However, it came as no surprise whatsoever, as I staggered through the door of my flat at 8.05 p.m., to hear the landline ringing. I sighed as I dropped my laptop bag, coat and handbag in a heap on the hallway floor and plodded into the kitchen to pour myself a glass of wine, having no intention whatsoever of attempting to make it into the lounge in time to answer the phone before it went to voicemail.
Five minutes later, I was slumped on the sofa, glass of red in hand, and just wondering whether I should tidy up the flat before bed, or attempt to do it in the morning before Felix arrived, when the phone began to ring again. Irritated and exhausted, but bowing to the inevitable, I picked it up.
‘Hello,’ I said with a sigh so heavy it bordered on asthmatic. ‘Yes?’ I added impatiently for good measure.
‘Dot?’
I frowned. The voice was male and it wasn’t Dad’s.
‘It’s Felix. I’m calling the landline because your mobile’s going straight to voicemail.’
‘Oh.’ I sat up and put down my drink, feeling slightly flustered. ‘Sorry, my phone must need charging. Hope I haven’t left it in the office,’ I added, looking round. ‘I thought you were my mother, hence the grumpiness. Plus, I’ve only just got home. Kate’s off sick, so it’s a bit crap at work.’
‘Not what you want on a Friday,’ he said, sounding sympathetic.
‘No,’ I agreed. ‘I’m knackered. Oh, but I’m still looking forward to tomorrow,’ I added hastily, in case he thought I was trying to cancel. Then I hesitated as it crossed my mind that he might have called to do just that. ‘Are you still able to come? Or has something else cropped up?’
‘I’m still around if you are,’ he said. ‘And I got your text about the theatre. That sounds great. What are we going to see? You didn’t say.’
‘Didn’t I?’ I hesitated and wrinkled my nose as I imagined his reaction to the planned Saturday-night entertainment. ‘Well, how about I make it a surprise?’ I suggested.
He laughed. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Although I should warn you that I’ve already seen Puppetry of the Penis.’
‘You have?’ I gasped.
There was a pause before he replied. ‘No, I haven’t, Dot.’
I picked up my drink, leaned back on the sofa and smiled. ‘I knew that really.’
‘I know,’ he said. ‘You were just pretending to be gullible.’
‘Yep. Anyway, are you still planning to get here around midday?’
‘I am. But I wanted to double-check whether you’d told your mother that we were no longer going out together.’
I frowned into the phone, surprised at the question. His tone was calm and matter-of-fact, but the issue was clearly preying on his mind. ‘Yes, it’s all sorted. I’ve told Mum and Dad that we’re still friends but that we’re not going out any more,’ I said, sharing my planned Sunday-night script with him. ‘They were obviously a little sad but very accepting. They’re just pleased it’s all amicable,’ I added, concluding the happy scene in my head.
‘That’s great,’ he said.
‘Yes.’ I smiled and sipped my drink. ‘I hope you haven’t been worrying about it.’
‘Not at all,’ he said. ‘I only raised it because I’ve just had quite a long conversation with your mother …’
I spat my wine back into the glass.
‘… during which she said several times how delighted she is that we’re going out together.’
‘No …’ I breathed, placing my glass on the table and putting my hand to my mouth.
‘And from that,’ continued Felix, ‘I inferred that maybe you hadn’t actually told her that we were no longer going out together. Can you see how I might have jumped to that conclusion?’
He stopped talking and there was silence between us for a few moments, while speechless shock morphed into total, but articulate, shame.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I said, my voice hoarse. ‘I’m seeing Mum and Dad on Sunday evening and planned to tell them then. I just didn’t want you worrying about it all any longer, so I told you the truth in advance.’
‘Advanced truth,’ he said. ‘Nice spin.’
It was impossible to guess his mood over the phone, but reminding myself that he had just moments earlier confirmed that he was still coming to Bristol for the weekend, I tried to remain hopeful that he was leaning more towards despair than rage.
‘So … what did you say to Mum?’ I asked hesitantly, fully aware that the question was heavy with self-interest, but feeling that it had to be asked nevertheless. If my hysterical mother, or worse still, my disappointed father, was about to phone and tell me that they now knew that I had spent several weeks, and my sister’s wedding day, living a lie, then I needed to be prepared.
‘I said thank you, and then let her move on to the next topic.’
‘Oh, that’s so amazing of you,’ I said, flopping back onto the sofa with relief. ‘Thank you so, so much. Sunday will be the end of it, I promise.’
‘I haven’t told you what the next topic was yet,’ he said, sounding serious.
I began to feel sick, the alternate tension and relief of the conversation having a similar effect on my stomach as the lurching of the ferry on a storm-hit school trip to France in 1995. ‘What,’ I asked weakly, ‘was the next topic?’
Felix cleared his throat. ‘Well apparently she’s been trying to get hold of you all day.’
‘She has,’ I murmured, immediately regretting not picking up the phone to her.
‘Because she needed to tell you that they are no longer free to see you on Sunday evening.’
‘Oh, OK,’ I said in surprise. I had been expecting worse.
‘But she said you mustn’t be upset, because she’s had a brilliant idea.’
‘Oh dear.’ Every muscle in my body now involuntarily tensed, as I braced myself for my mother’s brilliant idea. She’d had a spate of them since Alistair had left, all intended to cheer me up and all complete fails. Examples of her genius had included a surprise pamper session with her seventy-year-old beautician friend, after which I had resembled a seventy-year-old beautician, and a blind date with her new neighbour, Andrew, who was, she said, forty, good-looking and single. She had told me that she believed the latter was due to the fact that he was shy and selective, whilst Andrew had explained to me over dinner that it was actually because he was still getting over splitting up with his boyfriend.
‘It’s an idea,’ continued Felix, ‘which will enable them to spend some time with me after all.’
‘Oh no.’
‘She wants to meet us for drinks at six thirty in the Colston Hall bar.’
I nodded and closed my eyes, now beyond verbal expressions of hopelessness.
‘Before we move on to the Hippodrome to see Dirty Dancing,’ he added casually.
This final lurch of the conversational ship – the revelation that Felix had all along known the identity of the show we were to see – was somehow the worst of all. ‘I feel a bit sick,’ I said.
He burst out laughing.
‘You’re not cross?’ I asked.
‘Despairing,’ he said, still laughing. ‘But not cross.’
I smiled and felt like crying, whilst reflecting that New Felix seemed to have that effect on me rather a lot. ‘I meant well,’ I said quietly.
‘I know.’
‘So …?’
‘So we’re meeting your parents in the Colston Hall bar at six thirty,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t an invitation I felt I could turn down.’
‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Don’t be,’ he replied. ‘They’re nice people.’
‘They are.’ Both my smile and my voice wobbled. ‘Oh but we don’t have to see Dirty Dancing if you don’t want to. It’s just that I couldn’t get tickets for anything else.’
‘It’s not a problem. I’ve always wanted to see it.’
‘I’m not that gullible.’
‘Well done,’ he said, before adding, ‘I’ll let you go and call your mother.’
‘Ye
s, I suppose I’d better,’ I said with a sigh. ‘And I’m sorry, yet again, for putting you in such a difficult position.’
‘It’s fine. I’m taking comfort in that advanced truth,’ he said. ‘And I’ll see you tomorrow.’
‘OK,’ I smiled. ‘Bye.’
I hung up and sat for a moment or two, staring into space and replaying the conversation with Felix in my head. And then, uncertain whether it was the wine or Felix that had made me feel better, I called my mother.
Chapter 16
Thanks to M5 roadworks, Felix was late; only by forty minutes, but it was long enough to leave me feeling panicked at the thought of my meticulously planned day going down the pan from the off.
The fact was that I felt I had screwed up with Felix far too many times already, and so this weekend, completely against type, I was determined to leave nothing to chance and play nothing by ear. With this in mind, I had booked us a table for lunch in Clifton at 1 p.m., following which we would walk across the suspension bridge and stroll around Ashton Court. We would then cross back over the bridge and pick up the open-top bus tour from Clifton village at 3.25 p.m. According to its online timetable, the circular tour would last approximately one hour, which would leave us just enough time to stop for a coffee and a snack on the way back to the flat, before changing and taking a taxi to the Colston Hall to meet my parents at six thirty. It was to be the kind of perfectly scheduled day so loved by Alistair, and it crossed my mind more than once how surprised and impressed he would have been to find me checking timetables and estimating eat times.
And my forward thinking wasn’t restricted to physical activity only. My mission was to show Felix how genuinely interested I was in him, whilst at the same time not causing him any distress, or putting my foot in it regarding any aspects of his personal life – primarily his Gwyneth Paltrow ex. I had therefore drawn up a mental list of enquiries about his friends, family and work, and had determined to make no references to relationships of the romantic variety unless he himself raised the topic.
His late arrival, however, threatened to throw all my careful planning into disarray from the outset. So after buzzing him into the flat, grabbing his overnight case from him and flinging it into the spare room, I immediately pushed him back out of the front door and we headed on foot and at speed for Clifton, eventually arriving within ten minutes of our original booking.
‘Oh my goodness,’ I said, flopping down in a chair after being shown to our table by a waitress. I picked up a menu and fanned myself. ‘I’m so unfit.’
I smiled up at Felix as he pulled out a chair and sat down. It was the first time I had really had a moment to examine him since his arrival, and I now took in the open-neck floral shirt, the blue cashmere sweater, which he casually threw over the back of his chair, and, of course, the body and complexion, which, in stark contrast to my own, showed absolutely no signs of even mild exertion after our dash to the restaurant. I stared at him, genuinely fascinated by his complete physical and sartorial transformation from the sloppy, rotund teenage friend I had regularly chased, and caught with ease, in order to retrieve the hat/book/cake which he had stolen from me.
‘What?’ he asked, picking up his own menu.
‘Sorry?’
‘You’re staring,’ he said. ‘Have I cut myself shaving?’
‘Oh, no.’ I stopped fanning my menu and instead turned it over to look at the lunch options. ‘I was just thinking that you’re obviously so much fitter than me.’
‘These days.’
I looked up to find him smiling.
‘Kate says I’m cellophane transparent,’ I sighed.
‘I wouldn’t go that far,’ he said. ‘But my weight loss is clearly a fascination for you.’
‘You’re right and I’m sorry,’ I said guiltily. ‘It’s so shallow, isn’t it? I’m trying not to think about it, but comparisons with the old you keep popping into my head.’
‘It’s OK,’ he said. ‘I’ve had seven or eight years to get used to it, but the photographs of the Pillsbury Doughboy dotted around my parents’ house still sometimes take me by surprise. Besides, I can’t throw stones,’ he added. ‘I keep comparing you to the old Dot.’
‘Do you?’ I asked uncertainly, far from confident that any comparisons he might be drawing would be favourable.
He nodded. ‘The old you wouldn’t have been worried about being a little late for lunch. Or for anything else, in fact. I’m not sure I can remember you ever being on time. The movie had always started, the bus had always left …’
I picked up my napkin and, unfolding it, placed it on my lap. ‘That must have worn pretty thin,’ I said, more to myself than to him, my shoulders sinking as I pictured Alistair tapping his watch whenever I was running late. ‘Really thin, actually.’
Felix meanwhile was now studying the menu. ‘I never minded,’ he said absently. ‘It was just a quirk to be factored in.’
I smiled, touched by his throwaway acceptance. ‘Well, thank you for all those years of tolerance.’
He looked up. ‘And thank you for all those years of funding my pastry habit whenever I ran out of cash.’
‘Is that gratitude or blame?’
‘Maybe a bit of both,’ he said, twisting in his chair to look over his shoulder at the specials board. ‘The two often go hand in hand, I think.’
‘Yes.’ I nodded and wondered what he might consider the overall blame: gratitude ratio of his relationship with me to be. Despite now feeling more relaxed in his company, I was still pretty sure the odds weren’t hugely stacked in my favour.
I looked across the table at him as he sat with his back now to me, his thick dark hair neatly cut to the edge of a curl, and thought again about the genial, wild-haired boy who had never once expressed impatience or told me to hurry up.
He turned around suddenly, causing me to start slightly. ‘If you’re wondering about my hair, I had it cut short in 2003,’ he said. ‘The Louis XIV dragged-through-a-hedge-backwards look didn’t sit well on a trainee accountant.’
‘It hadn’t even registered with me that your hair was shorter,’ I said casually.
‘Of course it hadn’t.’
‘But now that you mention it, I always thought your look was more Brian May than Sun King.’
He nodded thoughtfully. ‘I can’t deny it was a bleak day when Tony the barber talked me into having a fringe.’
‘Oh my goodness, yes!’ I exclaimed. ‘And he cut quite a bit off the back too, didn’t he? And then you were worried that you looked like Deidre from Coronation Street!’
‘As I remember it, I was worried that I looked like Deidre from Coronation Street after you told me that I looked like Deidre from Coronation Street,’ he said drily.
‘Yes, but only when you put on those big purple joke glasses.’
‘Which you bought for me.’
‘So I did!’ I laughed. ‘But don’t worry, your fringe was nowhere near as bleak as my Sporty Spice phase.’
‘My fringe was way bleaker,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘More on a par with your Björk obsession.’
‘The bindi eyebrows!’ I gasped. ‘I loved them but they kept falling into my food. Remember when I choked on that pasta at your house and then coughed up three of the things into a piece of kitchen roll?’
He nodded slowly. ‘Yes, I do remember that. It was one of the few times I felt unable to finish a meal. Anyway, how about we just call my ill-judged fringe and your lethal eyebrows a very bleak draw?’
‘Yes, let’s,’ I replied, looking down at the menu, ‘particularly as I am now starving. Do you know what you’d like?’
‘Well, I had been considering the pasta. But strangely enough, I’ve suddenly gone off that idea,’ he murmured, looking once again at the menu. ‘So I’ll have the chicken.’
‘That does look good. I’ll have the same,’ I said, hurriedly replacing the menu on the table and turning in my chair to look for our waiter. ‘And actually we’d better get a move on and
order, because we’ve got a bus to catch.’
* * *
Post lunch, the day went beautifully to plan. We completed our walk, didn’t miss the bus and there was just enough time for a leisurely ciabatta, and for me to execute a quick change from jeans to floral frock, before we set off for the Colston Hall.
Conversationally things had gone well too, and I congratulated myself on being interested, but not intrusive, with my line of questioning as we talked about our respective routes to self-employment, agreeing that nothing had been more important to our professional happiness and success than being blessed with excellent business partners. And, reading between the lines, it seemed to me that Kevin was as significant a personal support to Felix as Kate was to me.
When it came to significant relationships outside work, I referred to Alistair obliquely a couple of times in connection with house-hunting and holiday destinations, but he never became a topic in his own right. And as for Gwyneth, well she never so much as raised her beautiful blonde head, obliquely or otherwise.
All in all, I felt the day was proving a success. I found myself genuinely enjoying Felix’s company and dared to believe, from his relaxed body language and frequent laughter, that he was enjoying mine too. In fact, it was only as I clambered out of the taxi at the rear of the Colston Hall and Felix paid the fare, that my first real nerves of the day began to kick in.
I checked my watch, and after a slight dip in spirits upon discovering that we were running early and that it was only six twenty, I tried to calm myself by focusing on the fact that we would realistically still have just forty minutes at most with my parents. And so long as I could keep Mum chatting about Becca’s wedding, or what she had planned for the rest of the weekend, we would, I told myself, be fine.
I followed Felix as he trotted down the steps a little way ahead of me, holding open the large glass door. And I was both relieved and a little envious to see no sign of anxiety on his face whatsoever.
‘It’s downstairs, isn’t it?’ he asked as we went inside.
I nodded, smiling as brightly as I could.
‘It’ll be fine,’ he said reassuringly.
Finding Felix Page 11