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“In the end, we were meeting in the park every day. Some days he would bring along fish and chips all wrapped up in nice warm newspaper. He would put them on the seat between us and we would just sit there, talking and munching away. It was so good, I have never known a bloke like that before. None of the sex stuff, not that I mind that either, I can tell you, but this was different, very different, sort of pure, if you get what I mean?”
“I understand.”
“I wonder if you really do, really understand what I am talking about, any more than I understand your big fancy words?”
“Did you regard him as a real friend?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Eliza, how would you define a real friend?”
“I will try to answer your question even though I know what you are up to with all your forms, and all your questions. A friend is someone you feel just right with, as simple as that. If he happens to be a bloke the sex business does not have to be important or, even part of it. It is all about feeling comfortable with someone, knowing when to talk, when to shut up, when to touch him on the shoulder, when to ask him how is he going, is he feeling crook, how is his bit of garden down by the back fence, that sort of stuff.”
“Sounds like you really liked him?”
“Yes I did, we had fun. We used to just sit and talk, talking softly all the time. And we would laugh at the silliest little things. There might be a bird having a bath in a pool of water, splashing water all over the joint. There might be a couple of kids walking past deeply involved in the most serious of conversations that you would reckon the world is going to end tomorrow. So we would laugh at these things, and then he would mumble to himself in his funny little way, and then do a funny little laugh. Then he would go quiet for a while, and then we would start again, looking at this, looking at that.”
