His 'n' Hers (2 page)

I’m lying in bed watching
Newsnight
on the portable TV. The female presenter is grilling the shadow home secretary intensely about a new policy statement and looks to be winning the argument. I’m just wondering what the next question is going to be when my concentration is broken by Helen.

‘Jim?’ she says, with a question in her voice.

‘Yeah?’ I reply.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing.’

‘It doesn’t look like nothing to me,’ she says. ‘You’ve been in a funny mood all evening.’

‘Have I? I thought I was just watching TV.’

‘I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about earlier tonight. It’s like your mind is somewhere else.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I say, switching off the TV.

‘Are you okay?’ she asks, reaching out for my hand and intertwining her fingers with mine. ‘You were coughing a lot during the night the last time I stayed over.’

‘Was I?’

‘And you do feel a bit warm.’ She laughs. ‘I don’t want you to take this the wrong way but I sort of hope you are ill.’

‘Why would you want that?’

‘You’ve never been ill in all the time we’ve been together. That’s a whole twelve months. I was ill within the first week of us going out, remember? I had that massive cold and I was sneezing and spluttering and coughing all the time and you came round to my flat with your home-made vegetable soup and it tasted so wonderful and—’

‘I’ve a bit of a confession there. The soup – well, it wasn’t home-made. It was from Tesco.’

Helen punches my arm in mock outrage. ‘I always thought it was too good to be true. I smelt a rat when I asked you to make it for me again and you said I could only have it if I had flu.’

‘I didn’t think you’d believe me in a million years. Do I look like the kind of man who can make soup?’

‘Not really,’ she replies. ‘I just hoped you were.’

I take a deep breath. ‘I’m not ill. It’s just that I’ve been thinking . . . about you and me.’

‘That doesn’t sound good.’

‘No, it is,’ I reply quickly. ‘Well, at least, I’m hoping you’ll think it is . . . I was wondering . . . well, we’ve been together quite a while now, and you’re always round here anyway—’

‘You make me sound like I’ve got nowhere better to go,’ says Helen, laughing.

‘I don’t mean it like that. What I mean is . . . I was wondering if you fancied moving in here . . . with me? What do you think? Feel free to say no if you don’t like the idea.’

She smiles at me sort of sadly and doesn’t reply.

‘So?’ I ask.

‘I love the idea,’ she replies. ‘Are you sure, though?’

‘Yes.’

She frowns. ‘It’s just that . . .’

‘What?’

‘Nothing . . . Are you sure?’

‘Of course I’m sure. That’s why I’m asking you.’

‘Okay, then,’ she says. ‘I think it’s a great idea. Really fantastic. I think this is going to be really good for us.’ She pauses and bites her lip as if she’s thinking. ‘We should do something to celebrate. I could nip home and see if I can find a bottle of something fizzy. Though knowing my fridge expect Pepsi Max rather than champagne.’

‘I’m already ahead of you on that one.’ I get out of bed and walk over to my suit jacket hanging on the door of the wardrobe. ‘It’s not quite champagne but you might enjoy it.’ I take an envelope and hand it to Helen.

‘What’s this?’ she asks.

‘You know that week we’re taking off work in February?’ She nods. ‘Well, I’ve booked us a trip to Chicago. I remember you saying you went to university there for a year and that you always wanted to go back and catch up with your friends. So I thought: Why not?’

Helen leaps from the bed, runs over to me and throws her arms around me. ‘That’s so sweet, Jim,’ she says, kissing me. ‘Do you know, you’re possibly the best boyfriend in the entire world?’

‘Yeah,’ I reply cheekily. ‘I’ve prebooked the seats too. So we’re sitting together there and back. You can be my buffer.’

‘Buffer?’

‘It’s an eight-hour flight,’ I explain. ‘I’ll need you to stop mad people making conversation with me on the flight. They always choose me, you know. I’m not exaggerating. If there’s anyone on the flight with nothing better to do than to tell someone their life story, they’re automatically allocated the seat next to me. On my last business trip to Amsterdam I had to endure the potted life history of an old Dutch lady. By the time we landed at Schiphol airport I knew all the reasons for her trip: to visit her ex-husband’s brother-in-law – part holiday, part bridge-building with the difficult side of the family; how old she was – seventy-one, even though in her own opinion she didn’t look a day over sixty; and that her third son was a difficult pregnancy, which she put down to the fact that her husband at the time didn’t know the child wasn’t his. That’s why I need a buffer.’

‘Okay,’ says Helen, rolling her eyes. ‘I’ll be your buffer . . . Anyway, let’s get back to the important stuff, like when are we flying?’

‘It should all be there,’ I reply, taking the envelope from her hands and checking the tickets. ‘We leave Monday the tenth at ten twenty-five a.m. and we arrive back at Heathrow at seven fifteen a.m. UK time on the Friday—’

‘Friday the fourteenth?’ says Helen. ‘Valentine’s Day.’

‘Yeah . . . it is,’ I reply. ‘I hadn’t even realised.’

‘Well, you’re obviously a genius. I think that’s perfect timing. We’ll come back from our nice week away and I’ll move in here the same day. That way, when we celebrate the anniversary of us moving in together in years to come, you’ll have absolutely no excuse for not remembering.’

‘Surprise!’ says Helen, entering the bedroom.

I look up from the article in
The Economist
I’ve been reading for the last fifteen minutes to see her standing in the doorway wearing the white shirt I wore to work yesterday and nothing else. She’s carrying a tray laden with two boiled eggs, three slices of toast, a white carnation in a straight vodka shot glass and what, from this position, appears to be a copy of the
Financial Times
.

‘Is this all for me?’ I ask incredulously.

‘Of course,’ she replies. ‘Breakfast in bed for one.’

‘If I hadn’t already asked you to move in with me I’d do it again right now.’

Helen laughs. ‘When I move in here I’m afraid it won’t be breakfast in bed every day.’

‘Really?’ I say playfully. ‘Well I might have to reconsider my offer.’

‘You can’t,’ she says, setting the tray in front of me. ‘It’s too late. Mentally speaking, I’m already redecorating the living room, buying new sofas and basically doing my best to take the bachelor out of this pad. I’m even thinking about getting us some his ‘n’ hers bathrobes so that I don’t have to wander round like this . . .’ she gestures to my shirt, which, I have to say, has never looked as good on me as it does on her ‘. . . all the time. What do you think?’

‘His ‘n’ hers bathrobes? They’re not very me.’

She leans over and kisses me. ‘We’ll see about that.’

I’m just coming out of the shower when an electronic rendition of ‘Ride Of The Valkyries’ fills the air.

‘Helen?’ I call from the bathroom. ‘Can you get my phone for me, babe? It might be work.’