You Had Me at Hello

by Mhairi McFarlane

  ‘Sodding Gretton,’ she says, by way of greeting, over her takeaway spud, spearing discs of cucumber with a white plastic fork and placing them in the opened lid.

  I sip my coffee. ‘Is he stalking you now? I thought I’d seen less of him.’

  ‘Yeah. I got this nice story about a have-a-go hero pensioner chasing toerags off his allotments, think I’ve got it all to myself, and then I turn round and he’s breathing down my neck.’

  ‘Uh oh, there wasn’t a joke about hoes, was there?’

  ‘The deadly or dangerous weapon was a rake, thankfully.’

  ‘Take it as a compliment. He wouldn’t bother if he didn’t think you knew what you were doing.’

  ‘I suppose.’

  I reflect that this is truer than I’d like. It’s an uncomfortable discovery that Gretton’s instantly switched to targeting Zoe. Am I that dispensable? I haven’t had anything great lately. This must be how fading movie stars feel when they lose a stalker to a younger rival. Even rodents like him are fleeing sinking HMS Woodford. Admittedly, Zoe looks like she’s going to go far. I think people once said that about me. This bothers me more than it would have done, now that I’ve broken off my engagement. Funny how, when one part of your life falls away, the other bits that are left start looking rather feeble. I’ve always thought I had a good job. Now I’m thinking I’ve never exactly chased promotion, and here’s Zoe, probably going to overtake me in a few weeks flat and then be on to the next thing.

  ‘I’m getting off on time today. If news desk ask, I was here until the bitter end,’ I say. ‘I don’t need to file anything until tomorrow and the progress in Court 2 is on the stately side.’

  Zoe makes a salute. ‘Understood. Anything fun?’

  ‘What, in Court 2?’

  ‘What you’re off to.’

  That’s a good question. ‘A drink with an old friend.’

  ‘Ooh. A friend friend or a friend?’

  For some reason the question irritates me. ‘Friend, female,’ I snap, then realise my guilty conscience is making me antsy.

  Zoe nods, spearing a slice of woolly tomato and then plunging through potato flesh the way gardeners work over soil.

  16

  The Tallack trial continues, and my afternoon passes in a similar reverie. This time I’m back in my study period before first year exams. Ben left me a cryptic note in my pigeonhole in the university’s arts block with the venue, time and ‘come alone’, as if we were secret agents.

  I’d never been up to Central Library in St Peter’s Square, content to make do with the university library, John Rylands. In acknowledgement of this, and to take the mickey, Ben drew me a map with the whole route described, eventually arriving at what resembled a blue-biro-inked cake, the Tuscan colonnade standing in for candles. He drew a goonish face, captioned ‘Ben’, and an arrow to indicate he was inside.

  On arrival, as I admired the architecture, I saw Ben waving at me from a desk.

  ‘Hi. Why are we here?’ I hissed, sliding into a chair next to him.

  ‘I didn’t want anyone overhearing us in the uni library,’ Ben whispered. ‘And it’s an outing. Look at these.’

  He pushed a stack of exam papers towards me.

  ‘Past papers?’ I asked.

  ‘Yep. Going through them, there’s a totally obvious pattern. There’s only a question about Beowulf every other year.’

  ‘Riiight …’ I said. ‘So …?’

  ‘It was on last year’s paper and there’s no way it’s going to come up this year. We don’t have to revise it.’

  ‘A risky strategy.’

  ‘I’m one hundred per cent sure it’ll work.’

  ‘Really?’ I said, sarcastically. ‘One hundred per cent? As sure of the laws of gravity, or the laws of … of …’

  ‘You don’t know any other laws, do you?’

  ‘Sod?’

  ‘OK, I’m ninety per cent sure then.’

  ‘There’s an equally failsafe fallback.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Without tutors suspecting a thing is happening, we covertly put information into our brains. Then we smuggle it into the exam room behind these faces. No one would ever guess our secret.’

  Ben stifles a laugh. ‘Smart arse. I knew you wouldn’t appreciate my efforts.’

  I pointed up at the inscription on the ceiling.

  ‘Wisdom is the principal thing, therefore get wisdom.’

  Ben shook his head. ‘Get degree is principal thing, not sermon off Ronnie.’

  ‘Look. It might work, but you’re clever, you don’t need to play games.’

  ‘Ack, I hate Old English.’

  ‘Would your mum want you to do this?’

  Ben wrinkled his nose. ‘Don’t drag my mum into this.’

  I’d met Ben’s mum by chance, the previous week. I called in on his shared flat to drop a textbook off and a slim young woman with short hair and Ben’s same neat features was stood chatting in the doorway, jangling car keys.

  ‘Hello, I’m Ben’s mum,’ she’d said, as I approached, in that yes I will speak to your friends if I want to teasing way.

  ‘Hello, I’m Rachel. Ben’s friend off his course,’ I added, in case she thought it was a booty call.

  ‘Oooh Rachel!’ she said. ‘You’re the lovely, clever girl with the musician boyfriend.’

  ‘Er, yes,’ I said, flattered I’d been described at all, let alone in such a nice way.

  ‘Now your boyfriend lives – wait, wait – I know it …’ Ben’s mum held her hand up to indicate she was thinking.

  ‘Mum,’ Ben said, in a low growl, face reddening.

  ‘Sunderland!’ she announced.

  ‘Sheffield,’ I said. ‘You got the “S”, though. And the north. Very near, really.’

  ‘Honestly, you don’t know how healthy it is for my son to have a young woman around who’s immune to his charms, so good for you and your Sheffield-or-Sunderland boyfriend.’

  ‘MUM!’ Ben shouted, in a rictus of agony, as I’d giggled.

  In the library, I said: ‘I liked your mum.’

  ‘Yeah, don’t remind me. She liked you too.’

  ‘Plus if you fail the first year, who am I going to sit with in lectures?’ I asked Ben.

  Someone nearby coughed, pointedly. We opened our books. After ten minutes I looked up and saw Ben deep in concentration. He had this habit of clutching his shoulder with the hand on the opposite side of his body, chin on his chest, as he squinted at the text. I had an unexpected urge to reach across and brush the marble-smoothness of his cheekbone with the back of my hand.

  He glanced up. I quickly reassembled my features into exaggerated boredom, faked a yawn.

  ‘Drink?’ he whispered.

  ‘Triple shot espresso with ProPlus ground up in the coffee beans,’ I said, closing my reference book with a thud, half-expecting it to throw up a cloud of talcum-like dust.

  Settled in the cafeteria, Ben said: ‘I can’t fail the first year, I have to get this degree and earn some money because my waster of a dad isn’t going to help my mum or sister any time soon.’

  ‘Do you see him?’

  He shook his head. ‘Not if I can help it, and the feeling’s mutual.’

  Chin propped on palm, I listened to his account of his dad’s abrupt departure from their lives, his mum working two jobs, and felt guilty I’d ever complained about the boring dependability of my home life. I also thought how, with some people, you feel like you’ll never ever run out of things to talk about.

  When Ben got to the part where he tracked his dad down and his dad told him he didn’t want to be found, he was suddenly, to both our surprise, on the verge of tears.

  ‘I couldn’t believe it, you know, I thought all I had to do was tell him we needed him around and he’d be on the next train, or send my mum something.’ Ben’s eyes had gone shiny, his voice thick. ‘I felt such a dick.’

  I sensed he needed a way out of the moment. I wanted to make the grade as a
confidante. And I wanted – given at least one important person had fallen short on this score with Ben – to be caring.

  I said, with feeling: ‘I know he’s your dad and I hope it won’t offend you if I say he sounds like an utter bastard. You did absolutely the right thing trying to get him to face up to his responsibilities. If you hadn’t tried, you’d always wonder about him and regret it. This way, at least you know it’s a hundred per cent on him. You think it was nothing but pain, but it removed all doubt. Consider it what you had to do for peace of mind.’

  Ben nodded, grateful, having had the time to get his emotions back under control.

  ‘Cheers, Ron.’

  I realised then that, underneath the clean-cut clothes and breezy air, Ben was as much of a work in progress as the rest of us. He simply wore it better.

  17

  ‘All rise!’ barks the court clerk, for the last time today.

  As I scrabble to put away my notebook and float out the door, this semi-dream state is tested to its limits by the appearance of a fulminating Gretton.

  ‘You can tell that bird-faced bitch that I’m after her, right? Press on press is not on,’ he splutters.

  I wasn’t aware Gretton operated by any code of honour. This is a retroactive one because he’s lost out on a story, no doubt.

  ‘Who …?’

  ‘Your little sidekick!’

  ‘You mean Zoe? What’s the matter?’

  I try to get him to lower his voice by speaking more quietly and hoping he’ll match my volume. A few people are glancing over at us.

  ‘She DELIBERATELY …’

  Tactic failing, I clutch his elbow and steer him alongside me as I walk away. ‘Shhh, not here. Follow me.’

  Being taken seriously seems to calm Gretton slightly, and he just about keeps a lid on his simmering rage until we’re in the street.

  ‘She tampered with my court list.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘I was missing pages on 2 and 3, and when I go and get a replacement, I find those pages have today’s best stories on them.’

  ‘How do you know it was Zoe? Couldn’t the pages have slipped out? Loose staple?’

  Loose screw, possibly. We’re each given our computer printouts with lists of the daily hearings in sealed envelopes every morning by the front desk staff, so I don’t see how this trick is meant to have been played.

  ‘That happen to have her cases listed on them? I’m not fucking stupid.’

  At this moment, Zoe sails past. ‘Alright, Pete?’ she asks, cool as the cucumber she doesn’t eat.

  ‘I’m on to you, you conniving little cow,’ Gretton barks.

  ‘Stop talking to her like that,’ I say.

  ‘What’s the problem?’ Zoe asks, girlish eyes wide.

  ‘Ripping pages out of my lists. If you want to play dirty, we’ll play dirty. You’ve been warned. And you –’ he wheels round to jab a finger at me ‘– better watch out too.’

  ‘Why? What have I done?’

  He stalks off, smoothing his rusty flyaway hair with one hand, the other jammed in his pocket, seeking out his fags.

  Zoe adjusts her bag on her shoulder. I hadn’t noticed how appealingly shabby and insufficiently smart it is – a student-market-looking thing in sludgy colours, covered in little mirrors and tassels. It reminds me how new she is to all of this. She’ll probably get her first briefcase from her parents this Christmas. She’s smiling, a little too contentedly.

  ‘How’d you do it?’

  ‘I pulled the pages out of mine and swapped our lists over when he was busy looking at that leggy barrister who got her robe caught on a door handle.’

  We look at each other and start laughing.

  ‘The fight back starts here,’ Zoe says.

  I’ve always put up with Gretton as an unfortunate fact of life, but Zoe’s showing significantly more resourcefulness. Perhaps if I’d had this kind of energy ten years ago, I’d be in a very different place right now.

  I put my hand out and she shakes it. ‘You should be very proud of your first week.’

  ‘Drink?’ Zoe asks.

  ‘Ah, no. Next time. I’ve got this meet-up with my friends.’

  ‘The female friend,’ she nods.

  For a moment, I struggle to remember my untruth, and stare blankly.

  ‘Have a nice time,’ Zoe says, though I have a feeling her smirk says she’s rumbled me.

  I walk away silently saying to myself: and you are learning Italian, and you are learning Italian.

  ‘You look nice,’ Caroline says as I pick my way to our meeting point by Piccadilly Gardens, taking in my shirtdress and my higher-than-usual heels. ‘All for my benefit, is it?’

  ‘You look nice too,’ I say, defensively.

  ‘I always look this nice for work.’

  ‘Show off.’

  I hoped to convey ‘professional and together.’ And, OK, maybe a little bit hot. So far it’s earned: ‘Ahoy hoy, soliciting under the Street Offences Act, 1959? Court 7!’ from Gretton.

  I asked Caroline to come in a fit of pre-match nerves when I realised I wanted support in facing Ben and this scary bloke. And maybe, possibly, it occurred to me that four was a better number for one-on-one conversations. I knew Caroline would relish the opportunity to do some hands-off, safe-distance admiring of Ben.

  ‘Graeme didn’t mind you coming, did he?’ I ask, as we set off, me trying to keep lock step with Caroline’s long stride. ‘Sorry you had to rearrange your evening.’

  ‘Yep, you’ve ruined our annual trip to the cinema. I rule out anything with submarines and he rules out anything with Meryl Streep and we stand in the foyer arguing until Gray buys me off with Revels.’

  ‘Sorry …’

  ‘Joking. It was cancelled anyway. He fobbed me off with some bullshit about spreadsheets so he can sit in picking his feet. Who are we meeting again? Apart from Ben?’

  ‘His friend, Simon.’

  She raises an eyebrow.

  ‘What is this, matchmaking?’

  ‘Don’t be stupid. That’s not Ben’s kind of thing.’

  ‘Errr …’

  ‘What?’ I ask, nervily.

  ‘You haven’t seen Ben for ten years, his thing could’ve changed completely.’

  18

  Ben nominated a fashionable bar in the city centre that I haven’t got round to visiting yet, rather giving lie to the idea that I can show him where to go out. It’s all poured, polished concrete surfaces, with dramatic under-lighting, tropical flower displays and chairs that are so low-slung you end up talking to a collection of windpipes and kneecaps.

  As we enter I see Ben at a table in the far corner, chatting to a tall, blond-haired, mid-thirties man whose expansive body language implies that all the world’s a chat show and he’s the host. The would-be Michael Parkinson gives us both a languid up-and-down full airport body scan as we reach their table.

  ‘Hi … Ben, you remember Caroline?’ I say.

  ‘Of course,’ Ben smiles. ‘How are you? Simon, this is Rachel, who works for the paper.’

  Ben stands up, still in his work clothes, an artfully rumpled (as opposed to the crushed it’d be on a lesser mortal) cornflower blue shirt and dark navy suit trousers, jacket with bright lining slung over seat next to him. Part of me, the part of me that Caroline rightly points out has failed to notice a decade has elapsed, wants to whoop with excitement and throw my arms around him. It’s you! It’s me! I know I have to stop. This is nothing. This is a drink with an old face from university days. He leans in to peck Caroline on the cheek and naturally she goes gooey. Ben and I nod in acknowledgement towards each other, communicating that we did the kissing thing the other day and neither of us fancy a repeat.

  Simon unpacks his collection of rangy limbs and rises to his feet also.

  ‘Delighted. What’re you having, ladies?’

  ‘Uh, no, it’s OK, I’ll go, what are you drinking?’ I say, realising as I do that resistance is futile: alp
ha male Simon’s never going to allow it. I am far more used to beery betas.

  ‘No. What are you having?’ he repeats, firmly.

  ‘Vodka tonic,’ Caroline says to Simon, sweetly undermining me.

  He turns expectantly.

  ‘G&T? Thanks.’

  ‘How are you, Ben? Rachel says you’re married, and a solicitor?’ Caroline asks.

  ‘Yeah, family. My wife’s in litigation.’

  ‘You studied English at uni, didn’t you?’ Caroline asks.

  ‘Yep. I did the wrong degree,’ Ben says, bluntly. ‘Good for almost nothing.’

  This hurts. Not because I have huge pride about my qualifications. More that we wouldn’t have spent three years in each other’s company if he hadn’t done that degree.

  ‘Good for nothing if learning has to be vocational,’ I say, prissily.

  ‘Yeah, sorry, I didn’t mean good for nothing, obviously – you’ve done really well,’ Ben says, remembering himself, and I can see he’s surprised at his own lapse in tact. ‘I was skint after graduating that’s all, and I was only qualified to study more. Can’t even teach English abroad without a TEFL. And I’m not cut out for journalism like Rachel. I could never buckle down and hit deadlines the way she could.’

  I know he’s trying to repair the ‘good for nothing’ damage and, while I appreciate it, I still feel a little wounded. I feel his eyes on me and pretend to be fussing with putting my coat on my chair to avoid his gaze.

  Simon returns with two chunky lowball glasses full of ice. ‘Lemon in the vodka … lime in the G&T.’

  ‘Thanks,’ we twitter in unison.

  He gets a round in without getting another for himself? I’ll have to tell Rhys these men do exist. He’d probably recommend Simon donate his brain to medical science. Immediately.