Nine Uses For An Ex-Boyfriend (29 page)

No, because that would be weird. Very weird, but it was
still
better than being home alone. ‘Tea sounds fine too,’ Hope said, and she sat there, her muscles stiff and tense as she tried to think of something else to say.

It took a while. Finally she managed, ‘Well, they all seemed to get on, didn’t they? Like, they really bonded over slagging off stuff, don’t you think?’

‘You don’t have to talk,’ Wilson said. His lips twisted as Hope cringed. ‘I mean, the silence won’t kill us, and you look like you’ve got a headache.’ He lightly touched the spot between her eyebrows where the pain had centred. ‘You’ve had a little furrow there for the last hour.’

Wilson’s hand moved up to cover her forehead. Hope didn’t think she was running a temperature but the feel of his cool fingers on her head was kind of soothing, or maybe it was the small, unexpected pleasure of someone being concerned about her. ‘I just need some painkillers,’ she muttered. ‘I have some in my bag, but I can’t take them dry.’

She was no good at silence, never had been, but at least
Wilson’s
hand was back on his lap. The concern had been nice but it had also made her even more likely to start weeping. Hope shut her eyes and leaned her head back and let the steady put-put-put of the engine lull her into a gentle doze that was only disturbed when they had to stop at a red light or went over a speed bump.

Wilson wouldn’t let Hope pay for the cab. He even went as far as batting her hand away when she proffered a crumpled ten-pound note. There was nothing else to do but follow him through the door of his building, up the stairs and through the dark studio.

He paused at the bottom of the iron spiral staircase that led up to his apartment. ‘I’m just going to nick some milk out of the fridge in the studio kitchen, but you go up, you know the way.’

Hope did know the way from her only previous visit, which had been to pick up Susie en route for a night drinking martinis and dancing at the Hideaway in Tufnell Park. Then she’d only had a vague impression of metal joists and industrial light fittings, as Susie had hopped about on one foot in her underwear, squawking because the strap had broken on her favourite pair of sandals.

Upstairs was similar to downstairs: a vast expanse of white walls, big windows and knotted, untreated floorboards, with a galleried bedroom up a small flight of slatted stairs. There was a galley kitchen running along the back wall and a brushed-steel dining table with matching chairs around it, but Wilson, coming up the spiral stairs with a carton of milk, was gesturing in the direction of a huge leather Chesterfield. It was a weathered tan colour and so big that two people could have lain on it quite happily, but Hope perched uncomfortably at one end and looked over with some trepidation at Wilson who was already in the kitchen and busy with the tea-making.

Hope watched surreptitiously as Wilson filled the kettle and got down mugs, humming a jaunty tune as he worked.
He
was being really nice, or rather he hadn’t said anything sarcastic for at least an hour, and it was very discomfiting.

As she heard the whistle of the kettle (why couldn’t Wilson have a regular plug-in kettle like a normal person?) Hope was composed enough to be able to look at her surroundings in more detail.

On the wall opposite her were three poster-sized, tinted photos of sights that were instantly familiar to her: Blackpool Tower all lit up, the retro ’50s ice-cream van from Morecambe which bore the legend
Everyday is Like Sundae
, and Southport Pier. All three photographs made her think of those long childhood summers of day trips to the seaside and fighting with her brothers as they made huge sand castle cities with their own complex drainage systems, then driving home to Whitfield, sleepy from too much sun and ice-cream. God, life had been so much simpler when all Hope had worried about was trying to mastermind the downfall of her three older, bossier brothers, Adrian, Luke and Matthew.

Hope was just remembering the time they’d buried her up to her neck in sand for
hours
and told their parents that she had run away, only confessing to their crime once the police had been called, when Wilson emerged from the kitchen with a laden tray.

Hope struggled upright from her despondent slump to accept a steaming mug of tea with a muttered ‘Thanks’. Wilson sat down right next to her, not saying anything as she took two ibuprofen – normally Hope hated Wilson’s silence because he wielded it like a weapon, but right now it was such a relief not to have to talk.

Maybe that was why when she finished her mug of perfectly brewed tea, Hope found herself struggling not to let her head loll on to Wilson’s shoulder. Her eyes would drift shut and she’d tune out, only to come back to full consciousness a few seconds later.

She struggled to stay awake, blinking her gritty eyes
furiously,
and caught sight of her bulging tote bag perched on the floor. ‘I got you something,’ she said, and she realised that they’d been sitting in silence for at least twenty minutes. ‘To say thank you.’

‘We’ve been through this,’ Wilson sighed, leaning forward to put down his empty mug. ‘You don’t
need
to say thank you for anything.’

‘Well, I want to and I saw this’ – Hope pulled out the Diane Arbus book – ‘and I thought you might like it.’

Wilson opened his mouth, probably to make a stuffy speech about how she had no reason to be beholden to him, so Hope just shoved the book at him so he had no choice but to take it. He glanced down at the cover and a slow smile crept over his face. It was a warm, unguarded smile that Hope had never seen from him before.

‘Thank you,’ he said simply. ‘This has been on my Amazon wishlist for ages.’

That wasn’t so difficult, was it?
Hope was tempted to say but for once she managed to hold her tongue. She settled back against the cushions with a contented little sigh as Wilson began to flick through the book.

SHE MUST HAVE
dozed off again, because Hope only woke up when the pillow she was snoozing on shifted and someone patted her shoulder.

‘If we want to get something to eat before we pick up the awful foursome, we should probably get going,’ Wilson said, as Hope’s head shot up from where it had been resting on, as she now realised, his chest.

Face flushed, she put a cautious hand to her hair, which felt alarmingly tendril-like. During the day, if it wasn’t tightly contained, her hair attracted tangles like ball bearings to a magnet.

To mask her confusion and to gauge exactly how bird’s-nesty her hair had got, Hope fished her make-up bag out of her tote and hunted for her pocket mirror. As she suspected, it looked as if someone had plugged her into the national grid and a big, ugly spot was getting ready to hatch on her chin. All this stress was making her lose her looks.

‘So, are you hungry?’ Wilson prompted.

‘Yeah, I could eat,’ Hope said casually, when actually it had been at least five hours since she’d last stuffed food into her mouth and she was close to starving. ‘Do you still fancy a curry?’

Wilson did and after Hope had retired to the bathroom to heap concealer on her nascent zit, they walked along Kentish Town Road to the Bengal Lancer. It was an Indian restaurant that had spurned the need for red flock
wallpaper
and big brass vases full of plastic flowers like the curry houses of Rochdale and, indeed, the Holloway Road, in favour of a slick, white minimalist interior. Wilson was obviously a regular as he was greeted cheerily by the staff and they were led to his ‘usual table’, which was almost by the window but not quite, which suited Hope just fine as she hated eating in full view of anyone who happened to be walking past, especially if that someone was a gang of teenagers.

She was also relieved that the menu wasn’t as sleek and minimalist as the restaurant’s interior. On the contrary, it was full of dear and familiar spicy friends. Hope and Wilson quickly established that they could both do hot, and ordered accordingly. Soon they were both happily munching away on poppadoms heaped with mango chutney.

They’d reached the lull between courses and the conversation had faded out. They couldn’t spend the duration of the meal in silence. Or Hope couldn’t, at any rate. ‘How did you get into photography?’ she asked. ‘Was it something you’ve always wanted to do?’

Wilson pulled a face. ‘I will talk under my own steam if you let me.’

‘I know that,’ Hope said, although all evidence pointed to the contrary. ‘But I’m genuinely interested in how you knew that photography was your true calling. I just went into teaching because my parents were teachers and I didn’t have a clue what to do with my life.’

‘But you like teaching, don’t you?’ Wilson gestured at the last poppadom and Hope didn’t need telling twice. ‘You seemed to have Blue Class under firm control, anyway.’

‘It’s very easy to get six-year-olds to bend to my will.’ Hope fixed him with her most teacherly gaze, the one she pulled out when she wanted absolute silence from Blue Class and wasn’t getting it. ‘Anyway, that’s enough about me, I thought we were talking about you.’

‘Well, I didn’t have a lightbulb moment that I wanted to
take
pictures for a living, and I didn’t see
Blow-Up
at an impressionable age and think that being a photographer was a passport to orgies with models and the like …’ Wilson seemed to run out of steam and fidgeted unhappily as the waiter came to remove their poppadom debris.

They both ordered more beer and Wilson seemed to think they were done talking about him, because he refused to look Hope in the eye and instead stared fixedly out of the window. His face was bright red, and though Hope felt sorry that bringing Wilson out of his shell was obviously such an ordeal for him, she was now determined to get to the truth.

‘So, no eureka moment or desire to emulate David Bailey …’ she persisted. ‘Come on, don’t leave me in suspense.’

Wilson looked around the restaurant for inspiration, or at least the waiter coming with their main course, but when help wasn’t at hand, he reluctantly turned to Hope. ‘My step-dad’s best mate was a photographer,’ he said, face now redder even than Hope’s when she’d run the bath too hot. ‘Nothing fancy, just weddings, christenings, family portraits, stuff like that.’

‘And he took you under his wing?’

He shook his head. ‘I wasn’t very good with people when I was younger.’ Every word sounded as if it was being dragged out of him with the assistance of a waterboard and an electrical current. ‘The school said it was Social Anxiety Disorder. My mam reckoned I was just shy so she persuaded Mike to let me tag along on some jobs. Thought it would bring me out of myself, having to interact with new people.’

Well, that explained Wilson’s gruffness and why he took so long to warm up, Hope decided as the waiter placed a dazzling selection of piping-hot, aromatic dishes in front of them.

‘I suppose if you can handle doing wedding photography, then you can handle anything,’ she said. ‘Even taking pictures in the middle of a warzone. When my oldest
brother
got married, there was a punch-up in the car park between my next-oldest brother and one of the bride’s cousins. I thought my mum was going to kill both of them.’

Wilson grinned, and there was a natural pause in the conversation as they passed dishes back and forth and realised they’d over-estimated how hot they could take their food when they’d ordered the Kalapuri chicken. Once all the toing and froing was over, Wilson went back to the subject in hand, though Hope had thought that she’d have to nag to get him talking again.

‘I realised that I loved framing shots and seeing people on their happiest days and I liked pottering away in the darkroom,
and
it got my mam off my back, which was an added bonus.’

‘I hear you,’ Hope muttered darkly.

From assisting with bouncing babies and blushing brides, Wilson started doing the odd Golden Wedding party himself, then began building up a portfolio by shooting any band who played a gig in Preston. Then he started freelancing for the local papers and London-based music magazines. ‘I began a photography degree at Manchester School of Art but halfway through my second year, I was offered a staff job at the
NME
and I jacked it in. My mam had something to say about that, too,’ he added with a grin, and even waggled his eyebrows for good measure.

‘I guess when you’re photographing people either they’re the centre of attention or your camera is.’ Hope heard what she’d just blurted out and tried to backtrack. ‘I mean, I’m not saying that you still have Social Anxiety Disorder. Of course you don’t.’