‘What?’
‘Do you still – sleep around?’
He shrugged. ‘Nah,’ he smiled, ‘not like I used to. I mean I still have my moments, you know. But I’m an old man now – it’s not myraison d’êtreany more.’
‘And when was the last …?’
‘About a month ago.’
‘And she was …?’
‘She was Angela. She was twenty-nine. She’d hired the car for her hen night.’
‘You know on Monday night, when I asked you about Bee? About whether you’d ever been in love with her? And you said you’d never been in love with anyone? Did you really mean that?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘But – I don’t really understand. I mean – you’re thirty-six years old. How did you get to be so old without falling in love with anyone?’
‘Ah, now. I said I’d neverbeenin love. Not that I’d neverfallenin love. I’ve fallen in love a few times.’
‘What’s the difference?’
‘Well, one is a process. The other is a state. I’ve been through the process but never found the state. At one stage in my life I persuaded myself that maybe the process was the state and I married her.’
‘What!’
‘Yup – it lasted fourteen months.’
‘Who was she?’
‘A client. Girl called Ciara. She was a dancer. Irish girl.’
‘So what went wrong?’
‘We didn’t like each other.’
Ana laughed. ‘That simple?’
‘Yup. That simple. We just woke up one morning and both decided that we really couldn’t stand each other.’
‘So – how do you differentiate between the process and the state?’
‘You need to be able to differentiate between insanity and sanity. Because that’s the difference between falling in love and being in love. One is a state of total and uttermadness, the other a state of pure clarity and peace. Or so I’ve been told.’ He smirked.
Ana smiled and rested her chin on her knees. ‘Sorry,’ she said.
‘What for?’
‘For giving you the third degree. It’s just that Gill made you sound so awful …’
‘Yeah, well – Gill’s not … ’He paused. ‘ … Nothing.’
‘Gill’s not what?’
‘Nothing,’ said Flint. ‘Forget I said anything.’
‘No way! Gill’s not what?’