‘Can’t, I’ve got something urgent I have to do,’ I say, as I grab my bag and head for the door. Something urgent that I don’t really want to do, but I feel I should: go home and call Daniel again.
I’ve drunk a glass and a half of red wine and I can’t put it off any longer so I pick up the phone and dial his number.
‘Daniel McKendall,’ I say.
‘Hey, Susie Rosen! I was just thinking about you.’
You were?
I take a deep breath. ‘Listen. I’m sorry for the short notice but I can’t see you tomorrow.’
‘Don’t tell me, those pizzas are eating into your weekend?’
‘Oh no, that’s all done. We’re in the central ad break in
Corrie
on Monday night if you fancy a laugh?’
‘I wouldn’t miss it for the world,’ he says. ‘So what
are
you up to tomorrow then, anything exciting?’
‘I just can’t make it, that’s all.’
‘Why?’
‘I just don’t think it’s a very good idea if we hang out.’
‘Why not?’ he says.
‘Because … I don’t think it’s a good idea.’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Because all I’ve been thinking about since I last spoke to you is what I’m going to wear when I meet you,’ I say, feeling ridiculously exposed, even as the words come out of my mouth.
‘Right …’ he says. ‘That’s sweet.’
‘And that’s not normally how my brain works when I’m thinking about having a cup of coffee with a mate.’ I mean, I didn’t even sort out my dress to Polly’s wedding till an hour before the ceremony, but you really don’t need to know that.
‘What are you saying?’ he says.
‘I’m saying I think I fancy you. I’m sorry. It’s messed up. This is embarrassing. But I’m kidding myself if I say that you’re just a mate, because you’re not just any old mate. Not that you’re not a mate, but … I’m just trying to be honest with myself and with you because this feels like a weird situation,’ I say.
‘Oh sweetheart, that’s really flattering,’ he says. ‘It’s fine, we’re not going to do anything, we’re just hanging out. We can be mates, can’t we? I was really looking forward to seeing you.’
Now I feel really stupid. What am I even thinking of? I’ve made it sound like I’m in love with him. All it boils down to is this: I fancy him. He’s married. We have a history, and because of the other night I feel nervous. And that’s understandable. He’s a good-looking man. There was an almost-kiss. But I am totally able to control myself. I’m seeing him for two hours in broad daylight. And in this phone conversation I’ve made it sound like I’ll be trying to dry hump him in the street.
‘You’re totally right,’ I say. ‘Ignore me. Of course we can just hang out. I’m being an idiot.’
‘Good,’ he says, laughing.
‘Ignore me,’ I say again. ‘Honestly, 3 p.m., in that little park opposite the Conran Shop, up by the church. I’ll be wearing jeans. Or maybe I won’t be,’ I say. ‘No, jeans, ignore me. OK, I’m going to hang up now. See you tomorrow.’
I hang up. I am nearly sick with embarrassment. Why on earth did I say those things? Just because they’re true, does not mean they needed to be said.
So what
am
I going to wear for this not-date? If I was being good, I should go wearing tracksuit bottoms and no make-up. I shouldn’t care whether Daniel McKendall fancies me. I should not be trying to attract him in the first place. But clearly I want to look pretty and feel pretty. Alluring and yet effortless – that is the look I need. That is a look I find impossible to pull off. I’ve never been one of those girls who can work layering and gilets and multi-length necklaces. I try on various skirt and top combos but they all feel too try-hard and end up on the bedroom floor. In the end I settle for my jeans, and a super soft t-shirt I bought a few years back that’s on the verge of wearing through. A bit too comfortable and dressed down. I go heavy on the mascara.
I feel so excited about seeing him. Foolish: I am setting myself up for another massive disappointment, and yet I can’t control the fact that this mixture of excitement and familiarity is the thing about falling in love that’s so wonderful.
In love! What am I even talking about? This is pure loneliness, morphing itself in my brain into something totally different to what it is.
He’s waiting in the little park next to the church, sitting on a wooden bench holding two coffees. The sight of this beautiful man in jeans and a dark wool coat – looking at me in the same way that I’m looking at him – makes me so nervous that I want to turn round and go home. Except I don’t. Instead I pick up my pace and walk around the cobbled path to join him, trying not to smile too broadly. God, but he’s handsome: those ultra blue eyes, that nose, that perfect mouth above all things.
He stands to give me a hug. His body feels so strong and solid, I try not to hold onto him too tightly.
‘I have a plan,’ I say, slightly too quickly. I talk too quickly when I’m around Daniel McKendall. I have so many things I want to say to him, and I’m scared he’s going to disappear on me again and so I have to say them all, right now, at the same time.
‘A plan!’ he says. ‘That sounds extremely organised.’
‘I think we should go to the zoo! It’s only ten minutes away and I haven’t been since I was a kid.’ And more to the point: the zoo is an innocent and non-sexual environment. Other than the possibility you might see two mammals humping (and surely the zoo keepers make sure that doesn’t happen in front of the kiddies). The zoo is not erotic. There are bad odours throughout.
‘Sure, let’s go to the zoo!’ he says, his face lighting up. ‘But I want to see the lions, and can I please have an ice cream when we get there?’
He takes my arm and we walk, giddy like lovers, up to Regent’s Park. I want to keep walking with him, to have his arm interlinked with mine like this. I could walk round and round the park all day and be entirely content just to be holding onto his arm like this.
‘Isn’t this nice?’ I say.
‘It’s perfect,’ he says. ‘One of my favourite things in the world, a walk in the park.’
‘Me too,’ I say.
‘It’s beautiful, but it’s also calm,’ he says.
‘Totally,’ I say, smiling.
‘A walk in the park is when I feel most like myself.’ He pauses to look at me. He seems almost embarrassed by what he’s just said. He gives my arm a little squeeze, then says, ‘We’d better pick up the pace, looks like it might rain.’
‘I don’t care if it rains.’ I don’t. I could walk through a storm with Daniel McKendall and it wouldn’t bother me in the slightest. ‘If it rains you get wet,’ I say, laughing at how silly I sound.
‘One of the great philosophers of our time,’ he says, grinning. ‘I forgot you were so gifted.’ He reaches over and musses up my hair gently.
‘Yes, well, Harvard did call earlier for my opinion on this year’s
X Factor
line up, but I don’t care to brag,’ I say.
‘Of course you don’t … modest and brilliant. And looking rather radiant today, if you don’t mind me saying so?’
I don’t mind in the slightest. Say it again.
The sky is clouding over now, and when we get to the zoo it is relatively empty. We are the only people here in our thirties who aren’t accompanied by kids, and it occurs to me only now that a Fun Family Venue was a bad choice on my part. It will remind Daniel of his own family, the almighty elephants in the room. I make a note to bypass the actual elephants, though when we look at the map it turns out there are no elephants in the zoo. And no pandas. The zebras are being re-housed and the tigers have gone to tea.
He stands studying the map and it is all I can do not to reach up on tiptoes to kiss the side of his neck. That stretch of exposed skin, just below his ear …
What’s wrong with me? I must pull myself together.
‘Let’s go to the aquarium,’ I say. Maybe being surrounded by cold water will help dampen my ardour. Besides it will be a safer environment generally – dank, otherworldly, full of alien distractions.
In the Coral Reef Hall we spy tiny, thin metallic silver shrimpfish, vertical knives of light, sliding up and down in the water. And beautiful neon tang fish in yellow and blue and turquoise – swimming jewels.
‘Look at that.’ I point out a small fish, maybe two inches long, that’s a ravishing hot pink. ‘Unbelievable. Why would a fish evolve in such a bright colour? Surely it doesn’t make sense, from a predator point of view?’
‘Bright colours are nature’s way of warning that something’s dangerous. They’re meant to ward off attackers,’ Daniel says, looking slightly confused as he says it. ‘I think I read that in the
Encyclopaedia Britannica
, back when Google didn’t exist.’
‘Can you even imagine living without Google?’
He shakes his head. ‘Don’t say such things!’
‘Surely these fish are just asking for trouble looking so damn pretty, drawing attention to themselves like that?’ I say. ‘Why don’t they wear camouflage? Something watery coloured, some nice khaki fins …’
‘Same reason you didn’t wear some nice khaki fins to Polly’s wedding …’ he says with a little smile.
Thank goodness it’s so dark in here and he can’t see me blush.
‘Ooh, stingrays!’ I say, wandering over to a giant tank in the corner. I spot a flat black and white polka-dot fish pulsating like a strange pancake at the bottom of the tank. ‘They’re so weird.’
‘Come over here if you want something properly weird,’ he says, from over the other side. As I move towards him I see him in profile, transfixed in front of the glass, one hand pressed against it. His face is illuminated from the bulbs in the tank; his expression is full of wonder. It reminds me of how he used to look when we would lie on his roof, gazing up at the clouds. Boyish and awestruck and innocent. Such a sweetness about him.
The tank is full of piranhas.
Mesmerising. Unlike all the other fish who dart or glide or flicker through the water, these dozen black fish hover, static, in place. All in profile facing to the right, they hang like an army biding their time, waiting to attack.
‘They get a bad rep, poor things,’ he says. ‘It’s not true that they go after humans. Generally they mind their own business.’
I look at their sharp little mouths, sharp little teeth. ‘The way they hang there playing dead. It’s creepy …’ I say, shivering.
‘Don’t worry, sweetheart,’ he says, putting his arm around me. I feel a jolt of nerves grip my stomach. ‘There’s four inches of glass between us and them. If it breaks, I’ll protect you from the little fishies.’
I’m sure you will. But who’s going to protect me from myself?
‘Let’s get out of here,’ I say. The aquarium, while dank, is also dark, and under cover of this darkness we have ended up in an almost embrace. I need to move us somewhere less dangerous. ‘Time for a llama?’
A perfect choice, if I do say so myself. Llamas are boring. They’re not daredevils. They don’t do anything cool. When they chew (and they chew a lot), they look like old people contemplating decrepitude. Their coats look like they were bought in a flea-infested secondhand shop near a village train station. Best of all, the llama enclosure smells bad. Really, truly bad.
Daniel’s attention is drawn to a sign by the enclosure with a cute hand-drawn illustration that reads
Llama – proud, curious, spitty.
‘Hey Suze, does this sound familiar to you?’ he says, laughing. ‘I could have that written on my tombstone.’
‘Proud, curious, spitty? I’d say more flatulent, judging by the smell around here.’
‘I don’t want flatulent on my tombstone,’ he says.
‘I meant the llamas, not you. No: I wouldn’t use those exact words to describe you, Daniel.’ I stare at him. His eyes in daylight are incredible: the bluest, but with those tiny flecks of pale green near the pupil.
‘What words would you use then?’ He stares back at me without breaking my gaze. Does he know how gorgeous he is? He never used to when we were young.
‘Well, my long lost twin?’ he says. ‘What words?’ He smiles, that smile. That smile is inches from my smile.
Gorgeous. And Gorgeous. And Unavailable.
‘Complicated,’ I say, with a sigh.
He raises an eyebrow but says nothing.
I take a deep breath. ‘And decent,’ I say. It is the opposite, I suspect, of what is on his mind. But I want us both to be better than this. And I do believe he is good, because if he is good then that means I can be good too.
‘And flatulent,’ I say, as I watch the tension in his face disappear into a smile. ‘That’s enough about you – how about me, Daniel McKendall? How would you describe me, in a nutshell …’
‘You, Susie Rosen? You’re a walk in the park on a beautiful day,’ he says, without missing a beat.
I really wish he hadn’t chosen those words.
We part at 6 p.m. – he’s already late to meet his brother – and we stand at the entrance to Baker Street station hovering between friendship and the desire to do bad things.
‘I’m off to the States next weekend but are you around the weekend after?’ he says. I think he feels the same way that I do: I’m not done yet. I want more.
‘Let’s see how we go,’ I say.
Right at this moment all I want is to hop on the tube with him to see Joe, hang out with the McKendall boys, then go back to Daniel’s house in Kent, climb into bed and spend tomorrow and the rest of my life with him. Or even just a week with him. Or even just a whole day.
I didn’t think I’d feel these things again after Jake. Relaxed, happy, optimistic, less out of sorts, more like my old, better self.
‘Thank you, Susie,’ says Daniel as he takes my hands and kisses me goodbye. ‘I was so excited about seeing you today but I suppose a part of me was worried that maybe we wouldn’t get on as well as we did the other night at the wedding. I know that sounds daft.’
No it doesn’t. I know what he means.
‘But I can honestly say,’ he says, with the sweetest of smiles, ‘that this has been the best three hours of my whole week.’
That is exactly what I would want a man to say to me. That is exactly what I feel too. For the first time in such a long time there is a mutual feeling. I had forgotten how your heart can actually feel like it’s expanding from just a few simple words that somebody says. I’d forgotten this feeling of hope.