Chapter Five
I wake with my heart gently thudding against my chest. It is just past seven in the morning and the house is silent. I consider pulling the duvet across myself and trying to sleep again, but the lure of the empty morning is too tempting after a night full of voices.
I dress quietly, pulling on a powder blue sundress that sweeps to my shins. I apply sunscreen carefully, noting patches of skin that I missed the day before, thin crescents around my wrists and elbows that have caught the sun and turned pink. I put the suncream in my small tote bag with the French novel I had packed, and my water bottle. I braid my hair in a band around my head and leave the bedroom as quietly as I can.
At the end of the hallway, one of the bedrooms is open, the bed already made, but when I go downstairs there is nobody around. I fill up my water bottle at the kitchen tap and decide to take a walk into the town that I had only glimpsed the day before. I push the door open and walk up the drive, past the little grey cat stretching out on the low wall in the sunshine. The walk takes me down a series of narrow stone steps and cobbled streets past stretches of white stone apartments. A few elderly people sit on wicker chairs by their front door, drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes.
The town centre is beautiful in the quiet, cool morning, a circle of paving stones in dove grey, cocoa and eggshell in a geometric pattern, studded with tropical trees and surrounded by cafes, restaurants and shops. Shop staff prepare to open their doors through the windows as I walk past, and a few cafes already have their tables and chairs set outside. I approach the nearest one, thinking of reading my book with a coffee under the ivory-pink awning. Each little round table is laid with a gingham cloth, blue garden chairs set at each side. I walk between them and step into the coffee shop. A few of the tables are already occupied with people reading newspapers or battered paperbacks in silence.
I approach the counter to order a drink, looking around the blue-painted walls for a good seat, and my breath catches in my throat. Sitting alone at a table, laid out with papers and a laptop, is George. He hasn’t noticed me, his gaze instead fixed intently on his screen, the fingers of one hand to his temple. I realise I haven’t looked at him properly yet, only glancing at him in the kitchen, down the stretch of table at dinner the night before, and I find my eyes lingering on him, picking out the differences between the man in front of me, and the boy I had been so besotted with.
He looks up as I’m staring, straight into my face. I look back at him blankly for what feels like an age, though half a second later he breaks into a smile and waves me over. I approach numbly, putting on what I hope is a casual, friendly expression.
‘Hello trouble,’ he says, gesturing to the chair opposite him.
‘I don’t want to disturb you.’ I look at the papers in front of him.
‘No, please, you’re a welcome break from this.’ he stands and walks around the table and I feel my skin heat as I wonder if he’s going to hug me, but instead he pulls a slim brown wallet from his pocket.
‘I need another coffee. Can I get you something?’
I squint at the board, which has images instead of words, the outlines of coffee cups filled in with stripes of white, brown and clear to represent the variations of coffee, water and milk that go into a latte, a cappuccino, a flat white.
‘What’s the pink one?’ I ask.
‘A good question. I’m wondering about the green one,’ he smiles down at me. ‘How about we order both and find out? I’ll take the green if you try the pink.’
‘That feels like it could be dangerous.’
‘The true danger is not taking the chance, surely?’
I laugh. ‘Fine, but if they’re disgusting, you’ll need to drink them both.’
‘Deal.’
I take the spare seat and try not to fidget while he orders at the counter. He’s wearing pale, stone-coloured trousers and a loose, cream short-sleeved button-down with a wide collar. It makes the deep colour of his skin more bronzed in contrast. As he turns round I look quickly ahead of myself as though staring into space, then, as though his movement has caught my eye, look back and smile casually as he approaches.
‘Look at these.’ He sets the two drinks down on the table, both in glass-walled mugs. The one he takes is a fresh, grassy green and smells botanical. The one he leaves for me is a dreamy soft pink, with clouds of frothed milk across the top. ‘Predictably mine is matcha. Yours is something with rose in it. Give it a try.’
He walks back to the counter as I cautiously poke at it for a few moments with my teaspoon, watching the steam rise, and returns with two puffy croissants that smell incredible.
‘Good idea,’ I say, ‘just in case we need something to take the taste out of our mouths.’
‘If you hate it I’ll buy you something else,’ he says, ‘now, if you’ll forgive me for starting with a cliché, it’s been too long. How have you been?’
‘I know. I’m sorry, life kept getting in the way.’ It was the line I’d used on his parents the night before. ‘But I’m doing okay.’ I say a few sentences about the stationery shop and my living situation. He smiles and nods, as though I’m saying something interesting. I had forgotten how dark his eyes were. Darker than those of his sisters, which are each brown, but shot through with flashes of tawny or pewter. His are a flawless perfect mahogany, I can see myself in them as I talk.
‘That all sounds amazing,’ he says, ‘I bet you’re perfect at a stationery shop, I can just see you helping little kids pick out gel pens, and helping someone get that perfect journal as a gift for a friend.’ I smile like a child and look bashfully into my lap.
‘And what are you doing now?’ I ask, and am surprised when George gives a huge weary sigh and puffs his cheeks out.
‘I’m doing exactly what I’ve always wanted to do. A proofreader for high-flying corporations.’
‘Oh,’ I remember that that is indeed exactly what he always wanted to do. When I last saw him ten years ago, he had been interning at technical writing agencies while on summer break before returning for his third year at university, using his sharp eye for detail and memory for the strange quirks of grammar in a way that could actually make some money. ‘You sound thrilled about it.’
”I shouldn’t complain. The money is so much better than I would have proofreading in other industries, but at the same time it’s not exactly inspiring. I feel like I spend all my life looking at things people have worked really hard on and thought a lot about, and picking out their mistakes.’
‘I don’t know if you need to look at it like that,’ I say, ‘if you were looking through something I’d written I would feel like you were just helping me realise the best version of what I’m trying to create. Like you’re adding knowledge I don’t have to make it stronger.’
He tilts his head, fidgets with a slim silver band on his thumb.
‘That’s a nice way to look at it. I should come to you every time I feel bad about something, and ask you to find the positives. It doesn’t stop the fact that I need to get all this done in the next couple of hours. That’s why I got up so early to come out here. We’re an hour ahead. The London office hasn’t started up yet so I won’t be fielding calls for a few hours.’
‘Shall I let you get on with it?’ I ask, ‘I can take my drink away and entertain myself.’ I reach into my bag and pull out my book. He smiles again.
‘If you don’t mind me typing and shuffling paper around, I would love it if you stayed here with me while you read. I think I’d just like the company.’
‘Sure. But first, we should try our drinks so we know if we need to get up and order something else.’
‘Sounds good. Let”s do this together.’
We clink our mugs together, both laughing a little at the silliness of it, before taking a sip. Mine is a cappuccino, but spiced and floral, the light, beautiful flavours of rose and cardamom singing through the deep coffee and foamy milk.
‘It’s lovely,’ I say, ‘I would order this again. How’s yours?’
He puts the cup down as he swallows, licks his lips as he thinks.
‘You know that lovely smell of freshly cut grass?’
‘I do.’
‘It’s not quite as nice when it’s a taste.’
I laugh. ‘Oh no, do you need another drink?’
‘No, I’ll keep going. It might grow on me. It’s not bad. It’s just sending some very strange signals to my brain.’
‘If you’re sure.’
We settle into a companionable silence. I open my book, privately pleased I’d bought the sophisticated French novel rather than the thriller I’d started on the plane. It is a beautiful book about a woman, a young girl and a quiet Japanese man who bond as outsiders living in a luxurious Parisian apartment building. It had captivated me when I had started it, but nowI can’t settle to reading when I open it in my lap. Instead I sneak tiny glances at George as he works, reading the words on the page as if they haven’t been translated, using them like stepping stones, my eyes jumping across a few lines until I feel I can chance another look up.
It’s strange that he’s so close, across from me as though we had met regularly for coffee over the last decade. As though this was part of some comfortable routine we had in some other reality where we hadn’t faded from one another’s lives. I wonder if this was how it could have been had I never spoken to him that night. Perhaps if Frannie and I hadn’t snuck out with a bottle of Prosecco and sat on the steps, if that hadn’t made me brave and stupid, drawn to where he had been standing by the hazy blue light of the water. I think about the boy who had been standing there. Though he had always been beautiful to me, at twenty his hair had been much shorter, cut to hide the curls as best he could. and he had been less broad, thinner in the chest and shoulders. Ten years later he has grown into himself, his tall frame filled out broad and strong, his jaw heavier, strong enough to carry the large dark eyes and full mouth. His hair is still short, but his dark curls have grown enough to frame his face and, as I glance at him, I notice a couple of threads of grey around his temples and forehead, turned gold as they catch the light like the crest of a wave.
Eleven Years Ago
Frannie had chosen the venue because of the swimming pool.
‘I think it’s expensive,’ she said, leaning over George’s shoulder in the family computer room, while I stood against the wall behind them. ‘But you only turn sixteen once, so I know they’ll say yes.’
‘Must be nice,’ George said, scrolling through the website, ‘I think for my sixteenth we got Chinese takeaway.’
‘We didn’t do anything for mine,’ Nisha said from the spinning office chair next to us, ‘I opened my presents in the living room and I was grateful.’
‘That’s because you didn’t have girls in the class above inviting you to their Sweet Sixteen parties.’ Frannie shrugged, ‘What am I supposed to do? Not take advantage of it?’
It was true, two girls on the netball team with Frannie had thrown extravagant sixteenth-birthday parties in large venues. I hadn’t been invited, but Frannie had, and had managed to convince her parents that she needed one of her own.
‘You both got big eighteenth birthday parties,’ she went on, ‘and I couldn’t come to either of them because I was too young. You’ll both be at this party, so if you think about it, I’m actually giving you both one extra party than I got. So it’s you who can be grateful.’
Neither of them could argue with that logic, especially after George had pulled the website for the venue up on the family computer and we scrolled through the gallery. The four of us huddled around the screen as he scrolled, his fingertips grazing along the mouse. I felt the warmth of his shoulder inches from mine, was painfully aware of the sliver of space between our legs, his long and bent at the knee, in neat black jeans, mine bare beneath my school skirt which was fraying at the bottom. I would often place my hands strategically over the worst of it. At school I was sometimes conscious of Frannie’s perfectly pressed uniform, her skirt and blouse taken to be fitted properly and replaced several times during the school year. My own shirt was greyed with age, the blue and yellow tartan of the skirt faded with endless washing. But at Frannie’s house I felt none of that. It was as though the beauty of their large house, and their cosy, expensive furniture transferred to me while I was with them. I would often simply forget that I didn’t always live here, until I had to go home.
‘Do you think we’ll be able to use the pool?’ Nisha asked, flicking her brother’s hands away from the keyboard and navigating across the menu in the header, looking for more information. ‘It’s not going to be some kind of health and safety rule which means we can’t have it open with kids around.’
‘There won’t be any kids there.’ Frannie said indignantly, tossing her head so the long sheet of black hair swept back over her shoulder.
Nisha and George shared a teasing glance that they knew would upset Frannie. I knew they were only joking when they did these things, but Frannie would take it personally. This time she made a disgusted noise, got up and stalked out of the room. I made to follow her but George reached out and gently took my wrist.
‘You don’t have to go with her. Stay with us, she’ll come back when she realises you’re still here.’ If it had been anyone else I would have pulled away and run after my friend, but, feeling colour rise in my face I turned back to him. George got up off the chair and gestured for me to sit down in his place.
‘Have you had a proper look at this? It’s hard to do anything without these animals sticking their hands in and trying to control everything.’ He gestured to Nisha who rolled her eyes and leaned back, opening her new flip-phone and starting to text someone.
‘I’ve got a secret project for this,’ George said, ‘and I could use your help with it.’
‘Yes?’ I said, looking intently at the screen, too shy to look directly at him, but knowing that I would do it, whatever it was.
‘I’m going to be in charge of the music. That band you two loved when you were kids, the Star Girlz. Do you still like them?’
‘We both pretend we don’t,’ I smiled, ‘but if we both had to pick our favourite songs ever, it wouldn’t take more than ten tracks to get to one by them.’
‘Ha. I knew it. Could you make a list of her favourites for me? I’m going to slip them into the playlist for the party. Mostly because I love her and want to put all her favourite music on there, but also because I want to watch her pretend to be annoyed even though she’ll love it.’
He leaned over me to use the mouse and opened a document on the computer called George Flores Essay Winter 2008.
‘Just anywhere in there for me.’
I scrolled past pages of plans, photos of cakes with lilac frosting, flower-shaped confetti, and a giant star pi?ata, down to a list of music, most of it pop that Frannie regularly blared while we were in her room. I added the first six or seven tracks that come to mind, inwardly laughing at how quickly I could rattle them off. I could have listed every track, from all four of their albums, in order if needed.
‘What are you two doing?’ a voice sounded from the hall.
‘Nothing.’ George said as I quickly saved and closed the document, as Frannie walked back into the room with a drink. She gave us both a suspicious look and, as she set the glass down, George turned to me with a querying expression. I gave him a small nod in return.
Thank you, he mouthed, and we turned to watch as Nisha started to bicker with Frannie for making herself a drink without offering one to me, her guest, my heart fluttering with the feeling of sharing a secret with George
*
We sit comfortably in the coffee shop for just under an hour, until George gives a sigh of relief and closes his laptop.
‘Productive?’ I ask him.
‘Very. I’m so glad I could get this all done with nobody bothering me. I love my family but you know what they’re like.’ I smile and nod in sympathy. ‘And I like my colleagues, but it’s exhausting, feeling like they all need me all of the time.’
He started to clear up, looking tired. It was so early in the day and already as though his mind felt heavy under the weight of all the things that occupied his time.
‘And Rowena is great, but -’ he hesitated.
‘Rowena?’ I ask, thinking I’ll know his response.
‘My girlfriend,’ he says, smiling. Though it’s not the smile I would expect someone to make when talking about their partner. It was more like the smile someone makes when reminded of a task they’d reluctantly agree to do.
I don’t know what to say, so I busy myself packing away my book and checking my phone. I have a missed call from Frannie and, when I look back up at George, he’s staring at his phone too.
‘Frannie?’
‘Frannie, Nisha, two people from work and Rowena,’ he says.
‘Well if you don’t need to answer any of them right now, maybe put your phone away and we can walk back slowly. Everyone will be there when you’re ready for them.’
‘I admire your boundaries,’ he says, ‘I sometimes feel like every thread of me is being pulled in a different direction.’
‘I don’t think it’s boundaries. It’s just that nobody ever really needs me,’ I laugh, ‘I don’t know if that’s because I don’t make myself very available, or if I don’t have to be available because nobody ever needs me.
‘That is a conundrum,’ George says, ‘either way it must be nice sometimes to feel like your time is your own.’
He’s packed his laptop and papers back into his satchel and, as he goes to put his phone in his pocket the screen lights up again. He looks at it with a tired face and I hold out my tote bag, open by the straps.
‘Here.’ I say, ‘Give it to me for the walk. Then you don’t have to feel like you’re ignoring people. It’s not your fault. I’ve got your phone.’
For the first time that morning he looks like he’s really going to laugh. He drops his phone unceremoniously into my bag and I hear it clunk against my purse. We leave the cafe, calling our thanks to the young woman who moves from behind the counter to collect our cups.