Now Nina’s mother straightened her shoulders. ‘We’ve moved with the times you know,’ she said as stiffly as her spine. ‘We even do balayage now.’ She folded her arms. ‘But you think you’re too good to do people’s hair.’
‘I don’t think I’m too good to work as a hairdresser.’ Nina could only spit the words out. ‘It just wasn’t what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.’
Her mother snorted in derision even as Patrick said, ‘Come on, you two. Do we have to have the same row every time Nina comes over?’
‘It gives me the most dreadful heartburn,’ Hilda added, reaching for her handbag and her Rennies.
Alison wasn’t done. ‘Well, when you finally figure out what you want to do with your life, then please let us know because you’re thirty …’
‘I’m not thirty. I’m nearly thirty …’
‘… and you’re working as a cashier in a shop and you’re not even married.’
‘I’m not a cashier! I’m a bookseller and getting married isn’t the be all and end all of everything. I’d rather fall madly in love with someone and even if it only lasted a week, at least I’d have known passion and excitement,’ Nina proclaimed so loudly that she was practically shouting. ‘There’s nothing passionate or exciting about getting married before you’ve had a chance to figure out who you are, then a few years down the line you realise that you have nothing to talk about but endowment plans and whether the washing machine will last another month.’
‘There is a bit more to being married than that,’ Paul said with a hurt look at his sister because by the time Nina left the house, she would have managed to offend every single member of her family present. It was like a very useless superpower.
‘Yeah, we go on date nights,’ Chloe insisted. ‘And anyway, we’ve never once talked about taking out an endowment plan.’
‘I just want something different out of life,’ Nina said, in the same way she’d been saying for years, in the same way her family always took as a personal attack. What had been right for Hilda, then Marilyn and finally Alison – to be married with a baby on the way before they’d blown out twenty candles on their birthday cake – wasn’t right for Nina.
Though she was nearly thirty and still didn’t know what exact form the something different she wanted out of life would take.
‘There’s nothing wrong with being married,’ Alison said forcefully.
‘But you don’t have to get married to be happy,’ Nina said equally forcefully, whereupon eight-year-old Rosie burst into tears.
‘I want to get married so I can wear a pretty dress and eat cake,’ she sobbed, because Nina could even alienate the prepubescent members of the O’Kelly clan.
‘Rosie, sweetheart, you can get married if you want to,’ Nina said, getting up so she could hurry over to Rosie and put her arm around her. ‘And you can also wear a pretty dress and eat cake without getting married if you want to.’
‘Although no one will want to marry you if you eat too much cake and get fat,’ Alison said firmly and though she swore that she wasn’t talking about Nina and her non-married size fourteen to sixteen depending on where she was in her menstrual cycle, it sure felt like she was.
Nina left quite soon after that; refusing pudding, coffee or a lift to the station and taking her raspberry meringue layer cake with her. When she got home, she’d change straight into her pyjamas and eat the whole damn cake while she caught up on her reading or watched a trashy film.
She gave an angry snort as she got to the station, realised that the Waterloo train was pulling in and then had to run, in heels, in a tight dress, carrying a collapsible meringue cake in a Tupperware container.
She made it with seconds to spare. The doors slid shut behind her and Nina leaned against them to get her breath back and cast her eye around the carriage.
It was early Sunday afternoon, that strange lull when most people were still lingering over lunch, so there were lots of empty seats. Nina could have a whole four-seater to herself if she wanted and she did want. Didn’t want to have to look, or worse, talk to another human being for a good few hours. This must be how introverted Verity felt when she was overloaded at the end of a busy day.
Nina levered herself upright and tottered along to the middle of the carriage and the cluster of four-seaters. There was a man just sitting down in one of them. Nina hoped he wouldn’t tell her off for putting her feet up but God help him if he did.
Then she got nearer and she saw his face and he raised his eyes from his iPad screen as if he could sense Nina’s scrutiny and they both gazed blankly at each other for a very long moment.
It was Noah. Of course it was Noah because this was the day from hell.
‘I am now quite cured of seeking pleasure in society, be it country or town. A sensible man ought to find sufficient company in himself.’
Noah lifted his hand in a half-hearted gesture and Nina could absolutely style this out. Wave back and carry on walking to the end of the carriage.
Or she could just act like a grown-up and sit down opposite Noah. ‘Well, this is a coincidence!’ Of course it wasn’t a coincidence when his parents lived five streets away from hers; God would smite her for all the lying she was about to do. ‘So anyway this is already awkward enough without us ignoring each other all the way to Waterloo, but if you want some quiet time, I can just shove off?’
He shook his head. ‘No, you’re all right.’
Noah really knew how to make a girl feel special. ‘So, where do you live anyway?’ Nina asked.
‘Bermondsey.’ He seemed a little awkward, but Nina was used to working a tough crowd. She had just survived a family dinner, after all.
‘Cool. By the Tate Modern?’ she asked and this feigned interest in the face of zero encouragement was actually a lot like being on a bad date.
‘Nearer to Borough Market.’
‘There’s a stall in Borough Market that sells this salted caramel chocolate tart that makes me want to cry even thinking about it.’ Nina closed her eyes at the memory of said salted caramel chocolate tart, then opened them again to see Noah looking at her. He quickly averted his gaze. ‘Mattie must never know that I’m having impure thoughts about someone else’s French patisserie,’ she added and she wasn’t even joking, though Hallelujah! Was that the tiniest of smiles breaking through the stormy look on Noah’s face?
‘I’ll take your secret to the grave,’ he promised solemnly, then gestured at the Tupperware container on Nina’s lap. ‘Where’ve you been then?’
‘My parents’ house. Sunday lunch once a month is a bit of a ritual slash torment now that I live up town.’ Nina sighed. ‘At least, it was meant to be for Sunday lunch but then World War Three broke out between me and my mother.’
Noah raised his eyebrows. ‘That bad, eh?’
‘Yeah, but we’ll leave it a week then she’ll phone, it’s her turn to phone after we’ve had a row, I did it last time, and neither of us will mention it. It’s our way.’ Nina shook her head at the utter trainwreck that was her relationship with her mother. ‘What about you?’ She just about stopped herself from asking if he’d seen his folks too – after all, they were strangers and she couldn’t know that his family were from Worcester Park too.
Noah had a small collection of Tupperware next to him on the seat. He gave it a look of repulsion. ‘Yeah, same as you, visiting the parents. No World War Three but a few minor skirmishes,’ he confessed in a tired voice. Then he rubbed his eyes like his own trip to the bosom of his loving family had exhausted him.
Nina could empathise. ‘Well, at least you got leftovers out of it,’ she pointed out, because she wanted to turn Noah’s frown upside down. And though she hadn’t been directly involved, she still felt guilty about the rotten time he’d had as a kid. ‘Who doesn’t love a cold roast potato?’
‘I love cold roast potatoes,’ Noah said dreamily then fixed grave green eyes on Nina. ‘There are no cold roast potatoes in any of these containers though.
It’s all high-fibre vegan food.’
Her mother had said something about Noah’s parents being hippies with funny ideas, but then as far as Alison was concerned anyone who wore Birkenstocks or didn’t eat meat was a hippy with funny ideas. Nina didn’t share her mother’s viewpoint. In fact, she even willingly went meat-free a few days each week because she cared about the planet and yeah, admittedly, sometimes dinner was just a bowl of cheesy chips from The Midnight Bell. ‘Yum. Some of my happiest moments have involved stuffing my face with a black-lentil dal.’
‘I hear you,’ Noah said morosely. ‘Unfortunately, my parents’ vegan cooking hasn’t moved beyond the nut roasts they learned to make when they were students, though they have got with the times and added chia seeds to them now.’ He rubbed his eyes again. ‘Today’s nut roast was so dry that it’s sucked every last drop of moisture out of my body. Or maybe it was the mung-bean bake.’
Nina had once lived with a militant vegan who’d left bowls of soaking mung beans everywhere so she could empathise.
‘I’m getting cotton mouth just thinking about it,’ she said. And she didn’t realise she’d been tensing her muscles until she settled back in her seat and felt the tension leave her. ‘Was that what the skirmishing was about? Did you try to sneak a Scotch egg past your mum?’
‘I could murder a Scotch egg. I might have to go home via Tesco Express to get one,’ Noah said with the same dreamy expression as before. When he’d first rocked up at Happy Ever After in his suit and with his iPad, Nina would never have imagined that he’d have so many layers. He wasn’t wearing a suit today. There were jeans and underneath his navy-blue peacoat, a navy-blue jumper peeked out. God, he really did love a navy-blue ensemble. ‘But no, I know much better than to try and sneak any animal products past my parents. We skirmished over my lifestyle choices.’
‘You too? I never imagined we’d have so much in common,’ Nina said, and Noah laughed, and Nina didn’t think she’d seen him laugh before. The laughter was like an instant Instagram filter, wiping away the tired, tight look from his face and bringing his features to life again.
‘You mean that your parents are also very disappointed that their own flesh and blood has sold their soul out. Then they harped on about sucking on the corporate teat for a while but I tuned out,’ Noah said with an exasperated edge to his voice. ‘As soon as they start talking about “The Man”, I know what’s coming and I switch off.’
‘They’re not proud of you? But, why not? I mean, you’ve been to Oxford and Harvard,’ Nina reminded him, though Noah was hardly likely to forget.
‘Did I tell you about that at the pub?’ He looked confused and Nina found herself coughing wildly to distract him – no he hadn’t bloody well mentioned it, dammit, that had been Alison.
‘Do you need a sip of water?’ Noah sat up, patting his pockets as though a water bottle would miraculously appear. Nina managed to get control of her ‘coughing fit’, and waved a hand at him weakly.
‘I’m fine,’ she croaked.
‘It’s a bit of a coincidence that you’re from Worcester Park too,’ Noah said as she wiped her watering eyes. ‘And you’re about the same age as me.’ His brow furrowed and Nina closed her eyes in silent agony in anticipation of the next question he was definitely going to ask. ‘What school did you go to?’
‘I’ve pretty much repressed all memory of school,’ she said desperately. ‘Absolutely not the best days of my life. Whoever came up with that expression didn’t know what they were talking about.’
‘Ha, yes! To be honest, I don’t think about school that much either. It was pretty shitty for me too, but do you know what? I learned some life lessons from it and then I moved on,’ Noah said calmly as if his dark days at Orange Hill weren’t that big a deal. ‘I wouldn’t be very good at my job if I couldn’t compartmentalise.’
Was it possible that she was going to get away with dodging his question? After all, Noah didn’t seem to recognise Nina at all from their Orange Hill days, let alone realise that she was Paul’s sister: good thing they didn’t really look alike. But should Nina tell Noah about the connection? Would it be the right thing to do?
How would she even begin to bring it up? Actually my older brother Paul used to beat you up on a regular basis. Nina winced. ‘Yeah, I’ve moved on too. Thank God!’
‘It’s best to leave all that stuff in the past,’ Noah agreed. ‘And right now, all I can think about are Scotch eggs. I’m starving,’ he said plaintively, casting a baleful look at his Tupperware.
Nina stared down at the Tupperware on her own lap. She gave the container a cautious shake. Its contents felt a lot less intact than they had done before she’d run for the train. She prised open the lid to confirm her suspicions. Mattie’s peerless raspberry meringue wasn’t quite smashed to smithereens but it had certainly been broken into large lumps.
‘Will this do?’ Nina offered the box to Noah who peered inside, then an expression of sheer joy came over him, which was much more pleasing to look at than his stony face of before.
He selected a large piece of very crumbly cake and then looked around. ‘I need a plate and also a bib.’
Nina was already delving into her bag. ‘When you wear as much make-up as I do, you never go anywhere without a packet of wetwipes. I also have tissues, cotton buds and some anti-bacterial hand gel.’ She handed Noah a couple of tissues and watched as he took a happy bite of cake.
The smell wafting up from the container was heavenly: the soft, sweet cloud from the meringue and the sharp tang of the raspberries, but Nina wasn’t going to eat cake in public. Not after spending two hours with her mother, meaning all she’d be thinking about was how many calories, carbs and grams of sugar she was consuming.
Hopefully, by the time she’d got home, these feelings would pass and she could eat cake and any other thing she damn well wanted without hearing Alison carping in her ear, ‘A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips’ or ‘Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels’ and her very favourite fat-shaming mantra, ‘Little pickers wear enormous knickers.’
She didn’t want to keep staring at Noah as he munched away – there was every possibility that she might start drooling, which was what happened when you denied yourself cake. And what if Noah thought she was slavering over him?
She shuddered and busied herself with her phone. There was a text from Chloe (Hope you’re OK. We left just after you once I’d told your mum not to give Ellie and Rosie complexes about their bodies. That went down well. Not! Speak soon. xxx) and a couple of messages on HookUpp from men she’d up-swiped but hadn’t HookUpped with yet before she’d sworn off it. Checking it absolutely didn’t count, because she wasn’t going to reply, unless either of them categorically stated that they were looking for the Cathy to their Heathcliff. But neither of them had. They’d just sent her dick pics.
Had any woman ever formed a meaningful relationship with a man who didn’t bother with any of the niceties, not even a ‘how are you doing?’ but went straight to sending her a photo of his tumescent yet still very unimpressive penis? Nina doubted it.
‘I can’t eat any more of this,’ Noah declared and Nina looked up from her phone to see him putting the lid on her Tupperware. ‘I want to leave room for my Scotch egg and I’m starting to go a little trippy from so much sugar.’
They were pulling into Earlsfield station, a few people waiting on the platform to board, and in a few minutes they’d be at Waterloo. Nina was just debating the merits of getting the Northern Line to Tottenham Court Road and then walking the rest of the way or whether she should get an Uber, though maybe she should delete the Uber app off her phone in solidarity with her father, when she realised that Noah had been speaking to her, because all of a sudden he reached across and gently tapped her on the knee.
‘But don’t you think it’s weird?’ he asked.
Nina blinked at him. ‘What’s weird?’
‘That we’ve never met before.’ Noah gestured at Nina with a sligh
tly meringue-y hand. ‘We grew up in the same place, we’re about the same age and you’re not the sort of person to fade into the background.’
At the thought of her days at Orange Hill, even though those days hadn’t been the terror ride that Noah’s had been, Nina got the same twinge in her stomach that she always got. A slightly panicky, sicky feeling. She willed it away. But also Noah had just confirmed that he didn’t know that Nina had attended his school, let alone was related to his chief tormentor, and it seemed a pity to tell him now when they were getting on so well. She’d wait until they were in the shop, in a professional setting, and take him to one side to deliver the news, but for now it could wait.
‘Well, I suppose technically we lived nearer to Cheam than Worcester Park,’ she hastily amended. ‘And I didn’t look like this back then.’
Noah gave Nina a sweeping, assessing glance that started with her suede open-toe shoes and travelled upwards, lingering in the places that Nina wouldn’t have expected him to linger, then settling on her face. He smiled as if her face was especially pleasing though Nina was pretty sure she’d chewed off her lipstick – she’d been planning on doing a quick repair job on the train before she’d bumped into him.
‘I’d definitely have remembered you if you looked like this,’ he said and his tone was appreciative and entirely male in a way that threw Nina off-course. Was he flirting with her? No. She surely wasn’t his type; he certainly wasn’t hers, though at this very moment, Tom’s idea that Nina should do a little light flirting with Noah was quite appealing. Not to discover Noah’s agenda but because Nina liked to be both giving and receiving of flirtation.
‘Well, back then I had buck teeth, braces and bee-sting boobs. Then when the braces came off and puberty finally kicked in, I spent most of my waking hours straightening my hair and making sure that I had plenty of midriff on show, thanks to my huge collection of cropped T-shirts and hipster jeans. Even in winter.’
‘And how did you go from that to this?’ Noah asked with another long look at Nina, his eyes heavy-lidded, so she felt another twinge in her stomach, though this twinge didn’t make her feel panicky or sick. It was the good kind of twinge.
Crazy in Love at the Lonely Hearts Bookshop Page 10