Crazy in Love at the Lonely Hearts Bookshop

by Annie Darling

  ‘But I thought you said you’d learned to compartmentalise,’ Nina said a little desperately because she couldn’t bear to listen to another word. She even reached over to put a hand on Noah’s arm to comfort him, but mostly to stop him.

  She knew then that she could never tell him that it was her brother who’d made those Sunday nights, the anticipation of Monday morning, so hellish.

  If she did, it would ruin everything. Instead of seeing Nina, Noah would look at her and only see her brother. Not Paul as he was now; kind, caring, the loveliest father, but as he’d been back then. A thug in a Kappa tracksuit, as Paul himself had said.

  ‘I realise that there are some things I can’t lock away,’ Noah said. ‘Not now I’m back.’

  ‘But it does no good living in the past,’ Nina argued in the same desperate voice. Noah had shared something with her and though she couldn’t tell him the truth, she wanted to share something personal and painful too. ‘Last night, at All Bar One, I bumped into my ex. The ex.’

  ‘Oh.’ Noah caught her eye again as he changed lanes. ‘Your childhood sweetheart?’

  ‘One and the same, Dan Moffat,’ Nina said without thinking.

  ‘Dan Moffat? I think the name dimly rings a bell,’ Noah said but he didn’t say any more than that and there was no telltale flush to his face any more, so at least Dan hadn’t made Noah’s life a misery too.

  ‘We started going out when I was fifteen. He was my first boyfriend,’ Nina said. ‘I was obsessed with getting a boyfriend.’ Oh God, she had hardly changed at all. ‘I was so basic back then. I wanted to look like everyone else, wear the same clothes, hang out at the same places.’

  ‘But most people want to fit in when they’re teenagers,’ Noah pointed out. ‘It’s safer that way.’

  ‘Sometimes safe is just another word for boring. Everything about me was boring. Like, all the women in my family were married by the time they were twenty and that was the sum total of my ambition too. So, I went out with Dan and he was perfectly nice and we got engaged on my eighteenth birthday and the wedding date was set, caterers booked, and that was when I read Wuthering Heights and realised that I was just sleepwalking. Treading water and it was time that I learned to swim, jump off the really high diving board. You know what I mean?’

  ‘Mostly.’ Noah dared to nudge Nina and now he was smiling again. ‘Although you’re starting to lose me a little with all the swimming metaphors.’

  Nina smiled. ‘OK, I’ll skip the bit about learning how to do butterfly after years of a sedate breaststroke.’ Her expression grew more serious, not least because she couldn’t tell him that the reason for her epiphany was Paul’s accident. ‘Anyway, I decided I was done with living the life that my mother had planned out for me. So, I quit my job at my aunt’s hair salon so I could work in a place in town that would be more cutting edge and well, I broke up with Dan. Though it was only two weeks before our wedding, so technically it counts as jilting him. That was ten years ago and my mother still hasn’t forgiven me.’

  ‘Wow,’ Noah said. ‘You’d think she’d have let it drop by now.’

  ‘It wasn’t just the jilting,’ Nina said. ‘Everything I did to reclaim myself was a personal affront to her, from dyeing my hair to eating carbs – she’d had me on the Atkins diet since I was twelve.’

  ‘When my parents found out that I wasn’t vegan any more – my dad discovered a Ginster’s pasty wrapper in my laundry bag when I was home from university – we had a week of family mediation sessions so I could think about what I’d done,’ Noah offered.

  ‘I’d rather have a week of mediation than ten years of my mother’s passive-aggressive sniping,’ Nina said. Then she thought about it. ‘Actually it’s not even passive-aggressive. It’s aggressive-aggressive.’ But they were getting sidetracked. ‘What I’m saying is that it doesn’t matter who we used to be, what’s important is the people that we choose to be now,’ she said with great force and feeling.

  Noah caught her eye again in the windscreen mirror, his expression serious but not sad any longer. ‘Amen to that.’

  ‘If you ever looked at me once with what I know is in you, I would be your slave.’

  Despite all her protests that he could drop her off at the first tube station they came to, Noah didn’t just drive her back into London, but all the way to Marianne and Claude’s place in Kentish Town.

  En route he introduced her to the This American Life podcast and when Nina asked him what he’d meant about falling asleep on the job the night before, he handed her his phone when they were stopped at traffic lights.

  ‘My sister took that when she came home,’ he explained. ‘Before she woke me up and told me off for being so slack in my babysitting duties.’

  In the picture Noah was slumped on a sofa with a baby curled against the crook of his neck and a toddler draped across his chest. All of them fast asleep, with their mouths wide open, same peaceful expression on their three faces.

  ‘Definitely one for the family Christmas card this year,’ Nina snorted, as she tried to hold back the urge to tilt her head and make ‘aw’ noises because the whole scene was unbearably cute. Nina didn’t do unbearably cute or ever wonder whether the particular man she was seeing at any one time would make good dad material.

  Except she couldn’t help but think that Noah would be an excellent dad and then stopped herself right there and purposely asked Noah a question about the podcast (‘this Ira Glass – I’m pretty sure he’s a character in a J. D. Salinger novel, right?’) so she wouldn’t start asking him if he’d thought about having kids and did he have a preference for boys or girls and had he picked out any names?

  All too soon, even though it had taken them well over an hour, Noah was pulling into the little street off Kentish Town Road where Marianne had her vintage dress shop and Claude had his tattoo parlour upstairs and they lived in the flat on the top floor.

  Nina had stayed in text contact with Claude throughout their journey and he was just walking up the road with a carrier bag bulging promisingly with sugary snacks to keep her going through her inking.

  She tapped on the window as she took off her seatbelt. ‘That’s Claude,’ she said to Noah. ‘He’s going to be hurting me with needles for the next few hours.’

  ‘I suppose there are worse ways to spend a Sunday afternoon,’ Noah said wryly.

  ‘Come and say hello,’ Nina said because she wanted Noah to meet someone that she loved and for it not to be a totally traumatising experience for him.

  Claude might look terrifying with his jet-black quiff and sideburns and the tattoos that completely covered every inch of skin visible from the cuffs of his leather jacket right up to his neck, but he was a sweetheart, an absolute teddy bear, and of course he insisted on inviting Noah in when he heard that they’d driven all the way from Surrey without stopping for a coffee.

  ‘Marianne’s been baking, which to be fair isn’t always the incentive it sounds …’

  ‘She often forgets to put in a crucial ingredient,’ Nina agreed pantingly as they trooped past the tattoo parlour and carried on up the stairs. ‘One time she made these Nigella Lawson Snickers muffins and forgot to add sugar.’

  ‘You still managed to eat three of them!’ Marianne reminded her from the top of the stairs where she was waiting for them.

  ‘Well, a lot of Snickers bars had to die to make those muffins,’ Nina said as she finally made it to the top and Christ, she was unfit. Noah wasn’t even breathing hard as she pulled him forward. ‘This is Noah. He gave me a lift from Surrey.’

  Marianne gave Noah a quick once over. He was wearing non-ripped, non-skinny jeans, a sensible navy-blue jumper, though this one had a little hint of purple in the ribbing, and a friendly smile. He couldn’t look more basic but Marianne’s smile was equally friendly. ‘Lovely to meet you, Noah. Bet you’re gasping for a cuppa?’

  ‘I’d love one,’ Noah agreed as Marianne ushered him into the flat. There was a lot to take in, from the tiny hall
made tinier by the flamingo-print wallpaper and fairy lights to the living room which was crammed with a mid-century three-piece suite reupholstered in leopard print, a tiki-inspired bamboo mini-bar, and floor-to-ceiling shelves which housed Claude’s collection of vinyl records. On every surface there was something to look at, whether it was a lamp in the shape of a pineapple, Marianne’s prized collection of Elvis Presley figurines or a plastic hula girl who did a dance when you pressed her belly button.

  Noah stood in the centre of the room, even though Marianne had told him to take a seat, and did a slow three-hundred-and-sixty-degree turn so he could take in everything. ‘I love the maximalist approach,’ he said at last. ‘Reminds me of this vintage shop I went to once in Palm Springs.’

  ‘I love Palm Springs!’ Marianne called out from the little kitchen just off the lounge. ‘Last year Claude and I went to the Viva Las Vegas convention then did a week in Palm Springs. Great vintage shops. Nearly bankrupted myself.’

  ‘Nearly bankrupted me too,’ Nina remembered, plonking her overnight bag down. ‘She came back with all these dresses she’d handpicked for me.’

  ‘Yeah, but you get mates’ rates. Noah, how do you take your tea? And I made peanut-butter cookies and yes, I did put sugar in them.’ Marianne made a shooing motion with her hands. ‘Go on, sit down! Not you, Nina, take your coffee and go down to the torture chamber. Claude wants to get started straight away.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Nina said to Noah, who was seated in one of the bucket armchairs and didn’t look too perturbed about Nina abandoning him. Marianne was six foot in heels, with blue-black hair styled in waves and a short fringe under which her impeccably arched brows gave her an imperious look. She was wearing Sunday casual, which consisted of a pair of black cigarette pants and a tight black sweater and the whole effect was quite intimidating. ‘She’s not as scary as she looks,’ Nina added, because Marianne’s heart was solid gold. She was a nurturer, a mother hen, and had got Nina through break-ups, evictions, firings: so many crises.

  Still, she couldn’t help but worry about leaving Noah up there as she arranged herself face-down on Claude’s padded black table. But then Claude popped out from behind a screen wielding his tattoo gun and said, ‘Let’s make sure we’re both happy with the design and then I’ll get you sterilised,’ and Nina remembered why she was there and how much it was going to hurt.

  Noah would just have to fend for himself; Nina could only worry about herself.

  The first ten minutes were always the worst. The first shock of the first punch of the first needle into her flesh. Then another one. And another one. Like some sharp-toothed bloodsucking insect chowing down. Nina hung her head and tried to breathe around the pain because she knew that she just had to get through the initial agony and acclimatise, while her inner voice declared quite loudly that there was no way she could endure another ten seconds of this, let alone ten minutes, never mind hours.

  ‘You all right, Nina?’ Claude asked.

  ‘Don’t talk to me!’ she snapped back. ‘Oh God, why do I let you do this to me?’

  Claude, wisely, refrained from reminding Nina that she’d asked him to inflict this torture on her, was even paying him for the privilege.

  The pain, the stabby stab stab, made her want to scream. How could she have forgotten how much this bloody hurt? Chloe had said that she’d repressed the memory of how pushing out a tiny human being from her vagina had caused her unimaginable agony. If she hadn’t repressed it, then no way would she ever have had a second child. Chloe had also said that getting Ellie and Rosie’s names tattooed in two hearts on her ankle had hurt much worse than giving birth to them.

  ‘If you ever have kids, Nina, after having all those tattoos, you’ll pop them out like you’re shelling peas,’ Chloe had once said to her in all seriousness and the thought of Chloe’s earnest face as she’d said it made Nina smile and if she could smile, then she’d broken through the pain barrier.

  It still hurt like a hundred fire ants were eating into her skin but it was a bearable hurt. ‘Sorry for being mean,’ she said to Claude, untucking her head from where it had been buried in the crook of her shoulder.

  ‘Don’t mention it,’ Claude said easily as he adjusted the angle of Nina’s other arm, the one he was working on, which was resting on the pull-out padded flap of his tattoo chair. ‘So, how’s life been treating you?’

  As Nina told Claude about her Ye Olde Laser Tag adventures, she could just make out the low-level hum of conversation from the flat upstairs and wondered how Noah and Marianne were getting on. Though both of them were the type to get on with anyone – Marianne was particularly beloved of elderly gentlemen in supermarket queues – Nina hoped that Noah wasn’t digging for information on her and that Marianne wasn’t spilling any of her secrets. More than anyone, Marianne knew where all Nina’s bodies were buried and just how many corpses were piled up in her dating graveyard.

  There was the sound of footsteps and Nina tensed up in expectation of Noah popping his head round the door to say goodbye, so that Claude’s tattoo gun almost bounced off her arm.

  ‘Easy, tiger,’ he murmured as the footsteps carried on past the open door of the studio and they could hear Marianne’s voice. ‘It would be amazing if you could give me some advice as an impartial observer. ’Cause some of my customers want the stock displayed in decades, others in sizes, but I think it looks better to divide it by colour and …’

  Her voice drifted off and Nina couldn’t believe that she’d asked Noah to give her free business advice but then, knowing Marianne, she could believe it only too easily.

  It was another hour before they trooped back upstairs, this time stopping at the tattoo parlour and coming inside. ‘How you doing, Nina?’ Marianne asked in a concerned voice. ‘Ready for some sugar?’

  ‘Yes, please,’ Nina said because once her energy levels began to dip, the pain started edging towards unbearable again. ‘Did you get me some full-fat Lucozade?’

  ‘’Course we did,’ Marianne said. ‘And Noah, another cup of tea or do you fancy something stronger?’

  ‘Tea would be great,’ Noah said and Nina raised her head, which had again been buried in the crook of her non-butchered arm to see him standing in the doorway. ‘I could go back upstairs if you’d prefer,’ he added to Nina.

  ‘No, you’re all right,’ she muttered, though she wasn’t exactly sure that it was all right. She’d wanted to be as comfortable as possible, so she now had bare feet, and had undone the top of her dungarees and taken off her blouse so she was lying on her front in a black vest with the red straps of her bra visible. Nina had been in far more compromising and naked positions with other men, but she was in pain so she felt especially vulnerable. More to the point, it was Noah and she was starting to realise that everything with Noah felt different. She wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was because of their past, or their work connection, or that Noah was so not her type that he’d become her type. He was unsuitable for all the right reasons, instead of the wrong reasons. ‘Ow! Jesus! Warn me if you’re going to hit a muscle,’ she added in a snarl to Claude.

  ‘Stop tensing up then,’ he told her calmly.

  ‘You’re coming at me with a needle gun, how do you expect me not to tense up?’ Nina demanded.

  ‘Just grab that stool and pull it closer,’ Claude said to Noah as he completely ignored Nina’s suffering. ‘And if this one barks your head off don’t take it personally.’

  ‘I hate you,’ Nina told him, which just proved Claude’s point.

  Then Marianne appeared with Nina’s Lucozade and the freshly baked cookies and Nina’s pain and rage subsided again. Marianne sat down with a pile of mending and Noah scooted his stool right over so he could have a ringside seat for the tattooing.

  ‘Did you draw that?’ he asked Nina when he saw the final sketch that Claude was working from.

  ‘I did,’ Nina replied and she almost gave a guilty start but stopped herself as she wasn’t allowed to make any sudden movemen
ts. ‘I used those beautiful Faber Castell pencils that I never even thanked you for because I’m an ungrateful wretch.’

  ‘You thanked me in the email inviting me to Ye Olde Laser Tag, which was one of the most fun nights of my life so I think we’re even,’ Noah said, pulling his stool even closer so he could have a proper look at what Claude was up to. ‘You really should think about taking a drawing class, Nina. You’ve got some serious skills, which are worth developing.’ Noah looked again at the pencil sketch Nina had done of the old, weather-beaten tree, swallows flying overhead, Cathy and Heathcliff leaning against its trunk.

  Nina tucked her head back into the crook of her arm to hide the delighted smile, which she was sure made her look quite smug. ‘Maybe,’ she conceded because there was an art school in Bloomsbury, quite near the shop, and it wouldn’t hurt to see if they did any evening classes for beginners. ‘As long as the life-drawing models are quite fit.’

  Noah smiled and shook his head as he often did when Nina was being impossible, then turned his attention back to the needle gun in Claude’s steady hands.

  ‘You’re doing it freehand,’ he noted in surprise. ‘When I got mine done, the tattooist used a stencil.’

  ‘I like to go freehand so I can fit the tattoo to her arm better and it makes for a more organic design,’ Claude explained.

  ‘And I trust Claude to know what’s going to work and what isn’t and to put his own stamp on the tattoo.’ Nina smiled mischievously. ‘I mean, I suppose he’s quite good at his job.’

  ‘Thanks for the vote of confidence,’ Claude said. He was the most chilled person Nina had ever met. It was impossible to rile him, unless Nina had to ask him to see off a persistent and substandard admirer and then Claude could be absolutely terrifying.

  ‘I always wondered how tattooists develop their own style,’ Noah mused. ‘It’s not like you can practise on people, is it?’

  ‘You say that but my brother has a particularly crap tattoo of Bruce Springsteen on his back from when I was an apprentice,’ Claude said deadpan as Noah, Nina and even Marianne looked at him in consternation. ‘Nah! Pigskin from the butcher.’ He sighed. ‘I miss working on pigskin. Didn’t bitch half as much as my human customers do.’