Chapter Seven Gatwick Airport Monday 8 January 2001 #2
She looked at him again. The answer was yes, but she decided not to give him the satisfaction. ‘Should I?’
‘We met in a pub in Kensington. About three years ago. Well, we first encountered each other in the Tube, then we met again. Surely you remember? The work blouse, the cocktails. The kissing . . .’
Of course she did, particularly the kissing. She’d remembered it for quite a few weeks afterwards, actually. Due to both its duration and its high calibre.
‘Oh! It’s you . . .’ she said. ‘Sorry, I don’t remember your name.
’ It was Leo, and, amazingly, he had been a little less handsome the last time she’d encountered him, as he was now – at what, twenty-three?
– off the chart. Hazel eyes; cheeky smile; open, friendly face.
That hair, the perfect length. Since that night, physically, he had become her type.
‘Leo,’ he filled in, ‘and you’re Olivia. I remember quite a few things about you, actually.’
Her basket was fairly heavy. She wanted to set it on the floor but she didn’t. ‘Oh, do you?’
‘Yes. Pimlico. Canterbury. Britpop. Where are you off to?’
‘Newquay, for a friend’s wedding. How about you?’ He was very attractive still, she thought. Those eyes. Even in his ski get-up there was something mesmerising about him, a glowing confidence and a self-assured vitality. Mesmerising, she thought, but not for her. Not what she needed at all.
‘Your friends are getting married?’ He looked fairly disgusted. ‘Mine are way off that! I’m going to Méribel,’ he continued. ‘French Alps. Ski trip. I’m meeting my girlfriend there. She’s working as a chalet girl.’
‘Excuse me!’ A large man with an enormous trolley-suitcase pushed past them, clutching three bottles of shampoo.
‘Careful!’ Leo gently pulled Olivia out of the way so she avoided being barged by the man’s big shoulder. They moved over to the glass front of the shop and watched together as the man stomped to the checkout.
‘Thank you,’ she said.
‘You’re welcome,’ he replied. They now watched each other for a couple of seconds. They were standing too close. Olivia subtly stepped back. Leo set down his bag on the floor. Olivia held on to her basket.
‘Another girlfriend?’ she commented finally. ‘The terrible taste in music doesn’t seem to be putting them off, then?’
‘What terrible taste in music?’
‘Two words. Phil. Collins.’
Leo tried to look affronted, but his dancing eyes gave him away. This is what it had been like in the pub, she remembered. Her and this man. The banter.
‘How dare you!’ he said. ‘Are you travelling with your boyfriend?’
He swivelled around, pretending to look for one.
‘No, I’m with my friends.’
‘Haven’t snared anyone recently, then?’
‘In, what, three years? Yes, of course I have.’
‘Of course you have.’ His eyes were locked on hers. ‘It’s nice to see you, Olivia,’ he said. ‘You look nice.’ His smile was warm. His face was curious, interested.
And so do you, she thought.
‘My plane is delayed,’ he added.
‘Mine, too.’
‘So, do you want to grab a quick drink? We could . . . ?’
‘I’m with my friends,’ she repeated. ‘I’m halfway through a glass of white wine,’ she fibbed. Neither of them made to move. ‘Do you still live with Royal Ben?’ she asked him.
‘You didn’t remember my name, but you remember Royal Ben?’ Leo’s face was quizzical, amused.
‘He seemed like a memorable character.’
Leo tilted his head. ‘He is. And yes, I am.’
‘Is he a literary agent yet?’
‘Not yet. Are you a writer yet?’
‘Yes, actually. Film reviews.’
He grinned. ‘I’m restaurants,’ he said. ‘I review for the Evening Whisper.’
‘How funny, I review for the Morning Shout.’
‘You’re joking!’ They smiled at each other, bemused. ‘Sister publications . . . and ships that pass between the day and night,’ Leo said. ‘Ever been into that office?’
‘No. Everything’s email.’
‘They don’t want the likes of us in there. The small fry.’ He grinned. ‘Although I do slope in on the occasional Wednesday morning, unsolicited, just to remind them who I am.’
I could wander in sometime on a Wednesday morning, she thought. If I wanted to. Then she said, ‘Hang on, please don’t tell me you’re LL Greene?’
‘The very same.’ Leo looked delighted. ‘I thought LL Greene sounded distinguished, and like I was much older,’ he confessed. She noted the boyish look on his face, a pass of ambition, sensitivity, perhaps. ‘At least forty.’
‘I’ve read you! Your pieces are funny. And brutal. But you’re the only person to ever make me crave okra. You don’t have your photo with your column?’
He shrugged. ‘Never got around to it. So, you’re Olivia Sackville?’ he said. ‘I’ve read your reviews, too. There’s no photo for you, either.’
‘No, they never asked me for one.’ What did you think? she wanted to ask him, but she didn’t. ‘I enjoy it though, the reviewing. How long have you been at the Whisper?’
‘About three months. I’ll do it for as long as I need to, to move up the ladder.’
‘Until the novel.’
‘Until the novel. I don’t want to be starving in a garret when I finally get around to it.’
‘Are you still at the Mirror?’
‘Yes. Are you still working in the media?’
‘At Harrington Blunt? Yes.’ She was in the press department now, in charge of filing, phone answering and mail.
‘You’ve lost the accent.’
‘Sorry?’
‘The London accent, the nice touch of Cockney. It’s not there any more. You sound posher.’
‘Oh. So, I sound more like you,’ she retorted, a hint of shame rising to her cheeks.
She knew her accent had been planed away, erased finally by being with her friends at Canterbury for a further two years.
It had happened naturally, accidentally, but she had not stopped its disintegration, and that was what gave her a customary flash of guilt now, about Charlie – as when she was with him, she let it slip back in.
‘Posh? Hey, I’m just a country bumpkin. I’m originally from Wiltshire.’ He pushed up the woolly sleeves of his jumper, revealing tanned forearms. She wondered if he’d been away for Christmas, and here he was, going away again. ‘Cheese and cider running through my veins.’
‘Posh Wiltshire,’ observed Olivia, and Leo didn’t deny it.
‘Aren’t you too hot in that jumper?’ Leo looked down at himself and laughed.
She remembered that laugh, and how much she had liked it.
She should go, though, back to her friends.
It had been nice seeing him, if totally pointless, but she ought to pay for this stuff in her basket.
‘How’s Isaac Feu?’ she asked him, though.
‘My dad?’ He pulled a delighted face. ‘Fiery. Cantankerous. Brilliant.’
‘My friend went to his restaurant last week.’ Stella had, on a date. ‘She said it was amazing.’
He shrugged. ‘It’s amazing every night.’
There was a beat. They looked at each other. Handsome, thought Olivia again. ‘Well, I’d better get back to my friends. Our flight could get called any hour now . . .’
He laughed again. ‘Of course. Hope you don’t have to wait too long,’ he said. ‘And have a great flight. It was good to see you again, Olivia.’
He held out his hand. She took it, with reluctance, but was greatly surprised to find the touch of his hand was strangely like coming home, if home was a log cabin with a roaring fire and a faux-fur rug, a table set with two glasses of deep red wine, for seduction.
Things reserved for Chalet Girl, surely.
‘Nice to see you again, too, Leo.’ Why had he not let go of her hand?
‘That was a great kiss,’ he said, after too many seconds. ‘Wow.’
He winked at her. He finally let go. He picked up his bag and he bounded out of the shop.
‘It wasn’t that great!’ she risked calling out after him, but he turned in the doorway, and he was laughing.
She paid for her items and returned to Annabel and Stella and a further two-hour wait, but she saw him again, at their gate.
He was at the next, in his preposterous ski gear, talking to a middle-aged couple who were laughing at something he said.
He gave her a jaunty wave and she raised her hand in reply.
‘Who’s that?’ asked Stella.
‘Some bloke I kissed a few years ago,’ Olivia replied, still looking at him. Great chemistry, great banter . . . she thought. Shame about the girlfriend and the cockiness.
‘Really . . . ?’
But they were boarding. Their passports were in their hands, open at the right pages for inspection. She would tell this short story to her friends on the plane.