You Had Me at Hello

by Mhairi McFarlane

  Ben’s waiting, one hand in his pocket, the other holding his briefcase. He’s in a dark suit and tan shoes, looking suitably apprehensive and, inconveniently for me, as someone who’ll never get to see him again, magnificent. How does he manage to get incrementally more handsome as time passes? I want to swipe a Calippo from a passing child to rub on my pulse points and cool my blood down.

  ‘Hi,’ I say. ‘Sacre bleu!’

  ‘Hello. Merde. Great planning on my part.’

  We stand looking at each other in a friendly but useless manner. Conversation needed.

  ‘Nice brogues,’ I say, pointing. Slick like oil, Rachel. ‘My dad says only bounders wear brown shoes for business.’ And a devastatingly brilliant recovery.

  Luckily, Ben laughs.

  ‘Funny you say that. Keep an open mind: have you ever heard the term “Ponzi scheme”?’ He pretends to flip the catches on his briefcase.

  We laugh. Silence again.

  ‘Uhm. Obviously, you know what I want to talk about,’ Ben says.

  I nod, nervously. ‘In general.’

  Across the square, an accordion starts up, accompanied by some throaty singing from a Bejams Edith Piaf. Non, je ne regrette rien … Je regrette plus da loads, actually.

  ‘Do you know St John’s Gardens? Part two of Ben’s Parks and Recreations tour.’

  ‘I think I do … lead the way.’

  As we walk down Deansgate, Ben learns more than he could’ve ever wanted to about the subtleties of ‘intent to supply’ and I pick up some opinions about cuts to legal aid.

  ‘This is beautiful,’ I say, when we get to St John’s, a verdant oasis tucked behind Castlefield Museum.

  ‘Isn’t it. It used to be the site of a church, I think.’

  It occurs to me Ben might’ve been walking in his lunch hours because he has a lot on his mind. St John’s is mercifully near-deserted, it being happy hour. We take a seat on one of the circle of benches that ring the memorial cross. Ben puts his briefcase down.

  ‘I didn’t see you leave the wedding …?’

  ‘No. I, uh, thought it best if I went quickly.’

  ‘I’m really sorry. I want to apologise, for both of us. Liv had no right to put you on the spot like that, and I should’ve told her first. You’ve ended up in the middle of something that’s nothing to do with you and it’s not fair. I can see that even if Liv can’t right now.’

  ‘I’m sorry I dropped you in it when she asked me. She said you had told her.’

  Ben looks stricken. ‘She never asked me directly so I never said anything. That was all. If I’d thought for a moment she would ask you, I’d have put her in the picture first and spared you both the slanging match.’

  ‘I understand why you didn’t tell her about uni. It wasn’t as if we went out with each other.’

  Ben squirms some more. ‘That’s what I said to myself, but it was lying by omission. If Liv was inviting some old friend round for dinner, I wouldn’t want her to leave the carnal knowledge detail out. I wouldn’t want her to pull a lawyer’s “you didn’t ask the right questions” on me, as her husband.’

  I don’t know how to answer this without making it sound like I’m knocking Olivia.

  ‘It was Simon who told her to ask me,’ I offer, instead.

  ‘Yeah. We had another situation, a while back. Oh,’ he rubs his face, wearily, ‘I was going to talk in non-specifics, but fuck it. Back in the day, when Liv and I were first engaged, Simon declared his undying love. To her, obviously.’

  This news is in the category of surprise-but-not-a-shock. In all Simon’s searching for proof of my Significant Other, deep down I recognised the symptoms. All signs pointed to Olivia, if I’d been looking.

  ‘He did?’

  ‘She told me straight away. Everything was sorted out and we stayed friends.’

  ‘That was who he meant by the married woman who went back to her husband?’

  ‘They weren’t involved. What he said to you makes me worry what went on in his head. I suppose he had to change some details so you didn’t twig, but still … When you told me that had been discussed on your date, I should’ve realised he was going to make trouble. I naïvely hoped he was clearing the decks.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Afterwards, Liv and I agreed total honesty had to be the policy between us. I broke a promise in not doing the same about you. Not that I’m suggesting it’s a similar situation,’ he adds, hurriedly. ‘But Simon took it upon himself to start insinuating he stopped dating you because he thought there was something going on between us. He blamed you for the story and I think he blamed me for putting you in touch, then taking your side. Stirring with Liv called to him on all kinds of levels.’

  ‘That’s so …’

  ‘I know,’ Ben says. ‘I don’t want to upset you too much if I say I have my doubts about that date you had. I’m sure he was attracted to you anyway.’

  I put a hand up. ‘Please, no bother. I honestly don’t care that Simon wasn’t interested in my sparkling personality. I wondered why he fished lots about you.’

  ‘Yeah. I suspect he was working out if you could be used to drive a wedge from the start.’

  ‘And he accused me of having ulterior motives!’

  ‘Quite. Bastard. It’s not lost on me he wouldn’t have had as much success if I’d not been so lazy. As for Liv, it’s safe to say he doesn’t have a chance whether I’m around or not.’

  Ben looks like he didn’t mean to say ‘or not’, and ploughs on: ‘I’ve told Liv everything about us now, anyway, so …’

  ‘I thought I managed that?’

  ‘No, everything,’ Ben says, quietly and firmly, turning to face me more fully. ‘My side. I know it wasn’t the same for you and I stressed that to Liv. I don’t think it made it much easier to hear.’

  It wasn’t the same for you. There it is. The mistake I can never correct, the words I can’t take back. Or the words I can’t add.

  I summon all the decency I possess, which takes five or six seconds. ‘I hope you two are OK. You don’t have to say what you’re going to say. I know that you have to cut me off, completely, and I understand.’

  ‘I appreciate you saying, that …’ Ben pauses. ‘Liv’s left.’

  ‘What? When?’

  What I really want to ask is – left you?

  ‘Few days ago. We’ve been rowing over other things and she’d been threatening to go back to London.’

  I struggle to catch up. Olivia’s gone. Does this change everything?

  ‘Liv’s not settled in Manchester, says she doesn’t want to bring kids up here. You know about our disagreement over the house thing. She put a transfer at work in motion, only told me it was for definite when she’d packed her bags.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ I’m not anything. I’m in freefall, wondering where I’ll land.

  ‘I don’t know how long it’s going to take for me to find something down there. I can’t simply transfer. I’m not as senior as she is.’

  Not left Ben? Left the north.

  ‘You’re going too?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’re OK with going? You’ve talked about it?’

  Ben gives me a thin smile. ‘Sometimes you have to put what’s right to one side and do what’s necessary. She isn’t coming back, no matter what I say, which means I can’t stay.’

  I notice there’s no mention of the Didsbury house. I guess in obscenely loaded world, selling one isn’t a prerequisite for buying another.

  ‘Well,’ I say, with lead in my belly, ‘Manchester’s going to miss you.’

  Ben sighs. ‘I’m going to miss Manchester. It’s been great to be back.’

  I hesitate. ‘Are you going to take the house from her parents?’

  He hangs his head.

  ‘I don’t know. It’s not a price I want to pay for keeping my relationship together but it looks like that is the price, whether I like it or not. Please don’t ask me any more questions. I feel depresse
d about the answers.’

  ‘Sure,’ I say. ‘Sorry.’

  His head snaps up again. ‘Tell me this, Rachel, did you ever think being a proper adult would be this hard?’

  ‘I think I thought once I got finals out of the way, it would be plain sailing to the family plot. All downhill sledging.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Ben laughs. ‘Going downhill sounds about right. If I’d known what was in store, I wouldn’t have moaned about Old English so much.’

  We grin at each other. My ribs ache.

  ‘It’s been lovely to see you again,’ he says. ‘Shame you can’t say the same about me and mine. First Simon goes off at you, then Liv. I bet you wish you’d never started learning Italian and visiting that library.’

  The lie that restarted everything. It’s my turn to speak, to insist no, it’s been wonderful to see him too and then let him go as if it’s easy for me. Yet Olivia’s gone. They might not stay together even if he does move down there. He might decide not to move, if all the facts are made available to him. This could be it. This could be a second chance, and it’s going to melt away forever if I don’t seize it and show the mettle I failed to the first time round. Put what’s right to one side and do what’s necessary, wasn’t that what Ben was saying?

  ‘There’s something I have to tell you.’

  I hope to see some glimmer of recognition in his eyes to make this easier. He’s totally impassive. ‘OK.’

  ‘I didn’t bump into you by chance that night at the library. Caroline told me she’d seen you there and I was waiting for you, hoping to see you.’

  Ben frowns.

  ‘I’ve thought about you so much during the last ten years. I’ve never had what we had with anyone else. I don’t know how I failed to convince you how I felt, back then. If you’re leaving now and you’re not sure you want to, you should know that I still love you. I’m in love with you, Ben.’

  My words hang in the space between us and I can’t quite believe they’re my own.

  Ben’s eyes narrow. ‘This is a joke, isn’t it? You’re winding me up? ’Cos it’s in really poor taste.’

  ‘I mean every word. Surely you know I wouldn’t joke about this?’

  He stares at me. Before he speaks, he takes a deep breath, as if about to swing something heavy.

  ‘Liv said this was what you were doing. My wife said I’d let someone into our life who was trying to break us up. I called her paranoid and ridiculous. I defended you and your good intentions to the hilt and I’ve been sat here apologising to you and criticising her behaviour. You’re telling me she was right all along?’

  ‘I wasn’t trying to break you up—’

  ‘Then why are you telling me you’re in love with me? What am I supposed to do?’ Ben exclaims. ‘Why did you even come looking for me?!’

  ‘I … I couldn’t stop myself.’

  He pauses, a log-jammed pause, as if he has so many things to hurl at me he has to stop to sort them into order of priority.

  ‘I can’t believe this. No wonder my wife’s walked out on me. Do you honestly think I’m the type of man to put the small matter of being married to one side for a while? That I’d go, well she’s down there, I’m up here for a bit, I’ll take this opportunity and cheat on her?’

  ‘No! I wasn’t talking about an affair.’

  ‘What then?’ Ben stares me down. ‘I’m married. I intend on staying that way.’

  I gulp and slump as if I’ve been shot. ‘OK.’

  ‘I’m sorry about you and Rhys. You’re not yourself at the moment. I get that. But if I’d thought you thought this was in any way …’ he scrambles for the word ‘… romantic, I’d have run a mile. God, what kind of impression have I given you?’

  I could honestly lean over and retch into the shrubbery from sheer humiliation.

  ‘It’s not your fault. It’s just. You said Liv had left …’ I trail off.

  I comprehend what he’s thinking, from his appalled expression, as clearly as if he had more of Rupa’s gold letters to spell it out on a wall. What makes you think I’d be interested if I wasn’t married?

  I should’ve known. It became such a cherished memory I couldn’t allow the possibility that Ben’s passing interest in me was a glitch in space and time, an anomaly, a freak occurrence, the sort of youthful folly you look back on like using Lambrini as a mixer, or MC Hammer pants. I allowed myself the fantasy that being married to Olivia was the reason he wasn’t with me. Now that’s gone too.

  Ben clears his throat. ‘You don’t want me, anyway. You’re upset after breaking up with Rhys. In fact, I think we’ve been here before, haven’t we? Deja bloody vu.’

  ‘No!’ I cry. ‘He arrived at the ball and you disappeared.’

  ‘I didn’t want to cause a scene by standing there with him. I assumed you’d make your choice. There wasn’t going to be a duel.’

  I’m almost struggling to get my breath now, to get the words out. ‘I didn’t get a chance to choose you. You went. I couldn’t bear to leave Rhys standing there. He deserved better than that.’

  ‘Even staying the night?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The next day I walked to your house, early, to check. His car was outside.’

  ‘Yes, he stayed over, strictly on the floor. I couldn’t throw him out on the street. We talked, he slept, he left, and I went to yours first thing and found you’d gone back to London. You wouldn’t take phone calls from me, you didn’t reply to my letter. That was it. Over.’

  Ben says nothing.

  ‘Then one day when I rang, I got Abi.’

  He winces at this. ‘She wouldn’t have meant it.’

  ‘She wasn’t nasty. In fact it was the kindest thing, probably. She told me you’d brought the date of your travelling forward and she didn’t understand why I kept calling when you obviously weren’t going to talk to me. What was I supposed to do? Come down and camp on your doorstep? I was desperate enough but by then I was sure you’d had second thoughts …’

  Ben shakes his head. He doesn’t want to rake this over, I know. I’ve not left him much option. He fiddles with the handle on his briefcase, as if reassuring himself he’ll be able to make a swift getaway.

  ‘I didn’t know what you were thinking. For the entire time at university, really. Rhys dominated you, and you let him. Sometimes I thought what I felt might be mutual, but other time … and I knew you didn’t mean for us to end up in bed. I couldn’t tell where your head was afterwards, even though you said nice things. I had to give you some breathing space so you could make a decision. And you did.’

  ‘I didn’t.’ I shake my head. ‘Or not the one you think I did.’

  ‘Hang on, you were with the bloke all this time. You got engaged. Are you honestly saying that wasn’t your choice?’

  ‘I’m not proud of this, but I fell back into being with Rhys. I thought I was a good person to spare him finding out what had happened, the night of the ball. In the end it was much, much crueller. For everyone.’

  Ben stares at me. He opens his mouth, closes it. Then says: ‘OK, even so, for three years I gave you all the signs I could, without actually jumping on you. You think with rose-tinted hindsight that you were unlucky, but when I was available you were undecided. Anything you can’t have any more starts to look more appealing.’

  ‘I never decided I didn’t want you. I never would.’

  ‘It was a decision by default. Which is how you seem to make your decisions, by not making them. They happen to you.’

  The justice of this hits me like a tin of Spam in a swinging sock. I want to contradict it, with every bone in my body and fibre of my being, but sometimes, there’s not enough fresh evidence to appeal.

  ‘I’m sorry I ran off,’ Ben says. ‘That was poor. Bloody hell. Maybe I’ve got more of my dad about me than I’d like to think.’

  We sit in silence again. With the whole truth you’re supposed to feel some completion – closure, as they say in California. I feel more hopel
ess than ever. And what’s the point of arguing about who’s at fault, anyway? We are where we are. Not as if we’re going to come to a different conclusion about the past and suddenly present day outcomes will be altered.

  ‘How did seeing Simon fit in?’ Ben asks, eventually.

  ‘He was interested, it was flattering. You’d said I was nondescript.’ This is perhaps too much honesty about my thought processes. ‘For about five minutes, I thought it was possible. It was a way of staying around you, I guess.’

  ‘You were using him?’

  ‘Not intentionally.’

  ‘That’s going to be on your headstone. Here Lies Rachel Woodford. Not Intentionally.’ He smiles. ‘Mind you, it’s about time Simon was on the receiving end.’

  His voice is steadier but his eyes keep darting towards me, as if I’m a mesmerising, gruesome museum exhibit: a mummified body with burnt-paper skin and eye-sockets like the wizened scoops left by peach stones.

  ‘If you hadn’t told me Olivia had left, I’d have never said any of this. I’d have let you go.’

  He ruffles his hair, tiredly. ‘Yeah, I know. It’s never a good idea to be mates with someone you want more from. Take it from a man with bitter experience.’

  We sit in silence.

  ‘I wish I had a time machine,’ I say, in a tone of voice that’s meant to sound wry and comes out plain defeated.

  ‘So do I,’ Ben says, then waits for the right beat to add. ‘I’d go to Leeds University.’

  My laughter mechanism is broken. Also: too true.

  ‘I’d better be going,’ he says, getting up. I nod miserably, getting up as well, fighting an urge to grab him by the lapels and beg.

  ‘Goodbye.’ I try to sound brave, and fail.

  ‘Come on.’ Ben turns back. ‘You’ll be OK.’

  ‘I’ll miss you.’ I hear the crack in my voice, the desperation, why don’t you care the way I care, even though he’s told me he doesn’t, I can’t accept it.

  ‘Oh, Ron …’ Ben finally looks sad.