Things We Never Said

by Nick Alexander

Sean sighs deeply. He’s wondering, for the nth time, how much to tell. Because the thing is that there are aspects of the tapes he would quite like to discuss with someone. But like many men his age, he simply doesn’t have the kinds of friendships where those subjects are discussable.

I didn’t express my fears at the time. I had no vocabulary, back then, for any of this.

Lord, if he had been told one small truth for every time Catherine said, ‘Oh, don’t mind me, I’m all over the place at the moment,’ then there would have been no secrets at all. So it’s a shame. They wasted precious time tiptoeing around each other when clearly all that was required was a good heart-to-heart.

‘I’ve never been much of a believer in being led by your mind.’ ‘I’m sorry?’ Sean says. ‘It’s your mind,’ Ronan says. ‘It’s your organ, and waiting for it to be ready for something is a bit like waiting for your own hand to pass you a cup of tea instead of telling it to just do it.’ He reaches, theatrically, for his beer to demonstrate this. ‘Or a bottle of beer,’ he adds.

April pulls a face. ‘Yes, Mr Spock. His head or his heart.’ ‘Well, as far as I’m aware,’ Ronan says, swigging at his beer bottle and looking vaguely smug, ‘one of those two things is a biochemical computer, the most powerful computer on the bleeding planet and designed specifically for thinking. And the other one’s a pump. So I know which one I’d favour for making decisions.’