‘I know now’s not really the time to ask as we’re both running late—’
Here it is, thought Eve, here’s the moment when Becca would ask her outright if she was behind the columns. And there was no way she’d be able to deny it. Not to Becca.
‘But how are you feeling about seeing Ben all the time?’
It was a reprieve on one hand, but another confrontation that she was equally uncomfortable about. Eve mumbled an incoherent reply that was completely noncommittal.
‘Because it’s ok to feel awkward, or pissed off you know. You’ve had zero answers or closure on what you thought was the big love of your life and now you’re expected to just pretend everything’s normal and resolved.’
‘Amit said that Bryn is very emotionally connected,’ Eve said, changing the subject. Becca didn’t have a clue what being emotionally connected entailed, but it sounded painful. ‘Where’s he taking you tonight?’
‘I don’t know, it’s a surprise, except he said in his message I have to wear comfortable shoes, bring a cardigan and a bottle of water.’ Spoken like a true doctor, Eve had thought when she received his instructions. Not many other men would be able to reduce the risk of bunions, hypothermia and dehydration in one text message. Eve added, ‘If it’s the walking tour of London’s loos I may cry.’
Eve felt really nervous walking to the prearranged meet-up spot. Now that she’d decided to draw a thick line under her time with Ben and move on, this date had far more significance than any other date that she’d been on because previously Ben was always lurking in the background whispering ‘what if?’ from the shadows. And now he wasn’t. He’d taken up too much of her past, and he had no place in her future.
Bryn was already at the corner in Chelsea they’d agreed to meet at. Casually dressed in chinos, a pink shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and a pale grey jumper slung around his shoulders and tied in a knot on his chest, he looked like he’d just stepped out of the Boden catalogue. He was also wearing slip on brown boat shoes with no socks. It wasn’t a look that she usually went for, but then that hadn’t worked out too well for her, so maybe it was time for a change.
‘Hi,’ Eve said brightly, noting the double cheek kiss that made him seem terribly debonair and cultured.
‘Did you bring water?’
Eve patted her little drawstring bag. ‘Yep.’
‘Good. Can you guess what we’re going to be doing?’
‘Does it involve toilets?’
Being ignorant of the back story, her question sounded a lot ruder than it was meant to. Eve quickly followed it up with, ‘There’s a company that does a guided tour round the toilets of London. My friend Becca wanted to do it for Ayesha’s hen do until I overruled it.’
‘That doesn’t sound very hygienic.’
‘Well no, I don’t think you have to touch them or anything. I think they might be famous ones, or ones with historical significance.’
‘It doesn’t sound like a fun way to spend your time,’ Bryn said, wrinkling his nose in distaste.
‘No, no it doesn’t,’ Eve agreed. ‘So what are we doing then?’
‘We are doing a walking tour, but it’s a blue plaque spotting tour around Chelsea and Kensington.’
That was … nice. It wouldn’t have been Eve’s first choice of dates, she normally preferred some level of alcohol consumption to be involved, but thinking about it, it was perfect. They’d be able to talk all the way round the tour, finding out a lot more about each other, and she wouldn’t need to feel guilty about cancelling Juan for tonight as she’d be doing exercise. So multiple box ticking at the same time.
She assumed that Bryn had a map or an app that they would follow, taking it at their own pace, maybe even curtailing it a little early to sneak off to a neighbourhood pub, should the mood take them, but as they rounded the next corner a massive gaggle of Spanish tourists and about thirty pensioners were all crowding around someone who had a stick with a flag attached to the top of it clipped onto their belt.
‘Here we are.’ Bryn said. ‘Let me fight my way through. Do you want to go halves on the tickets or are you quite traditional?’
The question threw her; if she said that she was quite traditional, she would sound like she was a money grabber who expected him to pay, but if she said they’d go halves she worried that would make her seem ungrateful. She took the middle road, and shrugged smiling, saying, ‘I don’t mind, whatever you want to do.’
‘Ok, well I’ll get this, and then if we go for some food after, you can get that.’
‘That sounds like a plan.’ It did, there was nothing wrong with that at all, Eve thought, watching him squeeze through the blue rinses and bald heads. It might have been nice for him to pay for her without asking, just to be a bit chivalrous, but then again, it wasn’t the 1950s – maybe he thought she’d be offended by him paying for her, which was why he hadn’t straight away. Yes, it was actually very thoughtful of him.
‘Got them,’ Bryn waved two tickets in front of him a few minutes later. ‘I’ll keep them both safe, shall I? In case you lose yours. My ex, Caroline, was always losing things, I think she went through about ten Oyster cards a month as she kept leaving them places.’
‘Good idea.’ Eve didn’t often lose things, but it was probably good to be on the safe side.
‘Oh look, we’re off,’ Bryn said, tagging on behind two Chinese students. They walked for about fifty metres in silence before Eve couldn’t stand it anymore.
‘So, what hobbies do you have?’
‘Cricket.’
The world’s dullest game. Closely followed by motor racing.
‘And Formula 1.’
‘Oh that’s good. Did you see the rugby game at the weekend?’ Eve said.
‘I’m more of a football fan myself. Follow the foxes.’
‘Heh?’
‘The foxes, Filbert the fox? I’m a Leicester City supporter.’
‘How come? Aren’t you from London?’
‘I used to support Spurs, but my ex, Caroline, is from Leicester, and her dad used to take us both to home games whenever we visited, so they sort of became my team.’
‘Isn’t that a bit frowned upon in the footballing world?’ Eve asked light-heartedly. ‘Switching allegiances to a different team? I thought it was a “one team till I die” sort of thing.’
‘Leicester has a lot of happy memories for me, so it’s more of an emotional bond really. I still go up for home games from time to time with Keith, my ex, Caroline’s, Dad, which is nice.’
This must be what Amit meant about Bryn’s emotional connections. It was quite refreshing really, to hear a man talk about a deep and meaningful reason for supporting a football team rather than a childhood home’s proximity to a stadium.
‘What else do you like doing Bryn?’
‘Well, I’m afraid that life is pretty much my work, being a doctor in a hospital doesn’t really give me much time for anything else.’ He gave a little chuckle.. ‘My ex, Caroline, used to say that there was no point me owning proper clothes when all I wore was scrubs.’
Eve smiled to lessen the seriousness of her next question, the answer of which her future happiness was riding on. ‘When did you and Caroline break up Bryn?’
‘Oh God, ages ago. Three years, five months to be precise.’
Eve gave a sigh of relief, that was ok, it was a very decent amount of time between then and now. She was fully expecting him to give a response including the words ‘days’ or ‘weeks’, but three and a half years was just fine. She’d been single for almost the same amount of time, so they had that in common, the only difference was that she wasn’t aware that she’d mentioned Ben yet.
The group had stopped outside their first blue plaque, mounted on the wall of a tall grey brick terraced townhouse. It read Thomas Wakely 1795–1862 REFORMER and founder of ‘The Lancet’ lived here.
‘I wonder what “The Lancet” was?’ Eve murmured. ‘I bet it was a den of vice and iniquity.’
‘It’s a medical journal,’ Bryn replied straight-faced. ‘I know an interesting fact about Thomas Wakely actually. Before he became a surgeon, he was an amateur boxer and used to fight bare-fisted in pubs.’
‘That is interesting.’ On a scale of one to ten it was around two on the scale of interesting things to know, but you never knew when a fact like that was going to come up on pub quizzes. Eve firmly believed in things happening for a reason, and that little nugget of information might one day come in very handy.
‘What are your hobbies, Eve?’ Bryn said as the group shuffled onwards.
‘Writing, although that’s my job, so it’s not really a hobby.’
‘Caroline used to write poetry. I read some of it, and it was really very good.’
Eve didn’t really know what to say to that. ‘Um, that’s nice for her. I also like going out for a drink, I live above a jazz pub, you see.’
‘That sounds loud.’
‘Sometimes, but it’s mostly really good fun. They all know me and my flatmate Becca in there, and it’s really handy having your local literally on your doorstep.’
‘How many units do you think you drink a week?’
Oh God, Eve thought, a night of difficult questions. She had wanted to apply the honesty is the best policy approach to this date, but the truth was absolutely going to result in a lecture she didn’t want to receive. She was starting to realise that Bryn was perhaps not her soul mate. He was still waiting for a reply to his question, and Eve couldn’t for the life of her remember the recommended alcohol limits, so was just going to estimate the real number, then halve it.
‘Um, not many, twenty?’ she said uncertainly.
‘Twenty? In one week? Are you joking?’
Should she have gone higher or lower? Was his incredulity due to how little she drank or was he getting ready to fast-dial a rehab unit for her to dry out in?
‘Oh look,’ Eve said quickly, looking up at a tall white townhouse sandwiched between two grey ones. ‘Dame Millicent Garrett Fawcett.’
‘Who?’ Bryn said, looking at his watch.
‘Dame Millicent Garrett Fawcett.’
‘I can see what it says, but who is she?’
‘A pioneer of women’s suffrage.’
‘You’re just reading that from the plaque.’
‘I’ll have you know, I’m a bit of a closet feminist and Dame Millicent here is a heroine of mine. She was the leader of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies, she co-founded the first women’s college at Cambridge, and because of her, six million women got the vote. You’re not the only one with interesting facts up their sleeves Bryn.’
Bryn didn’t appear to be listening, instead he was watching one of the pensioners from the tour group who had splintered off and was leaning against a rubbish bin. The woman’s pale skin was shining in the evening sun and her friend was fanning her with a discarded copy of the Evening Standard.
‘Bryn?’ Eve waved her hand in front of his face to get his attention.
‘Sorry,’ he said, not taking his eyes off the two elderly women. ‘I’m just concerned that lady is suffering from heat prostration.’
‘Heat what?’
‘Prostration. Hyperthermia, not to be confused with hypothermia. Wait here.’
He barked the last two words like an order, not a suggestion, and it raised Eve’s hackles. She wasn’t used to being told what to do, and she didn’t like it. In fact, as she watched a group of pensioners gather round her blind date, she was coming to the realisation that she didn’t like Bryn very much either. So far, every male with the letter B had been a monumental idiot. Or, just maybe, she was the idiot for humouring the prediction in the first place.
Chapter 24
Eve slipped away while Bryn was administering water, fashioning a cold compress for the old lady’s neck and generally basking in effusive praise from the woman’s flirty white-haired friends. She had sent him a message once she was far enough away for him not to follow her, saying, Thanks for a really interesting night, you looked like you had your hands full, so thought I’d leave you to it. All the best, Ex
Eve had a little smirk to herself when she realised for the first time that her initial next to a kiss looked like the word Ex, which seeing as she’d just spent the evening listening to Bryn genuflect to his former girlfriend as she sat on her golden pedestal was very fitting. She only added the kiss at the end of the message as it seemed a little abrupt with just an E, but Eve hoped he didn’t read into the kiss any emotion she absolutely wasn’t feeling. She wasn’t mistaken, she knew she wasn’t; it was a rubbish date.
Becca was at a parents’ evening when Eve got in after the date, and was still in bed when she left for the location shoot the next morning, so Eve hadn’t had a chance to workshop the date with her yet. Eve guessed correctly that the topic would come up that evening as she and Becca were meeting Amit and Ayesha for dinner, who, fresh from their two-week honeymoon in Kerala, were desperate to catch up on wedding gossip with their friends. It was a common gripe of brides, that they had to head off on holiday straight after their wedding, leaving everyone else to exchange tales about the wedding, who spoke to whom, who danced with whom, who insulted whom, and by the time they returned, everyone was bored of talking about it. Eve reckoned that Ayesha must have messaged her from the luggage carousel at Heathrow asking about her dinner plans, so eager was she to meet up.
The final shot of the day on the magazine’s photoshoot in a studio in South London, was of an over-the-top arrangement of tall-stemmed exotic orange flowers, which didn’t look dissimilar to the beaks of Atlantic puffins. They were deeply unattractive and incredibly antisocial, as guests wouldn’t be able to see, let alone converse with, the people opposite them on the table. Eve said as much to the stylist, who flicked her ponytail and muttered a few choice words about ‘leaving it to the professionals.’ Eve thought about fighting her corner, rationally laying out her reasoning of why these flowers looked rubbish for a wedding, but instead she flipped open her notebook and wrote down ‘puffin beaks’ ready to recall for her next column for Venus.
They were due to all meet at seven-thirty that evening. Eve got there just before seven, and had a moment of indecision as she found the pub quicker than she had anticipated. She wondered whether to keep walking up and down the street until nearer the allotted meeting time, enjoying the last few hours of sunshine, smiling smugly at the lost tourists and feeling at one with London, or whether to be brave and go in and have her first drink alone. After the week she’d had, it was a no-brainer.
‘Double gin and tonic please,’ Eve asked the barman.
‘If you have a fresh lime, can she have that instead of lemon?’ said a familiar male voice behind her. He followed it up with, ‘Hello Red.’
This couldn’t be Becca’s doing, Eve thought. Becca knew how Eve and Ben had left things, there was no way she would have set her up like this. It must have been Ayesha or Amit who invited him along.
‘Amit messaged me from the airport earlier and asked if I fancied drinks and dinner,’ said Ben, reading her mind. ‘By the look on your face, that’s not ok. If I’d known you’d be here I wouldn’t have come.’
Eve shrugged as she handed over the money to the waiting barman. ‘It’s a free world.’
‘You ran off pretty quickly the other night.’
‘Do you blame me?’
‘Look, who you want to sleep with is none of my business.’
‘It really isn’t.’ Eve knew that her reply only confirmed what he thought she’d done and did nothing to dispel it, but she was just really fed up of them tiptoeing round each other.
‘I know. Look, I wanted to explain, to try to make you understand why I did what I did back then, and then you just left.’
‘Excuse me for not wanting to hang around to hear how amazing your life has been with Kate since you dumped me for her.’
‘It hasn’t actually been that amazing.’
Eve stuck out her bottom lip. ‘Aw, did ickle Ben get his heart broken after breaking mine?’
‘Kate died.’
A stab of horror passed through Eve’s chest. ‘Oh God, Ben, I’m so sorry, I would never have said that if I knew, I’m so sorry, shit, I’m such an arsehole.’
‘Hello! Hello! We’re back!’ Ayesha bounded up between the two of them and gave Eve a bear hug, breaking off to bestow Ben with the same honour.
‘Hello, you two, you look serious, looks like we arrived in just the nick of time to liven things up!’ Amit slapped Ben on the back and kissed Eve’s cheek. The bruising on his nose and under his eyes had gone down, and the Keralan sun had given them both healthy tans.
‘Becca not here yet?’
‘No,’ Eve said quietly, looking at Ben. She felt like such an idiot for storming off on Sunday, and being so juvenile about what was obviously a really serious situation. He wouldn’t meet her eye, obviously thinking her to be a shallow, unfeeling imbecile, which was exactly how she felt. ‘She shouldn’t be too long.’
‘Shall we go to the table?’ Amit suggested. ‘They give it away if you’re fifteen minutes past the booking time.’
The four of them weaved their way through the crowded restaurant at the back of the pub. No two tables or chairs matched, each being sourced from local markets or junk shops, and either painted white or left untreated and natural. Glass jam jars held flickering tea lights on each table, and the daily specials were written on little chalkboards propped up on easels dotted around the room. The atmosphere was casual, inviting, and judging by the noise of chatter and laughter at every table around them, perfect for a night out with friends.
‘Great place,’ Ben said, pulling out Eve’s seat for her to sit down before him. She hesitated for a micro-second in case he was going to revert to being the joker and pull it out completely, leaving her sprawling on the floor like he used to, but he didn’t.
‘We brought Tanya and Luke here once, but she hated it.’ Ayesha said.
At the mention of Tanya’s name Eve stiffened. Ben must have sensed this because he spoke up quickly. ‘We had a bit of a run-in with Tanya actually a few days ago, I don’t think any of us will be seeing too much more of her.’
A Beautiful Day for a Wedding Page 18