Seductive Viennese Whirl (38 page)

Ben's sitting in a corner, his shirt undone, clearly drunk, singing along with his mates. I stand expectantly at the doorway waiting for the rush of blood in my ears, for my heart to start thudding like it always does.

But nothing happens.

He's just a guy in a pub trying to reach the high notes. And failing.

Patsy whizzes past again and seeing me, tears herself away from her dance partner.

"Kate," she says, giving me a big hug like we're old friends. She gives Alex the once over, sticking out her breasts and fluffing up her hair.

"Hey Ben," she calls over to him. "Look who's here."

Ben looks up and as he sees me his eyes light up. He bounds over and enfolds me in his arms. Even as his body makes contact with mine, I don't feel the familiar quake. Blimey.

"Well, well," he says, holding me away from him and staring at my cleavage. "You look terrific. Very svelte."

I nod. "Thanks. And you look great too Patsy," I say, gesturing to the salmon pink disaster.

She shrugs and casts her eyes downwards. "This old thing. I was going to have one specially made. But nothing's turned out the way we planned. There were going to be four bridesmaids, in sheer butterfly wings. And the reception was going to be grand. I had it all worked out. Ice sculptures of swans and a string quartet." Her face falls and she looks as though she's about to cry.

"Well, this is nice," I say, lying through my teeth. "Intimate." Patsy says, "But then he had to get himself sacked a month before the wedding, didn't he?" "Actually, I was made redundant," he snaps. "There wasn't a thing I could do about it." While Patsy rushes off to the Ladies I say brightly, "This is the guy I was telling you about."

Ben looks at me blankly. And suddenly, out of nowhere, it strikes me that what you said was true Egg. That he never loved me, not really.

"The Austrian guy," I say, patting Alex's arm. "He's just started a wine business, haven't you darling?"

"Really?" says Ben.

Despite being pissed Ben immediately launches into an analysis of economic factors currently impacting the wine industry. Alex seems interested enough, so I leave them to it and go to the Ladies to touch up my makeup.

Hearing Patsy sobbing from inside a cubicle, I knock on the door and ask if she's all right. She doesn't reply so I lob on some mascara. While I'm dabbing on lipgloss she comes out, her skin blotchy. She doesn't look at me as she starts to splash water on her face.

She sniffs. "I love Ben and all that," she says. "But he's always on my case. Bet he was never like that with you, eh?"

"What do you mean?"

"He's got this bee in his bonnet. That I'm not clever enough for him. He's always telling me you're so much smarter than I am."

What an idiot. He was always criticising me for not having a centrefold figure like Patsy's. And now that he's got his Playboy Bunny he picks on her for not being Einstein.

"You'll be all right, I'm sure you will," I say, backing out of the toilet. Back in the room I interrupt Alex's conversation with Ben. Suddenly I really need some fresh air.

"Great to see you again," I say, kissing Ben quickly on the cheek. "But we've got to run."

"We must all get together soon," Ben says, breathing stale beer and cigarettes all over me. Patsy's heading towards Ben, mouth pursed, looking like she wants to pick a fight, so I take the opportunity to grab my bag and head out.

As I'm going down the stairs I'm thinking, Thank you Patsy. Thank you for marrying Ben.

"I hope you didn't mind me telling him you'd started up a wine business. Just a little white lie," I say over my shoulder to Alex.

"Actually, I have."

I stop and turn to look at him. "What?"

"Yes, I've started it up again. You made me think it was a viable option. I've even hired a few people to help. Wasn't too difficult, after all, the vines were all still there. They just needing a bit of pruning."

"You should have said. Sten was raving about your wine. Said Harvey Nichols might be interested. Can't wait to tell him you've started producing."

"Hey, slow down, I haven't even had a harvest yet."

Once we're in a cab, despite the fact that I'm knackered, I start to kiss him and pretty soon I'm feeling wild and out of control. Totally unlike me.

I jump out of the cab and push open the front door. Before I know what's happening Alex is on top of me and we're rolling about on the cold, lino clad stairs. I want to say, let's wait until we get upstairs, but frankly, the urge is too strong. So we end up doing it, right there. When we've finished and Alex is fastening his trousers I say, "I hate to tell you this, but I don't think you're going to be able to return the Armani."

He looks down at the suit, covered in dust and badly creased. There's a rip in the elbow where the cloth got stuck on a nail.

"In that case, that was the most expensive six minutes of my life."

"But worth every penny?" I say, grabbing my bag and running up the stairs laughing. As I stick my key in the lock I tumble into the hall and before I know what's happening Alex is pushing me against a wall and yanking up the hem of my dress in a frenzy of lust.

"You made a quick recovery," I say, feeling all wanton as I catch sight of myself in the mirror hanging on the opposite wall. Skin glowing, hair as smooth and lustrous as a prized hound. God I look good. And once we've had another quickie I say, "Now I'm really knackered. I need a breather. Let's take a bath."

Once I've poured a selection of all of Eva's bubble baths into the water, we get into the tub facing each other. I unearthed a bottle of white wine at the back of the fridge and we sip it, our knees bent and pressed together. A few little candles I'd placed on the floor start to envelop the room in their vanilla scent. As the tension of the day begins to unravel he kisses first one knee, then the other.

"Thanks for going to Ben's reception with me. I don't think I would have had the courage to do it on my own."

"Is he the reason you didn't make a move on me at Christmas? Did you think you two had a chance of getting back together?"

And in a split second the truth of it hits me. "Not really, but when we split he left my confidence in tatters. And that's why I never made a move. I was shit scared you'd reject me. What about you?" I box him playfully on the chest. "Why didn't you make the moves on me?"

He rakes his fingers through his damp hair and his amber eyes turn melancholy. "After the collapse of the business, I kind of lost the ability to feel anything. There was a girl mixed up in it too. Clara. She jumped ship when my money ran out. I couldn't admit to myself that I had feelings for you, for the longest time." He squeezes my hand under water.

"We're a right pair of idiots, aren't we?" I say. And we just stare and stare at each other, until eventually we realize the water's gone cold. We get up and dry each other off and as we curl up on my bed together I feel so happy, I think I might die.

When I wake up, Alex is still asleep, so I pad into Eva's room, wondering how I'm ever going to find a flat mate to replace her. I walk over to her wardrobe. The door on it won't shut, it's crammed so full of clothes. I pick up a pale pink Chanel jacket from a pile of discarded clothes on the floor, put it on a hanger and hang it up on the wardrobe door. Wandering into the hall I'm thinking, No more Eva burning toast. No more cocktails. No more long girly post mortems of our sexual misadventures. This is it, I think, going back to my room and sinking down on the bed. The end of an era.

Alex stirs and we make long lazy love, have breakfast in a café and head to Hyde Park on the Tube. As soon as he sees the lake he decides we absolutely must go rowing on it. I'm happy to oblige as long as he does all the rowing while I just lay back and let myself be transported.

There's a strong wind buffeting the boat, and the waves are making it bob up and down, and the whole thing is really a lot less romantic than would be ideal. And yet, none of it matters because we're here, bobbing about in the middle of a lake. Just the two of us. And it's the greatest feeling on earth. About on a par with opening the curtains on Christmas morning and finding that the garden is blanketed in snow and not knowing what to do first: whether to just pull a coat over your jammies and race out to make a glorious snowman or open your presents. I'm filled with that breathless feeling, that I'm just too happy. And then suddenly anxiety snakes its way in, telling me that soon the source of my happiness will disappear. Because after all, he will have to go back to Austria, eventually.

We clamber out of the boat and now we're sitting on the grass beside a bed of bright red tulips. My head's lying across his lap, under a neon blue sky and candyfloss clouds. I feel like an advert for Kodak film. Everything's fine apart from that sense of anxiety that's lodged in my brain now and growing, about Alex leaving. And suddenly I look up and there's a little boy, brown curls falling into his eyes, a ketchup stain on his t-shirt, running past, his face screwed up. He's being pulled along by a red and green patterned kite that he's hanging onto by a string, and screaming "I can't hold on! I can't!"

Alex gets up and runs after the boy, but the wind is so strong it's pulling him away faster than Alex can run. The boy disappears over a hill and Alex follows him. I zoom after them, and find that the boy has let go of the kite and it's flying high in the sky. As I run up to them I see that the boy is sobbing and Alex is crouched beside him, saying, "You did the right thing. Letting go." He holds up the boy's palm which has a deep red indentation running across it. "If you'd held on any longer the nylon wire would have cut the skin and drawn blood."

All three of us stand looking at the kite as it zooms into the sky. And despite the boy's misery I can't help feeling exhilarated, watching the kite being sucked up higher and higher until it becomes a point of red, then a point of black, before dissolving altogether.

Now the boy's father runs up, all red faced and panting, and tells Alex, "He only got the kite this morning. I told him the wind was too strong but he insisted on going out and giving it a go." He puts his arm around the boy's shoulders and leads him away. The boy turns and waves at Alex.

"I don't really understand why you ran after him," I say, shaking my head.

"I guess he looked like he needed rescuing. I wanted to grab the kite from him to stop it blowing away."

I put my arm through his and lead him to a bench. As we sit down I turn toward him. "Is that why you came all this way? To rescue me?"

"Oh yes, absolutely," he says, smiling as he leans in to kiss me. As our lips meet, I wonder if he's serious.

I pull away. "Because I don't actually need rescuing, you know."

"That's a pity, because now I've found you I find that I really don't want to let you go. Is there any chance you might consider coming back with me, living in the cottage? You could help out with the wine business. I mean, there's nothing keeping you here, is there?"

And, oh Egg, suddenly it hit me that there are thousands of reasons to stay. Why would I ever want to leave? My experience at the cottage has taught me that I'm a city girl to the core. I love London's grime and the unreliability of its public transport. I love pigeons in Trafalgar Square, warm beer in pub gardens and tulips in the park. I love the way I can walk down streets in London and have memories on every corner. Here I'd kissed my first boyfriend. There I'd torn open my exam results and screamed with horror at the results. My whole life has played itself out in these streets. And Ben is here too, walking around, and I might just bump into him again someday. And you know what, that's okay too, because he's part of my past, and I'm no longer running from the past.

"Oh Alex, I really don't see it. Me, living in a cottage, on the side of a mountain? I'm just not the type. I'd miss my Pret cappuccino, leg waxes, Cafe Boheme and shopping in Covent Garden."

He strokes my hair, which the wind has whipped into a tangled mess, and secures a tendril behind my ear. "But wouldn't you love to quit your job? I don't get the impression you like working for the Haddock all that much."

"So I'll find another one. London's teeming with them," I gabble excitedly. "You could get one too, pop back now and again and check up on your wine business." I fling my arms around him and gaze rapturously up into his eyes. "And we could stay at the flat until we sort out something better. What do you say?"

"Maybe I could. But listen, before you get all carried away, can I ask you something? You'll probably tell me it's too soon and I'm way too old fashioned, but would you do me the pleasure, at least, of agreeing to marry me?"

"Marrying you?" The concept is so out of the blue and yet so absolutely, totally right.

"I don't have a ring I'm afraid, because the idea only just popped into my head."

"Yes! Yes, of course I will." And then he picks me up and twirls me around and I come over all giddy.

So what do you make of all that then? Quite a turn up for the books, eh? We've got a lot to figure out and I have to admit I don't know where the hell we're going to end up, but oh Egg, I really think we can make it. Don't you?

Yours blissfully happy,

Gherkin

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