Chapter 40
40
‘Do you know about Connor’s colleague committing suicide? He leapt out of a window? He’d lost millions on a deal? Absolutely horrific,’ Shilpa said, as they tottered up Oldham Street, arm in arm, anticipating shoes off and kettle on.
‘Oh, yes. Have you been in your Emily Maitlis mode?’ Bel said.
Shilpa’s ability to turn small talk into a searching interview was well established.
‘You know that Connor wrote and delivered the eulogy to like, two hundred people? No one else at his company would do it because they were bastards and Eli wasn’t well liked. Connor did it for Eli’s parents and sister’s sake, and it was so moving and well written that everyone applauded.’
‘He told you this, did he? Bit self-aggrandising …?’
‘No!’ Shilpa said, genuinely stung on his behalf, ‘Well yes, in that I asked “what did they think of it” and Connor said: “I think it was OK because they clapped and cried but I’ve not been to enough funerals to know if that happens often.” He still goes to see Eli’s parents every couple of months.’
‘Hmmm. I’m glad if Connor Adams has a higher self– shame we’ve had so much of his lower self.’
Yet as she said it, Bel felt shabby. His brother’s input had mattered. Even she had to admit at this point the books more than balanced: Connor might not be to her taste, but he had his virtues.
‘Why are you so hard on him?!’ Shilpa said, then stopped in her tracks. She turned to Bel, eyes wide: ‘Oh.’
‘What?’
‘ Oh.’
‘Oh no– NO,’ Bel shrieked, seeing Shilpa’s sparkling delight. ‘No no no no. Shilpa. That is a conspiracy theory on a par with the CIA building The Pyramids.’
‘I can’t believe I haven’t seen it until now! You don’t hate him, you hate your boner for him!’
‘You are a rank fantasist and delusional romantic who has seen La La Land way too many times.’
They resumed walking.
‘So if Connor said, “Isabel Hilda Macauley …”’
‘If you tell him my middle name I will fucking kill you, can we be clear?’
‘… if he said, “Bel, this pretending to be together. Turns out I feel it for really real , I’m in mad love …”, you’d feel nothing ?’
‘I’d think, all things considered, he was pranking me.’
‘Oh my God, stop dodging! If he just said, “OK, surprise, you’re hot, I’m hot, I’ve got an idea, before I leave, you bounce on it all night long ” you’re telling me you’d feel nothing?!’
Bel flashed back to That Look earlier. Her insides started to liquefy. It felt like … a dare. He was daring her.
Bel cleared her throat. ‘It’d feel like being challenged to a duel.’
After Connor ordered the one-for-the-roads they’d regret tomorrow back at the hotel, Shaun said: ‘That was a great evening, I don’t know what you were grousing about. Your journalist Girl Friday, “thorn in your side”, by the way? She’s dream woman material.’
‘Bel Macauley?’ Connor said, ‘ Bel Macauley’s a dream woman? A cheese dream more like.’
‘Funny, smart, ambitious. Very cute. Seems a genuinely nice person. Literally, only some sour old direct competitor in her professional field could find fault.’
‘Oh, haha. Bel’s pretty, I’ll give you that. And nice company for an evening. But add: frequently dresses for work like she’s plotting to climb a motorway gantry, full of herself, sarky, exhausting. The hubris of being born with a silver spoon. I promise you, the distaste is wholly mutual.’
‘You two really get across each other that much?’
‘She and her sycophantic sidekick Aaron needlessly opened hostilities with me on day one because she’s imperious, conceited and arrogantly thought she had me sussed out on sight. She’s too used to men going giddy at the Bel Macauley schtick. The scruffy, sweary indie movie heroine thing, Aubrey Plaza in Parks and Recreation . My polite indifference to her appeal was reconfigured as me being a pompous wanker.’
‘She was very interested in you.’
‘I bet. The way a boxer wants to know their opponent’s weaknesses.’
Connor had deliberately snapped back before his real reaction could settle on his face.
Bel had started to provoke a new emotion: insecurity. He’d hedged and caveated her invite tonight to make declining easy, as he’d wanted to be absolutely sure she wanted to come.
And That Look she was giving him, what was that about? He’d glanced up and she was unexpectedly staring at him with this … discontentment … and if it didn’t sound insane, which it did … longing?
It gave Connor a feeling he’d not had since he was a kid in the school gymnasium, and someone had hard-pushed him off the climbing frame onto the crash mat. He could’ve looked away but he chose not to. If she wanted something from him, she could let him know.
He wanted her to let him know.
‘You think she lacks integrity?’ Shaun said. ‘Would she turn you over?’
‘No! Not at all,’ Connor said, recalling the good turn she did him with Toby. ‘Annoyingly.’
This was why he’d dodged: he didn’t actually know what he thought of her.
‘Well, I don’t know why or how you’ve turned her into Irene Adler to your Sherlock then. She’s the most intriguing person you’ve introduced me to in forever,’ Shaun said.
‘Ugh. If I’d known you’d take to her I’d never have risked introducing you. This is like annoyance squared.’
Their drinks arrived. Shaun paused with glass to lips and made the face he always made before he dropped one of his ‘et tu, Brute?’ lines.
‘I put it to you that the only thing you don’t like about her is that you don’t think she likes you.’