‘Of course I am.’ She reached over and took his hand. ‘I honestly couldn’t wish for more.’
It was the first proper lie she’d ever told him, and it sat uncomfortably in the back of her throat like a part-digested painkiller, bitter yet so necessary. It wasn’t Charlie’s fault that Annette had reacted this way. It wouldn’t be fair to him if she let herself dwell on it – especially not at this beautiful table with this stunning view.
Charlie was clearly feeling spurred on by the opulent setting, and chose a red wine with an alarming number of zeroes printed next to it on the menu. Hope, who had been surviving on her own meagre savings plus Charlie’s generosity for the past few weeks, felt enormously uncomfortable with such an extravagance. But if it made Charlie happy, then she supposed it was okay.
‘To us,’ he said, raising his glass and clinking it against hers.
They ordered a starter each, then Charlie chose a ludicrously expensive steak while Hope went for the cheaper fish option. It was hard not to just sit and gaze out at the view of the bridge, but Hope dragged her eyes away and focused on Charlie. He was quiet, which was unlike him, and she shifted in her seat. It was strange when they encountered these momentary glitches of awkwardness, but then it was still early days. She’d only known Charlie for five months – hardly enough time to be completely relaxed with someone.
‘What do you fancy doing tomorrow?’ she piped up, unable to bear the silence any longer.
He shrugged, a smile playing in the corner of his mouth. She wondered if he was feeling the effects of their hectic day. She could easily have nodded off in the bath back at the hotel before dinner.
‘Maybe head to the bridge first, then go from there?’ he suggested.
The candle in the centre of their table danced as the breath from their shared conversation passed through it, casting patches of light across Charlie’s face. He has such nice eyes, Hope thought, and such a good strong jaw. He’d looked after himself well over the years, playing football at the weekends and hitting the gym. Unlike Dave, who’d increasingly begun to let himself go. It wasn’t that she even minded a bit of a belly; it was more that her husband seemed to have given up on looking good. Surely if he cared about her even the tiniest bit, then he would want to look nice? It was the one thing that had kept Hope going to her spinning classes and her Zumba, but Dave had never seemed to notice. Charlie was the total opposite – he loved every single inch of her, and she felt ten feet taller when she was with him.
‘What are you looking at me like that for?’ Charlie asked. He had finished his first glass of wine, and topped up hers before refilling his own.
‘I was just thinking how handsome you are.’ She beamed. ‘You really are. I feel like the luckiest lady in Prague.’
‘Who knows?’ Charlie lifted an eyebrow. ‘You may be about to get even luckier, because I …’
‘Scallops?’
The waitress slid Hope’s starter on to the table and placed Charlie’s tuna carpaccio down in front of him with a flourish.
‘What were you about to say?’ Hope asked when she’d gone, picking up her cutlery and feeling her mouth water with anticipation.
‘Oh, nothing important.’ Charlie shook out his napkin and spread it across his lap. ‘It can wait.’
10
‘Why don’t they have beer like this at home?’ Ollie lifted up his enormous pint and gazed at it in wonder.
‘They do, you big ape – it just looks different.’
Ollie pulled a face. ‘And tastes different.’
Megan nodded. ‘And costs a very different amount.’
‘I ordered a pint the other day in this pub near King’s Cross and it cost me a fiver!’ Ollie exclaimed. ‘I asked the guy behind the bar if there was a lump of gold in the bottom of the glass.’
‘You didn’t!’
‘No, but I should have. Five whole pounds – I felt like I’d been robbed.’
Megan took a sip of her own beer and paused to enjoy the rich, almost honey-like flavour as it slid down her throat.
‘Don’t you think it’s weird that we’ll happily spend a fiver on a pint of beer, but then grumble over paying more than a quid for an entire loaf of bread?’ she pondered.
‘Yes.’ Ollie nodded until his glasses slid down his nose. ‘But then I happily pay over a quid every morning for two slices of toast from the café opposite the school. What is that about?’
‘We’re being fleeced, every single day of our lives,’ Megan stated, her voice deliberately solemn.
‘Same again?’ Ollie was holding up his already empty pint glass.
This wasn’t all that weird, Megan thought, watching as the barman selected two clean glasses and angled them under the beer tap. There was a tattoo on his forearm of what looked like two single quote marks lying top to tail, and she immediately recognised it as the symbol for Cancer, her star sign. Not long after she’d first met Ollie, Megan had – for a joke – looked up the compatibility of her star sign and his. According to the worldwide web, Scorpio and Cancer were a near-perfect match, with soulmate potential. She didn’t believe in all that nonsense, of course, but she couldn’t argue with the fact that he had become a very good friend.
Ollie nipped off to the toilet and Megan stared pensively at the grooves that his recently departed bottom had left in the cushion of the bar stool. Were her mum and the internet right? Was Ollie perfect for her? She frowned as an image of the last man she’d thought was perfect for her flashed up in her mind – a man who had done his best to chew her up, only for her to spit him out before he got the chance.
‘You okay?’
Ollie was back and his glasses had misted up again.
‘You’re all steamy,’ she informed him, blinking away the grubby memory from her mind.
‘I may have found a fault in this otherwise perfect pub,’ he told her, throwing in an exaggerated sigh for effect. ‘The toilets are bloody freezing. I had to run my hands under the hot tap for ages just to get the feeling back into them.’
‘Well, I did suggest we keep looking, but you seemed so sure that an Irish-themed pub with a Mexican name was the right way to go,’ she said, raising an eyebrow at him while he polished his glasses with the bottom of his shirt.
‘I applaud the blatant eccentricity of the place,’ he said.
He wasn’t wrong, either – Don Pisto’s was certainly eccentric. Multi-coloured sombreros battled for space alongside comedy Guinness hats on the wall behind the bar, a shelf groaned under the weight of a truly spectacular selection of tequila, and the speakers were blasting out an eclectic mix of U2 interspersed with what sounded a lot like a mariachi band. It was barmy, but utterly brilliant.
‘I agree.’ She bashed her beer against his. ‘Shall we get on the tequilas after this?’
‘One, two, three … and slam!’
Megan knocked back her second shot of tequila and banged the empty glass on the table. They’d moved over from the bar to a corner, where they could continue to sing bad renditions of cheesy eighties tunes at the top of their voices without having to face bemused stares from the other customers.
‘This ish the besh holday I’ve ever had,’ Ollie told her, bending over and planting a huge, wet kiss on the side of her face. He’d had double the amount of tequila she’d had, and was also a pint of beer ahead.
‘Urgh,’ Megan grumbled, wiping his saliva off her cheek with her sleeve and pulling a mock-revolted face at him.
It wasn’t the first time she’d got drunk with Ollie. In fact, the very first time they met had ended in a similar way to this. The local pub quiz wasn’t exactly the most thrilling of settings, but on that particular evening the Nag’s Head had been packed. Megan was there with her Polish friend Magda, who worked with her at the gallery on the weekends and was utterly useless at general knowledge, and Magda’s boyfriend Neil, who looked so much like a bird with his narrow pointy nose and his spindly little fingers that Megan was always surprised that he didn’t take o
ff in flight at the end of the night.
Ollie was on the next table along in a much stronger team of six schoolteacher friends, all of whom were predictably very good at general knowledge. Megan would have cursed them as geeks, but she was being kept constantly amused by the fact that they all seemed to raise a hand whenever they knew an answer, even though all they actually had to do was write it on the sheet. Ollie himself was the most noticeable, simply because he was the tallest, and so when his arm shot up like a frightened cat every three or four minutes, it was hard to miss.
He told her later that he hadn’t actually noticed her at all until it happened, but Megan knew that was rubbish. She’d totally seen him checking her out when he thought her attention was on the quiz sheet.
‘Right, boys and girls, it’s time for my favourite part of the night – the free-drink round!’
Everyone had spun around in their seats to face the Quiz Master. He wasn’t hard to miss, either, given the silver-sequinned jacket he was wearing – ‘Talk about over the top,’ Megan had whispered to Magda, who didn’t hear and said ‘What?’ very loudly in response.
The rules of this round were simple: Sequins would ask a question, and instead of writing down the answer, you had to jump to your feet and yell it. Whoever yelled the quickest, and quite often the loudest, would be rewarded with a drink of their choice from the bar absolutely free. Apparently this didn’t stretch to an actual pint of vodka, as Megan had disappointingly discovered the previous Sunday.
‘Are we ready? Who’s the thirstiest in here? I want to feel your anticipation, ladies and gents – I want to feel it all over me until it tingles!’
‘This man is an idiot,’ Magda said, doodling a heart next to where Neil had written his name.
Megan took a deep breath.
‘Which male British singer has won the most Brit Awa—’
‘ROBBIE WILLIAMS!’
They were both right, they were both quick, they were both loud, and they were both on their feet.
‘I said it first!’ Megan yelled, so loudly that Sequins took an actual step backwards.
‘I had my hand up first,’ Ollie said, far more calmly and therefore a lot more annoyingly than Megan.
‘Whatever happened to chivalry?’ Megan tutted, putting her hands on her hips and glaring him down as best she could, which wasn’t easy given that he was way over six feet tall.
‘I suppose you’d like me to take off my coat and lay it over the puddle outside for you, too?’ Ollie replied, but the challenging tone had vanished from his voice. Worse than that, he now appeared to be laughing at her.
‘Don’t mock me!’ she warned, taking a hand off one hip so she could waggle it at him. ‘You know I stood up first. I was on my feet before he’d even finished the question.’
‘Okay, okay.’ Ollie held up both hands and laughed. ‘You can have the free drink, as it clearly means so much to you.’
‘Thank you.’
‘And because I’m a gentleman in an age where chivalry is all but dead.’
‘Careful.’
‘And because I know it will taste horrible anyway, given that you’re cheating your way into drinking it.’
‘That’s it!’
Just as Megan was about to march over and put him firmly in his place, Sequins had stepped between them and put a hand on each of their chests.
‘Now, now,’ he said, putting on what sounded dangerously like a baby voice. ‘Play nice, you two. I tell you what, as I’m feeling extra-generous and sparkly tonight, I’m going to say that it was a tiebreaker, and award you both with a free drink.’
Megan opened her mouth to retort, then shut it again.
‘Thank you,’ Ollie said for both of them, stepping around Megan and heading towards the bar, a look of wry amusement on his face. The whole pub was staring over at her, and Megan suddenly felt like the biggest prat in all of London.
‘Go and talk to him,’ Magda whispered, as Megan sat down and attempted to hide behind her glass of wine.
‘Talk to who?’
Magda gave her a look stern enough to turn milk.
‘Don’t be playing the silly buggers with me. You know who I mean. That man with the long arms.’
Megan felt her cheeks redden and shook her head.
‘Him? No!’
‘He is handsome.’ Magda threw an apologetic glance at Neil. ‘When was the last time you had sex – when the T. rex was still roaming about on the Earth?’
‘Oi!’ Megan pulled a wounded expression.
‘It is hard to find a nice man in this godforsaken country,’ Magda went on. ‘I was very lucky to find my Neil.’ She squeezed his twig-like fingers. ‘But you might not be so lucky. You have to jump on the iron when it is burning, right?’
‘Something like that,’ Megan agreed.
Ollie had collected his free pint of beer and was laughing at something the girl behind the bar had said.
‘He fancies the barmaid, though,’ she hissed. ‘And anyway, he’s a giant. He’s probably a secret BFG who steals children in the night and eats them.’
Magda blinked at her. ‘What are you talking about, eating the children? Are you crazy?’
Surely she’d read the book. Everyone had, hadn’t they? Even Polish people? Perhaps not.
‘Go on!’ Magda actually jabbed her in the ribs this time and Megan leapt up off her chair, promptly spilling the dregs that were left in her own glass all over the table.
‘See,’ piped up Neil. ‘Now you actually need another drink.’
‘I hate you both,’ she told them, heading over to Ollie.
‘I’d like a free red wine, please.’
‘Well, if it isn’t Emmeline Pankhurst.’ Ollie gave her a lazy smirk.
‘My name is Megan.’
‘Much better. I’m Ollie.’ They shook hands, hers so small in his huge one, and Megan felt herself begin to thaw. Now that she was standing so close to him, she noticed his kind eyes and his plump lips, the way he kept pushing his glasses up his nose every few seconds and running his hand through his hair.
‘I’m sorry I chewed your ear off,’ she said. ‘I have a bit of a competitive streak and sometimes it gets the better of me.’
‘No need to be sorry.’ Ollie shrugged. ‘I’m glad you did – it got me a free drink.’
‘In that case,’ she said, baulking inwardly at her boldness, ‘the next one’s on you.’
He laughed at that, and Megan relaxed a notch more. She could see Madga doing an exaggerated thumbs up in her direction and swiftly diverted Ollie’s attention to a stuffed owl that was for some reason nailed up behind the bar.
‘Bit odd, don’t you think?’ she said, unable to come up with anything more intelligent in time.
He considered it for a few seconds before turning to face her.
‘Oh, I don’t know. I kind of like it. I’ve always thought it would be nice to be an owl.’
‘So you could fly?’ Megan guessed.
‘Nope.’ Ollie paused, a gleam appearing in his narrowed eyes. ‘So I could swivel my head right around.’
Megan was aware of her face contorting into a bemused expression, and snatched up her glass from the bar.
‘Humans are so limited in that way,’ Ollie went on, his tone mock-serious. ‘I like the idea of being able to see everything. From every single angle.’
Megan almost choked on her wine as she laughed.
‘You’re unbelievable!’ she told him.
‘Maybe I am.’ He gave her a sideways look. ‘But you totally fancy me – I can tell.’
‘Is that right?’
In that moment, it was – she knew it, he knew it, everyone in the pub knew it. She didn’t even care about missing the final ten questions of the quiz, and it was the popular culture round.
‘You tell me.’ His eyes were suddenly challenging and she stared at him for a few seconds, feeling the colour flood into her cheeks. The sounds of the pub seemed to quieten around them, as if they’d
both dipped their heads in a bucket and were trying to hear through the water. For a few seconds, Megan was only aware of him and of her, and it was delicious.
They were still propping up the bar long after last orders had been called. Megan had no idea who had won the quiz, what time Magda had left or what Ollie’s friends must think of her – and she didn’t care, either. It had been such a long time since she’d met a man who made her laugh this much. She’d been on plenty of dates during her past three single years, but this was the first time she’d felt able to just be herself. In the end, and after a good few more glasses of wine, it was she who suggested he come back to her flat for coffee.
Ollie hadn’t even hesitated, necking the last of his beer and pulling on his coat. Once outside, however, Megan sensed a shift in her mood. Under the bright lights of the cosy pub and the watchful eyes of the staff, she’d felt confident – invincible, even. Ollie was laughing at her jokes and grinning through her various anecdotes, his cheeks growing pink with what she knew was pleasure in their shared connection. Out here, though, with nobody around but the two of them, he all of a sudden became a stranger again, and the easiness she’d felt started to slip away.
When Ollie reached down and tried to take her hand, she actually snatched it up and recoiled from him, stumbling sideways into someone’s unruly conifer.
‘I don’t bite,’ Ollie said, more bemused than alarmed by her bizarre behaviour.
‘I know. I just …’ She stopped.
Ollie slowed to a halt and looked at her properly, his smile deflating at the edges like a sad lilo.
‘I don’t have to come back to yours if you’ve changed your mind.’
She squirmed.
‘It’s not that.’
They had reached the corner of her road already, and Megan forced herself to start walking again, beckoning for Ollie to follow her. She could do this, she told herself. He was a schoolteacher, not a crazed killer. They had chemistry and he was interested in her, in her work. He seemed to be a genuinely nice man, so what the hell was wrong with her?
A Year and a Day Page 6