Black Widow (15 page)

I know I was making myself more available than usual, not only emotionally but practically. I was saying no to lucrative extra sessions and holding off on research projects that might lead to future publications. This was partly to keep my immediate time free for Peter, but if I'm being honest I was also trying to give the impression that my future workload wouldn't be a problem for us. Peter, by contrast, was probably working more conscientiously on his external project than he might otherwise have done, in order to demonstrate to me how much more mature and industrious he was becoming.

Equally, I remember when we had a reservation for a restaurant one Friday night, and we had both been looking forward to it throughout a very demanding week. When Friday evening rolled around I was exhausted, and I wanted nothing less than to get changed and head out, but I didn't want to disappoint him, or to tip him off that this might be a regular occurrence. He called to ask if I was still okay for our date, and I told him I was, but he must have read the hesitation in my voice or maybe just the fatigue.

‘You sound knackered.'

‘No, I'll be fine after a quick shower.'

‘You'll be fine after a long soak, a night in and about ten hours' sleep. Why don't you run a bath and I'll come around later with pizza and a movie?'

That's what love sounds like: two people on the phone lying about what they want because the main thing they want is to please each other.

I had that bath. We ate pizza and watched
Belle
. It was bliss.

We seemed to move into phase two so seamlessly that I couldn't tell you when it happened. Weeks piled upon weeks and turned into months, the fastest months I had ever known. Time seemed to accelerate. There would be moments when I couldn't believe I had only known him since January, and in other ways the time before I met him seemed an age ago.

The sex was easy, and by that I mean it was seldom a source of pressure or tension, as it had been in previous relationships. We were relaxed with each other. Peter didn't give me grief about it when I was too tired or when my head wasn't in the right place because of things that happened at work. And conversely, there were many times when a goodnight kiss turned into something I suddenly needed much more than the twenty minutes' extra sleep it was costing me, even if I had an early start and a long day ahead.

The only time we had the hint of a problem was when he suggested we film ourselves, which I was absolutely not comfortable with.

I recall Peter looking apologetic.

‘Oh God, I forgot about you getting hacked. But I'm not talking about something that would ever be stored online. And I'd frame it so that your face is never in shot. Or mine, so no chance of being identified. Only we would know.'

There was something oddly cosy and intimate about that notion, and I was tempted for a moment, but only for a moment. I just knew I couldn't relax, couldn't be naked in front of a camera, never mind have sex.

He was fine about it though, and never brought it up again. Equally, I reassured him that I didn't think he was weird or pervy for suggesting it.

Like I said, we were easy together.

What I need you to understand is that our burgeoning relationship wasn't about the spectacular or the escapist: nights out, weekends away, surprise presents. Though all these things did happen, in a way they weren't the highlights. It was the day-to-day, the week-to-week that made it special. It was about me enjoying all that was normal in my life. In the earliest days, the hardest part was getting through work because I was impatient to see him, but soon the impatience wore off and I started to really enjoy my work
because
I knew that I would see Peter when it was finished.

Isn't that what we all want? Someone to be with and something to do?

And yes, as I said, there were times when I couldn't believe my good fortune. I confessed as much to Peter, though only because he said the same first. It was as though we were both terrified of losing what we had.

Peter rationalised it, though.

‘Maybe it's more balanced than we think. Maybe when it comes to relationships, we've both had more bad luck than is average, and it's skewed our sense of what is normal. Or, what's thrown us is that our good luck has been disguised as bad luck.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘Well, if we are each as adorable as the other believes, then we must have had bad luck in order to both still be single when we met each other, so our bad luck then is our good luck now.'

Amazing how bullshit circular logic seems like mystic truth when you're blinded by love.

I used to hate it whenever I heard women say of their latest beau, ‘he totally gets me'. But I soon came to understand what they meant, even if that wasn't how I would choose to express it.

I'll never forget the first time he handed me a present, feeling touched and yet almost shaking with apprehension as I clutched what was unmistakably a soft parcel. Clothing gifts were tricky territory in a burgeoning relationship, so it felt like a far more tense moment than he might have anticipated. I unwrapped it slowly, preparing myself, afraid I was about to be confronted with inappropriate underwear, some garment that was far from my taste, or worse: something that indicated he wanted me to look different, with all that implied for what he really thought of how I looked now. Basically it was an unexploded awkward-bomb that had been dropped into my hands.

When I pulled away the wrapping, I uncovered this gorgeous purple dress that was quite similar to one I had eyed up in a department store, and even pored over a few times on the shop's website without ever clicking Buy. I liked it but didn't think I could pull it off. I thought it was for someone more glam than me.

‘Oh my God, that's beautiful.'

I teared up, my relief giving way to gratitude and delight, touched by his solicitude.

Peter wasn't with me when I saw it in the store; in fact at that stage I wouldn't have dragged him around the shops for fear of wasting a day better spent doing other things together. Which made it all the more lovely that when he had gone out looking for a present, he happened upon a similar item and, as he put it: ‘I pictured you in that and thought it was perfect for you. I might be way out, though, so I've kept the receipt.'

It happened a few times: he would surprise me with gifts that were closer to the taste I aspired towards rather than the taste my more cowardly instincts told me to settle for. Nothing inappropriate, nothing outrageous: just the kind of thing I might consider and then chicken out of. It was as though he saw this better version of me, and helped me become it.

I did the same for him too, though not so much in terms of wardrobe. I kept him to his good intentions with regard to working on his project, even when the selfish part of me would rather have him dedicating all of his spare time and attention to me. I believed in his potential, and the exciting thing was watching him start to believe in it too.

Not that everything simply clicked into place without a hitch. We were proving good for each other, but we couldn't be the solution to all of each other's problems. One of the great markers on the road to serious in any relationship is meeting the folks, but neither of us was in a hurry to introduce the other to their family.

In my case, geography proved a convenient means of avoiding the issue. My parents still lived in Huntingdon, so it wasn't as though they were likely to drop by one afternoon and require an introduction to the young man whose shaving kit was sitting by my sink. Besides, they regarded what happened to me over the blog as a family disgrace and had never once blessed me with a visit in my penitential northern gulag. Christmas aside, I rarely went home, and even then I often volunteered for on-call so that I'd have an excuse why I couldn't come. My brothers Julian and Piers lived in Brisbane and Dunedin respectively (only living off-planet would have further satisfied their need for distance from our loving family hearth), so we weren't going to run into them either.

This mutual reluctance was no surprise to either of us. I deduced early on that Peter didn't want to talk about his family, and I had explained a bit about mine when inevitably the issue came up regarding why I was Doctor Jager.

‘Aren't surgeons usually Miss or Mrs?'

‘Statistically speaking, they're usually Mister.'

‘You know what I mean. They're not usually
Doctor
.'

I told him all about my doll's house, and about my mother, who qualified but never practised, merely married my father and became Mrs Jager. In fact, throughout my life I seldom heard my father call her Veronica. I told Peter how my father addressed her directly as Dearest Darling, and to us in the third person as Mummy, but here's the weirdest part: in front of other people he always referred to her as Mrs Jager.

‘Yes, Mrs Jager did enjoy our holiday … Mrs Jager has a head cold and won't be joining us … Sorry, I'll have to discuss that with Mrs Jager and get back to you.'

It was as though she was defined so entirely on his terms that she had even lost her given name.

That was why, when I went into surgery, I insisted on remaining Doctor Diana Jager. I spent my entire youth longing for that title and all that it signified, so I wasn't giving it up for the sake of convention.

Nevertheless, despite our shared reluctance to inflict our families upon each other, I did meet Peter's sister after we had been going out for about two months. I didn't like her then, and given her squirrelly role in all of what transpired subsequently, it would be quite the understatement to say I fucking despise her now.

We were down in Edinburgh for our first Saturday night away together when we bumped into her on Broughton Street. I noticed Peter slow down alongside me and thought he was about to look in a shop window. He glanced uncertainly at me for a moment, as though he was preparing to say something, and then I heard a voice and saw that a rather prissy-looking female had stopped right in front of us.

Upon first seeing them together, I would never have guessed they were brother and sister. She seemed so buttoned-up, quite literally, while Peter's appearance was always as laid back and understated as his demeanour. He had an effortlessness about how he dressed that sometimes skirted the borders of scruffy and yet always looked right on him. His sister, by contrast, looked like she must take a lot of time and regimented effort about presenting herself, and yet the result was strangely incongruous, like an ageing goth who these days only shopped in M&S but couldn't help resorting to certain instincts.

‘Peter, you didn't tell me you were going to be in town this weekend.'

There was pleasant surprise in her tone, but a hint of accusation too. I quickly inferred that she was not merely chiding him over how infrequently they spoke: they had spoken recently and she was annoyed that he hadn't let on he would be on her turf.

‘Well, it was kind of a last-minute thing. A cheap hotel deal on the internet.'

This was a lie. We had planned it a fortnight back, once I got my latest on-call rota and knew which coming weekend I would be free.

‘Lucy, this is Diana. Diana, this is my sister, Lucy.'

I once met a boyfriend's sister who was unsettlingly gushy: hugging me upon introduction and acting as though we were going to be instant best friends, which paradoxically made me instantly dislike her. I had little fear that such effusiveness was going to be reprised here, but the end result looked certain to be the same.

She gave me the most thin-lipped smile and didn't offer a hand to shake.

‘Oh, yes. Peter's told me about you.'

Not Peter's told me
all
about you. It's one tiny word, but in this context it makes a very big difference.

‘Why don't we grab a coffee?' Peter suggested. ‘Give us all the chance to talk. We were only out for a wander anyway.'

She seemed to think about it for long enough that I believed she might be weighing up whether to fabricate an excuse. I might have been relieved if she had, except that I could already sense how keen Peter was that we should all spend some time together.

‘Yes, I'm not doing anything urgent.'

We went to a place in a basement down some steps from where we had met Lucy. I thought it would seem gloomy and claustrophobic, with its windows showing only the brick walls of the stairwell, but it was brightly lit and the décor made it seem airy.

That didn't prevent the atmosphere from becoming oppressive, but it was nothing to do with the location. It was the company.

When I was able to look at them sitting side by side at the same table, there was no mistaking the sibling resemblance, or that there was a complex family dynamic at work. I gathered that she was older by eighteen months, but she seemed somehow more grown-up. Her features were softer, and she might have been pretty if there wasn't a certain severity about her. With the right look, facially she could have passed for the younger of the two, but from her demeanour she could have been ten years his senior.

And despite the palpable awkwardness over Peter not having told her we would be in Edinburgh, now that we were in each other's company, little brother was keen to impress. He seemed almost over-anxious that she should like me. He was talking up my CV like he was my agent, and saying what a positive effect I was having on him. This vicarious immodesty was most unlike him. It was as though he was showing off, proud of how well he had done, seeking an attaboy.

It was not forthcoming. Lucy seemed quite determined to remain politely unmoved. I don't expect everyone to go: ‘Ooh, you're a consultant surgeon', but equally I can tell when someone is making a point of not being impressed. I suspected this would still have been Lucy's response had her brother presented a Nobel Prize-winning physicist and supermodel as his girlfriend. It was all about laying down a marker, of sorts, though I had to wait a while for its nature to become clear.