You Had Me at Hello (26 page)

‘Thanks.'

A pause. ‘Night then,' I say.

‘Night.'

I dig my key out of my handbag. As I walk off, Simon calls back: ‘Know why I'm all right with this, Rachel?'

I shake my head, glancing around.

‘Because you're worth waiting for,' he says, raising a hand. ‘Night.'

As I make three attempts to get the key in the lock on my door, I wonder if that was an assumption rather than a compliment.

After a lot of – well, some – internal debate about whether it's appropriate, I email Ben to tell him how it went with Simon. I don't want him to think I'm some pasta-guzzling tease.

I send: ‘
Hi – Bit of a weird one, had really nice time with Simon but not sure if going to see him again. Bit soon, etc. Hope you & Olivia not going to feel put in the middle
.'

I come back from a break in court to find the reply: ‘
Well … we do ask that you marry him to make any future dinner-party seating plans easier for us. Is that so much to ask?
'

I giggle like a moron at this, then see the PS: ‘
I'm trying to be healthy during my lunch hour and going for sandwich/walk in Platt Fields at one to get away from the office … want to join & have a chat? No problem if not, I'm not much of an agony aunt.
'

I respond instantly in the affirmative and hop on a bus, Platt Fields not being as wildly convenient as I'll insist it is if he asks. A change is as good as a rest and all that.

When I get to the park entrance, I see Ben is clutching brown paper bags, kneeling down, talking to a little girl in a dark duffle coat. A harassed forty-something woman joins them and as I approach, Ben says, in a slightly kids' TV voice: ‘Here's my friend! Rachel, hi.'

‘Hello!' I say, trying for jolly, unsure as to whether to pitch my response to the adults or the child.

As we move away, Ben mutters under his breath: ‘Speak to someone's lost kid these days, you're more likely to get arrested than thanked. Was I glad to see you.'

‘Unless they think we're a Brady-Hindley double act?' I say.

Ben laughs: ‘I'd forgotten what I'd been missing with your sick sense of humour.' Before I know whether to mind being forgotten or pleased at being miss-able, he adds: ‘Did you bring food?'

I realise that in my haste, I didn't.

‘I bought you this. You still eat ham and pickle?'

He hands me one of the brown paper bags. I peer inside at a ciabatta sandwich, wrapped in a napkin. ‘Thanks!'

I'd never think to go and look at nature in the middle of a day at the courtroom coal-face and yet I'm instantly struck by the springtime loveliness of the park, the light glinting on the lake.

‘So … Simon and Rachel a non-starter?' Ben says.

He gives me a mouth-full-of-food grin, as we gnaw the edges of our ciabatta sandwiches. I always think these things seem like a good idea and in practice are like chewing bricks, covered in brick dust. I give up and start pulling bits of ham out of the bread, inside the bag, so Ben doesn't see me looking like I dipped my face in a bag of flour.

‘We went for dinner and it was surprisingly enjoyable …'

As I tail off, considering how to phrase this, Ben suddenly looks like a pubescent boy being forced to listen to the story of his own conception. ‘Oh-kay … There isn't going to be, an, er, PG-13 …'

Looking at his fraught expression, I can't resist continuing: ‘Afraid so, because when a man and woman like each other
very
much they have a sort of special cuddle …'

‘Argh, stop there! God, the thought of Simon banging the headboard shouting “Bravo! I have reached my conclusion! Preparing to disengage member in three, two, one …”' Ben shudders. ‘Find another confidante for this stuff.'

‘Kidding!' I say, through the considerable yet slightly tense laughter. ‘It was
dinner á deux
,
home un une
.'

Ben makes a forehead-wiping gesture with his napkin.

‘Simon was more enigmatic on the point, of course. Oh she's
rilly something
, Ben.' He pulls a Roger-Moore-eyebrow Simon face that turns into a
yuck
Ben face.

We laugh.

‘I don't know if we're a good fit, I guess,' I say. ‘He's very clever and witty and scathing and so on. I think we're very different. I'm sure he'd be a challenge. He scares me a bit to be honest with you.'

‘Hmm, I'm not entirely sorry you say this.'

I think of Caroline's observation from my flat warming. This frank admission from Ben makes it more likely that his motives are above board. I feel relief, and the smallest tinge of what might be disappointment.

‘No?'

Ben shakes his head while chewing and swallowing. ‘I get on with him, I don't really trust him. I couldn't in all conscience advise a friend to date him.'

A friend.
I am a friend again.

‘Liv thinks I'm being ridiculous and you two would be great, though, so what do I know.'

Hopefully a lot more than her when it comes to me, but I don't say so.

‘I was slightly surprised you agreed to a date at all, if I'm honest,' Ben continues.

I extract another piece of ham. ‘When's the right time to start seeing people again after thirteen years? How do you know for sure who the right person to see is? Caroline said I had to give it a go and I thought she was right.'

‘You ought to trust your own instincts more. Caroline's great but Caroline's choices are Caroline's choices, not yours.'

I'm touched by this, so touched I blurt: ‘That's very thoughtful. You're what they call “just gay enough”.'

Ben shakes his head and says through a mouthful of bread: ‘And I was being supportive. Anyone ever tell you you're a heartless witch?'

‘Yeah, some bloke at uni once.' I wave my hand, dismissively.

Too far
. Ben swallows with a hard gulp, a thin smile settling afterwards. Despite the rehabilitation, a twinge from the old injury, reminding us not to overdo it, not to put too much weight on it yet.

What are Ben and I to each other? There's no word for it. Not exes and, despite what he said and what I want to believe, not exactly friends either. No wonder other people have asked for a description. I yearn to broach the topic. But it would ruin everything.

‘Second date with Simon unlikely then?' Ben asks, as much for anything to say, I think.

‘Unlikely. Not impossible.'

‘I'll tell Liv it's a “definite maybe”. That'll keep her off your back and won't insult Simon if he asks her.'

‘Good idea,' I say, gratefully. ‘He's got some interesting opinions, I'll give him that.'

‘Hah. Such as the dinner party thing about how we'd all married the wrong people? Yeah, he doesn't have much respect for other people's relationships in general, from what I can glean,' Ben says.

‘I think I know what you're referring to. If you mean his past that is. He mentioned it.'

‘Oh. What did he say?'

‘That he'd had a thing for a married woman and she'd gone back to her husband.'

Ben nods. ‘He told me that too. He knows my views. Even if he had a grand passion for her, he shouldn't have had a go.'

See, Caroline,
I think
. This is Ben.
He might've enjoyed success in the arena, but he does not condone, or emulate, skirt stoats.

‘But he's your mate?'

Ben shrugs. ‘He's known Liv since uni and he's been good to me at work. I don't want to date him.' He frowns. ‘I feel bad if I've put you off. Keep your wits about you, and you never know. You could be the making of him. I don't quite see what's in it for you, that's all.'

‘Not dying old and alone?'

Ben laughs. ‘As if. Can I ask your opinion about something in return?'

‘Sure.'

‘Liv wants to move back to London in a year's time.'

‘Oh.'
I'm not going to offer unbiased advice. This is a horse kick to the heart.

‘If I agree to it, our money won't stretch to a house like the one we have here, down there. She wants me to let her parents buy us a giant place, near them. They've offered to get their little girl back down south, I think. I've refused. Am I being unreasonable?'

‘Your reasons are …?'

‘Aside from the fact they're set on God-awful-ming in Surrey, it's too much. I don't want to be in hock to my in-laws for a fortune. Don't get me wrong, they're nice people. But I don't want to be owned. I knew they were pretty formidable before we got married. This piece of incredibly well-timed generosity makes me think I underestimated them.'

‘The money isn't available to you to buy up here?'

‘Oh no,' Ben smiles, grimly. ‘Not that I'd take it, but no. That's not the deal.'

‘And Olivia's thoughts?'

‘She thinks I'm selfish. I'm endangering the happiness of my wife and security of our future children on an abstract whim. She says it's money she'll inherit eventually anyway. She'd be off tomorrow. She says she's tried the north for me and doesn't like it, experiment over, obligation fulfilled. Whereas this is the best I've felt in ages.'

Pathetic, given I am irrelevant, but: this last remark makes me want to hug him.

‘Difficult.'

I'm conscious that whatever I say may be repeated to Olivia, and this is none of my business. Only a few minutes ago, I was hearing how my judgement is better than Caroline's, and yet this feels uncannily like the very thing Caroline warned me about. Ben has no one else to talk to up here, I reassure myself. This is fine. This is two old friends, chatting. Despite ‘friends' not quite covering it.

‘I can see why you feel the way you do. There could be a compromise, where you pay them back in a certain number of years?'

‘We're talking the kind of sum I could never fully pay back, Rachel. Repayment's not the plan. Once we're in there, it'll be about filling the rooms …'

He breaks off. The kids issue. I'm definitely not asking about that.

‘I think you're right to want to keep your autonomy,' I say. ‘As for security, it's not as if Didsbury's a Soweto shanty town, is it?'

Ben shakes his head. ‘No.'

‘Olivia will come round, once Manchester improves on her,' I add.

Ben raises his eyebrows and looks off into the middle distance, makes an equivocal ‘Hmm' noise.

I sense there's much more he could say but that he already feels disloyal.

There's a heavy pause.

‘What're Simon's family like?' I ask, my turn to find something to say.

‘You don't know about that?'

‘No?'

‘His parents died in a car accident when he was about seven or eight. His aunt and uncle were made his guardians but they weren't exactly the nurturing types and packed him off to boarding school. I think it was paid for by the life insurance.'

‘Oh, no. That's terrible.' I'm terrible. I cringe at the memory of myself mouthing off about ‘Mummy'. ‘I've said things about him being a toff …'

Ben shrugs.

‘You weren't to know.'

The sun's gone behind a cloud. I stare over the flat, tarmac-like expanse of water, whipped into shallow ripples by the wind. ‘That's why I shouldn't have said it.'

The mood has dipped. I tear a bit of leftover bread off.

‘Can I share this with the ducks?'

‘Be my guest.'

There's a flurry of bottle-green, cream, black and yellow as the birds descend on fragments of soggy ciabatta.

‘What about the weedy one who keeps getting missed out?' Ben asks.

‘Where?'

‘There! At the back. Poor beggar.'

I hand Ben a large lump of ciabatta and he smiles at me – not any old smile, a slightly poignant, Sunday afternoon matinee, yellow-filter-on-the-lens
would you look at the pair of us
soppy-inducing smile. He starts lobbing bread chunks with more over-arm throw vigour than me.

‘Got him! There you are, mate. Life isn't as unfair as you thought.'

‘Hoo hoo, yeah it is,' I say.

Ben gives me a sideways glance. I feel ‘A Moment' developing.

‘Course what we're actually doing is killing fish,' I say. ‘Apparently the leftover bread rots and then there's too much nitrogen in the water, or somesuch.'

‘Oh, Captain Bringdown,' Ben says. ‘And there I was, thinking this was nice.'

As I hang on a ceiling strap on the bus, I'm lost in thought about orphan Simon, newly worthy of tenderness and sympathy, despite the shenanigans with the married woman. Although I trust Ben implicitly, I can't help wonder about Simon's version of events. I think about the pass I've given Natalie Shale and my debate with Caroline, and suspect I ought to toughen up and
take a line
on things, as Rhys would say.

My mobile chirps with muffled birdsong in the recesses of my bag. I balance it on my hip and hastily dig the phone out. It's Ken. Not a good sign.

‘Hello?'

‘Woodford?'

‘How are you finding Zoe Clarke?'

‘Finding her? To work with?'

‘No, by candle light. YES TO WORK WITH.'

‘Erm, she's …' I block out the traffic and chatter around me with an index finger jabbed in my free ear ‘… she's excellent. She's a great reporter and she hasn't needed any hand-holding. She's backed me up and I know if I trust her to cover something she'll always come back with the story.'

‘Right. I've had a word with the editor and we like her strike rate in court.'

Uh oh … have I talked myself out of my job?

‘So, we want to try a new arrangement, as an experiment …'

My muscles start to bunch. Argument will be futile. Once Ken has made up his mind, especially when he's rushed the legislation past the editor, he's unstoppable. You'd have a better chance of knocking a hurtling oil tanker off its path by sticking your leg out.