These Days of Ours (6 page)

‘How’s Becca?’ said Julian as Kate filled the kettle. ‘The crazy calls have stopped so I’m a bit worried about her. In case she’s, you know, done something .
. .’

‘Becca’s not the sort to kill herself.’

‘True.’ Julian in casual wear of jeans and cricket jumper was more groomed than Charlie had been for his university interview in his sole suit. The kneejerk comparison startled her:
Charlie was no longer Kate’s business.

The kettle danced to a boil against a backdrop of reverent silence, as if the cramped kitchen was a church. She and Julian had never been alone before. Through her dazed heartbreak Kate found
herself wondering what on earth he was doing in her house.

As if he’d heard her question, Julian said, ‘I’m not really here to talk about Becca.’ He swallowed audibly. ‘I heard. About you and Charlie.’

Kate nodded. They were a news item.

‘I thought you two were for ever.’

‘So did I.’ Kate began to cry. ‘Sorry.’ She tore off some kitchen roll. ‘Ignore me. I’m being daft.’

‘No. You’re not.’ Julian made the tea, which felt vaguely embarrassing. Mum’s Pyrex mugs in his big hands. ‘Milk? Sugar?’ He was clumsy, but Kate was touched.
She found herself talking. About Charlie, about how she felt, about how just moments ago she’d come slap bang up against the brick wall of his indifference.

‘I’m boring you,’ she said.

‘You couldn’t,’ he said.

Kate looked at him questioningly and he didn’t look away. She felt the need to mention her cousin. ‘Becca’s been so distraught about you . . .’ Even as she said it, Kate
realised something. For the past few days Becca had been different. Upbeat, even.

‘I know,’ said Julian gently, considering his words, head bowed. ‘But she’ll recover. She’ll be OK. I was a project, wasn’t I? I didn’t break
Becca’s heart. I took a hammer to her pride, sure, but her heart is intact.’

‘No,’ said Kate, instinctively loyal. ‘She adored you.’ She amended the tense. ‘
Adores
you.’ This day was whirling by, pushing everything into the
past.

‘Things have their time. Then they’re over.’

‘So why,’ said Kate, ‘did you ask her to marry you?’

‘It seemed like the right thing to do. She’s quite a girl.’

‘
Woman
,’ said Kate, warningly.

‘Woman.’ Julian altered his language with a courtly dip of his head. ‘It was exciting. But it was a mistake. I hurt her, even though I promised never to do that. I don’t
intend to hurt anybody else if I can help it.’

Sensing hidden meanings smuggled in his language, Kate did her best to ignore them. Sitting at the table, she invited Julian to do the same. Over Mum’s home-made shortbread, she asked him
about his work, noticing how he became animated.

‘What about your job?’ he said. ‘How’s that working out?’

‘OK, I think.’ Kate reconsidered. ‘Actually, I love it. It’s just that it’s hard to love anything at the moment.’ She wondered how long it would take her to
surface.

‘Do you think you’ll end up buying a shop?’

‘What?’ Kate laughed with shock. ‘I’m just a shop assistant, Julian.’

‘You’re not
just
anything.’

Kate looked at him and he looked back. Something happened. Something flexed its muscles and came to life between them. It was Kate who broke the spell, standing up, fussing with the biscuits.
She was seeing Julian as a person for the first time. Not as Becca’s trophy boyfriend. The fact that she was flattered shamed her, but shame couldn’t quench the quiet fire he’d
lit.

As Julian left, he made a speech. That’s how it felt, as Kate stood on the swirly hall carpet and Julian spoke at her. He seemed nervous: another first.

‘What you need is peace and quiet and time to heal. Maybe a relaxed meal out somewhere nice, with somebody you know, would be good. Somebody who won’t expect you to be chirpy, who
won’t expect anything more than a peck on the cheek at the end of the night.’ He paused.

‘This somebody,’ said Kate. ‘Would it be you?’

‘It would.’

She smiled and her face seemed to creak. ‘Julian . . .’ She sighed. ‘You know I can’t say yes.’

‘Becca . . .’

‘Exactly.’ Kate admitted at last that she found Julian attractive.
It’s because he’s forbidden fruit
, she thought. Nothing to do with his bearing, his tigerish
eyes, the fact that he’d laid himself bare by coming to her like this.

Julian became more bold, more his usual self. ‘I’ll book a table at eight o’clock, one week from tonight, at Zilli’s. Come in your dressing gown if you’re still
miserable. If you don’t turn up I won’t harass you. I won’t even call.’ Julian stepped outside, into a sharp, bright, heartless afternoon. ‘But I’ll be terribly disappointed.’

‘Thank you,’ said Kate mechanically as she shut the door.

Humbly, respectfully, he’d handed her all the power, running the risk of looking foolish, for the chance of dinner with her.

Try as she might, Kate couldn’t picture it.

A carefully laid table. Soft lighting. Julian holding a menu. And herself, washed, tamed, face brightened with make-up and body inserted into some form of outfit. She recoiled. The notion
confounded her.

What perplexed her more was when Becca asked, a day or two later, ‘Now that you and Charlie are well and truly finished, would it be OK if I had a drink with him now and then, kept in
touch?’

‘It would be very very far from bloody O bloody K!’ screamed Kate. ‘Are you kidding? Why would you . . .’ She ran out of steam, her chest rising and falling. ‘Are you
interested
in Charlie?’ Kate couldn’t find a facial expression that did justice to her sudden conjecture.

‘God, no.’ Becca was distressed. ‘I just don’t want to lose him. As a mate.’

‘But you’ve never been mates,’ said Kate.

Later, Kate picked up the phone and dialled Becca’s number. ‘Sorry,’ she said, twisting to check out the back view of the red seductively clingy dress she’d just bought.
‘I overreacted. After all, like you said, Charlie and me are over.’

‘Are you sure?’ Becca sounded doubtful even though she’d been the one to open this awkward dialogue. ‘I mean, I have to see him at least once, to hand back his
note.’ Kate had given Becca the single page, folded back into its original creases, to return to Charlie. She’d added nothing to it; he’d said it all. ‘But if it makes you
unhappy I won’t see him again after that.’

‘Becca, I don’t have the right to be possessive about Charlie.’ Kate took a deep breath. ‘And while we’re on the subject of exes there’s something I have to
tell
you
.’ Kate sensed how Becca struggled to conceal her surprise at her news.

‘Good!’ said Becca, over-loud. ‘Why not, eh?’

‘Yeah, why not?’ said Kate.

Their ‘Goodnights’ were stilted, like actresses in a bad play.

The dress was too racy. Kate dashed up to her bedroom, where she tore it off and reached for her old faithful oversized white shirt.
I’ll probably spill pasta all down it
, she
thought.

‘I like the shirt,’ said Julian, later. ‘Even with bolognese sauce all down it.’

Over the next few months, Becca insisted on double dates. ‘The sooner we all get used to our new arrangement,’ she said, ‘the better.’ And she was right. The tension
eased. The awkwardness dissipated. Before long Becca and Julian were casually indifferent to each other.

For Kate and Charlie it took a little longer to reboot.

The first time Julian had proprietorially thrown his arm around her in a pub she’d jumped. Charlie hadn’t turned a hair. Just moments later Charlie had kissed Becca with enthusiasm,
with – goddammit –
gusto
.

That was the night Kate first held Julian to her, returning his desire with her own, cementing their string of dates into something more profound. He’d been committed from the start,
careful never to bully or nudge, until Kate had to agree, against all the odds, they were a good fit. In retrospect, her two years with Charlie looked like a naive first stab at love.

After the blow of Charlie’s desertion, it was a revelation that somebody could love her. The somebody turned out to be quite a catch. Not because Julian was a property mogul in the thick
of a housing boom, but because he was steadfast and loyal, employing none of the cat and mouse tactics he’d used with Becca. Kate would look up from a book and find his hooded blue eyes on
her, studying her, as if revising to sit an exam in Kate Minelli.

‘What do you see in me?’ Kate asked, genuinely curious, when he took her to meet the folks and she was cowed by the manor house, his father’s drawled vowels, his mother’s
assertive way with a pashmina.

‘I see my future wife,’ Julian answered.

Not long after that, Becca had sought her out, blurted, ‘Charlie and me are getting married! Say you’re happy for me or I’ll call it off I swear, honest to God.’

‘Of course I’m happy for you.’

Kate’s new life fitted seamlessly over the old and when she accepted Julian’s ring (an heirloom emerald the size of an egg) so soon after her cousin announced her engagement to
Charlie, it was coincidence.

‘
Sheer
coincidence,’ Kate insisted to her worried father as they celebrated the good news. ‘He’ll look after me, Dad.’

‘I brought you up to look after yourself, young woman,’ said Dad. ‘But if you’re happy, I’m happy.’

‘And I’m happy!’ Kate told him.

In the powder room it was the dregs of the wedding day. Kate fantasised about the moment she could unlace her corset. Becca was tweaking her headdress in the mirror, peering
critically at her front teeth as if they might have changed since she got married. Charlie watched his new wife with a mixture of wariness and excitement, like a child let loose in a sweet
shop.

She’s shaken him up
, thought Kate.
He looks like all his birthdays have come at once.
Charlie had never experienced the full glare of Becca’s headlights until they
began dating. She’d paid him scant attention when he was just her cousin’s fella; now that he was her property Charlie was lavished with attention, the happy object of her saucy
affections. He was breathless, like a child who keeps going back, time and again, for one more ride on the rollercoaster.

It wasn’t jealousy that Kate felt. That wasn’t the right word for it. A year of double dating had seen her swim upstream through jealousy, resentment, disbelief and anger until she
reached acceptance. Now all she felt, when she saw their heads together, one dark, one fair, was a twinge of irritation that Charlie hadn’t cast his net just that tiny bit wider.

Knowing it was hypocritical didn’t diminish the feeling.

‘Could somebody explain,’ said Dad, hovering by the door with Uncle Hugh at his side, interlopers among the girlish trappings of the ladies’ loo, ‘why Hugh and I paid for
a reception when everybody’s in the toilets?’

‘The ladies have minds of their own, John,’ said Julian.

‘That’s hardly news.’ Dad had an arm’s length accord with the newest recruit to the family. Kate’s heart went out to her sweet, doing-his-best father, whose Chinese
trip had been postponed yet again to make Becca’s deranged matrimonial dreams come true. Kate would have preferred a registry office and a long lunch, but Julian had been keen to ‘do it
properly’, so Becca got her way.

‘Any news?’ asked Aunty Marjorie.

‘No.’ Uncle Hugh was solemn; he tailored his demeanour to his wife’s needs at all times. ‘Not yet. I’m sure Di will pull through.’

‘And are you a doctor?’ barked Aunty Marjorie.

‘Well, no,’ admitted Uncle Hugh, who was a financial advisor. ‘I just have a feeling, dear.’ He smiled bravely, his stiff upper lip coming in handy as it so often did
when dealing with the women in his life. Kate felt, as she often felt, that she wanted to put an arm around her uncle, who put up with so much yet always seemed happy. As if he was exactly where he
wanted to be.
That’s what a happy marriage – however odd – does for you!

A tipsy guest bowled in, singing, and made for a cubicle. From the ballroom they heard a sing song break out to
Danny Boy
. Kate hoped against hope her new parents-in-law, who were
snobbish enough to sneer at the Queen, had left.

‘How’s the new job going?’ Kate’s mum rarely addressed Charlie and he jumped.

‘Great, fine, good.’

‘He’s a
natural
,’ said Becca. ‘The radio station love him, don’t they, darling?’

‘Oh they do,’ repeated Charlie, sardonic.

So they should
, thought Kate. A would-be novelist with Charlie’s flair was wasted churning out jingles and adverts. Their new roles didn’t allow for intimacy – like two
shy vicars, it had taken months for Kate and Charlie to get beyond innocuous small talk – so they’d never discussed his new career. Unless Charlie had changed completely, he would
hate
such work.

Then again, Charlie
had
changed completely: he was married to a woman he’d disliked, after all. The biddable man-child welded to Becca’s side was nothing like the sweet and
bolshy boy Kate had loved. Maybe alien bodysnatchers had come in the night, swapping Charlie for an advertising copywriter.

Like a formally dressed kidnapper, Julian edged nearer, eager to whisk her away. He trailed his fingers down her lace sleeve and Kate’s arm shivered with excitement.

Whispering in her ear, his breath tickling, Julian said, ‘Are you happy, darling?’

‘Very,’ she whispered back, seeing only him in the midst of the crowd.

The pivot of the past few years – more significant than Kate and Charlie’s schism or Julian’s appearance at Kate’s front door – was Becca’s pregnancy.

By the time the blue line firmed up, Charlie had dropped out of university and the wedding date was nailed down, a year ahead of the original timing.

A wedding planner was enlisted. White frocks were tried and found wanting: ‘Just because I’m pregnant doesn’t mean I have to
look
pregnant!’ Caterers were
tormented, florists publicly flogged. All for this one day, a day which had worn Kate out.