by Nicky Wells
“Well, I’m sitting here quite comfortably, and I’m quite happy to start munching on some olives,” I said with extra emphasis, but the meaning was lost on him.
“Right, right, of course. Okay. Give me twenty minutes. I’ll get there as fast as I can.”
Joy! I had a few minutes to relax, check my make-up, and treat myself to a pre-starter all of my own. I informed the hovering waiter that I would like a bottle of house white—Tim could always pick something more refined later—and a big helping of prawns while I waited for my much-delayed partner.
Chapter Two
When Tim eventually turned up, it was him who, for once, looked sheepish and apologetic, whereas I sat at the table cool and composed. By now it was almost eight and Tim was clearly hungry. I handed him the menu, but he already knew what he wanted—after all, he had spent half an hour reading it at the other Fischer’s. The waiter was hovering again and was gratified to hear of our swift decision.
“I’ll start with the rustic fish soup with grilled country bread and then I’ll have the scampi, please,” Tim launched in straightaway. Predictable choice, but it still dismayed me. The scampi was the least expensive main course, and I started to worry again about how Tim would react to my extravagance. Ah, sod it; I would make it my treat if he went into a huff. Never mind that he earned almost twice more than I did, I could still foot the bill for a fancy meal every now and then.
“And I will have the salmon capers and the scallop and lobster ravioli,” I announced gleefully. Tim’s eyebrows went into orbit, but he didn’t say anything.
“And would the gentleman require a different bottle of wine to go with the main courses?” the waiter enquired diffidently.
“Er…” Tim hastily inspected the bottle of house white that I had been quaffing. “I think we’ll stick with this for now, thanks.”
“Very well, sir.”
Phew. Orders accomplished, I leant forward eagerly—let romance commence! Only it transpired that Tim wasn’t quite ready. He was still upset about the mix-up. He couldn’t work out whether it was his mistake or mine, and that bothered him a great deal. Despite my best efforts and high expectations, the atmosphere was strained, even after our starters arrived. Tim had gone into one of his broody moods, and I needed to jolly him out of it. Perhaps it was time for the pressie?
I placed my little wrapped box on the table. “Got ya something!” I said coyly, heart hammering away in my chest. Tim was difficult with presents. He had everything—and if he didn’t have something, he tended to buy it.
Tim looked at me, surprised. “A present? What for?”
Could he be serious? Only one way to find out. “Well, open the card!” He duly did, and his eyes went round and wide. He hadn’t forgotten, had he? He couldn’t have!
“Oh Sophie…it’s our second anniversary! Gosh, I’m really sorry!”
Sorry? About what? About it being our anniversary? About having forgotten that it was our anniversary? I looked at him with anticipation. He couldn’t have forgotten. He never forgot things. He was probably building up to something.
“Sophie, love, I clean forgot, what with all the stuff going on at work right now…is it really the thirtieth of July today?”
He had. Forgotten. He had actually forgotten it was our anniversary. I was stunned. And a little hurt, although of course I couldn’t really show it. Or could I? No, I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it.
“It is the thirtieth today, actually, but it doesn’t matter,” I ventured, gulping down what seemed to be massive amounts of air that didn’t want to go into my lungs. “Go on, open it.” He might as well, now.
“You sure?”
Of course I was sure, but I didn’t trust my voice so I just nodded encouragement. Tim carefully peeled the bits of sticky tape off the paper, and then slowly unwrapped the box, meticulously folding the paper all the while. He found the box. He rattled it. He turned it. And turned it again. And finally opened it.
“It’s a watch,” he stated in amazement.
“I thought you might like a new wrist watch. You know, you like being on time and all that.”
Ouch! Totally the wrong thing to say after tonight’s fiasco, but it had just slipped out.
He took the watch out of its box. It was a chunky affair with big silvery links and a nice, bloke-ish round face. It would look great on his wrists, which was why I had picked it. I had a thing for guys’ wrists. I loved how that little bone sort of stuck out on one side and all the little hairs extended over the delicate skin. Tim never showed his wrists off properly, and I had thought this watch might do the trick. I guessed that that made it a half-selfish present, but even that didn’t quite justify his reaction.
“It’s…well, it’s a good idea,” he conceded. “Only…”
“Only what?” I couldn’t keep a slight note of hysteria out of my voice.
“Well, it’s… it’s kind of last year’s,” he whispered, and I could see the “last year’s” floating over the table in big capital letters.
At that moment, our main course arrived. I gave the waiter a watery smile and then bowed my burning face deeply over my steaming plate of ravioli. As little tears plopped out of my eyes and added salt to the sauce, I could barely see my food. My ears stung with shame. Last Year’s—I got it wrong again.
I lifted my fork to my mouth in a mechanical motion, one time and again. Occasionally I groped for my glass of wine. I didn’t have a clue where to go from here. The evening was a complete disaster. He had forgotten our anniversary—worse still, admitted to having forgotten our anniversary. Honestly, couldn’t he have made something up? Like he had some surprise planned for us? Or something? Anything? And now, this. I felt humiliated and hurt.
“Oh, Soph, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.” Tim’s voice was all honey and sugar, but the regret was sincere. “Look here.” He reached across and lifted my chin up with one gentle index finger. “I’m sorry. Please don’t cry.”
And then he did the unthinkable. He got up from his chair, walked around the table, and gave me a big, big hug. “I’m really, really sorry. Look, I’ve completely messed up. I’m a complete idiot.” He hugged me again. He usually avoided public displays of affection, but he hugged me again. Unfortunately, that simply reduced me to more tears, noisy ones this time. “Oh Soph, don’t cry! I’ll make it up to you, I swear. I promise. Don’t cry, please don’t cry!”
The more he insisted, the more hysterical I got. “Right,” he said. “I obviously need more penitence. Right.” He stepped back and cleared his throat. I was still staring at my plate, transfixed. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him grab a knife and whack it sharply against his glass, which broke at the force of impact.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Tim roared. He stood up straight and he…he seemed to be addressing the whole restaurant. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he repeated, “may I have your attention please.”
Silence fell across the room.
Tim cleared his throat again. “Right. This is somewhat awkward, but my name is Tim Renfrew. This here is my beautiful partner, Sophie.” He paused, giving everyone a chance to look at my tear-stained face.
“As you can see, Sophie is rather upset. This is because I have been an utter and complete pillock tonight. Not only did I get here almost an hour late, I also forgot that it’s our second anniversary today. And then I had the ill-grace to criticize the lovely, lovely present she gave me.” At this, he held up the watch for everyone to see. “When, in fact, I don’t even have a present for her.” The assembled diners let out a collective gasp. My hysteria was about to tip from one extreme to the other. What was he doing?
“And for this, ladies and gentlemen, I want you all to bear witness as I apologize to my beautiful Sophie.” He turned round to me.
“Soph,” he said in a somewhat softer voice. “I really am very sorry. Please accept my apologies. Will you let me make it up to you? Will you forgive me?”
I couldn’t find
my voice fast enough, so he went on. “For if you don’t—forgive me that is—I will have to continue to make a complete idiot of myself in front of all these people. But…” He cast around furiously for an idea. “But! If you do forgive me, I’ll take you to Paris next week for a make-up, romantic mini-break for two.”
Bloody hell! My head jerked up as though it was pulled on a chain. Did he say mini-break? Did he say romantic? Did he say Paris? Where did all of that come from?
“I’m serious,” he shouted. A cheer rose from the restaurant, and the diners clapped. “You go, mate,” someone heckled from the back, and everyone laughed, me included. “Go on love, you gotta forgive him,” the lady at the table next to ours shouted. Well, what could I do?
“All right. I accept,” I said in the grandest voice I could muster, and Tim swept me off my chair to give me another big hug. This bode well for our wedding day, if we ever got there. “Thank you,” he whispered in my ear. “I really will make it up to you. I’m inviting you for the trip of a lifetime.”
I giggled, and then shuddered. The trip of a lifetime. How I wished he hadn’t said that. I had already had the trip of my lifetime. Not something that I had told Tim about. And I doubted that Tim, bless him, would be able to outdo that experience. I picked up the dessert menu to hide my flaming face as the earlier flashback to my fateful Edinburgh trip made another impromptu appearance:
I surreptitiously picked up a paper from the newsstand in the station to examine that night’s concert listings. Tuscq…Tuscq…come on, where are you playing tonight? I couldn’t find the right event, and the letters danced in front of my eyes as I flicked through the pages with ever-increasing speed. I couldn’t have gotten the date wrong. I couldn’t. All right, so I had been quite tired when they said they were playing Edinburgh in two weeks’ time and how did I fancy joining them for the grand finale of their tour…but I was good with dates and details, and I had double-checked. Twice. How uncool was that?
“Sophie, you really are an idiot,” I admonished myself.
“Can I help you?” the shopkeeper enquired. I looked up in dismay. Had I spoken aloud to myself?
“Erm…do you know if a band called Tuscq is playing here somewhere tonight?”
“Tuscq? Why, of course. It’s the talk of the town. All the kids are going.” Kids? I flinched at that description. Not many kids at the Tuscq gigs I had been to before. I hoped he had used the term loosely.
“Ah, good.” I breathed a little sigh of relief. At least I had got the date right. “And where would that be, do you know?”
“No idea. But," he pointed a finger, “The magazines might tell us.” He picked up a copy of Kerrang! that I hadn’t spotted before and skimmed through to the rock listings.
“Ah, here we go. The Hall.” He beamed at me delightedly. “Starting at eight.”
Eight o’clock. That was good news; I had more time than I thought. “And how do I get there? Is it far from here?”
“Not at all. It will take only five minutes or so to walk.”
I examined my reflection in a shop window as I strolled down Princes Street. I didn’t look like a wild-child haring after a rock band on a whim and without any real notion of what she was doing. In fact, I didn’t even really look like someone who would be off to a rock concert. Okay, so I had the permed blonde mane that was obligatory for hard-rockers and fans alike, and I was wearing authentic cowboy boots. But my trousers were jeans rather than leather, and the denim was embarrassingly clean and untorn. My winter coat was dark blue, and the jumper I wore underneath was baby blue. I had picked it because it brought out my sparkling blue eyes, but it really was the most unsuitable item of clothing for this event in my entire wardrobe.
Ah well, too late to change that now. Besides, I wasn’t really after sex. Granted, I had traveled all this way to see the band, but I wasn’t really a groupie, was I? What I wanted was just a slice of the action, the thrill of being there with them, being backstage and playing at fulfilling my fantasies. Everything else would take care of itself.
I walked on, half lost in thoughts, until the street opened out into a big square. I faced an enormous round building slightly reminiscent of London’s Royal Albert Hall, except it was a little more austere. And there was an enormous crowd outside already, even though the concert wasn’t due to start for another two hours.
But far from being kids, these were grown people. Hard-core rockers and their girlfriends, done up in leather gear and chains and long hair. Smoking and swilling lager. They thronged and swirled together like an ant heap, and they all seemed to know each other. There was a lot of shouting and laughing. And then there was me, little me, in my baby-blue jumper. I swallowed hard.
Chapter Three
Tim didn’t bat an eyelid when the bill eventually came, despite my extravagant prawn starter and the bottle of champagne. By then, we were well loved-up, and it was as though the events of the evening had cleared some kind of tension that had been accumulating for weeks.
We decided to go on to Tim’s, and Tim hailed a cab. It was still stiflingly hot, and I was glad not to have to go on the Tube again. We snuggled into each other’s arms in the backseat, and I could see the cabbie smiling at us in the rear-view mirror.
“What do you want to do when we get home?” Tim asked, nibbling gently at my ear. He hadn’t done that for a long, long time. I sighed contentedly.
“Oh, I don’t know. Open the windows, light a few candles, and have a glass of wine, perhaps?” I tried to salvage some of my customary Friday night relaxation regime.
“Sounds like a plan. I have a nice Chardonnay in the fridge,” Tim consented immediately.
Dusk fell as we sat in the lounge, windows wide open, lights off, and candles burning. It finally started to cool down a little. I vaguely felt that we ought to have been getting a little more intimate than cuddles and kisses. But then again, we were both feeling drowsy from the food and the wine. So we simply sat flicking lazily through thirty channels of Friday night cable television, wrapped in a happy little cocoon of post-argument afterglow even without the make-up sex. My mind drifted again and my subconscious pulled me back to myself in Edinburgh all those years ago:
In Edinburgh I was, but I didn’t have a ticket. Okay, so I didn’t want a ticket—I wanted to go backstage. But as it was, a ticket would have been helpful to get in, at least. And, of course, the concert had been sold out for weeks. That had been the reason Darren had said I should really, really see this show: “It’s gonna be the best one on this tour.”
I loitered under a lamp post for a little while. The crowd gathered around the main entrance facing Festival Square. The backstage entrance had to be quite literally round the back somewhere. I walked up and down a few times, trying to get my bearings. I turned right and eventually came to an alleyway that led behind the hall, secured by a gate.
My heart thumped wildly in my chest. Could this be it? Gently, gently, I sidled up to the gate, feeling like some kind of undercover agent, or perhaps a thief. There I was, touching the railings. Locked. Of course, they’d be locked. But…I was amazed to find a door-sized pedestrian entry that had been set into the gates. I grabbed the handle and turned it. Unlocked! I held my breath as the door swung open on well-oiled hinges.
I stepped through and closed the door-gate behind me. I was in!
We must have fallen asleep because I certainly had no clue where I was or what had happened. I was still reeling from the remembered excitement of having found that backstage door when Tim suddenly sat up straight next to me—still on the sofa—and whispered excitedly, “Do you hear that?”
The candles had long expired and the room was pitch dark, with the curtains blowing eerily in a breeze.
“Do I hear what?” I murmured drowsily, barely able to shake off the much-needed sleep that had claimed me.
“It’s raining!” Tim declared excitedly.
I strained to listen and, indeed, there was a patter of thick, summery rain drops on the
cobblestones outside. Quite a deluge, in fact.
“So it is,” I confirmed.
“That’s great news!” Tim announced and got up with alacrity.
“It is?” I wasn’t quite sure I followed what was happening here. Normally, I would have welcomed the rain, particularly after such a hot day. But as far as I could gather, it was still quite hot and the rain seemed to be making the humidity worse.
“It sure is.” Tim had by now disappeared in the kitchen and seemed to be rummaging in a cupboard. “I can finally get those slugs,” his muffled voice explained.
“Slugs,” I repeated, completely baffled.
“Yeah! I’ve been waiting for an occasion like this for ages.”
“Slugs,” I repeated again, comprehension dawning on me. He had been going on for a while about the slugs that were forever ruining his precious container-grown lettuces.
“You want to go out in the garden? Now? To kill the slugs?”
“That’s right,” he shouted. “Finally.” Tim reappeared in the lounge, brandishing a giant bag of NO-SLUG pellets.
“Do you know what time it is?” I asked incredulously.
“No idea, and don’t care.” He grinned wickedly and exclaimed, in a mock-exterminator voice, “Prrre-parrre to die, slugs.”
I squinted at the DVD player under the telly, trying to focus on the green blinking digits of its clock. “It’s half past midnight,” I issued.
“So? I’ll be back in a tick. You snuggle yourself up in bed.” And with that, he exited, excited as a little boy on Christmas Eve.
I did as told. I snuggled up gratefully in bed. Tim’s bed was perhaps the thing I liked most in his house. Tim was a man full of contradictions. Despite earning somewhere in excess of eighty grand, he was really miserly on some things, like dinners and cabs. But then he splurged on other things—things he called “the little, essential luxuries in life that normal people don’t pay enough attention to.” Bedding was a case in point. Tim’s bedding hailed from the most expensive stores in town and was pure Egyptian cotton. He had it professionally cleaned and pressed every week, and so his bed always had a fresh, crisp, snuggly quality to it. Perfect bedtime bliss. With the whole bed to myself, I was asleep again before my head properly hit the pillow.
