“They are inseparable,” explained a fellow onlooker, and we realised that, while the mutts’ pleasure was spent, they were unable to disengage. The male, yelping in distress, tottered on hind legs as his lady friend failed miserably in her bid to walk away with dignity. As we stared, David put his arm around my shoulder and drew me close, as if we were an ordinary couple watching a sunset. It was at that precise moment I realised I wanted out of the relationship ... fast.
David and I had got together in our final year of university, and had chosen Barcelona as the place to spend a year experiencing another culture before returning to England and a shared life of good jobs, mortgage, family and a down payment on adjacent grave spaces.
Initially, we led a charmed life — finding regular evening work in a language school and a cheap apartment to rent in one of the city’s seamier districts. The days were ours, and we clocked off work at 10pm, just as the city was coming alive; so we stayed out late, eating tapas and drinking beer in the bustling squares and bars.
But, for me, the novelty was wearing thin; or rather, the lack of novelty in David was becoming conspicuous. Worse, he was increasingly clingy, and hated it if I wanted to spend the odd afternoon on my own.
Now I knew it was more than the odd afternoon I wanted. The prospect of being single again exhilarated me, and I might have put on my glad rags and gone stepping out that very evening if it hadn’t been for the rooftop party we’d been invited to. Instead, I promised myself I’d talk to David the next day in a mature, responsible manner.
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So, we sipped wine, several storeys high, as the early dusk settled over the juggled sprawl of apartment blocks.
“You’re ignoring me,” David muttered.
Unmoved, I slipped away to socialise — specifically with a young Catalan with dark eyes and tousled gypsy hair. Coincidentally, he too was a David — but his Dah-veed was a far cry from my day-to-day model.
Sadly, after 20 heady minutes, he mentioned a girlfriend — which I took as my cue to move on. That was when I realised my David was nowhere to be found. “Have you seen David?” I asked a Spanish-speaking friend, who replied that Dah-veed had gone home.
Indignant, I knocked back several glasses of vino tinto until waves of relief and defiance came washing over me. Dammit, I was going to stay out till dawn and enjoy myself.
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I was soon in rapt conversation with a beautiful man (everyone was beautiful by then) with an unpronounceable name. We lay on a bank of cushions, city lights glittering around us. I wondered if I could sleep with someone whose name I couldn’t pronounce. When he ground his body against mine and pressed a hot kiss to my lips, I reckoned I could give it a go.
But if there’s one thing guaranteed to quell a girl’s ardour, it’s being doused in beer by a boyfriend who doesn’t realise he’s an ex. It was the wrong David who’d gone home. I leapt to my feet, dripping, dizzy and screaming in fury at my David’s retreating back. “We’re finished,” he barked over his shoulder, as Unpronounceable rolled on the cushions, laughing. Wiping beer from my face, I recalled the dogs, who’d finally parted with howls of pain and unsightly emissions. As I walked damply to the stairwell, with as much dignity as I could muster, I was just grateful for the lack of applause.