One Step Closer to You Read Online Free PDF Page A

out for dinner that night and to my surprise Louis and a recovering alcoholic didn’t put him off. As our relationship progressed he was positively supportive, suggesting he gave up booze too. David could not have been more different from Matthew. I told myself that it didn’t matter that my pulse didn’t race when we were together or that my head wasn’t intoxicated by thoughts of him when we were apart. Those kind of relationships spelt trouble. And for a time I did enjoy feeling safe and part of a couple. Our relationship lasted a year. Mum only met him twice but was bitterly disappointed when we broke up. Janey was infuriated when I kept on saying he was too perfect, especially when her last date had quibbled over the bill, saying he hadn’t eaten any garlic bread. Hugo liked him, but knew there wasn’t enough spark. Another factor against us was that David wasn’t a natural with kids. He and Louis didn’t hit it off as I’d hoped. I could tell David was irritated if Louis cut intohis weekend paper time or spilt juice over his paperwork. When David began to talk about holidays and us moving in together I knew, from my reaction, that I had to break up with him. The pressure of more commitment was keeping me awake at night. I knew I was lying to myself and to David, pretending my caution was Louis. I wasn’t ready because I wasn’t in love with him.
    ‘She kept on saying “poor you”,’ Hugo says, bringing me back to his date. ‘She didn’t get the fact that when you’re born blind it’s all I have ever known so there is no need to feel sorry for me. I only wish I’d been able to see the price of the wine she was merrily ordering. It was literally poor me by the end of the night.’
    Hugo tells all his stories on air. He’s a journalist and radio presenter. When he left university he did work experience for the BBC, longing to break into broadcasting or journalism and began working for them on the production side soon afterwards. He moved to the other side of the microphone five years ago, when he began writing a blog about being partially sighted and it received so many hits that he was given his own midweek show on Radio 2 called
How I See It
. Hugo is honest about everything, from the barbecue fluid left in the fridge that he almost mistook for fruit juice to how he gets around on the tube and buses, to films and books, political views and most popular of all, the single scene in London.
    My mind drifts to Ben again. I wonder if he takes Emilyout for meals. I’ve never seen him out and about, or bumped into him at the supermarket. I’d say he’s about forty, but then again beards can age people.
    ‘Polly?’
    ‘Sorry.’
    ‘You’re still thinking about that guy from school, aren’t you?’
    I’m wondering why he left so abruptly.
    ‘Maybe he’ll go to another meeting,’ Hugo says. ‘It can be pretty daunting first time.’
    *
    Back at home, later that evening, I say goodnight to Louis. He’s been unusually quiet since we left Pizza Express. His pilot costume now hangs on one side of his wardrobe, next to his clown suit. Fido the toy dog is under the duvet covers with him. It was one of Uncle Hugo’s toys, so ancient now that Fido’s fur is threadbare and he’s missing an eye. ‘He’s half blind,’ Hugo had said. ‘Rather apt, don’t you think?’
    ‘We thank our lucky stars for Uncle Hugo, don’t we?’ I say. ‘What was the best thing you did today?’
    ‘Mum?’
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘Why doesn’t Dad visit me?’
    I take a deep breath. Understandably, Louis is beginning to ask more questions, especially when we go out and see families together in parks and restaurants. ‘Daddy has towork out his problems,’ I say. ‘He has many problems, it has nothing …’
    He pushes my hand away from his cheek and for a second the angry look in his eyes reminds me of his father.
    ‘What problems? Where is he?’
    ‘He had to go away …’
    ‘Where?’
    I have no idea. ‘Louis,