by Alison May
Seriously, what is he wittering on about? I nod gently. ‘Yes.’
‘Trix, do you think you might, at all, love me a bit too?’
And as a direct question it seems so much easier. I just nod.
Ben sighs. ‘Shall we get out of here?’
I nod again. I do seem to have been temporarily relieved of the power of speech.
‘I’ll get the bill.’
We walk home holding hands. I lift his hand up in front of us. ‘Did we used to hold hands?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘How do you feel about it? Bit couply?’
He nods. ‘It is a bit.’
‘OK, so we’re not doing it when there are people around.’ It’s bad enough that we seem to be together. I’m not going to let him go all mushy on me.
We walk a bit further, and I have another thought. ‘What about telling each other we love each other?’
‘What about it?’
‘Well, I think it’s important to mention it.’
He nods.
I continue. ‘But we don’t want to be one of those couples that can’t hang up the phone without saying “I wuv ooo”, “I wuv ooo more” about seventeen times.’
‘What if I promise never to say “I wuv ooo” at all?’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘OK. Well, what if we mention it once a week on a Sunday night, and then that’ll see us through the week?’
I laugh. ‘It’s not very romantic.’
He nods. ‘I know. Good, isn’t it?’
‘OK.’
He squeezes my hand a bit tighter. ‘Only technically, I don’t think you’ve told me you love me at all yet.’
I shrug. ‘And now I can’t until Sunday. You see, we’ve only been going out half an hour and I’m already in the lead.’
We continue the walk home covering important topics, like practising saying: ‘This is Ben. He’s my boyfriend,’ and ‘Have you met my girlfriend, Trix?’ over and over again.
He walks me all the way home, and then stays over. It’s exciting and new and warm and, as I start to get my head around his presence and proximity, surprisingly comfortable.
Chapter Fifty-Four
Ben
Ten years earlier
I drive myself to Cambridge. It’s not like my first day in York, when my mum and dad brought me, with bags of food, and lots of muttered comments about why I couldn’t keep living with them, when it was only fifty minutes drive. This is different. I’m a grown up now. I’m doing an Mphil, which will, naturally, become a Dphil when they see my intellectual capacity.
I am, as of today, a student of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. Even my mum’s insistence on pronouncing it Ky-uss can’t take the gloss off that. It does make me relieved that she didn’t insist on coming down with me though. This is it. Getting here is what I’ve always been working towards.
I find my room and haul my stuff up the stairs. In addition to my existing student kit, I now have a full set of academic robes for college formal events. It’s a different world. I pin my one poster up on the wall. It’s says ‘There are 10 types of people in the world – those who understand binary, and those who don’t.’ Trix hated that poster. She was always trying to get me to buy stuff to make my room more personal. It’s not a great poster, to be honest. I take it down again.
The photo of me, Mum, Dad and Claudio does make it up on to the wall. There are two other photos in the envelope with it. There’s one of me, Danny and Trix at our Graduation Ball. Danny’s wearing a purple bowtie and he’s done his nails to match. The other photo is of me and Trix at the top of York Minster Tower. It was taken just before finals, when Trix decided we needed a day off revising. Or rather that I needed a day off revising, and she needed a day off intending to revise. We bought McDonald’s and ate in the Minster Gardens. Then we went up the Minster Tower, because neither of us had done it before, and it seemed wrong to leave York without going up there. She got some tourist to take our picture at the top. We’re both windswept and red in the face, but we’re smiling.
I put the photo back in the envelope and place it my sock drawer. No point looking backwards.
Chapter Fifty-Five
Henrietta
‘Stop eating that!’
Trix is dunking a carrot stick in the cheese and chive dip. She crunches unconcernedly, despite having been told not to. Now the top of the dip is all messed up. I start smoothing it over with a knife. ‘It’s supposed to be for the party. You’ve messed it up.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Well just don’t eat anything else. It’s supposed to be perfect for Claudio’s party.’
‘Your party as well.’
I nod. Of course it’s my party as well, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t want it to be perfect when he arrives. I head back into the kitchen and start cutting bread rolls. I’m trying to concentrate on making even halves, but Trix doesn’t seem keen to let me get on with it. ‘Where is Claudio anyway?’
‘He’s coming later with Ben.’
Trix rolls her eyes. ‘Leaving you to do all the organising.’
‘He’s keeping out of the way so that I can get on.’ I look at her pointedly. ‘He’s being considerate.’
She laughs. ‘He’s being a lazy arse.’
I ignore that. I’m sure she knows he’s not lazy. When we get to Naples he’ll be working every day. I don’t think it’s too much for him to expect nice evenly cut bread rolls for his party, our party. ‘He’s very busy. He has a lot of packing to do.’
‘So do you.’
‘I’ve nearly finished mine.’ That’s not actually true. I’ve hardly started. I’ve been busy with the party, and with work and things. I nearly tried a couple of times, but every time I get my suitcases out I don’t know where to start. Normally I like packing. It’s like a puzzle trying to fit it all into the space, without creasing things or putting delicate things underneath anything heavy. Anyway, that’s not the point. I’m getting a bit tired of Trix’s attitude today. ‘I don’t see Ben here helping.’
‘Well, it’s not his party. Anyway, who drove you to Sainsbury’s yesterday to get all this stuff?’
She knows full well that Ben did. ‘Claudio was busy.’
Trix puts her hand on my shoulder. ‘I’m only teasing. Come on. It’s going to be a great night.’
I nod. She carries on. ‘Shouldn’t you be getting dressed soon? I can cut those up.’
I hand her the knife but stay in the kitchen. She’s not doing them right. The top halves are much bigger than the bottoms. ‘They’re not even.’
She turns around, still holding the bread knife. ‘Go get changed. It’s your big night. No one cares about uneven bread rolls.’
I go downstairs to my flat and start to get dressed. I start brushing my hair. I do thirty strokes on the right side first, then thirty on the left, and then the back. I put on the dress I wore on my first date with Claudio. He says it’s his favourite.
I go back upstairs to see what Trix has done to the bread rolls. The later ones do seem a bit more even. I carry them through to put on the table. I want everything to be right, but I don’t feel nervous. I don’t have the butterflies-in-tummy pre-party feeling. I just feel like it has to be right, and then I’ll have succeeded. I’ll have done my duty.
The doorbell rings, and it takes a second before I recognise the noise. It’s long enough for Trix to come past me and open the door. I hear Claudio and Ben in the hallway. Claudio comes into the living room, and puts his arms straight around me and his lips on mine. When he pulls away from the kiss, he looks around the room. ‘This looks fantastic.’
I nod, even though it doesn’t look fantastic at all. Even though her cutting got better, Trix has just bunged the bread on the plate in a big messy mound. You can still see the dent in the dip where she started eating, and the glasses don’t match. That surprised me. I thought the glasses matched for the welcome home party, but Trix says these are the
same ones.
More people start to arrive and the room fills up. I hang back watching Claudio greeting people. He’s much better than I am at this sort of thing. I worry too much, and people can’t enjoy themselves because I’m spoiling things. That’s something else I need to get better at, if I’m going to be the perfect wife. Claudio is so much more relaxed than me. He comes over to me and wraps his arms around my waist. ‘Are you having a good time, baby?’
I nod. He leans in closer to me and whispers. ‘I can’t believe we’re flying out in two days.’
‘Me neither.’
‘It’s going to be fabulous.’
I nod again. ‘I know.’
I stretch up and put my arms around his neck. I have to stand up on tip-toes, which isn’t very comfortable actually. I’m quite relieved when my dad comes over.
‘Can I interrupt?’
Claudio unwraps his arms from my waist. ‘Of course.’
Claudio
Henrietta goes out into the hallway with her dad. I imagine it’s one of those Father-Daughter chats. You make sure he looks after you, that sort of thing. I bet that’s the sort of dad I’ll be if we have girls. A proper protective old-fashioned Italian dad. I’ll expect my daughters to wear polo necks and long skirts until they’re twenty-one, and I’ll give every boy they bring home a proper hard time. Maybe I could bring them up Muslim and then they could wear the full hijab?
It’s weird thinking about me as a dad, but not terrifying. It feels like life is right on track. And I know Henri wants children, and she hasn’t got a job in Italy yet, so why not get started straight away? ‘You look pleased with yourself?’
‘What’s not to be pleased with?’
Danny shrugs. ‘It’s good. For a while there it didn’t look like you two were going to make it.’
‘All’s well that ends well.’
‘I suppose.’
If he has something else to say he doesn’t say it. Henri and her dad come back. She comes over and I pull her close against my chest. Danny taps the side of his glass. ‘Ladies and Gentlemen. A toast?’
The room simmers down to a quiet murmur and Danny continues. ‘To Henrietta and Claudio! All the best on their travels!’
There’s a chorus of ‘Henrietta and Claudio’ around the room. Danny continues before anyone manages to go back to their own conversations.
‘Could I ask you to make a toast also to my very dear friends Benjamin and Trixabelle? It has only taken them a decade to admit that they fancy the pants off one another. So I am very confident that if we hang around for another twenty or thirty years they may one day get so far as wedding bells themselves!’
Ben and Trix are standing together at the other end of the room. As soon as Danny mentions them they take an involuntary step apart. When he mentions wedding bells they both start talking at once, and then look at each other, and then both start talking again, and then both look at each other, before Ben puts his hand out. ‘You go first.’
‘Just for the record I have absolutely no intention of getting married to that.’
‘Good. Because I have no intention of asking you.’
She turns towards him. ‘Great. I wouldn’t expect you to. We’re barely going out.’
He nods. ‘Just friends.’
‘Barely even friends.’
‘I can’t stand you personally.’
‘Well it’s mutual.’
By now they’re both laughing rather than yelling. Ben grins. ‘Well, I’m glad that’s cleared up.’
And then he kisses her, and although on the one hand the idea of my big brother snogging anyone is just weird and gross in equal measure, you sort of can’t take your eyes off them. It’s not a romantic movie kiss. She’s twisted round, which looks really uncomfortable, and they’re sort of kissing and laughing at the same time and, I think, still arguing with each other. But they look good.
Danny lets out a big rumbling laugh and lifts his glass again. ‘Well, to Ben and Trix anyway. To many years of contented mutual contempt!’
People raise their glasses to mutual contempt, and the party rumbles on. I talk to Danny for a bit, and then to Deano. To be fair, I don’t think he ever knew that he had anything to do with what happened at the wedding. He’s not the sharpest tool in the box – I don’t try to explain it to him. It’s ridiculous now I think about it anyway. As if Henri would look twice at him.
Trix
The party doesn’t go on late, which is a relief, because I’m in the sub-group of people who live here, and therefore get stuck with the clearing up. Ben hangs around to help. Actually Ben tolerates having to help as a side-effect of retaining the possibility of getting laid later. I’m not sure that we’re really helping though. Henri keeps telling us that we’re not cleaning things properly. When she starts telling us we’re putting things away in the wrong places I point out that it’s my kitchen, and send her downstairs to bed. I think she’s a bit reluctant to go, maybe because Claudio has cried off home claiming to still have loads of packing to do, but she scuttles away eventually.
Ben gestures at the rest of the clearing up. ‘We are leaving this until the morning, aren’t we?’
‘Oh hell, yes.’
We head off to bed. He’s stayed over maybe five times in the last two and a half weeks, and I’ve stayed at his twice, but we’ve already got bedtime thing down to a slick routine. I hit the bathroom first. He sleeps on the left side of the bed. I get undressed while he’s in the bathroom, but keep my undies on. Doing the whole mutual undressing thing every night is too much effort; doing the whole job yourself is a bit too ‘old married couple’ for this stage of the affair. Give us a couple more weeks though. We’ll get there.
When he gets in bed he props himself up on his elbow to talk to me. He looks concerned.
‘What’s up?’
He swallows. ‘What Danny said earlier …’
Oh my God! ‘Yeah?’
‘You don’t want to get married do you?’
I run the question back through my head. I’m pretty sure the intonation was ‘You don’t want to get married, do you?’ rather than. ‘You don’t want to get married, do you?’ I decide I’d better check. ‘That wasn’t a proposal, was it?’
I’m relieved to see that he looks horrified. ‘You weren’t expecting one, were you?’
‘God! No!’ And it’s true. It’s not that I don’t want to be with Ben. I mean it’s taken us this long to get together; I think if we’re not pretty sure by now we’re never going to be. I just don’t really see myself marrying anyone.
‘Right. I didn’t think you were.’
‘Don’t get me wrong, I like having you around.’
His eyebrows flick up in his familiar quizzical look. ‘You like having me around?’
‘It’s tolerable.’
‘That the best I’m going to get?’
I nod. ‘I just don’t know if I want to get married at all.’
‘I know what you mean.’
‘Really?’
‘Of course. I mean, I’ve been single for too long. I like things being disorganised in my personal way, as opposed to your personal way, which is obviously completely wrong.’
I’ve stopped looking at him now. I wonder if we’ll ever get to a stage where we find the being nice parts of being together as easy as the being mean. ‘I do miss you when you’re not about though.’
He kisses my bare shoulder. ‘Me too.’
Maybe we’re getting the hang of it after all. I’m not quite comfortable settling in a touchy-feely mood though, so I laugh. ‘Great. Can’t live with you …’
I tail off, and he finishes for me. ‘Can’t live without me!’
He wiggles his eyebrows in approximation of what he refers to as ‘Claudio’s Italian Stallion Look’. I choose to ignore it.
‘So what do we do then? Just carry on like this, and buy spare toothbrushes.’
He shrugs. ‘I guess so, unless you have a better idea.’
I shake my head. ‘Do you?’
‘No.’ He lies down on the bed for a second and then sits straight up again. ‘Actually yes. I think I might have …’
Chapter Fifty-Six
Claudio
It’s two days after the party. So far as I’m concerned today is the day. Naples here I come. Here we come. Ben is sitting in the kitchen looking chuffed with himself.
‘You’re not supposed to be happy to see the back of me.’
‘Look outside.’
‘What?’
‘Just look outside at the front.’
I stick my head out of the front door. Planted up against the gate post is a bright red, in-your-face shiny estate agent’s For Sale board. I walk out on to the street to look properly. There’s a second smaller board stuck across it. ‘Flat 2’.
‘You’re selling the flat?’
‘I’m selling the flat.’
‘But you love this flat!’
He looks at me a bit funny. ‘It’s just a flat.’
He’s right. I don’t really know why I said that. Ben doesn’t do sentimentality about places or things, or, indeed, people really.
‘Where am I going to go when I come back and visit?’
‘I don’t know. A hotel? Mum and Dad’s’? Maybe my new flat?’
He’s speaking very slowly, like he’s waiting for a small child to grasp the point.
‘What about all my stuff?’
‘Aren’t you taking it all to Italy?’
‘Not furniture. What about my furniture?’
‘Technically, I think that would all be my furniture, so I’ll either sell it, or take it to the new flat.’
‘What?’
‘Well, if I’m selling this flat I must be moving house.’
I hadn’t thought of that. ‘Yeah. Where are you going to live?’
He grins. This is clearly the bit he’s been waiting for me to get too. ‘I’m moving into Henrietta’s flat.’
‘You’re moving in with Trix?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. I’m moving into the flat. Trix and I are definitely not going to be living together. She’ll just be slightly closer to hand.’
