You Had Me at Hello

by Mhairi McFarlane

  He seems genuinely interested and amused, and after a while I notice how much I’m enjoying being listened to. His attentiveness is slightly intoxicating, though not as intoxicating as the heavy red he chose.

  Rhys would sit here grunting, eyes flicking towards the exits, foot tapping a rhythm on the floor, impatience greeting my every utterance. Band practice aside, he liked to move in an established pattern between three points on a triangle – home, work, pub – and any deviation left him agitated, almost resentful.

  While I appreciate the contrast, it gradually dawns on me that while Rhys was rough going, Simon is all planed, slippery surfaces. There’s nothing to throw a grappling hook into and actually make some headway in getting to know him. There’s one moment his composure unexpectedly wobbles, when I mention a colleague of his who gets all the females in crown court swooning.

  Simon snaps ‘Really?’ as if this is incomprehensible and promptly changes the subject. I vaguely wonder if he’s the jealous type.

  The discussion turns towards a couple in the same department at Simon’s firm, and how the employees get drawn into their domestics.

  ‘I’ve always thought it’s a bad idea to be in the same line of work. Too much shop talk, and rivalry.’

  ‘Ben and Olivia seem to do all right,’ I say.

  ‘They have their moments.’

  ‘Do they?’ I’m not entirely sure what he means and try to conceal my curiosity.

  Simon pours out the last inches of the wine. ‘Liv wears the trousers, no question. I think moving up here’s the first time Ben’s asserted himself and she’s still getting used to it. I told him, never marry a woman with that much more money than you. She’s going to think she’s the manager in the marriage. And lo and behold …’

  ‘Does Olivia earn that much more?’

  ‘It’s not what she earns, it’s the money she’s from. Her dad sold his haulage firm and retired when he was forty or so. Olivia doesn’t have to work.’

  Goodness, all those gifts and rich too.

  ‘Perhaps she likes her independence,’ I say.

  ‘Oh yes. Don’t get me wrong. Totty breaking the glass ceiling is a fine thing.’

  ‘Most of what you say is ironic, right?’

  ‘I’m only sexist insofar as blaming womankind alone for James Blunt’s success. Nightcap?’ Simon asks, beckoning the waitress for the bill.

  ‘I’d like to get this,’ I say, decisively, also gesturing for the bill.

  ‘That’s good to know.’

  The waitress assesses the balance of power and the bill is handed to Simon on a saucer. He slips his card on top and hands it straight back.

  42

  When Simon said he ‘knew a place’, I pictured a plush gentlemen’s club with wingback chairs and burgundy Regency stripe wallpaper and crackling fires. Simon would flash membership ID, or give the liveried doorman a Masonic handshake, and the gates would swing open.

  Instead we duck down a barely-lit backstreet to a scuzzy den for the kind of career drinkers who can sniff out a late licence with nose aloft, like a Bisto kid.

  ‘Mind. The yack,’ Simon says, in a tube station announcer voice, his hand gripping my elbow to guide me round a dustbin lid-sized puddle of puke near the door. The venue is marked only by a illuminated white sign advertising a brand of beer. Nearby there’s a gaggle of unsavoury characters who instinctively turn their backs on us in case we gather too much detail for the photo-fit.

  ‘Know how to show a girl a good time, don’t you? Do you meet clients here?’

  ‘Ah, come on now. The Rachel I’m getting to know doesn’t need lacy doilies under her drinks.’

  He holds the door open for me. I get an unexpected stirring of attraction towards him, simultaneously noticing how tall he is and how well on the way to drunk I am, and that I like it that he has surprises.

  The grimy exterior gives way to a grimier interior, a basement with bar stools and a big Wurlitzer-style jukebox, like a super-sized garish toy or leftover Doctor Who prop. The lighting is set to ‘gloaming’, the air perfumed with an unmistakable acidic base note of unclean latrine.

  ‘Vodka tonic’s your drink, isn’t it?’

  ‘Thanks,’ I nod, though it isn’t, it’s Caroline’s drink, and I don’t know if this is significant. I find a booth. He puts the drinks down and slides into the seat opposite, trousers squeaking on its vinyl cover.

  ‘This surely isn’t a Simon-ish place,’ I say. ‘You’re throwing me a curve ball to see if I can catch it.’

  ‘After one date, or …’ he pulls back a cuff to check what appears to be a Breitling watch, which rather underlines my point – he’ll probably get his arm snapped like a pool cue for it – ‘… two-thirds of one date, how would you know what a Simon-ish place is like?’

  ‘Come on, of course it isn’t.’ I pause. ‘What was all that stuff about the hypocrisy of marriage at Ben and Olivia’s dinner party, then?’

  Simon smirks. ‘I wondered when this would come up.’

  ‘I’m not asking because I’m bothered,’ I say, curtly, with a smile.

  ‘Why, then?’

  ‘Most guests just try to avoid giving offence like that.’

  ‘Is saying most people are giving up when they settle down that controversial? I bet they agreed with me. I’d question how brutally honest anyone could be on that subject, with their spouse sat beside them.’

  ‘You weren’t thinking of anyone in particular?’

  Simon raises his eyebrow. ‘I’m taking my own advice and going no comment. How about you tell me something about this engagement you broke off?’

  ‘Do I have to?’

  ‘Well, it’s usual to find out something personal about each other on a first date, and so far I know that you’re not fond of beetroot.’

  ‘There’s not much to tell. We were together a long time, we were engaged, it became obvious neither of us was that keen on getting wed and I was the one to say so.’

  ‘He didn’t want it to end?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Any chance of a reconciliation?’

  ‘Doubt it.’

  Despite my best efforts, my voice has thickened.

  ‘How long were you together?’

  ‘Thirteen years.’

  ‘Ouch. I guessed it was a while.’

  I’m sure that Ben will have told Simon this, yet I humour him by asking why.

  ‘You have the hunted, wary look of the serial monogamist who’s unexpectedly stumbled back into the singles jungle and forgotten she needs a machete.’

  I laugh.

  ‘It’s harder for women,’ Simon says. ‘Single blokes in their thirties look choosy; women worry they look like victims of that choosiness.’

  I gasp, and Simon adds: ‘Even when it’s entirely unwarranted. Anyway, there’s worse things. Like Matt and Lucy. What a chore they were.’

  I laugh, nodding vigorously.

  ‘So was Ben quite the boy at university?’ he continues.

  ‘He had a few girlfriends, yeah.’

  ‘Surprised you weren’t among them.’

  ‘Why?’ Nervous again. I hope he’s not going to do a ‘trip to The Cheese Shop’ line and order a whole truckle of cheddar by implying I’m irresistible. I doubt it would be sincere.

  Simon shrugs, necks the last of his neat vodka.

  ‘You’re cute and you two appear simpatico, somehow.’

  ‘Like I said, thirteen years. I wasn’t single,’ I say.

  ‘Doesn’t always stop people.’

  ‘Are you looking for, what do they call it, watercooler conversation?’

  Simon laughs. ‘God, the ladies at work are nauseating about him.’

  ‘Yup, that sounds like the Ben Effect,’ I laugh, hopefully lightly. ‘Why did you ask me out?’ I say, to turn the topic, and as soon as the question’s left my mouth I rue it. ‘I mean, I didn’t think I’d be your type.’

  ‘And what did you think my type would be?’

 
‘Uh. Zara Phillips? Someone horsey but dirty who you can still take home to Mummy.’

  Simon laughs heartily at this. ‘You’ve got me pegged as some upper-crust idiot, haven’t you? Don’t be so quick to pigeonhole.’

  ‘Hah, like you haven’t done the same in reverse?’

  ‘Absolutely not. I like people with some mystery.’ Simon rolls his empty glass between his palms.

  ‘I have mystery?’

  ‘Oh yes. There’s definitely something you’re not telling.’

  For once, a glib comeback doesn’t spring to my lips.

  Two drinks down in the dive bar and the landscape starts to tilt. I don’t want to lose control and I don’t meet any resistance from Simon when I say it’s time I went home.

  He insists on walking me back to my flat and mentions how he can just as easily catch his cab from there, in case I think he’s trying it on.

  I like the city late at night, the blasts of music and the splashes of light cast from bars that are still open, shoals of brightly-dressed clubbers, the beeping taxis and the greasy, savoury smell of meat and onions from the burger vans. We walk briskly, looping round the groups of people who intermittently block the pavement, arriving outside my flat in jump-cut drunken time. On the way out, the same distance apparently took three times as long to cover.

  ‘Night then. Thanks for a lovely evening,’ I say, amazed to find I haven’t consumed enough alcohol to stop this being awkward. Damn fresh air.

  ‘Come here,’ Simon says, in a low voice, pulling me towards him, and I think how very Simon it is to issue commands instead of endearments.

  He kisses the way I’d have predicted he’d kiss, if I’d given it any thought beforehand: firm, almost pushy, as if one of us is going to be declared winner when we break apart. It’s not unpleasant, but it’s not going to involve tongues, I decide, pulling back. I thought the first person I kissed after Rhys would feel like a watershed, but it feels – what’s the word? Prosaic. Like the intervening thirteen years never happened.

  ‘What’s the verdict then, Court Reporter-ette? Can I see more of you?’ he says, quietly, and overtly suggestively.

  I’m flattered, and drunk. And surprisingly lost. Part of me wants to say yes. Most of me knows it isn’t what I want, it’s just what’s here.

  ‘Er – Simon.’

  ‘Er – Simon,’ he mimics, getting louder. ‘Uh oh.’

  ‘I’ve really enjoyed myself. Even more than I thought I would.’

  ‘The strength of the compliment depends on how much you thought you would, doesn’t it?’

  I wonder if there’s a stage of refreshment where Simon’s less articulate and argumentative. He must’ve honed these skills doing daily battle with members of the Crown Prosecution Service.

  ‘It’s a bit too soon for me after Rhys and everything. Can we be friends for now? I don’t know my own mind and it’s not fair to inflict myself on anyone.’

  ‘Fine. Well, obviously I’d rather we were going at it gangbusters, but whatever you want.’

  I laugh, feeling a twinge of relief at avoiding intimacies with a man who uses the phrase ‘going at it gangbusters’.

  ‘Thanks.’

  A pause. ‘Night then,’ I say.

  ‘Night.’

  I dig my key out of my handbag. As I walk off, Simon calls back: ‘Know why I’m all right with this, Rachel?’

  I shake my head, glancing around.

  ‘Because you’re worth waiting for,’ he says, raising a hand. ‘Night.’

  As I make three attempts to get the key in the lock on my door, I wonder if that was an assumption rather than a compliment.

  43

  After a lot of – well, some – internal debate about whether it’s appropriate, I email Ben to tell him how it went with Simon. I don’t want him to think I’m some pasta-guzzling tease.

  I send: ‘Hi – Bit of a weird one, had really nice time with Simon but not sure if going to see him again. Bit soon, etc. Hope you & Olivia not going to feel put in the middle.’

  I come back from a break in court to find the reply: ‘Well … we do ask that you marry him to make any future dinner-party seating plans easier for us. Is that so much to ask?’

  I giggle like a moron at this, then see the PS: ‘I’m trying to be healthy during my lunch hour and going for sandwich/walk in Platt Fields at one to get away from the office … want to join & have a chat? No problem if not, I’m not much of an agony aunt.’

  I respond instantly in the affirmative and hop on a bus, Platt Fields not being as wildly convenient as I’ll insist it is if he asks. A change is as good as a rest and all that.

  When I get to the park entrance, I see Ben is clutching brown paper bags, kneeling down, talking to a little girl in a dark duffle coat. A harassed forty-something woman joins them and as I approach, Ben says, in a slightly kids’ TV voice: ‘Here’s my friend! Rachel, hi.’

  ‘Hello!’ I say, trying for jolly, unsure as to whether to pitch my response to the adults or the child.

  As we move away, Ben mutters under his breath: ‘Speak to someone’s lost kid these days, you’re more likely to get arrested than thanked. Was I glad to see you.’

  ‘Unless they think we’re a Brady-Hindley double act?’ I say.

  Ben laughs: ‘I’d forgotten what I’d been missing with your sick sense of humour.’ Before I know whether to mind being forgotten or pleased at being miss-able, he adds: ‘Did you bring food?’

  I realise that in my haste, I didn’t.

  ‘I bought you this. You still eat ham and pickle?’

  He hands me one of the brown paper bags. I peer inside at a ciabatta sandwich, wrapped in a napkin. ‘Thanks!’

  I’d never think to go and look at nature in the middle of a day at the courtroom coal-face and yet I’m instantly struck by the springtime loveliness of the park, the light glinting on the lake.

  ‘So … Simon and Rachel a non-starter?’ Ben says.

  He gives me a mouth-full-of-food grin, as we gnaw the edges of our ciabatta sandwiches. I always think these things seem like a good idea and in practice are like chewing bricks, covered in brick dust. I give up and start pulling bits of ham out of the bread, inside the bag, so Ben doesn’t see me looking like I dipped my face in a bag of flour.

  ‘We went for dinner and it was surprisingly enjoyable …’

  As I tail off, considering how to phrase this, Ben suddenly looks like a pubescent boy being forced to listen to the story of his own conception. ‘Oh-kay … There isn’t going to be, an, er, PG-13 …’

  Looking at his fraught expression, I can’t resist continuing: ‘Afraid so, because when a man and woman like each other very much they have a sort of special cuddle …’

  ‘Argh, stop there! God, the thought of Simon banging the headboard shouting “Bravo! I have reached my conclusion! Preparing to disengage member in three, two, one …”’ Ben shudders. ‘Find another confidante for this stuff.’

  ‘Kidding!’ I say, through the considerable yet slightly tense laughter. ‘It was dinner á deux, home un une.’

  Ben makes a forehead-wiping gesture with his napkin.

  ‘Simon was more enigmatic on the point, of course. Oh she’s rilly something, Ben.’ He pulls a Roger-Moore-eyebrow Simon face that turns into a yuck Ben face.

  We laugh.

  ‘I don’t know if we’re a good fit, I guess,’ I say. ‘He’s very clever and witty and scathing and so on. I think we’re very different. I’m sure he’d be a challenge. He scares me a bit to be honest with you.’

  ‘Hmm, I’m not entirely sorry you say this.’

  I think of Caroline’s observation from my flat warming. This frank admission from Ben makes it more likely that his motives are above board. I feel relief, and the smallest tinge of what might be disappointment.

  ‘No?’

  Ben shakes his head while chewing and swallowing. ‘I get on with him, I don’t really trust him. I couldn’t in all conscience advise a friend to date hi
m.’

  A friend. I am a friend again.

  ‘Liv thinks I’m being ridiculous and you two would be great, though, so what do I know.’

  Hopefully a lot more than her when it comes to me, but I don’t say so.

  ‘I was slightly surprised you agreed to a date at all, if I’m honest,’ Ben continues.

  I extract another piece of ham. ‘When’s the right time to start seeing people again after thirteen years? How do you know for sure who the right person to see is? Caroline said I had to give it a go and I thought she was right.’

  ‘You ought to trust your own instincts more. Caroline’s great but Caroline’s choices are Caroline’s choices, not yours.’

  I’m touched by this, so touched I blurt: ‘That’s very thoughtful. You’re what they call “just gay enough”.’

  Ben shakes his head and says through a mouthful of bread: ‘And I was being supportive. Anyone ever tell you you’re a heartless witch?’

  ‘Yeah, some bloke at uni once.’ I wave my hand, dismissively.

  Too far. Ben swallows with a hard gulp, a thin smile settling afterwards. Despite the rehabilitation, a twinge from the old injury, reminding us not to overdo it, not to put too much weight on it yet.

  What are Ben and I to each other? There’s no word for it. Not exes and, despite what he said and what I want to believe, not exactly friends either. No wonder other people have asked for a description. I yearn to broach the topic. But it would ruin everything.

  ‘Second date with Simon unlikely then?’ Ben asks, as much for anything to say, I think.

  ‘Unlikely. Not impossible.’

  ‘I’ll tell Liv it’s a “definite maybe”. That’ll keep her off your back and won’t insult Simon if he asks her.’

  ‘Good idea,’ I say, gratefully. ‘He’s got some interesting opinions, I’ll give him that.’

  ‘Hah. Such as the dinner party thing about how we’d all married the wrong people? Yeah, he doesn’t have much respect for other people’s relationships in general, from what I can glean,’ Ben says.