This is a Love Story (43 page)

misery started to slip away. It seemed like the whole city was smiling and I was just a tiny part of it all, totally overwhelmed by the

majesty of this day. The birds were singing from the rows of tall trees along the road, trees so characteristic of this part of London.

Fresh fruit and vegetables were lined up temptingly outside the shopfronts near the station, their colours so bright I could almost taste

them.

I felt lucky. It was impossible to experience a morning like this and not be happy. I thought about how much was ahead of me,

how maybe one day I would meet The One, and if I was really blessed I might have beautiful, happy children. Of course, that was a

very long way off, but all of a sudden, everything seemed so full of promise.

I grabbed my morning coffee and a copy of Metro before boarding the train. It was full, bodies seemingly squashed into every

corner, newspapers folded under armpits and coffees balanced precariously on ledges and seats. As the sweaty carriage pulled away

from the station, a modest breeze seeped through an open window near my face. It gently ran its fingers through my fringe, causing

it to flap up and down as if someone was yanking it with string. It gave me some relief from the morning crush.

I took a few deep breaths and looked around me. It was one of those mornings where instead of burying my face in a book or a

paper, I just took in London and how incredible it is. It made me sit up and soak in the mad city energy. The different faces, the

strange things you see on the streets, the sounds and the smells.

Then I remembered. As though it were happening all over again. It was something of a flashback. I recalled looking over the top

of the newspaper five years ago to see the most handsome man I had ever laid eyes on, wearing a bright green T-shirt. We’d looked

at each other over the pages, and I hadn’t known it back then, but something really quite remarkable had begun. It was a love story.

But not as you might perceive it.

In most love stories, the guy and the girl like each other the same amount and manage to eventually get over their crippling

fear/bashfulness and sort it out. In this love story, I, Sienna Walker, have loved Nick Redland for five years. And what do I have to

show for it? Love, yes – but of a rather different sort. Love that comes from friendship, which is almost worth more, really, because

friends don’t have sex, get fed up, and then avoid each other like the plague.

I could just picture him now, with that gorgeous grin of his revealing a row of straight, white teeth. There was something about his

smile that made me want to keep looking. And I haven’t stopped looking, all this time . . . I realised I was pulling an idiotic

expression while staring at an elderly woman sitting opposite me who looked nothing like Nick. She shuffled uncomfortably. My

coffee was going cold, too, so I calmed myself down and took some gentle sips as the train clicked along the tracks.

I wondered how he was. We’d hardly seen each other lately. He’d been distant since Chloe left and then seemed a bit strange

yesterday, suddenly coming over and calling me a superstar before going back into his office and not emerging at the usual time.

Superstar? I think he was having another of his crisis moments because of what had happened with Chloe. He was probably sitting

in silence with his head in his lap. I thought it best not to interrupt him. She’s crazy, just leaving him like that. Why would you leave

Nick? Just why?

My mind replayed the moment when I’d lost sight of him and thought I would never see him again. How I threw my cup in the

bin and walked to the office, almost forgetting I’d ever seen his face. Yet strangely, it had been his face that greeted me when the lift

doors opened and . . . Oh, come on, Sienna. Think of something else for a change, will you? I told myself off again. But it never

seemed to work.

When I arrived at the office it seemed that Nick was still in a peculiar mood. But rather than looking depressed, like he had

yesterday, he was bouncing around the office as if his legs had been replaced with springs.

‘Morning, Si!’ he shouted as I stepped out of the lift, almost running across the room towards me.

‘Morning, Nick,’ I said, slightly bemused by the wild change in his demeanour within the course of twenty-four hours. Maybe she

had gone back to him. They might have sorted things out. He had that hysteria about him that could only be the result of hours of

make-up bonking. His smile was electric – it was as if someone was tickling his neck with a feather duster.

He looked good. I mean, he always looks good, but since he and Chloe split up he had sunk into this strange quagmire, which

seemed to involve a ban on razors and the inability to use an iron. I guess that’s what people used to say he was like after Amelia,

too. This morning he was wearing a skinny-fit black shirt and a pair of grey trousers. He looked really smart. Yup. This was

definitely woman-related. He was wearing aftershave again. The one that makes me want to bury my face in his neck and stay there

until the world stops fighting and the price of petrol drops.

‘What’s with the grin, eh?’ I asked as I sank into my chair and started leafing through my diary.

‘Oh, nothing, Si. I want to talk to you later, by the way.’ He started fiddling with my phone cord awkwardly.

I slapped his hand away. ‘Stop doing that, you’re going to twist it up. Why, what’s up?’

I couldn’t face another counselling session, telling him to make things right with Chloe if he truly loved her and all that jazz. It

was hard to tell him to do something I so desperately didn’t want to happen.

‘Nothing much. Can we go for dinner tonight? You know, a nice restaurant or something? Get a few cocktails in.’

I stared at him, directly into his eyes. He looked so wild and strange it felt appropriate to hold his hand and pull him towards me,

whispering into his ear this time. ‘Nick, what’s happened? Do you need to take a day off sick? Are you smoking weed again?’

‘No, Sienna, for God’s sake. Can’t we just go for a drink?’

‘Yes, of course, but you just look bizarre today . . .’

As he pulled his face away from my ear, he was smiling like a demented clown. He smelled so good it hurt. I couldn’t cope with

all this again. Not again.

‘Just chill out, I’m fine. Just want to go for a bite to eat, yeah?’ he reiterated, poking his right foot at the bottom of my chair and

pushing one of the wheels round.

I slapped his leg gently, accidentally feeling his muscles. Wowzers.

‘All right, if Dad’s OK we can go out,’ I said, finally giving in.

‘Wicked,’ he replied, before twitching a little and prancing off into his office like an imp. Weirdo.

I thought it was just Nick acting oddly. But then Lydia walked over. She was also behaving utterly bizarrely. It must be a Friday

thing.

‘Hello gorgeous,’ she purred, leaning over my desk and twiddling her hair with a strange smile on her face. She looked like she

had big news. On the scale of ‘I’m pregnant’ or ‘I’m taking part in next year’s Big Brother’ – you know, life-changing stuff.

‘Hello, you, how’s it going?’ I said, half concentrating on my diary and half concentrating on the ample bosom that was spilling

from her top. God knows how men coped – I was well and truly distracted.

‘I’m great, thanks,’ she said. Then she glanced behind her before wheeling up an exceptionally squeaky chair too quickly,

accidentally slamming it into the table leg, and knocking over my precarious filing system in one swoop.

‘I heard about you and—’ she started before Nick suddenly reappeared and interrupted us, grabbing Lydia by sharply yanking her

away mid-sentence. The chair was left turning on its own in the middle of the room.

Me and who? I watched them scurry into his office and the door was closed hard, causing the blinds to rattle loudly against the

glass. Whatever. I’d find out later.

As I fired up my computer I tried to remember what I had on today. My diary was pretty bare . . . it could end up being quite

boring. Still, there did seem to be this odd frenzy going on with the people around me. Dad was planning trips round the world, Nick

was verging on hysteria and Lydia knows about me and someone, or something . . .

I got up slowly and strolled over to Dill’s fish tank, right in the middle of the office on top of a filing cabinet. He would be normal.

He couldn’t help it. He didn’t have the memory for violent mood swings. I leaned forward and peered into the glass, my nose gently

bumping against the smooth, cool surface. Dill looked so lonely, I thought, watching him swim around the murky water, past the

small pink castle covered in green gunk. He also looked hungry, so I picked up a pinch of fish flakes between my thumb and my

index finger and sprinkled them onto the surface. He immediately darted up and started grabbing at them with his little mouth. How

cute. The office strip lighting was reflecting against his body, showing flashes of luxurious gold every time he moved. I almost fell

into a trance staring at our office pet when I saw a face on the other side of the glass. A face so familiar to me, yet through the layers

of glass and water it was stretched out to almost unrecognisable proportions. Dill rushed towards the face squashed up against the

glass of his tank and tried to touch it with his mouth.

‘Nick, you’re so silly,’ I said, refusing to move away from the tank because something about this was so cool. It was my romantic

fish tank scenario, except with mildew, algae and, well, my friend Nick.

‘I know,’ he said, peeling his features from the glass and rubbing his cheek. ‘Sorry I pulled Lydia away like that,’ he continued,

his voice quite muffled now.

‘Yeah, why did you do that? I thought she was about to give me some gossip,’ I replied, in a slightly louder voice this time.

Suddenly his face disappeared and materialised next to me. It made me jump. ‘So what’s the news?’ I asked, turning to face him.

‘Er, nothing,’ he said, scratching his head with a pencil before casually slipping it behind his ear. It fell straight out the other side

and dropped onto the floor. He never does that. What on earth is going on?

‘Anyway, Sienna, I was thinking that maybe we could go to Amis tonight, yeah?’

Amis. Amis is a very posh restaurant and bar. Posh as in lots of cutlery, finger bowls and serviettes crafted into the shape of

woodland animals. Holy shit.

‘Amis? Really? Don’t you just want to go to the Sheep’s Head or something like that? I hear the Naughty Step has a two-for-one

happy hour . . .’ I said, tilting my head to one side and looking into his eyes. They had an extra sparkle about them today; the definite

tinge of a lunatic.

‘No, no. Let’s go to Amis. I’ll book a table for eight, OK?’

‘Er, OK. Sounds great,’ I said and watched him walk away from me and disappear into his office.

Oh God, what the hell was I going to wear? And would I have enough time to go home, get ready, and get back into Balham for

dinner? Lydia looked over to me and put her thumbs up before pulling her fingers over her mouth to imitate a zip. Hmm.

At around lunchtime Chloe sauntered over to my desk. She also seemed edgy. Her hair was very curly today; she had taken out

her trademark plaits. She was wearing a navy blue shirt and leggings.

‘Hello, Si,’ she said as she sat down beside me. She started to pick the remnants of pink varnish from her fingernails. I felt like an

agony aunt for the hysterical. Go on. Roll up a chair. Be weird. Maybe I should get a box of tissues, some potpourri and a home

furnishings magazine.

‘Hello, Chlo. You OK?’ I asked, really hoping she wouldn’t give me an honest answer and just say ‘Fine.’ I’d decided to have no

real involvement in her break-up with Nick. It was a dangerous place to be treading, and I wanted nothing to do with it apart from

being there for Nick, whenever he needed me. My loyalties lay with him.

‘I’m great, thanks. Ant asked me to tell you he wants to see you this afternoon at three for a meeting.’

‘Oh no. It isn’t bad, is it?’ I asked, suddenly seeing myself in a dole queue.

‘No. I can’t tell you, though, because I don’t know what it’s about. He just asked me to notify you of the meeting,’ she said, biting

her bottom lip and looking at her lap.

‘Chloe, are you OK?’ I asked, suddenly aware that she seemed tearful.

‘Yes, yes. I’m just . . . I’m just . . . Don’t worry,’ she said, whipping her head to look over at Nick’s office and then disappearing

almost as soon as she’d arrived. I decided not to follow her.

A meeting with Ant at 3 p.m. I really hoped I wasn’t going to get fired. I’ve been trying so hard lately. All I wanted to do was

stand out, but what with everything at home I felt like I was sinking slowly under piles of washing, ironing and pencil shavings. I

was often late because I had to take Dad to the doctor’s or the hospital. Sometimes I had to call in sick just to stay with him at home.

Maybe that just wasn’t OK any more . . .

I picked up my phone and dialled Nick’s line. ‘Nick, what’s going on? Why am I meeting Ant at 3 p.m. today?’ I asked,

whispering and ducking my head below the partition so no one could see me. I fiddled with a silver photo frame Elouise had bought

me a few months ago; it had our names engraved on it.

‘I have no idea what it’s about, Si.’

‘Come on.’

‘I don’t.’

‘Nick . . .’

‘Sienna, I don’t bloody know, OK?’