You Had Me at Hello (19 page)

‘That's Derek's room,' the landlord said, as if every deal came with a Derek. ‘He's staying on. That's why the rent's so low.'

The three of us exchanged a look. Not that low.

‘Derek.' The landlord rapped with his knuckles. Derek produced himself – a hulking, greasy kind of character, and grunted a hello. He was an astrophysics post-grad, which was supposed to cover why he had a telescope on his windowsill.

We made our excuses and promptly left, and over lattes at the nearest café, agreed there was no way we were moving into a house which came with a loner perma-lodger. Then we got more lattes, and carrot cake, and started discussing how spacious the rooms were, how many damp-smelling terraces we'd trudged round, and that Derek didn't seem that objectionable, if you broadened your mind and held your nose. We called the landlord back and said we'd take it.

Luckily, Derek seemed to lead a largely nocturnal existence and spent most weekends visiting his family in Whitby. Where Dracula landed. No further questions, your honour.

He was away on the night of our first noteworthy social event after we moved in, a Halloween party at the university union. I'd spent the day with a stomach bug, throwing up on an hourly basis, getting a chance to closely examine all the corners our cleaning rota didn't reach in the bathroom. I felt deeply aggrieved that I'd not drunk any alcohol to get in this state, and the bug was about to prevent me trying.

Downstairs, a sexy vampire and a brown-skinned witch in stripy tights, balancing a bumper-sized plastic bottle of scrumpy on her hip, gazed at me as I limped into the hallway to say goodbye.

Caroline put the back of her pleasantly cool, black nail-varnished hand against my forehead.

‘Yoor absholutely burwing ug.'

‘What?'

She removed her plastic fangs. ‘You're absolutely burning up. Want me to stay?'

‘No, I'll be OK.'

‘We'll have one for you!' Mindy said, hoisting the cider and adjusting the brim of her witch hat.

I felt my gorge rise.

‘Fanks,' I said, thickly, as if I was speaking through false teeth too.

An hour or so later, there was a knock.

‘Who is it?' I shouted, without opening it.

‘A bloody cold cold caller,' came a familiar voice.

I opened the door. Ben was buttoned up to the nose in his coat. He yanked it down to chin level so he could speak. ‘How are you then?'

‘Phenomenally wank,' I said delicately, standing back to let him in.

I was self-conscious about being seen in my voluminous cotton comfort pyjamas. The somewhat psychedelic pattern depicted farmyard animals with slice-of-melon smiles playing musical instruments.

‘Where's your costume?' I asked Ben, to divert his attention.

‘Fancy dress is a terrible way to ruin a good party. Funny, everyone there is got up as ghoulish and scary, and here you are looking more like death than any of them.'

‘Did you stop by to tell me this?'

‘No, I've come to check on you. What've you taken for this flu?'

‘Two paracetamol, a while ago.'

Two loose paracetamol I'd found at the bottom of my make-up bag. I had to pick a stray hair off one of them. I felt my gorge rise again.

‘Right,' Ben said. ‘I'm going for supplies. Save me a space on the sofa.'

‘Ben, you don't have to do this.'

‘Oh, I know.'

‘Here you go,' he said on return, passing over the tablets with a glass of water, as I malingered on the sofa. ‘These are the business, but they're strong. You on any other drugs I should know about?'

‘Only the pill.'

Ben grimaced. ‘I didn't need to know
that
.'

I threw them to the back of my throat, swallowing them without water.

‘Jeez,' Ben said.

‘I have tons of spit in my mouth,' I explained, pointing.

‘Great,' he made a sickly smile.

He up-ended the contents of his shopping bag: mineral water, crisps, fat Coke, crackers, Berocca and more paracetamol. He sat down next to me, started flipping channels.

I gave him a sideways look.

‘Don't you mind missing the party?'

‘Put it this way. The welcome cocktail was something called “Bitches Brew”.'

‘Ooh, do you think it was made from real bitches?'

‘Hard to tell.'

‘Cast your mind back. Did it taste of Georgina Race?'

Ben swatted my head with the TV guide. ‘Caroline said when she left you looked like an orphaned marmoset on a Monday morning. I thought, oh shit, I know that look, and then my conscience wouldn't let me stay out.'

‘Orphaned marmoset!' I laughed, feeling inordinately touched at his affection.

I settled back into my half of the sofa and we started bickering happily over what to watch, agreeing on
The Breakfast Club
.

‘You are her. In a nutshell,' Ben said, after a few minutes, indicating Ally Sheedy, peering out from under the fur on her parka hood.

‘Compulsive liar basket case? You're the geek in a jock's body. You're Anthony Michael Hall trapped inside Emilio Estevez.'

‘Urgh, what a thought.' Ben paused. ‘At least you don't think I'm the jock. Do you know what a girl in halls called me, last year? Bland Ben.
Blen
.'

‘What? Why?'

‘She said I was …' I saw a slight colour rise in Ben's face ‘… she said I was “standard issue tailor's dummy” and “pleasant” and got on with everyone and that I was
blah
. BLEN. Being condemned as boring is the worst thing, isn't it? If someone calls you an arsehole you can work on being less of one. If a boring person tries to be interesting … they're probably just being more boring.'

‘Utter cow!' I cried. ‘I bet you, no, I promise you, she was rejected by some lad who looked like you at school and is taking it out on you. There's nothing wrong with being nice.'

‘Nice,' Ben smiled, yet winced.

‘Kind, then. Thoughtful. Not a twat. Puts people at their ease. Popular. You are not bland. She doesn't know you well enough to know you're not up yourself about your looks. I think she was mistaking decent for dull.'

I realised I'd said more than intended and kept my gaze on the television.

‘Thanks,' he said, sounding gratified, perhaps even faintly surprised.

Ben opened a packet of Hula Hoops, turned the bag towards me in offering. I took one whiff, jumped off the sofa and ran upstairs to the bathroom, trying to stifle the heaving before the bowl was in sight. After I'd brushed my teeth three times, I returned to the living room, pale and wan.

‘At least your lungs sound strong,' Ben said. ‘Silver linings.'

‘Stomach lining, mostly,' I said, and he put a hand over his mouth, the crisps back down on the coffee table and one thumb up.

Half an hour later, despite only Volvic passing my lips, the nausea returned. I didn't have time to get upstairs and bolted through Derek's room and to his en suite, trying not to look at anything that might be lying around. I held my hair out the way and heaved, my body aching from the effort when I'd finished, pulling the handle and slumping against the china cool of the bowl. I dragged myself over to the sink and rinsed my mouth. There was a soft knock at the door and Ben put his head round.

‘Better?'

Beyond vanity, I nodded. On the verge of tears in my pathetic physical state, regressing to childhood, I whimpered: ‘I don't want to be sick any more, Ben. I'm so tired.'

‘I know.'

‘I want my mum,' I added, barely kidding.

‘What would your mum do?' he asked, not rhetorically.

I lifted and flapped my arms, helplessly. ‘Give me a cuddle? Make me hot lemon squash.'

‘You'll have to make do with me and Berocca, then.'

Ben came in and put his arms around me. It felt nice to be supported by someone stronger and healthier, as if I might absorb some of it by osmosis. I leaned my head on his shirt. We stood there for a moment. I let him take my weight, completely, forgetting to be self-conscious.

‘You make a nice mum,' I mumbled.

‘I always hoped one day the woman of my dreams would say those words to me,' he said, ruffling my vomity hair. I would've poked him in the ribs in reprisal, but I lacked the motor skills.

The greatest fiction in courtroom dramas is not the number of times lawyers shout ‘Objection!' or the pacing up and down with direct, emotive appeals to the jury. It's the whip-crack pace of the dialogue. Forget those flourishes in summing up that turn a case on a sixpence: real court cases are exercises in mind-numbing pedantry, as facts are picked over in necessary but toothcomb detail.

The prosecution lawyer in the cosmetic surgery case has spent the last half hour going over the minutiae of anaesthesia procedures with an embattled nurse. I've got a throbbing headache and a conviction never to book in for body contouring. There are some court cases that have moved so majestically slowly I've been convinced they'll never end, and I'll be briefing my successor before I retire. The judge announces that we'll break early so he can consider the latest written submissions.
Aha.
He wants to flick through a trashy celebrity weekly too.

In the press room, I open my laptop and check my email. Amid messages from colleagues with unpromising subject lines like ‘
FWD: NSFW: This really made me laugh!!!!!!?????????!!!!
' I see one from Ben Morgan.

My heart goes
thump
.

Then I have a stern word with myself, open it.

‘
Hi! Did you have an OK time on Saturday? Sorry for Simon being … Simon. Ben
.'

I reread this several times, then type:

‘
Hello! It was very enjoyable, thanks for inviting me. How did you get my email address?
'

A reply arrives inside a minute with ‘
I hope you're not an investigative reporter
' in the subject line. The message reads ‘…
it's under all your stories in the paper
.'

I laugh out loud, and reply:
‘DOH. Simon's amusing
…
!
'

Ben responds:
‘We weren't trying to set you up, I apologise if it looked that way. A few other people dropped out and we only realised it might be misinterpreted when it was too late.'

From the conversation I overheard, I feel sure that if this is true it applies only to Ben, not Olivia. It doesn't sound like Simon's told Ben that we're going on a date. Not sure I quite believe it either.

‘
It was fine
,' I type. ‘
And in return I want to invite you and Olivia to my flat warming
.'

Uh? I'm having a flat warming? Nice of my subconscious to tell me.

Ben replies ‘
Love to! Just tell me when/where. Anyway, back to the grindstone. B.
'

I type a cheery goodbye and reread the conversation. I'm interrupted by Gretton, the smell of cigarettes clinging to his clothes.

He hums to himself as he flicks through a stack of tabloids to see if his stories have been used. As he's not a staffer, most papers put another employee's name on it, or simply the paper's title and ‘reporter'. He still gets paid if it's used, which is all he cares about.

‘You're chirpy,' I say, suspicious.

‘Chirpy chirpy cheep cheep,' Gretton says, tapping his nose. ‘Chickens coming home to roost.'

‘What
grade
have you been smoking, Pete?'

He produces the
Sport
from his pile of papers, shakes it out theatrically and disappears behind it.

An email arrives from Simon with the details of my interview with Natalie Shale. It has a ‘
PS – let's go out for that drink when this is done. Business before pleasure and all that
.'

This makes me smile. Simon's canny enough not to wine and dine me before I've closed the deal for him. Closed the deal … he won't try to come home with me on a first date, will he? Doesn't seem likely, yet I've been out of the dating arena for so long, all the rules could've changed. I'm not sure I should be going on a date with someone I can't quite ever see myself wanting to take home, but Caroline says this is what I ought to be doing, and Caroline's sensible.

Zoe walks in, plonking her clingfilm-wrapped butties and paperback down.

‘Zoe,' I say, ‘will you be OK to take over this lipo case on Friday? I've pretty much done the backgrounder. If there's a verdict, I'll email it to you.'

‘No problem,' she says. ‘I'll mention it to news desk but I'm sure it'll be fine. Is this to free you up for your interview?'

‘Yep.'

‘Nice one. Anyone want anything from the café?'

I shake my head and Gretton watches Zoe leave. ‘Do you have no pride, Woodford?'

‘Uh?'

‘She's a story stealer if ever I saw one. Don't expect a joint byline on all that work.'