Getting Over It (18 page)

Two hours later, I drop them off and heave a sigh as Nana’s purple coat disappears into the house. In my grandmother’s own words, the evening “wasn’t so bad, considering.” At one point I tempted fate by observing, “I see you’ve eaten all your fish and rice, Nana.” To which she replied tartly, “I don’t like to see food go to waste.” She then gave me a look which said “even if it is foreign muck,” but I appreciated the effort it took to stifle the words.

My father was mentioned once. My mother cried suddenly, “Wouldn’t it be nice if Morrie was here, too—then we’d be a family!” I didn’t like to say that if my father was here, too, we’d all be out the door and up to the Savoy Grill in a shot. Or, more likely, we wouldn’t be out together in the first place. So I said nothing.

Nana Flo said curtly, “Please God, he’s looking down on us”—a curiously sentimental comment. No one mentioned him again. I am so surprised at having enjoyed myself—even if it was in a masochistic way—that when I return to the flat, I slam the front door and wake up Marcus. I know this, because as I stand in the bathroom wiping off the layers of makeup, he bursts from his bedroom and storms pettishly down the hall to get a glass of water (I hear the furious whoosh of the tap). The perfect end to a not-so-bad night, considering.

Chapter 24

S
OME DAYS
I
THINK
I may as well be fifty. I’m constantly tired. I haven’t been to a club in about twenty years. And I’ve gone without sex for so long I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s closed up. I see Friday night as a chance to remedy two of these complaints.

The evening kicks off when Tina, Lizzy, and I pile out of the office and into the ladies’ room to tart up at 6:01
P.M.
“Strictly speaking,” I say to Lizzy, who feels guilty about quitting on time, “we did an extra thirty-one minutes, so I’d feel good if I were you.”

Tina regards me smugly. “The rabid ambition wore off, then,” she says.

I retort, “It’s not what you do, it’s what you’re seen to be doing. And when Laetitia left the office at 5:45, I was slaving over my desk.”

I smirk and dig my eyelash curlers out of my hodgepodge of a makeup bag—my eyelashes are unnaturally straight and if I don’t curl them I look bald. Lizzy opens a metal case that looks like it might contain a gun, retrieves a paintbrush from one of its compartments, and fluff-wuffs a waft of powder all over her face. Tina starts from scratch, carefully wiping off the day’s shine with cotton wool pads and cleanser.
A mere touch-up isn’t good enough
for our lord and master Adrian,
I think sourly. I know it’s mean of me, but she’s so precious about him.

“I’m looking forward to meeting Adrian,” I say, in an attempt to combat my own nastiness.

“Good,” says Tina. She adds lightly, “Do try not to say anything offensive.”

I widen my eyes as far as they’ll go and say, “Cheeky cow! How about you try not to say anything offensive to Tom. No weeing jokes, okay?”

Tina smiles, says “Deal!” and turns back to the mirror.

“You’ll like Tom,” I say, addressing Lizzy. “I’m sure you will.”

Lizzy beams into the mirror and says earnestly, “I can’t wait to meet him, he sounds lovely.”

I smile my gratitude, finish my patch-up job, and am instantly bored. “How’s the new flat?” I ask Lizzy, who has just bought an airy loft apartment in Limehouse.

“Oh!” she says, “Wonderful! The view of the Thames! I could look at it forever. It’s so beautiful.”

I was under the impression that the Thames was a stinky brown river, but I simper, “How lovely.” Maybe it looks picturesque from a distance. And anyway, what am I carping about? My bedroom overlooks the driveway and Marcus’s metallic blue RAV4. I wonder if there are any flats for sale in her block. “Aren’t you nervous about having a mortgage?” I say.

Lizzy tilts her head to one side and says, “Not really. Mum’s a financial advisor. She helped me plan for it.”

Of course she did. “And have you got much furniture?”

No, not yet. Lizzy wants to take it slowly. She’d rather build up a select number of “signature pieces” (whatever they are) than a hoard of clutter. Last weekend, she tells us, she saw a brilliant “line chaise” (again, search me) for £650 from the Conran Shop.

“Six hundred and fifty squids!” shouts Tina. “Are you mental?!”

Lizzy knows it’s a tad indulgent but it is “so sleek.” And it would look sensational against the maple wood flooring.

I tell her if she wants a line chaise she should go for it and skimp on other luxuries—a bed, for instance. “And what are the neighbors like?” I say. Lizzy pulls a funny face. Some of the neighbors are friendly, she tells us. She had a long chat with Number 28 only yesterday. Number 28 told her that Number 26 was “a dealer.” “Oh!” tinkled Lizzy. “An antiques dealer?” No, replied Number 28 kindly, “A drugs dealer.” By the time Tina and I have stopped sniggering, we’re at the pub.

Brian is the first man (if he qualifies) to arrive. He dutifully pecks Tina and I on the cheek and then turns to Lizzy. He gazes on her like an art lover looks at a rare painting and lifts her hand to his lips and kisses it. Lizzy giggles and tucks her hair behind her ear. I can’t help smiling, even though the gallant gentleman is wearing a patterned sweater and gray shoes. Tina also looks. She obviously regrets the “Brian’s an arse!” remark because she leaps up and asks him, “What can I get you?” But Brian insists on buying. He walks to the bar to purchase a still mineral water, a Becks, and an orange juice (“Tina, aren’t you feeling well?”).

I look at Lizzy and she seems to visibly swell with pride. “Aw!” says Tina—lighting her fifth cigarette in ten minutes—“Young love!” I shoot her a fierce glance—Brian’s knocking on eighty!—but neither she nor Lizzy notice the blunder. Brian returns from the bar and I am limbering up to despise him for being a teetotaler when I see he’s bought himself a pint. I glance at Lizzy for signs of disapproval, but there are none. She strokes his arm lovingly.

“You two!” says Tina. “Get a room!”

Brian laughs. To my surprise he has a deeply dirty boyish laugh. He settles down close to Lizzy and addresses the table in general: “So, how’s work?”

Happily, we are whisked from small talk hell by the arrival of the Messiah, aka Adrian. Tina jumps up to greet him so fast she spills her drink. “That’s a first,” I say snidely. She ignores me.

“Everyone,” she announces formally, as if she’s introducing him at an AA meeting, “this is my boyfriend, Adrian. He’s an architect.” Adrian smiles a shiny white smile and shakes everyone’s hand. Mine is suddenly sweaty so I wipe it on my trousers before my turn.

“Hello,” I say, thinking,
Wow. I take it all back. He is the Messiah.

Adrian is exceptionally easy on the eye. Exceptionally! He is wearing a tailored navy suit, crisp lilac shirt, and deep pink tie. His golden blonde hair is as curly as a cherub’s and you expect blue eyes, but his are brown with long girlish lashes. His smile is bright and wide against his light tan.

“Oh, Tina!” I say approvingly. “I believe the hype!” Adrian laughs and so does Tina. She then speeds off to fetch him a red wine.

Lizzy nuzzles closer to Brian and chirrups, “We’ve heard so much about you!”

Adrian smiles at her and says, “All good, I hope?”

Lizzy giggles and says, “Aha!”

Tina rushes back with Adrian’s red wine, which she places lovingly before him. Jesus, it’s like
The King and I.
“So,” jokes Adrian, slapping a hand on Tina’s Miu Mui-clad thigh and giving it a fond shake, “what have you been saying about me?”

Tina looks up, startled, and says, “Nothing! Why?”

Adrian replies teasingly, “Apparently, you’ve been telling your friends all manner of secrets—and I’d very much like to know what they are.”

He lifts his hand from her lap and starts gently massaging the back of her neck and she shivers with pleasure. I don’t wish to sound like Mother Superior, but it’s obscene. Flaunting themselves! Can’t they wait? I decide to cut short the public foreplay session. In a firm loud voice I say, “She’s told us you’re handsome, successful, witty, and all, but she’s been most disappointing and hasn’t revealed anything in the least bit private. So you’re safe!”

I expect Tina to be irked at my grinchlike behavior, but she beams at me. So does Adrian. He rewards Tina with a kiss and murmurs, “The truth will out!”

Cultured, too—it’s sickening. “All right,” I say, “enough of that!”

By the time Tom turns up—soon after 7:30 as promised—the conversation has turned to Lizzy’s bizarre biscuit habit. Lizzy doesn’t like to eat “empty calories” (even though I reasonably argue that you could justify eating “empty calories” by substituting them for “boring calories”—just replace your green salad with a chocolate Hobnob and large multivitamin). Oh, no, Lizzy would never do that. Although she does surrender to the occasional craving. In which case she goes to the remarkable trouble of “breaking a plain digestive into eight pieces and eating one piece per hour.”

We are agog. “What, on the hour?” asks Tina, fascinated.

We erupt into loud debate about our own biscuit habits. Tina is immune. If she has a weakness, it’s for smoky bacon crisps and (inexplicably) “they’re good for you.” I can devour fifteen biscuits in one fell swoop and still have room for pudding, although to be fair, it does depend on the individual biscuit. And no, I do not feel guilty. “I’d feel guilty if I killed someone,” I say sternly to Lizzy, who is gasping and shuddering like a landbound halibut and obviously needs the crime to be put in perspective.

Adrian laughs at this and says, “So we’re discussing biscuit eating as a moral issue!”

Brian—the earnest old goat—pipes up with, “You say that, but in fact there are many women, and indeed men, who would describe themselves as feeling ‘bad’ for eating a biscuit, even ‘terrible’—and wouldn’t you say, the use of such highly charged emotional language is enormously significant in terms of their self-judgment, and in consequence, their self-estee—”

No doubt he would have rambled on forever if Tom hadn’t picked this perfect, perfect moment to walk into the pub. I greet him joyously (apart from anything, he looks gorgeous) and Brian is forced to terminate his diatribe. Adrian, for one, looks relieved.

I introduce Tom to everyone—“And you remember Tina, but we’ll leave it there, shall we?”—he smiles, kisses, shakes hands, and insists on getting the next round.

“You know Tom already, I take it,” says Adrian to Tina, quickly, before Brian can resume his lecture.

“I only met him once,” says Tina nervously—aware that I am monitoring every word and am willing to douse her in beer if she even dares to hint at a urine joke. “We went out with Helen for a quick drink.”

Adrian is intrigued. He narrows his gorgeous eyes and says, “So why do we have to ‘leave it there?’ ”

I have no intention of allowing Tina to blurt out the hilarious tale of my alcohol-induced incontinence, so I interrupt: “Because I drank too much and got a bit tipsy.”

I stare at Tina in a way that I intend to appear benign to everyone else and threatening to her. It works. Instead of declaiming me as a drunken liar, she says meekly, “Helen was embarrassed. She doesn’t like to be reminded of it.” I beam at her.

Adrian suggests “then it can’t have been that quick a drink,” but Tina insists—as poker-faced as a guard at Buckingham Palace—“Helen’s like me, she doesn’t drink much, so her tolerance is low.” Frankly, I am surprised her nose doesn’t grow to Concorde size and smash through the pub window. I feel the rise of a giggle fit so I smirk gratefully at Tina and gabble that I’m going to the loo.

When I return, Tina and Adrian are deep in touchy-feely conversation, and Tom is chatting to Lizzy and Brian. My heart lurches in fear:
Please don’t let Lizzy be ranting on about yurt weekends and Jungian psychoanalysis. Please let Tom like her, and please let her like Tom.
(Brian is on his own.) Happily, they turn out to be discussing Cornwall. Brian was born in Morwenstow—right on the coast—and although he’s lived in London for twenty years, he misses the tranquility.

“Doesn’t tai chi compensate?” I say wickedly.

He smiles and replies, “A little. But above all, I find tai chi extremely useful if you suffer from pointy foot syndrome.” He bursts out laughing as that flap-mouthed ratbag Liz2y glides to the Ladies and I cough-splutter into my drink.

In a very small voice I say, “I am so, so sorry.”

Brian waves away my apology and says, “Forgiven, forgotten, just teasing.”

I know Tom is about to cry, “What?” so I say quickly, “Do you do, er, any sport Tom?” It’s a nerdy question, but it’s also an emergency.

“I run. And box,” he says obligingly. “Although I’m not that good.”

I exclaim, “Rubbish, I’m sure you’re brilliant!” mainly to sweep the conversation way and beyond the pointy foot episode.

“Oh?” says Tom, bestowing me with a sunshine smile. “And why are you so sure?” He is looking at me in a way that would melt chocolate.

I jiggle my foot to stop myself blushing. Then I return the look, playfully squeeze his upper arm, and purr, “You look quite hard—ooh, you are hard!” To be honest, I’m useless at playing the vamp. I’m invariably thwarted by loose paving stones, dogs on heat, and stubborn revolving doors. But tonight I am shameless. I bite my lip suggestively (I hope) and say under my breath, “Mm, very hard” and pray to God that Tom doesn’t burst out laughing at me. Tom puts his mouth to my ear and mutters casually, “Try me.”

My heart does a massive thump—it feels like there’s a rabbit’s foot lodged in my chest. I hold his ice blue gaze and my cheeks burn and I murmur, “Try and stop me.” By this point, Lizzy and Brian are tactful enough to be talking amongst themselves.

I move closer to Tom until our thighs are brushing and my heart hammers. It is lust, but not pure lust, there’s something else in there, too. I can’t work it out. We sit in the pub and flirt disgracefully till closing time, we go to a poky little club in Soho and shout above the music and touch hands, and still I can’t work it out. Tina and Adrian go home because they’re exhausted and Adrian’s working tomorrow, Lizzy announces she’s got to be up early to do her Christmas shopping (only three weeks to go!), and I still can’t work it out.

Tom and I roll into the street and hold hands and eat revolting kabobs and my heart is still racing and I still can’t work it out. And then I spit my kabob into a bin and he pulls me to him and we kiss and kiss and clutch at each other and the rabbit foot is thumping at ninety miles an hour and we kiss and kiss and we’re kissing and kissing and then I realize and I pull away for air. It’s fear. I don’t know why, and I don’t know if Tom knows, but he doesn’t say anything, he kisses me slowly and strokes my hair. Then he hails a taxi.

And then he hails another one for himself.