Chapter 30
Now
Cian meets me at the Tube station and immediately puts his arms out for me to step into. I nuzzle in and encourage him to hold me tight as the waves of stress leave my body.
‘Why do you like being squeezed so much?’ he asks.
‘It relaxes me.’
‘Have you not felt relaxed this week?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because,’ I say, not wanting to let go.
‘Because what?’
We have exchanged messages through the week though haven’t seen each other as he been on a training course. I kept wanting to call him, like I used to, but felt I didn’t have that privilege anymore and needed to work back up to it.
‘I’ve missed you,’ I say.
‘Really?’
‘Yes.’ When I step back to study him, he looks away.
We head towards Battersea Park, and I try to enjoy being with him despite a feeling of unease.
I thread my arm through his and listen while he complains about cycling home in the rain and how he can’t wait to be the type of British person who has a second home in Malaga.
When I laugh, he raises his eyebrows. ‘What’s with the fake laugh? ’
‘I don’t have a fake laugh.’
‘You do. It’s that sound you make that’s worse than your real laugh.’ He pulls me into his side, playfully, yet something about it feels forced.
The trees are almost bare, and leaves sit in black mulchy piles on the ground, yet people walk with their fat coats flung over arms and children scooter past in T-shirts.
‘I’m sorry about last week,’ I say.
‘You don’t have to keep apologising. It’s not a big deal.’ He undoes his coat then mumbles, ‘Why is it so warm?’
‘It’s a heat dome; it’s a climate change thing.’
The rain comes then, one of those sudden onset showers that blows in on a breeze and immediately make the temperature drop. We seek cover under a small evergreen, and once beneath the canopy of thick waxy leaves turn in and for the first time today, really face each other.
Cian studies me then blinks away. ‘Was this forecast?’
‘I’m not sure.’
His shoulders slump as he exhales.
‘You okay?’ I ask.
‘Course.’ He stares out at the rain and checks the weather on his phone. ‘Has Eric managed to put an offer down on anything yet?’
‘Not yet. He’s being quite indecisive. It’s driving me mad. Every time I think I should go with him, he drags his feet, which makes me feel unsure too.’
‘Moving out of London is a big decision. You sure you want to go that far?’
‘It’s half an hour from Clapham Junction,’ I say quickly. ‘If I do go, I’ll still be in London all the time, for work. And to see you.’
His smile is tight.
When we accept the weather is unlikely to change, we head towards the covered comfort of the shopping centre.
Cian slows by the window of the Rolex shop and stares in as if genuinely considering making a purchase.
I watch without comment, the same way I do when he stops to read every restaurant window menu.
I try for small talk, we both do, but frequently fall silent, listening instead to the echo of small handbag dogs as they yap at each other across the dark concourses.
How can somewhere with so much glass be so dark? Perhaps there’s no light to be let in. I catch him looking at me, yet annoyingly saying nothing and I lift my palms as if to say, What?
‘I’m not doing anything,’ he says.
‘You keep staring at me.’
‘I’ve always stared at you. I just don’t hide it anymore.’
‘So, staring, is this your kink?’
His laugh causes him to shake his head disparagingly.
‘What other kinks do you have?’
The way he outright ignores my flirting reminds me of when we first met. I trail him into a clothes shop and watch as he pulls out bales of jeans. ‘I’m not interested in being your next Ikenna.’
Well, that came out of nowhere. I don’t even know what that means.
Cian drops his voice. ‘It’s not like now we sleep together, that’s all we do.’
‘No?’ I mock. ‘I’ve been tricked.’
He glares at me then messily stuffs the jeans back.
For so long all I wanted was Cian, and now I have him, it feels almost too much, being in his gaze and arms, being faced with his expectations and questions. It feels like I’m not ready.
I stare at the ads on the wall of skinny sun-drenched models looking deliriously happy in their jeans. ‘I miss the sun,’ I say.
‘Book a holiday then.’
‘Maybe. Next year.’
‘What’s on your list?’ he asks, only half invested in the subject change.
‘Somewhere close. I’ve done lots of the faraway places but I’ve never been to Barcelona or Paris or even Dublin.’
‘There’s no sun in Ireland, Zoe.’
I step closer to him. ‘Did you use to go a lot?’
‘Every summer.’
‘Yeah?’ I prod, hoping to get him talking, to cheer him up. ‘Did you like it?’
‘It always rained, and we always felt so alien next to our full Irish cousins. Still, I loved it. Being somewhere different. My sister has always been obsessed with travelling. When she got her first job, she took me on this package holiday to Greece and we stayed in the cheapest, shittiest hotel, yet we acted like we were seeing the world.’ He stops to check the price tag of a top.
‘I really wanted to travel but after uni I was in so much debt, I went straight to working and carried on. Stupid. I should have gone abroad to work.’
‘You’re romanticising it. Working abroad can be tough. Especially with the culture shock and loneliness. The money’s not as great as you think it is either.’
Cian sighs. His mood is hard to take today.
‘It’s difficult to find good international roles doing what I do. You could get a marketing job anywhere.’ He drops his eyes while flicking through a rail of shirts.
‘Yeah, because I love marketing so much.’
‘Or you could go back into teaching. Then you really could go anywhere in the world.’
‘Travelling feels like something you do in your twenties.’
‘Please don’t talk about what you’re meant to be doing with each decade of your life,’ he scoffs. ‘I don’t need to be reminded how off track I am.’ He keeps trying to rehang a shirt, but the hanger gets stuck and eventually he gives up.
Is this what relationships are, walking around a shopping centre buying nothing while it tips down outside and neither of you are in the right mood for any of it?
‘I didn’t think I’d be here, at this age,’ he says.
Not this again. ‘Why are you so negative about ageing? Besides, I’m the one with the big birthday coming up, the one with the biological clock.’ Immediately this feels like the wrong thing to say.
‘You worry about your biological clock?’ He’s trying to be casual in his tone, yet there’s weight here; there’s real curiosity.
‘No,’ I answer. ‘Though I’m aware it’s something women my age say. Or at least are expected to say.’
‘Which women?’
‘No. Forget it. It didn’t mean anything.’
A sales assistant hovers close so we step away, towards the corner of the shop.
‘Don’t you feel like everyone is moving on?’ he asks.
‘I don’t watch what others are doing. It doesn’t affect me if they’re working abroad or getting married or having babies.’
‘Because you don’t want those things?’
We look at each other for a beat then he turns away as if embarrassed by his question.
I hate to think this is the crux of what’s wrong with us together, that he’s ready for marriage and has been for a while, whereas I’m only just reaching the stage of not freaking out about how invested I am in being with him.
‘Why are we talking about this now?’ I ask, and he shrugs at me in a way that comes across as a little petulant.
I follow him out and onto the concourse where I put my hands on the back of his neck, pushing up through his hair in a way that usually makes him close his eyes and hum. It has no effect, his gaze remains down.
‘Cian, I’m not sure if I want those things.’
‘Okay,’ he says, in a slightly flat way.
‘And I feel like you do.’
There’s a slight opening of his face, as if he’s surprised by my admission. ‘Then you know more than me.’
I bring my hands down his arms and hold his hands. ‘I don’t know what that means.’
‘It means, I used to have a plan. Now, not so much.’ He gives me the tiniest of half-smiles and I want to suggest that we can make a new plan. A plan that would work for both of us. However, I have no clue what that would look like. ‘You’re grumpy today.’
He pouts at me. ‘So are you.’
‘It’s this place,’ I say, relieved that he too is ready to move on. ‘It’s dark and depressing.’
‘I like it.’
‘It was designed by the same person who designed the red telephone box.’
This time his smile is full and genuine. ‘Did you read that on Wikipedia?’
‘No, I read the wall display while you were in the Lego shop.’
He laughs and this is what I want from him, to have fun and be happy, not heavy and be full of angst.
‘I know this is coming a bit late, but if you’re free next Sunday and you think you could face it, would you like to come and have lunch at my parents’?’
‘Sunday.’ His face falls. ‘I can’t. I’ll still be in Eastbourne. My mum does this pre-Christmas thing, and I got out of it last year. I promised I’d go this time.’
‘I forgot.’ I feel bad because he’s told me this already. ‘It’s fine. Not a big deal.’
‘It is a big deal. It’s your birthday.’
‘It’s just lunch.’
‘I can come back earlier; I’ll check the train times.’
‘Don’t. I’m not even into the idea of doing anything. It’s my Mum, really. And she asked me to invite you.’
‘Your mum invited me?’ he says, the heaviness and angst back.
‘No, I’m inviting you, that came out wrong.’
‘Don’t worry about it.’
‘Really? Because I’m replaying it in my head, and it sounds terrible.’
‘Zoe, it’s nothing.’ He pulls away to check his phone. ‘It’s still early, you want to watch a film or head back?’
‘To yours?’
‘Jeff has friends over tonight. I meant, if you need to head back home.’
I’m messing this up. I’m messing it all up and I don’t know how to stop it. Perhaps if I told him I love him, it would cancel out all my mistakes so far, it would reassure him. Yet I say, ‘Yes, let’s go to the cinema.’
We sit in the dark and I take his hand and hold it till we break for snacks.
As much as we share screentime, we don’t do it like this, silent and surrounded by others; it doesn’t feel like us.
Several times I catch his expression in the light and if you didn’t know him, you’d assume he was engaged, but Cian’s someone who cracks up at most jokes and makes noises through action scenes, who wants to see others’ reactions to stuff.
This Cian is still, unfeeling, his eyes on the screen and nothing else.
When we part at the Tube station, there’s a kiss that feels unfinished and a text you later that sounds hollow. It’s clear to me that the ground has shifted under us, and I have no clue how to get back on an even footing.