by Liz Bankes
Spencer stops kissing me for a moment and looks down at me. His curly hair falls over his face.
‘Let’s go out.’
‘Do you mean like boyfriend and girlfriend?’
‘Yep.’
I breathe in sharply. Just see it as another tiny step. I look at him.
‘Okay.’
The sunlight comes creeping through the window in the morning and I turn my head and look back at Spencer. He has his lips slightly parted and his curly hair all messy on the pillow.
We came back to his house last night and talked. For the first time since we met the conversation was direct. Going straight for those big, scary subjects and trying not to flinch too much.
I told him what happened six months ago, when it all fell apart. When my family went to pieces and I was the one who had to hold it all together. How I told everyone I was fine and how I’m too scared to let someone really know me. And that it’s easier to push them away.
The only thing I didn’t tell him was about the person who was there through it all. The one I did push away.
Spencer put his arms around my waist then. ‘You kept pushing me, but I’m still here.’
I watch his eyelids begin to flutter open. I move my head, staying in the spooning position, and kiss him on the lips. I feel him tense in surprise and then his hand moves up to my face as he pushes his lips onto mine. My body is still facing away from his and he brushes his fingers lightly over the front of me. All the way down and then back up again. And down, and then back up. The lightness of his touch makes me squirm and I feel like I might explode. I take his hand and move it down and I feel him shift and grow hard against me. He moves his hand away and I feel him turn behind me. There’s the sound of him fumbling with a drawer as he finds a condom. It’s only a few seconds but the wait feels agonising. And then it’s happening. It’s him – the smell of his skin, the feel of his lips – and it feels new, different.
I put my hand up to the headboard to push back against him as he slides in and out, still touching me softly at the same time. The sweet feeling builds and spreads, until I want to cry out. I turn to kiss him again and just as our lips meet, I start to shudder against him.
It’s different and new in a way I couldn’t have imagined.
Chapter 30
The next day, I hand round the coffees, catching Spencer’s eye as I give him his. The air fizzes between us.
Later, as I am walking back with the lunch orders, I think I am getting a bit of a tan after my day in the park yesterday. I feel light as I walk. I’m almost skipping. I got an I Forgive You text from Rosie and I am meeting Spencer in the cupboard at lunchtime.
The hour until lunch creeps by painfully slowly. At one point I bash my phone with my hand because I think the time might be frozen, but no. When everyone has their food, there is still ten minutes to go until one o’clock so I just go and get in the cupboard early. I probably should be doing something useful rather than just standing in the dark and waiting, but I don’t. And Spencer only finds it a bit scary when he joins me. He’ll have to get used to me being keen.
He’s all psyched for his scene later. His lurve scene as I call it. I’ve brought it up a lot since I found out about it. I think I’m a bit obsessed with it.
In the middle of when he is kissing me, I say – sort of into his mouth – ‘Do you know your lines?’
He pulls back, but his hands are still in my hair. ‘There aren’t many lines . . .’
‘Okay, do you know your actions?’
He sighs and moves his hands down. Now I want to grab them back and pull him to me and squeeze him. I wish I knew how to not be mental.
‘Okay, so she comes in. And then I say, “Of all the gin joints . . .”’ He says it in the deepest voice ever – like a pantomime villain – but the vibrations of his voice still cause tingles.
‘And she says,“Shut up”, and walks up to him and kisses him.’ He stops, as if waiting for me to kiss him. But I’m thinking.
‘You should move her hair out of her face.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah, and don’t tell them you are going to.’
‘Before or after the clothes come off?’
‘After.’
‘Okay.’
He steps forward and cups my face in his hands, kissing me hard. The force of it sends me backwards and then we are up against the cupboard wall. Then he stops and brushes my hair out of my eyes with his fingers.
‘And cut,’ he says with a grin, knowing it will drive me crazy.
When lunchbreak is over, I step out of the cupboard, trying to look normal and unflustered. I think I’m doing an amazing job until I spot myself in a window and see that my hair is all over the place. Spencer has already gone. Off to do the big scene. It is a closed set and I can’t really ask to watch without sounding like a pervert. Luckily there is something to distract me. My phone has started buzzing in my bag.
‘Nish!’
‘Hey.’
I can’t work out her tone.
‘Do you hate me?’
There’s a beat as she thinks and I brace myself.
‘Yes, that is obvs what I was phoning to say.’
‘I’m so sorry – we had this extra scene to film and then an early start the next day and I forgot what day it was because I have the brain of an IDIOT. So Rosie got my chocolate thing?’
‘Ha! Yeah, she did.’
‘Why “ha”?’
‘It said, I’m sorry in capitals.’
‘Yeah, I know, that’s what I asked for!’
‘No, as in the message was I’m sorry in capitals. The whole thing. In lower case.’
‘Oh man!’
‘On the plus side, she laughed, so I think she hates you less.’
‘Does she? I did get a text from her, and it was nice, but I don’t think she’s ever sent a not-nice text in her life so you can never be sure.’
‘What you said about coming back on your next day off, though – I think you should do that.’
Nish is always right. I did promise to come back on my next day off. And then I had a day off yesterday and spent it with Spencer. Let’s pretend that didn’t happen.
‘I have a day off on Thursday.’
I swallow the unreasonable voice that is telling me I have to be with Spencer all the time. He’ll still be here if we’re apart for the day.
Gabi has joined the conversation.
Gabi: Okay so I have NEWS.
Nish: Drum roll . . .
Rosie: Oooh!
Mia: This reminds me of the time you said you had a surprise for me in your room and when I opened my eyes you were mooning me.
Gabi: I have sort of got together with Spencer!
Gabi: You always bring that up, Mia, I think you liked it.
Gabi: ;)
Mia: That or I am scarred. But hooray!
Nish: Have you slept with him?
Gabi: Nish, I am shocked!
Nish: You did, didn’t you!
Gabi: Okay, yes. It was AMAZING. Wasn’t it, Mia? Mia knows ;)
Nish: How?? Was she watching?
Mia: NO! She Facebooked me about it. In detail.
Rosie: Isn’t it a bit soon?
Gabi: We are getting on really well. He was filming this scene and I had this great idea for what he should do in it (actually, I gave him loooooads of great ideas for it) and then he did them all and everybody is raving about him!
Nish: But he told them that you helped him, right?
Gabi: No, but I mean, I’m just the runner, aren’t I? He’s the actor man.
Nish: You should think about your career too.
Gabi: More excitement about my NEWS please!
Mia: ARGGHHHHHHHHHHH!
Rosie: Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!
Gabi: Thank you, everyone. (Not you, Nish.) I am going to meet his mum and brother tomorrow!
Nish: Wow, you move fast!
Rosie: Yeah, sounds serious! What’s going to happen when you
finish the internship?
Gabi: Argh, sorry got to go – have to take the lunch order.
Gabi: LOVE YOU BYE x
Gabi has left the conversation.
Chapter 31
There is a ramp going up to the door. It’s the bottom flat of a Victorian house, a bit like Spencer’s. It is a bit weird that he and his friends have the whole thing and his mother just has a floor. I assumed he came from quite a rich background to be living somewhere so nice. Spencer has his own key and lets us in.
It’s all a bit last minute and I sort of invited myself. Spencer was supposed to be going to some industry party with other people his agent represents. He didn’t sound very excited about it.
‘Who wants to sit around talking to a load of reality TV stars?’ he said.
‘Yeah, sounds rubbish,’ I replied, thinking, ME. I do!
Then he remembered he’d made other plans and told me he was supposed to go to his mum’s for dinner.
I said, ‘That would be lovely,’ and he didn’t uninvite me, so here I am.
A woman’s voice calls, ‘Spencer?’ from a back room and a blur rushes past me to stop beside Spencer. It turns out to be a small boy who kicks him in the leg.
Spencer shouts, ‘Hey, Monkeyboy . . .’ and grabs the boy by the back of his T-shirt as he tries to run away and then tickles him. While he’s doing that, a woman comes into the hallway using a crutch.
‘My boy! And you must be Gabi. Come through, come through.’
In the kitchen she gives me a kiss on the cheek. The boy comes bombing into the room again and slides across the kitchen floor, just avoiding bashing into her crutch.
‘Joel!’ Spencer snaps.
‘Oh, I’ll get him back.’ His mum waves her hand dismissively and then points the end of the crutch at Joel. ‘Good for a swift crack on the shins, this thing,’ she says confidentially to me. ‘You should get one to keep him in check,’ she adds, nodding at Spencer.
Spencer’s mum has MS. She tells me about it while Spencer takes over getting dinner ready. He stands with his back to us as he chops some tomatoes on the kitchen side. I can’t see his face as his mum talks about the illness and I think his shoulders look tense.
His mum is totally relaxed though as she arranges some cushions on a kitchen chair and then sits and leans back. She tells me to take a seat at the table.
‘It’s a bugger because they don’t think I’m fit to work. I told them I used to manage this building place – that the lads know me and will take turns carrying me when my legs are bad. No sense of humour!’
She says the pain comes and goes and the last time she spoke to Spencer it was a bad time and she was having a moan. He’d said he’d come round tonight because ‘he panics’.
The whole way through we are interrupted by Joel, who is making George’s Marvellous Medicine in a bucket because he is doing the book at school. He makes me promise to try some when he’s finished, but I’m hoping he’ll forget because earlier he absent-mindedly told us he was stirring the slugs in, before asking his mum if she had any yogurt she didn’t want any more.
Me and Spencer’s mum start talking about who we fancy most in soaps, despite Spencer complaining that we are talking rubbish. She tells him not to be such an old fart, and then clinks her wine glass with mine.
I feel like I’m beginning to map out his life and a clearer picture of him is coming into view.
I’m thrilled when she gets onto the subject of The Halls. When she found out Spencer had a line in it, she bought the first series on box set and watched the whole thing.
‘That Harry’s a sort, isn’t he?’ She nudges me.
‘OH MY GOD, YES!’ Definitely feeling a little bit tipsy now.
I can see Spencer is grinning as he drains the spaghetti and then when we tell him to hurry up, he comes obediently over with the food. I tell her spaghetti Bolognaise is my absolute favourite and she says, ‘Who knew?’ and winks at Spencer. I finish my plate, and the rest of Joel’s too because he is not looking too marvellous after his medicine, and then I get seconds.
Spencer’s mum says she likes a girl who can eat. That was also how I impressed Max’s mum – with my appetite. I think I put on about a stone just being in their house. But it was a stone that included lots of yummy cakes, so totally worth it.
Spencer’s mum is constantly embarrassing him, so I can see where he gets his sense of humour from. She tells me she was very excited I was coming round because she doesn’t usually get to meet the girlfriends.
‘Er, she’s not my girlfriend. She’s just some girl that keeps following me round. I can’t shake her off,’ says Spencer.
‘Oh don’t be like that, babe,’ I reply. Our eyes meet and I see him trying to fight off his smile.
After dinner, his mum gets down a photo album and I discover that Spencer went through a stage when he was about six of wearing only a bow tie. His entire childhood keeps us entertained for ages, only stopping when Joel demands I sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to him, even though it’s not his birthday. Then he asks me to sing the dead cat song. I tell him I don’t know the words, but I can join in soon because the words are apparently, ‘Dead cat, dead cat’, over and over. When he says he is going to get the cat to join in too, I give Spencer a look of fear, which puts him in hysterics. Thankfully the cat Joel comes back with is very much alive and surprisingly tolerant about being dragged around the kitchen by a five year old. Spencer intervenes only at the point when we hear Joel say, ‘Tilly wants medicine.’
I ask to see Spencer’s bedroom and he says, ‘Steady on’, which sets his mum off into cackling. I try to say that I am just nosey about his life, not suggesting anything, but they aren’t having any of it.
I get a flashback of Max’s dad glaring at me whenever I went anywhere near Max’s bedroom.
Spencer does give me the tour though. His bedroom is just the box room because they moved here after his mum was diagnosed, which was only a few years ago. I think of the man in the photo album, who is there in all of Spencer’s photos. I probably shouldn’t ask about him, but I do, because the question is hanging in the air. And I’ve had two glasses of wine.
He looks at his feet and then across at me. And then he talks. Their dad freaked out over the whole MS thing and then it turned out he was having an affair with his boss. He lives with her now in this big house with her kids, who are Joel’s age. Spencer’s mum won’t take any money from his dad, but he pays Spencer guilt money that he uses for rent. He bites the inside of his cheek.
‘Once they pay me my first big film cheque . . .’ He pauses, giving me a look as if to add, Which I know sounds ridiculous. ‘. . . then I’m buying her a house.’
On the Tube back, Spencer puts his arm round me. ‘Thank you for coming.’
‘It’s fine,’ I tell him. ‘I get paid for this, right?’
He doesn’t seem to hear that and carries on talking. Sometimes I think he doesn’t appreciate my comedy gold. And he also doesn’t seem to appreciate that I had an absolute blast at his house. I love hanging out with people’s families. When I knew I had to break up with Max, one of the things stopping me was that I wouldn’t be able to hang out at his house any more. I was always texting his mum. His dad not so much because there was the incident where he told Max that going out with me might hold him back in life.
‘When are you going back home again?’ says Spencer.
‘Tomorrow.’
‘I could come with you.’
‘OKAY!’
He pretends to wince at how loud my voice is, but then he smiles.
Thinking about it, I should probably have shrugged and said something more chilled like, ‘Yeah come, or don’t. Whatever.’
But I didn’t.
Chapter 32
I did text telling him the train time. He replied saying, I’ve got an interview! Which was nice, but irrelevant. He’s got a minute to arrive or he’s going to miss it. I hover near the barrier watching the escalator that comes up fro
m the Underground. Should I just get on the train? He’s only got thirty seconds now. And that’s the guard’s whistle. I’m going to have to just go. I run across the platform and leap onto the train. I’m there. And the doors stay open. A few people look up from their seats as I catch my breath. I so need to do more exercise. Or just some exercise.
I look up and see Spencer is behind me, doing a casual stroll up the platform. And just before he gets to the door he does an impression of me running. In my head I thought it was a swift, elegant sprint – a bit like Usain Bolt; according to Spencer’s impression it was Usain Bolt with no control over his limbs or face.
On the train he keeps yawning. It turns out he went to a party last night. Apparently his agent called him up and forced him. I’d like to just casually drop into conversation, ‘Why didn’t you invite me?’ but I think it goes against my ‘trying not to seem too keen’ plan. There is the danger I’ll just blurt it out the next time I’m annoyed though.
Then Spencer moves to the seat next to me and kisses me and strangely I forget about it, along with forgetting all the thoughts that I have ever had.
They are in the usual spot in the park. I see the manic waving as soon as we walk through the entrance. There is a slight pause and a moment when they turn to each other, which must be them realising I’ve brought Spencer with me. A few metres away, I start running. I aim straight at Nish and attack her with a massive kiss on the cheek. She pushes me off.
No Max, thank God, but there are a few other people from college. There is a bit of an awkward silence as we get sat down.
Then I do the introductions, obviously not including Nish and Rosie, who he’s already met. And I show him a picture of Mia on my phone and prop her up against a lemonade bottle.
‘So how’s all the filming going?’ Nish says, while Rosie is looking at her mobile.
‘Yeah, it’s—’ Spencer’s phone starts ringing. ‘Oh, I need to take this. Sorry, Nadia, I’ll be back in one sec.’