The Night That Changed Everything (3 page)

She gives me a curious look. ‘What do you mean?'

Seriously? I turn to Jamie for help.

‘To be fair, Becs,' he obliges, ‘you're the only girl I know who didn't cry at the end of
Titanic
.' He cackles to himself. ‘Actually, Ben is the only lad I know who did, so . . .'

‘I wish you'd stop telling everyone I cried at the end of
Titanic
.'

Jamie and Rebecca are clearly amused.

‘Hold your breath near the onion,' I say, ignoring them. ‘Then it won't make you cry.'

I can tell he's sceptical but he does as he's told, and a minute later the onions are chopped and Jamie is tearless.

‘Maybe you should have tried that trick in the cinema?' he says.

Jamie rejoins Rebecca at the dining table while I chop ingredients for the marinade in front of the kitchen window. I can see Natasha and Angus strolling around the perimeter of the green.

‘Tash looks like she's about to pop,' I say.

‘Who's Tash?'

‘Natasha and Angus, your neighbours, from downstairs,' I say, but Rebecca looks none the wiser. ‘Have you never spoken to them?'

‘What would I speak to them about?'

‘The weather? The fact she's having a baby? European fishing quotas? It's a bit strange you've never—'

‘Yes, but you're the guy who gets into random conversations on the Tube –
that's
strange.'

She's never got over the fact I did this on our first date. We'd been to Vertigo 42 in the City for champagne and panoramic views, and while Rebecca checked her work emails on the DLR back to Greenwich I got chatting to a fella wearing a Man City shirt with Kinkladze on the back. She has since told me that this cancelled out any points I'd earnt for being a gentleman and not trying any funny business.

‘Only Danielle could be late for a dinner party at her own house,' says Jamie, peering towards her bedroom door.

Rebecca picks up one of the napkins she has transformed into swans. ‘What's the rush?' the swan says.

It was our second date when I discovered her talent for origami. We'd gone for tapas, and before the first dishes arrived she made a rose from her napkin and handed it to me with a smirk. I told her I'd contemplated bringing flowers on the date and she laughed a worried laugh and said she was glad I hadn't.

When Danielle finally appears she is several inches taller and has the white towel scrunched in her hand.

‘High heels for dinner in your own flat?' says Jamie.

Danielle chucks the towel at him.

‘I'd be careful around Ben and his new toy in a nice pair of shoes like that,' he adds.

Danielle looks confused but no one tries to explain.

‘You look stunning,' says Rebecca instead.

‘Well, if I can't make the effort to celebrate my bessie mate getting her first big project, when can I?' She and Rebecca trade a smile. ‘Though to be honest,' she adds, turning to me and Jamie, ‘the real reason I'm wearing heels is because I feel like a dumpy little midget next to
her
.' She points to Rebecca, then clops back to her room. ‘One second!'

When Danielle reappears she is carrying something in her right hand. ‘I made something for you,' she says, handing whatever it is to Rebecca.

‘This is brilliant!' says Rebecca.

It appears to be a crumpled crisp packet with a hole punched through to make a keyring. Rebecca sees that I'm not quite understanding
why
it's brilliant.

‘Danielle once said the only thing she found annoying about me was discovering empty Frazzles packets around the house.'

‘But if you put them in the microwave for five seconds they shrink and turn hard,' adds Danielle.

Fair enough.

‘I got you something too,' says Jamie, reaching for his gift bag.

Rebecca draws a wrapped bottle from the bag, her decisively green eyes broadening. She is wearing a dark blue dress that she knows always reminds me of the first time I came back, when I ripped it off. Not like the Incredible Hulk. More unbuttoned it really fast and threw it recklessly on the floor, where she seemed to keep all her other clothes.

Rebecca tears the paper, catching my gaze for a split second to communicate that she's hating the attention, but when she sees what it is . . .

‘Jamie!' she gasps. ‘This is, like, three-hundred-pound whisky.'

‘Not at wholesale it's not.'

Danielle pouts. ‘All right, Jamie – way to outdo me.'

‘Wasn't difficult,' he replies, draping an arm around Danielle's shoulder. ‘You literally gave her rubbish.'

With my ingredients chopped, I measure soy and oyster sauce on instinct and add the steak pieces to the marinade for about twenty minutes. I hope they like it.

‘I couldn't care less about the sofa,' Rebecca is saying when I start listening again. ‘But, man, I'm going to miss this dining table.'

I join them.

‘Yeah, I've got happy memories of this table too,' I say, giving Rebecca a look to see if she'll play along.

‘It's just so versatile,' she obliges, and the other two look puzzled, oblivious to the fact that under the table I'm sliding the tip of my foot down Rebecca's shin. The corners of her lips are starting to crack. ‘I mean, it's great for spreading all my work sketches out,' she says, ‘and eating, and—'

‘Oh yeah, versatile,' I chip in. ‘It's perfect for dinner parties, and reading the Sunday papers, and—'

Having mad sex while the Sunday papers are strewn across the room. It was a few weekends ago while Danielle was visiting her dad and stepmum. Rebecca was finally better after a stomach bug, and when I got out of bed to make us ham and cheese toasties, she followed me in here, hoisted her arms around my neck and, well, we never made it back to the bedroom.

‘OK, we get it,' says Jamie, raising his palms to stop us. ‘Jeez, anyone would think you'd had sex on it.'

Danielle laughs until she realizes that neither Rebecca nor I are saying anything, and that both of us are gazing around the room as if we hadn't even
heard
Jamie.

‘Eww!' she moans, and I flee to the kitchen to fry the beef.

‘Well, Nicholls,' says Jamie, laying his knife and fork on his empty plate, ‘that was the best Cambodian beef curry I've had in ages.'

I laugh.

‘Seriously, though, Becs,' says Danielle, ‘you should keep hold of this one.'

‘He's pretty hard to get rid of,' says Rebecca, before directing a private smile my way.

I have to stop myself from asking her here and now:
Shall we live together?
But I learnt that night at Arch 13 that Rebecca doesn't like being put on the spot. Sometimes it's better to be patient, and so with this, asking her to live with me, I've waited, because I want her to know that I'm serious, and that it's not another one of my whims.

I'm going to do it on Friday, after I've
finally
met her dad, which is another thing I've had to be patient about, what with Rebecca working every hour God sends to bag the cinema project.

I'm not even worried living together will change things. We managed to spend a week together in Rome for her birthday without killing each other, and a holiday is the first of the relationship tests, isn't it? Come through that and you can probably live together; come through the living together test and the next step is marriage; then you get a dog to see if you'd be good parents.

Maybe I'm getting a bit ahead of myself.

‘How's Markus?' Rebecca asks Danielle.

Sadly for Markus, the only test Danielle seems to set is: are you Shane? He dumped her on the night Rebecca and I met, but she still isn't over him.

‘Why do guys always think I want a relationship?' she says.

‘You sleep with them,' says Rebecca. ‘You can see why they'd get confused.'

‘It's just two people rubbing body parts together,' Danielle whines. ‘How come Jamie can have mindless, meaningless sex and everyone understands what it is but when I do it men assume I'll want to date them?'

Danielle chucks her crumpled swan on to her empty plate and helps me clear the dishes. She checks her phone for the umpteenth time as I fill the sink with water.

‘So how is Shane?' says Rebecca casually.

Danielle turns and puts her phone against her chest, blushing. ‘No, I haven't . . . We haven't . . .'

‘I know that look!'

Danielle makes a show of slapping her phone on the sideboard. We work wordlessly for a minute or two while Jamie wipes down the table and Rebecca puts away the condiments. We're a well-drilled team.

‘When did he get back in touch?' Rebecca asks.

Danielle has been drying the same plate since Rebecca caught her out. The pots are starting to pile up.

‘A few days ago,' she answers guiltily.

Rebecca doesn't say anything.

‘We've been texting all day and then suddenly he's gone off the radar without warning.' Danielle scoops up her phone. ‘I'm thinking my last text might not have got through.'

‘Whoa, whoa, whoa.' Jamie stops what he's doing. ‘You're not texting him again, are you?'

‘How else am I going to know if he got my message?'

‘What are you thinking happened to it?' asks Rebecca. ‘Did aliens abduct it? Did it fly over the Bermuda Triangle?'

I dodge aside so Jamie can put the anti-bacterial spray back under the sink.

‘The rules are quite clear,' he says. ‘You can only double text if you're an actual thing.'

‘Or during an argument,' I say, and then smiling at Rebecca: ‘Not that I'd know about that, obviously.'

‘
Not that I'd know about that, obviously
,' mimics Rebecca, then laughs when I whip her legs with the tea towel.

Danielle places her plate in the cupboard with a clack. ‘I know the rules,' she says. ‘But Shane is complicated. He doesn't reply to anyone the first time around, he's really busy. And also forgetful. He's always leaving his phone somewhere.'

The three of us eyeball her until her chin sinks towards her torso. ‘OK, OK – I'll wait for him to text me. God!'

Once everything is cleared away Rebecca joins me at the window, wrapping her arms around me from behind. She nestles her chin into my shoulder so that her dark brown hair falls down the front of my shirt. We stare at the moon, its roundness pared only slightly at one side.

‘Dinner was lovely,' she whispers. ‘I'll thank you properly when we're alone.'

‘Right, everyone,' I say, turning around with a clap of my hands, ‘time to finish your drinks and go home.'

Rebecca laughs.

‘This
is
my home,' says Danielle.

‘Not for much longer,' I point out.

Danielle looks crestfallen.

‘He's joking around,' says Rebecca, laughing.

She goes to sit on the couch with Danielle, but I stay where I am, contemplating the last eleven months.

‘Remember that time you bought a telescope because you decided you wanted to be an astronomer?' says Jamie, following my eyes to the moon. ‘How's that working out for you?'

I ignore him. ‘I was just thinking how fast the last year has gone.'

‘It'll be your anniversary soon,' says Jamie.

‘Wow, a year!' calls Danielle. ‘When was your first date?'

Rebecca asks Jamie the date of his opening night.

‘October the twenty-sixth last year,' he says before I can point out that, actually, it was a couple of weeks before we went on a proper date.

Then Danielle changes the subject with a loud groan at her phone.

‘Just delete his number!' Rebecca pleads.

I watch Jamie laugh at the spectacle of Rebecca and Danielle going back and forth, and I try to remember if I've ever properly thanked him for being the matchmaker when he had a million other things to think about: getting Arch 13 off the ground, trying to placate his parents. They still haven't visited the bar.

‘I still owe you one,' I tell him now. ‘For the napkin.'

He smiles. ‘I just hope it doesn't all go to pot on Friday.'

‘How do you mean?'

‘Oh, you know. Rebecca being so close to her dad, and all that. She dumped a guy once cos her dad didn't approve.'

‘Ta for that.'

He cracks up. ‘Just thought I should warn you.'

‘Leave him alone!' interrupts Rebecca. ‘Although he's right,' she says to me. ‘I did dump Nick McDermott cos Dad wasn't keen.'

I fold my arms, suddenly feeling quite anxious about the whole thing.

‘Actually, that reminds me,' says Rebecca. ‘I need to go into work on Friday morning before we get the train to Kent.'

‘I thought you had the day off?'

‘I did, but Jake wants to introduce me to the structural engineer I'll be working with on the cinema.'

‘Talking of which . . .' says Jamie. ‘We're supposed to be celebrating!' He picks up the thirty-year-old Glenfiddich he bought her. ‘Let's have a toast.'

‘Not that,' Rebecca bawls, scuttling over to take it from him. ‘I'm not wasting that.' She looks at me. ‘Ben, let's open that prosecco your mum got us.'

‘Life's too short to save good whisky,' Jamie protests, but I'm already fetching the bubbles from the fridge.

The cork proves stubborn, eventually releasing with a pop, and the three of them shove their glasses underneath the bottle to collect the spillage.

‘To Rebecca!' says Danielle.

‘To my awesome girlfriend!' I say, winking at her.

‘To friends,' adds Rebecca.

We all clink glasses, and the last word is Jamie's.

‘To life!'

Friday, 26 September

Whizzing over Blackfriars Bridge with London's skyline in my periphery is one of my favourite parts of the day.