Chapter 9 Women sometimes do that. Play little games with themselves to muster the courage to step out of themselves and into the unknown. At such times, real desires sometimes get confused with the game and what they think they should want. Arianne’s game was to keep asking herself: Where would you most like to go over Christmas? For days, she mentally ranged the world with that question and arrived nowhere. Finally, she realised why. It was the wrong question. She changed the game. Who would I like to be with this Christmas? It came as something of a shock to Arianne that Jason no longer sprang immediately to mind. Instead, Ben Johnson. When she thought of him, she thought of love: the caring way he had with his uncle; his silence, and the solicitude shown during that ride to London. She had appreciated his avoiding mere small talk. She liked his sureness of self; the way they had become friends without much effort by either of them. Had it been an imaginary closeness or real togetherness she had sensed between them?
