by Dani Atkins
I dug into my bag, found my address book and rapidly dictated the details to Max. As we spoke, I could already hear Justin in the background phoning the limousine company. One tiny straw was lifted from the burden on my back.
‘Okay. That’s your in-laws taken care of. Don’t worry about phoning them, I’ll call them with the details in a few minutes when we hang up.’ Tears of gratitude stung my eyes. ‘Now are you going to be okay until about eleven o’clock tomorrow morning?’
My brow furrowed, not following his meaning, although afterwards I realised that he’d probably made his decision during the first minute of our phone call.
‘What’s happening at eleven?’
‘That’s when I should be with you. There’s a flight out of JFK late this afternoon which I should be able to make.’
‘You’re coming here? To London? For me?’ More stupid tears, but there was just no way of stopping them now.
His voice, with the unfamiliar American undertone, sounded suddenly gruff. ‘Of course not for you. I’m coming to give that great big gorgeous husband of yours a piece of my mind for scaring us all like this.’ His voice lowered and softened, flowing through my chilled limbs and warming me. ‘Just hang tough until I get there, sweetie. Stay strong. I’m on my way and remember that I love you.’ Raw emotion thrummed through his voice. ‘All three of you,’ he added. And without saying another word, he hung up.
I stayed in the car park until I had gained a little more control over my chaotic emotions. It was such a huge thing to do, to drop everything, abandon whatever else was going on in his life and fly across the Atlantic to be by my side. I knew how very lucky I was to have someone who would do that for me. For us. My thoughts were full of Max as I slowly began to retrace my steps back into the hospital building, absently noting that the falling snow had already obliterated all signs of my passage. I raised my eyes to the skies, imagining Jake with his cute button nose pressed against the window, excitedly watching the world change into a white wonderland, while all I could do was worry about its effect on the roads, skies and runways, the things that were bringing the people I loved to this place.
Max and Joe had hit it off from the very beginning, which had been a totally unexpected and wonderful surprise. On paper they were worlds apart: the witty, fast-talking, trend-driven fashion designer, who’d fallen on his smart leather-booted feet right into the bustling hustle of Manhattan, and the softly spoken, naturally reserved craftsman, with the hidden sense of humour, who wore comfortable faded jeans, loved being outdoors, country music . . . and me. And that was what they both had in common, Max had said, after that very first meeting. ‘That’s our common denominator, that’s what’s going to make us friends, and keep us friends for ever. Because we both love you to death.’ I shivered suddenly, as though a whole flock of geese had just trampled over my grave, remembering those had been his very words, ‘love you to death’.
Of course another reason why Max had whole-heartedly embraced my relationship with Joe was because he wasn’t David, because their first encounter had been nothing short of an explosive disaster, which had ignited the first major argument in my new relationship.
Ally
The day had begun badly. For a start I’d forgotten to set the alarm on my phone before falling asleep the night before. I had woken in a heart-lurching panic as the house vibrated to the slamming of our front door, which fell just short of registering on the Richter scale. It was the first time I was grateful that the warped frame required superhuman effort to close it, otherwise Max would have been left waiting for me at the station for hours instead of just minutes.
I picked up my phone to check the time, swore at the display on the screen and jumped free of the messy tangle of my bed. I didn’t even have time for a shower, I lamented, racing to the bathroom and mercifully finding it empty. I quickly brushed my teeth and splashed cold water onto my sleep-puffy face, and reached blindly for the first thing my hand came to in the wardrobe.
Less than seven minutes after waking from a deep sleep, I too was slamming the front door, and racing at a pavement-pounding run towards the station, where at that very moment Max’s train would be pulling in. We’d had this weekend planned since Christmas, when it had occurred to us that we were both halfway through our respective courses and yet had still never visited each other’s student homes.
‘Finally I’ll get to meet your charming prince,’ Max had teased on the phone when we’d been tying up the final arrangements.
‘If you call him that to his face, I will seriously have to kill you,’ I warned, wriggling more comfortably into the armchair, where I’d settled down for our chat. ‘Actually David’s not going to be around until Sunday, he’s got some rowing society event he has to attend. Still, that gives us the whole day for me to show you round the town and give you the big campus tour.’ I was already getting stupidly excited at the prospect of seeing Max for the first time in months.
‘Sure you’ll still recognise me?’ he had teased.
‘I’ll just look for the best-looking guy at the station.’
‘Me too,’ he said lightly.
I paused for a second, not sure how to acknowledge his throwaway comment. I’d known Max was gay even before I knew what gay meant, even before I knew what straight meant, come to that. But this was the first time that he had ever said anything, given even a smallest hint, about that part of his life. To be perfectly honest, nothing about him could be less important to me. To me he was just Max, my dearest and closest friend in all the world. Everything else was totally irrelevant.
On our first day of primary school we had walked hand in hand through the school gates, our friendship already long established. Nothing that had occurred in the intervening years had put so much as a dent in it. Perhaps the closeness of our bond had shut others out, or perhaps we were always destined to be happiest not being part of a large group.
Max hadn’t been a typical football-loving, pushing and shoving little boy, and I had been a studious, quiet little girl, who really only opened up when seated before a piano keyboard, or later with a trumpet in my hand. Our friendship had been a perfect fit then, and it still was now.
It started to rain when I was still only halfway to the station: big, heavy, pounding raindrops, the kind that send you from damp to drenched in a matter of minutes. I squelched as I ran on in my canvas trainers, already regretting that I had only pulled on a thin hoodie over my t-shirt and hadn’t stopped to find my waterproof jacket. I was fifteen minutes late and dripping from head to toe as I burst into the train station and scanned the concourse. Max was standing to one side, his phone in hand.
‘There you are,’ he cried, slipping the mobile away, ‘I was just phoning you.’
I paused before replying, bending at the waist to combat the searing stitch in my side. ‘Overslept,’ I wheezed, raising my head and feeling an unpleasant trickle of water running off my hair and down the back of my top.
‘You probably shouldn’t have stopped for a fully clothed bath before leaving the house then,’ he observed wryly.
I raised one arm from its resting place against my thighs and pointed beyond the entrance to the station. I’d always thought my lung capacity was pretty good – it has to be when you play a brass instrument – but I was still horribly winded from my sprint. ‘Raining,’ I gasped.
Max raised one eyebrow. ‘Your sentence construction seems to have suffered a little since our last meeting. Is that what love does to you?’
‘I didn’t say I was in love,’ I replied, my breathing still laboured.
Max raised his other eyebrow to join the first. ‘I know,’ he said, pulling me against him for a hug and wrinkling his nose as my soggy clothing instantly saturated him. ‘But I bet you are.’
Still holding me close to his side Max picked up his bag and we headed for the exit. The rain showed no signs of abating, in fact, if anything it was falling even harder.
‘We could wait it out,’ I suggeste
d, looking up at the marble-grey skies, which were heavy with clouds. ‘Or we could get a taxi,’ I added, nodding my head towards the line of vehicles queued up at the nearby rank.
‘Well, it’s easy to tell which one of us has a rich boyfriend,’ Max joked, squeezing my shoulder to make sure I knew he was just teasing. ‘We’re students, Ally, we don’t jump into taxis; we catch the bus, we hitch lifts from dodgy strangers . . . or we walk.’
‘We’ll get wet.’
‘You’re already wet. And now I’m not far behind you. Let’s make a run for it.’
He caught the slightly alarmed look on my face at the word ‘run’ and amended his suggestion. ‘Let’s make a slow squelchy walk for it.’
They say there’s a point you reach when you simply can’t get any wetter. I think I might have to dispute that theory. We had the pavements pretty much to ourselves, all other pedestrians having sensibly taken shelter in shop doorways or under awnings.
‘Loving your city,’ declared Max, as a lorry rounded a sharp bend and sent a huge surge of water through the air towards us.
‘This was your idea,’ I reminded him, picking up the pace and shaking the hair that was plastered to my face out of my eyes.
Max grabbed my hand then, a mischievous light flickering in his eyes. ‘Come on, where’s your sense of fun,’ he urged and then jumped like an exuberant child off the high kerb straight into the deep muddy puddle at its edge. The swell of water drenched us both. His eyes were twinkling as he wordlessly dared me. Oh what the hell.
‘You’re nuts,’ I declared as I jumped down beside him. Laughing like the children we had suddenly stepped back in time to become, we both looked up to see a huddle of onlookers crammed into a shop doorway shaking their heads slowly at us. We shared an old and treasured look and then headed off, splashing determinedly through every puddle we passed until we reached my house.
It wasn’t quite so funny when we stood shivering on the doorstep as I fumbled to get my key in the lock.
‘I don’t know why I listen to you,’ chided Max as we dripped over the threshold and into the hall. We kicked off our shoes, and left them leaching water onto the coconut doormat.
‘I need a shower,’ I declared, peeling my hoodie off my back, as though I was shedding a skin and dropping it on the floor. ‘I’ll be quick and then you can jump in after me.’
Max nodded gratefully. ‘Point me in the direction of your kitchen and I’ll make us both some tea.’
That was one of the great things about Max, I thought as I raced up the stairs to the bathroom. He wasn’t the sort of friend who would expect you to wait on him. He had an easy chameleon nature that allowed him to fit in effortlessly wherever he went. I’d never really understood before what people meant when they said someone was comfortable in their own skin. But I did now.
The shower was deliciously reviving and if I hadn’t been aware that Max was sitting uncomfortably waiting for his own turn, I would have spent far longer under the steaming jets, slathering foaming gel over my limbs, which were glowing pink from the heat. I wrapped my hair in a towel and plucked my short terry robe off the hook on the back of the bathroom door.
Max and I slipped past each other in the bathroom doorway, like precisioned synchronised swimmers. ‘I left your cup of tea in the messiest bedroom I found. I guessed it was yours.’ I stuck my tongue out at him and headed for my room, passing Elena on the landing.
‘I really like your friend Max. He’s so funny, he had me in stitches downstairs,’ she said with smile, shrugging into her coat and heading for the stairs. I returned her smile, feeling her compliment glow warmly within me. Everyone loved Max, always had, always would. David would too, I was sure of it.
Ignoring the chaos of my unmade bed, I pulled a comb through my hair and plugged in my hairdryer. By the time Max had emerged from the bathroom my hair was dry, but I was no closer towards getting dressed.
He rapped on the door. ‘You decent?’
‘Yes, come on in,’ I called, looking down to make sure the towelling edges of my robe were covering my nakedness. I did a weird little double-take as Max entered my room wearing just a towel knotted at his waist.
‘Wow. Someone’s been spending some serious time at the gym,’ I said, trying to do a wolf whistle, which failed spectacularly. You’d think, being a musician, I’d have been better at it.
‘You noticed,’ said Max, preening a little and checking out his reflection in my full-length mirror, where his recently acquired six-pack was easily visible. ‘Does it look good?’
‘Your abs are fine, it’s the size of your head that worries me,’ I answered, lobbing a tissue box at him. He ducked at just the moment when the whole house once again shook as the front door was slammed. Elena on her way out, I thought.
‘Throw things at me, would you,’ said Max adopting a mock threatening tone as he headed across the space between us. ‘I might just have to put you over my knee and punish you, for that.’
‘Yeah, good luck with that,’ I said, giggling at the thought as I easily pushed him back, my hands splayed on his shoulders which were still damp from the shower. And it was at just that moment, when we were – admittedly – caught in a rather compromising tableau, that my bedroom door opened and David entered the room.
‘Ally Elena said it was okay to come up—’ he began and then his words just fell away as he saw his girlfriend, wearing very little at all, mock wrestling with a strange man who was wearing even less.
I froze and then turned towards the door, my hands still resting on Max’s body. David’s eyes raked the room and suddenly I saw what he saw: the unmade bed, the almost naked man, being held by his girlfriend, her skin pink and flushed.
‘David,’ I cried, striving for a greeting, but sounding more horrified than hospitable. ‘I wasn’t expecting to see you today.’
‘I believe I can see that,’ he replied, his voice taut like piano wire.
My eyes flew to Max and my hands fell from him as though he was burning me. ‘This isn’t what you think,’ I began, trying to inject a degree of light-heartedness into my voice and failing miserably.
‘Actually Ally, I really don’t know what to think. Why don’t you explain it to me. Try words of one syllable, because I’m having a bit of difficulty right now working out what’s going on here.’
His words were cold, but beneath them I could hear the hurt of betrayal. I shook my head as though I was trying to fight my way out of a really bad dream.
‘David, this is Max. My friend from home.’
David’s eyes flicked over my old friend and there was a look in them that warned me that this whole situation could so easily escalate into something even worse unless I defused it – fast.
‘Max?’ David queried, his face contorting in a frown. ‘But Max is a girl.’
‘You told him I was a girl?’ queried Max. ‘That was a little harsh. Girly, maybe. But definitely not a girl.’ I knew he was only trying to infuse some humour into the proceedings, but I didn’t think it was going to help.
‘I don’t understand,’ David said, shaking his head as though that might make sense of the picture before him. ‘You said your old friend Maxi was coming to stay; it’s the only friend from home that you’ve ever spoken about.’
‘That would be me,’ declared Max.
‘As in Maxine,’ David emphasised. ‘I assumed Maxi was a girl.’
‘You know what they say when you assume. It makes an ass out of—’
‘Not now,’ I hissed at Max who dutifully clamped his mouth shut.
‘Notwithstanding the gender, I don’t think you made it clear how . . . close . . . the two of you were. Or what was going on here before I showed up.’ He looked pointedly at the bed.
‘Nothing was “going on”,’ I countered, and I could hear anger tightening my voice. Max clearly recognised it, but David seemed oblivious that his suspicious accusations were about to light a touch paper to the fuse. ‘The bed is unmade, because I overs
lept. We got drenched in the rain on our way back from the station, so we both had showers as soon as we got in.’
I saw the uncertainty flickering in David’s eyes, even while something else pushed its way into the forefront of his mind.
‘Look mate, this really is completely innocent. Ally is telling you the absolute truth. We’re just friends. Let’s start over here, shall we? I’m Max,’ he said, holding out his hand, which in hindsight was a bad move as the towel he was gripping around his waist slipped as he extended his arm to David.
I raised my hand to shield my eyes.
‘For Christ’s sake!’ exclaimed David, as Max fumbled clumsily to grab hold of the towel.
‘Oops,’ he said in his most charming voice, but David was in no mood to be charmed. Instead he turned back to me, suspicion still there on his face.
‘Just out of interest, where exactly was Maxi planning to sleep during this weekend visit? Does this close friendship extend to you two sharing a bed together?’
‘Ewww,’ muttered Max.
‘No. Of course not. He was going to sleep on my floor, on the airbed in a sleeping bag.’ I nodded to one corner of the room, where those items were sitting in readiness. For the first time I saw David’s certainty waver.
‘Still, this isn’t exactly normal behaviour between friends, is it?’ David questioned. ‘Friends of the opposite sex, I mean. You say it’s all “innocent”, and I want to believe you, Ally, but you’re both virtually naked here. What am I supposed to think?’
‘You’re supposed to trust me,’ I said sorrowfully. ‘You’re supposed to know – better than anyone – that I would never, have never, done anything like that.’
There was a small softening in David’s expression. ‘In your eyes, Ally, I’m sure it is all completely above board,’ David conceded. ‘But I know what guys are like. They say they’re just friends with a girl but – you know what – it’s always something more.’
