Chapter 24
24
Connor was so sad. He could try to find a more macho word, a face-saving alibi, but his counsellor told him to name and sit with his feelings more often. He was sad, and knowing he and Jennifer had run their course and were better off apart, did not stop him being sad.
Yesterday evening, probably steeped in Friday rosé, she’d sent him one of those long-ass messages it took three full-screen-length scrolls to read, starting: ‘ Connor we can’t leave it like this, ’ which it turned out translated as, ‘I won’t be dumped like this.’
He didn’t want to send a reply that could be misread (or read aloud to Libby while doing A Voice) so he called Jen up and said, using purest Stoke Newington self-help speak: it’s honestly better if we shift into the acceptance phase and accept bargaining is over, or we are re-traumatising ourselves. She cried again, but conceded. He cried once they’d rung off.
If Connor was going to sit with his feelings, he was also going to sit with a drink, and he got to the pleasantly lo-fi Didsbury dad pub Bel had nominated early enough for a sly pre-pint, returning his empty and replacing it with a second drink before she arrived.
Bel Macauley walked in looking like something from a 1980s advert for dark chocolate. This was not a derogatory thought: he could hear his brother Shaun reviewing her appearance with: ‘WOOF.’ It was a power move, in Connor’s grudging opinion, to scrub up that well and mostly choose not to. Maybe the Aarons of this world irritated her too much, which was understandable.
He couldn’t tell her he was having a low day, or why. Connor knew that false friend, alcohol, was soothing it and possibly soon going to make it worse. But tonight he had to pretend to be a sociable, happy person with a girlfriend in front of strangers, so needs must.
He’d been expecting to coast on Bel’s buoyant, can-do Belness, but she was unlike herself: preoccupied and agitated. It seemed to peak as they got up to leave, and she started fretting they weren’t going to fool anyone.
With a jarring lack of timing, she apparently thought this was the moment to point out they didn’t like each other very much, and Connor bit down his indignation. She’d asked him to do this , so WTF? Now, really?
It got worse when she announced they needed to ‘break down barriers’ and Connor tuned in to a description of … oh God, herself unclothed, and during sex, what?
He had to quickly arrange his face to convey a defensive ‘yuck’ because, in fact, he was ashamed to discover he didn’t feel nonchalant. Blame the beer, perhaps, or how good her exposed, China white collarbones looked in that dress, but Connor’s mind’s eye reflexively served him an image he had absolutely not asked for and did not want of her astride him, him clasping her bare hips. Her attitude towards him would be completely altered when he thrust … NOPE! No. There will be no fantasising thrusting, stop right there.
He’d thought he was currently out of commission in this regard, and he’d never spent a second considering what Bel Macauley was like in the sack. Yet with her making that ‘experiencing pleasure’ face, an unmistakeable lightning had gone right through him, with a particular and shaming emphasis in his groin. Fuck’s sake, men were simple creatures. He didn’t even find her attractive. Well, objectively … yes, she was attractive, not remotely his taste, though. Too … too much.
As she tilted at asking for a description of his junk, he emphatically shut her down. As if visualising hate-sex with Bel was going to help anything whatsoever here, except the rate his therapist could charge when he went back to London.
She fell quiet again and Connor felt guilty. He’d said he’d help, he should help.
He took her hand. It was very soft and slightly damp, and he realised he’d been unfair: never thinking for a moment Bel would be nervous. The previous eight minutes of conversation suddenly made sense. They’d been transmitting on different wavelengths ever since they met, he might’ve at last tuned in to a signal he understood: she wanted looking after.
That much he could manage.
He led her into the bar with an air of assertiveness, getting them drinks, fielding inquiries about their identity with a lively confidence. Bel was staring at him as if he’d produced a turtle dove from a top hat.
Had she honestly never worked out that her and Aaron treating him like an unwanted nuisance, laughing about him to bond, might not have brought out the best in him? That you might get back what you give out? Clearly not.
He’d seen a glimpse of a different side to Bel Macauley with the strange episode of the former colleague calling in at Deansgate, a man she evidently couldn’t face.
If she had a stalker– he had to assume it was too great a coincidence that it was part of her invented persona– it didn’t seem at all Bel not to despatch him with some salty home truths.
Ci Vediamo was awash with a kind of hedonism that Connor rarely dipped his toe into anymore, he didn’t doubt there were frequent trips to the restrooms going on. The volume of the music, the units consumed, and the clearly maxed capacity, meant he and Bel were more clinging to each other as if aboard a ship in a storm, than chatting.
‘I’m going to get us a couple of those things,’ Bel said to him, and gestured to a row of dangerously red lowball drinks in the distance, with wedges of watermelon on the rim. These cocktails were on the right hand side of the bar, by the till, and he intuited what Bel meant was ‘getting eyeballs on the iPad area’.
‘Have at it.’
Connor, tipping beer bottle to lips, watched the whirl of the room and felt drunker than he had for a good while. He was single. He’d have to keep repeating this to himself until it sunk in. Dating apps? Oh God no. Going on dates, full stop? Starting again from the beginning? He had no appetite for any of it. There should be a word for the liminal state: not still in a relationship, not yet single. He felt predatory eyes upon him, and deliberately looked away.
Across the room, Bel had been intercepted by a late twenties, hipsterish man with a moustache, stubble and collar-length hair. Not a good combination, Connor thought: worked for Kevin Kline in 1995, and no one else ever. Bel had found an arancini ball and cupped it decorously over a napkin as she despatched it. He liked that she ate with such gusto.
He watched with an academic interest as Moustache Man tried his moves, pretending that the effort of leaning in to hear what Bel was saying required him to unthinkingly put his hand lightly on her waist.
As she spoke animatedly, eyes cast upwards to emphasise a point, his eyes slithered down her chest.
Bel seemed unperturbed and could handle herself, and essentially it was none of his business. Yet, Connor thought, he was meant to be acting like she actually was his girlfriend? By Barking pub rules, he should be ready to throw a chair.
Moustache Man had wiggled his way close enough to accidentally bump chests with her as they both laughed at something, hand then on the small of her back.
Oh, OK, this guy was taking the piss. Connor put his beer down and squeezed a path to them.
‘Need a hand with those, darling?’ Connor said, taking a glass from her and giving a pointed look to her suitor.
‘Nice to meet you,’ Bel said to Moustache Cad, accepting her summons.
Back in their original location, Bel whispered into his ear: ‘Ted’s a waiter here. Good recruit for gossip. The iPad drawer’s not locked. I’ve seen the actual iPad, it’s there.’
‘Oh, that’s why you were flirting with him that hard, was it? That’s your excuse for your Ted Talk? I know which drawers should be locked.’
Bel hooted and Connor grinned and it might be the first genuine laugh they’d shared.
Connor looked round the room, and then at her mouth, no doubt thinking things a lot of people had thought, looking at that mouth. Music pounded. You were a stranger in my phone book …
He slid his hand round her back, pulled her towards him like she was his to manhandle, and kissed her exposed neck, at the curve with her shoulder. He felt Bel’s body go rigid with shock. He had a strong intuition he’d dished her back a version of what he had felt on the way here. It was a sleazy liberty, yes, but he’d been told to.
‘Was that electricity?’ he muttered, as they disentangled.
Bel caught up with the moment and wound her arm round his waist, in a casual gesture of ownership. There was that bolt of lightning in Connor again, and he discreetly shifted so there was no risk of crotches touching. He didn’t want it receiving any missent memos. His senses were still full of the brush of her skin, and the scent of her perfume.
‘Oh God, you’re here! You came! Thank you so much for coming!’ Amber shrieked, suddenly at their side.