Chapter 53
Rachel
One evening close to Christmas, Oliver and I have just got home from a night out with Giles and Lola when he says, ‘Can I ask you something? It’s about Josh.’
I make us both a mint tea while Oliver switches on a lamp, flips through my CDs. There is no jazz, so he picks blues, an album that probably once belonged to Lawrence.
Oliver and Josh met for the first time in the pub a couple of nights ago. Just briefly, while we were all at the bar. An encounter so fleeting that neither of us even mentioned it afterwards.
But Josh texted that night, to let me know exactly what he thought of Oliver. I read his messages, surprised to see they were uncharacteristically acerbic, then deleted them straight away.
‘Giles mentioned something earlier, about Josh being twenty-nine,’ Oliver says from the sofa, as I pass him his tea. ‘I said I thought he was your age, then he got all flustered and told me to talk to you about it.’
I sit down next to him. It’s actually surprising, to be honest, that all this hasn’t come out before tonight, given that we’ve been seeing each other for nearly three months now.
‘You’re thirty-seven,’ Oliver prompts, as if he thinks I might have forgotten.
‘I know,’ I say, with a loose smile.
‘Okay, I mean, hardly an enormous age gap,’ he says slowly. ‘But there’s obviously something going on here. Can you fill me in?’
So I do, because it’s only fair. I tell him everything, apart from where Josh got the pill.
Oliver listens intently the whole time I’m talking, never taking his eyes off me. When I’m done, he leans back on the sofa and clips out a breath, loosens his shirt collar. ‘So Josh is actually your age, chronologically. But he looks twenty-nine, and will do for the rest of his life?’
‘Yep.’
‘Wow. Talk about a head-fuck.’ He glances over at me. ‘That’s why you left?’
I nod.
‘You should have stayed. Had yourself a toy-boy.’
I swallow. ‘That’s not funny.’
There’s a slight chill to the air now. I reach to the back of the sofa, pull Emma’s Peppa Pig blanket over my knees.
‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘Look, for what it’s worth, I actually agree with your stance. You’d be mad to take a pill like that. I can’t think of anything more horrifying than living indefinitely, frankly.’
I don’t comment on this. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before.’
‘Why didn’t you, out of interest?’
I’m not even sure myself.
I had told him Josh was my first love. But not what it meant.
I shrug softly. ‘It’s a difficult thing to know how to explain. And it caused a few issues, with Lawrence. I didn’t want it to cause any with us.’
He appears to consider this. ‘Honesty’s a real thing for me, Rachel. With my last girlfriend—’
‘I know, and I’m sorry.’ Heart contracting with guilt, I reach for his hand, take it tightly in mine. ‘It just felt easier not to tell you at first, and then—’
‘Or maybe you thought we would never come to anything.’
I recoil a little, my hand loosening.
‘Sorry. Sorry. That was . . .’ Briefly, he shuts his eyes. ‘I guess this is all just a bit . . . I mean, the man’s hardly a one out of ten, is he?’
This surprises me. Oliver’s always struck me as fairly robust on that front, not prone to self-doubt, or lacking confidence in his appearance.
‘Looks aren’t everything,’ I say, then feel instantly bad, prepare to gabble a backtrack.
He doesn’t appear to have taken offence, though. ‘True. And you know what they say. Your first love is never your true love.’
I’ve never heard that before. But I don’t tell him so.
‘So, do you really think the pill has worked?’
I stare into my tea, permitting myself to briefly picture Josh, that stopped clock gifting him with the same taut skin and bright eyes, lean build and dark hair as he had nearly a decade ago. ‘Yes, I think so.’
‘Can I ask you something?’
‘Of course.’
‘If Josh found a way to reverse the effects of it, what would you do?’
Oliver’s storm-grey eyes are fixed on me, unblinking. It’s clear I cannot risk hesitating, a pause of any kind.
‘Nothing. I wouldn’t do anything. It’s you I want, Oliver.’
‘You’re sure about that?’
‘I’m sure,’ I murmur before leaning forward, putting my lips to his. ‘I’m sure, and I’m sorry.’
Oliver is, I have discovered, an old-school romantic.
He likes to kiss in cinemas and parks, linger in art galleries with our arms snaked around each other.
We go to see live blues and jazz bands, eat fish and chips by the river.
Often I fall asleep by his side, my head on his shoulder.
He drops food to my doorstep, if it’s late and I have Emma, and I thank him with a kiss, my back against the brickwork, that singular pleasure of wanting him, yet knowing I have to wait.
I spend much of my time like this, longing for more of him.
Once or twice he has called late at night, to tell me he’s been thinking about me.
And we talk a little, the conversation slowly growing heated and intimate.
Then, after we hang up and I am alone in bed, I find myself unable to stop thinking of him, too.
It’s funny, really. That the running joke in my office about Oliver’s phone voice has become – quite out of nowhere – my reality.
Not long after Christmas, I introduce him to Emma.
He has asked to meet her before, but up till now I’ve said no.
I’m pretty sure my only hesitation comes from knowing what is at stake here.
Emma is deep-feeling and sensitive, and, if she and Oliver don’t hit it off, I’m not sure how he and I could ever continue.
It’s felt less risky, so far, to keep them apart.
In the end, though, the occasion of their meeting turns out to be beautifully unexceptional. We arrange for him to come over one night between Christmas and the new year. And he handles the whole thing perfectly. From the moment he walks through the door, Emma accepts him as a friend.
We watch Beauty and the Beast, the three of us cosy on the sofa, sharing a bowl of popcorn.
Oliver asks Emma lots of affable questions about pre-school and her favourite teachers, books she likes to read, her swimming classes and what she got for Christmas.
She tells him about my dad, and the balance bike he gave her, and what we ate for breakfast on Christmas Day – piles of pancakes, towering with toppings, which she’s been talking about in roughly five-minute increments ever since.
The next morning, Emma and I find Oliver in the kitchen, flipping pancakes. He asks her what toppings she would like, and she suggests marshmallows, Nutella and banana. Oliver agrees this is an excellent combination.
I stand and watch them for a few moments, my new boyfriend and my daughter, having a conversation I know she will never remember. But one that I will, for the rest of my life.
For the first time in a long while, I feel my heart relax.
It’s all going to work out.
Just stay away from Josh, I think, and everything will be okay.