After Hello

by Mhairi McFarlane

  Owen and I are giggling when Ben draws level.

  ‘Afternoon,’ Ben says, unsmiling.

  ‘Ben, this is Owen, who I was telling you about!’ I gesture at Owen. ‘Owen, Ben, Ben, Owen.’

  ‘Hi,’ Ben says, abruptly, with the merest glance, and turns his attention to me. As Owen says ‘… I’ve heard a lot about …’ Ben talks over him to me, as if he hasn’t heard.

  ‘Ready to head off?’

  ‘OK,’ I say, embarrassed at his bad manners. I say goodbye to a politely neutral looking Owen and wait until we’re safely out of earshot.

  ‘That was a bit brusque, what did Owen do to deserve that?’

  ‘He’s been shitty to Esther today,’ Ben says. ‘I’m not in the mood to humour one of your lot.’

  ‘No he hasn’t!’ I say, indignant, ‘Not at all! She’s been a bitch!’

  ‘What?’ Ben stops and turns. ‘Don’t start throwing names at someone you don’t know. She’s nothing of the sort. She’s great.’

  ‘Well don’t call Owen one of my lot. She’s being an obstructive arse.’

  ‘Ah, the journalistic definition of obstructive, not giving you exactly what you want, when you want it.’

  ‘Oh right, and what will you say when she’s behaving in the same way to me? I’ll be “another one of that lot”, will I?’

  Ben says nothing, glaring at the pavement as he strides ahead, and part of me already knows that the evening is ruined.

  5

  Here’s the thing, having not had a full earthquake row until now, Ben and I don’t know what our joint style is.

  After more scrapping en route, we’ve sunk into a mulish semi-silence over the tapas dishes at El Rincon and conversation has become artificial. How’s your mum? / Yeah, fine. / Oh, I said to my parents we’d see them for lunch too, is that OK? / Yeah, fine.

  Rhys and I had our format down, from the shouting to the sulking and the usually making up by dinnertime, because neither of us liked to go hungry. In defiance of the official advice, we were prepared to go to sleep on an argument too, and things were usually mended over a series of fractious texts during the working day, because again, it needed to be sorted so we could have our tea.

  It was steady escalation: if I went to level five with Rhys, he’d take it to level six, and if it warranted, I’d up it to seven, and on we went, raising the stakes, until one of us lost the taste for battle. Ben isn’t like that, Ben meets my noisy outrage with a steely but contained fury. It’s deeply unnerving.

  ‘How’s the chorizo?’ I ask.

  ‘Nice, want some?’ he says, flat.

  ‘I’m full, thanks.’

  More silence and a waiter tops up our glasses while we give him tight smiles and plan what to say to each other when we get in.

  Ah, sod it.

  ‘Look, I know you’re bound to see it from Esther’s side, but I promise you, Owen isn’t some rule-free pushy hack, like Gretton.’

  ‘I think this is best parked, don’t you?’ Ben says, eyes hard over the rim of his wine glass.

  ‘We haven’t parked it though, we’re sat here in a nark.’

  The angel on my shoulder says Leave it. The shoulder demon says Why should you? The demon has Deansgate sangria to help him along.

  ‘I’m a decent judge of character, I’m promising you, whatever … misunderstanding … he and Esther Cowley have had, Owen isn’t a bad guy and wouldn’t have meant to come across that way.’

  I flatter myself that calling it a misunderstanding is being sufficiently diplomatic. Ben clenches his jaw, glares and looks both fiercely handsome, and just fierce.

  ‘Well, I’m a decent judge of character and I’m telling you it wasn’t a misunderstanding, he was a rude toerag to her. You liking him and him being in the right aren’t the same thing. I was in the room and heard her side of the call, can you say the same?’

  ‘No, Owen told me all about it though.’ I frown. ‘Why is she having conversations sat next to you? Thought you were in different departments?’

  ‘I was in her office, we eat lunch together sometimes.’

  Oh aye. ‘You’ve never mentioned her before.’

  ‘Didn’t see a reason to.’

  Ben pushes some patatas bravas around his plate and I try to quell the irritation that he’s white knighting Esther while doubting me.

  ‘Owen’s a friend. I have good taste in friends …’

  ‘And I don’t?’ Ben snaps.

  ‘I didn’t say that, but you don’t think I’d say someone’s sound when they’re not?’

  Ben raises an eyebrow. ‘You said the last person who worked with you in court was sound and she sold you and everyone else down the river.’

  This is 100% accurate, a very painful memory and has all but completely destroyed my case in one zinger. I’ve been put in my place and I’m fuming. There’s some sort of horrible paradox at work now that says that when you should most wind your neck in, your emotions are least likely to allow it.

  ‘Mmm, the last woman you thought was great was your ex-wife, who was a right bitch …’ As I say this, I realise it’s unpinning a grenade, and add ‘… to me.’ It’s hardly enough to out the pin back in.

  Ben and I have never seen entirely eye to eye on choices of friends and lovers, stretching back to university.

  Ben’s eyes are wide and he says nothing. It’s worse than shouting.

  ‘What the fuck has Olivia got to do with this? Are you throwing anything and everything now?’ he hisses finally.

  Er.

  ‘Evening all,’ says a posh male voice to my side, and I look up to see the last person in the world I want to see standing at my side right now, if you discount The Grim Reaper.

  6

  ‘Hi,’ I say, in blank horror. God, I hope he didn’t hear any of our argument. El Rincon is a low-ceilinged, homely room, crammed with tables, and given our proximity to other diners, Ben and I had been talking at the standard British volume of raised whispers.

  ‘Benjamin,’ he says, oily as a pilchard, as ever, eyes swinging over me, without similar acknowledgement.

  ‘Hi, Simon,’ Ben says, taking a big swig of his drink.

  ‘The lovebirds, together at last,’ Simon says. ‘Can’t believe it’s taken this long to run into you. How the devil are you?’

  After Simon was suspended from Ben’s law firm thanks to my dastardly intern’s story that ended up in the nationals, he turned down an offer to be reinstated and set up his own practice, somewhere in Greater Manchester. Last I heard, it’s doing very well. I’m surprised I’ve not seen more of Simon in court; he must be delegating.

  He loathes myself and Ben so much – for what he’s convinced was my double-dealing treachery, and Ben defending me – that Ben and I have a running joke: ‘Simon’s been round then’ whenever any appliance malfunctions or a dog turd turns up on the front path.

  ‘We’re good, thanks, Simon, hope you are too. If you don’t mind, we’re having a private conversation.’ Ben’s tone is admirably level and controlled-friendly.

  Simon ignores this and turns his attention to me. Small mercies: he was obviously so full of himself when he breezed over, he did miss the total dynamite that Ben and I were arguing, or he’d have gloated by now.

  ‘How’s reporting going? Still in the same job, I see?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you got everything you wanted,’ he glances at Ben. ‘Winner takes it all. Seem to recall being told you weren’t involved with each other, incredible to think you might’ve lied to me, eh?’

  I’m trying to think of something more articulate than ‘piss off’ when Ben says ‘Simon,’ again, in a very steady voice. ‘I’ve asked you politely to leave us alone. Sorry if this still looms so large for you but we’d rather let a difference of opinion, from two years ago, lie. There’s really no need for the Ah at last we meet again Poundshop Moriarty routine. Enjoy your meal.’

  This is pretty ironic, given the subject of our spat, but a good
comeback nonetheless.

  ‘The Royal we!’ Simon laughs. He casts a withering gaze over me and then looks back at Ben. ‘Given who you stupidly passed up, she must be an amazing lay, that’s all I can say.’

  I’m winded by the old school sexist bastard nastiness of this. Did everyone think Ben was crazy to swap Olivia for me? And also who says ‘lay’?

  Ben abruptly pushes his chair back and gets to his feet, while keeping his voice low.

  ‘Insult us again and I’ll smack you.’ He looks past Simon, at a table in the corner with several suits, who are looking at us curiously. ‘Looks like you’re out with either colleagues or clients and I’m guessing win or lose, a fight won’t project the right image?’

  ‘Such chivalry!’ Simon spits, but I can see he’s uncertain.

  He holds Ben’s gaze just long enough to be sure Ben means it, or to make it clear he’s not scared of him, or both. Then makes a ‘oh fucksake’ sort of noise and returns to his table. I sense the people in the room who’ve been watching us going back to their meals.

  ‘About finished?’ Ben says, looking at my Padron peppers with a miserable hatred, and I say a hearty yes.

  In the taxi, on the way home, I say, ‘Thank you for defending me,’ and Ben says, ‘No thanks required,’ without warmth, and stares determinedly out of the window.

  All other things being equal, Ben sticking up for me like that would be heartening; in these circumstances, it’s shaming.

  Given who he stupidly passed up. Simon always had a thing for Ben’s ex-wife Olivia but to be disparaged in comparison in front of Ben, and right after I’d been ungraciously running her down, too: it hurts. I feel small and shabby.

  It’s some slow-acting but serious karma that during our first real fight, which started over a journalist allegedly being a shit, we encountered Simon – who once verbally decapitated me for being a shitty journalist. Ben took my side, back then, and trusted me. I wonder if he’s regretting that now, as he glares furiously out of the cab window, body angled away.

  And Simon wasn’t wholly wrong that I covered up my role in that shambles. Ben knew whatever mistakes I made, I’d never intend that much harm, but that reasoning might feel rather thin right now. I was naïve about Zoe and now Ben thinks I’m being naïve about Owen. (Am I? Is it possible Owen’s got a vindictive streak I don’t know about? In remorse, I have to confess it’s entirely possible.)

  Tonight really wasn’t the night to be reminding Ben that this journalist made an implacable foe of his ex-colleague and his ex-wife.

  It’s only as Ben’s putting his key in the door and jabbing the eight-digit code into the alarm that I realise I potentially have a solid, respectable objection to Esther that I’ve not mentioned. I should let it lie, but I can’t resist the chance to reclaim some of the moral high ground that I promptly vacated by gratuitously mentioning Olivia.

  ‘Look, I’m sorry if I was overwrought, and went too far,’ I say, as Ben shrugs his suit jacket off. ‘Apparently Esther went on to Owen about how she has a crush on you. It was a bit unprofessional and didn’t make me very sympathetic towards her.’

  Ben frowns, mid tie-loosening. ‘What? Seriously?’

  ‘Yes, some chat they had a short while back. She described my existence as a shame.’

  Is that fair? Near enough.

  Ben grimaces.

  ‘God, well … That’s out of order of Esther and I’m sorry. I didn’t realise.’

  ‘She and Owen obviously used to get on better than they do now.’

  ‘Obviously,’ Ben says, dismayed, and I can see him adjusting his opinion of her.

  It’s an ignoble triumph but a triumph nonetheless. I do the fake generosity thing, to seal the deal. I don’t feel my best self, as a result.

  ‘To be fair, it was probably meaningless banter, but it bothered me.’

  ‘Of course she meant it. Look at me.’

  For a moment I’m taken in by Ben’s deadpan expression and in relief, burst out laughing. He gives a grudging smile and I’m so relieved.

  ‘Rach,’ he says, throwing his tie over the arm of the sofa. ‘I can imagine it was your and Rhys’s way to fight dirty. Can we not do that? We can fall out without it turning into you trashing my judgment.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sorry.’ I pause. ‘I was jealous because you took Esther’s side, that’s all.’ Honesty at last.

  ‘So was I.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘This Owen has a particular interest in you too.’

  ‘Oh God, no way!’ I splutter. ‘Why would do you think that?’

  ‘He gave me the exact same look that I used to give Rhys’s car outside your house at uni. The Car-Having Wanker look.’

  I gurgle.

  ‘And come on, why do you think he’s talking to her about me and then stirring by passing it back to you?’

  ‘That’s just journalists for you,’ I say. ‘I’m old enough to be his mother!’

  ‘How old is he?’

  ‘… Twenty-eight.’

  ‘Old enough to be his mother, if you’d given birth to him aged five.’

  I laugh and Ben rolls his eyes.

  I put my hands on my hips and pull a face.

  ‘So Esther is “great”?’

  ‘At her job, yes.’

  ‘Is she fit?’

  ‘Objection: irrelevant. Know who I think is, though?’

  ‘Nope?’

  ‘C’mere please,’ Ben says, and I don’t need to be asked twice.

  What’s that saying about cheats never prosper? Or you know, the general law of life that when you do a shabby thing, it comes back to bite you on the arse not long after?

  Later, in the darkness of the bedroom, unable to sleep, frowning face lit by the moonglow of my smartphone, I look up Ben’s firm.

  I mean: ‘Objection: irrelevant’ – that’s a yes, isn’t it?

  I click on the About Us section. Hang on … Criminal Department … scroll down … through the As, Bs … Cs. Cowley. Esther Cowley.

  Oh for God’s sake, she’s stunning. Not pretty, properly knock-out beautiful: long auburn hair, delicate features, pointed chin, that kind of mischievous glint and unflinching gaze that only the very attractive give cameras. And in a company headshot too, where let’s face it, most of us look like a breakout from the Prison of Azkaban.

  She reminds me of someone. An actress? Then it hits me – can this be right, am I imagining it? – she reminds me of Olivia. She’s like elfin blonde Olivia, but wigged up, as if she’s on the run in Gone Girl.

  In order to check the theory, and because I haven’t yet done myself enough psychological damage, I look for Olivia on Facebook. I’ve never searched her before, although I do know that she reverted to her maiden name when she and Ben split and I don’t know what it is. Now it occurs to me – thanks, brain – I can search under Olivia in any mutual friends with Ben from the London days, and find her that way.

  It works in seconds and I click to a picture: seeing her face again makes me shiver. Last I saw her, she was screaming at me in the darkness outside a wedding, by a Portaloo. It was a misunderstanding, but it was complicated. It was Ben’s fault – he hadn’t told her about our one-night stand at university, or what we’d meant to each other. I can see why I became a hate figure.

  Olivia’s grown her hair out to one of those shaggy wavy bobs that glossy magazines pretend you can achieve with a blob of mousse, drying your hair upside down. If I tried it, I’d look like the arrest photo of a hillbilly heroin addict. Her profile shows her with bare tanned shoulders, chin propped on palm, serene. She is a type of Oil of Olay advert wholesome-ravishing that my greasy fringe and I can’t compete with.

  Given who you stupidly passed up.

  I turn my phone off, pull the duvet up to my neck and throb with insecurity. Why didn’t I mention the crush thing, straight off the bat, especially as it was so argumentatively useful? I know why.

  It was because I hadn’t wanted to put the thought in his he
ad.

  7

  I’d been weighing whether a text, an email, a call, or a meet up was best for approaching Rhys about his wedding invite, when the decision is taken out of my figurative hands. However in my literal hands, I’m holding a box of Tampax Pearl.

  I round the corner in Boots, wondering if I want a packet of sour cream Shapers crisps to go with it, when there is Rhys in his off-duty rock star glory: unkempt tarry hair, light beard, leather jacket, jeans and All Stars, examining the electric toothbrushes. He’s not a rock star by day, he works in IT. His employers initially tried to get him to wear a suit, and then gave up.

  ‘Hello!’ I say,

  ‘Rach!’ he says, startled, and we both hold ourselves stiffly to make it clear there’s no kiss or hug expectation on either side.

  ‘How are you?’ he glances down at my hands.

  ‘Oh, you know,’ I say, ‘still menstruating. Still not loving police.’

  (Rhys often quoted Dre lyrics at me when I got in from court.)

  He smiles, awkwardly. He used to buy sanitary wear for me, along with grab-bag pouches of Minstrels and a copy of Grazia, usually handed over with the words: ‘Don’t let anything light the fuse on your tampon. If you feel like kicking off, have a pint of pink wine and put a Hugh Grant film on.’

  Now we’re two people of opposite sex who don’t share a bed any more but know what each other look like naked, and my having periods is too close to acknowledging a reproductive system, which is awks, as the kids say. He’s not in the friendzone so much as the Dadzone.

  ‘You look well,’ I say, and he really does: slimmer and brighter than I recall. Rhys in great quality HD.

  He rubs his hands together.

  ‘Uh? Got time for a quick coffee?’

  ‘Definitely!’ I say, jittery but willing.

  Transferred to a window seat in a nearby Caffe Nero, Rhys setting down our cups, I garble out: ‘Thankssomu‌chorthewed‌dinginvite. Ben told me. I’d love to but I don’t think I should. It’s your and Claire’s day and I don’t want to detract from that, even in any small way.’