by Paige Toon
I decided the night before what I was going to wear: dark blue jeans and a fitted greeny-bronze jumper, which brings out the amber flecks in my eyes.
Nathan’s flight has already landed when I arrive at the airport at 6.20. I wait behind the ropes, watching as incoming passengers emerge into the arrivals hall. After a couple of minutes I feel restless and decide to go and get myself a hot chocolate. There’s a queue and I shift from foot to foot as I keep an eye on the sliding doors. I’m anxious. I take my drink back to the ropes and wait again, alongside the minicab drivers holding their white signs. Just as I’m starting to worry I might’ve missed him, the doors open and he’s there.
He looks different, unfamiliar. I watch him intently as he searches the crowd for me. He’s wearing a faded green hooded top and beige-coloured cords and his black guitar case is slung over his shoulder as he wheels a large suitcase. Finally he spots me and grins. My stomach starts to catapult.
I’d forgotten how tall he was. I immediately feel myself blushing. He still has stubble and his dark hair is a little longer than it was before, falling messily to a couple of inches below his chin.
‘Hello, you.’ He smiles, bending down to kiss me on the cheek. Then he lets go of his suitcase and guitar and says warmly, ‘Come here.’ He wraps his arms around me in a tight hug and holds me for several seconds as I breathe him in. Memories come flooding back. He smells familiar, and it’s not his aftershave because he’s not wearing any; he just smells of Nathan. Suddenly I don’t want to let go. I squeeze my eyes shut as all the resistance and resilience I’ve been building up vanish in a nano-second. He releases me, gently.
‘How was your flight?’
‘Long,’ he answers. He looks exhausted.
‘Come on, it’s this way.’ I lead him out towards the trains, praying my legs will hold me up.
Nathan is staying in a flatshare in Archway, north London, with Richard and three other antipodeans. It must be a big place to fit five of them in. Either that or it’s going to be a squeeze.
On the train we grab two seats by the window, facing each other.
We’ve barely spoken on the walk here and I’ve felt shy and awkward. Now, sitting here facing him, I force myself to lighten up and soon we relax back into each other’s company. He tells me about the two houses he’s done up and promises to show me the pictures when he unpacks his suitcase. We talk about work–my job and his new one, which he starts on Monday. And we chat about Sam and Molly and have a laugh about her ringing me up a few weeks ago and me thinking she was pregnant.
We don’t talk about James.
‘I’m glad you’re with me,’ Nathan says as we change trains. ‘These tubes would have freaked me out.’
‘You’ll soon get used to them. They’re easy,’ I tell him.
It’s still early on a Saturday morning so the carriages are practically empty, and we sit, side by side, swaying with the movement. I glance down at his left hand, steadying his guitar case between his long, slim legs. God, I fancy him. I shake my head quickly. Not this again. Please, not this again. But even as I’m silently saying it I don’t mean it. I like this feeling.
I think of James stubbing his toe last night in the darkness and feel a rush of affection. Immediately feeling deceitful towards my boyfriend, I look away from Nathan and down to the other end of the carriage.
The house where Nathan’s staying in Archway is a tall, three-storey terrace, halfway up the hill towards Highgate Village.
‘Highgate’s supposed to be nice,’ I say, thinking that Archway is a bit of a dump. He hasn’t seen ‘nice’ England at all yet and this is certainly a change from Sydney.
He hauls his suitcase up the front steps, exhausted from wheeling it up the steep hill, and presses the doorbell. Eventually we hear movement and a tall, slim, attractive blonde with a pixie-cut hairdo opens the door.
‘Nathan?’ she queries, in a sleepy Aussie accent. She’s wearing pale pink pyjamas.
‘Yeah.’ He grins. Uh-oh, I think.
She opens the door wide and lets us pass. I introduce myself and discover that her name is Ally.
‘Your room’s up here,’ she says to Nathan, leading the way up two flights of stairs, and pointing out the bathroom on the way.
‘The kitchen and living room are on the ground floor. Help yourself to milk or anything and I’ll show you which shelf is yours later for when you go to the supermarket. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to go back to bed.’
Nathan’s room is a box room with a single bed, small wardrobe and bedside table. There’s barely enough room to lie his suitcase on the floor so he leaves it standing up and props his guitar case against the wall.
We catch each other’s eyes and grin. I squeeze past him and go over to the window. It looks out over the overgrown back garden; at least he’s not facing the busy main road. A large barbeque sits to one side of the long grass. The Aussies would have made good use of that this summer.
I turn back and look at him. He’s watching me, smiling.
‘Let’s go and get some breakfast,’ I suggest.
Thank goodness. Highgate is lovely. Fruit and flowers spill out onto the pavement of the old grocer’s and quaint village shops line the rest of the high street. We take a left and go into Café Rouge for a continental breakfast. It’s not quite nine in the morning.
Neither of us have proper appetites yet, so we order lattes and a basket of French bread, pastries and conserves. Nathan leans back in his chair and surveys me.
‘You look different,’ he tells me.
‘Really?’
‘Yeah. Can’t work it out.’
Probably a bit slimmer, I’m thinking, but I don’t really want to point that out.
‘When does Richard arrive?’ I ask.
‘Tomorrow, I think.’
‘So, who else are you sharing with? Do you know anything about them?’
‘No, not really. Rich sorted the pad out. I think there are two girls and a guy.’
So Ally has a friend. I hope she’s not a stunner too.
‘Have you got anything planned today?’ I ask, as our bread, pastries and lattes arrive.
‘Sleep, I reckon,’ he says.
‘Poor thing, you must be knackered.’
He nods.
I resist a sudden impulse to reach over and touch his face. Even though his bluey-grey eyes are tinged with redness from the twenty-four-hour flight, I’d still happily sit here for hours and stare into them. Then I think of James waking up alone at home this morning. He claimed he’d forgotten I was going to the airport and was hoping we could do something together today. I don’t believe he forgot for a minute but, knowing Nathan would probably be jet-lagged, I promised him I wouldn’t be away too long.
‘Are you warm enough?’ I ask Nathan, as he puts his hands in the pockets of his hooded top and scrunches up his shoulders. We’re heading back through the park we spotted on our way here.
‘Yeah, I’ll be alright,’ he tells me bravely.
We walk side by side, close to each other so we’re occasionally touching, and head past the tennis courts and down the path. We take a left and wind our way across to the other side of the hill, then suddenly there’s a break in the leafy green trees and we have the most dazzling view of London.
‘Wow!’ he says, and even I’m amazed. This view easily rivals the one you get from Primrose Hill.
‘What’s that thing?’ he asks, pointing at a tall, cylindrical building in the City.
‘That’s the Gherkin,’ I tell him, remembering he’s interested in architecture. ‘And the Millennium Wheel is over there. We should go on it sometime.’
‘That’d be cool.’
‘Shall we sit down?’ I ask, and we take a seat on one of the many benches which have been dedicated to loved ones who’ve passed away.
‘Wouldn’t it be nice if you could buy a bench while you were alive and had time to enjoy it?’ Nathan muses.
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘This be
nch is dedicated to Lucy McCarthy and Nathan Wilson, who love this park and will be mightily pissed off if they come here and find you sitting in their seats.’
He chuckles and I turn to him. ‘I haven’t heard a joke from you in a while?’
‘Mmm, we haven’t really spoken much recently, have we?’ he says.
‘No,’ I agree. I don’t think that there’s another ‘Amy’ on the scene back in Australia. But I don’t know for sure.
‘So, do you or don’t you want to know what Henry the VIII and Kermit the Frog have in common?’ he asks, looking at me sideways.
‘Go on.’
‘Same middle name.’
After a while we wander through the park to the other side and down the hill to his house.
‘Do you have to get back?’ he asks. ‘Or will you come in for a cuppa?’
‘No, I can come in,’ I reply. We still haven’t mentioned James.
The house is silent; the antipodeans must’ve had one hell of a night. We hunt out the kettle, milk and teabags in the kitchen, but can’t find any clean mugs so I wash up a couple in the crowded sink. The kitchen is a complete tip, every available surface overflowing with dirty dishes and food crumbs. I feel bad that I didn’t think to take Nathan to the supermarket in Highgate so he could stock up on a few necessities. I’m feeling protective of him, here on the other side of the world. I want to look after him.
I also want to run him a nice hot bath and strip him naked but, hmm, maybe we should stick to grocery shopping.
‘I still make tea your way, you know,’ I say, trying to stamp out the dirty thoughts zooming round my head.
‘Ah, good, another convert.’ He smiles. I wonder who else he’s converted.
‘How’s Amy?’ I ask and immediately want to kick myself.
‘She’s fine, last I heard,’ he answers. ‘I think she might have a boyfriend.’
‘That’s good. So, you…Do you…’ Stop it, Lucy! Don’t ask if he’s got a new girlfriend!
‘Nah.’ He grins, and I feel my face heating up. I should have gone with my instincts.
We take a look at the living room, but it’s such a mess that we go back up to his room.
‘You haven’t had a cigarette since you’ve arrived?’ I look back at him as he follows me up the stairs.
‘Trying to give up.’
‘Really? How long’s it been?’
‘Only a few weeks, so I might still relapse,’ he says. ‘Especially if this lot are heavy smokers.’
‘Be strong!’ I tell him in a faux American accent as we go into his room and close the door.
‘When are you going to unpack?’ I ask, sitting at the end of his bed.
His flatmates have made it up, not too neatly, with orange and yellow checked sheets.
‘Later.’ He lazes back into the corner, leaning up against the wall. It reminds me of being in his bedroom in Manly and I shiver as I recall the fantasy that I created on the plane journey to London.
‘What time have you got to get back?’ he asks me.
I check my watch: it’s 10.30. ‘I’m not in any hurry,’ I lie. ‘Although I’m pretty shattered. I only had about two hours’ sleep last night.’
‘So excited about seeing me.’ He grins, and I smile back but don’t answer. He puts his empty mug on his bedside table and props up the pillows, sliding down further on the bed. He looks exhausted.
‘I should let you sleep,’ I say.
‘Don’t go yet.’ He holds his right hand out to me, sleepily. I take it, then, not knowing what overcomes me, I lean back against him, so his arm wraps around me from behind. He murmurs into my hair and pulls me in tighter. After a while, his breathing begins to slow and he falls asleep, and not long afterwards I do the same.
My beeping mobile phone wakes me. I climb up, away from sleeping Nathan and rummage around in my bag for my phone. Shit! It’s 2 p.m.! James is asking where I am. I text him back hurriedly, telling him I’m on my way home and turn back to look at Nathan.
Using the back of the Café Rouge receipt, I scribble him a note to say I’ll call him later, signing it, Love, Lucy xxx. I feel like a teenager writing Christmas cards, choosing between ‘From’, ‘Lots of love’, and the most telling of them all, ‘Love’ alone.
Nathan is still sleeping peacefully, messy hair falling across his eyes. I gently push it off his face and then kiss him softly on the cheek. My heart is so full of him and for a moment everything that I felt for him in Sydney comes back in force. Sorry, Mum, but this is not just a crush.
My phone beeps again, snapping me out of it, and Nathan stirs, rolling over onto his back. I step quietly out of his room and close the door behind me.
Back downstairs I can hear the television on in the living room and I consider sneaking past without saying hello, but realise that would be rude. I pop my head around the door to see Ally, a grungy dark-haired guy in his early twenties and another girl, a spiky-haired brunette with multiple earrings in her ears. She looks to be fairly short from where I’m standing, but it’s hard to tell. They’re all smoking; it reeks in here.
‘Hi,’ I say. ‘I’m Lucy, Nathan’s friend. He’s upstairs sleeping.’ I smile. ‘Would you wake him up in an hour or two?’ Introducing themselves as Ned and Billie, they nod their assent.
I check my phone as I’m walking out of the door and back down the hill to Archway. James’s message says simply:
YOU’VE BEEN AGES!
I don’t reply.
Chapter 21
‘Where the hell have you been?’ James asks me crossly from the living-room sofa, as I open the door.
‘I told you,’ I snap. ‘I went to get Nathan from the airport, then I took him back to his place in Archway to help him get settled.’
‘I didn’t realise you were going to be all bloody day.’
‘I’ve hardly been all day, have I, James? It’s only three o’clock.’
‘I thought we were going to do something together. What have you been doing all this time?’ he rants.
Blimey, I didn’t think he’d give me this much grief.
‘We went for breakfast and a bit of a walk and then fell asleep,’ I answer.
‘You fell asleep?’ he asks me incredulously.
‘Yes…’ I reluctantly reply.
‘How the fuck did you manage to do that?’
‘James, don’t speak to me like that! I haven’t done anything wrong. I was exhausted from waking up at four thirty. I couldn’t get to sleep again after you woke me up at midnight when you stumbled in out of your face!’ I turn the tables on him, like only a professional girlfriend can.
‘Don’t you bloody turn the tables on me,’ he growls. Bollocks.
‘Look, it’s not a big deal,’ I tell him. ‘I fell asleep because I was knackered and he was jet-lagged. That’s all!’
‘Sounds a bit fucking dodgy to me.’
‘Stop swearing at me!’ I raise my voice and he appears to calm down slightly. I walk off to the kitchen to get a glass of water. When I turn around he’s there, behind me, watching me. I jump. ‘You frightened me.’
He looks straight into my eyes. ‘You do fancy him, don’t you?’ he asks calmly, but there’s a deadly tone to his voice.
‘Of course I don’t!’
‘You do.’ He says it steadily and I don’t know what to say.
I look up into his deep blue eyes and find myself shrugging helplessly.
‘No, I don’t,’ I feebly persist, but it’s no use. He can see right through me. Guilt must be riddled across my features. He shakes his head at me in disgust.
‘What’s going on, Lucy?’ His mouth is stretched into a tight, thin line.
‘I don’t know,’ I tell him honestly.
‘You do fancy him,’ he says flatly.
I can’t answer.
‘Fuck!’ he exclaims, and runs his hand through his hair, angrily.
‘James…’ I put my hand on his arm. He shakes me off and stalks back into the living room.
I follow and perch on the sofa beside him. His expression is pained, distraught, and I suddenly feel overwhelmingly sorry for him.
‘I love you,’ I tell him gently. He doesn’t answer. ‘I love you,’ I say again.
‘Do you love him?’ he asks, head shooting round to look at me, eyes widening a touch. ‘Is that why you didn’t want to leave Sydney and come back to me?’
‘No!’ I vehemently deny, but he stares at me with disbelief.
‘James, I love you,’ I try again, and put my hand on his bicep. He doesn’t shrug me off this time.
‘You can’t see him again,’ he says suddenly, resolutely.
‘James—’
‘No, Lucy,’ he interrupts, looking at me. ‘You can’t see him again.’
‘I can’t just ignore him. He’s here alone! He’s the brother of one of my best friends!’ James shakes his head, looking away from me. ‘Don’t be like this. Don’t be unreasonable.’
‘Unreasonable?’ He looks at me in amazement, and lets out an indignant laugh. ‘Un-fucking-reasonable? You’ve got to be bloody joking.’
I look away from him, defensively. This is hopeless. I go through to the bedroom and strip the sheets, then start putting away all the items of clothing that have been piling up on the chair over the last few days. He turns the sound up on the TV.
This can’t be happening, this can’t be happening, I repeat to myself as I complete menial household chores. I will see Nathan. I can’t not see him. I won’t not see him. There has to be a way round this. I keep myself busy while James continues to ignore me from the living room. After a while his dark shadow appears at the door.