Chapter Six
Heathcliff was silent as they walked out into Soho, the area still busy, people still packing the narrow streets. Neon lights lit their way and the bass heavy thump of music soundtracked their footsteps.
‘I find myself traversing a most terrifying landscape,’ Heathcliff exclaimed, his eyes wide, his expression wary.
‘So most of your dates have been in the library then, have they? You been working there long?’ Tess asked.
‘Too long. Sharma is a cruel master and his prison is intolerable … He is my mortal enemy.’
‘I hear you. Such a jobsworth, no sense of humour at all. But Ella seems really nice …’
She’d lost his attention. Heathcliff was staring at two beautiful women in bodycon dresses and high heels as they tottered past. ‘Shameless doxies!’ He swung round to watch them disappear up the street. ‘Sin makes a fine feather.’
‘Now that we’re out of the library, I don’t mind if you want to dial it down a bit,’ Tess said.
Heathcliff looked at her as if she were speaking in tongues.
This was why she hated going on dates with actors.
They needed so much direction and though they all had monstrous egos, they were also very thin-skinned.
‘Don’t get me wrong. I think you’re doing a great job, fantastic, but it’s just, like, a lot. ’
‘You speak with sincerity but no true meaning …’ He flinched as a black cab came towards them ‘Gah! What monstrous chariot bears down on us? What strange vision of hell is before me?’
‘Honestly, you really need to … Oh, I’d get out of the road, if I were y––’
‘Lord! Deliver me from this torment!’ Heathcliff bellowed, his face lifted to the night as a rickshaw narrowly avoided mowing him down.
‘Oi, mate! Watch yourself! Fucking idiot!’ shouted the driver, as Tess yanked Heathcliff to safety.
She’d still been toying with the idea of taking Heathcliff to Hackney. The alliteration would work nicely in an article, but he was clearly in method mode and every time a car passed, he flinched and shouted in what appeared to be genuine fright.
‘Ale! I need ale! This tavern is a welcome sight,’ he proclaimed and darted across the road accompanied by a hooting of horns, the very colourful language of drivers forced to step on the brakes, and his own anguished yowls.
He dived through the doors of The Black Bull. Tess had no choice but to follow him. So far, this was a very below-average date.
Heathcliff was already at the bar. ‘A tankard of your finest ale, barkeep.’ He threw a handful of change at the barman, who gave him a flinty look.
‘We’re cashless,’ he said flatly. ‘Card or Apple Pay only.’
‘This heathen savage speaks to me in an unfamiliar tongue,’ Heathcliff said to Tess like he’d never seen anyone with full sleeves, neck tats and hollow plugs through his stretched ear lobes. ‘Do you have coin?’
‘I’m so sorry,’ Tess said to the barman. ‘Can I get a pint of whatever you have on tap and a glass of Sauvignon Blanc, please?’
‘A large glass?’ he asked, flicking a disparaging look at Heathcliff.
‘The largest glass you have and a packet of salt and vinegar crisps,’ Tess said, aware of Heathcliff’s eyes on her. Not in the sexy smouldery way he’d looked at her in the library, but in apparent bafflement as she held her phone to the card reader.
‘There’s a free table in the corner,’ the barman said. ‘I’ll bring your drinks over but I don’t want to hear another peep out of your friend.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ Tess said again, but now that beer was forthcoming, Heathcliff was docile enough to follow her to the empty table.
It was fine. It was going to be fine. No one was even looking at them.
‘You’re unwed?’ Heathcliff asked Tess, once they were seated.
‘Well, yes. But I’m only thirty-three, that’s not so old …’
‘Yet you don’t wear the mob cap of the spinster?’ he noted as the barman came through with a pleasingly large glass of white wine. God, she wished she’d ordered the whole bottle now. ‘Your father gives you an allowance?’
‘Ha! Not since I was fourteen and had a chore chart. Come on, let’s just be real now …’
‘Your brother then? It’s honourable of him to keep his old maid of a sister though I wager his wife is less inclined to kindness.’ Heathcliff took several hefty swallows of his beer and affected an air of surprise when Tess glared at him.
‘You can knock it off now. Obviously I earn my own money on account of it being the twenty-first century,’ she said.
Somehow, she was on a date with a bloody thesp.
Love Library, nothing! Tess might just as well have gone on Tinder for this and been saved all the dramatics.
Talk about chewing the scenery. ‘So how long have you been an actor? Do you do a lot of immersive theatre?’
‘I confess I can’t recall ever setting foot in a theatre,’ Heathcliff said because he was obviously under strict instructions not to break character. ‘What use have I of drama from someone else’s imagination when the treachery and torment of my own heart consume me?’
One and done, Tess decided. But Heathcliff gulped down the rest of his drink and slammed the empty glass down on the table.
‘Another,’ he demanded. ‘I have a thirst that can’t be quenched.’
He made quick work of his second pint and to be fair, he did ask Tess a lot of questions about herself.
Or rather about her father. What he did for a living.
Where his people came from. What he thought of his daughter in a city, unchaperoned, and drinking alcohol in a ‘garment more suited to the bedchamber’.
Tess couldn’t even tell who was Heathcliff and who was the actor who was playing Heathcliff.
Both of them were very intense and very insulting.
Her perfectly nice, perfectly respectable gingham wrap dress wouldn’t look out of place at a vicarage tea party but she would definitely safety-pin the gaping neckline next time she wore it.
Not that Heathcliff was looking at her cleavage.
His dark eyes were boring into hers as if she was fascinating.
OK, his body odour was also very intense but as Tess made major inroads into her second massive glass of wine, she started to feel a little better about the circumstances she found herself in.
There was nothing about him that she couldn’t work with. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d taken on a fixer-upper and at least this one had to be back by midnight.
Besides, as Nora Ephron said, everything is copy and this would make a wonderful article. Her first piece had gained a lot of views according to the digital team so maybe Sarah would be more amenable to Tess pitching again. No nagging needed.
‘Another ale! Be quick about it,’ Heathcliff ordered and again, this wasn’t the first time that Tess had been on a date with a man who absolutely refused to get his round in.
‘I don’t mind getting you another but I think you need to pace yourself,’ she said as she tried to catch the eye of the barman, who’d told her on her previous trip to the bar that he didn’t want her leaving ‘that bloke unaccompanied. He looks unpredictable.’
‘Pah! I will not be commanded or lectured by some three-bit jade,’ Heathcliff snorted. Then he had the absolute audacity to scrape his chair round so he had his back to Tess.
It took all of ten seconds for him to become enraptured by the football match playing on a big screen opposite him. He turned round briefly to ask Tess ‘how the fairies got trapped in the magic box?’ but apart from that she might just as well have not existed.
It was the story of her life. She couldn’t even keep the interest of a man who was being paid to go on a date with her. This wasn’t even a little bit romantic – rejection from some theatre nerd with a curfew.
She pulled out her phone to message her work husband Jay, The Sunday Sentinel’s style editor (men), who was always her emergency contact for this kind of scenario.
Tess Hardy: I’m on a terrible date. Definitely in my top eight of worst dates ever.
His reply was immediate.
Jay Mikkelsen: Babes! Where are you? Do you need rescuing?
Tess Hardy: Only from myself. I’ll see you tomorrow.
Jay Mikkelsen: I expect a full debrief.
At least Heathcliff had slowed down the beer quaffing. Even though he was meant to be from Yorkshire, he appeared to be supporting West Ham and when the match ended in a two-goal draw between them and QPR after extra time, he shook his fist. ‘I demand a resolution!’
Didn’t they do penalties in the mid-nineteenth century?
‘I think it’s time we went back to the library?’ Tess suggested as she was done with this sorry excuse for a date. She certainly didn’t want to stick around for a penalty shoot-out.
‘Hush, woman! If you won’t furnish me with more ale, then curb your tongue,’ he dared to snap at her.
Tess was fuming. Fucking fuming. He could make his own sodding way back to the library.
She’d be sending Ella a very sternly worded email in the morning saying that her Love Library scheme needed more beta testing.
For one, they really needed to source a better type of romantic hero to tempt the lonely masses.
She drained the last drop of Sauvignon Blanc in her glass just as West Ham failed to score a goal.
She gathered up her bag just as the West Ham keeper let in a goal.
And she was about to get up and leave when the next West Ham striker hit the post rather than landing the ball in the back of the net.
The gang of City bros on the other side of the pub, all wearing tight trousers and loafers with no socks, erupted into loud cheers.
‘WE ARE THE RANGERS BOYS! STAND UP AND MAKE SOME NOISE!’
Heathcliff jumped to his feet, his fist clenched. ‘The more you worms writhe, the more I yearn to crush out your entrails!’
There was no way that Emily Bronte would have wanted her words to be debased in such a way.
The QPR fans obviously thought so too as they hooted derisively at Heathcliff. ‘We hate West Ham! And we hate West Ham! We hate West Ham! And we hate West Ham!’ they chorused, pointing at Heathcliff and deploying other hand gestures to suggest that he was a grade one wanker.