Chapter 49
Rachel
I have paid to take a stall at a county fair, exhibiting my artwork. All day, the autumn sky has been mineral-blue, the air clean and clear as a rockpool.
It’s gone well, but these shows are mostly for browsers. Exhibitions help to raise my profile, getting my name out there and my card into people’s hands, but I rarely come away from them with a pocket full of cash.
I am about to start packing up when a silver-haired man approaches and begins to examine my canvases.
‘So,’ he says, after a short while, turning to face me. ‘Financial services’ loss really is the art world’s gain. Now there’s a sentence I never thought I’d say.’
I frown and smile at the same time, shading my eyes with one hand, trying to get a better look at him.
He is tall and olive-skinned, hair smartly cropped, a pair of sunglasses hooked into his collared shirt.
He looks slightly incongruous in my part of the field; I imagine him feeling far more at home over in the champagne tent.
He smiles back at me, extends a hand. ‘Oliver Danvers.’ He smells suave, of cedar and rainfall, and has immaculately white teeth. His hair colour doesn’t quite tally with the rest of him, in that I wonder if he went grey at an early age.
His name – or is it his voice? – strikes a chord in my brain, but it’s hard to know which one, or why.
As our palms lock, I remember. ‘Oliver Danvers Recruitment?’
‘That’s the one.’
‘We used to talk on the phone—’ I say, then break off, because the women in my department at the bank would always argue over who got to speak to Oliver Danvers when he called, on account of his melted-molasses voice.
We even decided at one point he must have missed his vocation manning phone sex hotlines.
‘We did,’ Oliver says, his smile expanding, so perhaps he’s already aware of the sex hotline thing.
I feel my neck begin to redden slightly. ‘I hope I was impeccably polite.’
‘Oh, you were. In fact, I distinctly remember you giving me the most courteous get lost I’ve ever received.’
I laugh. ‘Sorry. Budgets. You know how it is.’
‘Absolutely.’ His grey gaze grips me. ‘Listen, I’ve got to head off now, but . . . would you fancy going out for a drink some time?’
We meet the following Friday, at a bar in the middle of town.
Oliver says he’s had a tip from Danny, his business development guy, about a place that does next-level cocktails.
Inside, the initial signs are good: it is one of those intimate, lamplit spaces filled with snug leather booths and velvet armchairs, the décor plush and moody.
But when we come to order our drinks, it becomes clear that the broader theme of the bar is essentially . . . well, sex.
The neon wall art, vast gallery of naked-person portraits and exclusively rude cocktail list are all beginning to make sense now. That, and the name of the bar: Sweetlove’s.
‘Danny just said it was retro,’ Oliver says, rubbing his face with one hand, after I’ve encouraged him to see the funny side. ‘He obviously thought this would be the prank of the century. I’m looking forward to Monday.’
I’m amused to notice he has gone slightly pink in the face. ‘So, tell me,’ I ask, ‘how is your Screaming Orgasm?’
He groans. ‘Really bloody good. Annoyingly enough. And your—’ He breaks off and shakes his head. ‘Nope. I can’t even say it.’
‘My Dirty Banana? Delicious.’
He bark-laughs. ‘Oh, God. I am sorry, Rachel. You must think—’
‘Not at all.’ Beneath the table, I nudge my knee against his. ‘I mean, it’s an ice-breaker, if nothing else.’
‘I don’t think we really needed one, but . . . thank God it’s you,’ he murmurs.
I mention Emma at the earliest opportunity, not only because she is my favourite subject, but because I want to eliminate the possibility of any misunderstandings at the outset.
Oliver listens intently, bright-eyed, as I talk about her. Then he says, ‘She sounds wonderful. I adore kids. I’m lucky enough to have two nieces. My sister tells me off for spoiling them rotten, but . . .’
I smile. ‘What else are uncles for?’
Every now and then, as we chat, our hands or legs brush and we share a smile, let our gazes linger.
It is so different from being out drinking with Lawrence, which always felt a bit high-stakes, as if one of us could easily say the wrong thing or misjudge the moment at any point, whereupon the whole night would instantly darken, the mood turning sour and wrong.
But it doesn’t once feel that way with Oliver.
We get another round in. Oliver has relaxed a bit now, orders a Knickerdropper Glory without flinching. I go for a couple of Slippery Nipples, because I haven’t done shots in ages.
‘You know,’ he says at one point, ‘whenever I called your office, I always used to hope the switchboard would put me through to you.’
Our eyes meet, and the memory of his whipped-cream phone voice flows back to me. I feel an irrational twinge of guilt now, for always having passed him on to one of my salivating single colleagues.
I knock back my first shot. ‘Okay. Return confession. The women in my department used to fight over who got to speak with you, whenever you called.’
Oliver appears, understandably, fairly delighted by this. He leans back against the booth we’re in, stretching out his long legs. He is wearing a designer shirt, but somehow it looks much less ostentatious on him than I suspect it would on Lawrence. ‘And were you . . . one of them?’
I shake my head apologetically. ‘Sorry. I was married.’
Actually, that’s not quite accurate, I should add. I’m still married.
‘Tell me about him. Emma’s father.’
I open my mouth to correct him, then change my mind. I’m not sure why, exactly. ‘We rushed things. Don’t get me wrong – I wouldn’t change having Emma for the world. But Lawrence and I . . . we were never a great match.’
‘It happens,’ he says sympathetically. ‘But hey – you got your beautiful little girl, right?’
I agree with a smile. ‘I take it you never had any of your own? Kids, I mean.’
‘Ah, no. I always wanted to – just never met the right person, I guess.’ He smiles too, but a little wistfully. ‘Or maybe I did, but not at the right time. It’s a funny thing, getting older, isn’t it?’
I push a sudden pulse of Josh from my mind. ‘You can’t be much older than me.’
‘Forty-two? And obviously, I know that’s not old. But still. The idea that I might never have kids of my own . . .’ He shakes his head. ‘It’s just a bit weird.’
‘I get that. I thought the same once, too.’
He looks pensive. ‘So, what you’re saying is, don’t give up?’
‘Sorry,’ I say, feeling chastened. ‘Didn’t mean to patronise.’
‘No, gosh, you didn’t. I genuinely can’t hear that enough.’
I wonder, suddenly, if this is his deal-breaker: that he wants to have kids.
If that is his red line, dating-wise. I can’t probe him on it, though.
We have done nothing more than share some erotically themed drinks.
It would feel way too presumptuous to ask if I should walk away now, because one day he will want to start a family – and I cannot promise him that I will, too.
It’s simply not something I’ve had to think about, ever since having Emma and splitting up with Lawrence.
But there is something I need to make clear – even at the risk of firmly killing the mood. I should put my cards on the table, Oliver. I’m not really looking for anything at the moment. I’m just so busy, with work and my daughter . . .
Because that, actually, is the truth. I just can’t picture how I would find the time to fit a relationship into my life as it stands.
Something else is also true, though. Which is that I do not, in fact, want to say any of that right now. Because I have really missed dressing up and drinking silly cocktails and flirting with a handsome man and feeling desired.
Later, in the cold at the cab rank, Oliver kisses me, his lips laced with Kahlúa and raspberry from the cocktails. He slips a hand through my hair, ribboning it between his fingers, his body inching in as the kiss starts to deepen.
I have missed my moment, I realise, to warn him I am everything he is not looking for. I should have been upfront about that from the start. But I wonder, now, if it even matters. If we might not have ended up doing this anyway.
Three taxis come and go, and I’m chilled to the bone by the time I eventually make it home. But for the rest of the weekend I cannot stop smiling, and checking my phone.