The Little Things

by Jane Costello

  ‘James, please, I’m sorry I—’

  ‘Just save your apologies, Hannah,’ he spits. ‘I don’t want to hear them. In fact, I can’t even look at you right now.’

  And, at that, he clicks off his Skype connection, making it absolutely clear that the conversation is now over.

  Chapter 11

  Julia was right about our night out being overdue. This fact dawns on me as she giggles at me through a haze of dry ice while we sit by the bar in Camp and Furnace. The venue is the size of an aircraft hangar, and, courtesy of the DJ, neon lights and street food, has a kind of festival vibe – except it’s indoors.

  ‘What is it?’ I ask, bemused.

  ‘You’re a bit tipsy.’ She smiles.

  ‘Whatever makes you say—’ I hiccup.

  ‘When did you last have a night out, Hannah?’

  ‘It must’ve been two months ago, just before James left. I hardly ever have a drink at Suzy’s,’ I continue. ‘I can’t bring myself to do anything post-nine-p.m. except collapse in bed. I don’t even want to think about what’s in store tomorrow, given that I’ve got to do the school run.’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry about that now,’ she says, waving her hands about dismissively. ‘Thursday’s the new Friday. Besides, I’m at a wedding in Glasgow this weekend so this was what we were stuck with.’

  I take a sip of my Martini, which is merrily blotting out all thoughts of James the faster it goes down. He is still not speaking to me, several days after our fated Skype call. He’s done this before a few times – blanked me for days on end – and, excruciating as it is, I know it’ll blow over eventually. In the meantime, I’ve simply texted to say sorry again, and now just have to sit it out.

  I must admit, though, that, if I think too hard about the prospect of this happening for the rest of my married life, it doesn’t fill me with much of a rosy romantic glow.

  Still, nobody’s perfect. Everyone has arguments. Surely, he’s allowed to be pissed off with me sometimes, and I him. Not that that makes this any more enjoyable.

  ‘So how’s your love life?’ I ask Julia, aware that I’m woefully behind on gossip of any form since I left Panther.

  ‘Oh, you know . . .’ She shrugs mysteriously.

  I narrow my eyes. ‘Are you seeing someone?’

  ‘No,’ she replies, sipping her drink. ‘Not really.’

  ‘I don’t know why you’re being so coy. You know I’ll get it out of you eventually.’

  She lowers her eyelashes. ‘Put it this way. There’s this guy I’ve known for a while. And, well, although he should be out of bounds, I just can’t help how I feel around him. You know when someone makes your knees go weak?’

  ‘Actually, physically weak?’

  She looks up. ‘A man has never made your knees go weak?’

  ‘Well, I’ve had my pulse racing, heart thumping, been generally . . . excited.’

  ‘I’m not talking about horny.’ She smirks. ‘That’s not the same at all.’

  ‘So come on, tell me who this mystery man is. Someone at work?’

  She swallows and looks away. ‘You’d have to get me a lot drunker to spill the beans about that. Come on, finish your drink – I think we need to hit some more bars.’

  We embark on a posh pub crawl after that, stopping at Maray on Bold Street for tapas and another cocktail, before crossing the city and heading to some of the smart places near Castle Street.

  Julia attracts glances – of the admiring kind – the whole way there. And it’s little wonder: between the cheerleader legs, red carpet-worthy dress and impossibly glamorous up-do, she’ll have started work on this look at about 11.30 a.m. None of this stops her from complaining bitterly about looking ‘a state’, which she attributes to her last spray tan not having sufficient va-va-voom (Julia prefers to look as she’d just stepped off the plane from Antibes at all times).

  ‘So how’s my replacement getting on?’ I ask, as we reach the Hard Day’s Night hotel. ‘Any better?’

  ‘Your replacement?’ She frowns.

  ‘Keith Blanchard’s nephew.’

  ‘Oh, he wasn’t your replacement – he couldn’t photocopy his arse without needing a tutorial first. The whole thing will come unstuck sooner or later.’ She starts walking up the steps as a doorman opens up. ‘That’ll teach Keith Blanchard to choose his hangers-on more wisely in future.’

  I quicken my pace. ‘What do you mean?’

  But she’s already making her way through the crowd by the bar, a throng of elegantly dressed men and women, all slightly the worse for wear after whatever black-tie event they’ve come from.

  ‘This is my turn to buy,’ I insist, weaving my way to the bar as Julia slips away to top up her lip gloss.

  As I wait to be served, I focus on my reflection in the mirror behind the bar and I realise my eyeliner has crossed the line between smoky and blink-and-you’ll-think-I’m-a-snowman black. I grab a napkin to mastermind an impromptu makeover when I realise someone further along the bar is looking at me.

  I register the tuxedo first while my eyes focus fuzzily on his face as he breaks into a wide smile. Then he waves. He being Michael.

  I jolt with surprise, not just because it’s him, but because he looks so breathtakingly beautiful in his tuxedo that I have to remind myself not to drool. I straighten my back as he makes his way through the crowd towards me, aware that I can hear my heart above the noise.

  ‘Let me guess, you’d like something shaken, not stirred,’ I manage to say, gesturing to his tuxedo.

  ‘Somehow I don’t think Daniel Craig has anything to worry about, do you?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. In a dim light, I think you’d be a . . . passable James Bond.’

  He laughs. ‘Wow. I always dreamt of being a passable James Bond when I was a boy. But, in answer to your question, I’m having a G&T and they can shake or stir it – as long as it’s a drink, I honestly don’t mind. I’m buying, though. What’s yours?’

  ‘Um . . . well, I’m with my friend, actually. So I’ll get them.’

  ‘Well, I’ll buy your friend one too,’ he replies, holding my gaze just long enough to force my eyes away.

  I stand redundantly next to him while he orders, hyper-aware of the heat from his body. The thought makes me edge backwards – and tread on Julia’s toe.

  ‘Argh! I may be deformed for life after that!’

  ‘Oh, God, sorry,’ I bluster.

  ‘It’s all right, it’s my own fault for wearing ridiculous footwear.’ She grins.

  ‘Julia, this is Michael,’ I say, feeling suddenly self-conscious. ‘He’s one of the dads at school.’

  As she looks him up and down as if assessing the freshness of something on a fish stall, it strikes me that they would make an amazing couple. She’s been single for more than a year and, if I know Julia, the ‘weak at the knees’ comment could amount to nothing – she’s said similar in the past and I’m fairly certain she’d tell me who she was talking about otherwise.

  ‘Julia and I used to work together,’ I continue, turning to Michael. ‘That was in the days when I had a proper job.’

  ‘Ah . . . when you got to go to a nice, air-conditioned office and didn’t have to change nappies five times a day?’ he asks.

  ‘That was the one,’ I sigh.

  ‘She was bloody good at it, too,’ Julia adds.

  ‘Well . . . I won’t say this too loudly,’ Michael says, lowering his voice. ‘But I suspect she’s pretty good at her new job, too.’

  ‘Just don’t even say that,’ I warn him, suppressing a smile. ‘I have still forgotten at least three things this week – the twins’ snacks on Tuesday, Max’s rugby mouth guard on Wednesday, then the school newsletter today. Anything pressing on it?’

  ‘Just the details for sports day,’ he adds. ‘I take it you’re joining in? They have a race for mums, dads and other interested parties.’

  ‘I’ve learned my lesson after the art festival, thanks. I’m keeping my head d
own from now on.’

  I realise Julia is quietly scrutinising Michael with a wry smile. ‘I can’t believe Hannah’s never mentioned you to me.’

  ‘Neither can I,’ he quips. ‘Normally when women meet me they can talk of nothing else for weeks.’

  We are swept into a conversation with a handful of other men and women – NHS types, significant others, charity fundraisers – all colleagues or acquaintances of Michael’s. They’re a rowdier bunch than you might expect for a load of doctors, but then I saw my sister in action when she was at university so I suppose it’s not entirely unexpected.

  The night unfolds at an exponential rate, as time disappears in a haze of laughter, cocktails and flirting. There is a point in the evening when I realise I am hopelessly drunk, but in a delicious way, as if I were on a booze-fuelled fairground ride in which everything feels beautiful and bright, a tiny bit dangerous. And occasionally a bit spinny.

  It’s only when Julia and I are applying lipstick in the ladies’ that she says something that makes me realise I’ve been feeling like that all night. Or perhaps even all month.

  ‘You and Michael.’ I look up and frown, but she just raises her eyebrows, as if this is all she needs to say to open up a whole chapter of meaning.

  ‘What do you mean, me and Michael?’

  ‘I mean, he’s gorgeous,’ she whispers. ‘And you’re gorgeous. I hate to say this but . . . I’m not sure I could resist if I was in your shoes.’

  I don’t know whether it’s the cocktails, but I feel less shocked by this suggestion than I should be. I still protest, though: ‘Julia, I thought you’d be good for him.’

  ‘Are you insane, Hannah?’ she scoffs. ‘He hasn’t taken his eyes off you all night. The guy is clearly crazy about you.’

  A tiny explosion ignites inside me. ‘Are you forgetting I’m engaged?’

  She looks down at her makeup bag and shrugs, refusing to answer at first. ‘Yeah, to someone who thinks you’re only worthy of photocopying. For free.’

  I bite my lip, wondering if this is the only reason Julia’s trying to encourage me. But any suspicion I might have about the reason for this is dulled by the sheer volume of cocktails swilling round my system.

  ‘I love his eyes,’ she adds. I swallow and apply some mascara. ‘And his body – he’s athletic and muscular but not beefy, you know? He’s so funny. And just warm and . . .’ She stops and takes in my expression as I realise I’m swaying slightly.

  Then, the next thing I know, she has me by the hand and is pushing open the door, back into the bar. She leads me through the heat of the room and throb of music, before plonking me in front of Michael.

  ‘There. Talk to each other,’ she says, grinning, before slipping away, leaving the thud of my pulse to echo around the room. He smiles, awkwardly. ‘I wonder why she thinks we need reintroducing.’

  But, in the event, we do talk. About kids and work and school and a dozen other things that are nothing to do with any of that – from Breaking Bad to Russell Brand; from Hong Kong (which he’s visited and I’m dying to) to tattoos. That particular subject culminates in a mildly flirtatious I’ll-show-you-mine-if-you-show-me-yours type of exchange.

  He rolls up his sleeve and displays a swallow on his biceps. ‘Not the greatest tattoo in the world,’ he laughs. ‘It’s a bit fuzzy now. I got it in Philadelphia while I was travelling. I was only nineteen, in my defence.’

  But it’s not the image of the bird that I can’t take my eyes off. I’m momentarily made speechless by the smooth, bare curves of his arm.

  ‘Very nice,’ I say coolly.

  ‘It seemed like a good idea at the time,’ he says. ‘So, come on. Yours?’

  I hold his gaze, woozily. ‘I’m going to sound really boring: I got mine removed.’

  ‘Oh, why?’ he asks, disappointed. ‘I’d never get another one, but the one I’ve got holds so many memories. Mainly of a time when I didn’t give a toss what anyone else thought.’

  I shrug. ‘It just didn’t really fit with the look I thought my company would go for, I suppose.’ I don’t add that James hated it, not least because I neither want to say his name out loud nor even be thinking about him right now. ‘I thought it would damage my job prospects.’

  ‘The company that sacked you?’ he asks.

  ‘Ha! Yes, that’s them.’

  He smiles. ‘Are you sure this isn’t just a way of wriggling out of showing me – because this tattoo is on your bum or something?’

  ‘You guessed right. I have a Yogi Bear on one cheek and Boo-Boo on the other.’

  ‘Nice choice.’

  And at that moment I realise all I’ve been thinking for this entire conversation is the way his lips move. And his smell, sultry and masculine, which fills my head and seems intent on dislodging every sensible thought in it. He hesitates, his eyes searching my face. And, for a small, exquisite moment, I allow myself to drink him in, to sink into the fantasy that I’m leaning across and kissing those lips.

  The precise moment when I realise I’m no longer just daydreaming about this occurs a second later, as I fall gently into him, closing my eyes as I brush my lips against his. I pull back, wondering if I should be embarrassed, suspecting I should.

  His eyes look suddenly young, with a flicker of vulnerability that makes it impossible to predict how he’s going to respond. Then he reaches for my neck and pulls my lips towards his in the sweetest and baddest of kisses.

  Chapter 12

  It is 4.54 a.m. when my world comes crashing around me. My eyes flutter groggily open as I peer at the time on my phone and try to make sense of a clusterfuck of facts in the misty half-light of dawn.

  I am due to wake up for the school run in less than two hours.

  I am in someone else’s flat, under someone else’s sheets, between someone else’s limbs. And that someone else is Michael. I lie with my heart thumping as I piece together the events of the last night, darting from exquisite pleasure to jagged panic and back again.

  For a small semiconscious moment, I close my eyes and luxuriate in the feel his leg pressed against mine, his fingers wrapped around mine.

  A glorious rush of pornographic images flashes into my brain, leaving me wondering with breathless paranoia whether these are real or imagined flashbacks. Then a queasy punch reminds me what I’ve done. Me. Who is engaged to be married to James, the man I love and whom I’ve betrayed in the worst possible way, just because we had an argument.

  I register miserably that all it took was a handful of espresso Martinis and a nice dicky bow for me to drop my knickers for another man, who also happens to be someone I’ve got to look in the eyes on the school run every other morning.

  I slip out of bed and crawl on my hands and knees, scanning the floor commando-style, in an attempt to locate my clothes. It’s then that I realise I’m still wearing my underwear. I wonder optimistically if this means we didn’t have sex – then I remind myself that the sheer panels of my black undies wouldn’t make much of a chastity belt; we could still have got up to anything.

  I wrestle on my skinny jeans, not caring that there’s a sock stuck halfway up my thigh, before locating my strappy heels and shoving them on.

  ‘Good morning, Hannah.’

  I look up, thudding with a panic worthy of being caught raiding someone else’s selection box.

  Michael is leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and his torso naked from the waist up, the white sheet only just covering his modesty. I refuse to react to the sight of him.

  ‘Sorry . . . I’ve got to go,’ I mutter, which might sound ungracious but it’s the best I can do.

  ‘Okay,’ he says flatly.

  He sits there as I scrabble about for the rest of my clothes and the room is hit by a tsunami of social awkwardness. I am almost there, when he stands up, crosses the room and grabs a pair of jeans from the top of a chest of drawers.

  I whip my eyes away, but manage to catch enough of a glance at him to work out that he too is
wearing underwear. So this could all be innocent, couldn’t it? Nausea rises up in me.

  ‘I’m going to get a taxi outside,’ I mutter.

  ‘You don’t need to do that, I’ll drop you off,’ he replies.

  ‘No! Absolutely not,’ I reply. It comes out rather more forcefully than I’d anticipated.

  ‘It’s really not a problem, Hannah,’ he says breezily. He always seems breezy, I’ve noticed. Until now, I’d thought it a nice quality, but at this precise minute it feels hideously ill-fitting for the circumstances. ‘I’ll just throw on a T-shirt now and take you to the door.’

  My head starts throbbing. I haven’t got the capacity to argue with him.

  ‘Okay. I’m just going to use the loo first,’ I mumble, scurrying away as it strikes me this forced conversation couldn’t sound any further from last night’s fizzing banter.

  Michael’s BMW is big and plush, but dotted with the sort of debris I’ve learned that all parents have to put up with – a Froot Shoot bottle on the back seat, a battered homework diary in the foot well and the opened contents of one of those comics you can’t buy these days without also purloining yourself a plastic mobile phone.

  I slide into the front and refuse to look at him. I realise he might start thinking that I’m in some sort of mood with him. The reality is, it’s myself I’m appalled with, my head so heavy with self-hatred that I can’t even open my mouth.

  ‘Is everything okay, Hannah?’ he says gently, as we finally turn down Suzy’s road.

  I nod silently. Then shake my head, as I feel my tears well up.

  ‘I’m supposed to be getting married to someone,’ I whisper.

  He pulls the car into the kerb, puts on the handbrake and turns to me. ‘Hannah, don’t worry. Absolutely nothing happened.’

  I sniff and look up. ‘Nothing?’

  He shakes his head. ‘Nothing at all.’

  ‘But . . .’ I shake an image of him unbuttoning his shirt out of my brain.

  ‘I wanted to,’ he continues. ‘But you wouldn’t. Your virtue is intact. So please don’t worry. We just came home and you were tired so we went to bed. But that was it.’