Chapter 10
DOMINIC
Flavia is making me laugh.
We’re eating our main course of the lodge dinner – possibly the best steak I’ve ever had in my life – and the conversation has ended up in an amicable squabble about the pronunciation of the word ‘goatee’.
We got here because Flavia likened a springbok to a beardless goat, and then – as though struck by an entirely original and exceptionally genius thought – exclaimed, ‘Oh my goodness, a goatee beard must come from a goat.’
Flavia and Charlotte think the second syllable of the word goatee is emphasised. Kris and I know that the first syllable is emphasised.
‘It needs to be distinguished from the word goaty,’ says Flavia.
‘But that’s where it obviously came from, as you just said,’ I say for maybe the seventeenth time. ‘Which surely indicates that that is how it’s pronounced. You’ve watched too much American TV. Goatee is blatantly an Americanism.’
‘Dominic.’ She points her fork at me. ‘You are denying the evolution of language.’
‘You are denying the purity of the English language.’
She shakes her head very sorrowfully. ‘So deeply set in your ways at the age of only thirty-five.’
‘Sorry?’ I offer.
She shakes her head very seriously. ‘Nope. Sorry is not good enough. I can accept nothing less than you calling it a goatee beard.’
‘I cannot do that unfortunately. Because it is completely wrong.’
She narrows her eyes at me. ‘How do you pronounce ice cream?’
Despite having grown up in the same village with, you would think, the same accent, we find that we do not agree on the pronunciation of ice cream, magazine, Amsterdam or adult.
Eventually, Flavia shakes her head in mock despair and says, ‘Tomahto, tomayto. We have literally nothing in common.’
‘I think you’re right,’ I say cheerfully.
She is gorgeous. I don’t care that we have nothing in common (we really don’t): she’s beautiful and she makes me laugh way more than any given ‘joke’ warrants it.
I’m loving being with her. I mean, we just spent literally at least ten minutes talking about word pronunciations, not necessarily the most exciting of topics, and I relished every second of that conversation.
After our main courses are cleared away, Maxim pops up and tells us that we’re going to shake things up for the desserts and everyone will be moving to a different table, for mingling purposes.
I’m surprised by how disappointed I am to no longer be sitting anywhere near Flavia. Right now, I realise, I’d like to go back to our room with her, just the two of us, and put that four-poster to good use.
And that is a bad thing. Because Flavia is a very nice woman, who has suffered both a bereavement and a marriage breakdown in the past twelve months, so absolutely nothing can or should happen between us, because there really isn’t such a thing as entirely-no-strings sex that applies equally to both parties, and I’m certainly not up for a relationship with her.
Which is actually fine. I just need to not give in to temptation. Assuming that Flavia would even be tempted in any way to do anything we clearly shouldn’t do. Maybe she wouldn’t; maybe I’m flattering myself.
Whatever, I just need to be a grown-up.
I miss her during dessert. I actually miss her.
I can hear her chatting and laughing at her new table, and find my ears pricking up at literally anything she says.
At one point she seems to be talking about her favourite fruit (sounds like it’s oranges) and I want to rush over there and hear more.
Then Alex-the-sniper asks her about her job and, even though I know she currently teaches history and Italian as a maternity cover on a fixed one-year post at a big comprehensive in London, I’m straining to hear her answer.
(Will she tailor her words in any way to Alex’s snipering – sniping?
– background?) Then she begins to describe how to poach eggs perfectly and I really want to hear what she says, even though I’m very much a fried or scrambled egg man, never poached. I think I’ve gone mad.
‘So are you up for that?’ Mike’s voice penetrates through, as I cock my ear for more of Flavia’s egg thoughts, and I stare at him, a little alarmed. I almost confirm that, yes, I am, before realising that I could be committing myself to literally anything.
‘I’m so sorry, I didn’t quite catch that,’ I say.
And then I make an effort to ignore the sound of Flavia’s laugh and pay a lot more attention to my table companions.
Not least because what Mike wanted me to be up for, and which I almost said yes to, was a trip to Ibiza, just the two of us, one of those ones where you fly in, club all night, in Mike’s words ‘pull as many women as you can’, and then fly home again at lunchtime.
I’d have loved that fifteen years ago. Now it would be my idea of hell.
Dessert is nice. These are pleasant people. Even Mike. They aren’t Flavia, though.
When we finish eating, we all wander to the edge of the terrace with the remainders of our drinks to stare out at where the vast blackness of the bush is bathed in the moon’s pale light.
‘This is so much better than any painting or photo could ever be.’ Flavia is beside me, which I am very pleased about. ‘You know how we’ve all seen footage of almost everywhere in the world. It’s nice to know that it’s better to experience it in person.’
‘Yup. We’re also very lucky that we have the full moon.’
‘I know.’ Flavia suddenly gasps and points. ‘What’s that?’
There’s something huge moving quite close to the terrace. I peer into the half-light.
‘Maybe a rhino? I think they’re nocturnal.’
‘Wow,’ Flavia breathes.
‘Yeah.’
We stand and just watch. Gradually the others peel away and head for their beds for the night – we’re going to be woken early in the morning for our first foray of the day – and after a while it’s just Flavia and me. We aren’t speaking, we’re just both enjoying the view.
I don’t want to spoil the companionship of the moment, and there’s also the slight (great) oddity of our bedroom situation, so I just continue to stand there, looking out into the night.
Eventually, Flavia says, ‘We should get some sleep. We have a hideously early start tomorrow.’
I nod, and we turn to go.
When we get inside the room, she says, ‘I will happily take that beautifully big, soft bed in the hotel all to myself again and I will happily be the one who chooses each time who gets the bathroom first, and in return you have to let me take the sofa here. I’m a very good sleeper.
I can sleep anywhere. And you are far too… long… for it.’
I laugh. Every time she uses a word that’s any kind of synonym for big she gets adorably embarrassed-looking, which I very much enjoy. Apparently I am extremely juvenile.
‘Long?’ I query, unable to resist teasing her about this big thing.
She looks me right in the eye and says, ‘Long,’ very firmly.
I smile.
She says, ‘Are you really, really immature?’
‘Yup,’ I confirm.
She shakes her head and says, ‘Truly pathetic,’ except she’s smiling too.
I think I might be looking rather foolish. I can feel my smile growing.
‘So do you agree?’ she asks after a while.
‘That I’m long?’
She tuts at me. ‘Do you agree to take the bed while I take the sofa?’
I’d actually completely forgotten that that’s where this began.
‘I don’t like giving in,’ I say thoughtfully. ‘I feel like there should be more onerous conditions attached to you getting the sofa.’
‘You do know that the sofa is the short straw not the long straw?’
‘I mean, not entirely? Because we both want it. So bizarrely it is in fact a more sought-after sleeping place than the amazing-looking bed.’
Flavia rolls her eyes at me, but she’s still smiling.
‘Go and get ready for bed,’ she says. ‘Actually, no. I’ll go.’ And she’s into the bathroom before I can speak.
I suspect that she’s going to win on the sofa argument (and while I hate feeling unchivalrous I do agree that she would be able to lie full length on either sofa, while I would not), so I feel rude sitting on either of them, because I don’t know which one she’s going to take (should I end up losing the argument; the jury is still out on whether I will), so I stand at the window and watch the world of the dimly lit bush go by – no great hardship.
When I hear the bathroom door open, I turn round, and then wish I hadn’t.
Flavia is dressed in pyjamas that consist of tiny little shorts and a tightish vest top that leaves nothing to the imagination.
I quickly look away, not wanting to ogle. Or rather, I do very much want to ogle, but I shouldn’t.
‘So I’ll take a sofa,’ she says.
‘Okay, if you’re absolutely certain,’ I concede.
Having seen her in those pyjamas I no longer have the force to argue.
I just want to get into bed on the other side of the room, turn my back on her, and try really hard not to think about all the things we absolutely should not and will not do together.
I give her an extremely wide berth on my way to the bathroom, which, of course, is now filled with her clutter (how does she do that when she’s only here for one night?), which unbelievably I’m almost beginning to like.
When I emerge from the bathroom, having taken my time, so that Flavia hasn’t had to rush, she’s on the sofa under the window, with one of the pillows from the bed and the bedspread, all tucked up.
I don’t love the fact that she has the dud bed option, but she does actually look quite comfortable there.
‘Thank you again,’ I say.
‘No problem at all, honestly,’ she replies.
‘Are you happy for me to turn the light out?’ There are light switches for the whole room next to the bed, and none next to the sofa that no-one is expected to be sleeping on.
‘Yep. Night.’
‘Goodnight.’ And then I switch the lights out… and lie there wide, wide awake.