After You Left Page 8

  ‘Two o’clock.’ Sally nudged me as we clung to our wine glasses. We had just been lamenting the coincidence of how, over dinner two hours previously, we’d witnessed my ex – Colin, who couldn’t commit – proposing, on his knees, complete with diamond and spellbound onlookers. Colin, who actually shed tears when he told me how much he loved me but how fervently against the idea of marriage he was. Fortunately, the girl had looked mortified.

  My eyes moved to two o’clock. There was a dark-haired guy in a suit trying to order a drink. He was thrusting a hand into the air in that assertive way only a very tall person can pull off, and which comes across to everyone else as slightly obnoxious. I could only see him from the side. A fine head of hair. Nice build. A thatch of white shirt-cuff protruding from his jacket’s sleeve.

  Spotting him somehow dampened sound. I suddenly seemed to bloom like a flower. As though someone had just given me the right combination of sun, wind, warmth and water. As I studied him, time slowed to footpace. And then, almost as if he felt the pull of my eyes, he turned around. And even though the room was crowded, and there were so many other faces he could have looked at, it was mine he homed right in on. I gave a small, involuntary smile. He responded likewise, looking charmed. We were held there, like wind-hovering birds, until I was the first to look away.

  I don’t really know when my faith in men went out of the window. Perhaps I’d never had much, so I’d managed to attract ones whose shitty behaviour wouldn’t fail to disappoint. I may have learnt this from my mother who, despite having Alan as a wonderful partner for so many years, lumped all men in with my true father, whose heinous crimes were too numerous to identify. It’s not as though I ever had the sort of unrealistic expectations my single friends always harboured. If he was intelligent, kind, somewhat fun, with a good sense of humour, if he had one feature that pleased my eye every time I looked at his face – that could be enough to fall in love with. But still, it had never really happened.

  ‘He’s handsome,’ I said to Sally. But the weight of another possible new start was just too much. ‘I can’t do it again, though. It’s over for me, Sally. I can’t handle being let down any more. I can’t put my mind or my body through one more traumatic break-up.’ The image of Colin proposing had wounded me more than I was ever going to let on. Maybe he hadn’t loved me enough to want to marry me, because I wasn’t worthy of being loved. ‘I honestly think I’m destined to be alone. In fact, I’m looking forward to it. Alone doesn’t mean lonely. I’m going to chant that every day, in my celibate, Buddhist monk’s temple.’

  ‘Here he comes,’ Sally said.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Him.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oh God.’ I clapped both hands over my face. ‘Alone doesn’t mean I’m lonely!’

  Sally chuckled. ‘You are so full of shit!’

  ‘Please, please, make him go away! Let him meet someone else on the way over here. Please.’

  ‘Ah! Shoot! He’s gone. Girlfriend! False alarm.’

  I swung around, gutted, to look for the girlfriend. And when I did, there was Justin right behind me, grinning madly. He was even more attractive up close. Not boringly handsome. Rather beast-like and full of character, with kindness twinkling in those remarkable blue-green eyes. I gave Sally a glance that said, Why can I never stick to my guns?

  ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘I don’t do this chatting up in bars business very well, so fortunately you’re going to be spared my grisly attempt at hitting on you. Thing is, I don’t have a lot of time – I have to go back to work – but I wondered if you might go out to dinner with me?’ He was shouting over the music. His eyes searched my face, and were brimming with expectancy. ‘I was thinking some place with good old-fashioned seats to sit on, where we can talk like civilised adults instead of having to shout at one another.’

  He was asking me out to dinner before he’d even asked my name. And he didn’t act like he thought that was in any way weird. ‘Are you serious?’ I said.

  He held my eyes, steadfastly. ‘Why would I be anything less?’ The whiteness of his shirt against the darkness of his skin under these lights was bedazzling. No, I thought. He is bedazzling!

  ‘You want me to go out to dinner with you – a perfect stranger? What makes you think that would be a good idea?’

  There was a hint of a cheeky smile now. ‘I never said I was perfect. In fact, far from it.’

  I had to laugh.

  He leant in slightly; I could feel the warmth of his breath on my ear, though it didn’t seem like a move. He didn’t seem like a player in the slightest. ‘I’ve just seen you across a crowded room . . . Your face has pretty much just taken my breath away. But sadly, I have to leave. And I don’t want to walk out thinking I won’t see you again.’

  ‘But you just ordered drinks?’

  ‘For friends.’ He nodded to a group of men. ‘They don’t have anti-social jobs like I do.’

  He was waiting for my answer. Despite the madness of it, I said, ‘Okay.’

  A slight note of triumph and pleasure lit up his face. He suggested the place, date, time. Then he repeated it, uncertainly, and I thought, No, he’s definitely not a player. More like slightly nerdy. The guy who peaked late.

  His top button was undone, and his red tie had been yanked halfway down his chest. ‘You’re not going to stand me up, are you?’ He cocked me a sideways, playful glance but I could tell he was actually quite serious.

  ‘No . . . That’s generally not what I do.’

  ‘Promise?’ He placed a hand on his heart. ‘Because my fragile self-esteem will never be able to handle it, if you do.’

  I laughed. ‘I don’t believe that for one minute!’

  ‘It’s true. But, more to the point, I’ll have to sit there on my own and wonder, What if . . . ?’

  He looked at me as though all the What Ifs were flickering there, waiting to be known. As though he were silently saying, Be as excited as I am about it.

  I couldn’t quite believe he’d said such a lovely thing. I stared at him and noticed the tiny scar above his top lip. ‘I’ll be there,’ I said.

  A slightly roguish smile spread across his face this time, sending deep lines fanning around his eyes. Maybe he wasn’t such a nerd after all. Hmm. We would see . . .

  ‘Tuesday, then?’ he said.

  ‘Tuesday,’ I repeated.

  I’d reckoned it was 50–50 that he would show up. But, then again, that was generally about as positive as I got when it came to dates. He studied me long and hard from across the table. The hostess had considered the floor plan, then seated us in a conspicuously romantic corner, leaving us with a slightly envious and knowing smile.

  He had the most amazingly healthy eyes: blue-green with ultra-clear whites. Stunning eyes.

  ‘What would you like to drink?’ he asked, right off the bat. ‘Do you normally like a cocktail first, or do you want to go straight to wine? And a bottle, or by glass?’ He reached for the wine list. The way he fumbled with it made me think perhaps he had been honest when he said he didn’t do the chatting up thing/dating thing very well. Plus, he wore a well-ironed, checked shirt with a button-down collar, and his hair looked slightly over-combed. The nerd had resurfaced. I must have been looking at him oddly, because he suddenly looked up, studied my face, and smiled, then said a suspicious, ‘What?’ I grinned. He did too now, fully.

  ‘Nothing!’ I sat back in the chair, crossed my arms and studied him, as if I were a doctor and he my patient.

  He laughed a little, nervously, which amused me, too.

  ‘I think we would be insane to skip cocktails and proceed to wine,’ I said.

  ‘My thoughts exactly.’ He looked relieved to put down the wine list.

  We ordered two Hendrick’s martinis. ‘Do you normally ask women out on dates before you’ve even said hello to them?’ Our eyes did a little dance over the rims.

  ‘Never,’ he said. ‘I’ve actually never done t
hat before. But, as they say, life’s short, isn’t it? Once you want to make something happen, you’ve got to just go for it. Or it never does. Or someone else will . . .’ The waitress set down a little antipasti plate of cheeses and ham. He reached for a toothpick, and I noted his nice square fingernails and strong hands.

  I liked his reply. The someone else will part. It felt significant.

  ‘Besides, as I said, you’re a very attractive woman. And I sensed you’re intelligent right away because there’s, you know, a brightness in your eyes. They’re very expressive eyes, actually . . .’ He held them now, as though they had the power to stop all thought. ‘Plus, you were dressed nicely: classy, like you’re an individual rather than a sheep. And your friend looked normal, which is always a good sign. And you weren’t overly intoxicated. Women these days are nearly always pissed, I find.’

  ‘That’s it, then? I’m attractive and I don’t seem to be wasted?’

  ‘You’re mocking me now.’ He tut-tutted, and passed me the bread basket. ‘I was trying to pay you a compliment.’

  I watched him lightly butter his bread, and found myself inwardly smiling. ‘You paid several.’

  ‘Anyway,’ he said. ‘To go back to what you asked me . . . To be honest, I can’t really say I date all that much. What with the fact that I’m married to my work . . .’ He held up his hands in surrender. ‘As I said, I’ve actually never done anything as crazy as this before, and I honestly never expected you’d say yes. But you did. So that was a lucky strike.’

  I found myself being so awake to him, so in tune. He was different. Nice different. I felt oddly at ease with him and trusting of him, which was a novel feeling for me. ‘So you’ll be doing it all the time now? I’ll have started a trend?’ I wasn’t sure how I was going to manage to eat; there were tiny birds’ wings in my stomach.

  ‘I hope not. That would spoil the coolness of this. Wouldn’t it?’

  He ordered us wine once we’d perused the menu, and I liked that he asked if I wanted to choose it, or if he should. Over dinner, our conversation was surprisingly unstoppable: a crash course in what we did for a living, where we had grown up, our friends. We talked about music, TV, royalty, anorexic actresses, his recent trip to Machu Picchu, my desire to go on an African safari if it weren’t for the fact that I was terrified of having to get all those vaccinations. I told him how my job had brought me to Newcastle from Stockport. Justin said he’d grown up in a modest house in Durham, then had gone to read Law at Oxford, but he had left after the first year to travel the world. ‘I just hated the routine and demands of Uni. I realised I’d gone there before I was really ready.’

  ‘So you walked out of Oxford?’ Was he mad?

  ‘Well, yes. But I went back.’ After a doubting look, he said, ‘I was always going to go back, Alice.’

  The way he casually said my name felt unexpectedly familiar and flattering. He grew on me in leaps and bounds, just with that one tiny little thing.

  All was going swimmingly until he asked my age. ‘Why are you asking me that?’ I replied, then joked about how you never ask a lady her age.

  He looked slightly wrong-footed for a moment. ‘I don’t know why I asked,’ he said. ‘I didn’t realise it was such a bad question.’

  I hated that I’d been touchy. ‘It’s not. I’m thirty-four.’

  ‘Well,’ he said, appearing genuinely surprised. ‘I’d have guessed no more than late twenties . . . And you want to have kids, I assume?’

  The waitress was fussing around us, and I was certain she heard that, so I held back until she left. ‘Yes. I think I do. What about you?’

  ‘Of course. I think my life will be in danger of becoming a bit self-centred if I don’t. Not that it would be necessarily any bad thing to just have to please yourself until the end of your days. But I think a child would add a lot. I’d like to have something of myself passed on . . . The good parts, anyway. I think I have a lot to teach a child. I mean, I like to believe that.’

  He was disarmingly frank. I wondered if he was disappointed that I was a little bit older, then I berated myself for my insecure thinking.

  Over dessert and Armagnac, I learnt that his father had died when Justin was only eleven. He was a doctor. ‘My mother was lost without him, and seemed to remarry at breakneck speed. Charlie, my stepfather, was a bastard. He wanted my mother, of course, but I was in the way. He always seemed to have it in for me. Never cheered for my successes. Always seeming to be looking for me to fail . . .’ He went off, seeing distant memories in close-up. I wondered if he always talked so intimately to people he didn’t really know. ‘He was a belittling, criticising prick, to be honest.’ He must have recognised that he was turning the conversation dark. He launched a smile. ‘Other than that, he was fabulous.’

  ‘That must have been rough, losing your dad so young.’

  ‘For a boy of that age, it’s probably the most defining thing that can happen to him. I never quite got over it.’

  His words, his face, when he spoke of his father, touched me.

  ‘I had a great stepdad,’ I told him. ‘I was lucky, I suppose. I was only about seven when he came into my life. He was a decade older than my mum. He’d really wanted a family, my mother said, but it hadn’t happened for him. So he took to me wholeheartedly. I couldn’t have asked for more.’

  Justin listened intently. ‘What about your real father?’

  ‘Oh . . . I don’t know all that much.’ This topic hadn’t come up in a long time. ‘He wasn’t a good person. He left us when I was little. I don’t think my mother ever forgave him.’

  ‘But she had a happy life with your stepfather? Was she in love with him?’

  I thought about this. ‘Hmm . . . How do I know if she was or she wasn’t? I think she loved him in a quiet way – if that makes sense. I think she’d loved my real father in a more heartbreaking way. At least, I’m guessing.’

  ‘Did you never want to ask him to find out?’

  I frowned. ‘My real father?’

  ‘Yes. Didn’t you want to know more about him?’

  It took me a moment to reply. ‘Gosh, I don’t know! There was a time when, yes, I was curious. When I was younger. But my mother couldn’t bear him mentioned . . . He had a lot of women. You know . . . affairs. I think he was a bit of a drinker, too . . . Besides, once you get a bit older, you see things more objectively. He abandoned us when I was little. He never once tried to see me. So I don’t know why I would miss someone like that, or why I would want to try to find him.’

  I didn’t say how angry I’d been at my mother for keeping so much back. How the questions had been undercut the moment I had brought them up. How, eventually, it was easier to just stop asking them.

  Justin was scrutinising me. He was clearly thoroughly engaged by the topic. I just wanted it to end. ‘But don’t you want to know what his reasons were? Aren’t you curious to know if you’ve got half-siblings out there? You might have a whole other family. And you know, blood is blood.’

  ‘Is it?’ There had been a time when I’d wondered if I might have had a half-sister or brother. I was once mistaken for someone else in town, when I was about fourteen. The person said, ‘I think you must have a twin!’ It had sparked thoughts. But I was a child. My mother would never have tolerated that conversation.

  ‘But his reasons . . .’ Justin prompted. ‘Weren’t you curious?’

  ‘I’m not sure reasons really matter, do they?’ I was tired of this, and turning defensive. ‘He did what he did. That’s fine. It was his choice. We all make choices . . . But Alan was the one who was there for me. He wasn’t my blood father, but it never made a difference to me. I mean, how can I be expected to care about somebody who didn’t care about me? You reap what you sow in this life.’

  ‘I believe that,’ he said. ‘But, personally, I’d have wanted to know all the facts first.’

  The air seemed to go out of our balloon. How quickly just one topic and a difference of opinion could d
ispel all optimism. This was all heavier than any first-date conversation I’d ever known. Justin had delved into territory that had never been touched by all my past boyfriends put together. I wasn’t sure that he was aware, though. He just went on studying me, contemplating me, his chin resting on his upturned hand.

  ‘I feel like you’re judging me,’ I found myself saying. ‘Like you’ve come here with an agenda, and I’m not measuring up.’ As the words came out, I regretted them. It was the wine. I was feeling loose and brave. He had hit a nerve, and now I wanted to punish him for it.

  His pupils flickered with mild amusement. ‘Agenda? Like what? Tell me.’

  ‘I don’t know. You’re a bit personal and a bit intense.’ Stupidly, I felt like crying. I tried to stare across the room, at the door, willing the feeling to go away. If I cried, he was going to think I was mental.

  ‘Justin,’ he addressed himself after a good pause. ‘Is Alice a bit pissed off with you for some reason?’

  It was playfully done. It made me smile. He had chosen to make light of it. I was never more grateful. ‘I’m not pissed off with you, Justin. I just don’t know what to make of you. What you want.’

  What he wanted? It sounded so tart and un-charming. Good Lord – why did we have to get on to the topic of babies and families? I was convinced I’d never set eyes on him again.

  But suddenly, I caught something in his eyes. It was a look of quietly burgeoning adoration. ‘Well, Alice, I, on the other hand, know exactly what to make of you . . .’

  He was imploring me to smile, to save this. ‘Let me guess,’ I said. ‘Alice, you’re a cynical, un-trusting, nearly over-the-hill woman who bears little sentimentality for family, and if it weren’t for that, you’d be perfect?’

  He laughed now. ‘Close-ish. But no. What I was going to say was, you’re a lovely, multi-layered girl. Well . . . woman. You’re interesting to talk to. In fact, I’ve had a better time with you tonight than I can remember having with anybody in quite a long time . . . You’re real and you’re honest, and you’re a good person, I can tell . . . And, well, to be truthful, I wasn’t really expecting this . . .’ He shook his head as though rendered speechless. ‘I’m impressed, Alice. I’m very pleased we met. And if I say much more, it’ll probably spoil things . . .’