The Secret History

"Rien ne pese tant qu'un secret". Well he might think so, but I've never found that to be the case myself.

People who know me a little bit think I'm a talker. This is a good thing - it makes them drop their guard, and they don't notice how carefully I'm listening while I'm nattering on, seemingly wrapped up in the topic of the moment.

I was a Samaritan for 15 years, and a Rape Crisis counsellor, and worked on a listening and befriending service for people who are mentally ill. There's probably nothing I haven't heard; few stories that would shock me now.

I don't ever feel the urge to blurt things out, betray confidences, treat people's secrets like shiny coins to be traded in the currency of new friendships. I hate that thing a lot of women do, getting to know you, when they tell you something - something deeply personal, something you really didn't want or need to know this early. Then they wait: and you are expected to respond in kind.

I'm thinking of making up a couple of "secrets" for these eventualities. I'm adopted? (bit disloyal to the parents). I only have one kidney? (but that might tempt fate, or they might think I sold it for cash). I've been invited to play in a pro-am tennis tournament but I'm too busy at work to take it up? (manifestly untrue). I am the real Belle de Jour? (for every person who would be impressed, another would just look blank or be appalled). I'm going to confess, in a conspiratorial whisper, that I once spent a night with Jarvis Cocker, after a gig at the Leadmill. It's nearly true - I turned it down. One because I thought he was a geek, two because my mum and dad would think t'Ripper had got me if I was not home at the agreed time.

Secrets don't burn a hole in me. Not at all. I just keep them safe. That's what you're supposed to do.