Читать книгу Mhairi McFarlane 3-Book Collection: You Had Me at Hello, Here’s Looking at You and It’s Not Me, It’s You - Mhairi McFarlane, Mhairi McFarlane - Страница 37

Ben and Olivia’s house is a Victorian semi with white gables and a glossy royal blue front door, a lollipop bay tree in a square black planter standing sentry. I ring the stiff brass doorbell and wait, listening to the hubbub of lively voices beyond. I get a ripple of anxiety. No Rhys by my side any more. I hadn’t appreciated how solitary being single would feel. I wish I’d had two vodkas.

Ben answers, carrying a bottle with a corkscrew wedged in it, cream shirt, slightly mussed hair, looking like something from a Lands’ End catalogue. He and Olivia probably go for hearty walks in Aran sweaters and his‘n’hers chocolate moleskin trousers on Sundays, throwing sticks to their rescue puppy, laughing with their heads thrown back.

‘Rachel, hi!’ He leans in for a chaste peck on the cheek, and I go rigid. ‘Can I take your coat?’

I do an awkward dance, handing him the wine I’ve brought, unwrapping myself, swapping the coat for the return of the bottle.

Over his shoulder, as he’s hanging my coat up, Ben says: ‘This is Liv. Liv, Rachel.’ Blood pounds in my ears.

A petite woman steps forward, smiling, to relieve me of my booze for a second time. I quiver. Perhaps unsurprisingly, after all this angst, she is just an attractive woman. Slight, duckling-blonde short hair, perfect oval face, golden-coloured. I expected some variant on feminine perfection and Olivia looks like she sweats Chanel No. 5, no surprises here.

If I was going to be a cow – and obviously, I’m not, but if I was going to be – physically, she’s the tiniest bit safe, as a Ben choice. His university ones were usually dynamic, healthy, strapping, widescreen-smile Carly Simon sorts. That type of mega-wattage vivacious beauty where trying to deny it was like trying to look directly into the sun without squinting.

‘Nice to meet you,’ she says.

‘Nice to meet you too. Thanks for inviting me.’

‘Come and say hello to the others and I’ll get you a drink.’

As I follow her I see she’s wearing a clinging, draped jersey top and tight-but-flared trousers in shades of grey. Not darks-wash-accident grey, of course, the ones called things like moonstone, graphite and slate that hang in sinuous slivers on padded hangers in shops with the ambience of New York nightclubs. The sort I didn’t dare enter this afternoon, expecting to be chased out of at the end of a broom. She’s so understated and sophisticated, suddenly my try-hard tart frock makes me feel as if I’ve wandered out of an ’80s instant coffee ad.

Olivia leads me into a living room that opens on to a dining room beyond and guides me over to do my hellos with a tall woman with highlighted, vanilla-and-toffee hair. She looks like she’d have been in the Goal Attack tabard in the rival school’s netball team and marked you so hard you’d have fallen over in fright. My eyes move to the man next to her, who’s shorter, stockier and wearing a salmon-pink shirt that accentuates his tanned flush.

‘Lucy, Matt, this is Rachel. And I think you’ve met Simon …?’

Simon, inspecting the bookshelf, raises a flute glass in greeting and ambles over. He still looks like he’s dressed for the office.

‘Can I offer you a champagne cocktail, Rachel?’ Olivia says.

‘You can, and I will accept,’ I say, trying to strike the right partyish note and coming off as a cock. ‘Your house is lovely, Olivia. I can’t believe you’ve not been here for years.’

This is a proper grown-ups’ dwelling, no doubt about it. The oatmeal carpet underneath our feet is thick and soft, church candles are twinkling in a cavernous original fireplace and there are framed black-and-white photographic prints on the walls of Barcelona or Berlin or wherever they went on romantic breaks while courting, wielding the Nikon.

‘Oh, we’re still at sixes and sevens, we’ve dimmed the lights to cover it up,’ Olivia calls, over her shoulder, as she ducks out to the kitchen.

‘Liv is being modest; she trails order in her wake like most people trail devastation,’ Ben calls, from somewhere near the oven.

The table beyond is set with coordinated aqua napkins and taper candles, the centrepiece is a moth orchid in a pebble-filled tub. Some ambient-chill-out-dub-whatever drifts out of a Bang & Olufsen stereo. If Ben’s still climbing the ranks, Olivia must be quite a high-flier, I decide, taking in the atmosphere of plushy serenity and discreet wealth. I picture my old home in Sale and realise what different circles Ben and I move in. My mind wanders back to the reassurance Rhys would offer at my side but I quickly start to reassess whether it’d be worth it. His hackles would be right up at this advertisers’ vision of cliched contentment and I’d be hoping he didn’t drink too much and get ‘nowty’.

Olivia returns and puts a champagne flute in my hand, raspberries bobbing in the liquid.

‘Is this everyone now, Liv?’ Lucy asks.

‘Yes.’

‘OK, so a – toast. Welcome to Manchester, Liv and Ben.’

‘Cheers,’ I mumble, clinking glasses.

‘Cheers Ben!’ they call, as he’s in the kitchen.

This is everyone? Six of us, two couples, two singles – Simon and I are being set up. It’s not merely a rumour: this kind of crashingly unsubtle matchmaking actually happens. Is Simon equally uncomfortable to have me sprung on him? Lucy and Matt are looking at me curiously. I’m going to have to brave this out by pretending it’s not happening. My usual modus operandi.

I turn towards Simon in desperation, with a rictus grin.

‘How are you?’ I ask.

‘I’ve spoken to Natalie and she’s definitely up for the interview,’ he says, and I’m grateful to have a topic in common.

‘Great.’

‘I’ll get back to you with a date. OK to do it at her house?’

‘Ideal.’

‘All right if I come along?’

‘If it’s OK, I’d rather you didn’t.’

‘Thanks.’

‘I’m not being rude—’

‘Oh really? Where does this rank on your scale?’

He deadpans and I laugh despite myself.

‘If you sit in,’ I say, ‘she’ll be on edge and looking to you for approval all the time and the whole thing will be stilted. I know it’s a big story but she’s not Barbra Streisand. It’ll be fine.’

‘I’ll think about it,’ Simon says, smiling.

‘Those are my terms,’ I say, smiling back, hoping this isn’t too much sass. ‘Good luck taking your terms to the nationals.’

Actually the nationals would bite Simon’s hand off to the elbow. I feel reasonably sure from what Ben said that Simon’s going to keep his sense of humour, and stick with me.

‘What do you do for a living?’ Matt interrupts.

‘I’m a court reporter for the local paper. You?’

‘Management consultancy. Mainly blue chip firms.’

I can’t think of any follow-up question, so Matt interjects: ‘What’s the naughtiest thing anyone in the dock’s ever done?’

‘Er. Naughtier than serial killing?’

‘No, bizarre stuff. Funnies.’

‘You lawyers probably see more of them than me?’ I say to Lucy.

‘I’m in litigation, like Liv,’ Lucy offers. ‘So no. Leylandii and partition walls.’

‘Sit in, everyone,’ Olivia says, and we all take our seats, Lucy and Matt making a beeline for the middle, Simon and I left with no choice but to flank them, facing each other. Why didn’t Ben warn me? It isn’t like him. You don’t know what ‘like him’ is any more, I remind myself.

Wine flows, I gulp to finish my cocktail, and salads are put in front of us. I try to remember what polite small talk involves and try to make sense of the ‘Ben Plus Olivia Equals Lucy and Matt as Friends’ equation. Part of the wonder of mine and Ben’s previous life was our radar for who our sort of person was and who wasn’t. It was as if we arrived at the friendship with a shared phrasebook and moral compass and map, even if the literal one of the university lay-out was less comprehensible. This turn of events tells me either, as Caroline put it, his thing has changed, or he’s being a good host and a good husband. I know which I’m hoping for.

‘How are you coping up here?’ Matt asks Olivia. ‘Do you like Man-chest-ah?’

Matt says this in a mock Burnage scally voice that sets me slightly on edge.

‘I like Harvey Nicks,’ Olivia says, to a titter from Lucy. ‘I do. It’s much more like a little London than I thought it would be.’

This doesn’t sound like a ringing commendation to me. Is it positive to praise something as a miniature version of what you’re used to? Unless it’s a bum, I suppose.

‘You know Ben’s always gone on about how amazing it was to go to university here …’ she continues. Good for Ben.

‘Didsbury is so fab,’ Lucy says.

‘It seems to have everything, yeah. We’re going to need to look into schools,’ Olivia adds, coyly.

‘Oh, do you have some news?’ Lucy trills, grabbing Olivia’s arm.

I chew so hard I bite the insides of my cheeks.

‘No, just planning ahead,’ Olivia says, casting a look at Ben.

‘Awww …’ Lucy coos.

I feel infinitely sad and already slightly tipsy, a combination that foreshadows disaster. However, I notice Ben also looks like he needs the Heimlich manoeuvre.

‘Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,’ he says to Olivia. ‘A dog will do for now. We’re concentrating on settling in right now, that’s all,’ Ben says, to the table.

‘Don’t put it off when you don’t know how long it will take,’ Lucy says. ‘We were trying for how long, with Miles?’

‘Eighteen months,’ Matt supplies.

‘And that was going at it pretty much every night,’ Lucy adds. I suddenly find the issue of whether this is indeed chicory in my salad absolutely engrossing.

‘I read an article in the Mail the other day by some fertility specialist,’ Lucy continues. ‘He said you should have your family completed by thirty-three. How many do you want, Liv?’

‘Three. Two girls and a boy.’

Ben exhales, heavily. ‘You don’t order them from Grattans …’

‘And you’re what, thirty-one? You have to get started this instant, right now!’ Lucy says, banging the table and giggling.

‘Not right now, one hopes,’ Simon says drily, and I laugh.

‘Stop winding her up, Lucy,’ Ben says, with tension in his voice that apparently goes completely unnoticed by Lucy.

‘Come on, Ben!’ Lucy wheedles. ‘If the lady wants it, the lady should get it. Titchies are the best fun!’

I have to look round the room at this for confirmation. She did say ‘titchies’, right?

‘Unless you think you’re firing blanks?’ Matt adds, quite seriously, to a this-isn’t-happening face from Ben.

Wow. Any Matt and Lucy child, I think, must be quite a formula. Matt and Lucy squared.

‘He’ll come round,’ Olivia says, patting Ben’s arm.

Ben looks hunted and takes a swig of his drink.

‘What about you, Rachel?’ Olivia says, and all eyes swivel towards me. ‘Do you want kids some day?’

‘Uh.’ I have a forkful of green leafy matter stalled halfway to my mouth and I plonk it back down on the edge of my plate, so I don’t look like one of the gorillas in the mist with the vegetation being observed by five Dian Fosseys. ‘It’s not top of my agenda. But, yes. Why not? If I find someone to have them with.’

There’s an uncomfortable silence: uncomfortable largely due to their matchmaking. I rattle on: ‘And I say, don’t worry about fertility specialists. That’s their job, to tell you to get on and have babies. I’m sure a liver specialist would tell us never to binge drink and heart consultants would say don’t cook with butter.’

Another clanging silence, even louder than the first. Ben smiles encouragingly. No wonder: I’ve taken his place in the shit.

‘You binge drink?’ Matt says, flatly, chasing some rocket round his plate.

‘Not – uh. I don’t down bottles of apple Corky’s and urinate on war memorials. I don’t regularly stick to two units at one sitting though. That’s normal, isn’t it?’

‘Not if you have children,’ Lucy says.

‘Of course, sleepless night … and so on,’ I offer.

‘And Miles is nearly four now, I don’t want him to be around us, drunk.’

‘Well, I should think not,’ I say. ‘At the bottle at his age.’

Lucy takes it straight, blinking rapidly. ‘He’s weaned and on solids. He’s three.’

‘Urm, yeah. I meant …’ I trail off.

Lucy turns to Olivia and says: ‘Oh my God, I forgot to tell you – we finally got the keys to the villa!’

She starts rummaging in her bag, producing photographs. Lucy hands them to Olivia and Ben and they make noises of interest and approval. It doesn’t seem as if the photos are going to circulate any further.

‘Wrong crowd for that last gag, I’m afraid,’ Simon mutters, topping up my suddenly-nearly-empty wine glass.

‘Did I say a bad thing?’ I whisper back.

‘Absolutely not. I was waiting for the spotlight to swing round to my sperm motility.’ He looks down. ‘Disaster averted, boys.’

Suddenly I’m back at school, giggling at the back of the classroom. When our laughter subsides, we see the rest of the table are watching us with interest.