Much Ado About Sweet Nothing

by Alison May

  I’m numb. I nod. Further down the street, I hear Ben swear. With a bit of luck he’ll get himself arrested if he keeps going like that. I can’t stop myself grinning at the idea of him getting a night in the cells. The not-police lady glares at me. ‘Do you think this is funny?’

  I force myself to keep up my subservient face. ‘No. Sorry.’

  She takes my personal details and writes out the ticket. I can’t believe this is happening. I have never been in trouble with the police in my life. This is Ben’s fault. I concentrate on stopping the anger from showing on my face. My drunk brain is now losing the battle against my sober brain, and I manage to look suitably contrite whilst she talks about the dangers of drink and the unacceptability of this sort of anti-social behaviour. By the time she’s finished her ticket writing and her lecture, Ben is standing on his own a few feet away. The guy dealing with him clearly adopted a brisker approach. The not-police lady looks at us both. ‘Now, I don’t want to get called back here because you two have kicked off again.’

  We both shake our heads, and she turns away to catch up with her colleague. Ben lifts his hand up to show an identical ticket to mine. I mimic him and when I catch his eye he’s laughing.

  ‘This is so not funny, and it’s your fault. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before. Never.’

  Ben leans towards me and whispers. ‘Shut up. Seriously, are you trying to get us both nicked?’

  The not-police are still walking away from us, but within hearing distance. I wait a moment until they’ve rounded the corner. ‘This is totally your fault.’

  ‘How do you figure that?’

  I open my mouth and close it again. ‘It just is,’ I hiss.

  He steps away from me, running his fingers back through his hair. ‘I’m going home.’

  ‘You can’t go now. We need to sort this out. This is your fault.’ I can hear my tone getting harsher. He’s got me into another mess. I can feel the rage pulsing through me. I’m a professional, intelligent woman, for goodness’ sake. I do not get in trouble with the police.

  Ben’s lack of concern just feeds my anger. He stuffs the ticket in his pocket and shrugs. ‘Seriously, it’s late. I’m going home.’

  ‘You haven’t even apologised.’

  He closes his eyes for a moment, and shrugs. ‘Do you wanna share a cab?’

  I cannot believe him. I suck my anger in deeply, and turn away. ‘I don’t want to spend a second more with you than I have to.’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Fine.’

  I set off away from him. How could he possibly think I would want to get into a taxi with him after all of that? He should have been offering to pay my fine. This was all his fault after all. He’s an impossible man, and he always has been. I set out to walk home. After about ten yards, I slow down so that he can catch me up and insist on getting me a taxi. After about twenty yards I turn round and see him rounding the corner at the other end of the street. Typical.

  Chapter Seven

  Ten Years Earlier

  Trix

  ‘My shoulder thing’s falling off.’

  Danny swings the hood on his academic gown theatrically and flops on to the bench beside me.

  ‘Come here.’ I lean over and start rearranging the hood. His is the same as mine, white trim, a grey gown and a grey mortar board.

  ‘I don’t like this grey either.’ He gestures down at the robe. ‘Black is so much more dramatic.’

  ‘You’re camp today.’

  He grins. ‘My Dad’s coming. I don’t want him to be short of things to disapprove of.’

  ‘At least he’s coming.’

  Danny shrugs. ‘Where’s Benjamin?’

  ‘Benedict.’ I correct him automatically.

  ‘Whatever. Where is he anyway?’

  I shrug. I haven’t seen him since lunchtime yesterday, which ought to be surprising because he was supposed to meet me last night. Danny is looking at me. If I don’t change the subject pretty quickly he’s going to ask more questions. He’s like that. As soon as he sees a problem he wants to sort it out. It’s lovely, usually. Today I don’t think I want him to come in like a shining white knight. Today I don’t want to think at all. I want to get across that stage, collect my degree and start off the rest of my life as quickly as I possibly can.

  ‘Come on,’ I stand up and grab Danny by the arm. ‘Let’s go graduate.’

  The main hall at university has the definite look of an alien spaceship that just sort of touched down sometime in the sixties and hung around too long. So long, that some enterprising fellows came along and built a university campus around it. They were probably stoned – it was the sixties – so it would all have seemed like a marvellous idea at the time.

  The hall is packed today with parents, academic staff and graduands –apparently we’re not graduates till after the ceremony – who knew? That’s good, because it means I’m less likely to see Ben. Danny and I file into our places. He’s about three seats away and bullies the girl next to me into swapping so we can sit together.

  ‘That’ll mess the system up.’

  ‘It’ll be fine.’

  ‘It won’t. If you’re not sat in the right place you won’t go up in the right order. You’ll get announced with that girl’s name.’

  ‘What is her name?’

  I peer down the row and the innocent girl who should have been sitting there. She was in a couple of my tutorial groups in the last year. ‘Cher, I think. It doesn’t suit her. She’d be better as a Susan or a Mary.’

  Danny nods respectfully. ‘Poor thing. Probably for the best that we swapped then.’

  ‘And you think you can carry “Cher” off?’

  ‘You just watch me, girlfriend.’

  ‘Girlfriend? You know your Dad can’t hear you.’

  He shrugs. ‘I’m method, darling. Living the character.’

  Once the ceremony gets started it’s truly horrifically boring. There is an actual string quartet for entertainment. Given that the majority of the audience (sorry – congregation, again, who knew?) are twenty-one-year-olds who’ve only sobered up long enough to rent a gown and find a seat, I’m not quite sure why they thought chamber music was the way to go. One last attempt to educate us perhaps.

  Then the actual graduating kicks off. Me and Danny are in the first group, and devastatingly for him, one of the staff on duty realises that he isn’t Cher and makes him move back to the right place. Three years of your life are reduced to this – fifteen seconds walking across a stage and shaking the hand of someone you’ve never seen before and will probably never see again.

  And then it’s over. I am officially not a student any more. I no longer have this nice insulating buffer of university between me and the real world.

  We file back to our seats, and Danny can’t engineer another swap so I’m effectively on my own. Well, I’m sitting between two people I know slightly but not well enough to know whether they’ll be amused by me making sarcastic comments about the whole event, and that is probably about as alone as it’s possible to be. I’m clutching my degree certificate like it’s the only solid thing in my life, which given that I have to move out of my room in halls tomorrow, and I don’t have a job, and I guess now I’m hazy on a place to live, it pretty much is.

  ‘Benedict Roberto Messina.’

  Ben’s name being read out cuts through my thoughts, and I look up to see him scowling as he walks across the stage. I know why he’s scowling. They mispronounced Messina with a hard E, like egg or elbow or excrement. He hates it when people do that. Apart from that he looks fine. He’s elected to take his maths degree as a BSc, rather than a BA, so he gets a slightly more attractive blue hood for his grey gown. He’s wearing a suit underneath it. Most people here do just look like kids in fancy dress, but somehow Ben looks older than he did yesterday. I don’t know whether it’s the suit or the gown or just him, but he looks like a man who’s already moved on. What he definitely doesn’t look like is some
one who has obviously been run over by a truck in the last twenty-four hours. So where was he last night? And where does wherever he was leave me?

  As he comes off the stage he has to walk down the aisle past me. Despite myself I try to catch his eye, to give him the chance to grin or nod or something. I just think that he might do something to let me know that there’s an explanation for last night. He might do something that makes me feel like the things we talked about, the things which constituted the totality of my life plans after today, might still be happening.

  But he just walks past. He doesn’t even turn his head towards us. And just for a moment I think I might be sick. I swallow hard and clench my fingers into a fist, digging my thumbnail hard into my palm to distract myself. It’s a trick I learnt when I was a kid to help manage pain. It works, because your mind just concentrates on the pain you’re causing yourself, rather than anything else that’s happening. I force myself to breathe slowly, and I start to calm myself down. You see, I can do this. I can do this all on my own.

  Chapter Eight

  Henrietta

  I practically skipped to the bathroom when I got out of bed this morning, and I am actually singing at the top of my voice in the shower. I adore this day. I lay awake most of the night waiting for it to be morning, because the sooner it’s morning, then the sooner the day will pass and the sooner it will be this evening. And this evening is mine and Claudio’s second official date, which given that the first date was over a year ago, is really effectively a second first date, rather than a first second date, if you see what I mean?

  Anyway, it’s a date, however you count it. It doesn’t even feel like a second date though. It feels like I’ve known him forever. All the time he was in Italy I used to e-mail him. No one else knows that. It was our secret. Even if I had nothing to say I’d e-mail him as soon as I woke up, just so he’d have something from me when he got out of bed. That sounds silly. I hope he didn’t think it was silly. Anyway, I know him so well, but we’ve only actually been on one date and kissed three incredible times.

  He asked me last night. He walked me all the way home even though it was freezing cold, and he kept pulling me up against him to keep me warm. It was the loveliest thing. I was all wrapped up inside my coat and then wrapped up in him. I was close enough to hear his breath and I was pressed right up against him most of the way home.

  I asked him in for coffee, of course, and then we sat on my sofa and drank coffee and for a bit I was sort of disappointed because he didn’t seem that interested in stopping drinking coffee and maybe doing something else. And I was trying to send him all these vibes that doing something else would be ok, but either I’m not very good at vibes or he was just not interested. But then, in the middle of the conversation, he leant over and took my coffee cup out of my hand and kissed me. Just kissed me, just like that, no preamble or build up, and it was amazing, even more amazing than I remember the first time. And then he just stopped. He pulled away really slowly and stood up, and said he had better go.

  I followed him to the front door, probably looking very confused, but when we were in the hallway he pulled me right up against him and kissed me again. And then he looked me very seriously in the eye and asked if I would consent to join him for dinner this evening? And I did consent, and now here we are twelve hours away from date number two.

  I keep skipping all the way to work. When I get there I realise how early I am, because I woke up so early, so, instead of going to the staff room, I head for the office I share with Trix. I love our office. It’s got brilliant light, because it’s a really old building with high ceilings and huge windows. Trix always moans that it’s really impractical, and there’s no storage, but I love it, especially in the mornings when there’s only me there. Trix isn’t a morning sort of person. When I first moved into her basement I used to wait for her so we could go into work together, but she gets up really late, and it used to make me stressed. It’s easier if I just see her at work. That’s why it’s surprising this morning to find that the room smells of coffee when I walk in and Trix is leaning on the windowsill already.

  ‘You’re early.’

  She shrugs. I try again.

  ‘I didn’t hear you go out.’

  ‘I think you were in the shower.’

  I get the impression she has something on her mind, but I’m bursting to tell her about the Big Date. I hate this. I know that the right thing to do would be to ask about her, but I just want to talk about me, even if it’s only for a minute. She looks like she’s in a really black mood though. ‘A friend in need is a friend indeed’ – that’s one of my Dad’s favourite sayings, and I do want to be a good friend.

  ‘What’s up?’

  She shrugs again. ‘Nothing.’

  But even I can tell that there’s something. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘It’s humiliating.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I got stopped for being drunk and disorderly last night.’

  I try to stop the horrified look fixing itself on my face. ‘What happened?’

  Once she’s started telling me, I start to worry that she won’t stop. She doesn’t really seem to need me to contribute to the conversation. I get that after me and Claudio left them to get a kebab last night, she and Ben had some sort of huge row and ended up getting cautioned or something by the police. Apparently, it was all Ben’s fault, and she’s absolutely had it with him this time and if she never sees him again it will be too soon. I decide not to remind her about him judging the art competition.

  Eventually she subsides a bit. ‘What were you so shiny and bouncy about, anyway?’

  I smile just a little bit to myself, and decide that the moment has passed. In a way it’s nicer to have it as my secret. It’s a lovely warm feeling of anticipation that I can just hug to myself all day. I shake my head. ‘Nothing in particular.’

  She doesn’t ask any more.

  I don’t really get a chance to talk to her, or anyone else, about my big date. I’m out visiting a community centre at lunchtime, and Trix’s doing After School Storytime when I get back. I’m just getting ready to go home when Danny accosts me and asks for a word in his office. That makes me nervous. Danny is lovely, but he’s still The Boss. I follow him into his office and watch as he sits down behind the desk.

  ‘Shut the door’.

  I do, and he gestures towards the chair. Once I’ve sat down his manager-face seems to melt away and he grins theatrically. ‘So have you heard about Ben and Trix last night?’

  This is tricky. I’m not quite sure if what Trix told me was in confidence, and he is her boss and I don’t want her to get in more trouble. He takes my silence as evidence that I do know, and continues. ‘It’s OK. I already know.’

  I hate this. I hate when people talk in half thoughts and riddles. Why can’t they just say what they mean, and then I’d know, and I’d be able to answer the question. What if he doesn’t mean the thing with the police anyway? What if there’s something else and I don’t know about it? And now I’ve been sitting in silence for far too long, and Danny probably thinks I’m either mute or stupid or both, so I nod, although I’m not sure what I’m agreeing too.

  Danny is chuckling to himself now, big deep chuckles. ‘It’s typical of those two. They get under each other’s skin and they just don’t know when to stop.’

  I nod again. That at least I can definitely agree with. Danny continues.

  ‘And I’ve been thinking that maybe it’s time that we, their friends, do something about it?’

  This doesn’t sound good. Trix definitely would not like us interfering in her life. ‘Do what about it?’

  He pauses. ‘I’m not sure yet. Let me think about it.’

  He grins, but somehow there’s no joy in it. ‘It’ll be a nice distraction.’

  I think I already know what he needs distracting from. I’ve heard Trix go on enough times about how bad John is for him. And even though I don’t know him that well, you can’t help but n
otice that Danny’s good days and bad days seem to track John’s moods. I decide that you don’t get to be someone’s friend without being a little bit brave, and so I ask him the question that’s popped into my mind. ‘How’s John?’

  The grin disappears, as absolutely as if someone had switched it off. ‘Fine, you know. The same.’

  Right. I don’t really know what else to say, so I start to stand up, but he interrupts. ‘How are you, anyway?’

  ‘I’m OK.’ It’s the first time anyone’s asked me that today. As soon as I start to think about how I am the big smile bubbles straight back to the surface. I am more than OK. I have my second date.

  ‘You certainly look happy about something.’

  I nod.

  ‘Let me guess. Nice walk home last night?’

  I nod again.

  ‘Any more plans in that area?’

  I nod again. ‘He’s taking me out tonight.’

  ‘Fabulous.’ He walks around the desk so he’s perched on the front right by me. ‘And what will you be wearing?’

  Now this really is like a free rein to let the excitement run wild. ‘I don’t know. There are two main options, but I don’t exactly know where he’s taking me, so it’s hard. I have a favourite favourite dress but I don’t want to be overdressed, and so maybe jeans and a nice top.’

  ‘The dress. Definitely the dress.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Men like a woman in a beautiful dress. It’s more feminine.’

  ‘Really?’

  He laughs. ‘I have no idea. It’s really not my area. I’m sure you will look fantastic in either though.’

  He glances at his watch. ‘You should probably get going. You don’t want to rush the getting ready.’

  I glance at my watch. It’s quarter to five. I know that’s not late, but on a Friday at work, it’s the equivalent of about half past eight at night. I stand up properly. Danny puts his hand on my arm. ‘Just one thing ...’

  I look at him.