by Kitty Wilson
More importantly I am not his type. I can barely drag a brush through my hair most days and by no stretch of the imagination can I be considered well groomed. I’m not grubby or anything, obviously I shower every day – right now I smell like daisies, that’s how good I’ve got with early mornings – I just really can’t be arsed with that whole manicure, pedicure, regular hair appointments and matching underwear shite. Not really. I’d rather be comfortable and spend my spare time reading. One only has to look at my mother to see being impeccably groomed does not automatically bring happiness. And Rory, as Jessica was testament to, is a man fond of immaculate grooming. He himself is faultless.
Plus there’s the Australia thing, that would mean leaving Marsha behind, twenty-three hours on a plane away rather than fifteen minutes in a car. Nah. Not in a million years could anyone take me away from that girl. She is the vessel into which I pour all my love. I sometimes wonder if I overstep but Luisa doesn’t seem to object. It’s just that I know Luisa and Remi – as adoring as they are – are busy, successful, a little bit like Rory. And as the daughter of a busy and successful man I know what it’s like to be overlooked and I am never, never going to allow that to happen to Marsha. I am staying by her side until she is an adult and only backing off when she needs me to.
I realise I am getting carried away and remind myself of the pertinent facts of the case: it’s not about whether I could cope with his lifestyle and the expectations that it would bring. A move to Australia, hah! Getting ahead of myself much? Rory will never ever fancy me, and neither should he. He has seen me at my absolute worst. He has seen me vomiting in the corner at parties, he has reminded me of my lack of practical use in emergency situations, like the day of the flat tyre, he has seen where I come from, the chaos and dysfunction that make up my genes. There is no way in this world someone as responsible, as aware of reputation as Rory is could ever, would ever consider me romantically. And I do not need that hammered home any further than it is by looking at him doe-eyed until he gets embarrassed and imposes distance. I am so much better off staying pressure-free and single. I am so much better off not devoting any energy to even thinking about this. I am so much better off not embarrassing the new friend I have made with this nonsense. And selfishly, selfishly I am far better off protecting myself from the inevitable rejection.
All this is running through my mind as I’m strapping Marsha into her car seat and as if she is some freaky mini mind-reader and saboteur she asks, ‘Is Rory coming?’
‘No, I don’t think so. Just you and I.’
‘Why not?’ she persists. And I admit it does feel weird going to do something Christmassy without him. It’s funny how quickly you can get used to something new. It won’t hurt to ask, I suppose. I’m hardly going to try and sleep with him this afternoon. I can rein in any leftover lust from yesterday and I would love to see him doing what we are about to do. I pull my phone out of my pocket as I slide into the driver’s seat. Half of me doesn’t expect him to answer, so I nearly drop the phone when he does. His voice is a little bit sleepy, and sexy with it. Damn. I can hardly hang up now.
‘Hey. Sorry to ring so early but Marsha and I are off to do something fun. We’ve got the best day planned. It’s not often we get this opportunity and … um … she … I … wondered if you’d want to join us. But it’s early, and I imagine you’ve probably got plans so…’
‘Okay. That sounds cool. Shall I come meet you?’ sexy sleepy voice murmurs.
Oh shit. Okay, this is fine. It will be good. Good training not to act on lustful instinct. To be new, not-sexually-available Belle. I need to learn to manage crushes when someone is nice to me. It may happen again one day. This will be good for me. I can embed trying not to fancy him. Form new neural pathways and reinforce them with steel.
‘No, no. We’re in the car and we’re going on a magical mystery tour. Our destination is not that far from you so we’ll whisk by. Probably be with you in about half an hour.’
‘Perfect.’
‘Okay … um … wrap up warm. And wear old clothes!’ I say, though I bet he doesn’t have any old clothes. This can serve as a good reminder of why we would not be well-suited.
‘On it! See you in a bit.’
Okay then. He’s coming. Marsha cheers and I make a firm resolution to avoid any scenario that could prompt further daydreams.
We speed through the back lanes to Bath. My body is so used to early mornings now it isn’t fazed by the fact that it isn’t even eight. I feel well rested and alert.
We pull up outside his house, a beautiful Georgian townhouse in the middle of Bath, and I send a message to say we’re here. I want to get moving before the roads get busy, the snow melts, or loads of people have the same idea as me and ruin the crisp virginity of the snow.
Rory comes out of his house looking dozy but gives me a heavy-lidded half smile that does weird things to my tummy. Balls. This man is so gorgeous and he is my friend. Seeing him in the flesh puts paid to all my ‘I can’t have a crush’ nonsense. He is super cute first thing in the morning.
‘Hey. Morning.’ He slides into the car and smiles a hello. Marsha waves frantically at him and then pops her headphones back on to listen to her audiobook.
‘I can’t believe there’s even more Christmas stuff to do.’ He rolls his eyes and faux groans.
‘This is the best, promise. Although those clothes don’t look particularly old.’ I give him a stern glare whilst feeling a little smug inside.
‘The oldest I’ve got with me.’
‘Hmm, I’ve got a hoodie that’s probably big enough in the boot and some trackies you can borrow too.’
‘You want me to borrow your clothes?’
‘When you say it like that it sounds weird. I didn’t mean it like that!’
‘Oh, you want to lend them to me but for me not wear them, just carry them around. Hmm, little bit kinky for dawn on a Sunday morning. I may have to tell Temperance.’ Rory had met Temperance in the mini-mart yesterday and the two had bonded ridiculously quickly.
‘You’re an idiot. You know what I meant.’
‘Uhhuh, I’m saying what you meant. You want me in your trackies…’ He giggles and then looks mortified. ‘You know I’m just joking, right?’ He uses both hands, flat out and down, to try and reinforce his message. He looks a bit panicked. Which I’m not sure is flattering.
‘Woah, woah. We’re good. I’ve known you, what, ten years? I think it’s safe to say I wouldn’t be comfortable inviting you to spend time with me and Marsha if you were some kind of predatory sex pest slathering to get in my trousers.’
Rory nods in a relieved fashion and then makes some freaky kind of laugh/groan/monster noise and pretends to dribble whilst rolling his eyes into the back of his head.
‘Ha, ha, you look like the men I date when you do that.’
Rory laughs and then looks at me as I drive. ‘Yeah but you’ve grown out of them now, right?’ he says.
‘Oh yeah, yeah, of course,’ I reassure him. And then that whole not being able to lie thing kicks in and I can’t not say it. ‘Well, kinda. I’m trying, let’s go with that. I am not going to date Lost Boys anymore.’ He quirks an eyebrow. ‘I want to keep my mind solely on getting the Shakespeare project off the ground, concentrate all my energies into that. I can’t think of anything I want less in my life than some man trying to get in my pants, lessen my focus. I really have got enough going on at the moment as it is. Seriously, naked Idris Elba could turn up and declare undying love on my doorstep right now and I’d tell him to put some clothes on and leave me alone. I am off men for good, for good! Especially after my last boyfriend and that whole internet palaver…’ I trail off and wince, shooting a quick look in the rear-view mirror to check that Marsha is still plugged in.
He stares at me. Shit. If I weren’t driving I’d close my eyes. Instead, I fix my eyes firmly on the road ahead. If only I had one of those Men In Black zapper thingys. That would come in handy right now. I count to
twenty and risk glancing across at him. He’s still staring at me, a definite twitching at the corners of his mouth. He grins.
‘So, the internet palaver?’
Argh! Eyes on the road.
‘Please don’t make me tell you.’
‘Okay.’ And that is that. Luisa would have pushed for detail. My family would have launched into a litany of you-can’t-be-trusted. Rory just starts to chat about one of his clients, a Formula 1 driver, comparing him to me.
‘How, how are you still alive?’
‘No wonder walking on the edge of the Suspension Bridge held no fear for you.’
‘Have you ever considered a career as a rally driver?’
These are just some of the comments he makes as we swing around corners and down lanes. ‘Outrageous hyperbole, Walters. I did an advanced driving course the minute Marsha was born, to reassure myself I was competent enough to put that bundle of screwy-eyed, bawling treasure in the back of my car when I started godmother duties proper.’
‘And you passed?’
‘Aced it!’
Rory hmpfs and then grabs the dashboard as I come to a shrieking halt behind a van.
‘Jesus!’
‘Shhh! Marsha will tell Temperance on you.’
‘I believe you. I reckon she’d sell you out too, if she got a good enough deal.’
‘Yep, she would.’ As the van moves off I have a flash of guilt. Rory’s girlfriend died, died in a car accident and here I am driving super-fast, although as I believe I may have mentioned, competently. How selfish am I? How could I forget such a huge thing and drive at speed? I slow down and flash a quick glance at him. I really am a complete arsehole. He seems pretty oblivious, and his mild teasing appears to be exactly that, rather than some kind of PTSD call for help. But still, how could I be so thoughtless?
‘Just a minute, are we going to your parents’ house? Voluntarily?’ Rory asks, recognition clear on his face as he clocks the village we’re turning towards.
‘Not exactly, no.’ I check the mirror to make sure Marsha can’t hear, and sure enough she’s still lost in her story. I have never wanted her to meet the duo of toxic negativity that are Nick and Cyndi and today is no different. ‘But we are stopping, just here.’ I pull up outside a rundown, roofless stone hut. ‘Wait a minute.’
‘What the?’
‘Where’s Belle going?’ I hear Marsha ask through the open car door. It’s important I’m quick here, that I’m not spotted.
‘I have no idea,’ Rory says, ‘but let’s trust her and if she’s not back in one minute we’ll go find out.’
‘Stop it, you two worrywarts,’ I shout from inside the building. ‘I’ll be back before you can count to sixty.’ I tug at the metal that I want, stashed behind some tumble-down rocks. Ivy has grown across and is proving a forceful deterrent. I haven’t been here since last winter; I should have realised that it might not be as simple as I had hoped.
‘Make that one hundred and twenty.’ I grapple with the ivy and hear movement from the car. No one knows my hiding place, and although it isn’t as if treasure is here or there’s any great secret, it is another bit of me that only I know about. I had brought Luisa here years ago but she was made to wait in the car, and Marsha last year for the first time, but she was smaller and napping whilst I fetched what is currently hidden under greenery.
‘Get back in the car,’ I say as I tug even more. Honestly, this stuff! The irony that I will be using ivy next week – actually that’s a point, I could put all this in the car for tomorrow – is not lost on me. Tomorrow it can be my friend, right now it’s a pain in the arse.
I almost have them. One more tug! I can do this. I’m like an athlete, I place one foot back, the other foot slightly forward, both firm on the ground. I brace myself, deep breath in. One, two and pull. I pull with all my might, the ivy comes haring off way easier than my earlier attempts indicated and I shoot back, off my feet and across the hut, hearing the intake of breath as I do so from two audience members.
I look up from where I sit, my fall luckily cushioned by the soft snow, as Rory reaches out a hand and pulls me up.
‘Are you okay?’
‘Yep, all good.’ I brush myself down as Rory and Marsha lend a hand. I bat them off. Marsha is walloping my arse harder than necessary and they feel like a little family of gorillas. They’ll be picking bugs off me next and eating them.
‘What were you doing?’ Marsha asks, her little face scrunched up.
‘Yeah, what’s worth bodily injury? Surely not ivy?’ Rory adds.
‘Oh, no, the ivy is the added advantage. Here…’ Triumphantly, I walk over to the uncovered pile of rocks. ‘Here, look. We are going to have the best day.’ Proudly I hold aloft the treasure I’d been searching for.
‘Oh, I know what we’re doing! I know what we’re doing. Look, Rory, they’ve got our names on!’ Marsha dances on the spot excitedly. Rory looks at us as if we were both bonkers as our treasure is revealed to be two slightly dented, tarnished but very well-loved tin trays.
‘When you rang this morning and said in your princess fairy voice – you know, the one that sounds like you have cured all the world’s ills and are about to sing me a lullaby…’
‘I didn’t realise I had that sort of voice.’
‘Normally you don’t, which is why this morning I was surprised to hear this gentle lilt tinkling in my ears. When that siren-like soothing voice whispered in my ear that it had the best day planned…’ Rory says as he grips the sides of his tin tray, glaring at me. ‘I didn’t realise you meant risking life and limb. I should have realised you meant risking life and limb, of course I should. Yesterday was just part of this plan, part of the plan to make me think Belle is all grown up now, likes to flit around stately homes, doesn’t engage with hare-brained schemes full of danger…’
‘This isn’t dangerous, Belle isn’t dangerous, she’s fun,’ Marsha objects. I tighten my grip around her waist and she in turn tightens her grip upon my arms.
‘She’s right.’ I nod knowingly.
‘There’s a tree bang in the middle of this field.’
‘Yes, and unless you’ve been lobotomised in the night there is no way you’re going to hit it from this angle.’
‘So you say.’
‘So I know. This will be fun. Look ahead, look how tempting that is.’ From our position at the top of the hill I wave my arms over the rolling fields below, the snow soft, undisturbed. Snow is dotted across the rural landscape, the spiny trees wearing little snow caps on each branch, a snow-covered farmhouse with smoke curling from the chimney.
He looks forward, looking ahead at the beauty of the scene before him, nods slowly as a smile I haven’t seen before plays at the corner of his mouth.
‘Race you!’
And he is gone.
We must have climbed this hill ten times, with Rory carrying Marsha up all ways – a fireman’s lift, Marsha slung under his arm as if she is a roll of carpet, a piggy back – all of which cause her to shriek with joy and declare this is the best day in the history of forever. I huff my way up the hill alongside them, tin trays in my hands and a breathlessness brought about by laughing so much in the cold air. We’ve made tracks through the snow, each of us taking turns to guess what the other person is meant to be: dog, snake, badger, horse.
Gradually other people start to appear on the brow of the hill, and crying with laughter and chilled to the bone, we head back to the car. I drop Rory back at his and he invites me over to spend the evening once I’ve dropped Marsha home. I want to say yes. Instead I find myself shaking my head as I say no, my fear of getting too infatuated stopping me from having the perfect end to a perfect day.
Thou sodden-witted lord! Thou hast in thy skull no more brain than I have in mine elbows.
* * *
December Fourteenth.
Rory.
‘It is absolutely ridiculous that a fully-grown intelligent man…’ Hmm, his words not mine. ‘…can’t liv
e his life as he pleases. And these ridiculous dictates of yours, I have no words. How am I supposed to repair my reputation by saying I’m an alcoholic? I’m beginning to doubt you have any clue about reputation management. My fans, of which there are many and most of them women, let me tell you, want to see me hav—’ Nick Wilde continues to screech down the phone at me.
I have spent the whole day troubleshooting. People say never work with children or animals but honestly, they have it easy. That was life before Love Island was invented.
‘And as to your suggestion that I cut back on my drinking, let alone need a residential detox, that is downright offensive. You name anyone of my age and level of success that doesn’t like a glass of wine with dinner. Had I known you were part of this ridiculous, clean-living, no-sugar, no fun, virtue-signalling woke brigade I would never have hired you…’ I hold the phone away from my ear. Today really couldn’t be more different from yesterday, which I spent with Belle and then my parents, worlds away from this level of crazy.
Although when Mum heard that I had spent the morning hurtling down a snow-covered hill she had clapped her hands like a performing seal and jumped around the kitchen as if I was about to gift her a bucket full of fish. When I foolishly confirmed I had been spending time with a female friend she practically cartwheeled over the kitchen table. I didn’t dare add I had invited Belle over for the evening as well, even if she did turn me down. I’m half dreading the possibility of Mum making up a banner out of an old sheet saying Please date my son and parking up outside Belle’s flat.
I feel really guilty for telling her about Belle; it had kind of just fallen out of my mouth before I had realised the ramifications of what I was saying. I need to talk to Mum, make her understand that I cannot just start dating, that it is important to honour Jess in my life and that flirting with every woman that happens to appear is the exact opposite. I’m going to have to schedule in some time to try and make her understand, but guilt – my very best friend these days – says it’s cruel to upset her, and it will upset her, whilst she is so poorly, and has bigger things in her life to worry about than her son’s deliberate celibacy. I switch my mind back to the call.
