Chapter 2 #2
I smiled wide enough to make my face hurt. He’d been my biggest champion through school and college, and he’d always managed to say the right thing.
“Seriously, Rosie, you should be in an editorial somewhere.”
I laughed, shaking my head, high on seeing him again because he was still Carter. He even smelled the same. “You look no different.”
“Just a bit older. Maybe wiser – I’ll let you assess that.”
We sat down at the table, the waiter taking my coat, my hat shoved up the sleeve like I’d been doing since I was five.
“How was the flight?” Starter question for ten.
“Long. Tiring until I fell asleep which took half an hour. I slept through everything after that, then got home from the airport and slept for another twelve hours so I should be wide awake now.” He ran his fingers through his hair which was always incredibly messy.
“I think I’m recovering from some sort of trauma. ”
“Maybe you need a psychologist?”
He laughed, eyes shining. “I probably need a psychiatrist and several months of medication. Honestly, it’s been a rollercoaster.”
“What’s been happening?”
He toyed with the menu, looking at the list of dishes rather than me.
Carter’s face was still the same, features you associated with models of hiking wear, groomed but with a hint of athlete. There was the usual slight stubble, a sculpted nose and cheekbones, and his thick, messy sandy hair that was difficult to tame, not that he usually bothered to try.
“Work. My parents – who are now in Kenya setting up a hospital, life stuff. This already feels like a break.”
“You needed to escape?”
He nodded, eyes back on me. “I guess so. I always intended on coming back here anyway, it’s just sooner than planned, I suppose.”
“Why now then?”
“The stars aligned. The job here is a good opportunity and I get to work with Heath Danson – he’s surgeon in the same field who’s the top of his game.
I can learn from him before he retires. The house here was empty, and my parents aren’t going to come back, so there was the possibility of selling it – I like that house so me living back here stops that.
” He shot me a smirk, knowing that I loved that house too. “I’d sell it you though.”
“I don’t think my savings would stretch that far.” Which was definitely true. I was fortunate that I had money and a family who would support me, but not to that extent, even if they had an emotional connection to it too.
“I don’t think many people’s would do. But it’ll have me as its tenant for a bit longer.
How are things with you? What about your Siamese quads?
” He referred to Harriet, Erin and Fallon.
We’d had a year or two where you wouldn’t see one of us without at least one of the others, which had sometimes annoyed Carter.
“Harriet’s moving to Stratford-Upon Avon in another couple of months. Erin’s just the same as ever – I think it’s quite serious with her boyfriend -”
“The same one she’s been with since university?”
I nodded. “The same one. I think they’re just together out of habit though.”
We were interrupted by the waiter to take our drinks order, and I used the opportunity of Carter’s attention not being on me to study him further.
He’d aged, like we all had. Gone was the boyishness from when he was a teen and in his twenties, and there was now an element of authority that came from his job.
You had to have a degree of God-given arrogance to be able to do the sort of surgery Carter did.
His shoulders were tense, which was new.
The air of relaxed confidence no longer hung around him, and I wondered if that was because he’d grown up or because of whatever he'd been living through recently.
“Harriet moving away from London’s going to be a big thing for you, isn’t it?” he said, once the waiter had headed off.
“Huge. Things would change at some point anyway, and this is a really good job opportunity.” I perused the food menu; aware he was studying me like I’d just studied him.
I wondered what he’d notice, the fine lines that were new around my eyes, the length of my hair because I’d decided to see how long I could grow it, the muscle I’d put on after making the gym part of my routine.
“What about you? How’s work and your family?”
“Work’s good. I’m in the right position for me at the moment and my case load’s fascinating.
The family is chaos as normal. They’ve said for you to come with me to Oxford for Max’s birthday, if you’re free.
It’s two weeks on Saturday.” My parents had been pleased to hear Carter was back.
They’d both adored him, partly because he was better at helping me with my maths homework than either of them, but also because he'd always looked after me. He was at the parties I went to when I was sixteen or so; he always made sure I got home safely, although I was capable of looking after myself because I wasn’t keen on alcohol, and I had a habit of just up and leaving a place if I’d had enough without necessarily telling anyone.
Carter developed a sixth sense about it, and would usually find me and stop me from wandering around dark streets of London late at night.
“Are you still seeing that bloke?”
I shook my head. “That fizzled out ages ago. What about you? Single still?” Carter had liaisons and dates, sometimes repeats, but I’d not learned the name of any girlfriend in the last few years.
“It’s complicated. I can’t believe you’re single.” He looked perplexed. “Not that I think you need to be with someone – I’m not saying that.”
“I don’t consider myself to have been left on the shelf.” My look was disdainful. “I like being single.”
“No consultants sniffing around?”
“Nope. Or if they are, I haven’t noticed.”
“You’re not looking to start seeing anyone?”
I shrugged, curious about his questions. “I’m not on any dating apps. If I meet someone, I meet someone.”
“So Rory didn’t make a reappearance then?”
I stiffened, glad that the waiter appeared with our drinks. I still didn’t react well to hearing Rory’s name. I’d had a patient on the ward also called Rory, and I’d hoped that would’ve recontextualised the name, but it didn’t.
“I don’t even know what he’s doing now.” I made no attempt to find out either. Rory was fixed in my past, along with a lot of heartache that I didn’t want to relive. I felt stupid for wasting my time on him, but my therapist head told me I’d benefit from the experience going forward.
“I keep an eye on him.” Carter looked away from me, his expression stony. He’d never liked Rory, at one point distancing himself because he told me he was afraid I’d never forgive him if he told Rory exactly what he thought of him.
I’d been too smitten to explore it then, keeping in touch with Carter via text and through other people.
In the year or so after Rory and I had split, Carter and I had become close again, picking our friendship up where we’d left off with no I told you sos or interrogation.
We just moved on and didn’t talk about how I’d been heartbroken.
“You stalk his socials?” I tried to sound light-hearted.
He nodded. “Something like that. What do you fancy ordering? I think the waiter’s on his way.”
We discussed food choices, the weather in London and what was on at the theatres, and we fell straight back into a familiar rhythm where we could talk about almost anything and nothing at all.
I’d missed him, felt better knowing he was back living close by as if my jigsaw was finally complete, and I wondered what that meant.
“Do you think you’ll have dessert?” He put the menu down and looked serious.
“Will you?”
Carter shook his head. “Such a psychotherapist – answering a question with a question. We both know I’m not going to order dessert.” He patted his stomach, which I suspected would still be ribbed with muscle, like it had since he’d been nineteen.
“Which means I need to order one of the large ones so you can share. Then it doesn’t count.” It was the most ridiculous way around things.
“That would make me happy, Rose.”
We both burst out laughing, the words exactly what a creepy boy in Carter’s year had used to say to me to try and get in my pants.
Note: they never worked.
We ate, shared dessert, and had a glass of champagne before Carter picked the up bill with a promise from me to get it next time.
“I’ll go home via yours,” he said as we exited.
“Why? You live five minutes from here.” And it was numbingly cold, the sort of chill that didn’t usually take over London. Snow was forecast in the next couple of days, which again, was unusual.
“I’m wide awake and I feel like looking round London. I’ve missed it. I didn’t realise how much until I got back.”
We walked by the Thames for a bit, my place a good hour and half walk from Borough Market, but twenty or so minutes on the Tube. A few people were out running or dog walking, one or two crowds of huddled kids and tourists, braving the cold night.
We took the clipper, the taxi boats that run along the Thames, at London Bridge, Carter wanting to sit outside for a better view than through streaked windows.
I squashed myself close to him, wanting the warmth, feeling like I did when I was nineteen and we were on our way back from watching Twelfth Night, Carter the only person I could persuade to go with me, as the rest of my friends and family were heathens.
Which I obviously told them.
“I always like this bit of the Thames best.”
We’d passed Greenwich, the river wider here, the history of the city painted on walls and architected across the silhouettes of buildings.
The old and new stood shoulder to shoulder by the Thames, buildings from centuries ago held the sky up alongside glass skyscrapers and brutalist concrete.
If I had an afternoon to myself, I’d take the Clipper up and down the Thames, dazing at the city that never stopped moving, the numerous bridges holding the north and south banks together, whether they liked it or not.