Chapter 2 #2
The Bloody Marys? Robin says, following her into the kitchen as she rustles past him in the hallway.
You can’t have a party without Bloody Marys, she says, unpacking her home-grown tomatoes onto the kitchen side. Remember to add more Tabasco than you think, she says over her shoulder, like I showed you. Don’t skimp.
Stay for one, won’t you, Freya? Robin says, but she waves her hands and says she has to get back, she’s making a beetroot stew, said she’d have Josie over, for tea. She sends her love, and some shortbread, by the way; Robin says score.
Her mother has high spots of pink on her cheeks, just like Nora, as she hands over the box.
Then she bundles her emptied bags into the pocket of her wax jacket and troops back to the front door, says well now, have a good night, but before she can leave Nora says her name, catches her hand in her own.
Thank you, she says to her mother.
Tabasco, Freya says, squeezing her hand.
And then she’s gone, and Nora turns to Robin who shrugs, says she’s unpredictable, we’ll give her that.
He turns up the music while Nora blends the tomatoes in the kitchen, a pre-party drink for the two of them, and he kisses her after a single sip, spice on their lips, long and slow and tingling, when the doorbell rings once more and then there are people in their living room.
_
Robbbbiiiiiiin, again, and again. His friends, his family.
Mutual friends, too. High fives, brief hugs, she’s finally making an honest man of him, all the things she knew were coming but has nothing to say to, and as the flat fills up she is more and more aware that her own people are missing.
Jon, dead: Josie, housebound: Freya, disapproving.
Her own grandparents and father unaware of her existence, even, not that this bothers her, just comes up, like this, when she least expects it; and her oldest friend, her best friend she thinks, still – stupid, really – silent over email, despite the invite, but then Shay arrives with a bottle of red and a fiery-peach flower crown.
There! she says, adjusting it on Nora’s head.
You’re not a proper bride-to-be unless you’re wearing ranunculus.
And before you say it, this is like, really mild on the cheese scale.
Is it ranunculus or ranunculi, Nora asks, tilting one of the stems out of her eyes, and Shay says who cares, you look hot, in a sort of whimsical, fairy queen kind of way. Like what’s-her-name.
Titania?
No, the one with the rabbit heart. Frozen in the headlights.
You mean Florence?
I have no idea, Shay says, but real talk, Nora, when is the pizza getting here? I’m starved. And I’ll be taking leftovers for Horace, by the way, who is distraught that he’s not here. I left him gazing out of the window, pining, and I plan to get wildly pissed to block out the pain.
Be my guest, Nora says, gesturing to the drinks table.
People pour in and mingle. Graze on the crisps, fawn over the snacks that Nora prepared herself.
Olives with anchovies and green chillies; tomato and onion crostini cracked with black pepper.
Wine, full-bodied and dusky, one glass, two, another bottle opened then another, it’s only half seven and she’s four drinks in.
Dancing, too, because they’d pushed back the furniture.
Shots! someone suggests, because they’re in their thirties and clawing back at their youth and it is loud and warm despite the cold outside and there are a lot of hugs and cheek kisses and Nora needs some air after too many drinks, face hot and flushed, her heart full and somewhat panicky. She’s always been a lightweight.
In the bathroom she splashes water on her face, swears when it smears her eyeliner.
Walls spinning, realising how drunk she is now she’s alone.
Shower head dripping. Hand towel rough on her palms, Josie’s towels are always so soft, she uses an entire bottle of fabric softener per wash, Freya berates her for it, think of the environment, Jose, all those chemicals in the seas, but my towels aren’t going in the sea, are they, Josie says, Freya’s head, then, in her hands.
Nora’s own hands dry, now, as she stares at herself in the mirror.
Emotions high, tonight, and happy, yes, but with a melancholy for what was, because a new chapter means the current chapter is ending, and she sort of doesn’t want it to.
She’s just tired, though, probably. Just hungry.
Glance at her watch, then, because the pizza is due any minute.
And then right on time the doorbell rings, she says yesssss, under her breath: laughing to herself as she escapes the bathroom, because she’s thirty-one and excited about dinner.
There are people singing in the living room, a drink spilled, dark and wet on the carpet as she unlatches the front door and swings it open and there, on her doorstep, is someone who is not delivering pizza.
She stares at him. At his flare of red hair.
At his pale skin and green eyes.
And he smiles, a little. Like he always has; shy, almost, like he’s unwilling to show his teeth; like he is figuring things out, first, waiting to see how things might go.
Bren, Nora says. Still staring.
Hey, Nora, he says, and time, for one long, immobile scene, stops, as if with the flick of a switch.
_
He looks the same. Except he doesn’t. His face is thinner, his cheekbones stretching the skin as though he needs a good meal, like he’s been up before dawn for years, or is jet-lagged, or hungover, or both.
White T-shirt, cargo trousers low on his hips.
Muscles on his arms, defined but not with weightlifting or gym visits, not as though he makes the effort.
He never had to make the effort, with anything.
There is a small gold hoop in his left ear.
A stain, like suncream, on his neckline.
And his hair is as red as she remembers. The colour of mandarins. Shorter than it used to be, when he used to sculpt it with his hands, checking it in shop windows or car wing mirrors as they passed, withstood her gentle mockery about that, didn’t care.
Bren Ferguson.
The boy who walked out on her, and their plans, and his mother.
The boy who is no longer a boy, but a man, and she, a woman, with new plans, her own life, but she feels it all behind her, for that one stilled, suspended moment – a party with music Robin had chosen, snacks she had prepared, friends celebrating a choice they had made – and all of it feels like a vague sort of nothing as she steps out of the flat and closes the door behind her and leans her body against it and says his name, again, her heart rushing, now, after the initial freeze, everything kicked back into full speed.
_
Bren, she says.
You already said that, he tells her.
What are you doing here?
Street lights behind them, orange like his hair. Dark shadow of trees on the other side of the street. Nora squints at him, wishing she was sober, and Bren grins, properly this time, that crooked break of a smile that moves something in her, a slow, upward sensation, like a trap door lifting.
You invited me, didn’t you?
I didn’t think you’d actually … come, Nora says.
Well, surprise, Bren says, and he lifts one shoulder in a shrug, the way he used to when they were teenagers, and the familiarity of that gesture does something to her; the shock of having him here, in front of her, melts away.
She begins to feel other things. Elation, and disbelief: two things at once, hot despite the cold February air.
I can’t believe you’re here, she says.
Same, Bren says, and he’s still grinning.
They stand opposite one another for a second longer but then he steps forward to touch her, hug her, maybe, and Nora knows she should do the same but she’s feeling too much and so ends up holding out her hand to stop him, which instead turns the whole thing into an awkward, half-missed high five.
They sort of clasp hands and knock shoulders before she steps back, sorry, him too, sorry, someone singing loudly from the living room where Robin must be.
Robin, she thinks, likely wondering where she is – and she is going to turn away when Bren says her name.
Steps closer again.
So close now, that if she were to inhale, she would be able to smell him; the suncream, the sweat and sleeplessness from the plane. He reaches a hand towards her, says it’s okay, which he’s probably saying because she feels like crying, or is crying, maybe, she’s trying not to.
She looks at his hand, reached out towards her, like that.
Doesn’t take it in her own.
And then a car mounts the kerb and the pizza is here, and Bren turns at the sound of the engine, drops his arm.
Both of them standing there as the guy gets out in his branded polo shirt and baseball cap.
Says Robin’s name, which sees her pulse skitter with alarm, or guilt, but he was simply the one who placed the order, so she says yes, and the guy opens the car boot and begins to ferry pizza boxes down the garden path, and Bren moves forward to help.
So Nora opens the front door, says in there, please, the door to the right, and the pizza is carried in, towers of it, and she hears people cheer when it enters the living room, and in all the chaos and excitement and after paying the delivery guy and taking a breath she is back inside with the fug and the noise of the party, and Bren is there, too.
Already eating pizza with her friends, Robin’s friends.
And somehow they’ve sidestepped their chance for a proper hello, the need for introductions, and there is no moment of truth or understanding, after all the years she had pictured seeing him again; there is simply garlic bread, an array of dips in plastic pots, and someone turning up the music and announcing that now, people, it’s a party.
_
Why do you look like you’ve never seen a pizza before, Shay asks her, as they stand by the living room door.