Chapter 5
FIVE
All day, Freya’s questions hang over him like spiderwebs.
Easy enough to ignore, but still somewhat irritating.
He spends the night drifting in and out of sleep, unable to pin it on the jet lag, this time, or the alcohol.
When the sun comes up he reaches for his phone and tries to send Nora a text, but who is he kidding; he’s never been great with words.
At breakfast – porridge for her, Weetabix for him – he asks his mother where it is that Nora works.
She tells him she runs an art café in London, but he knows that, already.
Nora has sent him pictures in the past, sometimes tells him about the workshops or pop-up exhibitions she’s hosting.
Arty stuff he doesn’t really understand but sounds right up her street, calligraphy and crocheting and a feminist book club; this one time, some kind of face yoga that reduced wrinkles, which to him felt distinctly unfeminist; not that he said so, in reply. Sounds cool, was all he said.
But where exactly in London, Bren asks Josie, and she says oh, somewhere in Cricklewood, I think.
Lovely name, isn’t it? Like a place from a children’s book.
He nods. Drinks the milk from his bowl then tells her he’s off to see a friend; which is true this time, he hopes, as he catches the bus to town and then a slow train into the city.
Navigates the underground, which he hasn’t done since he was a teenager, feeling lighter now that he’s somewhere new, all adverts and escalators.
By mid-morning he’s striding from Kilburn station towards the place with the lovely name and a few less-than-lovely pubs, a Polish deli, an ice cream parlour.
Street after street of Edwardian houses.
He googles art cafés in Cricklewood and there is only one, so he follows the blue arrow and by noon, he is standing outside.
And there she is, behind the coffee counter.
Making coffee, which he’d not expected; he’d thought she was the programme co-ordinator or events manager or something, that she’d be out the back doing admin, but of course she’s here, sleeves rolled up, talking to a customer.
Frothing milk and smiling, as she speaks.
No flower crown, this morning. Her hair is tied up in a ponytail, her face make-up free, like it always was when they were young, when the girls at his own school discovered foundation and mascara and something to intensify their eyebrows which always kind of scared him, though he never said so, pretended it was hot, like all the other guys did.
Nora was only known in his circles through him; she was at the state school over the road from his grammar school; the girl with the weird eyes and weirder milf, lol, yeah, she’s all right though, he’d say, dying inside because that’s all he would say.
Burning with shame at himself, but not her. Never at her.
Now, though, she does not see him and he does not go inside.
His excitement at seeing her has faded, and instead he feels hesitant; it hadn’t gone as planned, surprising her the first time, so he’s not sure what’s compelled him to try again.
He tries to figure this out as he watches the customer take their coffee, sit at a table in the corner.
Small vases on each, dried canary grass.
People eating flapjacks, drinking lattes, working on laptops with their earphones in; all women wearing linen or wool or corduroy, and Nora herself is still at the counter, not even aware of his presence.
Just being her, with that smile and hair and naked, Nora face, and Christ alive, she’s radiant.
But, Bren muses, what he said to Freya still stands.
You can’t be in love with someone you’ve not seen for over a decade.
And because of that, he should either walk straight in or else walk away, and it is while he is trying to decide which that Nora looks up.
Does a double take.
And Bren raises his hand, hi, hello.
She does not seem shocked, like before; remains where she is. Blinks, reaches for a cloth, wipes down the surface. Maybe she didn’t realise it was him, Bren thinks. Or worse, she did realise, and he’s messed up, again. Should’ve called.
But then she disappears behind a curtain beside the coffee bar, reappearing with a bag on her shoulder, a padded jacket over her dress. Crosses the threshold of the café – plaster flooring, the colour of unfired clay – opens the door and says hello, and Bren says it back.
You’re making a habit of this, she says, as the door closes behind her.
Turning up announced?
I was going to say blindsiding me, Nora says, but that works too.
I hoped you’d have some kind of lunch break, Bren says.
I do, she says. On Mondays I go swimming.
She tilts her shoulder towards him, the one bearing her bulging tote bag. A rolled-up towel pokes out the top, bobbled like it’s washed every week, or else never before seen a drop of fabric softener; his mother would be horrified.
So this is a bad time?
Yes, she says, though she doesn’t sound flustered like she did at the party. More amused; like she’d half expected this.
Here’s a crazy thought, Bren says, as a woman with purple hair emerges from behind the curtain in the café, taking up Nora’s place behind the counter; he has a vague memory of her from the party. You skip swimming today, he says, and I’ll buy you lunch instead.
Or, Nora says, without a beat, you skip lunch, and come swimming.
Skip lunch?
Well. I’m playing it fast and loose with the verb skip. We’d eat afterwards.
I was gonna say, Bren says. The Nora I know never skips a meal.
The Nora you know has a job and a life and a precious one-hour lunch break, she says, looking at her watch. And it takes twenty minutes to get there, and twenty minutes to get back.
And she swims on Mondays, Bren says.
Right, she says; an actual smile from her, then. Tiny gap in her teeth, as the purple-haired woman watches them through the glass shopfront.
Then let’s swim, he says. I’ll buy some swim shorts, at the pool.
It’s not a pool, Nora says, but she’s walking now, which Bren takes to be a good sign. He strides alongside her, has to walk surprisingly fast to keep up.
You mean it’s a lido?
No, she says, but you’re getting warmer.
She is still smiling, slightly. Pleased, he thinks, that she can be the one to surprise him here, to hold all the cards, and for that reason, he doesn’t ask any more questions; lets her guide him onto the tube, then the bus.
Loud whoosh of the carriage, voices silenced at points, due to the noise.
It’s a little awkward but less so, he thinks, than the other night.
Just like being in kitchens, Bren has found that walking or moving – not looking at each other over a table – is always a good way to avoid, or on the flip side, even attempt, a hard conversation.
They chat about normal things, at first. What he’s been up to since Saturday; not a lot.
What she’s working on at the café, how great it looked from the outside, she’ll show him indoors, when they get back, if he wants.
Off the tube, up the escalator, onto the 189 bus.
Bren looking out the window, thinking too hard about what to say next.
I still can’t get over seeing you like this, Nora says.
They pass another bus on the road; Bren leans back, certain it’ll collide with theirs. The London streets are so tight, almost claustrophobic, and he’s not used to this kind of traffic. She lets out a little laugh at this, and it sounds like sun sparkling on water.
He has missed that sound.
It stirs something, deep inside him.
Do I seem different, he asks her, and she seems to consider this; says yes, but also no. He knows exactly what she means, and is about to say so, but then she says you’re still wearing your St Christopher.
He looks down, where the pendant has dipped into the V-neck of his T-shirt.
Course, he says. Hadn’t you noticed that on our calls?
Nora shrugs as a low-hanging tree branch clatters against the bus. I’d noticed you wore a twine necklace, she says, but didn’t realise it was the same one.
More branches thwacking the glass.
I’ve never taken it off, Bren says, and she looks at him sideways; hasn’t looked at him properly since she saw him waiting outside her shop. He sees disbelief in her eyes, but also affection, for the first time since he got back.
Well, that’s a lie, he reasons. I take it off when I go through security.
Skewed laugh, from her, then.
I doubt stainless steel would set off the alarms, she says.
You mean, Bren says, touching the charm, it isn’t pure silver?
It’s whatever the hell I could afford off the market at sixteen.
And look at you now, Bren says. Selling ceramic pots for seventy quid, and antique writing sets for three figures.
I sell them, Nora points out, I don’t buy them.
Still, Bren says.
You looked at our website? she says, after a moment, and he says sure. It’s really awesome, Nora, what you’ve built. What you’re doing.
He doesn’t quite know what she’s doing, but it seems the right thing to say.
She blushes, looks down at her shoes. And then she says this is our stop and they both struggle to get down the stairs of the moving bus; disembark to an uncrowded street, calmer winds, today.
Nora leads him past some green lakes and over a small hill, the air fresh, conversation easier, and then they’re joining the back of a short queue, passing a sign that declares it’s the Hampstead Mixed Bathing Pond.
A pond? Bren says.
I book my slot every week, Nora says, but there’s probably space for you, this time of year. I only do a few lengths, so you can wait here, if you’d prefer.
And let you have all the cold-water fun?
She shrugs, says well, like you said, it’s not like you have any swim stuff.
There’re ways round that, Bren says. Nora moves forward in the queue, says you can’t swim naked, Bren.