Chapter 6
Ash
If Ash were to try and describe her first forty-eight hours in Lisbon, she’d have to consult a thesaurus.
Amazing does not even begin to do the heavy-lifting of vocabulary required.
Nor does astonishing, incredible, exhilarating, cool, badass, breathtaking, staggering, surprising, awesome or humbling.
The Romans knew what they were doing when they first settled in Lisbon atop the seven hills overlooking the majestic Tagus River.
The blazing creamy light glints off its cobblestoned streets, faded glamour of centuries-old watering holes that still exist in their limestone-finished edifices, and the sparkling river views appear when you’re least expecting them.
Lisbon might be one of Europe’s oldest cities, but there is a modern beating heart beneath its romantic facade – and Ash is impressed by all of it.
Although, it must be noted that it is easier to be impressed by a city where you’ve been welcomed in and feel like you have friends already than by a city that feels lonely in its aloneness.
But that’s exactly what Ash has. Friends!
Well. Kind of. People to talk with, anyway, faces she recognises who now recognise her.
Ash is proud. ‘I feel like before this weekend I didn’t even know my shoulders were up permanently around my ears,’ she continues, snapping a breadstick in half and dipping it in whatever creamy pink sauce is beside the butter.
‘There was this moment in the art museum this morning where I sat in front of a painting and just looked at it, for ages, because obviously I do not have anywhere to be, lol.’ (She actually says lol out loud.
It’s a bad habit, and one she cannot break.) ‘And I suddenly became aware of all this tension just leaking away from my back, my jaw … and now I can’t un-feel it.
I’m all, loosey-goosey!’ To emphasise her point Ash tips her head from side to side quickly and then laughs.
‘Have you been drinking?’ Willow asks, but not unkindly. She’s smiling, happy for her best friend.
Ash has been yapping away ten to the dozen, uninterruptedly, for about fifteen minutes, not a single detail left unexplained as she tries to unpick how it’s possible to feel this … contented. Yeah. She feels content. Ash drains the dregs of her wine glass as answer – of course that isn’t it.
‘Very good!’ applauds Willow, messy red hair filling the frame. ‘I’m so pleased! Oh, babe, this is exactly what I wanted for you.’
‘I know, I know,’ says Ash. ‘I just didn’t know to want it for myself.
But after that bumpy first morning it’s all been great.
Part of me thinks that I needed that woman to be horrible to me so that I could like, stick two fingers up at her and double down on figuring out how to really go for it, you know? ’
‘I do, actually,’ nods Willow. ‘I hate that she made you cry, but it got you talking to this Luis guy quicker. Maybe you would have ended up going for pizza and drinks with everyone on Friday night anyway, but it does sound like that coffee with him really speeded things up in terms of meeting the others at CoLab. Not that he did that out of pity. Just … he’s looked after you and that’s nice! ’
‘No idea what anyone else’s name is,’ Ash giggles, remembering fragments all over again.
‘And like I say, I mostly sit there and listen as everyone else talks – but it is enough. It feels like being part of something, and now I know their faces and a bit about them I feel less stupid about bumping into them in the mess or whatever. Like, I had a good twenty minutes with one of the girls before I came out today. And I didn’t feel embarrassed or pathetic for saying I was heading out on my own? ’
‘Yeah, because you’ve had all that human interaction, and actually a solo art gallery and boozy lunch doesn’t feel sad when you’ve been with people the whole rest of the time. Not to put words in your mouth,’ Willow adds quickly.
‘I am thankful for your words!’ Ash counters.
‘You’re helping me make sense of it all!
And you’re right. Being billy no-mates and doing everything alone isn’t the same as having company and then going out alone for a bit as a choice.
’ Ash sighs, happily. ‘I might genuinely be able to do this, Willow. If it’s this easy to make friends and just be, three months doesn’t feel as—’
‘Daunting?’
‘Exactly. I guess I could stand to work on actually contributing to conversations, but it’s hard when there’s ten of you around a table and they all know each other.’
‘You did conversation this morning, don’t forget!
’ Willow reminds her. ‘You’re doing great.
Don’t plot yourself on an improvement graph, for god’s sake.
This isn’t an appraisal or feedback session on how well you’re doing and where you’d like to take your personal development next.
In fact, because you need boundaries and rules, how about the boundary and rule is this: Ashley Jane Davis, your work so far in Lisbon has been impeccable.
You are a high-achieving team player who understands the value of cultivating resilience in the face of mean bitches with an attitude problem.
Moving forward, we’d love to see you continuing to engage your spontaneity, and far from this yielding specific, measurable results, the key performance indicator in this instance will be a lack of metrics. Enjoy!’
Ash laughs. What can she say? She’s a data nerd who believes in well-defined deliverables on a strict and well-considered timeline.
On the occasion of her sabbatical, though, she can potentially see the value of simply doing what feels good – now that she’s three days, two social events and a cheeseboard for lunch in, the point of being here is clearer.
‘Understood,’ Ash nods. ‘Thank you. I love you. I have endless gratitude for you forcing me here, despite what I’ve said for the past six weeks when I’ve complained.’
Willow puts her hands together in front of her heart and bows. ‘Namaste,’ she says. ‘Oh! And obviously I need a photo of this hot Luis guy, and wholeheartedly encourage the climbing of him like a tree.’
Ash giggles again. ‘I can’t say I haven’t already thought about that,’ she admits.
Once Willow has rung off, Ash can’t help but let her thoughts linger on him.
On Luis. They’d not sat near each other at the pizzeria or at the bar, but he’d kept looking over at her, as if keeping an eye.
She liked it, the paternal-esque distance, knowing he was there if she needed him.
And to be stared at across a crowded room?
Hot, too. Everyone wanted to talk to Luis, to be in his orbit, to be near him and under the heady, intoxicating rays of his attention, and yet despite the veritable smorgasbord of people in his constant immediate vicinity, Luis’s eyes sought out her.
Since she broke up with Simon two years ago – or, rather, Simon broke up with her because he just needed to ‘find himself’ and by ‘find himself’ he meant get engaged to somebody else within six months – Ash has historically read into things a little too much, misread the intentions, or level of interest, from men and ended up coming off as ‘crazy’ or ‘obsessed’.
It’s as if men can sense her eagerness for a family, and very few appreciate it.
Willow says the right one will, that there’s nothing wrong with being upfront about not being here to mess around.
Still. It seems to Ash like you find the father of your children by pretending you’re not even bothered about children in the first place.
With Luis, there’s a power reversal. She’s certain she can’t be making the vibe up – and what’s more, she’s downplaying it and he’s the one stoking its fire.
There was a moment yesterday, when everyone was playing table football and hanging out in the mess, when he popped into CoLab – it was his day off, and he popped in!
– a hand resting on her hip lightly as he leaned in to ask, ‘How are you feeling about being a beautiful woman in my beautiful city today? Has she made you fall in love yet?’ He looked at her with those Seth Cohen-coded eyes, and it launched somersaults in her lower pelvis, a beating in the space below her mound of Venus, that made her slick with immediate want.
‘I’m certainly understanding the appeal,’ Ash answered, coyly, later mentally high-fiving herself for playing it exactly right. The way his eyes flashed with outrageous thoughts. She saw it. Ash knew the game was afoot.
She sits back in her chair and lets out a sigh.
She’d thought adventure wasn’t meant for her, that she wasn’t worthy of nice things like flirting with foreign men, and mooching around galleries in far-off cities, and eating pizza or playing table football with a group of new friends aged eighteen to forty-six, one big gang all together.
This is a moment worth marking, to remember if it ever does get hard (not that she thinks this is fleeting!
This could be her new default state, this contentedness!
Maybe!) that she made this happen. Ash had leapt – OK, had been pushed by Willow – and life had caught her.
It had taken weeks, even months, to capitulate to Willow’s insistence that she take this sabbatical, do something for herself, by herself, but what does the run-up to the jump mean when the freefall is this heady?
‘Excuse me,’ Ash finds herself saying, leaning across the table to catch the attention of the only other person sitting outside the restaurant.
When did everybody else finish and leave?
Ash wonders. She hadn’t noticed. She hopes it wasn’t because she took the call on her phone – she thought she’d spoken discreetly, using her earbuds and all.