You Had Me at Hello (45 page)

Stop being so superficial
, I tell myself, personality is what counts. Personality is what you're here to enjoy.

‘What's the concert you're going on to?' I ask.

‘Michael Ball. A collection of show tunes. “Aspects of Love”, and so on. Do you get down to the West End much?'

‘Erm. No. I always mean to—'

‘Oh, you should, you should. It's a fantastic night out, you know? Great entertainment.'

The waitress brings Gregor his pint and I notice he doesn't say thank you, or even acknowledge her. How early are you allowed to say:
this is never gonna work?

‘Why's a nice girl like you single, then?'

‘Can nice girls not be single?'

‘It was a compliment, if you're going to throw it back in my face …'

‘Uhm, OK, thanks. That's a big question …'

His line of sight flickers to my chest while I'm talking and suddenly I'm sixteen years old, out with a boy who thinks he can look at chests and not be noticed doing it. Maybe it's a nervous tic and he's not doing that at all. I'm only wearing a dark sweater dress, after all, it's not as if it's revealing.

‘… Why are you single?' I ask.

Gregor blows his cheeks out. ‘Working long hours. International travel.'

‘Right. For the bank.'

‘I can pull down twenty, thirty K in bonuses in a good year. They want their pound of flesh, har har.'

At the word ‘flesh' his eyes slither south again. He is! He's copping a goggle! Unbelievable.

Half an hour later, I am giving sincere thanks to the work ethic of Andrew Lloyd Webber that Gregor's gig starts early.

‘This has been fun. Feel free to call me,' he says, tucking his chair back under the table. ‘If I'm Stateside it might go to vee-mail but I'll pick it up.'

‘Mmm, hmm,' I say, making the emphatic closed-mouth smile with vigorous nod that means
yuh-huh
,
on a nippy day in hell.

I could concede defeat and go home. That seems too much like setting a precedent that being out alone isn't fun, and being alone isn't good. I order another drink and make a note to self to bring a book next time.

Here's what I've decided. I will always miss Ben. I will always wonder what might have been if I'd said: ‘Thanks for coming, Rhys, good effort, nice touch with the Brilliantine, but please excuse me while I pursue the man I'm really in love with.' But despite how dreadful that day in St John's was, I can't regret what I said to Ben. At least I tried. Rachel's maxim: fail again, fail differently.

Some people end up with their soul mates, like Mindy and Ivor. Some people end up with partners they can work at being happy with, like Caroline and Graeme. Some get second chances at getting it right, like Rhys and Claire. Some people get who they deserve, like Lucy and Matt. Some people will forever be a mystery, like Lucas and Natalie. He got cleared, they're back together, no further statements will be made. Other people, of which I might be one, end up on their own. And that's fine. I'll be all right.

I make a decision: I will book a trip to Rome for my wedding-day-that-wasn't. And I will speak Italian. Some.

I'm prodding at the slice of orange and cinnamon stick floating on top of my wine with my teaspoon when the chair opposite me scrapes across the floor.

‘Is this seat taken?'

I look up. The spoon clatters into the saucer.

‘The weather is end-of-the-world
Blade Runner
out there, isn't it? I'd forgotten the north-west's capacity to chuck it on you.'

I continue to stare blankly at Ben as he drapes his coat over the back of the chair. He doesn't look very soggy. He looks as per, as if he saved the world in time to make the appointment with his tailor.

‘Saw you outside the library and followed you,' he says. ‘You took the most roundabout route here, you know that? Then I sat over there in the corner and watched you in a creepy manner.' Ben peers into my glass. ‘Any booze in that?'

‘Yes.'

‘Good-oh.'

‘Are you here to serve me some kind of cease-and-desist special lawyer papers?'

‘No, I'm going to get another drink. Ah, fantastic – same as her? Yeah, cheers.'

He confirms his order through standard café-bar semaphore with the waitress.

‘Who was that with you, then?' he asks.

As I understand precisely nothing about what's happening, I'll answer the questions I'm given.

‘Gregor.'

‘New fella?'

‘Uh. No. He likes musical theatre and looked at my tits every twelve minutes.'

Ben wrinkles his nose. ‘Amateur hour. Everyone knows you pick up what you can on the periphery of your vision and assemble the 3D with imagination.'

I shake my head as the urge to laugh battles with my extreme bafflement.

‘But you're dating again?'

‘Badly, but yes.'

‘Glad to hear it.'

Ben says thank you for his wine, picks up his glass, takes a sip. It's then I spot the small but telling detail about his left hand. He sees that I see. He sets the cup back down.

‘Liv and I are getting a divorce. I went down to London and we talked for a long time about what had gone wrong and decided it couldn't be fixed. It had nothing to do with any aggro at the wedding, I should say. That was more the death throes. It had been staring us in the face since before Manchester. We were playing for time, moving north, really.'

‘I'm so sorry, Ben.'

I discover I am sorry. Very, very sorry, and sad for him. I wish I could say for sure I'd have felt that way before all self-interest was gone, I don't know that's true. What I do know, confirmed to me with Rhys's latest news, is that when you love someone, you want their happiness even when it's not going to involve you. Even when it
depends
on your lack of involvement.

‘So am I.'

‘You must be devastated.'

‘In a way, it was worse when I knew it might happen, or it should happen, and we hadn't said it. I'm very sad, but resigned. This is better than tearing lumps out of one another until there's nothing left. You must know what I mean?'

I think about Rhys. ‘Yes, I do.'

‘Mulled wine,' Ben takes another sip. ‘Quite nice, if wildly unseasonal.'

‘Are you staying in Manchester?'

‘Yes, I am.'

‘Ben,' I say, cautiously. ‘If you're here to say it's OK to be friends now you're separated … I'm not sure I can be. We've had two goes at it and neither of them has ended well. I mean, friends can do things like write My Single Friend pitches for each other, like Mindy did for me. If I had to write yours, I'd be saying you're the most sexist man I've ever met. And reeks. Wear a hazmat suit for copulation.'

Ben pretends to sniff his armpit and deadpans: ‘Now you tell me?'

‘You know what I mean. I can't be your dating buddy, or meet your new girlfriends. It's not going to work.'

‘Mmm.' Ben fishes the cinnamon stick out of his drink between finger and thumb and puts it on the edge of the saucer. ‘That belongs in pot pourri only.'

I can't tell how my words have been taken. It was hard to say, and hard-won wisdom.

‘About being friends. I happen to agree it wouldn't work. I was angry when I last saw you. Only at myself, when I thought about it. You ought to know that I left that night of the ball because I was so sure – so
scared
– you'd pick Rhys over me, I didn't risk sticking around to see it happen. I dodged your calls for the same reason. I thought it was just confirming the bad news. I told myself that if it had been me you'd have torn after me at the Palace. But you'd told me how you felt and I had no business playing games, getting you to prove it. I never saw it from your point of view. You weren't indecisive, I was insecure. Then later when I heard for sure you were back with Rhys, I told myself there, that's the proof, I was right to doubt you. Until we were sat in that park, I'd never faced the fact I might've brought the situation about. I realised what a total idiot I'd been.'

He takes a sip of his drink. I'm not sure I can withstand going over this again. It's like rewinding a traffic camera clip of an accident.

‘Then when I was honest with myself about the past, I could be honest with myself about the present. I started out with the wrong intentions, wanting to prove things to you in my stupid wounded pride.'

‘What can you have needed to prove to me?'

‘That I didn't mind what had happened. That I didn't ever think about you or wish things had turned out differently. Pretty soon the plan started to go wrong and we were sat in here with me trying not to wail
do
you know you broke my heart, bitch.
'

Ben smiles to make it clear this is an ironic bitch, not an actual bitch.

‘And I wanted to save you from Simon's oily grasp … a bit too much. The thing is, seeing you again, it's all been based on a misunderstanding. I was sure it was safe to be friends. I thought I couldn't possibly fall in love with you again, and I was right.'

He takes a breath.

‘Please,' I interrupt, desperately. ‘If you want to tell me you've come to realise you care for me as a second sister, that's nice but I don't want to hear it. Put it in a card with some bull-rushes on it and post it. With Deepest Sympathy For Your Loss Of Sex Appeal.'

‘I was right I couldn't fall in love with you. Because I never fell out of love with you.'

‘
What?
'

‘It's true,' Ben says, cheerfully. ‘Seems once was enough to infect me. From then on you've been lying dormant, like a virus. Or an incurable chronic condition that flares up from time to time.'

A long pause, where life transforms from black-and-white to colour.

‘I'm eczema?'

Ben beams. ‘Eczema of the heart. That's it. Psoriasis of the soul.'

The whole world is one table by a window in a café-bar in Manchester and the person sitting opposite me. If joy could be seen by the Hubble, tonight scientists would record a peculiar iridescence on an island north of the equator.

‘In view of this, I wanted to ask you on a date. Are you free tonight?'

‘Uh,' my mind's so overloaded I can only make simpleton sounds, ‘yes.'

‘Great! God, you're on your second man of the night while I'm out of practice at this. Do I have to pretend to love cats, old movies and getting caught in the rain? Wait, no – Rachel Fact, she doesn't like it when people say they like “old films”. There's good ones and bad ones. If someone said they liked ‘new films' you'd think they were stupid.'

‘Did I say that?'

‘First year of university.'

‘I can't believe you remember that.'

‘When it comes to you, I'm blessed with total recall. So no need for this.' Ben pretends to rub his neck and steal a glance below my neckline. I start gurgling with laughter. He taps the side of his head: ‘All up here. Don't you worry.'

He puts his hand over mine. This is real.

‘I should have so much to say, and I can't think of anything to say,' I burble.

I see the waitress with the pencil in her hair giving us that
nice couple
smile again.
If only you knew
.

‘You can answer the unspoken question hanging over us about what we do next,' Ben says.

‘Is there one?'

‘Yeah. Do you want to get some dinner?'

As we leave the café, I ask: ‘Is it OK for us to be out together?'

‘How d'ya mean? Have you got an electronic tag?'

‘As a …' I'm going to say couple and then I think it sounds a bit presumptuous after 175mls of lukewarm rioja ‘… as a – you know. The two of us.'

He stops. ‘As a couple? We've waited a very long time for a first date. I don't see how anything we do can be considered rushing. I hope from what we said in there that you're … my girlfriend. Aren't you?'

‘Yes!
' Girlfriend. Boyfriend. A couple!
‘If you honestly want a woman who is currently described on an internet dating site as “a proper lol”.'

‘It's pathetic, I knew I did from that first moment we met. It was … not love at first sight exactly, but – familiarity. Like: oh, hello,
it's you
. It's going to be you. Game over.'

I feel as if I'm going to burst. ‘I can't believe I get to be with you at last.'

He leans down and kisses me, one hand on the back of my head, fingers woven into my hair, our mouths warm and red wine blackcurrant-flavoured while the air around us is rinsed-clean cold. Like old times, it has a whole body effect on me but the reunion isn't like a recovered memory. It feels brand new. I put my arms around him, underneath his unbuttoned coat, and hold him, reassuring myself he's solid.