An Autumn Crush

by Milly Johnson

  ‘Yes, yes, I deserve that,’ said Brian, sniffling. ‘Thank you.’

  Juliet slammed her car into first gear and turned on the CD player full blast: AC/DC. She wanted to hear some real, wild men with guts and balls. What a bloody waste of an evening, she said to herself. Still, there was always Ryan tomorrow – third time lucky. And if that failed, well . . . maybe internet dating wasn’t for her after all.

  Floz was halfway through an email to Nick when Juliet bounced into the flat, dropped her bag, kicked off her shoes and threw herself down on the big, plump sofa.

  ‘Floz, rescue me from tearing out my hair,’ she called.

  ‘I’m coming,’ said Floz, checking her face in the mirror, making sure she didn’t look as down as she felt. ‘I was just doing a bit of work. I felt in the mood,’ she fibbed.

  ‘I have just been tortured by an hour and a half’s worth of stories of ex-wives. I – Juliet Miller – couldn’t get a word in edgeways. Can you believe that?’

  ‘That I do not believe,’ said Floz. ‘I’ll put the kettle on.’

  ‘Sod that, get that bottle of Canadian icewine out of the fridge.’

  Canadian. There were reminders of Nick everywhere.

  Juliet watched Floz go into the kitchen and smiled. She’d only known the woman for a couple of weeks, yet she could see already that they’d be friends forever. Coco was a good friend, but he wasn’t a woman and Juliet really missed having a close female mate who didn’t almost throw up if the conversation turned to menstrual cycles.

  The flat had become a much cosier place since Floz moved in, with her cards and computer and her silly spotty dressing-gown and all her lovely strawberry pictures and fruity room-scents. Juliet rather thought that every house should have a ‘Floz’ in it.

  She heard a pop and a shriek from the kitchen. With her feet out of those high heels and a good friend with whom to dissect the evening over a cold glass of fizz, man or no man – life really wasn’t that bad at the moment.

  Chapter 23

  Floz had a much-needed jolly evening listening to Juliet’s recounting of her date with Brian. They got the nibbles at ten o’clock and demolished a thin crust ham and pineapple pizza between them. All that laughter tired them out though and by eleven Juliet’s eyelids were drooping.

  Floz climbed into bed, then climbed straight out again. She needed to finish writing her email to Nick before she went to sleep. There were things she needed to say to him too, whilst she still had the chance.

  Dear Nick

  If I’m honest, I thought you were the biggest bastard I ever encountered. I couldn’t quite believe you’d cut off and go like you did, but then I chided myself into accepting that these internet things were all based on fabrications anyway. I wish I’d known the back story before.

  I know you won’t phone me again. But I wanted you to have the number – then you had a choice. Anyway, I’ve never had an obscene phone call – might have been a first. Keep it handy, you might get the urge.

  Don’t know what it was about you that made you affect me so deeply, especially because we seemed such very different people. You scared me when you first wrote that introductory email, did I ever tell you? I thought if I didn’t reply, you’d hunt me down with a crossbow. Months later, all I could think of was that we would have had great sex.

  Don’t say goodbye until you feel you really have to. I’m clinging on and trying to avoid saying mine. But I will, just in case I never hear from you again because it isn’t fair to make you write to me when you need to put the full stop on something and I’m trying to turn it into a comma.

  I hope you have gentle days ahead, my love.

  Cherrylips xxx

  Chapter 24

  Guy was writing down a shopping list for Sunday. He’d cook beef. He knew that Floz wasn’t a vegetarian. For dessert he’d do the most spectacular thing with strawberries. He knew she loved strawberries because he’d seen the gorgeous little series of strawberry pictures she had on her wall and noticed the scent of them wafting from her room when the door had been ajar.

  He had it all planned: first he would wow her with his cooking and smooth repartee at the lunch-table, then he’d make a follow-up call the next day and invite her out to dinner with him.

  ‘Chef, please – you look what I find?’ Antonin appeared at the door holding up a dead mouse by its tail. Great, that was all he needed.

  As Guy was tearing through cupboards in the restaurant kitchen, trying to find evidence of more mice, Juliet was pulling up in Orchards car park a fashionable five minutes late and driving around hoping to park near to the blue Audi TT which Ryan said he drove.

  There it was, and there was Ryan himself looking just like his profile photographs, as tall and broad-shouldered as his description and not a sign of a brown cardigan or slippers.

  That’s more like it, thought Juliet with a big smile as she got out of her car.

  ‘Ah, Juliet,’ grinned Ryan, spotting her and striding over. He gave her a kiss on the cheek and puffed a subtle cloud of lovely aftershave her way.

  I’m getting as bad as Coco for going gooey over scents, she giggled to herself. But yep, this was looking very promising so far.

  ‘You are exactly like your profile picture,’ Ryan said. His voice was deep and rich too.

  ‘So are you,’ said Juliet.

  ‘You’d be surprised how rare that is.’ Ryan laughed and it was a nice genuine sound. He held his arm out towards her. ‘Shall we?’

  They strode forward into the restaurant. Bingo, thought Juliet.

  Floz felt claustrophobic in the flat that evening and didn’t want to sit in it alone. So she took herself out for a mosey around the supermarket. It was several days since she had crossed the threshold of the flat and she knew that some fresh air would do her good.

  She passed the fish counter and thought of Nick fishing with his family that weekend. She put some veg that she didn’t really want in her trolley and some herbal Radox in the hope that a hot scented bath might knock her out and counteract her insomnia. Her appetite was zilch and her paltry amount of shopping reflected that. In the magazine aisle a headline caught her eye: THE LOVE OF MY LIFE WAS A MAN I NEVER MET and she pulled her eyes away before she made a fool of herself and starting crying in the middle of Morrisons.

  Outside, both the moon and the sun were out, sharing the same sky. The moon was saying goodbye as the sun died for the evening. Even that was painful for Floz to think about.

  In Orchards, starters had been chosen and enjoyed, main meals finished off, a pleasant carafe of wine shared and coffees halfway imbibed. Juliet was enjoying herself immensely. Ryan was ticking all the boxes so far – he was gallant, attentive, charming, asked questions about her and seemed genuinely interested in the answers, for his pupils were dilated. Great stuff.

  ‘So I have to ask, do you want children?’ Ryan asked.

  Juliet wasn’t sure she’d heard that properly. ‘Pardon?’

  ‘What are your views on having children?’

  Oh bummer. Well, he was nothing if not direct. ‘Erm, I must confess, I don’t think I’m cut out for motherhood.’

  Juliet imagined that Ryan would stand up then and call the date to a halt. It was obviously a deal-breaker if he had mentioned it on a first date, but she’d had to respond honestly. He didn’t make any movements though; he templed his hands and contemplated his next question.

  ‘Theoretically speaking then, since you’re not cut out for motherhood, if you found yourself having had “a little accident”, what would you do?’

  She presumed by ‘little accident’ he meant pregnancy rather than wetting herself.

  ‘I don’t honestly know,’ she said with a bemused laugh. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever thought about that happening.’

  ‘What do you mean, “you don’t know”?’ Ryan’s lips formed into a smile of strained confusion rather than of humour.

  ‘I mean that I don’t honestly know. Can you know what you’d do i
n that situation unless you were actually in it?’ replied Juliet, hearing the faint tinkle of a warning bell cranking up in her leetle grey cells.

  ‘Well, would you keep the baby?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Abort it? Come on, we’re talking theoretically and you have to make a decision.’

  Juliet cleared her throat. They might have been talking theoretically but his body language was signalling that a lot balanced on her answer.

  ‘Really, I don’t know.’

  ‘You don’t know?’ Ryan’s whole demeanour changed then. He was no longer bantering metaphorical arguments around. ‘You don’t know if you’d murder your own flesh and blood or not? A foetus is a living thing with all the same rights outside the womb as inside it.’

  Juliet put her cup down. She was getting cross at this stupid ‘theoretical’ argument. It was spoiling their lovely evening. One minute they had been swapping stories about fabulous visits to European capitals, the next they were discussing the murder of foetuses. Her hackles were up now and if he wanted a morality row, then she’d give him one. But she wasn’t comfortable talking about what she would do, so couched her answer in legal-speak.

  ‘Well, one would have to weigh up certain things. Would the pregnancy involve risk to the physical or mental health of the pregnant mother? Is there a chance that if the child were born, it would suffer from physical or mental abnormalities . . . ?’

  ‘We all know that doctors and clinics liberally interpret the law in this area and “find” reasons to terminate pregnancies where there are none,’ Ryan cut in. ‘You agree with the principles of abortion then, that much is crystal clear.’ All the warmth had dropped from his expression and he was now looking at Juliet as if she was something he had just stood in.

  ‘I didn’t say that I agreed with abortion,’ protested Juliet, who worked with lawyers all day long and so was well aware how some people could expertly twist things.

  ‘I think you did,’ said Ryan. His eyes were big chips of ice now that even the glowing candlelight between them hadn’t a cat in hell’s chance of defrosting.

  ‘No, I did not say that at all. Anyway, I don’t particularly think that abortion is a suitable subject for over dinner.’ Juliet swallowed down a few choice swearwords which were rising in her gullet.

  ‘Yes, because obviously the taking of a child’s life is not murder when discussed over fucking salmon and mange-tout,’ Ryan spat, his voice raised so that the people on the table opposite looked over. ‘What sort of an idiot are you?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ said Juliet. Had he really just said that?

  ‘How can it not be murder?’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about this,’ said Juliet.

  ‘Oh no, you started it.’ Ryan did a strange half-laugh though his eyes looked glassy and dangerous. ‘If you take the life of a foetus, it’s cold-blooded murder. You tell me one instance where it isn’t.’

  ‘No, I shan’t,’ said Juliet. ‘I’m on a first date.’

  ‘And the last with me,’ snarled Ryan, pushing his chair with the back of his knees and standing up, struggling quickly into his jacket. More diners were now looking at them. ‘It’s bitches like you that promote abortion as today’s answer to contraception. You’re the sort of sanctimonious cow who probably called for Myra Hindley to be hanged without realizing you’re as big a murderer yourself!’

  Juliet’s hand was on her glass of wine and she was a breath away from throwing it in his face. But all her instincts were saying, ‘For once, leave it. This man is dangerous.’

  Ryan fumbled in his jacket and threw three ten-pound notes on the table.

  ‘That’s my share. Pay for your own fucking dinner, you fucking murdering bitch.’

  He thundered out of the restaurant leaving Juliet blushing for the first time ever. The waitress came over to see if she was okay and Juliet quickly paid her and left the restaurant feeling a roomful of eyes on her back.

  When Juliet reached the sanctity of her car, she thought how lucky she was that it hadn’t been Ryan’s house she had agreed to go to for dinner. She really had been stupid. She was shaking hard as she put her key into the car ignition and set off for home. Her foray into the world of internet dating was well and truly over.

  Chapter 25

  Floz hadn’t expected Juliet back so early. The last time they had spoken was a quick check-up call just after Juliet’s main meal, when everything was hunky-dory. Juliet came in to find Floz knee-deep in tissues and very red-eyed.

  ‘Floz, what’s up?’ asked Juliet immediately, her own evening taking second place in importance.

  ‘Oh, I’m fine,’ said Floz, scooping up all the spent tissues and trying to plaster on a smile. ‘Don’t mind me. I’ve just been watching a weepy film.’

  ‘Liar,’ said Juliet. ‘What’s up?’

  Caught on the hop, Floz felt she had no option but to come clean. Sort of.

  ‘Okay. I had an unexpected email from an old . . . flame,’ she told Juliet. ‘It’s just stirred up some emotions inside me.’

  ‘Good or bad ones?’ asked Juliet.

  ‘It was lovely to hear from him,’ said Floz. ‘I’d forgotten how much I liked him.’

  ‘Are you going to meet up?’

  ‘I wish we could,’ said Floz, biting her lip. ‘He was very special.’

  ‘Well, I would advise you to get straight in there.’ Juliet pulled the combs out of her hair and looked at the TV screen. The news was on, another soldier killed in Afghanistan. ‘You never know what’s around the corner.’

  Floz gulped. If only Juliet knew how true that was. ‘Anyway, how was the date?’

  ‘Not without a bottle of wine and two glasses,’ said Juliet. ‘This one was the jewel in the crown.’

  When Juliet logged onto Singlebods to show Floz the profile pic of Ryan, she found a long, abusive and aggressively punctuated mail full of the worst swearwords from the man himself. They didn’t look as if they could have come from such a nice-looking and friendly smiling man as the three pictures on his profile showed him to be. It was chilling how deceived she had been, and she had always thought her intuition so very reliable. Juliet reported him to the Singlebods administrators, then she deleted her account, despite having a few emails in her box from more interested potential suitors.

  ‘Back to the drawing board,’ Juliet decided, hitting the yes to are you sure you want to leave Singlebods? She’d never been as sure of anything in her life. Somehow, after that night, being single didn’t seem so bad.

  Chapter 26

  They went into town with Coco on Saturday.

  ‘Gideon said I mustn’t neglect my friends,’ said Coco. ‘Which is why you have the pleasure of my company at the moment instead of him.’

  ‘I’m liking this Gideon more and more,’ grinned Juliet. ‘This is the first man you’ve not stuck to like Superglue.’

  ‘I might be wrong, yet again, but I’m finding that I want to trust him,’ smiled Coco. ‘He’s taking his mum out for her birthday today. I’m meeting him later on.’

  Juliet looked down at Coco’s shoes.

  ‘What’s up with you?’ he asked.

  ‘I was just checking that your feet are on the floor. You appear to be walking on air,’ she said.

  ‘I am,’ winked Coco, linking both women’s arms. ‘Like Aled Jones’s snowman.’

  They went for lunch in the Yorkshire Rose pub in the town centre. It was cheap and cheerful and the meals were freezer-to-microwave, but it was a much nicer affair than the horror of the posh meal at Orchards, thought Juliet. She was still pretty shaken up by mental Ryan, not that she admitted it to the others. Men like that were the obsessive type who turned up on your doorstep and put firebombs through the letterbox. Blimey, she must be getting old, being cowed like that. She couldn’t remember the last time anything had scared her. Even she wasn’t too big and bold to wish someone would put their arms around her and make her feel protected.

  Julie
t’s way of dealing with the episode was to blast it apart with humour, and over lunch she made the others laugh with predictions on what her future potential dates could have been. An axe-murderer masquerading as a librarian, a suicide bomber who worked in Greggs pastry shop. Floz laughed along with the others, but her mind was never two steps away from Nick. She was sending him her best vibes that he and his family would have a wonderful weekend fishing on a sparkling lake. She could imagine him, tall and rangy, lightly muscular, laughing, cigar clenched between his teeth as he had been in one of the pictures he had sent her. She had burned his cards and photographs a year ago in an attempt to excise him from her life when she believed he had cut her out of it so silently and cruelly.

  She pulled herself back into the here and now to order a dessert.

  ‘So where are you going hottie-hunting until Piers casts his beady eye in your direction?’ asked Coco.

  ‘God knows,’ replied Juliet. ‘But if I don’t get some sex soon, I’ll be jumping on Steve Feast. That’s how bad things are.’

  ‘Blimey,’ trilled Coco. ‘You are in dire straits, darling.’

  A text came through on Coco’s phone from Gideon saying that he hoped they were all having a lovely lunch and how much he was looking forward to meeting up with Coco later.

  ‘Why can’t I get someone who pays me attention like that?’ snarled Juliet as they left the pub. There was a wailing noise in front of them. A drunk in a shabby suit was causing a bit of hilarity by weaving all over the promenade.

  ‘I bet he’s got a profile set up on Singlebods,’ said Juliet. ‘He’ll be a smart executive into amateur dramatics. Self-employed with a brand new Jaguar in the garage.’

  Two policemen were heading in the drunk’s direction just as he toppled into the photographer’s shop window.

  ‘Whoops a daisy,’ laughed Juliet.