You, Me and Him

by Alice Peterson

  ‘Funny you should ask, dear. I developed a nasty wart on the end of my nose and my purple rinse didn’t turn out so good. I didn’t want to embarrass you, Mrs Bourbon. Now tell me, will you be receiving an Oscar for your supporting role performance? I hear you’re up against George Clooney. It’s going to be a close contest.’

  I love it when I hear them laughing. It feels like the warm sun shining against my face.

  CHAPTER NINE

  ‘He’s early!’ I mouthed at Clarky when the doorbell rang.

  ‘You’ve got a ladder in your tights,’ he observed from behind me.

  ‘They’re new, I can’t have.’ I looked down. ‘Oh, shit, that’s a rip off! Can you let him in?’ I raced back into my bedroom and peeled the tights off me at galloping speed, my fingers agitated and clumsy. I could hear Justin and Finn talking woodenly. I decided to fling on a pair of jeans instead and a black top. I grabbed the necklace I had carefully selected for the evening from my dressing table. ‘Come on, J,’ called Clarky.

  ‘Coming!’

  ‘Where’s the black see-through lace dress?’ Finn asked. Clarky decided to leave at this point.

  I pulled a face. ‘It died, sadly. It’s been worn to death.’ I stood protectively by the door. I wasn’t sure what Finn would make of the house. It was old and the floorboards creaked beneath worn kelims. My uncle collected chipped china and there were cracked plates and teapots everywhere, along with other strange objects littered around the house – like a kitchen clock in the shape of baked beans on toast and a peculiar ashtray in the shape of a lobster with big claws staring out at me. My bedroom contained a single bed fit for a spinster.

  It wasn’t exactly cool although I was growing to like it.

  Finn looked amused, with that flicker of a smile passing over his face again. ‘D’you want me to put that on for you?’ he asked, the line between his lips curling upwards, something I have always found unbelievably sexy. I had forgotten I was still carrying the pale green necklace. ‘Oh, right, yes, thanks.’ He took it from my hand and stood close behind me. The narrow space between us felt electric. Could he feel it or was it just me? He smelled nice. I couldn’t describe the smell, just that it was a man’s. ‘Men smell of old shoes and leather, mixed with a bit of sweat,’ Mum had told me when I was fifteen.

  I’d wrinkled my nose. ‘I thought they smelled of aftershave?’

  ‘No, your father doesn’t wear that awful synthetic stuff. It’s much more subtle than that. People are drawn to one another by their smells, like a magnetic force. I could quite happily nestle into your father’s armpits.’

  ‘Mum!’ I’d cringed, shaking my head in disgust at the image. Now, a rather inane grin spread across my face.

  Finn lifted my long hair away from the nape of my neck. I held it up for him. His touch tickled. As he moved away I said, ‘So,’ with great effort then couldn’t think what to say next.

  He looked at me as if I were an object he had just created and put the finishing touches to. He touched the necklace gently. ‘You look great.’

  I turned around swiftly so he couldn’t see me smiling like a schoolgirl who had just received a golden star.

  *

  ‘Where did you grow up?’ I asked Finn. We were sitting at a low wooden table in a smoky, dimly lit bar, drinking beer. The place was heaving with students. I wanted to cut through the crowds with a knife, make it just Finn and me.

  ‘London. I had a pretty freestyle teenage-hood, was left to my own devices half the time.’

  He seemed to examine me all the time; I felt more in control at Momo’s when I was on my own territory. I was sure he could hear my pulse beating, see the heat which crept up my neck and flowed into my cheeks.

  I asked him what he’d done in his gap year.

  ‘Broke into warehouses with Christo. We cleaned them up, somehow managed to get electricity from the streetlight and used it to power all the lights and our sound system. We had a great time. There were a lot of drugs, clubs, and, er, women.’

  I felt innocent when I was with him. I was still a virgin, but at least I knew what it meant now. He lifted his glass, looking thoughtful. ‘You know, it was probably the best year of my life.’

  ‘You’re only twenty,’ I pointed out. ‘It’s hardly time for This Is Your Life just yet.’

  His eyes met mine as he laughed. ‘I know, but don’t waste yours serving pizzas and coffee to pretentious students.’

  And meeting you, I was thinking. Even Momo had noticed my daydreaming recently and asked me if it was anything to do with the music man. ‘I was young once too, you know,’ he’d said before showing me one of the coasters which had a loose thread hanging off it.

  ‘I’m leaving after Christmas.’ An awkward silence fell between us.

  ‘So …’ we both started.

  ‘Sorry, you go first.’

  ‘No, you go,’ I insisted. Finn asked me what I was going to do after my gap year. First dates are always like an interview, finding out who you are and what you do. I told him I had a place at Reading, reading Typography.

  ‘Typing?’

  ‘No! It’s the art of type, letterforms, you know, the history of how letters came to be.’

  ‘I thought you wanted to be an artist?’

  ‘Well, yes, I do, but very few people actually make a living out of being an artist.’ This was an argument I’d had with my parents. Even as I said it now, I felt cross that I’d let myself be talked out of doing what I loved. Mum had advised me to do something more practical. Dad, whose own passion had always been sculpting, agreed. ‘I want to be a graphic designer but I’ll keep up my painting,’ I vowed. ‘What’s it like at Cambridge?’

  Finn pressed his lips together. ‘Different.’

  ‘In a good or a bad way?’

  ‘Both. I felt out of my depth to begin with. Thirty-two hours a week of lectures and tutorials and then all those reading lists I was telling you about. I got OK grades at school but this place is competitive.’ He started to shake his head. ‘Most students claim they don’t work but secretly they’re working their butts off.’

  ‘Do you pretend?’

  ‘No. It’s a challenge and I’m proud I’m taking it. I never thought I’d get here.’ His tone hardened. ‘I mean, I don’t have a parent or relation who went to one of the colleges, I didn’t go to a private school. Everyone asks, “Did you go anywhere?” when you first arrive.’ He leant in closer. ‘“A school in Berkshire” means you went to Eton. Daft not to say so because you can spot an Etonian’s accent from Australia. “Chin up, old boy,”’ he imitated. ‘They have accents like cut glass.’

  ‘Does it matter where you went?’

  He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Not to me. I don’t play sport. I’m not a rugger-bugger. You can spot them a mile off too.’

  ‘Are you always this defensive?’

  ‘I don’t like punting,’ he continued, oblivious. ‘I’m not going to take you punting, OK?’

  ‘I don’t want to go,’ I claimed.

  ‘Come off it. That’s what you people do.’

  ‘You people?’

  He shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘I don’t want to go punting with you,’ I told him. ‘There wouldn’t be enough room in the boat for you and the giant chip on your shoulder.’

  He raised his glass to mine in surprise. ‘Hear, hear.’ He smiled. ‘Bravo! You speak your mind, don’t you?’

  ‘When it needs to be spoken.’ Finn looked around the crowded room. Bodies pressed together at the bar in a huddle of noise and smoke. ‘Shall we go?’

  ‘Already?’

  ‘It’s pretty smoky in here and my contacts are hurting.’ He moved closer to me. ‘Think I need to take them out and put my specs on.’

  I stared at him as he rubbed one of his eyes. He could tell I was watching him because he looked up at me with a broad smile. ‘Not quite so rock ’n’ roll as you thought, am I?’

  *

  ‘You cut up frogs’ leg
s! Ugh.’ We were walking in the direction of my house but neither one of us had mentioned what we were going to do next.

  ‘We have to cut up bodies too. If we’re to learn how the heart works, we’ve got to see the real thing, haven’t we?’

  I nodded. ‘Why medicine?’

  ‘Do you want me to say that I’ve always wanted to heal the sick?’

  ‘Only if you mean it.’

  ‘Well, I do. Call me sentimental, but that’s exactly what I want to do.’

  ‘Well, why didn’t you say so in the first place?’

  We walked on, our hands gently brushing together in the cold night air.

  ‘Are you going to invite me in properly?’ he suggested, leaning one hand against the wallpaper in the hall that was positively medieval, like stepping into the Dark Ages. Green ivy in between a trellis pattern, its leaves sprouting stiffly over the grid-like lines.

  ‘Do you want a coffee or something?’

  ‘The something sounds more interesting.’ Violin music filled the house. ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘Clarky.’

  ‘I’ve always thought the violin was a bit screechy, like fingernails running down a blackboard.’

  ‘Not if it’s played well,’ shouted Clarky crossly as we walked past the sitting room and into the kitchen. Finn sat down at the table that was covered with a glossy tablecloth with large red and yellow tulips on it. ‘I think Clarky must be getting to the part where someone is murdered,’ he guessed, putting his hands over his ears and then faking his own death, hand beating frenziedly against his chest. ‘Stop it,’ I laughed.

  ‘This place is great. Who owns it?’ All my earlier fears were being realised. He was staring at the baked-bean clock.

  ‘My uncle.’

  ‘Can I smoke? This is cool,’ he said, picking up the lobster-shaped ashtray. He shook it in front of me, claws extended too close to my face. I pushed it away with a giggle. He started to roll a cigarette.

  ‘Got anything we can spice up our coffee with? This place must have a cellar.’ We walked down the cold dark stairs and into a musty room that smelled of rich red wine and old paint. Finn and I stumbled around in the dark, groping the walls for any sign of a light switch. ‘This place is a health hazard!’ he complained. ‘I could have opened my club here.’ Finally I found the switch behind the door and a soft glow warmed the room. Bottles lay in wooden racks shrouded in cobwebs. There was also an old larder fridge in one corner of the room which looked as if it had been out of action for years.

  I bent down to examine the labels on the bottles.

  Finn crouched down to join me. His closeness made me jump. ‘Want to play five questions?’ he asked.

  ‘OK.’ We sat down and I tucked my knees under my chin. I could feel the dust on the floor and in the air.

  ‘Have you really got a see-through lace dress?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Shame,’ he replied.

  ‘That was a waste of a question.’

  ‘It doesn’t count.’

  ‘Yes, it does.’ I hit his arm and he hit me back.

  ‘That was a warm-up.’

  ‘I’m waiting.’

  ‘I’ve gone blank now, I’m still thinking about you in a lace dress. Do you have brothers? Sisters?’

  ‘Only child.’

  ‘Parents still together?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Lucky you. What’s your favourite food?’

  ‘Pecan pie. Yours?’

  ‘Lemon meringue. OK, next question …’

  ‘That’s three,’ I reminded him. ‘And they’re slightly boring so far, I have to say.’

  ‘Right, got to make the next two seriously more interesting then.’ He stroked his chin thoughtfully. ‘What’s the story between you and Clarky?’

  ‘Story? We’re friends.’

  ‘Friends,’ Finn repeated. ‘Only he acted strange when I picked you up earlier. I don’t think he likes me. And then the other night, at the club, he was all over you.’

  ‘We were dancing.’

  ‘Mmm. And then telling you to forget about me?’

  ‘He can be over-protective, that’s all.’ I was worried about Clarky, though. He had been behaving strangely around me lately and was hardly encouraging about Finn. When I’d asked him about it he’d simply said, ‘If you like him, go for it. It’s your life.’

  ‘I didn’t think boys and girls could be just friends?’

  ‘’Course they can. It’s a different shade of love, isn’t it?’

  ‘Shade? What, like red love is passion; blue platonic?’ He wasn’t taking me seriously.

  ‘Only one more question.’ I shifted into a new position and adjusted my hair.

  ‘Are you nervous?’

  My ‘No!’ came out in a high-pitched voice as Finn moved in to kiss me. I shuddered, moving jerkily away like a startled rabbit. His kiss landed on the middle of my left cheek. ‘Oh, God, I’m sorry.’ I started to laugh. ‘I am nervous.’ I brushed the dust off my jeans.

  ‘Why are you nervous?’

  I held his gaze. ‘I think you know.’

  We moved closer to each other then, knees touching. A surge of electricity shot right through me. If he could have measured my pulse then it would have been off the scale. ‘My turn,’ I whispered. ‘Will you just kiss me otherwise I’ll go mad and …’ His lips were pressed against mine. Our kiss was soft to begin with but then it became intense. I shut my eyes, lost in his touch. One hand was cupped around the back of my neck, the weight of it telling me this wasn’t a dream.

  CHAPTER TEN

  I open the oven to check on the turkey and steam rushes to my face. The turkey smells of congealed fat and the Brussels sprouts smell of George’s socks. ‘Are you all right?’ my mother asks, standing over the stove heating up the bread sauce. I feel like nothing on earth, I want to say. ‘Fine,’ I tell her.

  My father is helping Finn lay the long oak table with our best silver which we were given as a wedding present; I bought dark red candles for each end of the table, white linen napkins and gold and silver crackers. George is upstairs playing with the toys we put into his stocking. Last night he left a glass of sherry and an oat biscuit outside his bedroom for Santa, along with his Pokémon cards. I believed in Father Christmas until I was ten. Finn stopped believing when he was four. ‘I heard Mum and Dad arguing,’ he’d told me, rolling his eyes, ‘my bedroom door was flung open and the entire contents of the stocking thrown in.’

  ‘Why don’t you have a rest after lunch?’ Mum suggests. I want some of her energy. The only things that give away her age are her lined hands, fingertips roughened from gardening, and I sometimes catch her out squinting because she will not wear her glasses except in bed when she reads.

  My father, on the other hand, looks his age, with deep frown lines from the years spent commuting into London. His grey hair is thinning and wispy and his skin fragile, like thin tracing paper, showing a cluster of tiny red veins in each cheek. Today he’s dressed in a pink shirt with sparkling cufflinks that Mum gave him, and looks every inch the gentleman. I’m proud of my parents.

  Finn rubs his hands together eagerly, ‘Now, what can I do next?’ I’ve never seen him so proactive in the kitchen. Since the news of my pregnancy he has been walking on air. He doesn’t even mind talking to his mother on the telephone.

  But before I have time to tell him to make the gravy the doorbell rings and he strides across the kitchen floor to the intercom. My father refills his glass with gin, neat this time.

  Finn lets them in.

  ‘What on earth is Richard carrying?’ Dad asks. Richard is Gwen’s boyfriend.

  ‘No idea.’ I take a deep breath and adjust the sequined scarf in my hair.

  ‘Happy Christmas!’ My mother-in-law sweeps into the room, clutching a bottle of champagne. She kisses her son and I can see Finn wiping the sugary-pink lipstick off his cheek. We hug but it’s a quick flittering contact. She leans her cheek towards me and sl
ightly puckers her lips to kiss, but she does it too quickly to make proper contact, brushing her lips against me like a feather instead.

  We’re all staring at a gigantic white furry creature that has a pink tongue drooping out of its mouth at an odd angle. ‘For George, we thought he’d like him,’ says balding Richard.

  ‘Thank you, Richard,’ I say faintly.

  ‘Call me Dicky,’ he insists with a wink. He’s wearing a suit and a spotted pink and silver bow tie. ‘And how is Finn’s lovely good lady wife?’

  Not so good after being called that. ‘Very well.’

  ‘We would have wrapped him but one gets so busy. Before you know it … whoosh!’ says Gwen, sweeping one arm out in her habitual gesture. ‘Time flies by.’

  I once asked Finn how she’d found the time to give birth. For the first time ever, he didn’t have an answer.

  Finn places, let’s call it the dog, stomach first on the ironing board, its great big paws almost touching the floor. Everyone’s standing in the open-plan kitchen, getting in each other’s way. My father is the only person who’s tactfully retreated to the end of the sitting room. Dicky pulls a pack of cigarettes from his trouser pocket.

  ‘Put them away,’ Gwen barks, thank goodness, ‘and do something useful.’ Her boyfriend looks more like a spaniel every time I see him.

  She touches my top. ‘These maternity-type clothes are very much the fashion aren’t they?’

  ‘It’s not maternity,’ I correct her quickly. ‘You look well, Gwen.’

  ‘I wish! Dicky and I were comparing notes on old age in the car. My crow’s feet virtually touch my ears, and look at these bags! I’m seriously considering plastic surgery. Might even get my boobs done while he’s at it.’ She nudges them both upwards.

  Finn hands her a glass of champagne. ‘Age gracefully, Mum, please.’

  ‘Nothing wrong with a bit of nip and tuck.’

  ‘Why not have your head looked at while you’re about it too, Gwen?’ my father mutters sotto voce, raising his glass to her in a courtly gesture.

  A car horn is hooting outside.

  Granny shuffles through the door then, her skinny legs fragile as a spider’s. Gwen glances at her son in alarm. ‘I didn’t know she was coming.’