One Step Closer to You

by Alice Peterson

  I laugh.

  ‘I mean, when you see some couples out and about,’ Janey continues, ‘I do wonder where we’re going wrong. It used to be so much easier picking up men. Is there no one on the horizon, Polly? No one you can think of who could have sent this to you?’ She shakes the card at me. ‘You must be able to think of someone?’

  ‘These are beautiful.’ I arrange the pale-pink roses in a vase.

  ‘Polly Stephens, you’re avoiding the question!’

  I think about Ben for a split second, but shake my head. ‘How about you?’

  ‘Well, there is this one guy.’

  ‘Now you tell me.’ I sit down on the stool next to her. ‘Come on, don’t keep me in suspense.’

  ‘There’s nothing to tell yet. He’s called Paul. He’s a photographer. I met him last week at this stately home in Guildford. It was booked for a fashion shoot, some country clothes catalogue. Amazing place.’ As she describes the sweeping staircase and the unusual domed reception room, I stop her mid-flow with, ‘Back to Paul.’

  ‘Oh yes. Anyway, we swapped numbers and he called. We’re going out this Friday.’

  ‘What’s he like?’

  ‘Bald.’

  ‘Bald?’

  She smiles. ‘Yeah, but sexy bald. Think …’ she clicks her fingers, ‘Think Bruce Willis, no hang on, not quite right, think … Jason Statham. He’s easily confident enough to carry it off and he was really funny, Polly. He’s older than us. Think he’s early forties. The models were falling over themselves to get his attention. He was cracking all these jokes to make them relax. Anyway, we’ll see. I don’t want to curse it, we haven’t even been on a date yet. He might be an idiot when he’s not behind the camera. He could be married for all I know. Or he might not pay. I think a guy has to pay on a first date, don’t you? There’s plenty of scope for it all to go wrong.’

  ‘Yeah, but plenty of scope for it to go right too.’

  *

  Over supper Janey asks how her favourite godson is.

  ‘You only have one,’ I remind her. Very few of our friends are married or have children yet. I was certainly in the minority having Louis aged twenty-eight.

  ‘He’s naughty,’ I tell her. ‘His name was in the red book again.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, his latest trick is taking his money out of his piggy bank to buy biscuits from the school canteen. It’s hardly surprising he hasn’t been eating his sandwiches.’

  ‘I wonder where his naughtiness comes from?’

  ‘Can’t think.’

  Janey and I reminisce about our schooldays. ‘Do you remember our hairdressing camp in the corner of the lacrosse field? I think I paid you fifty pence for hacking my hair off. I’ll have it back, thanks.’ She holds out her hand and I slap it. ‘This salmon is delicious by the way. You always were a good cook.’

  I tell Janey about all the regulars today wanting a slice of the raspberry and passion fruit roulade. ‘Ben came in …’

  ‘Hang on, Ben … Is he the one looking after his niece? The one you’ve been spending time with?’

  I tell Janey about him in more detail, mentioning how much I admire him for looking after Emily.

  ‘Blimey. What an amazing guy.’

  ‘He is.’

  ‘Hang on a minute, why didn’t we think of him before? Ben sent you that card,’ she says in triumph, refusing to let the mystery go. ‘That’s it! Do you fancy him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I just don’t.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I can’t explain.’

  ‘Have a go, ’cos it seems to me this guy could be perfect for you.’

  ‘He’s not interested in a relationship, Janey. All his energy is taken up with looking after Emily and he’s lost his sister. He needs a friend right now, not a complication.’

  ‘Maybe, but …’

  ‘I don’t need a complication either. Much better this way. I’ve never really had a bloke who’s been a good friend,’ I admit. ‘I’m enjoying it.’

  ‘Do you want to meet someone?’

  ‘Think so.’ I clear the plates. ‘But what will be will be.’

  ‘Oh don’t give me that bollocks!’

  ‘I believe in fate.’

  ‘Polly, tell me if I’m way out of line,’ she says quietly, ‘but is this because of Matthew?’

  ‘Is what because of him?’

  ‘Not wanting to go on any dates?’

  ‘I’ve been out with a few men since, you know,’ I mutter.

  ‘Mr Two Cubes was the last, wasn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, but …’

  ‘You and I, we’re not going to meet anyone unless we put ourselves out there, you know? Some lovely man isn’t going to crash-land on our sofa.’

  ‘I wish he would. In fact I wish you could order a bloke like you can a takeaway. “I’ll have a George Clooney, please.”’

  Janey doesn’t smile. ‘I wouldn’t blame you, I’d be scared too.’ She pauses. ‘But Matthew was a long time ago.’

  ‘I know. I’ve moved on.’

  ‘When I think what he did to you …’

  ‘Don’t, Janey. My fault too, for falling for him.’

  ‘Yes, but …’

  ‘Let’s change the subject.’

  ‘I’m sorry, it’s just … well, I want you to be happy. Aren’t you lonely, Polly?’

  ‘No. I have you, Hugo, Ben, all my friends, Aunt Viv, Louis, I’m lucky.’ I don’t tell her that part of the reason I did go out with David was because I was lonely. I desperately wanted to be in a normal relationship after Matthew, prove to myself I could do it. ‘I have all my AA friends. Some of the people who come to AA only have the clothes on their backs.’ I look at Janey, who seems so sad all of a sudden. ‘Are you lonely, sweetheart?’

  She nods. ‘I know I’m lucky in many ways too. I have my work, my health, I love my job, but sometimes it’s still not enough. Like today … I know Valentine’s Day is tacky, but it’s like Christmas. It highlights being alone, having no one to hold you at the end of the day. I hate coming home to a dark empty flat. I’m being silly. Ignore me.’

  ‘Janey, you won’t be alone forever. You’re beautiful and funny and you’re about to go on a date with a hot bald photographer. He doesn’t realise yet what a lucky man he is.’

  We clutch hands. ‘This time next year, Polly, you and I will be having a different conversation. Deal?’

  ‘Deal, but for the time being …’ I get up from the table and open the fridge, ‘how about some of my special Valentine’s cake?’

  *

  That night my dreams are muddled. One minute I’m on a yacht with Ben, we’re laughing in the sunshine; then Hugo is angry with me, flushing a bottle of wine down the sink. I’m in Norfolk next, at school with Janey, cutting off her hair with a pair of jagged scissors. I’m in a school fight, defending my brother, telling a crowd of bullies to stop calling him names. Mum and Dad are disappointed in me. ‘We warned you,’ Mum is scolding, wagging her finger at me, ‘you know what happened to Aunt Vivienne and Granddad Arthur.’ Next I see Louis as a baby lying in the middle of a main road, vulnerable and alone, cars and lorries heading towards him. Matthew is watching. I scream, ‘Pick him up!’ but he’s laughing at me. Next Louis’s hand is about to touch a blazing-hot hob. I wake up in a sweat. I gulp down my water, recover my breath. I rush into Louis’s room. I see him in bed, his breathing even. The relief is overwhelming. He looks perfect when he sleeps, so innocent. I’d kill anyone that hurt him.

  Quietly I head into the kitchen. Why am I dreaming about him? I don’t want him to take up any of my thoughts. I find myself walking over to the fireplace. I pick up the card, now displayed next to Louis’s on the mantelpiece. Janey had insisted I show it off or give the card to her so that she didn’t feel like such a loser in love. Without thinking I rip it in half. I head back into the kitchen and open the fridge, lift out the cake. Just one little slice; tomorrow I�
�ll do an extra long run.

  After finishing off the entire cake, I go back to bed feeling guilty I’ve eaten so much. I close my eyes, drift off to sleep, determined not to see Matthew’s face again.

  16

  2007

  Tonight is Janey’s birthday. She’s hired a room in a hotel in Brook Green. It’s crowded, the music loud, and I’m too far away from the bar, listening to one of Janey’s friends telling me how she recently developed a curious dairy allergy. She’s short and busty with long mousy-coloured straight hair and as she talks she blinks in a really off-putting way. ‘It was most peculiar,’ she says. ‘It all started after I’d eaten some Boursin, you know that soft creamy cheese? I used to eat it all the time.’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ I say, glancing over to Matt at the bar.

  ‘And you’ll never guess what?’ She blinks at me again, as if about to reveal the most exciting secret ever. ‘That night I started to itch …’ She scratches her arm.

  Give me strength, I think, as she continues to reel off further disturbing symptoms that caused her serious alarm.

  I look over to Matt again, still sitting at the bar, and this time he smiles at me, raising his glass. Bastard.

  I catch his eye again. Matt and I have been seeing one another for four months and it’s been four months of parties, flowers and silk underwear, nightclubs, bar crawls and skiving off work to stay in bed. He’s been staying over most of the time; Hugo says only half jokingly, that he should pay rent. If we don’t have a party to go to we stay in and create our own, ordering takeaway that I hardly touch and drinking until the early hours of the morning, music playing at full volume – causing the neighbours to complain. There’s one guy in particular, ginger-haired Fred, we call him, a computer geek who runs some online company from home, who is always knocking on the door saying he’s trying to work. Hugo isn’t impressed either. ‘Sadly I’m not deaf,’ he’d said one morning, ‘only blind.’

  I know we should be more considerate, I do feel guilty the morning after when Hugo says we kept him up. I say sorry, like I always do, but the trouble is that the moment I’m with Matt, I lose myself in his company and forget the rest of the world. He’s wild and outgoing, confident and charismatic. I look over to him again, talking to Janey now. I love the fact he left school when he was sixteen. He told me he didn’t need qualifications to be a property developer, just a finger on the pulse and an eye for a good deal. ‘I’m a risk-taker, Polly. Borrow from the bank and hold your nerve.’ So far he has found most of his houses by getting in his car and driving about, targeting the right area and knocking on the door of some unassuming old granny and turning on his charm.

  However, I’m aware it’s not the healthiest of relationships in that apart from Janey, I’ve more or less stopped seeing my own friends and I haven’t met any of his. If I ask Matt about his friends he shuts down. Mum keeps on asking when I’m coming home, that she and Dad have forgotten what I look like. Aunt Viv is living in Los Angeles with a film producer called Gareth. She went back to America after Granddad Arthur died. He had a heart attack when I was nineteen and died a couple of days later in hospital. His death crushed Aunt Viv more than Granny Sue. I knew from the way she talked about him that her father had been the only one really to support her after being released from prison. Aunt Viv and I email regularly; she wants to know all the gossip about Matt, always complaining when I give little away except to say I’m happy.

  Matt doesn’t have a relationship with his parents. He says they were too wrapped up in themselves to notice he was even alive. They travelled like gypsies when he was a child; he never settled long enough in one place to make friends. The most I discovered about his father was he’s called Ron, Ron the Con, Matt had called him, but I could see talking about his dad hurt. Ron the Con was a fraudster and a gambler. Matt often found wads of cash under the sofa. ‘I’d get a clip round the ear if I asked any questions,’ he said. ‘Or worse. Mum was scared of him.’ When I’d asked if his father were violent, his silence answered my question.

  His parents had met in a restaurant, his mother a waitress. His father was repeatedly unfaithful; he had the idea that he was the big guy. ‘I give you the money and good sex; you cook and clean for me and turn a blind eye when I sleep with other women.’

  When I asked him about his mother he said very little about her as well. ‘She wasn’t really a mum. We had no routine, no rules.’ It was the first time I’d seen him emotional and I felt so protective, cradling him in my arms like a child.

  Matt hasn’t had much love in his life and I want to be the person that changes that. But if I’m honest, deep down I’m also relieved he’s not close to his family. My last boyfriend, a doctor called George, came from a much more traditional background. His family lived in a grand house in Wiltshire with a swimming pool and a tennis court. He was blond, sexy and charming and I’d tease him by saying all his patients must be in love with him. When I look back there are two occasions when I truly disgraced myself. The first was at a Christmas drinks party with George’s family, neighbours and friends. I remember champagne flowing freely and after one too many glasses George sending me up to bed like a child, telling his mother I was coming down with a bug.

  The second occasion was in a Michelin-starred restaurant for George’s father’s sixtieth birthday. After the main course I staggered to the bathroom, tripping over the pudding trolley on my way. As I plucked the cream and raspberries out of my hair George didn’t see the funny side of it at all. Enough was enough. He couldn’t go on making excuses. I’d had every fake bug and virus under the sun. ‘You know what the real problem is? It’s you, Polly. You’ve got a drinking problem,’ he said the following morning.

  I denied it, I mean, how stupid is that? I don’t have a problem. He threatened that if I didn’t stop drinking he’d leave me, so I left him instead.

  I am brought back to reality when Janey’s friend nudges me. ‘And in the morning, if you can believe it, my face was out to here …’ She stretches her hands out with exaggeration.

  ‘Out to where?’ Matt says, finally rescuing me, introducing himself. He wraps his arms around my waist and rests his chin on my shoulder.

  She blushes as she touches her mouth, gazing at him doe-eyed. ‘I’ve been boring Polly about my cheese allergy.’

  ‘Not at all,’ I say, gulping down my drink.

  ‘Your cheese allergy,’ Matt repeats, and I’m trying not to laugh when he pinches my stomach. ‘Sounds fascinating, but can you excuse us for just two secs?’ He pulls me away.

  ‘You took your time,’ I say when we’re at a safe distance.

  ‘I was enjoying your acting skills.’

  ‘Oscar-winning, I thought,’ I say as he pulls me towards him and we kiss. But soon Janey is upon us, saying it’s time to head downstairs for cocktails and dancing. We all head off, but I feel someone grabbing my arm, pulling me back. ‘I’m sorry you got stuck with her,’ Janey whispers. ‘She’s a family friend, just moved to London, I promised Mum I’d invite her.’

  ‘Don’t worry. Nothing I don’t know about cheese allergies now.’

  She smiles. ‘Let’s go out soon, just the two of us. I haven’t seen you properly for ages.’

  ‘I’d love that. How are you doing?’

  Janey’s been single for the past four months, giving herself time to get over Will. ‘I’m good. How’s it going with Matt? And you don’t need to play it down. I can cope being around loved-up couples.’

  ‘It’s amazing,’ I confess. ‘I’m so happy, Janey.’

  For the rest of the evening Matt and I keep an eye on one another all the time. I know I’m never out of his sight. ‘I saw the way you were talking to him,’ he whispers in my ear, standing close behind me after I’ve just been speaking to some random bloke. I lean back into him. ‘And what way was that?’

  ‘All flirty, getting him to buy you a drink.’

  ‘Jealous, were you?’ I say, turned on.

  ‘Very.’

/>   *

  Later that night, back at the flat, Matt and I stumble into the sitting room to find Hugo and a friend watching a film, the lights dimmed. ‘It looks cosy in here,’ I say, wondering if this could be a girlfriend. Hugo introduces us to Rosie. She’s slim with silky blonde hair.

  I kick off my shoes before plopping down onto the old leather pouffe. It tips over and I can’t stop laughing as I roll across the floor.

  ‘Polly!’ Hugo gasps. ‘Get up! What are you doing?’

  ‘I’m doing breaststroke!’ I break into laughter. ‘I’m swimming! Come on, let’s do the butterfly!’

  ‘Ignore her,’ Matt says. ‘She’s bonkers. How did you two meet, Rosie?’

  ‘In our choir,’ she replies tentatively.

  ‘Hallelujah!’ Matt sings, making me scream with laughter and kick my legs even more, this time knocking a couple of glasses over. ‘Kumbaya, my Lord,’ I sing at the top of my voice. ‘Kumbaya!’

  ‘Polly, go to bed,’ Hugo says.

  I sit up, cross my legs on the floor. ‘Sometimes, Hugo, you can be such an old prude.’

  Lost for words, Rosie looks awkwardly from me to Hugo. Matthew lights up. Hugo squints when he smells the smoke, before gesturing to the television. ‘Look, we were kind of in the middle of watching this thriller.’

  Matt looks confused. ‘Sorry mate, but what’s the point? You can’t see the bloody action!’

  ‘You bastard,’ Hugo says, staring at the screen.

  ‘Matt!’ I stagger to my feet and tug at his sleeve, the room spinning as if I’m on some boat and we’ve hit choppy waters. ‘That was horrible!’

  ‘I was only saying …’

  ‘Say sorry,’ I cut him off.

  Rosie touches Hugo’s knee. ‘Don’t let him get to you.’

  Hugo walks Rosie to the front door, apologising profusely. ‘I hope we can do this again?’ he says.

  Later on that night, when Matt is snoring, I hear the vague sound of footsteps in the hallway, but seconds later, pass out again.

  *

  The following morning Hugo storms into the kitchen, where I’m nursing a particularly bad hangover at the table. I make a promise to myself to stop drinking, especially on an empty stomach. ‘You left the hob on.’ Smoke is practically coming out of his nostrils.