Much Ado About Sweet Nothing

by Alison May

  He holds me there for a second before pulling his head back to kiss my lips. For the first time I notice the sweat, wet on his chest, moistening the shirt that’s still hanging undone from his shoulders. He pulls out of me, lowering me back to the floor. As he steps backwards my dress falls back over my hips.

  After he’s dealt with the condom he takes my hand and walks me over towards the bed. He stands in front of me and pulls his shirt off, so he’s naked.

  ‘Arms up.’

  I let him pull my dress over my head, before he slides his arms around my back to undo my bra. Then he pulls me towards him so our naked bodies are pressed together, warm and sticky and familiar.

  ‘You make some good noises.’

  ‘I do not.’ I’m mortified. I had my head buried against his shoulder the whole time.

  ‘You do.’ He pulls his head back and grins at me. ‘Good noises.’

  I shake my head. ‘You’re making it up.’

  ‘Definitely not. I’ll prove it.’

  ‘How?’

  The grin extends. ‘By making you make them again.’

  Chapter Twelve

  Henrietta

  Now it’s twenty past seven on Saturday morning and I’m here in Claudio’s bed in Claudio’s bedroom in Claudio’s flat. Actually I think it’s probably Ben’s flat, but I’m here. I’m actually here. I’m watching Claudio sleep. I can’t stop myself so I lean over and kiss him very gently on the lips. He doesn’t wake up, which is OK because it means I can just lie in bed looking at him, until I feel my eyes closing again.

  The next time I look at the clock it’s ten to ten and I’m on my own in the bed. I can hear Claudio and Ben in the kitchen. Ben’s here. Of course. At some point I’m going to have to get out of Claudio’s room and that is going to involve doing the walk of shame through the flat. Even worse, if I was really as noisy as Claudio said last night, Ben will have heard. Ben will have heard my sex noises.

  I put my head under the duvet and try to imagine myself not there. Maybe if I stay here, quiet and still, I can just stay here forever. Maybe they’ll forget that I’m here. My face starts to get all hot and sweaty, so I’m forced to come out again.

  I’m definitely not ready to face going out there and seeing Ben so I take a look around the room. Claudio lived here before he went to Italy as well. He moved in when he came to York to go to college, so that’s four years ago, but I’ve only known him for two. I met him about a year before he went to Italy. I remember thinking he was beautiful, properly artistically beautiful, like a renaissance sculpture. And I remember thinking he’d never notice me, because I’m not the someone that beautiful people notice.

  It’s definitely a boy room, but it has a kind of vaguely unloved feel to it. I guess that’s because he’s only been back here a couple of weeks. I mean, it’s tidy enough, but there’s stuff in boxes on top of the wardrobe and other stuff piled up in a corner. It feels more like Ben’s spare room than Claudio’s bedroom.

  If I’m going to be coming around here more, it’ll need some attention I think. Without meaning too I find I’m planning how I’d rearrange things. If you turned the bed around so it was on that wall it would get the morning light, and then you could put a mirror over by the door

  I’m still planning when Claudio comes back in, clutching two mugs. I scramble back under the duvet. Now he must think I’m a proper nutter. I was standing starkers in the middle of his room staring at the wall. I’m not even going to let myself think about the fact that he got a full frontal look at my body in daylight. I pull the duvet right up to my neck, while Claudio puts the mugs down on the table next to the bed. ‘Hot chocolate, with marshmallows.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  I sit up and hold the duvet up over my chest with one hand, trying to pick up the mug, without exposing myself, with the other. ‘I should probably go.’

  Claudio sits on the bed opposite me. ‘You can’t.’

  I giggle. ‘You’re going to keep me here?’

  He shakes his head. ‘No choice. You’re not going to make it home in the shoes you had on last night.’

  ‘Why not?’

  He laughs. ‘Look out the window sleepy girl.’

  What’s he talking about? Looking out of the window is going to involve me getting out of bed again, and now in the daytime, with him all relaxed and larger than life and, most importantly, fully clothed, I don’t really want to walk naked across the room and give him a proper look at all my ugly bits. He stays sitting on the bed waiting for me to go and look out of the window. I put my mug down and tug the edge of the duvet out from under Claudio. I sit up, holding the duvet over my chest. Very carefully, I stand up, pulling the duvet off the bed and wrapping it around me as tightly as I can manage before I pad over to the window to peek around the curtain. It’s beautiful. There’s no one around outside and the street is covered in a layer of white.

  ‘It’s snowing.’

  He comes up and stands behind me. ‘And I can’t let you walk home in the snow, so you’ll just have to stay here.’

  ‘Are you sure you don’t mind?’ I don’t want to be in his way.

  ‘Actually, I ordered the snow, so you’d have to stay. It was all part of the grand plan.’

  I turn around and let him slide one arm inside my duvet wrapping. ‘I’ve only got that dress with me. I can’t even get dressed.’

  He rolls his eyes. ‘You have no idea how tempting that thought is.’ He swallows. ‘But we will have to find you something to wear.’

  ‘We will?’

  ‘It’s a Snow Day. We have to go out and play. Wait there.’

  Claudio disappears for a minute and comes back with a big man’s coat and some wellingtons. Combined with my dress and hold-ups from last night, a jumper from his wardrobe and about 4 pairs of socks, he eventually decides that I will do well enough. Dressed to Claudio’s satisfaction I am dragged out through the house. Ben is still in the kitchen. He glances up when we come in. ‘Good night?’

  I can feel myself blushing and I nod mutely.

  ‘What are you planning to do today?’

  Claudio points out of the window. ‘Snow Day!’

  That’s the second time he’s said that. I look at them. ‘Is a Snow Day something I should know about?’

  Ben grins. ‘When we were kids Mum and Dad would always let us off school if it snowed properly. It’s a tradition. You’re not allowed to achieve anything useful on Snow Days.’

  Claudio nods. ‘We are going to make a snowman.’

  ‘I’ve never made a snowman.’

  Both brothers look at me in absolute horror. Ben speaks first. ‘How can you never have made a snowman?’

  I try to shrug, but I can feel my cheeks getting flushed.

  Claudio looks at me. ‘She’s a southern softie. That’s why.’

  Ben shakes his head. ‘She’s from Stamford Bridge.’

  ‘Well, that’s south from here.’

  ‘No. It’s not. It’s sort of east. North-east really.’

  They seem to be enjoying the argument, and it’s stopped them looking aghast at me, so I don’t interfere. Ben’s right though. I’m not southern; I just didn’t really play out much after Mum died.

  I turn to Ben. ‘You’ll have to help then. It sounds like you’re both experts.’

  He shakes his head. ‘I don’t think you really want me hanging around.’

  Claudio thwacks him on the back of the head. ‘’Course we do. It’s a Snow Day. The more the merrier.’

  And so all three of us end up standing in the communal garden behind Ben’s flat rolling the snow up into a huge body-sized ball. It seems to take forever to build the snowman to Ben’s satisfaction, mainly because Claudio seems more interested in putting snow down my neck than in building anything sensible. By the end of the morning I’ve learnt two things. The first is the ideal proportions of the ideal snowman, and the second is never to try to build one with a mathematician. It involves an awful lot more discussion
and planning than actual building.

  When we’re finished Ben goes inside to make toast and more hot chocolate. Claudio wraps himself all around me again and plants a kiss on the side of my face.

  ‘You’re freezing.’

  I nod, but I don’t suggest going back inside, because I don’t want the day to end. ‘Ben’s nice.’

  Claudio presses his cold nose against my head. ‘Should I be jealous?’

  ‘I just mean, he’s sweet. I was a bit scared of him before today.’

  Now Claudio laughs. ‘He’s fine. Well, he’s fine when he’s not around Trix.’

  I wonder about telling him about my conversation with Danny yesterday, but it seems a long time ago now. We stand in the garden admiring the snowman and resting our bodies against each other. Eventually Claudio pulls away. ‘We should go in.’

  The snow is starting to thaw off the roof of the building. I can hear it dripping from the corners of the dormer windows in the roof. It’s probably nearly clear on the pavement by now. There’s really no excuse for me to still be here, but, ‘I don’t want the date to be over.’

  Claudio puts his arms back around me. ‘Neither do I.’

  Oh my God. I said I didn’t want the date to be over out loud, didn’t I? I can feel myself blushing bright pink again despite the cold. I always do this. Anytime anything is going well I manage to say something stupid and end up sounding needy or desperate or just wrong. I can’t believe I did it again.

  ‘So don’t go.’

  ‘What?’

  Claudio turns me around to face him. ‘Don’t go. Stay here.’

  I shrug. I need to sound nonchalant; I need to make up for sounding needy a minute ago. ‘I could stay a bit longer, but I need clean clothes, and I’ve got some work to do tomorrow, and ...’

  ‘Stay.’

  ‘I could probably stay tonight.’

  ‘Just stay. I’ll take you to get some clothes, but then stay.’

  What’s he saying?

  ‘Stay forever.’

  He’s being silly, but he looks completely serious. I look at him. I’ve never heard a boy say the ‘forever’ word before, and you can’t say it to them. It makes you sound desperate. Everyone knows that. Somehow it doesn’t sound desperate at all when Claudio says it. He cannot mean what I think he means.

  ‘Come and live here.’

  I open my mouth, but I can’t reply. I don’t have the right words for this moment.

  ‘No. Forget that,’ he takes the deepest breath I’ve ever seen. ‘Don’t just live here. Marry me.’

  ‘What?’

  He’s smiling right across his face and into his eyes. ‘Henrietta, will you marry me?’

  Claudio

  Henrietta is staring up at me with her little mouth wide open, but she’s not saying a word. I replay the last few seconds in my head. What have I done? Did I just propose? I think I did. I did. I really did. So who can really blame her for the shocked goldfish impression? Inside my mind there’s a tiny Claudio staring open-mouthed at me too. I realise my lips are still moving. ‘I mean it. I love you. You love me. Let’s get married. Say yes. Hen, come on. Say yes.’

  ‘Yes.’

  And that’s that. A few minutes ago I was putting snow down her neck like an eleven-year-old with a crush on a girl in the playground, and now I have a fiancée, and I’m just a few more moments away from being a married man with a house and child-seats and trousers that I only wear for gardening. And it changed just like that, in a single moment, and I should be terrified. Right now, I know, that the muscles in my chest should be constricting and I should be feeling dizzy and there should be terror running through me, but there isn’t. I’m not scared. I’m happy. Actually, it’s stranger than that, I’m calm. I feel as though the world has jumped a frame around us, and me and Henri are stood perfectly peaceful and still while everything just rearranges around us.

  I look at her. ‘OK, then.’

  And then I lean down and I notice that she’s standing up on tip-toes to kiss me, and that might be the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.

  ‘Are you two coming in or not?’

  Trust Ben to wade into the moment. I wave my arm at him. ‘In a minute.’

  I grin at Henri. ‘Shall we go in Mrs Messina?’

  She laughs. ‘Shall we tell him?’

  I pause for a moment. I’m not that keen on telling Ben first. Might be better to ease in with someone who has a grasp of when they’re supposed to smile in a conversation. We will have to tell him sooner or later though. He’s gonna notice if I get married.

  ‘We’ll tell them all.’ I say.

  She nods. ‘When?’

  ‘Tonight. We’ll go out. We’ll get Ben and Trix, and Danny, if he can come, and your dad?’

  ‘OK.’

  Somehow the thought of telling them all in one go seems easier. The rest of them will give Ben a good strong hint that it’s supposed to be good news.

  ‘What about your mum and dad?’

  Mum and Dad? Yeah. I guess we’ll have to tell them as well. They could come. They already know Danny. OK, so Dad treats him like a visiting alien, but they’ll be civil. Not sure whether they’ve seen Trix this decade though, which might be interesting, and they’ve never met Hen’s dad. To be fair, I hadn’t met him before this week.

  ‘Maybe we’ll go see them and tell them another day.’

  ‘Tomorrow?’

  I see no good reason why not, so I nod. I’m sensing that being engaged might involve a lot of nodding.

  The rest of the afternoon is a bit of a blur. Ben just sort of grunts when I tell him we’re going out for dinner. He doesn’t object though, so I assume I can count him in. Danny is bringing John, who wasn’t in my mental picture, but it’ll put another body between Ben and Trix, so I’ll take it.

  It feels like ages after the proposal in the garden when I find Henri perched on the edge of my bed with a notebook and pencil in her hand.

  ‘What you doing?’

  She slams the notebook shut hard. ‘Nothing.’

  She looks like a little girl who’s been caught taking sweeties.

  ‘What were you writing?’

  She shakes her head. ‘Nothing.’

  Unfortunately for her, she’s tiny and a terrible liar. I lean over her and pick the notebook up from behind her back, and flick it open. She’s planning the wedding. Already. There are notes about cakes, and dresses, and guest lists. But I’m still not scared. I think it’s sweet, and I do really want to give her all this stuff she’s written down.

  I glance at her, and she starts talking straight away. ‘I mean, I was just thinking about it, you know. It’s not a big deal. We don’t have to get married for ages, if you don’t want. There’s no hurry or anything ...’

  ‘You don’t think our wedding is a big deal?’ I’m not really cross. Anyone can see that it’s the hugest deal possible to her, but she’s even more wonderful when she’s all flustered.

  ‘I didn’t mean that. I just meant, that …’

  I take pity on her. ‘I don’t want to wait to get married.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Really. I want all this stuff.’ I wave the notebook at her. ‘Whatever you want, I want.’

  She smiles the most perfect smile, and the dimple in her cheek appears. And now I don’t have to stop myself. I can touch it whenever I want, and me and Henri can stay right here together. Well, possibly not right here. Actually, the ‘right here’ part could be a problem. Ah.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Ben

  I’ve spent most of the day with these two lovebirds. To be honest, I’m not overjoyed about spending the evening with them as well. It’ll be another night without cooking though, so I tag along. Trix, Danny, John and Tony are already at the restaurant, sitting around one half of a round table laid out for seven. The first clue that something more than just standard nauseating coupliness is happening when Claudio orders champagne.

  ‘I hope you’r
e paying for that.’

  Claudio baulks slightly. ‘Of course.’

  Of course. He’s not paying rent; he’s using my utilities and eating my food, but he can afford champagne. The waiter pours glasses for everyone, and then Claudio stands up.

  ‘Ok. Right. Everyone … well.’

  Get to the point.

  ‘OK, so the thing is, I, sorry, we …’ he takes hold of Henrietta’s hand. ‘We have a bit of an announcement.’

  ‘She’s up the duff?’ Danny’s suggestion is met with a bit of a funny look from Henri’s dad who’s sitting next to him.

  ‘No. Claudio’s up the duff?’ Trix doesn’t let it discourage her from having a go too.

  Claudio taps his knife against his glass to restore order. ‘No one’s up the duff. We are, though, engaged.’

  There’s a silence. Everyone’s mouths are open, but no one manages to say anything. I’m faced with an unexpected opportunity to demonstrate my social skills. I try to think what a normal person would say in this situation.

  ‘Congratulations!’

  As soon as I’ve spoken there’s a murmur of similar sentiments, and people start pushing their chairs out to come and congratulate Claudio and Henri. I feel vaguely satisfied; this must be what it’s like to say the right thing. I lean back in my chair and watch everyone else for a moment.

  Tony is first to step up to the plate. He squeezes out past Trix to shake Claudio by the hand.

  ‘She’ll make a great little wife, this one.’

  Did he just say ‘little wife’? Why is Trix not yelling at him? She’s standing right there. If I’d said that she’d have taken her dessert fork to my testicles by now.