CHAPTER FIVE #2
He’d forced himself to refrain from social media hunting.
The urge to find meaning in every like or comment was strong, but he’d managed to override it.
His willpower had not, however, extended to her podcast. He’d listened to every episode.
One while cooking dinner. Another during a run.
They never seemed to be long enough, and so, in an effort to find more, he would watch her interviews on YouTube.
She had chemistry with everyone and it was driving him a little mad.
One male neurologist had made her laugh a little too much and he’d ended up fantasizing about ways to get the man struck off.
All very normal reactions.
As he walked through Fulham, heading for the pub she’d chosen for their interview, he could feel the London weather turning.
The spring which had arrived late was now leaving the party early, ushering in a dry and itchy summer.
The kind of summer that demanded cold drinks with ice in the park, bare feet, and avoiding skyscrapers and the heat they seemed to give off.
The beer garden of the White Horse was rammed by the time Tom arrived, a chef cooking burgers on the barbeque.
He spotted her inside. Leaning up against the long indoor bar, smiling through a conversation with a bartender who smiled right back, mirroring her expression with a great deal of familiarity.
‘Raina?’
She turned and her warm expression faded slightly upon seeing him, and he hated himself for feeling hurt and disappointed about it.
He felt like he knew her a little better, after days of absorbing her words.
He supposed that was how a lot of her listeners felt about her.
He wanted her to smile at him, and he wondered if she’d read his work as well, while he’d been devouring hers.
‘Hello,’ she replied, in a perfectly civil tone. So civil it made him want to beg. ‘We’re over at table thirteen.’
She turned on her heel and walked over to the corner of the pub, settling down in a cushy Chesterfield sofa. Tom sat just across from her, and the bartender she’d been flirting with brought them two chilled glasses and a jug of iced water.
‘Thanks, Marc,’ Raina said sweetly to the man, who beamed at her.
Tom’s eyes flickered between the two of them. ‘Am I interrupting?’
‘Yes,’ Raina said cheerfully. ‘But I can make time for you, Alice.’
There was just enough teasing in her voice to relax him. ‘Sorry to clog up your diary, but I’m like a bloodhound.’
‘Not quite. Bloodhounds are adorable,’ she said, steadily pouring them both some cold water.
She pulled her feet up beneath her and watched him expectantly.
‘Mind if I record this? I can send you transcripts afterwards, of everything you want on the record.’
‘Yes, that will make for fascinating reading,’ she said dryly. ‘Please do that.’
He smirked, placing a Dictaphone upon the low, wooden table beside them. He switched it on and named the date, location and time.
‘And I am here under duress,’ Raina said, leaning down to speak clearly and fervidly into the tiny microphone. He had to fight a laugh.
‘Where were you born?’ Tom asked.
She clucked her tongue and paused before answering. ‘Woodstock, Oxfordshire.’
‘Family?’
‘Allegedly.’
He smiled. ‘What was your family life like?’
‘Fine.’
‘Regular?’
She rolled her eyes at him. ‘I’m neurodivergent. What do you think?’
‘Education?’
‘Isn’t all of this on the internet?’ she asked bluntly. ‘Can’t you fill in these gaps yourself? Besides, I thought this was going to be about the podcast?’
‘Apologies. When did you know you were different?’
He held his breath but her expression softened.
‘Well, when did you know you were neurotypical.’
‘Oh.’ He thought about it, a question he’d never considered before. ‘I always knew, I suppose.’
‘Yes,’ Raina said softly. ‘And I always knew I wasn’t.’
Tom was struck by the simplicity and frankness of it. He watched as she let the silence between them speak for her. He was about to ask her some questions about her work when—
‘I don’t mind your writing, you know.’
He blinked. ‘Oh, really?’
‘I prefer things with a little poetry in them, but for mercenary takedown pieces, yours aren’t bad.’
Tom grinned. ‘I’ve always preferred bluntness to poetry.’
‘The best poetry is blunt.’
‘Your podcast . . .’ He broached a segue and tried to steer the conversation with care. ‘You seem . . . Your fans know you to be a bit of a romantic.’
She smiled, amused by his slight hesitation. ‘A completely hopeless one, yes.’
‘That surprises me.’
‘Why?’
‘I didn’t know that was in vogue these days.’
‘Yes, that’s definitely something I worry about a lot. Seeming on trend. Autistics are really famous for moving with the rest of the herd.’
She was teasing him. Her words were challenging him to laugh. She wasn’t going to give him an inch, he realized. She was minding every syllable with razorlike focus.
‘There just doesn’t seem to be much romance in the world these days.’
Tom said the words flippantly but they caused his interviewee to frown.
She thought for a moment and then glanced around the pub they sat in, with its high ceilings and small chandeliers.
It was beautifully decorated with gold foil on the wallpaper and tinkling crystal on the bar.
Hardwood floors and a fireplace with a glossy mantel.
‘It’s a lens,’ Raina finally said.
‘Pardon?’
‘You have to choose to see it.’
‘Delusion then?’ Tom joshed, not unkindly. ‘La vie en rose?’
‘Of sorts. You have to romanticize life. Not the truly dangerous parts, of course. But the mundane parts. Growing up in Woodstock, I had to walk a mile to get to the right bus stop every morning before school. Now I could have just walked. Head down and detached. Or I could choose to put some sweeping music on and imagine that it was finally the day where everything would change. I was a girl stuck in a tiny town where everyone thought I was a bit strange but that was fine! That’s how so many stories start.
It’s the beginning of the movie. It only means there’s so much better ahead. ’
She shrugged and Tom caught a flash of something defenceless in her face.
‘And sure, most days I was cold and exhausted and nothing changed. Life didn’t have a lot of colour. But the dream was an escape. At least for a little while.’
Tom shook his head. ‘Definitely.’
‘What?’
‘Truly hopeless.’
Her candour disarmed him, though. She was the first person he’d met in a long time who shrugged off cynicism.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘People think I’m strange and that’s all right.
Maybe I am. But. We’re all living on a planet in the middle of an enormous universe, full of dying stars.
And there are billions of us. People will intellectualize wars and conflict.
But the reason all of us are here, the one thing we share with our ancestors, is the fact that we look at other human beings and we want them to look back at us. ’
Tom was staggered by that and had to rummage inside of himself for a remark that would cover the new things he was feeling. ‘Now that is overly romantic. Putting a spin on a mammal’s need to procreate.’
Her eyes lit up at the comment and he had the distinct feeling that he’d unknowingly walked into a trap. Raina edged slightly closer, and he felt his whole body react to the movement. He was painfully aware of how great her hair looked and how long her legs were.
She’s next to me. And I love it. And she can tell.
She’d deliberately moved nearer, and when she spoke, she spoke softly. A tactic that had him instinctively leaning closer to her.
‘I like the way you said “need”.’