'Did OK, plenty of work.'
Annoyed even more by his casual manner I said pointedly: 'I tried to ring you.'
'I was staying in a caravan on the site, working every day except two. It wasn't easy to get to a 'phone. Hardly saw Manchester, none of the gay bars, nothing like that.'
'They wouldn't let you out to send a postcard?'
'Wasn't like that.' He looked up, his face miserable. 'I thought about calling you but wasn't sure what to say. You might have been angry with me.'
What was he talking about? 'Why should I be angry with you?'
'Andrew's told me things. I thought you ought to have a chance to find somebody who would be more like your sort of people.'
Had our break up come about because of some off-hand remark of mine to Andrew about Tom and I not having all that much in common? What could Andrew have said to him? 'What do you mean, my sort of people? What sort of people are they?'
'You know what I mean. This isn't easy for me.'
'Do you think it's easy for me?'
'You don't know, Mark, you don't know half of it.'
'Half of what?'
The estate agent's arrival brought this awkward exchange to an end. We went down to the car, and I sat in the passenger seat to avoid being next to Tom, with whom I now felt absolutely furious. Had he ditched me over some stupid misunderstanding? A lack of shared interests was something we could have done something about. We could have increased the stock of things that we had in common by going to new places and finding new interests together.
When we reached Goodmans Villa and walked up to the front door he hung back. In the hall a scattering of advertising pamphlets littered the floor. The agent, Andrew and I stepped over them, but he stopped to pick them up. I watched him, thinking: you fool, what are you doing that for, picking up other people's rubbish?
He straightened up abruptly, almost as though he had heard my thoughts, and returned my gaze, making me ashamed of thinking of him so sneeringly. What good would come from being angry with him? If there had been a failing it was probably mine. Why had I not talked to him about finding more activities we could share, rather than complaining to Andrew about us not having enough in common? For all the differences between us, Tom was in every way my sort of person, and should never have been allowed to doubt it.