Five Parks

by Ross McGuinness

  I never stuck up for you, never fought your corner. I didn’t deserve your love. And then when you tried to fight my corner after everything ended with Michael, I disowned you. I was angry at you for confronting him, even more angry that you pushed him so hard he pushed back, gave you that black eye. I was angry at you because you showed me Michael could be violent, a side to him I never saw. You tainted him. But you were only trying to stick up for your big sister. I should have seen that. I am sorry I ran out on you. I love you, Stephen. It hurts that I know I will never see you again. And it hurts that I know you will not miss your big sister. You don’t need her. You never have done.

  Sylvie, I am sorry. You were the big sister I didn’t have, the big sister I should have been to Stephen. You looked after me in London. You rescued me from loneliness, gave me a life here. I would have been no one and nowhere without you. It isn’t your fault I blew it, destroyed everything you gave to me. I was adrift here and you saved me. You are my best friend and I took you for granted. You did so much for me and I screwed it all up. You always championed me and I threw it back in your face. I lost you.

  If you had been there on that fifth date to look out for me, I wouldn’t be in this position. But I pushed you away. I can’t forget the nights out we had, just the two of us, hugging and punching our fists in the air at whatever gig you had dragged me to that week. You were always there for me. You helped me find Michael, gave me a taste of a gorgeous future that I tossed away, and you were there for me when he was gone. I love you Sylvie and I am sorry for everything. I didn’t deserve you.

  Michael, I am sorry. This is goodbye. I miss you so much. Each time I close my eyes in the dark in here, I hope I will open them in your arms, back in bed six or seven months ago, back to normal. But I know I can’t go back. I fucked things up and I don’t deserve to have you. In another time in another world, we are getting ready for our wedding right now, but I destroyed everything. That world is gone.

  I’m sorry I embarrassed you with all this. It can’t have been easy seeing your former fiancée’s dating blog in the pages of a national newspaper a few months after you split up. You warned me to stop doing the blog, that you were worried what might happen if I kept going, and you were right. And you were right to break up with me.

  I can blame Jessica all I like for what happened between us, but the truth is the ultimate responsibility lay with me. I brought us to the brink, all she did was help push me off. It wasn’t your fault. I am sorry and I forgive you. I forgive you for what you did to my brother. Stephen only wanted to protect me. He didn’t know why we really split up – I didn’t tell him – it was only natural for him to seek you out. You didn’t have to punch him. That wasn’t your style. It disgusted me because it showed you weren’t the person I loved, but I forgive you. I’m not asking you to forgive me for everything I did wrong in response, because that is asking too much, but I want you to remember that I loved you and I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you. But the rest of my life will be spent in darkness. Perhaps I deserve it.

  There is one more person who deserves an apology, but I don’t really know what to say. Because I’m not quite sure what I did to him. But I know deep down that what happened was all my fault. Aaron, I am sorry.

  These are my last words in this prison. This is goodbye.

  20

  ‘Date #4: Game, set and match with Aaron in Regent’s Park’

  Posted by Suzanne

  Saturday, July 23, 2016

  Aaron is down a break but he is still fighting. Or at least pretending to put up a fight. I can’t help thinking he’s letting me win. I’m on top, serving for the set and the match. Just one more point needed. Please don’t make me play another set after this, I think you’ve seen me sweat enough for one date.

  I throw the ball high into the sun, and a squint and a shimmy later I smack it as hard as I can with my racquet, willing it over the net with my mind as much as my body. I am bloody knackered. Aaron – gorgeous, lovely, mysterious Aaron – can either read my mind or is just as banjaxed as his opponent, because when my serve arrives at his chest, waiting to be drilled back whence it came for a return winner, he duffs the ball into the net instead. It’s all over.

  I throw my arms up into the air in mock celebration, let out a small whoop of feigned satisfaction, then he whips a smile over the net that has more topspin than any forehand return. Thank goodness my face is red and puffy with the exertion of the past forty-five minutes of tennis, because if it wasn’t, or if we were playing on a cooler day, he would notice I am blushing. We shake hands at the net, then giggle as we plant kisses on both cheeks. My hand in his, my lips grazed by his slight stubble, I breathe him in.

  Tennis wasn’t the best choice for a date, given it pitches two people at opposite ends of a painted rectangle – he’s been too far away. Up close, at the net, he smells so sweet, the faint drip of aftershave he must have applied earlier this afternoon still clinging on against the beads of sweat sliding from his forehead. It is the hottest day of the summer so far. I grab the big bottle of water from my bag at the side of the court and offer him some. He guzzles with his eyes closed, shielding himself from the blazing sun, unafraid of catching my cooties. I sip at the same bottle when he is done, then drink him in too.

  He disobeyed my orders. I told him to wear whites for our tennis match, but before me is a man clad in a kaleidoscope. His red polo shirt shouts above green khaki shorts, perhaps the only ones he had with a pocket large enough to fit tennis balls. At least his socks and trainers followed the dress code, which I adhered to through some impulse purchases at Sports Direct on Kilburn High Road yesterday. I hope I look like Maria Sharapova, but I’ll settle for Steffi Graf.

  I look the part and I tried to play it too, capitalising on Aaron’s rustiness – he said he hadn’t picked up a racquet in about five years, so I had to lend him one of mine – by racing into an early love lead in our first and thankfully final set. But once he got into his rhythm and slammed in a few first serves and one especially stunning drop volley, I got the distinct feeling that Aaron was giving me the tennis equivalent of a backstreet hustle. That feeling didn’t dissipate when his form dipped just in time to see me take the set and the match. If his tennis tactics are anything to go by, he’s full of surprises.

  When we arrived at the courts in the centre of Regent’s Park an hour ago, there was no time for chatting bar a few pleasantries. We rushed on to Court 4 (where else could I host Date #4?) in an awkward tizzy. But something about slaving away under the sun together has bonded us in a way that a million words wouldn’t, and I feel an easy calm as we slide off the court towards the gate cut into the wire.

  The pairing who have booked the court after us arrive as we leave, and I pounce on one of them and ask if he will take a photo of my partner and I to commemorate our epic encounter. When the deed is done, I cover my iPhone with my hand to block out the sun and peer into the resulting picture. In the image, my arm stretches around Aaron’s torso as we wear smiles and squint into the lens (you can see for yourself below). He scrubs up pretty well in photos, but then I already knew that from looking at Penelope’s online collection during the week. In the flesh, he is just as striking. I kind of want to eat him with a spoon. I’m not the only one who’s hungry.

  ‘I thought we could maybe have a picnic in the park,’ he says, zipping open his sports bag after we’ve left the courts and letting me peek inside.

  There’s all sorts in there: strawberries and cream to fit the tennis theme; a bottle of Prosecco and some white plastic cups; some mini-sausage rolls and, my favourite, scotch eggs. He knows how to treat a lady.

  We extract ourselves from Regent’s Park’s inner circle and move into its wider expanses. A coffee shop welcomes us to a long thick stretch of pathway that reaches out to the end of the park, but we ignore that route and the accompanying crowds by branching off to the right through freshly cut grass, where we plant ourselves under the shade of a large tree. I
t is quiet here, the only noise created by a bunch of boys playing cricket fifty yards in front of us and the odd runaway dog.

  From a distance, we probably look like a married couple engaging in the annual summer ritual of a picnic in the park. That’s what I’m hoping for, anyway. Aaron drags a blue blanket from his bag and lets it waft to the ground. Hay fever be damned today, I think, and fling myself on top of it, sniffing in the thin grass.

  A munched scotch egg and a downed cup of Prosecco later and I’m feeling pretty good about my choice at the other end of the blanket. Aaron is a gentleman and has the looks to go with his manners: I might have to rename this outing Date Phwoar.

  I stick to my rule of avoiding chat about work – I’m a freelance journalist, he’s a software engineer, let’s move on – but we can’t help talking about Five Parks.

  ‘I saw what happened to the guy before me, you know,’ Aaron says, taking a sip of Prosecco.

  As he does so, I put my own cup down on the grass and ignore the fact that it looks ready to topple. My facial muscles relax and I realise my smile has dropped.

  ‘I thought you might mention that,’ I say. ‘I’m sorry about that. Things got out of hand. It was out of my control. It won’t happen again.’

  I grab my cup just before it falls over and raise it to him. ‘You have nothing to worry about.’

  He apologises, although there’s no need; he hasn’t done anything to me. We all have our pasts, the problem is that mine is becoming rather public.

  I don’t want to talk about my exes, anyway, I want to talk about his. I want to hear what happened with Penelope, hear it from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. But it would be unfair to delve into his dalliances and not reciprocate.

  ‘Penelope had very nice things to say about you.’

  Fuck it. I like Aaron. I like him a lot. I feel comfortable with him. I’m just going to go for it.

  He wasn’t ready for my outburst, but he takes it, and a spilled drop of bubbly, on the chin.

  ‘I’m glad she did,’ he says. ‘I’m sure she had some very not nice things to say about me too.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ I reply. ‘Lots and lots.’

  I’m teasing him.

  ‘She told me everything.’

  ‘Thankfully, there’s not much to tell.’

  His smile tells me he’s happy to discuss old flames, but his eyes say something else. For the first time today, his bright blues are looking past me, not into me. I realise I’m being a bit mean and drop it. No more ex talk. After two dates of high drama, I am finally relaxed again in the company of another man. Another man who I might just fancy the pants off. So stop blowing it, Suzanne.

  He changes the subject before I can think of a suitable one myself and asks me about tennis; how did I get so good?

  I blush and tell him that I used to play Swingball with my dad on camping holidays before graduating to proper tennis on summer nights near home on the little-used courts at our nearby secondary school. In my teens, once I was at that same school, I would work on my backhand after the bell for home time had rung. I don’t tell him that, as a journalist, I once scored free VIP tickets to Wimbledon, but got so pissed on free champagne that I didn’t even make it on to Centre Court to watch Andy Murray beat whoever he was drawn to beat that afternoon.

  While I might fold under questioning, Aaron is proving a tough nut to crack. Some information leaks out, however: he’s an only child; he’s lived in London all his life; he thinks London is, like the cab drivers say, ‘the greatest city in the world’, and he’s travelled a lot of that world, much of it on his own, through a wariness of fellow backpackers trying to ‘find themselves’.

  Aaron doesn’t strike me as someone who needs to find anything. He looks like he’s got it all worked out. Not in an arrogant way, but the complete opposite – he has no interest in trying to impress me, apart from plying me with scotch eggs, and if he has an ego under that polo shirt I am yet to find it. I can’t really describe what’s happening, but I feel like Five Parks has finally started.

  ‘What you’re doing is amazing,’ he says. ‘Loopy, but amazing.’

  ‘Thank you… I think.’

  He says it takes guts to do what I’m doing. I say Five Parks is no picnic. He looks down at the spread of food and drink and laughs, then tosses me another strawberry. Five Parks has been difficult, he’s right about that, but I’m beginning to hope it was worth it.

  ‘Stop me if I’m getting ahead of myself here,’ he says, ‘but what are the chances of any of your five choices getting a follow-up date?’

  It’s a bold question, but Aaron asks it with enough nervousness that it comes across cute not over-confident.

  I tug at the collar of my own polo shirt. Even the shade can’t protect us fully from the heat.

  ‘I don’t know yet,’ I say, even though we both know the real answer. ‘We’ll just have to wait and see.’

  Penelope didn’t tell me everything – how could she? Was this how she felt? No one can prepare you for what might happen next, even the person who has been there and done it before you.

  Aaron leans over from his side of the blanket, like a tentative soldier tiptoeing up to a demarcation line for a lone sniper attack. I can’t help smiling at him and the expectation I see in his eyes. I test him. I don’t lurch forward to meet him, I wait. I wait and I wait and I wait and when his face is almost on mine, I wait some more, even though my knee is juddering into the blanket in nervous anticipation. I’ve waited so long for something like this I deserve to wait a little longer.

  But it doesn’t happen.

  The noise comes first, a THWACK that interrupts everything and forces both of us back. It’s like one of those scenes in a movie when someone gets shot but doesn’t realise it for a couple of seconds, until the blood starts slipping out under their dinner jacket. Instead of blood, we have cream. Fresh double whipped cream. For strawberries. I don’t notice it on me because it’s camouflaged itself into my tennis get-up, but Aaron’s red polo is no longer red. It’s a mess, awash with great thick splodges of white. When a dollop drops off his chin, I can’t help but let out a squeaky laugh. What has just happened?

  He leans back and puts his arms out to his sides to take it all in. Between us lies what used to be a sealed container of fresh cream. It has been pulverised. Aaron’s blanket will need to go in the wash. There is something else between us that banished the sexual tension. It too is covered in cream, but the yellowy green patches of its exterior are unmistakeable. It is a tennis ball, but it is not one of ours. They’re all safely tucked away in my bag. The sound of collective teen tittering from further inside the park gives it away. The cricket game has stopped. We have their ball. It’s exploded our romantic picnic into a messy mass of creamy white, but we have it. And the young cricketers aren’t the only ones laughing. Aaron is in hysterics. I have to admit, it’s pretty funny. We look like a scene from Bugsy Malone.

  The boy sent against his will to fetch the makeshift cricket ball is sheepish when he comes over, but we can tell he is trying hard to suppress his laughter.

  ‘Can we have our ball back?’ he asks, a question that has echoed across a hundred billion back gardens. The poor kid has gone from sheepish to frightened in a second; he looks like he thinks Aaron is going to make him eat the tennis ball, cream and all.

  Aaron soaks up a long silence, gives the boy a stern look and says: ‘On one condition. You let us join in your game.’

  The boy looks back over at his still giggling comrades, then at the soaked picnic blanket, then at us. He looks relieved.

  ‘Sure! Not a problem. You two can bat next if you like?’

  ‘Perfect,’ says Aaron, pointing a cream-covered finger at me. ‘She’ll bat first. She’s ace.’

  ‘Great! My name’s Tariq,’ says Tariq. ‘Come over when you’re ready.’

  He must think we’re going to spend a few minutes cleaning cream off our clothes, but he’s mistaken. Aaron stands up, tosses him the
ball then wrenches me off the blanket with a strength his lean body belies. We’re going straight into bat.

  The kids applaud us as we follow Tariq on to their makeshift cricket pitch, and they cheer again when I take a big swing and a miss at the first ball to fly past me. It’s harder to hit a tennis ball with a cricket bat, I realise. Aaron chuckles along with the rest of them from behind the stumps, which escaped a battering from what felt like a 90mph bowl by a tiny teenager twenty yards away from me. He is laughing too.

  But he isn’t laughing after his second throw, which I somehow catch on the full. I watch it sail over the bowler’s head – over everybody’s heads – and back towards the trees and our abandoned picnic. The young bowler bows in front of me in respect, as I point the bat in the air in celebration. My smugness is short-lived; two bowls later and I’m out, as my nemesis decides he’s been embarrassed by a girl – and a girl twice his age – for long enough, crashing the tennis ball into the stumps. Aaron is afforded even less mercy, and is bowled out in the time it would have taken me to polish off a second scotch egg. Cricket is tough.

  We give our new friends a few minutes of perfunctory fielding and then make our excuses and leave. Aaron’s explanation (‘We’re on a first date, lads!’) earns another cheer, which echoes along the line of trees on the path after we’ve gathered up our picnic paraphernalia.

  The sun begins to relent as we make our way north to the exit, up towards leafy Primrose Hill and London Zoo.

  Aaron stands back and lets me pass through the gate first, a gentleman to the last. We go back into the world. And then… well, that would be telling.