If Harry Met Sally Again

by Annie Robertson

  A couple of years before Jess died I thought about looking up the guy I was having an affair with before I met Jess.

  PHILIP

  And did you?

  MARIE

  No. But after Jess died I did.

  PHILIP

  What happened?

  MARIE

  He was divorced. We dated. It was horrid.

  PHILIP

  Best not to revisit the past?

  MARIE

  It had nothing to do with the past and everything to do with the future, which felt completely empty without Jess in it.

  PHILIP

  I can only imagine.

  MARIE

  Nobody can imagine. The only thing worse is to lose a child.

  PHILIP nods.

  PHILIP

  But you’re doing okay?

  MARIE

  It took a while, but, yeah, now I’m doing fine. There’s a freedom that comes from being widowed; I can indulge in things I could never have done as a married woman.

  Marie eyes the bartender. Philip understands. Looks into his glass and laughs.

  MARIE

  (cont)

  I loved being married to Jess, but that doesn’t mean I can’t love what comes after Jess too.

  ‘Interesting,’ I say, sitting back against my cushions, taking a drink of juice, and reading what I’ve written. ‘Maybe the guys had a point. Maybe I can keep Marie classy while allowing her to indulge her wild streak.’

  I sit a while longer playing around with the idea of Marie flirting with George and ultimately sleeping with him. I’m about to start sketching another scene when my phone rings, it’s Mum.

  ‘Nina, you need to come quickly, your father -’ she says, bursting into tears, gasping down the phone.

  ‘Mum, try to breathe.’ I push my laptop to one side and get up to dress. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘It’s that bike.’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘He had an accident. He’s in the hospital!’

  ‘I’m on my way.’

  27

  ‘What happened?’ I ask Mum in the relatives’ room of their local A&E department over an hour later.

  ‘A car cut him up at a roundabout.’ Mum is staring at a badly framed print of lapping waves on the wall.

  ‘Has anybody spoken to you?’ For the first time I’m beginning to worry that this could actually be something serious.

  Mum shakes her head and searches in her handbag for a tissue. She pulls out a crumpled ball, which has clearly been used before, and starts dabbing her nostrils with it.

  ‘I told him that bike was trouble but he wouldn’t listen.’

  I fetch us both a glass of water from the dispenser in the corner of the room. ‘I’m sure he’s fine. Someone will come soon.’

  ‘The longer we wait the worse it must be,’ she says, taking the cup from me with a trembling hand.

  ‘Not necessarily. They could be busy with someone else. I’m sure if he was really bad someone would have come by now.’

  Mum inhales sharply, trying to pull herself together. ‘Thank you for coming. I tried your sister but all I got was her machine.’

  I nod, glad to be here.

  ‘She’s been so preoccupied recently,’ continues Mum, looking down at the selection of bereavement pamphlets and support group leaflets laid out on the small corner table beside her. ‘I’ve almost stopped trying to contact her.’

  ‘Do you think she and Toby are getting divorced?’

  Mum, surprisingly, lets out a great burst of laughter. ‘Where in the world did you get that idea from?’

  ‘Well,’ I say, glad to have cheered Mum up but also feeling a little foolish. ‘They’re always arguing about the kids, Toby’s rarely at home, and last time I was over it was to babysit because Narissa was seeing her lawyer.’

  ‘Darling, that’s called parenthood.’ She pats the back of my hand.

  ‘Seeing lawyers?’

  ‘Narissa hasn’t mentioned anything to me about that but I’m certain if they were getting divorced she would have done. It’s perfectly normal to squabble about children, Narissa’s run off her feet, and Toby has a very important job, so of course he’s rarely at home.’

  It’s all very credible but one way or another I remain unconvinced.

  ‘You’ll know all about it one day,’ she says, reaching for her handheld mirror to check her make-up, which is smudged to hell. ‘How are you getting on with that script of yours?’

  ‘It’s tough but Ben’s really good at what he does so we’ll get there, but I swear there are times that I think it will kill me before it’s finished.’

  ‘Who’s Ben?’

  ‘Co-writer,’ I say, unable to hide the note of affection in my voice.

  ‘And?’

  ‘How do you do that?’ I ask, astonished by my mother’s ability to sniff out romance at a thousand paces.

  ‘Mothers know,’ she laughs, cheered by the knowledge that there might be someone new in my life. ‘Your father and I don’t say it often enough but we’re both very proud of you. Narissa has chosen a more conventional path, which is easier for us to understand, but we’re just as proud of you.’

  ‘Thanks, Mum.’

  The door opens and a male doctor, who looks like a twelve-year-old in blue pyjamas, enters the room.

  ‘Mrs Gillespie?’ he asks, closing the door behind him.

  ‘Yes.’ Mum sits erect at the edge of her seat. I reach for her hand, which she clutches. Her wedding ring, worn and tight, presses coolly against my skin.

  ‘Mr Gillespie is doing well.’

  Mum’s body crumples with relief.

  ‘Oh, thank God.’

  ‘Would you like to see him?’

  On the way to see Dad the doctor tells us how he’s been exceptionally lucky, sustaining only a nasty broken leg and wrist, among various bumps and crazes.

  ‘If he’d been going much faster it could have been a very different story,’ he says, taking us into a large, windowless room with five or six curtained areas. He walks us past two other patients in bed, one propped up with a bandage round his head, the other moaning alarmingly with the curtain closed.

  ‘Here we are.’ He whips back the curtain to reveal Dad, his leg strapped in some sort of padded support block still covered in dry blood and pieces of tarmac.

  ‘No fool like an old fool,’ Dad says to Mum, who kisses his forehead and squeezes his hand with both of hers.

  ‘I love you, Gordon Gillespie.’ She fights back the tears.

  ‘And I love you, Marjorie Ann,’ he says, staring deep into her eyes as if it’s the last time he may see them. ‘Probably time the bike went.’

  ‘And the Botox,’ says Mum. ‘Maybe it’s time we started to grow old gracefully.’

  ‘I much prefer you with the wrinkles, even the turkey neck.’ They laugh and embrace as best they can with Dad propped up the way he is.

  I leave them alone and wander down the hospital corridor thinking about Ben. I desperately want to call him but to say what? Tell him about Dad’s near miss? Tell him I miss him? To ask why he hasn’t been in touch? To confirm sleeping with me wasn’t a mistake?

  On a grey plastic chair, opposite a notice board covered in posters about how to wash your hands, I pull out my phone. Exhausted, I scroll for Ben’s number. When I find it, my thumb hovers over the call button. I agonise for ages about whether to call or not, and am about to touch it when a passing porter says, ‘Phones aren’t allowed in here, Miss.’

  ‘Sorry,’ I say, stuffing it in my pocket and leaning back, unable to think of anything other than Ben.

  28

  ‘Where have you been?’ whispers Astrid grumpily, as I enter the shop, the exterior of which is being painted, and the interior of which is a mess. There are half-empty boxes scattered everywhere, towers of toppling books on every table and customers picking through titles that aren’t yet on display. Plus Doreen is lounging on the couch, an event that always m
akes the place look untidy. I can tell by the look of annoyance on Astrid’s face that she’s been bending her ear all morning.

  I explain about Dad.

  ‘Is he okay?’ she asks, handing a bag of books to a customer.

  ‘He’s fine.’ I take off my coat and go behind the till to deal with the small queue. Astrid starts carting boxes through to the back.

  After a while, once most of the customers have gone and the floor is pretty much clear, Astrid says to me, quietly, ‘Wages haven’t been paid. I’ve had to borrow money from the till.’

  ‘Sorry, Astrid, I completely forgot to transfer that money. Let me do it now.’

  ‘It would really help,’ she says, starting a mail-out for an upcoming author talk of which I wasn’t even aware.

  ‘Was Mr Love busy with his “nurse” last week?’

  ‘Actually, I haven’t seen her in a while, or Freddy.’

  ‘He must be going through a bad patch.’

  ‘You think I should ring his bell?’

  ‘Are you brave enough?’

  ‘Not really,’ she says, with a laugh. ‘But he owes me my wages. Plain and simple.’

  ‘We should do it together,’ I say, as if we were two naughty schoolboys plotting to steal sweets from the corner shop.

  ‘Let’s do it at lunchtime.’

  Just before lunch, Bat Shit Crazy arrives. I track her progress round the shop, watching her as she shifts from botanical to crafts and eventually to cinema. In the end she chooses an obscure little book on ancient pottery that I thought would never sell.

  ‘That’s ten ninety-nine,’ I say, and she hands me her card. I check the name, and sure enough, just as Ben said, Ms Marilyn Brinkwater is embossed on the plastic. Tongue-tied, I take the payment and hand it back to her along with the book. It surprises me when she sits down next to Doreen and begins to read.

  Lunch comes and goes, too busy with customers to find time to knock on Mr Love’s door. Come mid-afternoon the shop door swings open and Cowboy Steve steps in out of the rain, followed immediately by another customer, holding his jacket over his head to keep off the wet.

  ‘Hi, Steve,’ I say, as he bends to kiss Doreen, lightly on the cheek; Marilyn Brinkwater edges as far into the corner as she can.

  ‘Good afternoon, ma’am,’ he says, kissing me on the hand.

  ‘Don’t I get a kiss?’ says the other guy. I do a double take and realise – it’s Ben! Half of me wants to leap at him and snog his brains out, the other half of me could take a swing at him.

  ‘Nice weather,’ he says, taking off his soaking coat with a shake.

  ‘Autumn in London.’ I surprise myself with how detached I sound. It doesn’t quite marry up to how I feel.

  ‘Sounds like a song.’

  I say nothing. He follows me through to the back, which this year Astrid has decorated with bats and cobwebs, pumpkins and ghosts, and spiders the size of small dogs. ‘I Put a Spell on You’ plays in the background.

  ‘Why are you here?’ I ask, stepping onto a small ladder to sort one of the shelves. I’m trying to cram too many copies of Click Clack Boo into the allotted space. ‘Has Mike asked for more changes? Has Catherine changed her mind about Marie?’

  ‘Slow down,’ he laughs, mopping rain from his brow. ‘There is no drama. I just wanted to see you.’

  I step down to gather up the cardboard copies of Maisie’s Trick or Treat not meeting Ben’s eye. ‘And you couldn’t let me know that via a message or call?’

  ‘I wanted to surprise you. I wanted to spend time with the girl who slept with me then cruelly sprinted off to London.’

  ‘It was a mistake,’ I blurt, even though I’m not completely certain I mean it. ‘So it’s probably best you leave.’

  Astrid calls me to help at the till. I brush past him, still wet from the rain, and try to ignore the fact that every fibre of my body tingles from the merest touch.

  As I serve customers Ben re-introduces himself to Marilyn Brinkwater, and chats to Steve and Doreen.

  ‘You should listen tae yaer man,’ says Doreen, after the last paying customer has gone.

  ‘Doreen, don’t take this the wrong way,’ I say, feeling pretty irritated that Doreen seems to consider my love life her business. ‘But what’s between Ben and me will remain between Ben and me.’

  ‘Suit yoursel’. But yaer mad to say naw to a gid-lookin’ single fella who wants a piece of yae.’

  ‘That’s just the point, Doreen – he’s not single.’

  ‘Well now, hold on a minute,’ says Ben, sitting on the arm of the sofa. ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘Because I’ve met your girlfriend, remember?’

  ‘And what if I told you she isn’t my girlfriend any more, that the moment you took off to London without a backward glance, I saw what a jackass I’d been and immediately broke it off with her. What then?’

  ‘Then I wouldn’t believe you,’ I say, haughtily but not wholly convincingly. The merest smile begins to form at the corner of my lips.

  ‘He did,’ says Doreen, and Steve and Marilyn nod, like characters in a bad school play.

  ‘She’s right, I did.’ Ben walks towards me.

  ‘You did?’ I ask, feeling my knees weaken and all inner resolve crumble.

  ‘I did,’ he says, kissing me lightly on the cheek, assessing if I’m receptive to more – I am. He leans in and kisses me strongly, only stopping when we realise that Astrid, Doreen, Steve and Marilyn are all grinning inanely at us from the sofa.

  29

  ‘Am I crushing your arm?’ I ask Ben, who has his arm underneath my neck, lying in bed beside me.

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘I’m glad,’ I say, circling his light chest hair with my finger, thinking about Harry and Sally after they’ve slept together. ‘You’re not wondering how long you have to lie here holding me, the way Harry did, are you?’

  ‘No!’ he laughs then, after a beat, says, ‘I gave up on that thought after the first twenty-four hours of being here!’

  ‘Ha-bloody-ha!’ I reach for another kiss.

  After Ben showed up at the shop, everyone agreed I should leave work early and take a few days off. Ben and I spent the rest of the day strolling around London, soaking up autumn, in a way so reminiscent of Ephron’s New York wonderland scene I couldn’t help but imagine it as a piece of montage, accompanied by Rod Stewart singing, ‘A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square’:

  Ext. Park – Day

  Nina and Ben strolling through autumn leaves, arm in arm, bundled up against the cold, watching children throwing leaves at each other. They treat themselves to candy floss and a toffee apple from a stall.

  Ext. Farmers’ market – later the same day

  Nina and Ben are standing at the pumpkin stand trying to decide which to buy. Nina eventually decides on one and pays. The stallholder hands it to Ben to carry. Ben almost collapses under the weight.

  They attempt to carry it together, walking like crabs all the way back to Nina’s flat.

  Ever since, we’ve been lazing around the flat, mostly naked in bed but occasionally naked in the shower, and very occasionally robed in the kitchen eating takeaway.

  ‘We should probably leave the flat at some point,’ I say. ‘How long it’s been?’

  ‘Three days.’

  ‘Oh gawd! I need to show my face at work.’

  ‘Nah,’ he says, pulling me closer, in a gesture that suggests even if I wanted to leave he wouldn’t let me go. ‘Astrid won’t mind.’

  ‘I think she might—’ I say, but I don’t get a chance to finish because Ben rolls onto his side, tucks a leg between mine, and starts to kiss me.

  ‘I can’t believe how right this feels,’ he says, kissing my neck.

  ‘I know. Who knew I could feel so much for a hipster!’

  ‘Hey,’ he says, lifting his head from where it was on my breast. ‘The hipster thing has passed.’

  ‘What was it about?’

  ‘Trying to fit
in, I suppose,’ he says, as I coax his head back towards my boobs. ‘We all do that in different ways, right?’

  ‘Do we?’

  ‘Well, maybe not you,’ he says. ‘You’re always true to you, you follow your dreams and don’t hide behind anything, that’s what will take you far, but I try to fit in: image, work, girls.’

  ‘Is that the real reason you’re working in script development, because you’re good at it and you’re afraid of what others will think if you’re not successful? Because you know I read your script and you’d be a fool not to knock on every door possible. It’s really brilliant.’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ he says, paying close attention to my nipple.

  ‘Was fitting in the reason behind dating Jen? Because she looked good? She was part of “the show and prowess” you mentioned?’

  ‘Probably,’ he says, moving towards my belly. I shoo the image of Jen’s perfect tummy out of my mind, hoping he’s not comparing me to her.

  ‘Why didn’t you break it off sooner?’

  ‘I find that sort of stuff difficult. My tendency is to try to please. You’re the first girl I’ve ever really gone out on a limb for.’

  ‘I’m sure,’ I say, not quite able to believe him, though I want to.

  ‘I’m serious,’ he says, casting his eyes up.

  ‘But still,’ I say, uncertain. ‘I’m sure the fact she was a model made it harder to end it.’

  ‘You’d be surprised how unappealing hanging out with someone who looks and feels a lot like a razor-clam can be.’

  ‘Harsh!’ I laugh, sort of pleased.

  ‘But true,’ he says, placing a chain of kisses around my belly button.

  ‘She was pretty sexy,’ I say, relaxing into his kisses.

  ‘You’re much sexier.’

  ‘That I doubt,’ I say, wishing I could banish Will’s comments about me looking like Dumbo once and for all.

  ‘Your inability to see it is part of your sexiness. Who could resist this tiny waist, curvy ass, and kooky style,’ he says, moving between my legs and kissing my inner thighs. My pelvis rises; encouraging him to move closer. His tongue reaches me just as his phone rings.

  ‘You should check it,’ I say, when it becomes clear that he has no intention of answering.