You Had Me at Hello (11 page)

I wasn't aware Gretton operated by any code of honour. This is a retroactive one because he's lost out on a story, no doubt.

‘Who …?'

‘Your little sidekick!'

‘You mean Zoe? What's the matter?'

I try to get him to lower his voice by speaking more quietly and hoping he'll match my volume. A few people are glancing over at us.

‘She DELIBERATELY …'

Tactic failing, I clutch his elbow and steer him alongside me as I walk away. ‘Shhh, not here. Follow me.'

Being taken seriously seems to calm Gretton slightly, and he just about keeps a lid on his simmering rage until we're in the street.

‘She tampered with my court list.'

‘How do you mean?'

‘I was missing pages on 2 and 3, and when I go and get a replacement, I find those pages have today's best stories on them.'

‘How do you know it was Zoe? Couldn't the pages have slipped out? Loose staple?'

Loose screw, possibly. We're each given our computer printouts with lists of the daily hearings in sealed envelopes every morning by the front desk staff, so I don't see how this trick is meant to have been played.

‘That happen to have her cases listed on them? I'm not fucking stupid.'

At this moment, Zoe sails past. ‘Alright, Pete?' she asks, cool as the cucumber she doesn't eat.

‘I'm on to you, you conniving little cow,' Gretton barks.

‘Stop talking to her like that,' I say.

‘What's the problem?' Zoe asks, girlish eyes wide.

‘Ripping pages out of my lists. If you want to play dirty, we'll play dirty. You've been warned. And you –' he wheels round to jab a finger at me ‘– better watch out too.'

‘Why? What have I done?'

He stalks off, smoothing his rusty flyaway hair with one hand, the other jammed in his pocket, seeking out his fags.

Zoe adjusts her bag on her shoulder. I hadn't noticed how appealingly shabby and insufficiently smart it is – a student-market-looking thing in sludgy colours, covered in little mirrors and tassels. It reminds me how new she is to all of this. She'll probably get her first briefcase from her parents this Christmas. She's smiling, a little too contentedly.

‘How'd you do it?'

‘I pulled the pages out of mine and swapped our lists over when he was busy looking at that leggy barrister who got her robe caught on a door handle.'

We look at each other and start laughing.

‘The fight back starts here,' Zoe says.

I've always put up with Gretton as an unfortunate fact of life, but Zoe's showing significantly more resourcefulness. Perhaps if I'd had this kind of energy ten years ago, I'd be in a very different place right now.

I put my hand out and she shakes it. ‘You should be very proud of your first week.'

‘Drink?' Zoe asks.

‘Ah, no. Next time. I've got this meet-up with my friends.'

‘The female friend,' she nods.

For a moment, I struggle to remember my untruth, and stare blankly.

‘Have a nice time,' Zoe says, though I have a feeling her smirk says she's rumbled me.

I walk away silently saying to myself:
and you are learning Italian
,
and you are learning Italian.

‘You look nice,' Caroline says as I pick my way to our meeting point by Piccadilly Gardens, taking in my shirtdress and my higher-than-usual heels. ‘All for my benefit, is it?'

‘You look nice too,' I say, defensively.

‘I always look this nice for work.'

‘Show off.'

I hoped to convey ‘professional and together.' And, OK, maybe a little bit hot. So far it's earned: ‘Ahoy hoy, soliciting under the Street Offences Act, 1959? Court 7!' from Gretton.

I asked Caroline to come in a fit of pre-match nerves when I realised I wanted support in facing Ben and this scary bloke. And maybe, possibly, it occurred to me that four was a better number for one-on-one conversations. I knew Caroline would relish the opportunity to do some hands-off, safe-distance admiring of Ben.

‘Graeme didn't mind you coming, did he?' I ask, as we set off, me trying to keep lock step with Caroline's long stride. ‘Sorry you had to rearrange your evening.'

‘Yep, you've ruined our annual trip to the cinema. I rule out anything with submarines and he rules out anything with Meryl Streep and we stand in the foyer arguing until Gray buys me off with Revels.'

‘Sorry …'

‘Joking. It was cancelled anyway. He fobbed me off with some bullshit about spreadsheets so he can sit in picking his feet. Who are we meeting again? Apart from Ben?'

‘His friend, Simon.'

She raises an eyebrow.

‘What is this, matchmaking?'

‘Don't be stupid. That's not Ben's kind of thing.'

‘Errr …'

‘What?' I ask, nervily.

‘You haven't seen Ben for ten years, his
thing
could've changed completely.'

Ben nominated a fashionable bar in the city centre that I haven't got round to visiting yet, rather giving lie to the idea that I can show him where to go out. It's all poured, polished concrete surfaces, with dramatic under-lighting, tropical flower displays and chairs that are so low-slung you end up talking to a collection of windpipes and kneecaps.

As we enter I see Ben at a table in the far corner, chatting to a tall, blond-haired, mid-thirties man whose expansive body language implies that all the world's a chat show and he's the host. The would-be Michael Parkinson gives us both a languid up-and-down full airport body scan as we reach their table.

‘Hi … Ben, you remember Caroline?' I say.

‘Of course,' Ben smiles. ‘How are you? Simon, this is Rachel, who works for the paper.'

Ben stands up, still in his work clothes, an artfully rumpled (as opposed to the crushed it'd be on a lesser mortal) cornflower blue shirt and dark navy suit trousers, jacket with bright lining slung over seat next to him. Part of me, the part of me that Caroline rightly points out has failed to notice a decade has elapsed, wants to whoop with excitement and throw my arms around him.
It's you! It's me!
I know I have to stop. This is nothing. This is a drink with an old face from university days. He leans in to peck Caroline on the cheek and naturally she goes gooey. Ben and I nod in acknowledgement towards each other, communicating that we did the kissing thing the other day and neither of us fancy a repeat.

Simon unpacks his collection of rangy limbs and rises to his feet also.

‘Delighted. What're you having, ladies?'

‘Uh, no, it's OK, I'll go, what are you drinking?' I say, realising as I do that resistance is futile: alpha male Simon's never going to allow it. I am far more used to beery betas.

‘No. What are you having?' he repeats, firmly.

‘Vodka tonic,' Caroline says to Simon, sweetly undermining me.

He turns expectantly.

‘G&T? Thanks.'

‘How are you, Ben? Rachel says you're married, and a solicitor?' Caroline asks.

‘Yeah, family. My wife's in litigation.'

‘You studied English at uni, didn't you?' Caroline asks.

‘Yep. I did the wrong degree,' Ben says, bluntly. ‘Good for almost nothing.'

This hurts. Not because I have huge pride about my qualifications. More that we wouldn't have spent three years in each other's company if he hadn't done that degree.

‘Good for nothing if learning has to be vocational,' I say, prissily.

‘Yeah, sorry, I didn't mean good for
nothing
, obviously – you've done really well,' Ben says, remembering himself, and I can see he's surprised at his own lapse in tact. ‘I was skint after graduating that's all, and I was only qualified to study more. Can't even teach English abroad without a TEFL. And I'm not cut out for journalism like Rachel. I could never buckle down and hit deadlines the way she could.'

I know he's trying to repair the ‘good for nothing' damage and, while I appreciate it, I still feel a little wounded. I feel his eyes on me and pretend to be fussing with putting my coat on my chair to avoid his gaze.

Simon returns with two chunky lowball glasses full of ice. ‘Lemon in the vodka … lime in the G&T.'

‘Thanks,' we twitter in unison.

He gets a round in without getting another for himself? I'll have to tell Rhys these men do exist. He'd probably recommend Simon donate his brain to medical science. Immediately.

We do the obligatory amount of ‘getting to know you' chat, and after establishing Caroline's an accountant, Simon goes off on a tangent with her.

‘How's Abigail?' I ask Ben.

Abigail, Ben's bug-eyed, skinny little sister, was around thirteen or fourteen when we were students. Ben doted on her in the way much older brothers usually do. Ben warned me before I met her that she had Asperger Syndrome, which meant she said whatever was in her head, with no checks, balances or social graces.
Sounds no different to most of my family and my boyfriend
, I joked, though privately I was apprehensive. What if she asked why I had sideburns? When I met her, I found she was one of those rare people who have few unkind impulses or nasty thoughts so it didn't matter as much as it might have. She admired a knitted hat I had bought at the student market, with: ‘Can I have it, please?' Ben was appalled.

Afterwards, I sent her one similar. Ben said she was so pleased she was ‘practically in tears, the gimp', even though it was so large for her it made her ‘look like one of the aliens from
Mars Attacks
'. He reported this in a letter, having taken the unusual step of writing to me during the holiday break.

‘Abi is,' Ben smiles, ‘
really
well, actually. She has a part-time job in a travel agent's. My aunt works there so she looks out for her. And she still lives with my mum, so it's good knowing neither of them are on their own.'

I remember how much he used to worry. ‘That's great.'

I recall the way Abigail once attached herself to me, and say: ‘I bet she loves having a sister-in-law.'

Ben grimaces. ‘Hmm, she did at first.'

I make a questioning face.

‘Abi assumed she was going to be a bridesmaid at our wedding. Liv had already asked her two friends. She said she wasn't going to sack one of them because Abi jumped the gun. And Liv said if she had Abi, she'd have to have her demonic nieces and she wanted to avoid that at all costs. I tried to explain Abi's not manipulative, she doesn't understand. Well, you know how she is.'

I find it touching he presumes I understand Abi, despite all these years.

‘You couldn't have intervened, somehow?' I ask. ‘I know how tricky these things get.' Do I ever.

‘I wanted to. I tried. Ultimately I couldn't tell Liv who to have as bridesmaid.'

‘Ah. Sure.'

‘Abi dug her heels in, got into a “bridesmaid or nothing” mindset. It was so political between my mum, Abi and Liv. I stayed out of it. Anyway, upshot is that things have been a bit strained between all of them since. Or they are between my mum and Liv. Abi's forgotten about it. I'm sure they'll sort it out eventually.'

I think of Ben's mum's easy laughter when she met me, and for a split second imagine a parallel universe where I'm her daughter-in-law and Abi was my bridesmaid, and how well we'd all get on
.
More of my fantasy fiction: I should throw in a few elves as ring-bearers.

‘Will you give Abi my regards, if you speak to her?'

‘Course,' Ben says. ‘She used to ask after you a lot.'

We both pause, at the ‘used'. How did he explain our terminated friendship, I wonder? How did he think of me? If he thought of me at all …

This is the first conversational pothole of many on the road that lies before us, if we're going to be friends. It's possible Ben doesn't see the start of anything here, only a favour to another friend. A trip down memory lane, a swift three-point turn and back out again, foot firmly on accelerator.

Ben's obviously thinking this way too, because he says: ‘This is mad, isn't it?' gesturing at me, him, our being together. ‘Where does the time go?'

I'm sure it went faster for you, I think, nodding. Caroline and Simon's tandem conversation about high finance shows no signs of stopping. Ben therefore obviously deems it safe to ask: ‘What happened with you and Rhys? If you want to talk about it? Totally fine if you don't …'

‘It was everything and nothing in particular. We reached the end of the line. Cockfosters.'

‘Sorry?'

‘The end of the line. The Underground? Never mind.'

‘Ah.' Ben smiles politely, bemused.

At university, I'm sure that would've made him laugh.
I don't know him any more. He's changed.
Or maybe I should try again with a better joke.