An Autumn Crush

by Milly Johnson

  ‘Oh hi, Floz,’ said Steve, holding out an enormous paw. ‘I’ve heard a lot about you.’

  ‘Have you?’ asked Juliet quickly.

  First mistake. Guy could have murdered him. Luckily Steve was thinking well on his feet today.

  ‘Well, I haven’t . . . er . . . obviously, but that’s what you say, isn’t it?’

  ‘You might,’ huffed Juliet. God, he really was a jerk. Handsome, but a total jerk. He always had been. Even at primary school. He was so far up his own arse, he could have played with his tonsils from the inside.

  Guy stepped into the room a good few paces behind Steve.

  ‘You two have already met, haven’t you?’ said Juliet. Guy nodded at Floz, all words suspended in his throat, glued to a ball of nerves that couldn’t get past his voice-box. As a result, he was unable to let out the cheery, ‘Hi again, Floz. I didn’t recognize you with your clothes on – ha!’ witty retort that he had practised in his flat. Instead all he managed was a glowering nod. And his Heathcliff face.

  And Floz, expecting him to have at least made a bit of an effort with a ‘Hi’ and a smile, found herself annoyed enough to merely nod in return. She had no intention of putting herself forward for him to knock her back.

  ‘Mmm. I smell cooking,’ grinned Steve. ‘Great, because I’m starving. Show me where this damp patch of yours is then, Ju.’ He made it sound naughty, as if the damp patch was in Juliet’s knickers and not on the wall. She expected nothing less of him, though she wouldn’t have guessed in a million years that his jokiness was fuelled by the stress of being in her mighty presence.

  ‘Open up the bottles, Floz, will you?’ asked Juliet, leaving her brother and Floz in the room together. They were about at ease with each other as a cobra and a mongoose. Floz was grateful to have something to do in uncorking the Cab Sav and the Pinot Grigio. Unfortunately, the cork appeared to have been soaked in concrete for a month before being introduced to the bottle.

  Guy wondered if he should wade in and help. He was slightly concerned that to do so might seem cheesily macho, yet on the other hand it seemed very ungentlemanly not to offer and continue to observe her struggling. In the end, seeing as Floz was turning purple, he felt he ought to.

  ‘Can I do that?’

  ‘Yes, please,’ said Floz. But as she handed over the corkscrew, it fell and both parties lunged to catch it. This resulted in a head-collision with accompanying sound effect. It was not unlike the noise of a coconut being tapped none too delicately by a lump hammer. Floz yelped, she got the worst of it on the corner of her forehead. She sprang back up, clutching a skull she was convinced would be bleeding if she looked in a mirror.

  ‘Sorry. You okay?’ said Guy.

  ‘I’m fine,’ said Floz as sparks exploded in her head. She wouldn’t have put it past him to have done it deliberately. Maybe it was a twin thing and he felt she was coming between him and his sister so he was trying to kill her.

  Guy pulled the cork out effortlessly and hoped it didn’t look too cocksure. Look at how strong I am, and what a soft girly-thing you are!

  ‘Red or white?’ Guy shouted out.

  ‘White!’ came a duet from the kitchen.

  ‘Floz?’ asked Guy, trying not to look at the swelling that had started to grow on her head.

  ‘Er, red for me,’ she said, touching her throbbing skull. ‘I’ll just go and er . . .’ She took her lumpy head and made for the bathroom to assess the damage.

  ‘Should I get some ice?’ he started to ask, his voice fading as he realized she hadn’t heard him. What next? he thought, as he tipped the bottle, missed the glass and sent red wine splashing all over Juliet’s pristine white tablecloth.

  Steve led the way out of the kitchen talking plaster-speak. Juliet followed behind him with a dish of pasta, cheese bubbling on top.

  ‘Yeah, I can do that – scratch coat . . . skim . . . trowelling . . .’ but if he was hoping to impress Juliet with words like those, he was on stony ground.

  ‘And how much are you going to charge me for it?’ asked Juliet in such a way that defied him to ask for any money – as if the honour of doing the job should be enough for any man.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ mused Steve. ‘How about you cook us another meal when I’ve finished?’

  ‘Okay,’ said Juliet, ‘you’re on. Where’s Floz? And what have you done to my tablecloth, Guy? And why is your head bleeding?’

  ‘Floz, er, just went to the bathroom,’ said Guy, touching his head and finding blood on his finger. ‘We crashed heads.’

  ‘How the chuff could you crash heads?’ asked Steve, thinking of the height difference between them. What had she done, stood on a ladder to nut him?

  Guy didn’t answer as Floz emerged from the bathroom with what looked like the nub of a horn about to burst from her forehead.

  ‘Bloody hell!’ said Juliet. ‘Let me get you some ice for that.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ said Floz. ‘I think it’s got as big as it’s going to.’

  ‘Bet you’ve said that a few times!’ laughed Steve. Juliet glared at him and went to the kitchen to wrap up two bags of frozen peas in tea-towels.

  ‘Shall we eat?’ Guy said, trying to bring some normality to things when Juliet returned with the giant compresses. Floz pressed hers against her head feeling like a drama queen as Juliet fussed.

  ‘Pass me a plate,’ said Steve, digging in his spoon.

  ‘Ooh, that looks down to your usual standard of cooking, Ju,’ teased Guy.

  ‘Actually Floz made this,’ said Juliet.

  ‘ ’Kinell,’ said Steve under his breath. If it wasn’t enough that his big friend had nutted the bird he fancied, now he had just slagged off her cooking as well.

  ‘Joking. Looks lovely,’ said Guy with an exaggerated reflex but it didn’t quite come off.

  ‘I won’t be insulted if you don’t eat it,’ Floz said frostily, from behind the bag of peas.

  Steve stepped in to rescue the situation with his size thirteens.

  ‘Well, even if it’s crap, I’ll certainly enjoy it because I’m starving and will eat anything.’ Now it was Guy’s turn to cringe for her. Between them, they’d have her ringing the Samaritans.

  The pasta was lovely though and both Guy and Steve reckoned the only way to get this across was to eat as much as possible as a sign of approval and not trust their mouths in any other way but to chew and issue as many ‘mmms’ as possible.

  ‘Guess what, we’re going internet dating,’ Juliet announced.

  ‘Who is?’ asked Steve, quickly trying to mask the sudden rush of panic in his voice.

  ‘We are. Floz and Coco and me.’

  Floz had a mouthful of bread and couldn’t talk through it. She waved the hand not holding the compress to intimate that this was most categorically not true, but Juliet was on a roll.

  ‘A Piers Winstanley-Black clone for me and a blond, short bloke in a suit for Floz.’

  ‘I am not going internet dating,’ said Floz, madly chomping through the crust.

  ‘Oh come on, Floz. Mr Right is out there for you somewhere. You’ve been on the shelf long enough now.’

  Juliet chuckled, unaware of how mortified Floz was at Guy thinking she might be going shopping for a man on the net. Although he probably thought she would have to. Especially as Juliet had announced that she had been a love reject for years. Floz started to offer up a stuttering objection. However, she then realized it might come across as ‘the lady doth protest too much’, so she shut up and displaced her annoyance by pressing the pea-bag extra hard onto her bump.

  Guy was trying to look nonchalant but his head was a mass of whirring thoughts. ‘The lady doth protest too much,’ he deduced. So she was looking for a man? A man who was the exact physical opposite of him. Could he blame her? After he’d almost stoved her skull in, slagged off her cooking and run off like a total dick the other night? He wanted to appear witty and chatty and charming but he couldn’t think of a single thing to say at that din
ner-table, at least until the raspberry Eton Mess arrived.

  ‘This is very nice,’ he said. ‘Is it a Pavlova that you dropped on the floor?’ He laughed, but was by himself doing so. It hadn’t come out as the joke he’d been aiming for if Steve’s pained expression was anything to go by. Guy went back to silent Trappist monk mode where he was safest.

  They didn’t stay for coffee. Guy decided to go for damage limitation and leave the crime scene straight after ‘the dropped-on-the-floor Pavlova’.

  ‘Why are we going away so early?’ Steve hissed as the flat door shut behind them. ‘I thought you wanted to build bridges?’

  ‘I did build a bridge,’ sighed Guy. ‘And it was just like the one over the River Kwai.’

  ‘Wasn’t that the one that got blown up?’ Steve puzzled.

  Guy gave a heavy nod and turned down the stairs.

  Chapter 12

  Floz sat in high amusement listening to Coco and Juliet fill in their internet dating questionnaires on Juliet’s laptop the next night.

  ‘How ridiculous that you can specify which colour eyes you want your date to have,’ said Juliet.

  ‘It is going a bit far,’ replied Coco. ‘Put me down for the lot. Brown, green, blue, grey, boss-eyed and wonky.’

  ‘Hair colour?’

  ‘Any.’

  ‘Body Art?’

  ‘Any.’

  ‘Salary band?’

  Then Coco got fussy. ‘Over fifty thousand. I don’t want any dole-wallahs.’

  ‘That’s high. Why not add the twenty-five to fifty thousand as well?’

  ‘If I must,’ sniffed Coco.

  ‘A brief description of yourself,’ invited Juliet.

  ‘Hmm, let me think. How about: “Slim, trim, fit, very attractive, cocoa-eyed boy with incredible dance-moves and snaky hips, looking for the same for fun and frolics, possibly more with the right person.” ’

  ‘Snaky hips?’ mocked Juliet. ‘And fit? When was the last time you did any exercise?’

  ‘I’m naturally a good shape – and supple!’ Coco leaped to his feet like Louie Spence on a springboard and started thrusting his groin backwards and forwards. ‘I could have taught Michael Jackson a thing or two, had we met – and if he hadn’t died, obviously.’

  ‘Yeah, maybe about making Yorkshire puddings, but not dancing,’ said Juliet. ‘You can’t even do the hokey-cokey without putting something out when you should be putting it in.’

  ‘Story of my life,’ sighed Coco.

  After Juliet had filled in her application, they all went trawling the Singlebods site to look at possible future dates.

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ scoffed Coco. ‘If he’s thirty-five, I’m Cheryl Cole. You don’t get jowls like that unless you’ve been abusing your body for at least fifty years.’

  ‘Look at that one,’ giggled Juliet. ‘He could eat an apple through a barbed wire fence with those teeth.’

  Things weren’t that sparkling when they looked through the straight men section either.

  ‘This is the one for you, Ju,’ laughed Coco. ‘He likes sci-fi, walking in the sunset, holding hands and kissing on the sofa. Yuk.’

  ‘Yes, and look at what he wants from a partner. “Must be between five feet and five feet four, long undyed hair essential, no tattoos or piercings and no make-up please.” ’ Juliet humphed. ‘I’d like to meet the man who dared tell me to wear no make-up, fussy fucker!’

  Floz would have liked to have been a fly on the wall if Juliet ever did go out on a date with a man like that.

  ‘I feel all depressed now,’ said Coco, who had been hoping for a screen full of hunks waiting for him to call. ‘I think I’ll go home and slit my wrists in a Radox bath.’

  ‘You’d never get the stains out of your pink carpet,’ said Juliet. ‘Besides, you wouldn’t want the paramedics to see you in a bloodbath. Far too unglam.’

  ‘Let’s not talk like that,’ said Coco, his laughter suddenly drying up. Floz noticed the look that passed between them then, loaded with a private secret. She didn’t ask what it was; they would have told her, had they meant her to know.

  Juliet said goodbye to Coco with an equally despondent heart. The men on the site made even Steve Feast look interesting.

  Just before she went to bed, Floz went to turn her screen off on the corner desk. It was then that she spotted she had another mail via her website address.

  Just been looking through the pages of your website. Glad to see you’re doing well, Cherrylips. I’ve missed you.

  Floz got a prickly feeling at the back of her neck. It had to be him – it had to be Nick. But why? What did it mean? She knew there would be a third message soon and that her sleep that night would be disturbed. She realized that she hadn’t cut him out of her heart as she had convinced herself she had. He was a sleeping dragon within it – and worst of all, that dragon appeared to be waking.

  Chapter 13

  Kenny Moulding made a beeline for Guy when he showed himself in the kitchen the next morning. He had his customary beige pin-stripe suit on, dark shirt and tie, long slim brown hand-made shoes on his feet. His thick white hair was brushed forward in what he perceived to be a trendy style – which it had been in the 1970s – in order to convince people he was twenty years younger than his true age of sixty-one. His clothes cost a fortune yet he put them together so badly that he always managed to make himself look as if he went shopping in jumble sales. He was to style what the Kray Twins were to French knitting. His trademark Romeo y Julieta cigar was clamped between his cosmetically perfect top and bottom set, and he was holding a folded-up magazine when he dragged Guy’s attention away from test-cooking some sausages which were more sawdust than pig. Kenny beckoned the big man into the office with a roll of his arm. His thick gold bracelets jangled as he did so.

  ‘What do you think of this?’ Kenny said, throwing down the brochure on top of a box of spongy mushrooms for Guy to pick up and look at. The page featured pictures of a block of apartments by a swimming pool somewhere hot and sunny.

  ‘Tossa,’ said Kenny, scratching his chin.

  Which is more or less what went through Guy’s mind every time he saw the feckless sod.

  ‘Tossa del Mar,’ Kenny elaborated, misreading Guy’s silence for ignorance. ‘Spain.’

  ‘Very nice,’ Guy answered.

  ‘I’m selling up and moving there. I’ve bought that flat on the end with the hanging baskets.’

  ‘Well, good for you,’ Guy started. Then he became aware of what Kenny might be telling him. ‘Selling up? Your house or the restaurant?’ he questioned.

  ‘Both,’ said Kenny. ‘Had enough of the fucking place. Too much like hard work. I’m getting too old for this catering lark.’

  That’s rich, thought Guy, considering that on the rare occasions when Kenny deigned to turn up, all he did was sit in his office, read a newspaper and either pick his nose or choose horses to bet on. He had a woman, Sandra, to do the accounts and act as his secretary, and Glenys, the cleaner, who did her best even though she was knocking on for seventy-five. The most stress Kenny had was thinking what to spend his profits on.

  ‘Yep, I’m selling the lot.’

  Guy felt the first stirrings of panic. He’d be out of a job. He didn’t have as much faith in his abilities as he should have had. And he had a criminal record which wouldn’t make him an attractive prospect to a new boss.

  ‘I’m giving you first refusal at buying me out,’ said Kenny, relighting his cigar by striking a match on the No Smoking sign.

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Aye – you, lad.’

  You’re dreaming, aren’t you? Guy was about to say, but he knew Kenny wasn’t. When Kenny made statements like that, Guy knew he’d done all the groundwork and a solid plan was in the offing. Guy felt a moment of light-headedness at the enormity of what Kenny was suggesting.

  ‘We could bypass all the lying bastard estate agents if you bought it directly from me, lad. Surely you’ve dreamed of owning your own res
taurant?’

  Kenny spread his arms wide. Guy took in the bumpy plasterwork painted plum-purple with a brown floral border, the cracked windows, the missing tiles. But, just for a second, he saw this same room in smooth pastel shades, with a black and white tiled floor. And the office door swinging open to a polished stainless steel kitchen. His third eye reached further, into the body of the restaurant, tall menus on pretty café tables. He saw heavy drapes at the long, slim windows, heard string music in the background. Just like a restaurant he had once wandered into by mistake when he was holidaying in Florence. He had stood in awe at the perfect shabby-chicness of the decor: the pale green and cream walls, the beautiful tapestry drapes. He had known instantly that if he were ever to own a restaurant, he would make it as serenely atmospheric as that place. He gave a small laugh to himself. Florence. The word appeared to be haunting him.

  ‘Wheer’s me fucking toast?’ A big booming voice burst his thought balloon as some trucker bobbed his head into the kitchen and bawled at Igor, one of the waiters.

  Guy’s feet landed back on terra firma with a bump.

  ‘You deserve this place,’ said Kenny, with a rare softness to his rough-edged, fag-ravaged voice. ‘You’ve made me a bomb, lad. Which is why you can have it at a good price. But only if you act quick. I don’t want to hang about here.’

  Guy opened his mouth but nothing came out. He saw sausages with a high meat content, farm-assured quality lamb, eggs so fresh the hens hadn’t even noticed they were missing yet. He saw staff with clean aprons and hygiene standards. He saw returning customers, awards, Michelin stars and no overhanging threat from Environmental Health.

  ‘Well?’

  Guy had savings. Whether he had enough for what Kenny would ask for the place remained to be seen, but he was fired up with a sudden surge of passion. How could he let Burgerov go to another owner? Someone who might even do the im possible and drop standards even further. Burgerov was his kingdom and he wasn’t going to be deposed without a fight.