by Jenny Oliver
‘Who?’ Jane asked, one foot in the car.
‘The chef. Harry,’ Hannah said, then paused. ‘Or I think I am. Oh god, I don’t know what to do.’
‘What’s going on?’ Emily wound the window down.
‘Hannah’s going with Harry,’ Jane said.
‘Ooh, are you now?’ Emily said with a grin.
‘Not like that,’ Hannah said, flushing with embarrassment. ‘No, I’m not going. It’s your hen do. No.’
Annie’s head poked out the window as well. ‘You’re going with Harry? Hasn’t Harry got to work?’
‘I don’t know. Obviously not,’ Hannah said, wishing that none of this had happened and she wasn’t having this conversation in the street with everyone watching.
‘I think Harry does have to work but he’s bunking off to hang out with Hannah,’ Emily said, in just the tone she used to say similar at school. ‘You have to go with him. That’s much more exciting than coming to the club. As long as you tell us all the gossip in the morning.’
‘There’ll be no gossip,’ Hannah laughed, bright red now as the other girls opened the sunroof and looked out to see what was going on.
Emily laughed. ‘Oh there’ll be gossip. What fun!’
Hannah could feel the heat from her blushing face as she said, ‘OK well, I’ll stay here, you can go now.’
‘But I want to watch. I want to see Harry come out.’ Emily smirked.
‘Go! Please!’ Hannah shooed them away.
‘Spoilsport.’ Emily shook her head. Jane climbed into the limo. Emily leant over and said, ‘OK, Derek, let’s go. We’re leaving Hannah here to have a wild love affair.’ Hannah covered her face with her hands as Emily guffawed. ‘Good luck!’ she shouted and the limo drew away from the kerb like a giant beetle heading into the night.
Hannah poked her head back into the restaurant just to check that Harry was coming and she heard someone shout, ‘You’re leaving?’
And when Harry shouted back ‘Yes’ she heard the other person say, ‘But…’ Then pause, flabbergasted, and finish with a quieter, ‘You never leave.’
Hannah stepped back out onto the sidewalk and Harry jogged out wearing a black T-shirt and jeans. His hair was pushed back as if he’d just run his face and head under cold water.
‘You just walked out on your staff?’ Hannah asked. ‘Can you do that?’
‘Pfft.’ Harry shrugged. ‘It’s my restaurant.’ Then he smiled. ‘They’ll cope – probably have much more fun without me.’
Hannah laughed. ‘Ahh, poor misunderstood Harry.’
‘I am misunderstood,’ he said, hand on his heart.
Hannah glanced at him as they walked side by side. ‘I think you cope.’
He chuckled. She rolled her lips together and then smiled to herself, looking straight ahead and feeling the rush of adrenaline still in her body from the decision to flee from the girls and the heckling about her night with Harry. His decision to leave with her like a little prize inside.
The restaurant was off a side street in Soho and they walked away in the direction of Sixth Avenue. The air was warm and still but the light had gone so everything was fuzzy round the edges. It was already later than Hannah had thought.
They walked side by side, glancing at each other; almost checking that it was happening. Smiling then looking away. She felt Harry’s knuckles brush against hers now and then as they strolled. She could feel her heart beating in her head.
‘So what do you want to do?’ Harry asked, pausing on the corner.
‘I don’t know.’ Hannah looked around as if to see if there was something right there that they could do. She could happily just keep on walking. ‘What do you normally do?’
‘To be honest, mostly I’m at the restaurant or at my apartment.’ He paused, clearly ran that back in his head and didn’t like the sound of it. ‘No, actually sometimes I cycle to the park.’ He paused again. ‘That still sounds rubbish, doesn’t it?’
Hannah laughed.
‘We could go to Times Square?’
Hannah remembered crossing it on one of their planned trips. The fluorescent lights, the tourists, the music. Jemima’s paradise but not where Hannah wanted to end her evening. She made a face and shook her head.
‘Yeah. I see what you mean.’ Harry nodded and then thought some more. ‘We could go to the Lincoln Centre or I don’t know, can you go up the Empire State at night?’ He spread his hands wide to emphasise the question. ‘There’s probably some tour we can take that goes around all the famous people’s houses…’
‘Well where would you go, Harry?’ Hannah asked. ‘Where would you go if it was just you winding down after a shift? And don’t say to your apartment because I don’t reckon you always go back there.’
Harry shook his head. ‘You don’t want to go where I go.’
‘Why not?’ She paused. ‘It’s not a strip joint or something?’
‘No!’ He looked affronted.
‘Well let’s go, then.’
He looked at her for a second and then said, ‘OK let’s go.’
So they walked in the direction of the Hudson river. Cars beeped, a trumpeting busker busked, a bull dog tried to wind its leash around Hannah’s legs, the sky got darker and the moon got bigger. And then Harry pointed for them to turn left and then left again down a flight of stairs at the base of a music shop.
‘Down here?’ Hannah looked down the dark stairs dubiously.
‘You said you wanted to go where I go. So go.’
She stood aside so he could lead the way and then followed him into the basement. When he pulled the door open, music and light seemed to pop out like a person shouting surprise. Hannah laughed. Inside it was warm from the night air, the wooden bar was surrounded by dark-green leather stools bolted to the ground and there was a pool table in the corner. A neon sign flickered the words ‘BAR’ next to a wall of optics. A narrow strip of bare concrete floor behind the bar stools led out to a shabby courtyard garden where old Coca-Cola crates had been turned into chairs – out of usefulness rather than hipster irony – and sat around beer barrel tables. Baseball was playing on the TV in the corner and the music from the speakers was old-school Country.
A guy behind the counter with one eye on the TV said, ‘Usual, Harry?’
Harry nodded. ‘With one extra beer.’ Then turned to Hannah and said, ‘Beer OK?’
‘Beer’s fine,’ she said and perched up on one of the stools.
Looking around, she counted ten people inside and maybe another ten in the garden obscured by a cloud of cigarette smoke.
‘You OK here?’ Harry asked, sitting on the stool next to hers.
‘Yeah, I love it.’
‘Really? Not quite up to where Emily’s been taking you, no doubt.’
‘No that’s true, but it makes a nice change.’
‘Did you like the restaurant?’ he asked, glancing up at the baseball game, clearly trying to sound nonchalant.
‘Harry, I loved the restaurant. I loved the food. The decor wasn’t quite what I’d have pictured, but the rest of it, watching your team work together, it was amazing.’
One side of his mouth lifted into a half-smile. ‘You think? That’s good to hear. The decor’s Wilf and his group so I can handle that. As long as the food was good.’
‘It was better than good. It was like experiencing whole new tastes and flavours. I didn’t even know steak could taste like that. No, I was impressed. I might even buy your cookbook.’
The other half of Harry’s mouth tipped up into a full smile and he almost had to look away, caught by the praise.
‘See…’ She laughed and pointed at him. ‘There’s nothing for you to moan about in that, is there?’
He shook his head, still smiling.
Hannah looked down at her lap, smiling to herself, feeling about Jemima’s age.
The barman bought over a bowl of peanuts and two beers, plonking them down on the bar and flipping the caps off without taking his eyes of
f the baseball game.
‘So I didn’t think I’d see you in New York,’ Harry said, taking a swig of the ice-cold beer, then added, ‘Sorry, cheers,’ and clinked the neck of his bottle with hers.
‘Cheers,’ she said and took a sip. ‘I know. I didn’t think I would either but Emily invited me and my mum said she’d look after Jemima.’
‘And you’ve enjoyed it so far?’ he asked, leaning an elbow on the bar and resting his chin in his hand.
She nodded, he smiled. She thought he looked tired. Tired but comfortable, like he was coming down from his day. And had maybe just a glimmer of excitement in his eyes because they were there together. But that could have just been wishful thinking. He still had streaks of charcoal on the backs of his hands, like a chimney sweep, that he noticed the same time she did and wiped them on his jeans.
‘Are those burns?’ she asked, pointing to the red scars on fingers, thumb, wrists.
He glanced at his hands as if he’d forgotten the marks were there. ‘Yeah. Old ones. Goes with the territory.’
‘Did you always want to be a chef?’
Harry shook his head. ‘No,’ he said, taking another swig of his beer. ‘I just knew I didn’t want to do a straight-down-the-line job. Basically what my dad did. But I didn’t really know what you could do. He wasn’t very forthcoming with other options.’
Hannah smiled. ‘And it’s not really number one on school careers advice, is it? I had to fill in a questionnaire and they told me I should be a farmer because I’d ticked the box that said I liked animals.’
Harry laughed. ‘I think you’d make a good farmer. I can see you trudging through fields in wellies.’
Hannah frowned. ‘I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or not.’
‘No neither am I,’ Harry said with a smile, then added, ‘It’s a compliment. You look like you have strength.’
Hannah narrowed her eyes. ‘Once again, Harry, I’m not sure that’s a good thing.’
Harry laughed again. ‘Inner strength.’
Hannah took a sip of her beer and looked away from him with a smile on her lips.
‘So you’ve had a good time?’ Harry asked again.
‘Yeah definitely.’ She reached over and scooped up a couple of salted peanuts. ‘And I’m really glad I came here, with you,’ she added as she looked around the darkened bar. ‘I was feeling like I hadn’t really seen the real New York.’
Harry sat back with mock affront. ‘And here was me thinking you were happy because you got to see me.’
‘That too.’ Hannah laughed. ‘Definitely that.’
And then they looked at each other for a second, straight in the eye and neither of them said anything.
The door bashed open and another couple of people came in, leaning over the bar to order Sambucas and beers and then carrying on through to the garden outside where they seemed to know people sitting at the tables. Hannah listened to the laughter and the chat. Harry glanced up at the baseball game and then back at his beer. She picked at the label on her bottle and looked down at the closeness of their knees, a whisper from touching.
‘I meant to say, the other day, not the other day, you know in France.’ Harry paused as if perplexed he couldn’t get to his point. ‘I meant to say that I thought Jemima was great. A cool little kid.’
Hannah felt herself puff out a bit with pride. ‘Thanks.’
‘Yeah.’ Harry nodded.
‘Did she win you round to wanting a family?’ she asked with a smile.
Harry paused then looked slightly guilty as he said, ‘Not quite. Sorry.’
‘Oh no, you don’t have to apologise to me, Harry,’ Hannah said, lifting the beer bottle to her lips and taking a sip. The laughter and chatter drifted in from outside along with the cigarette smoke. She could feel Harry watching her, so for something to say she added, ‘So I take it you don’t go home very often?’
‘Nah. Once a year, maybe.’
‘Wow. I couldn’t do that.’ Hannah shook her head. ‘I’d be useless. Like I think it’s nearing the time I move out completely and get a new place for me and Jemima, but I know I’ll really miss them.’
She watched Harry look up at the baseball again and then down to his beer. ‘I think I don’t really see my lot because basically I have a problem with being told what to do. I’m like: I’ve done this, I’ve lived with it and now I’m old enough not to have to listen it just gets my back up. I hate the pressure of it. Of having to be somewhere when someone says. I just don't want to ever have to be anywhere. I don’t want to be relied on. Tied to something.’
‘But you’re tied to the restaurant.’
‘That’s my choice. I love it.’
‘I think that’s what some people think about family.’
‘Yeah but with the restaurant I can walk away. It’s just a building,’ Harry said and Hannah found herself the one who had to look at the TV.
She wanted to shove him off the stool. All the nights when she’d first had Jemima and she’d slept for an hour, max, the amount of times she’d wondered what it would be like to walk away. To put her down in the moses basket, leave and never look back. To be like the father who, if by chance it had been the right mobile number he’d given her, had made the clear choice not to be involved. To feel what it would be like without those massive ties of responsibility that clung like tentacles, tying her and Jemima the second she appeared in the world.
But then she had watched the fear turn to love and the terror change into strength. And she wanted to shake Harry. Shake his nice, ordered world. ‘I don’t understand how you’re so fixed. I think that’s what I’ve never got, every time I’ve met you. Like I didn’t necessarily want to get pregnant but I had no idea what I wanted really in life. Yet you’re so sure. You’re so set in your ways.’
Harry flinched. ‘I’m not set in my ways.’
Hannah was taking a sip of beer and choked. ‘Are you serious?’
‘Deadly.’
‘Harry, you’re the most set in your ways person I’ve ever met.’
‘I totally don’t see that.’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t see where you’re getting that from.’
‘Well your rules about life for one.’
‘I don’t have rules about life.’
She narrowed her eyes as she looked at him. ‘Harry, you’ve just listed them. The whole not wanting to come home to someone.’
‘That’s the complete opposite of rules. That’s just an exclusion.’
Hannah laughed. ‘A what?’
Harry indicated to the barman for two more beers. ‘It’s like here’s my life…’ he made a big circle with his hands. ‘Completely free, no rules, anything can happen, but tiny bit cut out – having to come home to something, someone.’
‘I don’t get what’s so bad about coming home to someone,’ Hannah said, peeling away the label of her finished beer bottle, then having it whipped out of her hand by the barman and replaced with another. ‘It’s nice. Having people at home.’
Harry shook his head. ‘It’s too stifling, too many questions. Too many opinions. Too much scope for routine. I’ve lived with it. I was brought up with it.’ He shook his head again. ‘I can’t bear it, all those people all together under one roof. Nah.’
Something happened in the baseball game to make the barman smash the bar top with his fist and then mutter something under his breath.
Hannah made a worried face and Harry laughed. ‘He’s passionate,’ he said, then he rubbed his eyes like he was knackered. ‘Sorry, I know it’s not what you want to hear, all that stuff.’
Hannah shook her head. ‘I don’t mind what I hear. Harry, it hardly affects me, your stance on life.’ She knew it was a lie from the shiver of disappointment that ran through her but, to her relief, her voice stayed completely cool as she added flippantly, ‘We live over the other side of the world from each other.’
‘Yeah, but…’
She looked up, one brow raised. ‘But what?’
He smiled. ‘But I like you.’
She glanced at the floor, holding in a smile, butterflies in her tummy, then looked up and with a faux-nonchalant shrug said, ‘Should have thought about that before you made your rules.’
‘They’re not rules!’ he said, bashing his beer bottle down too hard and making it bubble up.
Hannah laughed. ‘You know I watched you in the kitchen, while you were working today.’
It was Harry’s turn to look up, coy. ‘You did?’
‘Yeah. And you know what I thought?’
‘What?’
‘They look kind of like a family.’
Harry groaned. ‘I thought you were going to say that I looked really sexy or something when I worked. That’s what I’m going for, you know, dark and sexy manning the fire.’
‘Yeah I could see that as well,’ she said, laughing. ‘You looked dark and sexy. Definitely,’ she said, and their eyes met again in the moment of silence before she slid off her stool to go in search of the bathroom. When she came back, Harry had ordered another round and they talked a bit more about New York, about Jemima, about Emily’s wedding and what they were going to wear for the vintage glamour theme. Then, when their beers were finished and they realised that they were almost the last two people in the bar, Hannah stood up and said, ‘Shall we go for a walk?’
‘Why not?’ Harry replied and, chucking a couple of notes on the counter, he waved to the barman who gave him a salute in return and they headed out into the warm, still air.
The streets were quieter. The air cooler. Hannah didn’t know what the time was, her body clock was all over the place from the time difference, but she knew it was well into the next day.
She could count on one hand the times she’d been out this late since having Jemima. And while she could see what Harry was saying, could almost taste the freedom on her tongue, compared to the bubble of excitement in her tummy that came with the idea of seeing Jemima again and giving her the presents she’d bought and feeling her warm little body as she hugged her, it was nothing.
‘So have you seen Alfonso recently?’ Harry asked, all casual as they strolled.
