Read Here's Looking at You Online
Authors: Mhairi McFarlane
James felt a jolt. An undeniably male-female spark at their bodies suddenly being so close, like a key being turned in a dashboard and all the nerve-ending lights lighting up,
ding.
He stepped back and carried on giving encouragement from a distance, thinking, well this is a surprise, because I certainly don’t fancy her.
I mean, no slur on Anna, she was nice. If she
was
the kind of thing you were into, you’d go completely gaga for her. James betted she had a ravening horde after her among the boffins she worked with. Especially as a lot of the academics he’d seen looked like they were made in the Jim Henson Creature Workshop.
But even if he decided to take on a
freelance project
, Anna was definitely not someone you had ‘marital break’ affair sex with. She was too important and serious-minded for that. If he was going to do that, he’d do it with … a Lexie, maybe. Not an Anna. Anna he wanted to keep as a friend. She was the first person to intrigue him since forever.
In fact, he needed to figure out a way to say to her: ‘I’d like to carry on seeing each other as friends’ without it sounding like it implied wanting more, because he knew she didn’t fancy him in the slightest either. Argh, how do you take the sex thing off the table without sounding like you assume it’s on the table in the first place?
After they lost at bowling, he lost track of Anna in the melee, and half an hour later when she reappeared, it was to tell him she was leaving.
‘Lexie’s in a state. Drunk way too much. I’m going to put her in a taxi,’ Anna said.
‘Oh.’ James’s spirits fluttered to the floor. Anna was all that was good about this evening and he’d hoped she’d be up for the late bar, when he planned on amusing her by recounting some Parlez scandals. If she was going, he wanted to go too. ‘Does Lexie need that much care?’
‘She’s getting that much care,’ Anna said, and James wondered if he was imagining her manner had become brittle.
‘I’ll see you out,’ James said, to her back, as she’d already turned to leave. ‘I’ll grab my coat.’ Another bonus of a pretend-girlfriend – everyone merely nodded and winked when he said he was ducking out early.
‘Is everything alright?’ James said, outside, as Anna deposited a seriously indisposed Lexie on a bench while they waited for the cab.
Anna turned to face him and he could see from her expression everything was not OK.
‘Laurence called me to ask me out,’ she said, and James felt a flash of extreme irritation.
Can you not even stop pestering women when they’re pretending to be my date …
‘He said you passed on my number?’
Oh God, why had he done that? It was lazy, Loz had been bothering him and he’d given in too easily.
‘And he told me you only invited me to the theatre as a favour to him. And that you called my sister “a scientifically significant breakthrough of a living brain donor”.’
James’s jaw dropped, while his gut clenched in embarrassment.
‘Thank you, Laurence. Both of those things have been taken out of context.’
‘So you
don’t
pass judgement on women you barely know in an offensive manner?’ Anna said, looking Theodora-ish regal, as if she was about to order James’s execution without flinching. She pulled at her hair as the wind tangled it round her face.
‘Not usually, I hope.’
‘I must’ve misheard you at the reunion then. I could’ve sworn the words “not that hot and not my type” left your mouth, about me.’
James gulped hard. Uh oh. That snipe at Laurence. She heard that?
Ouch
…
‘I didn’t mean … Look, Loz is shit stirring to get into your pants,’ he said.
‘Whereas you are a model of masculine honesty, stood here with someone you asked to pretend to be your date tonight?’
‘I never said I was perfect, just not as bad as him,’ James said, utterly lamely. ‘Are you going on a date with Laurence?’
Anna shrugged.
‘It’d be no more a bad idea than this one.’
She had her arm out, and a Hackney with a yellow light finally swung to the kerb.
‘If you think Laurence is the better man, you are right through the looking glass. Trust me, Anna, he will hurt you. Don’t do it.’
‘I’m not interested in who you think I should date.’
‘I understand that, but I’m telling you as a friend. Laurence is not a man you want to get involved with.’
‘A friend,’ Anna snorted.
‘I thought I was.’
‘For a mad moment, so did I. But I think it’s best if we call it a day. Or a night,’ Anna said.
After some puppetry of Lexie’s floppy limbs to get her seated, Anna followed her into the taxi, banged the door hard and didn’t look back as it drove away.
Anna was beetling around her flat, wondering if she could make enough of a lunch from half a jar of red jalapeños, a stale Warburtons toastie loaf and a lump of cheddar with blue-green speckles or if she should go to the shops, when she saw an email from James Fraser arrive on her open laptop.
On a Saturday? She didn’t know what to expect when she opened the mail, but prepared herself to be angered by it. If it was any sort of apology, she guessed it’d be a bid to stop her telling anyone at Parlez she’d not been a real date.
Yet as she opened it, Anna saw the message was pretty hefty. She was surprised. James Fraser didn’t strike her as someone who needed – or even wanted – women in his life who gave him grief. Apart from his wife.
She wrapped her hands around either side of her cup of tea while she read.
Dear Anna,
I apologise if this is very unwelcome, but then, you can always mark me as spam, or send me a jiggling arse cheeks gif as reply. I wanted the opportunity to explain.
You might still hate me once you’ve read this, but I reason at least I’d have the comfort – cold comfort – of knowing you hate me for the truth, not Laurence’s propaganda. I have to ask you to trust me that everything I say here is the truth. Quite a big ask in the circumstances I know. I keep thinking about what you must’ve thought of me after that call from Laurence and … it’s not nice. All I can say is, I don’t come out of my version looking great either. And if I read last night’s parting shot right, there’s a fair chance I’ll never see you again, so, why lie?
It’s true that I partly invited you to the theatre because Laurence had asked me to introduce you again. He fancied you at that school reunion, as I think you might’ve picked up. Asking you out obliged Laurence and it suited me, because I enjoy your company. If I was doing it purely for his sake as he said, why would I go? I promise you, my commitment to Laurence getting laid, and challenging modern theatre, doesn’t run that deep.
And it’s true that I said I found your sister hard work. I’m sorry, it’s never nice to hear anyone you love run down. I didn’t dislike her, she’s just such a contrast to you, I guess I was surprised. I really liked your friend Michelle. At the risk of sounding arrogant, I don’t think I did anything very wrong in making a flippant remark. I’m allowed to hold unflattering opinions on people, even when they’re related to friends. Loz repeated that purely to make me look crap and the cost was hurting your feelings, which I think says something about him, not me.
As for the comment I made about you at the reunion, I said that purely to try to put Laurence off pursuing you. I thought you were there with someone and I didn’t want Laurence causing trouble. It was intended as meaningless discouragement to shut him down – it was laddish talk, it wasn’t any considered thing. I don’t know how to correct this one without going too far the other way and sounding a bit of a skeeve. I mean, it’s true that broadly speaking you’re not my ‘type’ but I’m sure this doesn’t upset you in the slightest, and that the feeling’s mutual.
All in all, I get to the end of this and I realise I look even worse than I thought I would. I could do some grovelling about how great I think you are, and how great you were with everyone last night. But instead I think I’m going to wheel out the really big guns. Attached is a photo of Luther looking angry while going to the toilet. He’s got so much fluff, he can’t fit his whole body in the litter tray, so his head pokes out the door flap while he’s doing his business. Enjoy.
James x
Anna clicked to open the email attachment and let go of grudging laughter when she saw the face of a disgruntled, disembodied Luther, staring into the camera with those marmalade eyes, expression like he was licking piss off a nettle.
She read and re-read the email. It was hard to decide what she thought of this man. On the one hand, he’d taken the time to write a mostly charming confession. She gave him props for that. On the other, she disliked his natural superiority. It was so inbuilt, he wasn’t even aware when it was showing. I mean, why should she care if he liked Michelle? She wasn’t seeking approval of her friends and family from him. He had such self-consequence.
And the part about how she wasn’t his type? Incredible!
Thanks for that data, please do give me my final ranking when you have it.
He obviously thought she felt wounded pride for not being thought attractive enough, as opposed to general dislike of men who pass judgments like that on women.
However, in general, her natural justice allowed that people said a lot of things off the cuff that they might want to retract later, her included.
Anna turned his words over and over and eventually she opened a reply.
Dear James,
While I’m prepared to accept everything you say is true, what I don’t understand is this – if Laurence is such a wanker, and has treated you like this, why is he still your best friend? This is someone you’ve known since school? I assume he was your best man, and so on?
Anna
She got an answer within five minutes, and her ego swelled slightly at the thought James might’ve been hitting refresh on his email.
Good question. I don’t have a good answer. I’m probably due some soul searching. Laurence is a laugh but he does have the capacity to turn round and fuck you, as he’d like you to find out.
Though I might argue that knowing him so long makes me less culpable in picking him as a friend, because your brain’s only half grown back at school. By the time you see what someone’s like, you’re stuck with them. I say I could argue that, because I can’t see your face to judge how annoyed you are and whether I could get away with it …
Loz wasn’t my best man by the way. My sister Grace had that honour.
Jx
Anna fired back instantly, and knew by doing so, she was effectively forgiving him. Perhaps it was the effect of him distancing himself from choices made at school.
Your sister? Really?
Ax
Oh no, and she added a kiss?!
Anna Alessi you are apparently an utter walkover with a man who can pen a pretty email
, she thought. His response was near-instant.
Yep. I have the pictures to prove it. She’s a war photographer, in Mali at the moment. It does great things for my mum’s nerves. Grace got the brains, guts and talent in my family, it was well unfair. She’s twenty-six and she takes absolutely no bullshit from anybody and risks stray gunfire and standing on landmines, while I’m figuring out ways to virally market probiotic yoghurt drinks.
Actually, and I’m honestly not saying this to help paddle myself out of Poo Creek, she reminds me a bit of you. Especially in her willingness to tell me when I’m being a cock-end. It’d be cool if there’s ever a chance to introduce you two sometime, even if the assaults on my dignity would be terrible. She’d like you a lot.
Jx
There was James Fraser in a nutshell, Anna thought. All the warmth of wanting her to meet someone dear to him, wrapped in the tacit expectation that despite insulting her, there would be a ‘sometime’.
OK, apology accepted. Btw Laurence is taking me ice-skating. Not what I’d have expected from him, somehow.
Ax
This time, it took half an hour to get a reply. Anna wondered if he didn’t like her going on this date. She could see why – Laurence’s information sharing hadn’t gone well for James so far.
And why was she going? Laurence seemed pretty nefarious. His approach had been direct and completely disarming. Her phone had gone as she left the ladies at the All Star Lanes, and when she answered, and mentioned where she was, Laurence had said, sharply, ‘You’re on a
date
date with James?’
Then when she’d explained it wasn’t, he’d said,
OK, well I’ve never done this before but here’s the thing. I’ve never met anyone I’ve felt such an instant spark with as you and who I wanted to know better, and while I can imagine nothing you’ve seen or heard about me makes you want to date me, I want to see you. So instead of scheming and plotting, I’ve decided to be completely honest and simply straight out beg you for an evening together. No strings, no pressure
.
If you say no, I promise I won’t ask again.
Surprisingly, it was hard to say no. And then when she’d been weighing it up, boom, Laurence comes in with his:
James has been helping me out because he knows I’m mad about you, so I’m not quite sure what tonight’s about. He can be rather two-faced though …
And in curiosity, Anna had asked Laurence what he meant. Cue the unpleasant revelations.
Anna had listened to this spiel while looking over at Lexie, who was slumped, gazing at James with the un-self-consciousness of the very hammered. Lexie had told Anna at length how unbelievably kind and honourable James was at work. She took Lexie’s account of his greatness with a pinch of salt, given she was smitten. And this honour didn’t extend to being honest about his romantic status, she noticed.
There had been a strange moment, one she wouldn’t be telling anybody about, when James was helping her bowl. He’d been pressed against her and it had felt … for a second, it felt very right. In fact, she kept replaying the sensation, imagining him holding her. Oh God, she was lonelier than she’d admitted to herself. She was going to be like someone in prison who butched up and got panther tattoos and started frotting other inmates in desperation.