Chapter 6 #2
He dug around, pulling out what looked like dirty clothes and shoving them further in. How could he ever find anything in there? It would drive me mental. I knew there was a reason I’d never been backpacking. Give me a suitcase with compartments to separate things any day.
After a couple of minutes, he finally found what he was looking for and passed across a small present wrapped up in a brown paper bag.
‘Yeah, sorry about the wrapping, I didn’t get a chance.’
I turned it over in my hands, unable to guess what was inside. Tugging at the Sellotape, I opened it up. Inside was more tissue paper and buried deep in that was a small silver bracelet. I pulled it up and saw a little charm hanging off it in the shape of a four-leaf clover.
‘Oh, Noah.’ I looked up at him. ‘That’s just like the one I had. How did you remember?’
He shrugged his shoulders. ‘It’s that really cheesy line: I saw it and thought of you.’
I turned the bracelet round in my hands. It was just like the one I’d lost in Calais.
‘It’s not cheesy, it’s really thoughtful. And it makes the present I got you look really crap.’
His face lit up like a little kid. ‘You got me a present?’
‘Don’t get too excited. It was more for later on.’
I opened up a cupboard and reached for a gift bag and handed it across. Noah opened the bag up and pulled out a bottle of Goldschl?ger. He laughed.
‘Figured I could afford to buy some now.’
‘Oh god, I don’t think I’ve drunk this since uni. Wow, now I feel like I’ve made it.’
‘Do you think it’s actually really gold?’
He turned the bottle round in his hands.
‘I think so. I’ll have to look it up online, but someone told me that each bottle has about twenty pence’ worth.’
‘Huh. That much?’
‘Fancy a shot? It’s five o’clock, right?’
I shuddered and shook my head.
‘Pretty sure that refers to the PM.’
‘We’ll save it until later then. But in the meantime, I’m starving. Let’s get some food.’
It was funny catching the Tube into town with Noah, surrounded by a sea of commuters doing their best to ignore each other.
We, on the other hand, were perched on one of the padded bumpers, laughing as we reminisced about nights out and Tube rides from before he left.
The time that we decided to run up the stairs at Covent Garden trying to beat Paul and Amy in the lift, only to keel over halfway from exhaustion, or the time that Hayley was so hungover that she fell backwards on the Tube and landed on the lap of a very disgruntled man.
I’d suggested staying local, but when Noah heard I was meeting Mum for a late lunch at Claridge’s, he suggested we head into central London and play tourist. Apparently he’d missed the city and was craving historic buildings.
After eating the greasiest breakfast in a traditional café just outside of Waterloo, we were well and truly stuffed.
‘I can feel my arteries clogging already,’ said Noah.
‘I can’t believe out of everything you could have had for your first meal, that was what you craved.’
‘Well, a decent vindaloo and sausage roll were a close second, but I didn’t quite fancy either for breakfast.’
I pulled a face.
‘Plus, I didn’t see you complaining as you ate yours.’
‘I admit, it was a nice change from my usual cereal. So, I’ve got a couple of hours before I meet Mum, what do you fancy doing?’
‘I dunno,’ he said as we walked under the arches heading towards the South Bank. ‘How about we walk to Trafalgar Square, up through Horse Guards, pay my respects to the Queen if she’s at home.’
‘When you said play tourist … ’
‘Do you know I’ve never actually done it?’
‘Done what?’
‘Played tourist in London. I’ve spent the last eighteen months travelling round all these sights, going to see long overgrown temples, and the place where Captain Cook first landed in Australia, and yet I’ve never done any of that stuff here. I’ve never even been to Windsor.’
‘What? How did I not know that?’
Noah shrugged. ‘It’s not the kind of thing that ever really comes up, is it? But when I was in Oz everyone either asked me about places or told me their stories of visiting them. Telling me about the time they went boating on the Serpentine or how they went on the London Eye.’
‘Didn’t you go when you were younger?’
‘I only remember coming up to London on a school trip once to see a show, but we never did any sightseeing.’
‘And your parents never brought you? You only lived in Sussex; that’s so close.’
‘I know. My dad’s always had a thing about cities – hates them. He used to come out in hives if he had to go into Brighton.’
Noah’s parents still lived in his childhood house, on the edge of a town in the South Downs not too far from Brighton, in a home where the sound of laughter always rattled round the walls.
‘Well, it’s something then that we can definitely put right over the next few months. Speaking of your parents, when are you seeing them?’
‘Tomorrow. Paul’s driving me out and then he’s staying for the night.’
I was a little jealous of Paul getting to stay in the Matthews household.
I have so many fond memories of our trips there when we were at uni.
There’d usually be a whole gang of us, sleeping like sardines on the floor of the lounge.
His mum Sandra making us bacon sandwiches in the morning to rid us of the hangovers.
‘Then are you coming back up to London? Have you sorted somewhere to live yet?’
‘My mate Liam’s flatmate is moving out in May, so I’m going to move in there. In Balham.’
‘Nice.’
‘Yeah. I just need to get a job by then so I can pay the rent.’
‘Ah, and how goes the job hunting?’
It was so lovely being able to fire off questions and get immediate responses, after the last year of emails where it felt that every message threw up more unanswered questions.
‘Not well, it’s been hard to do it from internet cafés. I’ve applied for a few things, but it’ll be easier at my parents’. They’ve got decent broadband, at least.’
‘Are you still looking to work for a charity?’
‘I’ve been applying, but I’m also thinking that I might try something different.’
‘Different?’
‘I just wondered if it was worth changing before I got too stuck in the charity sector,’ he said, as we started to climb the bridge over towards Embankment.
‘I thought you liked it. Making a difference and all that.’
‘I did, I mean I do. It’s not like I hated my job, not like you.’
‘I don’t hate my job.’ I bit my lip. ‘I just hate some of my colleagues and some of the working practices.’
He raised an eyebrow.
‘I love my clients, and I love what I do day to day.’
‘Which you can find at another company.’
‘Yeah, but,’ I said, knowing he was right, ‘I’ve only been there a couple of years. It would look bad if I left after so little time.’
‘By that logic I’m screwed,’ he said, with a laugh.
‘That’s different. You’ve worked and travelled. I just probably need to get a little more senior before I move.’
‘Always playing it safe.’
I bit the inside of my cheek. He was starting to sound like Mags; she was always pushing me to go for bigger things.
‘Not safe, I just worry about what comes next. What if I move to another company and it’s worse, or I get shitty clients?
And I’ve effectively walked away from a job with a decent salary and good bonuses and benefits, all because I got pissed off with the golden boy in the office. I know you like to live on the edge.’
Noah popped his hand on my arm. ‘I was only teasing. There’s a lot to be said for earning a decent salary. That’s why I’m thinking of changing industries. Following the money.’
‘Really? Mr I don’t want to be part of the corporate machine is going to go over to the dark side?’
He steeled his jaw.
‘I didn’t say I was going to the dark side, but maybe I’ll look at ethical for-profit companies.’
Noah stopped on the bridge and took hold of the railings, staring over at Somerset House and beyond, towards the City.
Now that he’d got me looking at the London skyline, I couldn’t help but spot everything.
He was right. There was so much history crammed into every square mile and usually I walked head down, not seeing anything.
‘I helped out my boss in Oz with some of the projects he was working on, and I quite liked the project management side of things. So I thought maybe I’d do a qualification.’
‘I think you’d be great at that,’ I said, nodding.
‘We’ll see. I think I’m going to have a bit of an uphill struggle trying to find something.’
We started to walk along the bridge again.
‘You’ll find something. You’ll be saving for the next trip in no time.’ If there was one thing I’d learned about Noah, there was always another place on his bucket list to tick off.
‘I think I’ve got all that out my system, for now,’ he said.
‘Really? You’re not going to let us get used to having you back and then disappear off again?’
‘Never say never,’ he said, tucking his hands in his pockets. ‘But I think I’m going to be sticking around for a bit. I had a great trip, but I missed here.’
‘Like the fry-ups and the buildings?’
‘And the people.’
‘But you looked like you were having a ball in your photos. All those barbies on the beach.’ My Australian accent was no better than Noah’s and we both cringed.
‘It’s easy to make it look like you’re having a good time in a photo, and it helps when you’ve got dazzling blue skies overhead all the time. But I don’t think I’ll keep in contact with anyone I hung out with over there, other than on Facebook.’
‘Really?’
He shook his head. ‘It was really hard to make proper friends out there.’
‘But Aussies always seem so friendly.’
‘They are friendly, but they’ve also got their friends. Most people tend to stay local to go to uni, so they just continue hanging out with the people they went to school with, and they weren’t that interested in making friends with someone who was only going to stick around for a year.’
‘I guess I can see that. It’s always hard saying goodbye to people. But it only makes it better when you get to say hello again.’ I nudged him with my elbow.
‘You missed me too?’
‘I didn’t say I was talking about you.’
He laughed.
‘But seriously,’ he said, turning his head to look at me, ‘you know, when you’re on the other side of the world, it makes you realise who you really care about and who you really miss.’
My foot slipped on wet leaves near the bottom step and I felt my balance go. Noah grabbed my arm and kept me steadied.
‘You OK?’ I was holding on to both of his arms and a look of concern crossed his face.
I nodded; I couldn’t seem to get any words out. My heart had started to beat fast. I didn’t let go of him and he didn’t stop looking at me.
‘Excuse me, coming through,’ said a voice behind us. Noah dropped my arm and I stepped to the side of the railings whilst a man carrying a bike over his shoulder came down.
‘Well, um,’ I said with a laugh, ‘I should be more careful.’
‘Good job I was here to catch you.’
‘That would have made a memorable birthday.’ I took hold of the railing as I went down the remaining steps. ‘Spending the day in A&E after falling down stairs.’
‘Could you imagine? It would make getting almost stuck in Calais look uneventful.’
‘That day. I’ve learned my lessons from that one and I’m not setting my expectations too high this time.’
‘Why not? I’m pretty sure that last time exceeded all of my wildest expectations.’
I thought back to almost missing the bus and the fraught taxi ride.
‘We got to meet each other,’ he said.
‘Geez, what happened to you in Australia? Or is it the jetlag? You’ve turned into a right soppy bastard.’
‘As I said, I’ve worked out what it is that I really missed.’
I could feel his eyes burning into me before I turned my head to meet his eyes.
What was going on here? Apart from the moment in the garden when we first met, there’d been nothing between us.
When Amy and Paul started dating, we saw each other a lot and we’d slipped into a comfortable friendship where Noah was just Noah. Like a big brother.
Only my brain seemed to have forgotten that. And now there was this man before me that had grown up so much in the year and a half, and he seemed even more comfortable in his own skin – something I didn’t think possible.
He zipped his coat up right to the top.
‘Man, I’d forgotten how cold it could be in February. This is doing nothing.’
‘We should get you a scarf.’
‘And a hat.’
‘And gloves.’
‘And maybe a thicker coat.’
‘Bloody hell,’ he said, muttering through his breath. ‘Remind me why I came back to this tiny, freezing island?’
‘Because you missed us.’ I laughed and slipped my arm through his. ‘Come on, let’s find somewhere to warm up.’