Loving Danny

by Hilary Freeman

  Typically, Dad wouldn’t let it drop. He was a born worrier – Mum sometimes called him ‘an old woman’. He couldn’t rest until he was sure he knew every detail of everybody’s schedule. It irritated all of us.

  ‘I’m eighteen,’ I’d said earlier, when he’d pressed me. ‘I could be at university now, in another city, and you wouldn’t have a clue what I was doing. I’m sure Debbie doesn’t ring her parents every Friday night to give them a breakdown of her evening ahead.’

  He couldn’t argue with my logic, but he didn’t like it. ‘But you’re not at university, Naomi,’ he had argued. ‘You’re still at home, living under our roof – and we want to know who you’re with and that you’re safe.’

  ‘I’ll be safe,’ I’d promised. ‘Just trust me, for once.’

  ‘It’s not you we don’t trust,’ Dad had said, perhaps visualising a world full of con men, rapists and murderers out to hurt or maim his daughter.

  ‘Then trust me to use my judgement,’ I’d barked. ‘I’m not stupid.’

  So, at seven-forty, I’d run downstairs, shouted goodbye through the living-room door and let myself out before Dad could start questioning me again. Now I was sitting at Yellow’s bar, wondering if Danny would show. It wasn’t a bad place to wait alone; Yellow’s patrons were too trendy and self-obsessed to hit on a single girl they didn’t know, and I had plenty to read. All the day’s newspapers were piled up in front of me and there was an extensive wine list and food menu to peruse. My stomach growled as I contemplated the merits of a Thai curry or a goat’s cheese salad. I hadn’t eaten dinner at home – I was too nervous and I didn’t want my tummy to look bloated. My black pencil skirt was far too tight already. And, if I’m honest, I was hopeful that Danny would ask me to eat with him later. The food at Yellow was supposed to be good, if rather overpriced. Would he want to pay or would we go Dutch? Would he stay for just one drink, then tell me he had to leave? What would we talk about? Would I bore him? Would he, for that matter, turn up at all?

  For God’s sake, chill out, Naomi, I said to myself. He’s been chasing you since you met – why would he suddenly go off you? I wished I could reach into my brain and stop the cogs from grinding round and round. I ordered a glass of wine and a bowl of olives to keep my hunger pangs at bay. As I popped a couple into my mouth I realised they were marinated in a dressing that tasted strongly of garlic. Great start, Naomi, I thought. I rummaged for a mint in my bag. It was covered in fluff, but it would have to do. I swirled it between my teeth until it dissolved, then took a swig of wine. The combination tasted foul.

  ‘Can I get you anything else?’ asked the barman politely. It was now ten past eight and I was beginning to look conspicuous, perched on my bar stool, silent and alone. People don’t go to Yellow on their own, they go in big, air-kissing groups.

  ‘No thanks, I’m just waiting for someone.’

  The barman smiled. Poor love, I read in his eyes. Have you been stood up?

  I’ll give Danny five more minutes, I thought. Or maybe ten . . .

  When Danny walked in, I didn’t notice him. I’d given up on the menu and was now thumbing through a newspaper, devouring a kiss-and-tell story about some footballer. Dad only got the Financial Times at home, so reading the tabloids felt like a guilty pleasure.

  ‘Has he been at it again, then?’ said Danny dryly, over my shoulder. Flustered, I dropped the paper on to the bar, losing the middle section beneath my stool. Danny bent down to pick it up, pausing a little longer than was necessary as he took in my patterned tights and kitten heels. Smiling cheekily, he handed it back to me. ‘Hello, Naomi,’ he said. ‘Sorry I’m late. Have you been here long?’

  ‘No,’ I lied. ‘It’s fine.’ Sitting on the bar stool lent me almost an extra foot and my face was at the same level as his. He looked amazing. His hair was freshly washed and less messy than I’d seen it, curling gently into the nape of his neck. He’d obviously just shaved and, for the first time, I noticed a cute dimple in his chin.

  He leaned in towards me and kissed me on the cheek. His musky scent and the warmth of his breath on my neck made me tingle. Then he smiled again and delicately touched my top lip with his thumb and forefinger. The intimacy of this gesture made me feel uncomfortable, until I realised he had merely removed a piece of fluff, which had stuck to my lip-gloss. Seeing me blush, he chose not to comment on it. Evidently, he was a gentleman.

  ‘What are you drinking?’ he asked, picking up my wine glass and taking a sip. ‘Mmm, I’ll order a bottle, shall I?’

  I nodded. Danny’s confident manner made me feel shy and nervous, and I worried that if I spoke I might say something stupid.

  ‘Hey, John,’ he called out. The barman came over. He winked at Danny, then glanced at me with renewed respect. So Danny was a regular, then? It still seemed incongruous.

  ‘All right, Danny, mate. What can I do for you?’

  ‘Can I have a bottle of Pinot Grigio, please?’ he asked. I could have sworn that the posh element of his curious, hybrid accent became a trifle more pronounced. ‘Put it on my tab.’

  I hadn’t expected Danny to know about wine – it didn’t fit in with his scruffy, rock-and-roll image. I’d simply ordered one of the few wines that came by the glass in Yellow.

  ‘Why don’t we go and sit somewhere more comfortable?’ Danny asked when the wine had been brought over. He held out his hand to help me off the stool. I took it, shyly, aware that the feel of his skin on mine was making my heart beat faster and that sparks of electricity were shooting up my arm and into my body. I was conscious too that my own hand was clammy and that I wasn’t able to pull down my skirt. Danny didn’t appear to notice. He led me through the bar to a table and some plush brown sofas, only letting go of my hand when I sat down. The cushions were softer than I’d expected and I fell back into the sofa, jarring my back. He waited until I’d rearranged my clothes, then sat himself down next to me. His leg touched mine, expectantly.

  ‘That’s better,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, thanks,’ I replied, unsure what to say next, and terribly aware of the proximity of Danny’s leg. I hoped he couldn’t tell that my legs were trembling. Think, Naomi, think, I repeated to myself like a mantra. ‘The gig was good,’ I volunteered. ‘You were good.’

  ‘I’m glad you liked it,’ he said. ‘We were trying out some new material. It seemed to go down all right.’ There was an awkward pause. ‘Anyway, enough about me. Tell me about you, Naomi.’

  My insecurities came flooding back. I was no good at small talk and, it now transpired, neither was he. His question highlighted the fact that he knew nothing about me, nothing at all. He was out with me because he liked the way I looked, because I’d dared to turn up to his gig and said I liked his music. What was there about me that would interest him?

  ‘What do you want to know?’ I managed, buying myself time to think. Danny’s motive was genuine – to get to know me – but his question had made me feel self-conscious, anxious that my personality would be scrutinised for flaws. Whatever I said now might make or break our potential relationship.

  ‘I want to know everything.’ He laughed, leaning in towards me. ‘The name, I’ve got. How old are you? What’s your shoe size? What music do you like – apart from mine, of course? What do you care about? What do you dream about? What do you want to be?’

  ‘OK,’ I said, taking a deep breath. ‘Stop me when I bore you. My full name – which you don’t know – is Naomi Jessica Waterman. I’m eighteen, I have one sister – whom you’ve seen – called Emily. She’s sixteen going on twenty-five. My shoe size is a very average five; I’m five foot five and,’ I paused for breath, deciding not to draw attention to my figure by giving him my dress size, ‘and I like good music: pop, soul, folk, R & B, indie, jazz, classical, country–anything, so long as it’s good. My mum’s a music teacher, so we’ve got about a million CDs at home. She says there are only two types of music: good music and bad music. I have to say I agree with her on that one.’
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br />   Danny smiled. He had been nodding, approvingly, throughout my monologue. ‘You mum sounds like a very wise woman. Continue.’

  Excellent. I’d won a few brownie points. My confidence was growing and I even managed to smile back at him. ‘All right. What was your next question? What do I care about? I care about people, my family, my friends, people I don’t know. I care about not hurting anyone. I care about animals – I’m vegetarian. I care about the environment. Yes, I know, I sound like a cliché now.’ I looked at Danny, expecting him to have grown tired of my rambling. He was concentrating intently, his turquoise eyes wide and piercing.

  ‘Go on . . .’

  ‘I dream about the most bizarre things. Doesn’t everyone? I dream about places I’ve never been, where I meet people I don’t know. I dream about being on ships, at fairgrounds, things I’ve read about or seen in films. I dream in colour, usually, and nearly every night. Sometimes I dream about shoes. Shallow, I know, but I am a girl.’

  He laughed again. Now I was starting to relax and enjoy myself.

  ‘What do I want to be? That’s a tough one. I thought I wanted to be a lawyer, but now I think that’s just what my parents want me to be. I’m on my gap year, working for a law firm and I’m hating every minute of it. All I know is that I want to be somebody, to do something special and important, something that people remember me for. Not tabloid famous – history book famous. God, now I sound like some kind of megalomaniac. Please make me stop before you have to get the men in white coats to carry me out!’

  ‘They’ll be coming for me too, then,’ he said, suddenly serious. ‘I want everything you want. The fame, the glory – plus a bit of adulation too. Of course, when I’m a famous rock star the tabloids will be full of me, but that’s part of the job these days, I’m afraid.’

  ‘From what I saw you already have the adulation,’ I teased. ‘All those girls at The Bunker?’

  ‘No.’ He frowned. ‘Not the groupies. They only care what I look like and they want to tell their mates they’ve met me, just in case I make it. I could stand on stage and howl like a wolf and they’d still tell me I was wonderful . . . until the next band comes along. I want respect, I want people to quote my lyrics, I want people to play my records in years to come. Oh God, now who sounds like a megalomaniac?’

  ‘No,’ I reassured him. I was smiling automatically now, liking Danny more and more. ‘It’s good to be ambitious. I hate people who are apathetic and don’t have any passion.’ I felt a twinge of guilt – wasn’t that just how I had been behaving lately? I pushed it away and continued. ‘That’s what’s wrong with my dad. He’s so happy being mediocre, going to work every day, like just another ant.’

  ‘Sounds like my dad,’ said Danny. ‘Except he’s got all the ants working for him. Pardon the mixed metaphor, but he’s the big cheese: Mr John Evans, MBE, head of Evans Inc, purveyor of plastics to the world.’

  ‘Wow,’ I said, ‘I’m impressed. He sounds important.’ So that was where the posh vowels in Danny’s voice came from! Nobody in my family had letters after their name. The more I found out about Danny, the more of a mystery he became.

  Danny shrugged. ‘Don’t be. He’s not important to me.’ He voice sounded flat and his body seemed to crumple inwards. The sparkle in his eyes had dimmed noticeably. It made me feel uncomfortable, like I’d intruded on something private.

  ‘Hey,’ I said, brightly, trying to lift his spirits. ‘You know loads about me now. What about you, Danny Evans?’

  ‘Daniel, ahem, Hector, ahem, Evans,’ he said, with a mock-bashful look. I decided it was all right to laugh.

  ‘I know, I know,’ he sighed. ‘I was named after my grandfather. That’s how people with bad names get back at the world – they pass them on to their descendants. It’s a cruel trick.’

  ‘It could have been worse,’ I ventured.

  ‘Not much,’ he said.

  ‘Actually, you might be right,’ I teased.

  ‘Enough now,’ said Danny, playfully slapping my leg. I felt the jolt of electricity again and found myself wishing he would leave his hand there. ‘You don’t know me well enough to take the piss.’

  The funny thing is, I felt like I did. We’d only been chatting for fifteen minutes or so, yet it seemed as if I’d known him for years. I’d never felt so comfortable, so quickly, with anybody. With Danny I could be one hundred per cent myself.

  Apparently fearing he’d offended me, he qualified his remark. ‘Yet,’ he stated.

  ‘Does that mean you’re planning to stick around?’ I asked, surprised at my boldness.

  ‘Absolutely, Naomi. I’m not going anywhere. Are you?’

  The next hour passed in an instant. I was never any good at physics at school, but things like time travel and black holes in space have always made a kind of sense to me. Time is a strange concept – it’s divided neatly into seconds, minutes and hours, but they’re purely artificial; they don’t really mean anything. A few minutes can seem like an eternity when you’re a small child desperate to arrive at your destination, and likewise when you’re grown up and unhappy or in pain. But whole hours can vanish inexplicably when you’re immersed in conversation, drunk or enjoying yourself. When old people say they don’t know where the years have gone, I genuinely understand what they mean.

  I learned that Danny was twenty and an only child. He had gone to Oxford straight after A-levels to study English literature, but had dropped out, disillusioned, at the end of his first year. Presently, he was concentrating on The Wonderfulls, determined to make his band a success. He had done odd jobs for pocket money – waiting at tables, a stint behind a bar and in a record shop. Now that The Wonderfulls were regularly playing paid gigs he spent most of the week rehearsing and recording in the studio he’d built in the basement of his parents’ house. His mother, an ex-model, filled her time organising charity functions and lunching with her friends. She left him to his own devices. He said she was cold and distant – like an icy blonde in a Hitchcock film. I didn’t dare to ask about his father again.

  ‘Do you fancy some food?’ he asked, when I came back from a visit to the Ladies and there was a natural lull in our conversation. It was a quarter to ten and I was starting to feel weak and dizzy. While it’s true that I hadn’t eaten for hours and my empty stomach was now swimming in alcohol, I can’t deny that my giddiness was in no small part due to the sheer adrenaline rush of being with Danny.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, with rather more enthusiasm than I’d intended. ‘I’m starving. They do food here, don’t they?’

  ‘They do, but I know somewhere much nicer. Trust me.’

  ‘OK.’ I smiled as he helped me put on my coat. I was all thumbs and elbows and, once again, his touch made me quiver. He stroked the fake fur collar, smoothing down the pile with the palm of his hand. ‘Nice coat.’

  ‘Thanks. I got it in a vintage shop. It’s from the 1950s, I think.’

  ‘You have great style, Naomi. Very individual. That’s just one of the many things I’m beginning to like about you.’

  He linked his arm through mine and took me to an Italian restaurant about half a mile up the road. La Casa Nostra was newly opened – it still smelled of fresh paint – and I’d read about in the newspaper. Its proprietor was an ex-footballer and it attracted the local celebrity crowd, those who didn’t want to make the trip into central London. People went there to be seen, rather than to eat – although the chef was supposed to be excellent. It was the last place I had expected Danny to take me. Like Yellow, it didn’t fit with his scruffy, musician’s persona. I wondered if he was trying to impress me or whether this was the sort of place he went to all the time. And how could he afford it? Even regular gigs and stints behind a bar couldn’t bring in that much.

  I’d never have gone there without him; just walking through the front door was an intimidating experience. Even though I was ‘nicely’ brought up, posh, trendy restaurants make me feel insecure and clumsy. I don’t know which cutlery to use or
when to thank the waiter.

  Danny must have noticed the anxiety in my face. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘They’re really nice in here. I used to work in a pub with the guy behind the bar – he’ll see you’re all right.’

  We were shown to a small table by the window, decorated with a thin glass vase containing a single orchid. As the waiter pulled out my chair he discreetly removed a ‘Reserved’ sign from the table. Danny saw that I’d noticed and smiled. ‘I hope you don’t mind. I was optimistic about tonight.’

  ‘How did you know we’d get on?’ I asked.

  ‘I just knew,’ he said, looking directly into my eyes with an intensity that seemed almost like sadness. ‘There was something about you. Even on the bus, I just knew.’

  I stared back at him, speechless. If anyone else had given me this line, I’d have laughed at loud. But it wasn’t corny when Danny said it because I knew too – because I felt exactly the same.

  Even if I’d known how to respond, I didn’t get the chance – the waiter arrived to take our order. When we received our meals, the portions were small, but the food was delicious. We each had a taste of one another’s courses and Danny bemoaned the fact he hadn’t ordered the same pasta dish as me – with asparagus, wild mushrooms and a saffron sauce. He insisted that we both have dessert, daring me not to agree that the chocolate mousse was the best I’d ever tasted.

  ‘You win,’ I conceded, as the last spoonful of creamy sweetness melted on my tongue.

  ‘In that case,’ he teased, his eyes twinkling, ‘I get to choose my prize.’

  ‘Yes . . . ?’

  ‘Um,’ he said, scratching his head comically. ‘Let’s see. I know . . . you let me take you out again.’

  ‘What a cruel and unusual punishment!’ I cried, playing along. ‘OK, but I must let you know how painful it will be for me.’