How We Met (39 page)

And then he took her by the hand and took her to his table.

He pointed at the Scrabble board.

M.O.U.S.S.A.K.A,
it said, right across the centre.

‘Technically, eight of course, but the “M” was already there.’

Mia slapped a hand to her mouth. ‘Ah, the mini moussaka,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘Happy days,’ and then she raised an eyebrow at Fraser.

‘You’ve never forgotten, have you?’ he said.

‘Never forgotten? Never forgiven, more like.’

‘Forty-two points, too. Triple word score. Forget Eureka, darlin’, said Fraser. ‘This was my Moussaka Moment. I’ve coined a new phrase!’

Despite her protests, Mia was cajoled into a game of Scrabble. She was terrified as on her table, as well as Fraser and Mrs Durham, were Olwen (‘Holder of the highest-scoring word 1983 and 1984, Glamorgan Scrabble Championships,’ she informed her; and
‘Jukebox on a treble word score, then bettered it by one point with Squeezy the following year’), and Reg, whose Scrabble board it was.

‘It’s revolving,’ he said, showing Mia how it did, indeed, revolve. ‘Deluxe,’ he added, savouring the word in his mouth. ‘Just like my wife, Joyce. Died four years ago last March, in my arms.’ His eyes filled with tears. ‘She was a veteran of this club; we used to come together every week. She may have just been Joyce to the rest of them, but to me, she was perfect in every way.’

Mia found herself holding Reg’s hand.

The music was turned down for maximum concentration. Mia looked over at Fraser and narrowed her eyes, jokingly, as they all pulled their seven tiles each from the bag. Then they pulled out the ‘decider’,
the tile to decide who goes first. Since Mia got a ‘C’, the
closest letter to an ‘A’, it was her.

She didn’t do too badly with
GEEKS
, then Reg played a corker with
KIKOI
(using the ‘K’ of
GEEKS
and a blank tile – genius), which Mia had never heard of, but which was apparently some sort of African cloth – one of those sacred words only hardcore Scrabblers knew. Fraser got twenty-two points for
ZITS
– there was a sharp intake of breath and some leafing through the
Official Players’ Dictionary
. Mia couldn’t believe how seriously everyone was taking it. This was word war.

The break brought mince pies, more sherry and, because it was Christmas, some dancing. ‘Wouldn’t be Christmas without dancing,’ said Olwen.

Mrs Harp turned off Fraser’s iPod, pulled out an ancient-looking 1980s ghetto blaster, took forever to rewind a tape, then led whoever was capable in a round of line dancing, them all dozy-doeing and side-stepping into each other, until they all collapsed with laughter on the various sofas and poufs.

Then it was Fraser’s turn: encouraged by the audience (Mia suspected that the old ladies had taken quite a shine to Fraser and he was
lapping
it up) and an old ballroom-dancing tape that Mrs Harp rooted out, Fraser handed his glass of Bristol Cream sherry to Mrs Durham, took Mia by the hand and, despite her cries of, ‘No! I’ll fall over my own feet!’, took her into the middle of the dance floor – well, a six-by-six-foot rug
– and led her around it, masterfully, a salsa-dancing pro.

Mia couldn’t believe it.

‘Bloody hell, when the hell did you learn to do that?’ she said, still reeling, the music still playing, as he kissed her gently on the cheek and took another partner to the floor.

‘Salsa lessons, baby,’ he said, licking his finger and holding it up to the air. Calvin taught me all I know.’

Mia could only stand and stare, she was so amazed. And this was the same man who, at Melody and Norm’s wedding, cleared the floor of all self-conscious teenagers, none of whom wanted to be associated with his
break-
dancing
?

Mia stood at the edge of the room and clapped as cardigans came off, glasses were removed, and Fraser took one dance partner after another, the ladies shrieking with delight.

‘So what’s a lovely young lady like you doing without her husband with her?’ one lady called over to Mia from the sidelines. ‘And no children to look after? When I was your age, I had three children, one attached to each nipple!’ she said, and they all roared with laughter.

‘We’ve a few good years in us yet,’ she heard Mrs Durham saying to Olwen. ‘We can still make like Ginger Rogers when we want. Try and stop us,’ and she threw her arms in the air to prove her point.

Mia looked around her. If anyone had ever told her that on her twenty-ninth birthday, she’d be dancing the salsa in some OAP’s front room in a pair of elf slippers, and not only that but having the time of her life, she’d never have believed them. But you can’t choose the good times, she thought. The trick is just to take them when they come. She only had to look at Mrs Durham to realize that. Only weeks ago, she’d been miserable, ready for the grave, but given half the chance to be happy, she’d taken it by the horns.

Maybe she should do the same?

They went back to finish the game. Reg played first, then Olwen, then Fraser with
REJOIN
, which was total, jammy genius and got him twenty-four points. Then it was Mia’s turn –
she had some shocking letters, all ‘N’s and ‘R’s, which she had no idea what to do with.

But one word stood out for her. It wasn’t a big earner but it was perfect.

She looked at Fraser over her tiles.

‘I think I’m just about to have my Moussaka Moment,’ she said. Then very slowly, one by one, she laid out three letters under the ‘O’ of Fraser’s
REJOIN
.

O.V.E.R
. it said.

Fraser’s eyes grew wide.

‘Is that a definite?’ he said.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’m definitely going with that.’

Eventually, at past midnight, the last stragglers of the party left and it was just Mia, Mrs Durham and Fraser waiting for the cab to arrive. Mrs Durham was still chatting to Jean, inside. Something about Eunice Perkins – ‘She had a Scrabble board with
pink
tiles? Well I never …’

Fraser and Mia stood in the porch, shivering, next to one another. In front of them, the snow continued to fall in thick, silent flakes onto Mrs Harp’s lawn.

Fraser spoke first.

‘I had a really brilliant night tonight.’

‘Me too,’ said Mia. ‘Rescued my birthday! Thanks for letting me crash your first Scrabblers’ party.’

‘The pleasure’s all mine,’ said Fraser. ‘Those Scrabblers are wild.’

‘Lethal,’ said Mia. ‘Jean Harp must have had five large brandys.’

Fraser smirked, there was a long pause, just the hum of the night air and, somewhere on the street, the banging of a car door, giggly goodbyes
. Revellers making their way home after a friend’s festive knees up. Mia was aware it was Christmas next week: Fraser would be going to Bury, she would be staying here; then it would be New Year, January; there were no more fixed plans.

‘So when will I see you next?’ she said, nudging him casually. ‘Are you coming up for New Year’s Eve? I may get a pass out. You never know your luck.’

He looked at her, thinking how lovely she looked when she was cold: bright-eyed, flushed-cheeked.

‘I’m not sure,’ he said, and he hesitated … ‘But I’ve got my hot date with Emilia on the third, so mustn’t forget that.’

Mia felt her stomach dissolve. ‘No, that’s for the List,’ she said. ‘Mustn’t forget that.’

Then she looked the other way down the street, pretending to look for the taxi, so he couldn’t see her eyes fill with tears.

1. Sleep with an exotic foreigner – (in an ideal world, Javier Bardem). Night of heady, all-consuming passion: getting lost, snogging amongst lemon groves and being drunk on something thick and hugely alcoholic that I can’t pronounce. (*Do this without becoming completely neurotic about what it’s supposed to ‘mean’.)

Wearing just a towel, Fraser paced Melody’s palatial spare room reading Number One on Liv’s List over and over again.

He should concentrate on the last bit, he told himself. ‘Do this without becoming completely neurotic about what it’s supposed to mean.’

And it didn’t mean anything, did it? It was just a drink with an attractive girl. And Emilia was attractive.
Stupidly
attractive. He’d seen that when he met her first time around, playing rounders in what were basically her knickers, and then again four days ago on New Year’s Eve when she’d cornered him in Mia’s kitchen: ‘So, I hear you’re a free man now, Fraser? Does that mean I get a New Year’s Eve kiss?’ He’d backed against the sink as she’d pawed his chest, and said something about having a cold sore.

He shook his head at the memory and thought of the conversation he’d had with Norm that morning.

‘Right, so you’ve got a date with the hottest girl I’ve ever seen in my life, and you don’t even seem to want to go. You need help, dude. You need serious help.’

Although Fraser suspected he was coming to the end of it, Norm was still in Renaissance Man mode, and all opportunities for sex had to be grabbed with both hands, as it were.

Of course, Emilia didn’t know about the List, but then she didn’t need to, since she was the one who’d engineered the date (at least that wasn’t on his conscience, this wasn’t another salsa class scenario that came with guaranteed tears. He doubted Emilia was the crying sort. She’d probably never shed a tear in her life.)

OK, Mia didn’t exactly discourage her (come to think of it,
why
hadn’t she discouraged her?) But she certainly hadn’t been ‘set up’ – Emilia was well up for it, anyone could see that.

But all this had started back in August and circumstances had changed drastically since then. Fraser was actually single now, for a start, which made the whole situation significantly more complicated. After all, the attentions of an Amazonian superbabe were one thing. The actual potential for sex, for them eating you alive, was quite another. Also, Mia was now single, which had really thrown an unexpected spanner in the works. He couldn’t help feeling this was a betrayal – and he didn’t want and didn’t need to feel this was a betrayal. Also, who was he betraying? Mia? Himself? Liv? Fuck, he had absolutely no idea any more.

He picked up the shirt he was going to wear – an olive-green one from French Connection that Karen had bought him. Very nice, too – one of the few purchases she’d made that hadn’t been sent back. He laid it on the ironing board and wondered what Karen would say if she could see him now? He thought back to that night back in November, when she’d stood in her street and given him the sagest piece of advice she’d ever given him: ‘Don’t mess her about, OK? You did it to me, don’t do it to her … Sort yourself out first.’

And now look at him, about to go on a date with a twenty-three-year-old Brazilian, a virtual stranger. He doubted that was really what Karen had had in mind, when she’d told him to ‘sort himself out’.

But then this was a TASK and he couldn’t help it if it was him who pulled
Sleep with an exotic foreigner
out of the hat, could he? The Rules were the Rules. They’d all gone round to Mia’s flat on New Year’s Eve (everyone but Norm that was, who had gone skiing with some ‘new mates’ from the
Metro
) and made a pact – ‘renewed their vows’, for want of a better phrase; clearly they were all pissed and emotional and missing Liv like crazy because it was New Year’s Eve – that they would carry on with the List, come hell or high water.

It was January now, only two months to what would have been Liv’s thirtieth birthday, and they owed it to her to at least try to finish what they’d started; even if, as far as Fraser was concerned, they weren’t really sure why they were doing it any more.

He picked up his wallet from the side and took out the photo of Liv. He smiled at it: Liv in her kinky little maid outfit winked back at him:

This is all your doing, you know. You and your secret sexual fantasies with Javier bloody whatsisface.

Bastard.

You kept that one quiet, didn’t you?

So now he was forced, entirely against his will, to have a night of snogging and full-on passion with an exotic foreigner. He put back the photo and sprayed himself liberally with aftershave, wondering – in the absence of lemon groves, in Lancaster, in January – what the equivalent might be: getting lost at the back of Brook’s Nightclub and snogging amongst empty glasses? He shuddered at the thought.

No, he must take this like a man, a true, red-blooded man. He turned up the radio while Katy Perry sang, ‘I kissed a girl and I liked it …’ And he would like it too. He would fucking well like it if it killed him. It wasn’t every day a man had an opportunity like this. He stood in front of Melody’s mirror, dropped his towel and considered his manly form. He wasn’t bad, naked. Good legs, could do with a bit more definition up top, but it was only 3 January, plenty of time for health resolutions yet, and there were no nasty surprises – no hairy back, pot belly, inverted nipples, that sort of thing. No, he was nothing ground-breaking, but he was a man at home in his own skin. As Katy Perry sang on, Fraser cracked open a beer and got a bit carried away. He flexed his biceps, turned at his waist, this way and that.

‘Oh, yeah, Gun show of the Gods,’ he said out loud. It was a jokey thing he and Norm used to say when they were kids, sixteen-year-olds about to hit Mad-chester.

Then he heard Melody shout, ‘Fraser, any danger?’ and nearly jumped out of his skin.

He heard her thumping up the stairs and picked up his towel, but not fast enough to avoid her flinging the door open mid-bend-down, which can’t have been pretty.

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake, Fraser!’

She slapped her hand across her eyes and slammed the door shut again.

‘Sorry. There’s no lock on the door.’

‘Well, that’s because I don’t really expect you to be parading around, butt-naked, or to walk in on you with your arse in the air!’