Chapter 18
I hate videocalls. They make me obsess over how much hair I have and how grim my background is, no matter where in the flat I sit.
Jimmy insists on all cameras on and that everyone’s ‘work appropriate’.
Nicole once quizzed him on this, and he made a comment about make-up.
While he drones on about company vision for twenty minutes, I seek out Cian’s rectangle.
Over the weekend I’ve tried my best not to think of him or the ignored text message. I’m not sure how successful I’ve been with this. And now, seeing him in the glasses he claims he doesn’t need, and clearly not listening, is like being dragged under water.
When the meeting wraps up, Cian’s screen is one of the first to blink off. Then, my phone buzzes.
Cian: Hi. How are you doing?
This frustratingly innocuous message sits right under my ignored one from last Thursday.
Me: Good. You?
Though really what I want to type is, why did you ignore me?
Cian: Fantastic.
How am I meant to respond to this? Is he being sarcastic?
Cian: Can I call you?
While I’m turning myself inside out about this, he calls.
‘Hi Zoe.’
‘Hi.’
‘Um,’ he begins.
This is it; he’s finally going to address it. Instead, he says, ‘I got my knee brace off.’
It stumps me.
‘My leg,’ he says.
‘Finally. That’s great news.’
‘No, it’s not all good. My patella isn’t—’
‘Eee.’
‘I didn’t get to the gory part and you’re already making noises.’
‘It’s the idea of the patella,’ I explain, ‘that bizarre bone stretched with tendon.’
‘Last night I spent hours on Reddit reading about seventy-year-olds with the same injury who were ballroom dancing a fortnight after surgery, and here I am, two months on and still struggling.’
‘Are you perhaps exaggerating?’
He sniffs then admits, ‘Possibly. But still. It’s frustrating. And the scar looks worse this week than before.’
Sometimes I forget Cian has this going on, his recovery. ‘I get it. It must be tough.’
‘I’m back in the office next week.’
The reality we will soon be in the same place, in each other’s eyeline, gives me vertigo.
‘Though listening to Jimmy just now made me want to break my other kneecap. And I lost my deposit on a stag do.’ Cian has told me with great delight how his accident got him out of attending two weddings he’d been dreading, though he’s also complained endlessly about missing the accompanying stag dos.
‘So, Prague’s not happening. Nothing’s happening.
This has been my whole summer. Weeks and weeks of nothing then straight back to the office.
’ He’s louder than usual, angry and fed up.
‘I need to get out of this house. I’m going crazy. ’
‘Then let’s go out,’ I say without thinking. ‘If you want,’ I add, feeling the need to give him a get-out clause.
‘Out to where? Tesco?’
‘No. Like out-out. Like out to –’ my mind scans through possibilities of locations where there’d be no danger of intimate moments – ‘somewhere different. Somewhere exciting.’
‘You want to go to the big Tesco?’
I try to hold in all my feelings as I question, can I do this? Can I be around him and keep myself in check? Friendship only, no burning, yearning or confessions.
‘If you get ready,’ I say, ‘I can pick you up in half an hour.’
‘What kind of ready do you want?’
‘Like whole-staff-videocall ready.’
‘Naked from the waist down?’ he asks with faux innocence.
‘Cian.’
He laughs his smallest, quickest laugh. ‘I’ll get trousers.’
‘I didn’t think you owned trousers. Sounds great.’
When he opens the door, and we’re face to face, I feel something rise through my stomach and throat before it wraps itself around me.
‘Hi,’ he says.
‘Hi.’ My eyes slide down to his long grey sweat shorts and his pale left leg. ‘You have legs.’
‘I do. Though one is shit.’
‘Was your leg super hairy when the brace came off?’
‘That’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever asked me and no. I can see you want to look at the scar.’
‘Definitely not.’
He leans on the doorframe and folds his arms. His mouth fractionally hitches up on one side and I can’t wait for the other side to follow.
‘Cian,’ I blurt. ‘Stop standing around posing and get ready, we’re going.’
He flinches in surprise. ‘You were serious about going out?’
‘Yes.’ Yes, yes, yes, because there’s no way I’m sitting on a sofa with him ever again.
‘We have work.’
‘No, we don’t. Jimmy told everyone to spend the afternoon connection-free. I’m driving.’
‘You can drive?’ he asks, astonished.
‘Yes.’ I wave behind me to where I’m parked.
‘What are you indicating?’ Cian does a big open-mouthed laugh as the car lights flash. ‘Why do you have such an expensive car? Why do you have a car at all? You don’t go anywhere.’
‘It’s Eric’s.’
Brendan joins us at the door and tuts when he sees me. ‘Not another skiver. Your boss really needs to call you all back to the office.’
Cian cuts him off. ‘Dad, you’ve got to see Zoe’s car, this is nuts.’
Brendan’s eyes widen. ‘It that a Mercedes C-Class?’
‘Actually, it’s an E-Class.’
‘Woo,’ they chorus.
‘This is why your generation can’t buy houses,’ Brendan explains. ‘You spend all your money trying to keep up with celebrities.’
‘Your brother is rich,’ Cian says.
‘Oh my God,’ I snap. ‘Do you want to go somewhere or not?’
Brendan gazes at the car. ‘She wants to take you to a business meeting.’ They laugh with each other, then proceed to make a run of jokes about me moonlighting as an executive banker.
‘It would be good for you to get out of the house, go for a drive,’ Brendan says.
Cian considers me then the car and the weather before switching his mouth side to side, then it’s like he does it all over again before settling on me. ‘We’re meant to be working.’
‘Please,’ I try.
His eyelashes do that batting thing. ‘Okay,’ he says, with a minimal nod. ‘Give me two minutes.’
‘I’m glad you came over,’ Brendan says. ‘You always cheer him up.’
Not what I want to hear right now. I push it down to the soles of my feet with the rest of my unwanted feelings.
‘He’s been in a blindingly bad mood.’
‘Really?’ I ask, with too much excitement. ‘I mean, it must be frustrating for him with his leg and stuff.’ I crunch the car keys in my hand to stop myself digging for more.
‘No, this was going on all last week. Too many people in his ear. Too much of this.’ Brendan mimes a yapping mouth at his own ear. ‘It’s no good.’
‘No,’ I agree, though I’m confused.
‘And here he comes, my little princess.’ Brendan throws an arm over Cian’s shoulders as he comes back out, still in his shorts and T-shirt. ‘What?’ Cian asks. ‘Why are you both staring at me?’
I didn’t realise I was and will need to rein it in this afternoon.
‘It might be colder where we’re going,’ I say.
‘I’m prepared.’ He holds up a dark-grey hoodie then untangles himself from Brendan. Cian climbs slowly into the car, pushes the seat right back to fit, then shuts the door as if his objective were to take it off the hinges.
‘You are so heavy-handed.’
He makes a big show out of putting on his seatbelt and checking it’s clicked in properly.
‘You should know I’m an amazing driver. I’ve been driving since I was fifteen.’
‘Explain.’
‘I spent a summer at my grandma’s place outside Aranjuez; she lives quite rurally and thought fifteen was a good age to learn.’
‘That’s not reassuring at all. Do you definitely have a licence that’s valid for this country?’ The music starts automatically with the car. ‘Ed Sheeran,’ Cian says with disgust.
‘Again, it’s my brother’s car.’
He’s making me nervous, plus I foolishly squeezed into this parking spot, and it takes me a while to manoeuvre out of it.
Once I do, I take the road at speed. He reaches up and holds on to the grab handle.
‘I already had a near-death experience this year; I’m not looking to die on a twenty-mile-an-hour road. ’
‘Cian.’ I can’t believe how effortlessly he can make a joke about dying around me. No one makes jokes about dying around me. ‘I’m sure you did not almost die when you fell three foot off a climbing wall.’
He puts his glasses on top of the dashboard and closes his eyes. ‘This car is so smooth. I can’t even feel the potholes.’
The glasses slide side to side, so I pull them off. ‘Aren’t you going to ask me where I’m taking you?’
‘No.’
I assumed we might talk on the drive – nothing deep, I just want to get back to where we were – yet less than five minutes in, he’s snoring.
Knowing no amount of noise can wake him once he’s gone, I turn the radio up.
Every so often I glance over at his big head pressed against the balled-up hoodie.
Can I really do this? Can I be friends with him?
With the day’s darkening skies and overly negative weather forecast, finding parking is easy. When Cian awakens, one side of his hair is flattened while the other sticks up, and he resembles the small version of himself that appears in so many of his unfortunate school photos.
‘Surprise,’ I say, adding jazz hands.
He rubs at his face and yawns.
‘We’re at the beach,’ I say. Doubt creeps in and I’m suddenly unsure why I thought this was a good idea.
‘Beaches have sand.’ He leans forward and squints at the coastline. ‘And sunshine.’
‘Okay, not beach. Seaside.’
Cian rearranges the hoodie and lies back against the window. Eventually he side-eyes to check my reaction.
‘Get up.’ I laugh. ‘We’re here to get fish and chips. Remember when you claimed seaside fish and chips was your favourite thing in the world?’
‘You drove almost two hours to buy chips? Almost as bad as going all the way to Poland to see some overrated diva—’
‘Enough,’ I snap, my frustration with him bursting through. ‘Why are you being so difficult?’
He stares at me, then gradually breaks into the sort of big smile that doesn’t help with the type of afternoon I want to have with him, the type of afternoon I need to have with him.
‘You find me difficult?’ he asks, the smile now mischievous.
‘Usually, no. Right now, yes.’
‘I’m sorry. I’m just . . .’
What? I think. Tell me what you are, what you’re feeling, where you’re at. Instead, he pulls on his hoodie and answers, ‘Hungry.’