Читать книгу Somewhere Only We Know: The bestselling laugh out loud millenial romantic comedy - Erin Lawless, Erin Lawless - Страница 11

Alex

He'd been trying to get through The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo since he’d been given it for Christmas, but he usually only managed about three paragraphs before he glazed over. The tatty paperback limp against his knees, he stared beyond the pages to the Tube carriage floor and wondered how many more evenings he'd have to work overtime before Donnelly noticed and put him forward for that promotion.

"I really enjoyed this series," someone said. It was the person who'd just got on at the last stop and sat in the seat next to him. "The film was absolute crap, though," she continued. Alex tensed. Only lunatics spoke to people on the Underground. Was he going to have to change carriages at the next stop? The girl laughed. "Don't you remember me?" And yes, he recognised the voice as he turned.

"Nadia, hey!" Alex greeted her, relieved and more than a little pleased. Nadia sat twisted towards him, smiling in the next seat, her bare legs stretched out in front of them, cork-heeled wedges almost touching the seats on the other side of the carriage, her hair in a pale, braided rope over one shoulder. "Wow, fancy bumping into you here! Small world."

"More like, small Northern Line," Nadia grinned. She took in his rather rumpled suit. "Are you just on your way home? It's late."

Alex scratched at the back of his neck, uncomfortably; it probably wasn't the best idea to talk about work with Nadia. "Oh, you know how it is. I'm gunning for promotion." He gave a self-depreciating smile. "Something a little less soul-numbing for a little more money."

"I don't think I could ever do a job like yours," Nadia told him, matter-of-factly. Alex refrained from pedantically pointing out that foreign nationals can't get jobs at the British Home Office. "Oh? Why's that?"

"Ah, it's like a big, grown-up, important job. I mean, you affect people's lives."

Alex scratched uncomfortably again. "I really don't do anything. I told you, I'm just the admin monkey. So," he hurried on, eager to change the subject, "what would your dream job be? I mean, if you could do anything."

"You mean, if I had a visa allowing me to work?" Nadia teased. She tilted her head, giving his question some thought. "I know you're meant to answer these questions with things like, soap star, prime minister, astronaut but…" She looked down at her hands against her thighs. "Lately I've been thinking I'd like to get involved in immigration issues…"

"I thought you said you couldn't deal with an important job?" Alex teased.

"No, I mean, I'd like to have a job where I could help people in my position. Going through the immigration ringer!" She rolled her eyes. "Give them advice, help them with their applications and appeals, that sort of thing. I mean, I don't know if I could actually ever become like, a full-on lawyer, but I could certainly work in translation to start with. Maybe teach Russian, or English to Russians!" She shrugged. "That sort of thing."

Alex, who would have probably genuinely answered that sort of question with “astronaut”, felt rather silly and humbled.

"That sounds like a really good idea," he told her, sincerely. "And very worthy." He was rewarded by a full-on beam from Nadia.

"Ah, that's good to hear. You're the first person I've mentioned it to, so." The Tube slowed as it entered Stockwell station, the carriage almost emptying out as passengers changed onto the Victoria Line. "Anyway, I hope you've got a good dinner waiting for you when you get home. I trust Rory is being a good little housewife and cooking for his overtime-trodden flatmate?"

Alex pictured Rory wearing a ruffled pinny and fretfully stirring multiple pots on the hob and snorted. "I very much doubt that. My dinner plans consist of nipping into one of the many fine Middle Eastern takeaway dining establishments that Tooting boasts on my walk home."

Nadia crinkled her nose. "By 'Middle Eastern dining' do you mean a kebab shop?"

Alex nodded solemnly. "I do." He shrugged. "I don't even know if Rory's going to be in, to be honest! He might be round Lila's."

Nadia regarded him thoughtfully as she felt around in her bag for her Oyster card as the Tube sped up again, with the next stop her own. "Well, I've already eaten," she told him. "But I was going to hit Starbucks en route home and, to be honest, even a Starbucks toastie is going to be better for you than a kebab from Tooting High Street."

"You Clapham snob!" Alex pretended to be affronted. Nadia rolled her eyes, getting to her feet as the tube began to noticeably slow, swinging her bag onto her shoulder.

"Are you coming?" she asked him, with her hand on her hip and a small smile on her face. Alex closed his book decisively. Why not? It wasn't like he had anything in particular to go home to.

Nadia

"I hope you're not one of those 'I want a super-massimo soy latte, extra hot, extra foam, extra soy, extra latte, extra cup-holder please' people," Alex teased her, as they pushed open the glass door and entered the blessedly cool air-conditioned café beyond.

Nadia glared at him. "No, but there's nothing wrong with people knowing what they like. Besides,” she sniffed, “'Massimo' is a Costa sizing and this is a Starbucks." Alex laughed and rolled his eyes at her. Across the tiled floor a harried barista in a long green apron looked over at them from where she was stacking chairs.

"We're closing in five minutes," she told them, accusingly, as if she suspected they were there to bed down for the night.

"Guess there will be no super-nutritious panini for me," Alex signed, gesturing to where the food shelves were already emptied. It was almost eight o' clock at night, of course Starbucks was closing.

Nadia winced. "Sorry. My bad. But to be honest, just air is still better for you than a takeaway kebab. Can we still get some drinks?" she asked the barista who looked towards the ceiling as if she was the most put-upon creature on the earth and mutely moved back behind the counter.

"Actually, it's still a bit too hot for coffee," she told Alex. "Could I have a Lime Refresher, please?" she asked the barista, taking care to be super-polite.

"Refresher? Isn't that a sweet?" Alex asked.

"Oh, it's a drink from their summer range. It's sort of like iced tea."

"It's made with real fruit and green coffee extract for a low-calorie boost of natural energy you can enjoy anywhere," the barista intoned in the most bored-sounding voice known to man, clearly reciting from her training script. Alex blinked at her.

"Er, sounds…great. Make that two of those thingies, then."

After a reasonably awkward exchange, where both tried to pay for the other, they each just paid for their own and left the miserable barista to her evening. Outside, the evening was still hot and sticky. Nadia sipped her drink through its straw.

"Well, go on then," she gestured at Alex's drink. "What do you think?"

Alex took a tentative sip, then a larger one. The fat ice cubes rattled inside the transparent plastic cup. "Hmm. Well, it's certainly 'refreshing'," was his blunt assessment.

Nadia laughed. "So you're not enjoying a boost of low-calorie natural energy right now?"

"Ask me again when I'm about halfway finished."

"Anyway, I'm sorry I dragged you away from your dinner plans for a drink that's a bit shit," Nadia apologised.

"I know, and it's not even an alcoholic one," Alex agreed solemnly.

"And we couldn't even sit in to drink them," said Nadia, gesturing behind them to where the barista had continued stacking up the chairs beyond the glass.

"So whereabouts do you live?" Alex asked her. Nadia blanched. She was enjoying his company and all – and she had been the one to drag him off the Tube three stops early – but she could imagine Holly's face if she suddenly arrived home with Alex in tow. Their flat was usually just on the embarrassing side of messy and there was more than the off-chance in this weather that Holly might be sitting on the sofa wearing only a vest top and knickers.

"Er." She gestured vaguely to the south-east.

"I can't bear the thought of getting back in that sauna of a Tube, even with my oh-so-refreshing drink," Alex explained. "I was going to walk towards Tooting over the Common. If that's on your way, I can walk you partway home."

Nadia felt stupid. Of course this very proper gentleman wasn't just inviting himself back to her digs.

"That sounds like a pretty great idea," she told him, turning on her heel in the direction of home. "A walk on Clapham Common of a summer's evening. Lovely!"

"Cool," Alex smiled, turning and falling into step beside Nadia as they moved off towards the green expanse ahead of them. "But I'm not going to lie to you, Nadia. When I reach Tooting, I am going to have the biggest, most disgusting kebab going."

Alex

"Oh, hang on." Nadia said, suddenly breaking off their conversation. "I've just got to." She handed him her half-finished drink along with her little handbag and moved purposefully towards a small children's play area.

"I think it's locked up," Alex warned her, immediately noticing the shiny, large padlock holding the area's gate firmly in place. Nadia shot him a look over her shoulder as she reached with her foot for the top of the fencing. Alex glanced away politely as the hem of Nadia's dress rode up her leg, and by the time he looked back she was standing inside the small play park grinning at him.

"Well? Are you coming?"

Alex moved towards the fencing, dubiously. "Are we likely to get in trouble for this?" he asked.

Nadia shrugged, reaching over the fence and taking both drinks and her bag out of his hands. "I never have before."

"Before?" Alex studied the – admittedly very low – fencing carefully, testing its strength by putting his weight on it briefly. "Do you make a habit of breaking into playgrounds?"

"Just this one," Nadia told him solemnly. "Now stop being a baby, come on."

"I imagine it's locked up for a reason," Alex insisted, as he nervously swung one leg into place.

"Yes, to keep out dogs and teenagers," Nadia assured him, watching as he clumsily vaulted the barrier. "And we are neither." Alex surreptitiously checked his suit trousers for snags and rips as he pretended to dust them down. When he straightened, Nadia was looking at him with a little smile on her face. Without comment she handed him back his drink.

"Would you care for a seat?" she asked him, gesturing behind them as she dropped her handbag to the grass.

"More of a swing, really," Alex pointed out. Nadia ignored him, and sat down on the left-most swing, scudding her wedge heels through the tight-packed wood chipping that lay beneath them as she started swinging back and forth. Alex set his drink down to one side before settling on the second swing, holding on to both chains. Nadia wasn't even holding onto one; she smiled at him as she brought her drink up to her mouth.

"What's the matter?" she asked him. "Don't you know how to swing?"

"That sounds like a chat-up line from the seventies," Alex retorted. "But of course I know how to swing." Nadia raised an eyebrow at him and kicked off the ground a little harder, making Alex's stomach go all nervy about the fact that she still wasn't holding on.

"I always wanted to go over the bar when I was a kid," Nadia told him, looking wistfully up at the pole above them.

"That can't actually happen," Alex scoffed.

"Yes it can!" Nadia insisted. "I've seen it on YouTube."

"It defies the laws of physics," Alex argued.

"God!" Nadia laughed. She finally submitted to her perilous height by looping the arm that held her almost-finished drink around one of the swing chains. "Let's just put it this way. I sure hope my kids are the sort of kids that want to go over the bar, rather than automatically believe it's impossible."

"Are you saying that all of humanity splits into those who want to go over the bar and those who don't?" Alex teased. “That’s deep, man!”

"No," Nadia shook her head emphatically. "But maybe I'm saying that humanity splits into those who dream about going over the bar and those that are too scared to try for it."

"Well." Alex laughed shortly. "That's a pretty damning assessment of my personality. And we've only just met!"

Nadia laughed too, looking sideways at him as she pushed herself higher and higher yet. "Okay, so that's a little black and white. But, it's true. I do think you could benefit from living life on the edge a little more, if you don't mind me saying."

"On the edge? Look at me. I'm trespassing, drinking some weird drink I've never even heard of before today, sitting on a swing and – okay, I'll admit it – I haven't been on a swing for at least ten years…"

"Really?" Nadia genuinely sounded surprised. "God, Alex! What do you do with your time?"

And Alex didn't answer, because he found he didn't really have one. They swung for a few moments in silence before Nadia broke the stalemate by dropping her now-empty plastic cup to the ground; the remaining ice clattered inside it.

"You know, Holly and I thought that Lila was your girlfriend, at first," she told him.

"I know," was all Alex replied.

"But, looking back, you didn't seem like a proper couple," Nadia continued. Alex flinched.

"Why's that?" he couldn't help but ask. "Do you think Lila is one of the 'over the bar'-type people, or something?"

Nadia laughed. "No, it’s not that. But it didn't seem like…" She paused to choose her words carefully. "Like you were particularly comfortable, you know?"

Yup, Alex knew. He kicked off the ground a little harder, swinging completely forward for the first time, the soles of his shoes reaching free from the chipping. Ahead of him the sky was coral and pink as it chased the setting sun, all but disappeared into the west, sending their shadows yawning outwards behind them. It was still a tad too light for any stars to be visible, but it was getting late all the same. I must go home in a minute Alex told himself sternly. Instead:

"If you'd have told me when I first graduated and moved to London that I'd be doing all this overtime, I would have laughed in your face," Alex found himself admitting.

"Why?" Nadia asked, curious.

"Well, for a start, the Home Office was just meant to be CV filler, a good-looking first job, you know? I was meant to be doing something else by now."

"Like what?"

"I don't know. Something else.” He couldn’t seem to stop himself talking all of a sudden. “I used to live with a whole bunch of guys,” he continued. “It was a five-room house-share." Alex laughed at Nadia's exaggerated wince. "It wasn't that bad. It was a laugh. But one by one they all either moved out of London or shacked up with girlfriends – that sort of thing, you know. One got made redundant and had to move back in with his parents in Devon. Poor guy's still there. It's been almost three years."

Nadia winced again. "Poor guy," she agreed.

"Anyway, by that time we'd downsized to a two-bed so I was on my lonesome. And I met Rory by advertising on Spare Room dot com." Alex smiled. "He took said spare room, although first he bollocked me for advertising the flat as being in Balham when it is clearly in Tooting. And we get on great and all, don't get me wrong but…since he met Lila, I guess I'm sort of waiting for him to move on too. And he and Lila are sort of the only people I spend all that much time with at the moment, so, that's, well… it's going to suck."

Nadia had slowed her swinging to listen to him. She had her head rested against one of the swing chains as she looked at him sympathetically. He hated being looked at like that. Why was he even talking about this stuff anyway? And to somebody he barely even knew. Alex dragged his feet through the wood chipping to slow his swing down.

"What a pair we are," Nadia said suddenly. "You, scared of being left by people; me, scared of being made to leave."

"Oh, ignore me," Alex told her, growing more and more self-conscious by the minute. Why was it so stupidly easy to run your mouth off whilst on children's play equipment? "I'm just moaning. Sorry for all this 'I've got nobody to play with, boohoo' shit. Don't mind me. I've just got the London Blues."

"Oh no, you can't blame London," Nadia told him firmly. "None of this is London's fault!"

"It's much harder to be lonely in close-knit towns and villages," Alex retorted, immediately regretting his choice of words when he saw Nadia's face soften when he said “lonely”. "Although, to be honest, my most fulfilling relationship would probably still be the one with my PlayStation, no matter where I lived!" he joked, trying to get the conversation back on a more even keel.

Nadia responded by finally taking hold of both of the swing chains and using them to propel herself even higher. And for a brief moment, he did actually believe she might be able to go over the bar.

"Well, I have a proposition for you," she said from high above him.

"What sort of a proposition?" Alex asked suspiciously, curious despite himself.

"I'm sorry, I can't hear you properly," Nadia called out cheerfully. "You're going to have to come up here."

Alex, by now pretty much stationary, looked up where Nadia was reaching the apex of her swing, what seemed like miles above him. "Ha. Funny," he dead-panned. "What's this proposition?"

"Can't, hear, you," Nadia sang, as she pushed herself higher and higher. Alex continued to stare at her, incredulous. Finally he sighed.

"Fine." He kicked off from the ground and started swinging again. "So…?"

Nadia looked down at him and laughed. "That's pathetic. Higher!" she ordered. Alex sighed again and pulled the swing chains backwards in order to push on higher. Although he was still nowhere near Nadia's dizzying heights, she seemed to appreciate his effort and take pity on him.

Nadia

"I'm going to help you – sort of like a life guru," she told him, matter-of-factly.

After a moment's pause, Alex spat out a laugh; whatever he'd been expecting her to say, it clearly wasn't that.

"No, I'm serious!" Nadia insisted.

"I bet you are!" Alex laughed. "Thanks, but no thanks."

"No, really. Once, Caro had me make all of her decisions for a month, just to test it out. We saw it on an episode of 'Friends'."

"You want to make all my decisions for me?" Alex asked her, clearly amused. "How will that work?"

"No, in this instance I'm just going to force you to live a little. Try new things, have new experiences, meet new people."

"Well, you're off to a good start; I've hit all three since the moment I met you," Alex muttered. He didn't even seem to notice that he was swinging higher than he ever had before, which Nadia decided to take as a good sign.

"I just think you need showing that the world outside is much bigger than the world inside your PlayStation," she insisted.

Alex scoffed. "Coming from someone who has clearly never played Skyrim."

"You're really just emphasising my point, you know."

"Okay, so, what is it you are really suggesting?" Alex asked scathingly. "You're going to take me on a tour of all the playgrounds of London? Let me sample the great swings of the capital? Expand my park horizons?"

"Okay, forget it!" Nadia sighed. Even she wasn't all that sure what she was getting at any more. She just felt sorry for this guy; the word “lonely” always made her feel so desperately sad. And it wasn't that she hadn't enjoyed spending time with Alex that evening, but the idea that this was likely to be the highlight of his social calendar was a little heart-breaking.

“Sorry,” Alex apologised, obviously realising he was being a little ungracious.

Nadia laughed. “You’re so British. Apologising all the time.” She looked across at him; his body moved in and out of her peripherals as she continued to swing. “I love this city,” she found herself telling the darkening sky. “You should make the most of it.” Alex didn’t respond, so Nadia continued. “I’ve been thinking, recently, that I should probably be hedging my bets a bit.”

“Hedging what bets?”

“You know. In case I… can’t stay.” She always used phrases like “can’t stay” rather than “have to leave”; they seemed less aggressive.

“Ah, Nadia,” Alex said awkwardly.

She continued before he could say anything pitiful. “I just mean that I should be making memories. Reliving old ones. Whilst I still have the time. I’ve got a list on my phone of all my favourite things I need to make sure I do one last time and all the things I never got round to doing.” She turned to face him, her swinging slowing, losing her height. “You always think you have enough time. But you don’t,” she told Alex, willing him to understand what she was trying to get across without having to resort to that old favourite: ‘life’s too short’.

Alex regarded her solemnly and she saw that he got what she was driving at. Even in the darkness of the dusk his eyes were expressive, straight and frank as they looked into hers. Nadia remembered how she’d told Holly how much she liked Alex’s eyes.

The first slightly cool breeze that London had felt in three weeks rose up and teased past her. Nadia closed her eyes and tilted her face into it. Maybe the heatwave was finally breaking. Please don’t let this be my final summer here, she begged the universe. Please, please.