And then, of course, there was the problem of Felicity. In order for me to get him back, she’d have to lose him, and making that happen went against all the rules of friendship. Unless, of course, I changed my tactics entirely and tried to persuade Josh to make a massive play for her and steal her away from Renzo, leaving the field wide open for me. But I knew Felicity well enough to know that she would never entertain the idea of dating a penniless (at least compared to Renzo) musician, however blond and fit he was. And I suspected, too, that that would be a game Josh wouldn’t be willing to play.
I trudged gloomily downstairs. The whole thing was hopeless. My relationship with Renzo was over, and I was just going to have to suck it up and tell Adam I’d changed my mind and the whole thing was a terrible idea. That would make him happy, at least.
I flicked the kettle on and investigated the bread bin. There was a new kind of bread in there, I noticed, not the ordinary stuff I usually picked up from the supermarket but something with seeds in it and a dark, chewy-looking crust that looked like it would require some serious muscle to get through, instead of pre-cut slices falling limply from plastic wrap. Josh, I concluded, had found a local artisan bakery as well as the food market.
I poked around in the cupboards some more and found palm-oil-free peanut butter, Vegemite, a box of organic free-range eggs and a vacuum pack of coffee with a label on it that said ‘Daily Grind House Blend’. In the fridge was a brown paper parcel that smelled enticingly of bacon. Adam’s instant noodles and my wilting packet of kale looked distinctly unappetising by comparison.
But helping myself to Josh’s bread was one thing; his bacon and special coffee were off limits, I decided. My own crumb-filled tub of low-fat spread and the scrapings from my Marmite jar were going to have to do.
Then I heard feet on the stairs and Josh himself appeared, wearing his running gear.
‘Morning!’ he said brightly. ‘You okay?’
‘I’ve felt better,’ I admitted. ‘Opening that second bottle, and then polishing it off with Adam, was probably not the smartest thing I’ve ever done.’
He laughed. ‘Sympathy. Why don’t you join me for a run? It’s guaranteed to cure even a force-ten hangover. Trust me, I’ve tested the theory extensively.’
I opened my mouth to tell him that that was the daftest idea I’d ever heard in my life, then closed it again. Was it actually so daft? Since jacking in my gym membership, I’d barely done any exercise, and I missed the healthy, virtuous glow it gave me. And it had worked, not just at getting me a bit more toned and muscular, but at making me feel better about my body.
And besides, hadn’t Josh mentioned running all the way along the canal, as far as Regent’s Park? That was right near where Renzo lived. I imagined loping athletically along, my hair in a ponytail, possibly wearing a crop top that showed off the six-pack I’d magically developed, my skin glowing with fresh air and well-being and – crucially – Josh by my side. I imagined us passing Renzo, and me giving him a casual wave, then turning to laugh with Josh while Renzo wistfully watched the two of us disappear into the distance.
Okay, that would mean being able to run about five miles, and I supposed the same distance back again, but you had to start somewhere, didn’t you?
‘Why not?’ I said. ‘Just let me get myself sorted. But you have to promise to go really, really slowly, because I am seriously unfit.’
‘You don’t look it. But of course, slow as you like.’
Ten minutes later, I met Josh by the front door, having resisted the temptation to have a shower because really, what kind of idiot showers before exercise?
‘Ready?’ he asked, tucking his keys into the pocket of his Lycra shorts. They were pretty tight, I noticed – obviously, being Lycra – and showed off his muscular thighs and also his… Stop staring, Tansy!
‘I guess,’ I said.
He opened the door and we stepped out into the cool, bright morning. I wasn’t sure what I’d expected – that he’d walk as far as the park and then maybe do some stretches or something – but he took off straight down the road at what was clearly an easy jog for him, but felt alarmingly fast to me. I trotted after him, my legs feeling wooden and clumsy.
‘First couple of hundred metres are the hardest,’ he said, sounding not even slightly out of breath, ‘so we may as well get them over with.’
‘That makes sense,’ I panted. I’m not going to ask him to slow down, I vowed to myself. I’m going to keep up if it kills me. Which it probably will.
But, to my surprise, by the time we swung through the wrought-iron gates into the park, it had started to feel a bit easier. I was still breathing hard, but it seemed normal now. My legs were getting used to the rhythm, my trainers thudding evenly on the path as I kept step with Josh, although I could see that it was costing him almost as much effort to keep at my speed as it was costing me to keep up with him. The beauty of the morning helped: the mist still hanging over the pond, but clearing everywhere else, revealing a radiant blue sky. The clouds of bright pink blossom on the cherry trees. The flock of green parakeets that whirled, screeching, over our heads.
Josh pointed all these things out to me, unnecessarily, because I could see them for myself and was too out of breath to respond. But his constant stream of chatter distracted me from the pain, and soon we’d completed a circuit of the park.
‘That’s about three kilometres,’ Josh said. ‘Enough for your first time, I reckon, unless you’d like to go round again?’
My pride said yes, but my legs definitely said no. ‘Let’s head home.’
‘Sure,’ he said, and turned back out through the gate. I managed to stay alongside him all the way to the end of the road, when he said, ‘Sprint finish? Come on, I’ll race you to the door.’
And he took off, his long legs scissoring effortlessly and his arms swinging, his hair flying out behind him.
‘Bastard!’ I gasped. ‘That’s not fair!’
I forced my tired legs into the most activity they’d done for months, chasing after him as fast as I could go. Which was surprisingly fast. For a few seconds, I felt like I had when I was a kid on sports day, racing because I wanted to, because it was fun and I was determined to win.
And Josh let me – I’m sure of it, because there was no way that I, unpractised and unfit as I was, could outrun him. Just before we reached our house, I drove my legs into a final burst of speed and edged past him – and then it all went pear-shaped. My rhythm broke, I tripped over my own trainers and face-planted on the pavement at Josh’s feet.
‘Oh my God,’ he said. ‘Are you okay? I’m so sorry, that was totally my fault. You poor thing. Here.’
He held out his hand and I took it, letting him help me up on my trembling legs.
‘Ouch,’ he said. ‘That’s got to hurt.’
I looked down and saw blood trickling down my calves from where I’d taken the skin off both knees. He was right – it hurt like a bitch. It was all I could do not to cry. I was torn between embarrassment, pain and fury that Josh had persuaded me to do this stupid thing against my better judgement. Which, of course, I ought to have known was absolutely typical of him.
But Josh didn’t seem to notice my inner turmoil. He guided me inside and sat me down at the kitchen table, then tore two squares of paper towel off the roll and soaked them under the tap.
‘Here, this should do for now,’ he said. ‘I’ve got plasters and antiseptic and stuff upstairs. I’ll just—’
‘Honestly, don’t worry.’ I didn’t feel like I was going to cry any more, thank God – his concern was so over the top it was almost funny, and I started to giggle. ‘It’s just a scrape. I promise I’ll live.’
‘A mere flesh wound,’ he said, kneeling down in front of me and smiling up at me. ‘Let’s try and clean it up, though.’
The wet paper towels stung when he touched the raw places on my knees, but his warm hand on my calf distracted me from that. I stared at the top of his head as he carefully dab
bed away at the blood. I don’t know why – whether it was his gentle touch or the sudden presence of his body so close to me, all big and male and slightly sweaty and just there – but I felt warmth flood my face.
‘Thanks, Florence Nightingale,’ I said, when at last he’d finished. Then I looked up, and saw Adam. He was standing halfway down the stairs, watching us. There was no way of telling how long he’d been there.
I barely saw Josh all the next week. On the house WhatsApp group, where we’d occasionally post if we were in the mood to cook and wanted to know who’d be home, or if Odeta had pointed out that we were out of Fairy Liquid and someone needed to replace it, or if we fancied popping out for a beer, Josh’s responses were generally, ‘Sorry, I’m going out with some mates tonight.’
For someone who’d just arrived in London, whose mum worried that he’d be lonely and not know anyone, he seemed to have a bottomless store of these ‘mates’, I thought, rather sourly. I wondered who they were: fellow Aussie travellers, I supposed, unless he’d got himself set up on Tinder in record time and was managing to actually meet girls, rather than just exchange messages with people who turned out to be in relationships already, or who ghosted you the moment you began to feel any connection with them, which had been my experience when I’d briefly attempted to date a couple of years before.
Anyway, his arrival in the house didn’t exactly make things any livelier, and Adam and I carried on pretty much as we had before he moved in. Adam worked late most days, and then sat in his room tapping away on his computer, sometimes with Freezer curled up on his lap, emerging only to make himself a bowl of instant noodles.
I spent the evenings alone downstairs, flicking idly through the channels on the telly and trying – usually unsuccessfully – to resist the urge to stalk Renzo and Felicity on social media until it was time to FaceTime Mum and Perdita in Cornwall and go to bed.
Then, on Friday, a message from Josh popped up on my phone.
A mate of mine (another bloody mate!) has invited me to a gig tonight. Fancy coming along? He works for a bank in the City and it’s in aid of a charity called Street Cred – something to do with helping young men from underprivileged backgrounds get into work and training, so a good cause! Should be fun too – Cross Wires are playing.
I’d never heard of Cross Wires, but I was pretty sure I’d heard of Street Cred somewhere before. I typed it into Google and found a website with lots of feel-good stuff about outreach and opportunities for disadvantaged – and, I got the sense although it wasn’t spelled out, disaffected – youths.
So far, so worthy. But right where the site mentioned sponsors, there was a clickable link. I clicked it and, sure enough, there was the Colton Capital logo right at the top. I could remember quite clearly now how Renzo had spoken about the firm’s work with the charity.
While I’d been searching, Adam had replied to Josh.
Sorry, gigs aren’t really my thing, so I’ll pass. Thanks anyway! Some of the people from work are going though.
Some of the people from work? I tapped quickly through to my private text conversation with Adam and sent a row of question marks, and he replied seconds later:
Yeah, R will be there. And yeah, I mentioned you had a new bloke. He didn’t look too happy about it.
An opportunity to see Renzo without Felicity – who’d already told me she’d managed to get an evening hair appointment to have her lowlights done – was far too good to pass up, even if it would mean an evening trying to be nice to Josh.
Sure, I typed, I’d love to join you. Let me know the details.
Josh replied with the time and venue, which was a pub in Shoreditch I’d never been to – not that that was any surprise at all, given that I barely went out anywhere any more. I figured out that if I left work on time, I’d be able to go home and get ready before meeting him there.
What the hell do you wear to charity gigs? I wondered. Jeans and boots would be the order of the day for a normal gig, but was this different? Was it more like a charity ball? I had no idea, and there was no one I could ask, so I spent the rest of the afternoon frantically googling images of previous events, growing more and more nervous at the prospect of seeing Renzo and getting the sum total of fuck all work done.
At home in the shower, as I slapped a deep-conditioning treatment on my hair that was supposed to work miracles in under three minutes and frantically shaved my legs, I still hadn’t made up my mind what to wear. I imagined Renzo noticing me across the crowded room, his eyes widening in surprise and pleasure – because although I knew that he was going to be there, he had no way of suspecting that I was. I pictured him walking towards me, and me smiling back, making my way through the crowd, wearing… what?
What? The question repeated itself over and over in my head as I stood in front of my wardrobe ten minutes later, still no nearer making a decision. A leather mini-skirt seemed like a good option, but my legs were too milk-bottle white to carry it off without tights, and tights were… Well, they were a question that was currently vexing the entire fashion world, and I wasn’t clear where I stood on the matter. Sheers were back, everyone knew that, but somehow I just couldn’t imagine myself rocking Kate Middleton-style hosiery at a gig, charity or not.
If I opted for a longer length, I could leave off the tights, but a midi-skirt, however on-trend, didn’t seem right. Fashionistas might nod approvingly, but Renzo? ‘God, I love how hot she looks in that mid-calf pleated plaid skirt of hers,’ said no man ever. And tonight, definitively and unapologetically, I was dressing for Renzo.
Or was I? Wasn’t there an element of reverse fashion psychology to consider? What if, in the scenario in my head, I looked so effortlessly put-together, so comfortable in my own skin, that he would never guess the torment of indecision I’d gone through while making up my mind?
‘Jeans and boots it is,’ I said aloud.
I still had my beloved high-rise, slim-fitting cropped jeans. When Sally passed the sample on to me, she said that even after spending half an hour in front of the mirror trying to convince herself that they suited her, she’d had to admit defeat. But when I tried them on, I knew straight away that these were the holy grail for me. They made my bum, which in reality is washboard-flat however many squats I do, look pert and peachy. Even though cropped jeans normally look stupid on me, because with my height they look like I hadn’t got the memo that everywhere stocks tall ranges now, these skimmed my ankles at just the right level. I’d had a massive tussle with my conscience about keeping them, rather than including them in my latest fundraising eBay upload, but in the end the jeans had won.
I put them on, added a crocheted crop top I’d found in a charity shop, which I’m pretty sure dated back to the last time bare midriffs were a thing in the nineties, and slipped my feet into faux-snakeskin kitten-heel mules.
And then, glancing at my watch and realising that if I spent any more time finessing my outfit I would be seriously late, not just a bit late, I legged it down the stairs and out to the bus stop.
I couldn’t see Renzo when I arrived, and I didn’t spot Josh immediately, either. Then I realised that that was because I’d been scanning the room for his tousled dark blond head in a corner somewhere, standing alone waiting for me. But he wasn’t alone, or with the only person in the crowded bar he knew. He was right in the middle of the room, surrounded by a huge group of laughing, chatting people.
Seeing him there, I suddenly felt as small and lost as I had at school, when he was at the centre of the group that included Kylie, Anoushka and all the rest of them, and I was invisible out there on the sidelines – if I was lucky. All my excitement at the prospect of seeing Renzo melted away, and I wanted nothing more than to turn around and get back on the safe, warm bus and go home. But it was too late. He’d seen me.
His hand raised high above the crowd in a wave, he made his way towards me, effortlessly breaking a path through the packed room without pushing or shoving or treading on toes, as I would have don
e.
‘Tans! So great you could make it!’ he hugged me like seeing me was the best thing that had happened to him all day. ‘This is just the warm-up act, but how awesome are they? They’re four of the guys who Street Cred have helped over the past few years. They’re working on an album, Matt says. I asked if they needed a producer, but I reckon they’re out of my league.’
I’d felt so out of my league myself that I’d barely noticed the music. But now I saw the group on stage: a guy with dreadlocks, an Asian boy with glasses and two others in the background, one playing drums and the other on a brass horn of some kind. The sound was mournful, almost melancholy, a haunting tune without any words.
‘What do you reckon?’ Josh asked. ‘Talented, or what?’
I had no idea how to gauge musical skill, but I said, ‘They sound amazing. What is it, some kind of post-punk, new-wave indie sound?’
I had no clue what the words actually meant, but they sounded okay, so I went with them. It was too late to say anything else, anyway.
‘Nailed it!’ Josh said approvingly. ‘Now, let me buy you a drink and introduce you to Matt and the rest of the gang.’
A few minutes later, I too was included in the big group at the centre of the room, a cold bottle of lager in my hand, listening to one of the women talk about a sewing cooperative she’d set up for asylum seekers, paying the living wage to make a line of ethically produced underwear. It was hard to hear her over the music, but I leaned in and listened, fascinated.
Then, with a final, haunting chord from the lead guitar, the set came to an end. Applause erupted around me, and someone handed me a fresh drink. I glanced around the room, remembering why I’d come.
And then I saw Renzo.
He was standing alone in a corner by the bar, like I’d expected Josh to be. In his work clothes, he looked as uncomfortable and out of place as I’d expected to feel, before I’d been so warmly welcomed and included. There was a glass of red wine in his hand, and I saw him wince as he sipped it.
It's Not You It's Him: An absolutely hilarious and feel-good romantic comedy Page 16