Leftovers (32 page)

When I climb into bed I feel a little tingle of excitement start to spread through me.

This could actually be something. This could actually be something good.

Status report:

• Chase new brief
  
• Write Happy Hour speech – URGENT
  
• Do more on the blog
  

I’ve chased Fletchers for this new brief but Ton of Fun Tom has been uncharacteristically quiet on the subject. Strange. I’d have thought there’d be at least some mumblings about the next hugely game-changing, mega-strategic project. But nothing, except an email from Tom saying, ‘Devron will be in touch.’

I’ve chased Devron. He’s made vague noises about ‘gestation periods’ and ‘work in progress’. But for now I have nothing to do but sit and wait.

I hate not being busy at work.

It so rarely happens that I actually forget I’m much happier when I have too much to do, rather than too little. Not only am I happier when I’m busy, I’m more productive. But now that the only urgent thing I need to get on with is to draft my Happy Hour speech for two weeks’ time, I find myself unable to write a word.

What am I going to say? The truth, the whole truth? Not even close to the truth, of course. No doubt I’ll end up sounding just as tedious as every other speaker that gets up there, wanking on about brands and consumers, when what I’d really like to be talking about is my top fifteen pasta shapes of all time. Oh, and I need to source some music too, for the opening. I’ll speak to Sam about that.

Still, not being busy means I can leave work on time, and in the evenings I’ve been researching other blogs, and working out a better layout for this pasta blog that disguises the fact that I’m not terribly good at taking photos. I’m really enjoying the whole thing.

And of course all this free time means I can’t help but think about Daniel.

We’ve spoken quite a few times on the phone this week. He rang me from the airport the other day to ask if I still like Toffifee.

‘They’ve got them on two for one in duty free.’

‘I don’t think I’ve eaten one for about twenty years, Daniel. Not since that time we OD’d on them up on your roof.’

‘Me neither. We’ve got a lot of making up for lost time, you and me. I’ll bring you a box next weekend. What am I talking about? I’ll bring you two.’

I feel like we’re becoming friends again, but with a flirty undercurrent. But not a Jeff mega-flirty undercurrent; something quieter yet more significant. The foundations of our relationship are already in the ground, immoveable. I know how Daniel thinks, I know what he cares about, I know that when he smiles a certain way it’s actually because he’s feeling sad.

And I know how he smiled at me when we said goodbye the other day at the tube station. I know what that smile means too.

Daniel and I: we knew each other pretty well back in the day. We may have grown up but neither of us has really changed. Though I guess along the way we’ve both learnt – the hard way – about love and disappointment.

Maybe the universe has a backlog of unanswered teenage prayers and it’s only just getting round to dealing with mine now: please let him come back to me, I’ll be good, I promise, I’ll even tidy my room, I swear.

The other day Daniel texted me a photo of these beautiful lavender fields down the road from his house in Kent. Fields of lush, bright purple-blue flowers as far as the eye could see. I thought they only had lavender fields like that in places like France; I didn’t realise it grew so happily just an hour from my door.

Daniel McKendall is starting to inch back into my world.

I’m getting used to hearing his voice every couple of days. Having someone ask me about my day, and tell me about theirs.

Having someone to share the tiniest things with.

It’s nice. It’s so nice. It really is.

It’s a gorgeous spring day and Daniel is sitting in my flat drinking a cup of tea. We were planning a walk up to Hampstead Heath but Daniel is transfixed by the view from my window.

‘It’s amazing,’ he says, staring out across the City. ‘That’s the London Eye!’

‘And then there’s the Post-Office Tower.’

‘Hold on, there on the left, is that Canary Wharf?’ he says.

‘See the skyscrapers? And then those ones a bit to the right are Liverpool Street … there’s the Gherkin,’ I say, pointing it out to him.

‘Ooh, look at the Shard! Have you been up it yet?’

‘No, have you?’

‘Me and Joe are planning on buying tickets. It’s supposed to be phenomenal.’

‘It’s so big, it’s insane. You can’t really see the scale properly from here, but if you see it from the roof it makes St Paul’s look like an Iced Gem.’

‘You’ve got a roof terrace?’

‘Yes. Well no. Sort of. It’s amazing up there, really, the best view ever – well, maybe not quite as good as the Shard, but you don’t need a ticket, and there are no queues …’

‘Let’s go up!’ he says, a glint in his eye.

I’d love to go up there and show him the view. It would make him happy. But I’m not meant to take anyone up there. Least of all a married man. Still, nothing untoward’s going to happen on a concrete roof in broad daylight.

‘Come on, let’s do it,’ I say. ‘We have to stay low so the Langdons don’t see us. But it’s perfectly safe.’ Well, it’s perfectly safe when I’m not up there with you.

Me and Daniel McKendall, up on the roof again, talking about clouds.

Just like old times. Lying on our backs, looking up at the blue, blue sky. Pretending nothing’s about to happen.

The only thing that’s different from twenty-three years ago is that now Daniel has a wife. And a son. And a wedding ring. Just those three little things. Things that mean I shouldn’t be up here with him, horizontal, our sides lightly pressed together from shoulder to foot.

‘You were the first girl I ever fancied who was also a mate,’ he says. ‘In fact I don’t think I’ve met another girl since who I can talk to about anything and everything and just feel so comfortable like this.’

‘Are you comfortable?’ I say, propping myself up on one elbow so that our heads aren’t so close together. ‘This concrete’s killing my back. We should have brought up some cushions.’

‘Take this.’ He sits, and as he reaches his arms over his head to pull off his cotton jumper his t-shirt rides up, showing three inches of reasonably flat, firm stomach. I resist an urge to lay my hand there. It has been more than a year since I’ve been this close to a body I desired – I don’t know what a normal response is any more.

He balls up his jumper in a makeshift pillow for me and I lie back down, feeling a sense of expectation tightening inside me. I’m starting to worry that something might actually happen.
Something might happen
… Funny how my brain makes it sound like this
something
is nothing whatsoever to do with me and entirely out of my control …

‘You know what I mean by comfortable, Suze. I mean comfortable mentally, not physically,’ he says. ‘Just being able to talk to you. It feels … like coming home.’

‘What about your wife? I say quickly. ‘Surely you talk to her all the time about everything?’

He turns on his side to look at me. Don’t turn on your side, I think. That’ll mean more of your body is in contact with more of my body.

‘Yeah,’ he says, his voice sounding suddenly defensive. ‘Of course we talk. Well. We talk about stuff. Like bills. And who’s going to pick who up from where …’

‘But that’s just having a kid, isn’t it?’ I say. ‘Lots of logistics. You’ve got to be a team. Being a parent forces you to grow up. You can’t just sit around chatting nonsense.’

‘Sure, no, I know that,’ he says. ‘But I mean I don’t ever remember doing that with Brooke. It wasn’t ever really like that.’ He turns again onto his back, and his palm reaches up to rub his forehead, as if he has a mild headache.

Like a photoflash I remember a story Polly once told me, about how Brooke had thrown a tantrum the night Daniel proposed. She’d berated him for asking her against the wrong backdrop – a local pub rather than a Michelin-starred restaurant or at Tiffany’s. She’d refused to speak to him for forty-eight hours. When Polly told me this story, she’d said, ‘He’s so dumb and loyal to that woman. He should have left her there and then.’ I guess the loyalty’s starting to slip …

For a moment I feel so sad for him I want to reach out and put my hand to his face. Then a thought stops me: he has all the things that you want – a spouse, a family to belong to, security. What on earth gives you the right to feel sorry for him? He probably feels sorry for you, you deluded cow.

‘Oh, you must have had a lot of fun at the beginning,’ I say. ‘Besides, talking nonsense is just the honeymoon phase of a relationship, isn’t it, before you actually get to know the real person.’ I don’t believe a word of what’s coming out of my mouth. Whoever I end up with, I want to be talking nonsense to them when they’re ninety.

‘You don’t mean that though, do you, Suze?’

I shrug.

‘Are you happy?’ I say.

He looks at me and smiles. ‘I love hanging out with you.’

‘No, I mean in your marriage.’

‘Oh. Pass.’

‘Why don’t you talk to your wife about the way you feel?’

‘She’s not that type.’

‘You should try.’

‘I’ve given up trying.’

‘Well, how
do
you feel?’ I say.

He pauses, as if it’s never occurred to him to really think about it before, as if feelings are an indulgence and not the point.

‘I suppose I’m upset … with the timing of it all. She moved back to New York when I’ve got so much on with work and Dad and Joe. If it had been in a couple of years then maybe I could be there full time, but it’s not the easiest commute in the world. And more than anything I miss seeing my son every day,’ he says. ‘And being a dad is the best thing that’s ever happened to me.’ He breaks into a smile.

‘Can’t you ask her to come back to England?’ I say.

‘She thinks the schools in New York are better, or at least the parents she wants to socialise with are …’

‘I guess I don’t understand where you go from here,’ I say.

‘I’m trying to work it out,’ he says.

‘How do you feel day to day?’

He blows out a long breath. ‘I feel like I’m on a psychiatrist’s couch!’

‘Sorry. You don’t have to answer.’

‘No, it’s good to talk about it. I suppose … I suppose I feel lonely,’ he says.

Bloody hell. You’re not actually supposed to say those words out loud, ever. Doesn’t he know that?

‘I wonder,’ he says, turning again onto his side so that I feel his chest, firm against my arm. ‘What would have happened if you and me …’ He smiles at me, and I feel myself staring at his mouth, and that beautiful space between his bottom lip and his jaw. I want to rest my lips there …

I swallow hard. My heart is beating so loudly I’m amazed the Langdons can’t hear it from the third floor.

I take a deep breath that comes out like a small but audible sigh. ‘If you and me?’ I say, trying to sound only mildly interested in the rest of his sentence.

‘I miss this,’ he says, as he gently brushes a strand of hair away from my face and tucks it behind my ear. ‘I miss this closeness.’ His voice cracks slightly with the sadness of all the things he has put to one side.

I suddenly think that my roof is a very dangerous place after all.

I don’t know what is going to happen between us in these next few seconds.

I don’t know what I want to happen.

I know exactly what I want to happen.

I want him to kiss me so much that I can hardly breathe.

I feel my heart, a trouble-making, weak, bad-intentioned stone, weighing me down, keeping me lying on my back like this when what I should be doing is the right thing. Standing up. Going indoors. Telling Daniel how nice it was to have tea, but that it’s really time for him to go home. That is the right thing.

Daniel looks at me. His soft sad half smile moves an inch closer to mine.

I try not to move a millimetre. I don’t know whether to edge towards him or away. Maybe if I don’t breathe, we can freeze this moment and stay just like this for a while. After all there’s nothing wrong with looking at each other, is there? Maybe if I stay like a statue then whatever happens next won’t be my fault.

And then he gently moves over. He kisses me and I kiss him, and we kiss.

And nothing that I can remember has ever felt as right as this kiss.

I don’t know how long we kiss for. It could be twenty minutes or forty. In the vague distance I hear a car alarm and a siren, some mild commotion from downstairs. But all my attention is focused on the spaces between us. The weight of Daniel as he lies on top of me. The feel of his thick, soft hair under my fingers, warmed by the low strong sun that beats down on us. The gentle but firm touch of his fingers as he touches my face, and pulls me to him. The feel of his mouth on my mouth, his tongue as it moves to meet mine. He is the best kisser, and even though all we do is kiss, it is so intimate that it feels like sex.

It is only the sound of my mobile ringing that finally makes me break away from him, though he shakes his head, no, don’t answer …

It’s Terry.

Shit.

I press reject and Daniel moves back to me and we start to kiss again but Terry immediately calls back. I push Daniel gently away, stand up and move to the side of the roof to see if Terry’s outside. Sure enough, he’s standing down in the courtyard looking up and waving for me to come down.

Double shit. The Langdons have obviously spied me up on the roof – no doubt Mrs Langdon’s got the binoculars out. She probably thinks we’re having sex, even though we’re fully clothed. Now I’m going to be known as The Harlot of Peartree Court, for copulating outdoors in full view of spying neighbours and passing helicopter pilots … And Terry will make me give him the key back, so I’ve lost my roof terrace access as well as my morals in the space of five minutes.

‘Oy, Susie, come down!’ he shouts up at me.

He’s obviously seen me come up here with Daniel. Shame colours my face. I go back over to Daniel who’s looking slightly rumpled and hot, perched up on one elbow. The late afternoon sun warms his face and makes his eyes look the colour of a swimming pool. He smiles at me like he’s just spied me naked. ‘What’s wrong?’ he says. ‘I was enjoying that …’