by Kate Russo
“It’s a pretty church,” he concedes.
“Good. That’s settled,” she says, annoyed that he would take that long to admit something so obvious. What’s this guy like when things get complicated? “So, how’s your pretty girlfriend?” she asks, teasing, as he sits down.
He gives her a bitter side-eye as he untwists the cap on the wine bottle. “She wants me to move in,” he says. “I blame you.”
Kirstie is used to getting blamed for things, but in this instance, she’s pretty sure Bennett is joking. Very few things are actually her fault. She doesn’t have enough power for that. “My fault?”
“If I hadn’t rented the house to you, our future probably wouldn’t have come up. She thought a long-term letting was a chance to talk about our relationship.” He regards her before tipping the wine bottle toward her glass.
She pushes it a little closer. “Just to the brim, darling.”
He smiles and gives her a little more than he gives himself. “Don’t you have questions to go over?”
“Yes!” She changes gears, pulling a notebook and pen out of her handbag, and settles in. Ready for dictation. “Questions. Go.”
“Right, okay . . . I think you want to find out about fees,” he suggests, businesslike. “Grounds keeping, rubbish collection, and stuff like that.” He lifts his glass, but doesn’t drink. “And council tax. All these things add up.”
She writes all this down, furiously, as he brings his wineglass to his lips.
“Wait!” she shouts, holding out her other hand.
Bennett, startled, sets down his glass.
Dropping her pen, she raises her own glass and says, “Cheers.”
“Cheers,” he says, picking his up again, still a little tentative.
She’s been looking forward to this moment, the opportunity to really look into Bennett’s eyes for the first time. She believes you learn the most about people through their eyes. Albert mostly evaded her gaze. When he looked deep into her eyes on the balcony that night, she understood why he never had before. He hated her.
She and Bennett both take a sip, watching each other, Bennett with one eyebrow arched. If he doesn’t ask any questions, he’s never going to work her out. Why, she wonders, has this not occurred to him?
“How did you get the scar under your eye?” she asks him.
He hesitates. “I was a boxer.”
“No, you weren’t.”
“I was. Chris Eubank did this in 1992.”
“No! Really?”
“Of course not.” He points to her notepad. “Do you want my help or not?”
She doesn’t like it when men point out how gullible she is. She asked a serious question and was hoping for a serious answer. She wants to know him and for him to know her. Is that too much to ask? To have an actual friend? “Continue,” she says, setting down her wine and once again picking up her pen.
“Getting a mortgage can be complicated after divorce, I hear.”
“I can pay cash.” She thinks he’ll have to start asking questions now, taking a deep breath.
“Alright, then,” he says, holding his wineglass in the air. “Oh. You probably want to research the market value of the flat, as well. It should be easy enough to find out what similar units have sold for.”
She can’t believe it. How could he not ask where she got the money? “Right,” she says. “Makes sense.” She taps her pen on the notepad, not bothering to write down this particular suggestion.
He watches, clearly confused, as the pen bobs up and down. “That’s probably the most important stuff. I’m sure you’ll think of more questions once you get the answers to those.”
A large group of men in suits burst into the pub like a gust of wind, beer guts first, laughing and yelling, arms flailing. Bennett rolls his eyes.
They both watch the suits, all hovering around the bar, ordering their pints of bitter. There aren’t any businessmen in Salcombe, so Kirstie finds them fascinating.
“You’ll have to get used to them,” he says. “They travel in packs.” He turns around to watch them with an expression she recognizes as contempt. The way Albert looked at her.
“Do you paint every day?” she asks, attempting to regain his attention.
“Not today,” he answers, with fake hostility. Then, “Pretty much. I try to.”
“That’s what I want to find! Something to engage me the way painting engages you. Do you exhibit?”
“I used to, quite a bit. It’s a long story, but I’m trying to get back in the game. I’ve entered the painting I just finished into the Royal Academy Summer Show,” he confesses. “That would mean a lot, if it got in.”
“I’ll cross my fingers for you.”
He shrugs. “We’ll see,” he says, sitting back, looking up at the ceiling.
Fuck it, she thinks, if he’s not going to ask about her. “There was a time when I wanted to own my own hotel. I married a man that I thought would support my dream.”
Leaning forward, he pours more wine into their glasses. “Men are wankers.”
Now there’s a massive understatement. In a way she feels sorry for Bennett. He can’t even bring himself to ask the right damn questions. Stroking the stem of her wineglass, she stares at him in disbelief.
“What?” he finally says.
“Do you own a television?” she asks him.
“The one in the house,” he says. “That’s it.”
“So, you don’t watch TV?”
“Not really. I’ve seen far too much Britain’s Got Talent for my liking,” he says. “Claire loves it.”
“Did you ever?”
He shrugs, leaning away from her again, clearly confused, and maybe even annoyed by this line of questioning.
She presses on. “Mysteries? Cop shows? Anything like that?”
“Nope. Not really. Why? Am I missing something good?”
“No.” She sits back, satisfied that even if she tells him her ex-husband’s name, he’d still be clueless. “My ex was on telly,” she explains, “that’s all.”
“Ah,” he says, unimpressed. “He’s not anymore?”
“No. His show got canceled five years ago.”
Bennett nods at this, as though the same thing happened to him. “Too bad.”
No, Bennett, it’s not too bad, she thinks. The bastard deserves every bit of bad fortune that crosses his path. She takes a long swig from her wineglass and again resorts to tapping her fingers on the table. She’s not giving Bennett any more information. Not until he starts asking the correct questions.
Nonplussed, Bennett picks up his own wineglass and tilts it to the side, staring at the light yellow contents. He straightens the glass again, studying the liquid’s movement. “Huh,” he says.
Kirstie watches him, fuming.
“No legs,” he says, catching her eye through the glass. “That means low alcohol. Claire taught me that.”
“Right.” Like she could give a flying fuck. “She’s got a lot of patience, hasn’t she?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Your girlfriend. If you’re like this with her, she must have the patience of a saint.”
“Like what?” he asks, defensively.
“Nothing, never mind.”
He rolls his eyes, like he’s heard it all before. “So, what do you like to eat?” he asks, pivoting, knocking back the rest of his glass.
Amazing. She’d like to throttle him right now. On the other hand, at least he’s finally asked her a question. She lets him hang in anticipation, pretending to think long and hard about it. “Steak,” she says finally, though she knew all along. “A big juicy steak.”
“Right,” he says, pulling out his phone, presumably to find a good steak house nearby. “I wasn’t expecting that.”
“What were you expecting?” she asks, though she’
s not at all surprised that Bennett surrounds himself with the kind of women that prefer hummus to real food.
“The women in my life aren’t big meat eaters . . .” he explains, typing on his phone.
“The women in your life are idiots,” she tells him, letting her anger from the previous moment spill over into this one. She doesn’t even know who these women are. His girlfriend? His daughter? She can’t help but feel jealous, probably because she suspects Bennett gives them more attention than he’s giving her right now. Finishing her wine, Kirstie waits for him to offer some sort of comeback, or at least put down his phone. When he does neither, she says, “Sorry. Tact again. I’m sure they make up for their boring diets in lots of other interesting ways.”
“You’re mean when you’re hungry.” He chuckles, scrolling down his screen with his thumb. “Alright. Found a place, but it’s about a thirty-minute walk. Up for a stroll or would you rather get a cab?”
She looks at him like he’s crazy. “Please, darling. There’s no way I’m walking.”
* * *
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They sit at a small wooden table for two at the back of the restaurant where it’s dark and a bit romantic, though she wasn’t so sure about the place when he led her into the black-painted Industrial Era warehouse. The hostess had given them a couple different options and this is the table that Bennett selected. Kirstie tells herself not to read anything into it, even as the couple nearest them is holding hands across the table.
She looks at the menu, licking her lips. Once again, he’s gotten her taste exactly right, amazing for someone so seemingly oblivious, and to judge by the smug look on his face, he knows it.
“Go on and pick a bottle of red, darling,” she tells him. “Get one with those legs you like.” She pulls out a pair of bright red reading glasses and puts them on.
He looks over at her nervously. “If I am going to pick the wine, I should pay for it.”
“Nonsense,” she retorts quickly, putting down her menu. “Surely, we’ve established by now that you don’t need to worry about my bank account.”
“Still, the wine here is pricey.”
“Excellent, pick a really expensive one.”
He looks at her, mystified. She picks up her menu again, ignoring his pleading expression. “Crikey,” she scolds him. “Just pick one.”
“Rioja?” he asks.
“Sure. As long as it’s not cheap. There’s nothing worse than cheap rioja.”
“It’s not,” he says, confidently.
She smiles at him. “Good. Was that so hard?”
He shakes his head, but she can tell he finds making decisions, any decisions, nearly impossible.
“What are you going to eat?” she asks him, taunting his indecisiveness.
“I don’t know,” he says. He holds out the menu at arm’s length, trying to get it into focus. “I haven’t looked yet. Steak, I’m guessing.”
“Want to borrow my glasses?” she asks.
He looks across the table at her bright red glasses. “No, it’s fine. I only need glasses when it’s really dark.”
“Like right now?” she asks, taking them off and holding them in front of his face.
He takes them reluctantly and tries to read the menu through the lenses without actually putting them on.
“You’re ridiculous,” she says, laughing. And vain, she thinks, but somehow manages not to say that out loud. “Just put them on. I won’t laugh.”
When he slides the glasses onto his face, of course she laughs. She can’t help it.
“They have Salcombe crab,” he says, looking right at her through the glasses, his grey eyes magnified.
“I didn’t come to a steak house to eat crab. Disgusting little bottom-feeders. My kids used to fish them right off the docks in town. They’re stupid little creatures, let me tell you.”
“That’s why we eat them. ’Cause they’re stupid.” He removes her glasses and sets them in the center of the table, suggesting that’s his final thought on the matter.
She takes this as a personal insult, though she’s not sure why. He’s not calling her stupid, just suggesting that the unintelligent make good prey. Albert would agree.
The waitress approaches; her long brown braid rests over her left shoulder, falling down to her elbow. She twirls the end of it with her index finger. “Hello,” she says, brightly. “Would you like to order some wine?” She smiles politely at Kirstie and then turns to Bennett for the answer.
“A bottle of rioja, please.” He affably tilts the wine list in her direction, prompting her to take it.
“Nice. That one is super delicious,” she says, balancing on her tiptoes with enthusiasm. “My name is Ellie, if you need anything.”
“That’s what happens when you tip them too much,” Kirstie says, after Ellie has skipped away, her teardrop bum swaying weightlessly. “They get bubbly. Someone should tell her that’s not an attractive quality.”
Bennett sets his menu at the edge of the table and studies her with an irritating smirk. “You’re a bit bubbly yourself.”
“I AM NOT!” She’d like to reach across the table and smack him.
He sits back in his chair, enjoying her reaction. She could swear this guy likes torturing her. It’s beside the point that she enjoys torturing him, too.
“Come on, back at the Barbican? That was bubbly,” he says, arms crossed, cocky.
“That was controlled enthusiasm. I never said, ‘Wow. This flat is super amazing!’” she offers, her voice raised, just as Ellie returns with the wine. If she registers the insult, she gives no sign, but holds the bottle out to Bennett like she’s presenting him with a medal.
“Super,” he says, straight-faced, causing Kirstie to chortle under her breath. She has to stare down at the table.
Ellie struggles to cut the foil around the mouth of the bottle. “Sorry!” she says, now twisting the corkscrew into the cork, fighting it with every turn. “This cork is super stubborn.”
Bennett swallows a laugh and chokes on it, hacking until he can get a hand on his glass of water. The wrinkles deepen on his face as it turns red. It’s refreshing, Kirstie thinks, to meet another person who is as easily amused as she is.
“There we go!” Ellie says, triumphantly, none the wiser about being the butt of a joke. She pours a little wine into Bennett’s glass.
He gets serious again, sticking his nose in the wineglass and inhaling.
“It’s wine, not perfume,” Kirstie tells him. “Drink it.”
“It’s lovely, thank you,” he tells Ellie, then rolls his eyes at Kirstie.
“What would you like to eat?” the young woman asks as she pours the wine.
“Yes,” Kirstie states, confidently, grabbing her glasses from the center of the table and putting them on the edge of her nose. “I’ll start with the beef tartare and then I’ll have the rib eye steak with the bone marrow gravy and some triple-cooked chips. Please make sure there is enough of the bone marrow gravy for both the steak and the chips.”
Bennett stares at her, wide-eyed. She squints, challenging him.
“Make it two, I guess.”
* * *
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When the rib eyes come, the bottle of rioja is nearly gone. Kirstie licks her teeth, convinced they must be dyed red—Bennett’s are—but she doesn’t want to stop talking, there’s so much to say to him. So far there have been no awkward silences, the kind she’s used to with her family, where they all stare at each other thinking, Are we really related to this woman? He still hasn’t asked her about her divorce, but she tells herself it’s because he’s being polite. At least he’s laughing at her jokes. And he teases her, which admittedly she likes. At the end of the day, she’s still paying him; it’s not really friendship, not yet. And there’s no reason for him to expect there
was anything extraordinary about her separation from Albert. She prides herself on how normal she feels after what happened. The red marks on her neck from Albert’s grip have faded and his grip on her consciousness will fade, too, eventually. If Bennett can’t see it, that’s a good thing. No need to point it out. People who act like victims are such a bore.
“Does your daughter get along with your ex?” she asks him, curious in her own right, whether daughters can ever forgive their mothers for not being perfect women.
“It’s been difficult for her,” Bennett says, cutting into his steak. He pops the piece in his mouth. “I’m lucky, Mia likes to root for the underdog and that’s me.” It doesn’t bother Kirstie that he talks with food in his mouth. The only man she’s ever known to chew with his mouth closed is Albert.
“She blames your ex for the separation?”
He nods. “I wasn’t the one having an affair.”
“Right,” she says, having figured that was probably the case. Some women are always looking for something better.
“They’re trying to patch things up. Mia’s going to spend the summer in America with Eliza. It’s the right thing,” he adds, though he shakes his head, seeming to negate his own sentiment.
“I can hear you gritting your teeth,” she says with a chuckle.
He brings the white cloth napkin to his face, stained red with wine and gravy. “She should have her mother in her life. Don’t know how I am going to survive two months without her, but I will.”
“She’ll be back before you know it. Two months is nothing when you’re as old as we are.”
He shrugs, apparently conceding her point, and then the dreaded silence sets in.
How many kids do you have? How old are they? What are they like? All questions he could ask.
“You don’t ever ask questions,” she blurts out.
He regards her, puzzled. “What do you want me to ask?”
“Anything that makes you sound interested.”
His eyes grow wide and he stutters defensively before she cuts him off. “It’s just some advice, darling. Women like to be asked questions.”
“Okay.” He nods after seeming to take this information in. “Your kids? They blame you?”
