The Art of Keeping Faith (15 page)

“I can’t wait.”

“Me neither.”

We watch each other again. I have a million things I want to tell him. I want to tell him about the almost decent cup of tea I made the other day, or about the book I read where I managed a whole chapter and it was actually quite interesting. I want to tell him about this place I found down by the river that will be great for a drink in the summer.

But I don’t say any of it. I just look at him instead.

“Eat more,” I tell him at last.

“Yes, Mum.”

“How is your mum?”

“Okay I think, I have only spoken to her once.” He gives a shrug before flashing me his wicked smirk. “How’s your mum?”

“Don’t care, we’re ignoring each other again.” I pull a face. I can’t help it.

“Oh, blimey.”

“Long story,” I yawn.

“It’s late, Lilah and you have got to get up for class. Crusades first thing, you want to be firing on all cylinders for that one.”

“How do you remember that?”

“I remember everything that you do.”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

He gives me his killer smile and I blow him a kiss.

“Bye, Ben, and it was really good seeing you.”

“Good seeing you, nice crease by the way.”

“Oh bugger off.”

I hang up before he gets a shot of my saggy tits.

That was so much better than sitting in the hallway or talking on the phone.

I will love Jayne forever for suggesting Skype, and I will probably think I am the biggest dumbass forever for not thinking of it myself.

12th November

6.50 a.m.

I am in a catch 22. I am supposed to be meeting Richard for a jog in about, ooh, ten minutes and I can’t really be arsed. On the other hand I know that Ben is going to be home in about fifteen days and I want to be super thin, very sexy and not the owner of saggy tits when he gets here. At the moment this is not going to happen, because I have eaten Chinese for my evening meal for three days solid. Not just the Ho-Fun. I have been creating a Chinese banquet by supplementing the fat noodles with various deep fried goodies from Marks and Spencer’s Food Hall and eating a bag of prawn crackers a night.

What to do? Jog or not to jog that is the question of the day.

Sod it.

Me
: Rich, I can’t face getting up. Can we jog this evening instead?

I snuggle back down under my duvet. Kit is curled up asleep under the duvet as well, providing me with some extra, if tickly warmth. It is pretty chilly out there.

Kit is probably still asleep because he was attacking my feet under the duvet until three-thirty.

Richard
: Can’t do tonight, Fi is home. I think.

For a moment I have to think what Fi could be, but then I remember that Fi is short for Fiona; Fiona, or Fi, being Richard’s girlfriend.

Richard told me all about her the other night after I covered him in that pint of beer at Froebel. My recollections are still a bit hazy (five glasses of wine and five Sambuca’s really does erase your memory) but from the little I remember about her I am not entirely sure that I am going to like her.

She is a high flyer for a start, so guaranteed to make me feel like a complete dick. And, well, she also sounds like a bit of a selfish cow.

Richard and Fi have been together for three years. He lived on campus last year, but this year she decided to move up here to be with him so he could not move in with his football mates. She has a very important job doing something or other which involves a lot of travelling so poor Richard is actually by himself the whole time.

“Do you actually love her though? You know, do you want to live with her?” I had slurred, intrigued by the relationship dilemma of a bloke.

He spent some time stubbing his cigarette out.

“Yeah, I guess? I mean how are you actually supposed to know?”

I did not have an answer then, and I don’t have one now. I don’t know if, ‘yeah I guess,’ is good enough. but then I don’t really know anything at all.

Right, then. I am going back to sleep before the last minute dash to get ready for lectures and a high-ish speed drive to campus.

Lunch time

I am moaning. I have decided that despite the fact I failed to jog this morning I should still start the diet.

I am hungry, like really hungry.

“For goodness’ sake, Lilah, can’t you just have your normal lunch?”

“Do I have a normal lunch?”

Meredith pokes her head up between our study desks; it is at least an hour and a bit until our next lecture. Outside it is freezing and for the lack of anything better to do we ran inside the library to escape the biting wind.

“Isn’t your usual lunch a pint of lager and a packet of cheese and onion crisps?” She raises her eyebrow at me.

“Oh my God, I’m not a bloody bloke!”

“How many times have you had a pint for lunch?” she challenges.

“Not that many,” I state although I am clearly lying. When Ben was here a pint was standard for lunch but then so was sex.

“Sure.” She rolls her green eyes before ducking her head back down. Bloody know it all.

“Well how many times have you had a half of lager for lunch because you are a big girl’s blouse?”

Her head comes back up.

“About the same amount of times you had a full on, ‘I’m a bloke pint.”

This is not going well.

“What’s wrong with you,” asks Meredith when it is clear I have no sharp or witty come back.

“I’m hungry,” I whine again.

“And?”

“And, I am bored.”

“And?”

“And I am tired.”

“It’s all those late night telephone calls. Can’t he ring you earlier?”

It’s the million-dollar question: Can’t Ben just ring me during Eastenders like a normal boyfriend would, not in the middle of the night when I am trying to get my much needed beauty sleep.

“It’s not just the phone calls, I love the phone calls. It’s the combination of late night conversations and the crazy cat.”

She thinks about this but changes tact.

“Shall we go and get something to eat?”

“Like what? I am supposed to be on the Ben’s Coming Home Diet.”

Meredith gives a shake of her head. “No, no, you have got it wrong. You need to lay down extra fat to make up for the fact you will not have time to eat when he is here because you will be having sex all the time.”

Ah, sex. I remember that.

Then I think about the laying down fat idea.

“Uh, have you seen the amount of Chinese food I have been eating recently?”

“Have you ever seen a fat Chinese person?” She does not give me time to answer that I think I may have done once, but it was only a glance down a darkened alleyway. “Nope, I didn’t think so,” she confirms for me.

“Come on let’s go on the hunt for a bacon buttie, that’s what’s wrong with you, you’re missing Ben’s bacon Sandwiches.”

“You know full well that I will not allow a pathetic imitation of a bacon buttie pass my lips until Ben comes back.”

“McDonald’s?” she asks, tempting me with fast food goodness. Ooh, I am not sure about this. I doubt we will make it to the McDonald’s in Asda and back in time for our lecture; Asda is a notorious nightmare where you are guaranteed to lose hours of your day.

But then on the other hand a McDonald’s does sound awfully tempting …

One hour later

Yep, we are not going to make it back.

However, Asda has provided the following benefits:

I have eaten three happy meals that have made me very happy indeed, although I am not sure the feeling will last. I may be sick instead.

Meredith and I have bought new spontaneous cushions in purple and have decided that we are going to redecorate the lounge at some point in the future when we can be bothered.

I was browsing the music section and found Sound Box’s album. How cool is that, I was able to go to Asda and buy my boyfriend’s album—Meredith took a picture of me holding it with a cheesy grin on my face to send to Ben. Because yes, we are soooo mature.

Asda has also had some drawbacks.

We have missed out on afternoon lectures; I felt too sick to go in after my third happy meal.

I ended up spending seventy quid (I bought wine as well, it was half price!) which I can’t afford. They would not give me any discount on the CD because I was the lead singer’s girlfriend. In fact I think they wanted to put the price up. Actually I don’t think they believed me at all which is a little disconcerting.

My jeans are now even tighter than when I put them on this morning which is making me feel doubly guilty about missing the jog/death run this morning and my inability to stick to the Ben’s Coming Home Diet.

15th November

Shit.

They are more than tight. I just had to lie down to get them done up. I am blaming Tristan, somehow he managed to convince me to go for a curry last night which obviously my candyfloss willpower could do little to resist. We devoured the Bengal Banquet and three bottles of wine between the two of us.

Ben is going to be home in just eight days. EIGHT DAYS!!!! There is a very strong chance he will not recognise me the way things are going.

It is time for desperate measures. It’s time for the Lilah detox plan to start in earnest.

16th November

Breakfast: Half a grapefruit and banana

Lunch: Fresh air

Dinner: Salad with a squeeze of Lemon

Three pints of water.

Baz decided not to comment on the lack of food and beer being consumed. But he did look a little concerned when I did a weird semi-blackout thing while standing on the shop stool that I use to get the guitars down from where they are suspended from the ceiling.

Not as concerned as the customer who got hit on the head with it.

Funnily enough, I did not make a sale.

17th November

Breakfast: Hot water and a squeeze of lemon

Lunch: Carrot batons and a dollop of hummus

Dinner: Steamed fish—I have never steamed anything before and I am very proud of this new life skill, however I am not sure the fish was supposed to taste quite like that. It resembled chalk, was kind of hard to swallow, and got stuck in my throat.

18th November

4.30 p.m.

“How long are you going to keep this up for?” Meredith is leaning against the counter in the kitchen and guarding her ham sandwich, which I am eyeing with the zeal of a half-starved dog.

“Eight more days.”

“Is this all about Ben?”

“No, it’s all about me being pudgy.”

“You’re not pudgy!”

“Well, I am compared to the girls in those photos.”

There have been more photos. I am trying not to look, but it is not going very well. I don’t have any will power at the best of times; turns out I have none at all when it comes to restraining myself from stalking Ben and obsessing about skinny blonde chicks having their photo taken with him.

It’s not just the photos; it is also the comments on Facebook.

How hot is BC!

Very and he is mine—back off.

I love that guy’s accent … it makes me go all gooey and mushy
.

Yes, bitch, I am sure it does—I however do not need to know about your nether regions.

There should be a campaign—a Ben Chambers take your top off campaign.

He has a personality you shallow cow

I wonder if Ben Chambers is single, I know bad things that I want to do to that boy!

So do I, and I am going to do them in five days
.

Thing is, I haven’t got time to respond to all the comments personally, so I am just going to stop looking before it drives me crazy thinking just what all those ho’s want to do to my Ben.

6.30 p.m.

“Pretty, pretty, pretty please come with me,” I beg.

“Absolutely not.”

“Oh, but whyyyyyyyyyy?”

I just stamped my foot. I can’t remember the last time I did that. Maybe about twenty years ago, but I am getting very cross.

I need someone to come to yoga with me. I don’t think I am asking much, but Tristan has actually walked out of the room to get away from my “incessant moaning,” as he called it. How rude.

Meredith is flat on her back on the sofa, remote in hand, wearing her pyjamas. I am not sure how she has done it but somehow she has coerced Kit onto her side of the argument and he is sitting on her chest purring and she is using him as her excuse not to get up.

One way to fix that problem.

I walk into the kitchen and open a can of Whiskers. A split second later he is winding around my ankles staring at me with his big blues.

“Kit, you turncoat,” Meredith hollers after the cat.

“Ha! I don’t know why you are wearing your pyjamas anyway, it’s only half six.”

I run back into the lounge to continue my yoga campaign. There is a dirt-cheap yoga class on campus tonight, which is great for students. I have heard great things about the effects of yoga on a flabby tummy. I am hoping for a miracle.

“Pleeeeaaaase, come with me? Just once so I don’t have to go alone and I promise I will never ask again.”

“What’s it worth?”

“Dinner? On the way home?”

She gives an exaggerated roll of her eyes.

“Oh for goodness’ sake, okay!”

“Yes! Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

“If I fart in public I am blaming you.”

“Why on earth would you fart in public?”

“That’s what happens in yoga, don’t you know that?”

“No! Really?”