saw her talking to Paul just outside the room where the snooker tables were. She saw me coming and walked off before I could say anything. ‘What was that about?’ I asked Paul. He seemed a bit flustered but maintained that she was just being friendly.
I didn’t want to become suspicious – it’s not in my nature – but I had a bad feeling about it. He and Gemma seemed to have been in an on-off relationship for so long, and I was worried that I hadn’t seen the last of her.
I wasn’t sure whether Gemma had a job or not – but she did seem to have plenty of time to hang around Paul. She started coming regularly for a coffee or a snack in the café at The Manor, and it seemed she always managed to chat to him on the way there and back. Sometimes she’d catch sight of me coming and she’d leave; other times we might exchange a polite ‘hello’ but it never went any further than that. I never had a conversation with Gemma at any point over the years, and I certainly didn’t intend to have a public fight with her. Paul maintained it was just that they wanted to stay friends, having been together for such a long time, and I found it hard to argue with that.
One night, when Nicky and I had been out for a drink, I plucked up the courage to ask her what was going on as we made our way back to her house. ‘Nicky,’ I said, ‘did I tell you I saw Gemma recently?’ ‘No,’ she replied. ‘Where? In town?’ I knew I was going to have to tell her more, but there was a part of me that was reluctant to open the whole issue up. Maybe I was subconsciously scared of what I might hear. ‘Chatting to Paul at the club,’ I told her. ‘She’s there practically every day hanging round Paul. What’s going on, Nicky?’
It turned out that Nicky was just as much out of the loop as I was. Not only was she spending a lot of time with her new boyfriend Nobby, meaning that she often wasn’t at home when Paul called round, but she was also trying to avoid knowing anything so she wasn’t put in an awkward position. ‘Our Darren did say that Gemma had been making a play for Paul again,’ she confessed, ‘but I’m in a really tricky position here, Lindsey – Paul’s my cousin and I love him to bits, but you’re my best mate and I’d do anything for you.’
I paused and took stock of what she had just said. ‘Are you saying that you suspected something was going on, Nicky? Because if you did, I’d have thought you would have told me.’ She took my hand and looked at me with those big, open eyes of hers. ‘It’s not like that, Linz. It’s not about you. It’s Paul. He’s never, ever been faithful to any girl before – it just doesn’t seem to be something he’s capable of. There’s no malice in him; he just can’t help himself. And, although I don’t know anything, it’s just his past record that bothers me.’ This was sounding worse and worse. ‘Nicky,’ I said, ‘you’ve got to find out what’s going on. I won’t be messed about again. I need to know.’
I couldn’t settle after that, and eventually got a taxi home rather than stay over. Nicky called me the next morning. ‘Lindsey, I’ve raked our Darren over the coals about this and it’s not good news, babes. Paul’s back with Gemma again.’
I thanked her for letting me know and put the phone down. I didn’t want to discuss this with anyone; I just wanted to work it out myself. It was only a month since we’d started sleeping together. I felt like a complete idiot for falling for his charms and jumping into bed with him. Now he had thrown everything back in my face. I’d told him how much of a big deal it was for me to have sex with him; he knew that meeting my parents properly was important to me. Did none of that