This is a Love Story (27 page)

work a couple of weeks before, so we met for the first time at work when I got back from my time off.’ I paused. I cast my mind

back to the moment those lift doors had opened, and how everything had seemed to go in slow motion. How I couldn’t believe my

luck when I saw her sitting there.

‘Yeah, and then how did you become friends?’ she asked quickly, an expression of fascination on her delicate features.

‘A couple of weeks later Ant sent us both to a gaming fair in Florida – she went as a writer because Tom was off sick. Yes, that

was it – I remember now.’ I leaned back in my chair as all the memories came flooding back. Flashes of her hair as we ran around

the strip of bars; the lights, the drinks, the food . . . The piggyback attempt that saw us both graze our knees and laugh till we cried.

‘And what happened?’

‘Nothing, Chloe. But we did get on very well. She’s a good friend, probably my best friend now. And I have to be honest with

you here, that’s just the way it is.’

She looked really disappointed, but I had to be brave about this. If she couldn’t cope with this friendship, she wasn’t the one for

me.

Even though I was lying a little bit . . .

But it was my business. It was my business who I had loved in the past, not really anyone else’s.

‘So how did you end up going out together so often, and going to her dad’s for dinner and stuff?’ I think she was beginning to

calm down now, but she still looked quite concerned. I offered her a cigarette and she pushed it between her lips and struck a match,

the smell of sulphur filling the air.

‘Well, we became good friends when I went to drop something off for her and she wasn’t in, but her father was. She’d never told

me he was ill, and he passed out on me. I thought he had died, Chloe – there were paramedics and everything. Then she got back

and we had a tremendous row and it all kind of came out, all the stress, all the years she had cared for him, everything she’d been

through . . .’

Chloe nodded her head in understanding. She was a good person, really, just a little wild sometimes. And it was that animal-like

behaviour that had made her so exciting in the first place.

She looked relieved . . . almost. ‘And so you’re telling me that you’ve never come on to her and nothing like that has ever

happened between you?’ She stared at me, her eyes piercing mine.

A silence filled my ears. My blood ran cold. A sudden flashback filled my brain of that strange, dark night when she’d held on to

me for hours and I’d felt like the world was mine. Her body, her warmth – it was all so far away now. But the crash back down to

earth had been one of the most painful experiences of my entire existence and I could still feel it, just like I could feel the bruise on

my face.

‘Nothing has ever happened, Chloe.’ Telling her about that night wouldn’t make things better. Not for anyone.

Chloe fell quiet and ran her finger around the rim of her wine glass, trying to make it sing. She looked tired but her cheeks were

still rosy.

‘I love you, Nick,’ she said softly. It was the first time she’d ever said it. My heart stopped and I felt the heat of fear and joy all at

the same time.

It had been a while since she’d said that sentence: ‘Let’s take it slow.’ That one.

And I remembered exactly where we’d been on the beach that day in Brighton and how the wind had smelled. She’d had a

banana milkshake and I’d had a chocolate one, and I’d been so glad she said it because it had meant I had time, more time to get my

head straight.

Yet here I was, months later, sweating just like I always have done since the second she came into my life.

I couldn’t say it back. I didn’t feel it yet. But this wasn’t a bad thing because I knew I felt a lot. I had faith in that. I adored Chloe;

I worshipped the ground she walked on, the way she left people spinning every time she waltzed out of a room, the way she kissed

me. I was so close, but I just needed more time . . .

There are several things I could have said next that would have resulted in either another slap or me being single, or both. Such as:

a) Really? b) Gosh, well, what can I say? Or worse still . . . c) Thanks. I am smarter than that, so I took option d), which was to walk

over to her, kiss her on the lips and carry her upstairs.

For the first time all night, she laughed.

Eight

‘A little box I carry everywhere with me . . .’

Nick

The big day had arrived. My birthday. Thirty. That looming number I’d spent my twenties dreading and yearning for in equal

measure.

Dreading because I’d had that ‘oh dear God, I only have a few years to become something really quite special’ feeling, and

yearning for in case I woke up on the day and found I actually was something quite special.

The reality was, at first, nothing special at all.

I woke up at 8 a.m., which was a nice start. I was alive. It was a nice, sunny autumn day. I opened the window to let some air in;

it was fresh and crisp and I loved it. A squirrel jumped gracefully onto a branch, almost within touching distance, before scuttling

down the thick, rough bark. An elderly man was walking his dog on the street below, a broad grin on his face.

Chloe wasn’t in my bed. I remembered I had deliberately put her off in case I had some kind of panic attack and ended up

breathing into a paper bag.

The first big observation was that all my limbs were working just fine. I didn’t have a sudden urge to convert my shed into a

woodwork den and start recording the birds I saw in the garden on spreadsheets. So far, so good.

The initial step was to go to the bathroom. My joints weren’t creaking; all movement was as fluid as it always had been. I stepped

cautiously towards the mirror and looked at my reflection. Phew. I hadn’t morphed into my father, wonderful as he is. I only had the

same four grey hairs I’d had yesterday, and no extra lines round my eyes.

This was going well.

My phone rang so I dashed back into my room to answer it, stubbing my toe on a box full of books. Unfortunately I was still

clumsy. My eyes started to water.

‘Happy birthday, handsome,’ came the purr of Chloe’s voice. My mind was instantly filled with images of her in lingerie. That

was nice. I instantly regretted sending her home last night. I could be having the first sex of my proper adult life. Maybe I would

actually be good at it now . . .

‘Morning, Chlo. How are you today, beautiful?’ I said, as I sank down onto my bed and climbed back under the covers.

I had booked the day off work. I wouldn’t normally bother but I’d genuinely been quite scared that I might have a mini

breakdown, and I didn’t want to do that on the third floor of an office in Balham. It’s pretty high up. I thought I’d come to terms with

it all – you know, the whole enjoying the journey thing. But I’d spent my last week as a twenty-nine-year-old in a state of acute

anxiety. Had I been wild enough? Had I been too wild? Should I have done any of it differently? Had I been a bit of a selfish

bastard?

‘Yeah, I’m great, thanks, Nick.’ Chloe’s voice broke my train of thought. ‘I’m coming to see you tonight to give you your

birthday surprise – is that OK?’ She lowered her tone; it sounded like my surprise was either ominous or sexy. I hoped it was the

latter.

I really didn’t want a fuss. I just wanted to get the day over with and then start worrying about hitting forty. It would be a

concentrated ten-year task and I needed all the nervous energy I could muster.

‘OK, that sounds great. I can’t wait to see you,’ I responded before hanging up the phone and pulling the soft covers underneath

my nose. They smelled of her. Delicious.

Now, what was I going to do with myself? I would really like to see Sienna. In fact, I was quite nervous about this. Even though I

wanted my thirtieth birthday to sink into the record books as one of the most unnoticed and uneventful days in history, I would be

quite hurt if Sienna wasn’t a part of it. This distance was all well and good, but I really did need her today. She hadn’t made any

plans with me. Nothing. We hadn’t spent time together properly for weeks.

There was a hard knock at the door. Wondering who on earth it could be, I sprang out of bed, wrapped myself in a thick, blue

dressing gown and tiptoed down the stairs. In the glass I could see the blurry outline of a postal worker. It was the bright red jacket

and strip of reflective yellow that gave it away.

Oh dear. Perhaps my mother had sent me one of her homemade cakes again, which often arrived bashed and broken with some

awful picture printed on the top of me as a toothless kid in a baggy nappy.

I opened the door and peered through the gap.

‘All right, mate,’ came a pleasant male voice.

‘Hi there,’ I answered, a certain level of dread in my tone.

‘Right then, this is for you. Can you just sign here?’ He handed me one of those screens with the skinny pen, which makes you

sign your name like you’ve just been given anaesthetic.

He handed me a heavy box, wrapped in traditional brown paper. Yes, it was definitely the cake. Bless her. I wondered which

horrific photo she’d found this time. They seemed to get worse each year; maybe she’d gone the whole hog and selected the one of

me holding a freshly picked bogey up to the camera. Sigh . . .

I carried the box into the living room and made a cup of tea. I wasn’t in a huge hurry to open it. I started thinking about Sienna

again. I just wanted to be with her, really. She’d been at the receiving end of all my pre-thirty angst; she’d laughed at me when

appropriate and hugged me when it had all got a bit too much. She was wonderful – but where the hell was she now?

I carried the mug back into the living room and started opening the modest pile of cards that had dropped through the letterbox

over the past few weeks. There was one from my great-aunt Polly, addressed to ‘My dear nephew Daniel on his thirty-second

birthday’. Well, at least she’d remembered the date. I made a note to go and visit her soon. It was probably partly my fault that she

thought my name was Daniel; I’d been a little preoccupied lately. Still, thirty-two . . .

The next one was from work. Everyone had signed it, even Dill. I was touched. I put it pride of place on the mantlepiece. Then

there was one from Ross and the gang – they’d stuck a picture of our group on holiday in Ibiza two and a half years ago. We looked

pink from all the sunshine and beer. It made me smile. Inside were lots of silly, mildly insulting messages and a promise of a free

night out for me. This really wasn’t so bad after all . . .

I recognised the handwriting on the next one, but I wasn’t totally sure who it could be. I tore at the envelope frantically and found

the name Amelia signed at the bottom in black fountain pen. Oh dear. Now this was a blast from the past. I suddenly remembered

that morning when she’d been slumped on my doorstep crying, and I wondered if she’d found happiness now. I hoped she had.

Really I did, because I had found mine.

The final card was from my mum, dad, sister and the dog. It was long and quite soppy and it made a lump appear in my throat,

which I swiftly coughed away. It even said they were proud of me. Me. Why? I couldn’t help but notice the sentence at the bottom,

which read: ‘P.S. You have to come over this weekend to get your cake. I couldn’t bear the thought of my baking efforts arriving in

smithereens this time.’

How odd. I looked over at the brown box on my living-room table with a new level of suspicion. Now I thought about it, it was

quite big. And heavy. Too big for the cake. I was starting to worry now. It could be from anyone. It could be a parcel of anthrax

from someone I had inadvertently infuriated while going about my day-to-day life.

I pulled it onto my lap and started to tear away the wrapping, uncovering a large shoebox underneath. I took another sip of my tea

and pulled the lid off the container. This revealed yet another box covered in newspaper, this time a Topshop delivery box. I pulled it

apart. Below that layer was some pink wrapping paper and another smaller casing. I could see what was going on here. Pass the

parcel wasn’t going to get the better of me at this age . . .

I continued to rip through a plethora of layers until I uncovered a heavy, hardback book. A black book. This was making me a

little bit nervous. I carefully turned the front cover to reveal a faded newspaper clipping. I peered closer and made out a photo of a

squirrel on waterskis. Beneath it were the handwritten words ‘It all started on a train . . .’

Holy shit. It was from Sienna. A lovely, warm feeling washed over me and I remembered the first time I’d ever looked into her

eyes. I started to tremble a little as I turned to the next page.

It soon dawned on me that she had created a book. A whole book, just for me. The Story of Sienna and Nick, it was called. It was

the most touching, thoughtful thing anyone had ever done for me. The lump returned to my throat and it was as if time stood still. I

could no longer hear the noise of the street outside, it was as if the world was on mute. Sienna’s gesture had hit me hard, then

seemed to grip me in a firm embrace.

The book contained everything: cinema tickets, plane boarding passes, every photograph we’d taken, mini posters for our

favourite films. It contained song lyrics, jokes, anecdotes . . . Each joyous memory we’d had the good fortune to experience in our