The Art of Letting Go (The Uni Files) (28 page)

While we enjoyed the poppadum’s, we laugh over the notion that we have never actually been out to eat in a restaurant together before. Not by ourselves, and not to a place predominantly selling food versus alcohol.

“I only ever took you on two real dates,” Ben says while scooping some more lime pickle onto a triangle of poppadum.

“Yeah, I know. The rest of the time you were either snogging me or shagging me,” I point out, laughing into my pint of Cobra.

It is always worth saying things like this just to watch him blush a lovely radish shade of pink. For someone who has been in a band for the last ten years, he is incredibly gentlemanly. Well, apart from when he’s not got me backed up against a wall or tree, or undoing my jeans in black cabs.

“I am sorry about the lack of real dates,” he offers once the pink begins to fade.

“No need to be sorry. The two dates we did have were knock-out amazing, which more than makes up for any shortfalls in quantity.”

I say this, but then I remember the fact that I completely ruined the second date by allowing the whole ‘best friend’ thing to escape my mouth. Now I am the one flushing.

“Mum was asking after you the other day,” he says.

“Really?”

“Yeah, I think you made quite an impact.”

“What? Why?”

“Well, you are the only girl that I have ever taken home. I think she was worried that her and my dad had broken me somehow with all the stuff they went through.” He keeps his eyes on me as he takes a sip of drink.

“I told her what was going on now,” he says.

“You did?”

“Yeah, I told her that we were going to sort things out.”

“Ben, you know we have been through this.”

He just watches me for a moment. “Maybe. We’ll see.”

There is a piece of poppadum stuck in my throat and I can't come up with anything appropriate to say. Thankfully, the chicken tikka arrives as this point and I pretend to be suddenly ravenously hungry.

“Lilah? Ben?”

I look up from my studious cutting of meat to search for the voice I only vaguely recognise.

Big Baz looms over our table. He claps a hand on my shoulder in greeting. His hand is so large, it nearly knocks me into my starter.

“My favourite customer, and
her
favourite guitarist!” he booms to the entire restaurant.

“Hey, Baz.” I smile sheepishly.

He leans down and gives me a hug, and in a faux whisper asks, “Did the Gibson work, my love?”

Ben raises an eyebrow then gets to his feet. “Hi. Ben Chambers,” he introduces himself, with a wink directed at Baz that I don’t understand.

“Oh, I know who you are, son. How’s the band going?”

Baz and his wife, who I have not seen until now as she has been blocked from view by his vast girth, are settled by the hovering staff at the table next to ours.

“Oh, you know. Fine. We have a trip coming up soon, so we should get a good idea of what is going to happen.” Ben looks at me intently as he says this.

I avoid eye contact.

“Good, good,” booms Baz. “You will do well, I’m sure. How is the new guitar?” He gives a little wink at Ben.

“Oh, she is fine.” Ben smiles.

“She?” I ask, trying to fit some chicken in my mouth.

“All guitars worth playing are female, young lady,” answers Baz with the reverence I would expect for a guitar that cost me over five grand.

How I could do with that cash now. Still, I would never take away that memory of Ben opening his gift, nor would I take away the memory of how he showed his appreciation afterwards, or the memories of hearing him playing it through the wall every night.

“Well, Baz, I am sad to say, I will not be purchasing another one of those anytime soon! The Lilah McCannon Bank is closed. So unless I get a job pronto, I will not be buying luxuries ever again."

“I’ll give you a job, lovey.”

Baz is not laughing even though I am.

“Don’t be daft, Baz, I do not know anything about music or musical instruments.”

Ben nods  in agreement with me so I kick him hard under the table.

“Not true, young lady, you knew that you had to buy the best you could, to achieve what you wanted. If you can make others do the same, then you can work for me.”

“Oh? Thank you.”

I want to cry with relief that I have a job, even if it is one I would never have expected.

“When can you start?” he asks.

“Easter holiday?” I reply hopefully. This is great! I will have a job and be so busy I will not be able to obsess about what Ben is up to in America.

“Excellent! Come in and we will discuss terms.”

He gives me a broad smile, and I know I have found a great boss and a friend.

“This is good,” says Ben, “at least I will know where you are when I am away.” His hand slides over the table to mine.

Baz is watching us. I don’t move, I just eat one-handed.

Walking home later, after saying a slightly tiddly goodnight to my new boss, Ben and I troop up Upper Richmond Road. He reaches out and intertwines our fingers. We share the journey home with hands swinging together between us.

“Is this okay?” he asks after a while, motioning to our hands.

“Yeah, this is fine,” I tell him.

And it is. It feels kind of good. I have a job, I might be crap at it, but it is a job all the same. And I have Ben, who, even when is just being my ‘best friend’, will walk home with me holding my hand.

7th March

Ben leaves in sixteen days. Not that I am counting. I know it is only for two weeks but there is a sense of doom hanging over it.

The good news is I have a job, so will be able to afford to buy student essentials such as baked beans and wine. I should tell Tristan, and then he can breathe a sigh of relief that he will not have to support the entire house over the summer holidays, or the next two years, for that matter.

I think perhaps I should try a bit harder looking for somewhere to live. I have been burying my head in the sand, but I need to wake up and realise that this is all going to happen. Things are not going to stay the way they are now.

Change is coming, and I cannot stand in its way. Tristan and I are going to leave the flat we have shared for eight years. We are going to move out of the halls. Ben is just going to leave.

After the last couple of nights, I can almost get used to the whole friends thing. If being friends means that I can still talk to him, and that we can still be together comfortably by ourselves without all that awkward tension hanging over us, then I can live with it. I would rather that, than nothing at all.

Nothing would be unbearable, whereas I can just about cope with friends.

Especially if friends means that we can still hold hands every so often, can still communicate just by standing there breathing each other in and our eyes can hold a conversation of their own.

I can just about cope with this, and I can just about cope with the idea of letting him go if we are just this until he leaves.

Right. I am going for a jog, where I shall think up a super-duper brainy idea for our group project. Then I shall call the Estate Agent and beg them to find us a suitable home in which to live.

My Major Brainwave

As I jogged around the park, trying not to scare the crap out of the deer that always scatter as I approach—“Quick, guys! An escaped rhino from the zoo is charging us!"—I came up with a killer idea.

I have been trying to come up with a concept for the group project. I want it to be something I can write passionately about without sitting there tapping my pen whilst drooling over Ben. The problem is that I do not really like the subject of war, much like I do not like watching the Remembrance Parade on Armistice Day. Not because I am ungrateful for the sacrifice made by soldiers. In fact, it is the opposite. It is the sheer scale of life lost that makes it unbearable for me. How do you move on from that, knowing that someone you love, be it son, father, brother, or anyone, has given their life in their belief in something far more important than their own being.

I get emotional just thinking about it. I think this is what I want to write about, how nationally the idea of grief and loss is demonstrated. Then we could do a comparison between two nations, how they recognise the emotional side of war, how it is dealt with and how it is immortalised by the different cultures.

I like this idea as I pound around the park. I hope Ben likes it. I’m not sure what else I can write on the subject. Guns, planes, and strategic warfare are not really my thing.

The Concept

“What do you think?”

“I think you’re a bloody genius! There I was thinking you were just listening to my conversations in class,” he admits with a chuckle.

Cue me going bright red.

“What sources are we going to use?” he asks.

“Hold on! Bloody hell, I have only just come up with the idea. Give me a chance!”

The blues are shining at me, and I hesitate to stay and loiter in his room. I know I should leave, and so I do.

There you go! It is getting easier every day.

Mr. Sleaze, the Estate Agent from Arsehole’s R’ Us

“Yes, Lilah, I understand your concern, but we do still have time to find the perfect property for you.”

“How do we have time? It’s nearly Easter, term finishes in about eight weeks, and we are nowhere near finding a place on which to put an offer!”

“Well, perhaps if we were to broaden our criteria?”

“What do you mean?”

“Let me see what properties are in the approximate price range, including but not limited to flats.”

“Okay, do it. I want to be ready to move in eight weeks.”

“Thank you, Miss McCannon.”

Too right, Mister. You remember who the boss is here.

Good grief, I am on fire today. I have come up with a good essay idea, now I have put a rocket up the bottom of Mr. Sleaze.

Top marks all around. I think I can have some chocolate to celebrate. And maybe a little glass of wine.

8th March

7.30 a.m.

Moderation is not my strongest suit.

The celebration of the new, assertive me called for the following ingredients:

— 3 bars of Cadbury Whole Nut (the small ones, not the family-sized bars)

— 2 bottles of red

And now I have a red wine headache again.

“What we celebrating?” Meredith asks as she lands on my bed with a thump that spills my wine, and pulls a sharp look from me. She knows me well enough to understand that I do not approve of wasting alcoholic grape juice.

“Me,” I reply, sparking a big grin on her face.

“I am all for that,” she responds, while giving me a nudge and reaching under the bed to get a glass from my secret stash of glassware and pouring herself some wine.

Then Beth joins us—clutching her own bottle, thankfully—still looking incredibly pretty without all the black makeup. We have a lovely girly hour trying to decide the best way to find out which girls on campus are lesbian and how we can determine if they are single or not.

Meredith and I have to concede to Beth, that her dating dilemma is a quagmire of landmines waiting to explode.

We then discuss (in whispered tones because we can hear Ben playing guitar next door) in great detail the Lilah and Ben dinner at the local curry house. The general consensus seems to be that although there was no kissing or physical interaction of ‘that’ kind, the evening was still borderline date material.

“So what did you talk about?” asks Beth.

“Uh, we talked about the fact that we used to have sex a lot.”

“Really, what happened then?”

“We both sat there bright red, and I wanted to have sex with him, although that’s quite normal!”

“How did he react when Big Baz gave you the job?” Meredith inquires.

I have to think about this for the minute. “He seemed pleased, like he was glad that he knew where I was going to be.”

Both the girls sit there with their heads cocked to the side, looking at me as they mull this piece of information over.

“Well, I think you should just go in there right now and offer him a blowjob. He won’t want to be bloody best friends then, will he?” Beth says a little too loudly.

I spurt my wine everywhere, which is not a good thing as the wine is red and my bedding is white. What is far worse is that Ben’s guitar has stopped strumming, which I am inclined to believe indicates he has been listening from his bed all along, which is only separated from mine by a wall made of cardboard.

Beth and Meredith think this is completely hilarious and spend a good fifteen minutes laughing hysterically as I try and mop the wine off my bed.

3.00 p.m.

I think this all over on my afternoon jog. I don’t bother with the library on a Friday afternoon. I would much rather burn off my excesses and create space for the ones to come over the weekend.

We are going out tonight—all of us together—just over to Digby bar. I shall have to do the whole friends thing whilst out socialising with other people. I am under no illusion that this will be easy. As I finish my jog, I decide that instead of joining them, I should beat them. Yes, yes, I know it is backwards, but if he is going to find this entire friend’s thing easy, maybe I should make an effort to try and make it a little more difficult. After all, I’m not finding it easy.