Chapter Seventeen #2
‘I’m considered quite the catch,’ he said hotly, stung at the implication that he was too cerebral to have ever known, or wanted, the touch of a woman.
‘I’m sure you are.’ Tess’s mouth twitched as she tried to suppress a smile.
He was a catch. He was intelligent, well-mannered and objectively, if one applied a biometric of physical attributes that constituted conventional attractiveness, Gabe was good-looking.
After all, he had a mirror and in every year’s student intake, there were always a couple of misguided undergraduates who became fixated on him.
Until they had their first essays back or started Gabe’s Introduction to the Stoics module; that was always enough to kill their crushes.
‘I do date,’ he said again.
‘So, you have a girlfriend?’ To Gabe’s suddenly over-sensitive ears Tess sounded as if she pitied the poor woman. ‘Or boyfriend?’
‘Girlfriend. I’m heterosexual,’ Gabe said and he was sure that Tess’s lips had twitched again. ‘That is my sexual orientation. Not that there’s anything wrong with other sexual orientations that other people might have.’
If some kindly passerby were to stop and rip out Gabe’s tongue so he couldn’t say any more words, then that would be fine with Gabe. Just fine.
‘So, do you have a girlfriend right now?’ Tess asked, her face delicately flushing.
She put her shades back on so hastily that they went on crooked and she had to adjust them.
Almost as if she couldn’t bear to make eye contact with Gabe for a second longer.
Probably because he was being such a bumbling fool.
Gabe wouldn’t want to look at himself either.
‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked. I’m being nosy. ’
‘It’s fine,’ Gabe assured her, even though talking about these things, relationships, types, sexual preferences, was quite agonising.
Which was ridiculous. There was nothing agonising about the subject.
After all … ‘Like most mammals, I have a healthy sex drive, but I’m not just a mammal driven by a biological imperative to ensure that the species doesn’t become extinct.
I’m perfectly able to control my impulses during a current hiatus from any physical or emotional attachments given my dual workload. ’
‘I was just …’
‘My belief system has certain Stoic principles at its core and like the Stoics, I value virtue and self-control. You may not be familiar with the writings of Epictetus …’
Tess shook her head. She opened her mouth as if to say something then shut it again, which Gabe took as permission to inform her of exactly what Epictetus had to say about love and relationships.
‘Epictetus believed that everything is temporary as we’re all mortals who will one day die.
Therefore we must accept and embrace the ephemeral nature of love, so that we don’t place huge importance on it and thus become incapacitated by grief when it leaves. ’
‘Yes, but what if love doesn’t leave?’ Tess asked. ‘Like, what if you’ve found your person?’
That was a very pedestrian analysis of what he’d just said but Gabe didn’t point that out, because as a Stoic, he also believed in acting with generosity and empathy.
‘But even if they are “your person”, they will die eventually,’ he said, which actually wasn’t very empathetic at all and the reason that Tess was now looking at him like he’d just outed himself as a serial killer.
‘As Epictetus also said, “What you love is nothing of your own: it has been given to you for the present, not that it should not be taken from you, nor has it been given to you for all time, but as a fig is given to you or a bunch of grapes at the appointed season of the year. But if you wish for these things in winter, you are a fool.” At this precise moment in time, I’m experiencing winter.
Winter is a harsh but necessary season. It represents dormancy, a period of rest and reflection before spring. ’
There was a long silence that stretched before them. Tess’s forehead was all scrunched up as she tested the weight of Gabe’s words. So many bloody words.
‘You know, you could just have said that you were single,’ Tess said flatly because yes, yes, he could have just said that instead of giving her the whole fig speech.
Should Gabe say some more because, again, he didn’t want Tess to think that he was some kind of weird incel? In fact, his celibacy wasn’t involuntary but entirely voluntary. How to say that in a manner that wouldn’t cause alarm?
‘Oh, look! Those people over there are eating chocolate-covered strawberries.’ Tess pointed to a gang of glamorous young women who weren’t so much eating chocolate-covered strawberries as pretending to eat them while they filmed themselves.
‘The stall must be nearby and I need some chocolate-covered strawberries. Like, really need them. I’ve never needed anything like I need a chocolate-covered strawberry right now. ’
Gabe was happy to stop talking about his relationship status, which had never caused him to be that verbose, even pompous, before.
And he was very happy to stop talking about the kind of men who might make Tess’s heart skip a beat.
Yes, he had all the information he needed now and the rest of their walk and talk could pass without incident.
They procured the chocolate-covered strawberries.
Gabe refrained from pointing out that the mark-up on both strawberries and chocolate was positively criminal.
He also refrained from pointing out that Tess had managed to get chocolate around her mouth.
Though it would have been an easy enough matter to rub it away with his thumb. Or his …
He didn’t. Tess was an adult woman who knew eating chocolate-covered strawberries came at its own risk. Which was why she pulled out a mirror from the depths of her bag and repaired the damage herself with a tissue.
And no, Gabe wasn’t envious of that tissue. Not in the least. For him, it was not the season for figs.
‘Oh, that’s where Bridget Jones lived,’ Tess said as they walked past a doorway on their way to the tube.
‘Is she a friend of yours?’ Gabe asked. ‘I don’t think you’ve mentioned her.’ Maybe he hadn’t quite committed every Tess Hardy-related fact to memory.
Tess laughed so hard that she snorted. ‘Are you kidding me?’
‘I’m pretty certain you’ve never mentioned a Bridget. Saskia, yes. The terrifying fashion women with the rhyming names, Chiara and Lara?’
‘Zara,’ Tess corrected, still a little snorty with glee. ‘My bad. You should talk to Ella. I bet she knows who Bridget Jones is.’
‘It really is a small world,’ Gabe marvelled.
He wondered why Tess was still laughing as she waved him off at London Bridge station so she could get the tube home and he could walk to the library, to plan Tess’s speed dating literary love fest. No, not love.
Just a fun, flirty amusement with some characters from books that she would definitely not be seeing again.
Either way, he certainly had his work cut out for him.
The library group chat wasn’t very helpful. It was, however, very mocking.
Gabe Sharma: Avoiding the collected works of Austen and all the Brontes, which novels do we have on the shelves with romantic leads that Tess Hardy might find attractive?
Mona Hadi: No Austen heroes at all? Because Captain Wentworth from Persuasion. He is half agony, half hope, fully hot!
Gabe Sharma: He doesn’t sound at all suitable.
Ella Sharma-Banarjee: I think he’d be perfect for Tess!
Gabe Sharma: I’ve promised her Darcy after the little dating soirée I’ve planned. That’s quite enough Austen to be getting on with. You said fun and flirty, Ella, so please, people, give me some fun and flirty characters. I will then read the novels and see if they meet the criteria.
Patrick O’Rourke: What is the criteria?
Gabe Sharma: Tess and I talked through the criteria. It took the best part of an hour. Too long to go into here.
Gabe Sharma: Seriously, this is like pulling teeth. Names! Give me some names!
Ella Sharma Banarjee: I hope you weren’t this cranky with Tess Hardy.
Gabe Sharma: I was the absolute opposite of cranky.
Ella Sharma Banarjee: I find that very hard to believe.
Finally, Gabe had a reading list and a stack of books on the desk in the back office.
Not even books. Novels.
So it came to pass that for the first time since his English GCSE, Gabe read some novels. Long into the night. To try and find some men who Tess would want to date, even for just ten minutes.
It was a Herculean task. Maybe even Sisyphean.
A week later and he was a shell of the man he used to be. A desiccated collection of skin and bones where once he was flesh and blood.
It turned out that romantic heroes were very thin on the ground. None of the characters recommended were good enough for Tess.
That was the reason that Gabe’s shortlist had very few names on it.
It certainly wasn’t because of the unpleasant and spiky feeling at the back of his neck at the thought of Tess enjoying quality time with Sydney Carton from A Tale of Two Cities or John Thornton from North and South. Even though they were …
No! She definitely wouldn’t like them.