I laughed out loud. ‘Don’t be silly!’
‘Why not? He does all those things for you, and he clearly adores you. You make marriage sound like being permanent flatmates.’
‘Oh, but I didn’t mean to!’ I protested. ‘There has to be romance there as well! It’s just that people think it should all be romance, and . . .’ The poor stifled butterflies released at Allegra’s wedding sprang unfortunately to mind. ‘I think that’s just asking for disappointment, really. I blame big white weddings. They only set you up for a lifetime of anticlimax. The dress that costs more than your car, your family gathered together on best behaviour, the idea that if you tick every box on the checklist, you’ll have a perfect day . . .’
‘Oh, Mel!’ Gabi gave me a scornful look. ‘Do not tell me you wouldn’t have a big white wedding if the right man came along.’
I shrugged. I did occasionally allow myself a daydream about Welsh gold rings, and bowers of flowers, but why set yourself up to be let down?
‘Were you always so horribly pragmatic?’ demanded Gabi. ‘I mean, is this all a result of dating sleazers like Orlando, or is it because of your dad?’
‘A bit of both,’ I said stiffly. ‘Anyway, it’s true. From what I’ve seen of married life, both parties have to love each other a lot, just to see them through your basic daily horrors, let alone major crises.’
Gabi mashed tomato sauce glumly into her shepherd’s pie. ‘So what should I do? Am I being selfish?’ she asked. ‘Should I just let Aaron find someone nicer?’
I drew in a deep breath. Gabi was a terrible fisher of compliments, and I wasn’t going to indulge her on this occasion. ‘That depends.’
‘On what?’
‘Well, can you tell me three great things about Aaron? That don’t involve his car or his salary?’
Gabi screwed up her eyes and thought for a few painful moments. Eventually, she came up with, ‘He’s not the jealous type, he works really hard . . . Um, he knows how to fix electrical stuff?’
‘That’s not necessarily as great as you think,’ I interrupted. ‘Nelson’s good with electrical stuff, but he uses it as an underhand negotiating tool.’
‘Nelson.’ Gabi sighed. ‘There you go again. When are you two going to realise you’re made for each other and spare me the agony of unrequited love?’
‘Now, come on, Gabi,’ I said firmly, determined not to be sidetracked, even though the prospect of hearing her evidence for that was intriguing. ‘Don’t you think it would be better to have a complete break and sort out what you really want from a relationship?’
She slumped back in her seat. ‘I wish you weren’t so right all the time. Maybe it would be safer to do what you’re doing,’ she said. ‘Audition lots of eligible men who don’t have girlfriends, then persuade them that they need a real one.’
‘No, I don’t think it would be safer. At all.’
Gabi looked at me with renewed interest in her bloodshot, mascara-ringed eyes. ‘Why not?’
I don’t know if it was the late hour, or the comforting warmth of the shepherd’s pie in my stomach, or just an impulse to confide in someone, but caution deserted me. ‘Oh, because you end up falling in love with something you can’t have.’
‘You’re in love with Jonathan Riley!’ she crowed. ‘I knew it!’
‘I didn’t say that exactly,’ I added hastily. ‘What I meant was, it would be very easy to fall in . . .’
Gabi fixed me with a look.
‘OK,’ I admitted, ‘but it’s probably one of those passing hormonal things. Like you and Nelson. I mean, Jonathan’s way out of my league. He’s a proper person, not a useless little boy. And he’s had an awful time with his divorce, you know. He’s definitely not looking for a relationship – that’s why he hired me in the first place! And,’ I concluded miserably, ‘he doesn’t know the first thing about me.’
‘Don’t be stupid,’ retorted Gabi. ‘Of course he does. He sees you about three times a week, minimum.’
‘No. He sees Honey,’ I corrected her. ‘He sees this confident, sexy blonde with no baggage, no embarrassing family, no visible panty-line and no hang-ups. If he saw me now, he wouldn’t recognise me. And he certainly wouldn’t want to date me.’
‘I doubt that,’ said Gabi. ‘He might even prefer the real you.’
‘Look, I know best, OK?’
‘Have you . . . you know?’ Gabi twitched her eyebrows suggestively.
The blood rushed into my face. ‘No!’
‘Would you?’
‘The situation wouldn’t arise,’ I said haughtily, trying to ignore the shiver tingling over my skin.
‘Come on,’ she snorted. ‘I know he’s chronically charm-deficient, but even I have to concede that Jonathan’s a good-looking man in the prime of his life. He must be getting it somewhere. Unless that’s the reason he’s such a grumpy bastard in the office.’ She looked thoughtful. ‘He does work very long hours. No,’ she decided, ‘no, Patrice would be enough to cool anyone’s ardour. And, to be fair, he’s been marginally less arsey since he came back from Italy. Slightly more mellow, even.’
‘Good,’ I said, and shivered inside.
‘You know your trouble,’ said Gabi, sounding much more like herself now we’d sidestepped onto my problems, ‘you do your job too well. If you carry on the way you are, Jonathan’s going to be so well settled in, and his broken heart will be so well healed that the next thing he’ll be doing is asking you to line up a real girlfriend for him. Then how will you feel?’
I stared at her. I hadn’t put the thought in so many words, but it had occurred to me. If it had occurred to Gabi, then surely it must have occurred to Jonathan too.
How long would it be? He already had two gym memberships and invitations for dinner two months in advance. And if he was thawing in the office too . . .
‘You might want to be a bit less professional,’ she suggested.
‘I can’t!’ I wailed, horrified. ‘He expects me to be professional! It’s one of the things he likes most about me. He said so.’
‘He’s been telling you the things he likes about you?’
I blushed. ‘In a sort of informal appraisal sense.’
Gabi rolled her eyes. ‘You are in a right old mess, Mel.’
‘I know.’ I sank my chin onto my hands. How had we gone from discussing Gabi’s mess to mine?
‘You know the really annoying thing?’ I moaned. ‘Jonathan is exactly the sort of man Nelson’s always telling me I should go for. Independent, successful, well-balanced, ambitious – but in a good way. I’ve never met a man like that before. And the one time I do meet one, I’m not even me! If I were me I’d be too scared to even make conversation with him!’
‘Oh no. No, no. That’s not the really annoying thing,’ replied Gabi. She sank her chin onto her hands too, so our eyes were level. Her brown eyes, normally sparkling with barely suppressed badness, were very sad. ‘If we’re being really honest here . . .’ She hesitated for a second, then sighed. ‘No, the really annoying thing is that Nelson is probably in love with you, and is only describing himself to try to get you to think of him as boyfriend material.’
I met Gabi’s gaze with some amusement. ‘Oh, Gabi, stop fishing.’
‘I’m not fishing,’ said Gabi, looking wounded. ‘It’s true. What’s the point in me . . . having feelings for Nelson when it’s obvious to everyone else that he’s mad about you?’
‘Look, I know he’s terribly affectionate, but you’re wrong.’ I nudged her. ‘Come on. You’re just doing it to make me say he’s in love with you.’
‘I’m not,’ she protested. ‘I wish I were. Think about it. He spends all his time with you, he’s endlessly patient with you whereas he’s totally dismissive of everyone else, he’s always cooking you supper and rubbing your bloody horrible feet. You even go on holiday together, for God’s sake. Wake up, Mel! Why else would he put up with all your nonsense? Haven’t you seen Emma?’
I looked at her and blin
ked. Well, gosh. Nelson did have a certain Mr Knightley-esque rudeness, come to think of it. I rolled the idea round in my head, testing it out. Nelson and I were awfully close, and he was far more affectionate to me than any member of my immediate family. Everyone liked him, and he made me feel, well, comfortable. And he did sometimes . . .
‘Don’t be silly!’ I said. ‘That’s utterly ridiculous!’
Gabi shook her head and looked martyred. ‘It’s true, Mel. Believe me, I wish I didn’t think so.’
‘Well, I still think you’re wrong,’ I insisted. But I did love him enormously, and, if I were being brutally honest, he was quite handsome, in a windblown, seafaring way.
‘Melissa, he’s already your boyfriend in all but the bedroom area of things.’ She twinkled, despite herself. ‘And I bet he’s just as strong and masterful there as he is everywhere else.’
‘Shut up, Gabi,’ I said, raising my hands. ‘Too much information.’
I got up and boiled the kettle for a pot of tea. Suddenly I felt dog-tired. Was it only a few hours since Jonathan and I had been whirling around the ballroom at the Dorchester? It seemed like weeks ago.
‘You’re so lucky, Mel,’ said Gabi, unexpectedly. ‘I wish I were more like you.’
‘Good God, no, you don’t,’ I said.
‘OK, I wish I were more like Honey then.’
I put a cup of tea down in front of her and said, ‘That makes two of us.’
I made Gabi comfortable on the sofa bed in the living room, then turned in myself. The morning light had started to creep round the edge of the curtains, and I couldn’t drop off, not even with my eye mask on.
I kept thinking about what Gabi had said. Maybe she was right: maybe I should be with Nelson. It would make so much more sense than this pointless chasing after Jonathan, a man way out of my field of experience, who would probably be horrified to see what Honey’s feet really looked like, under the stilettos, let alone rub them better.
And Nelson and I did get on so well, persisted the little voice in my head, and hadn’t I just told her that marriage should be about getting on with each other, not wild unbridled passion?
I thought of my parents, constantly sniping away at each other. I didn’t want a marriage like that. I wanted a marriage where my husband would look after me, and respect me and make me laugh. Just like Nelson did.
I rolled over, trying to find a cool patch of pillow.
But even if it did make sense, getting together with Nelson would make me a lousy friend. Despite her protestations, I could tell that Gabi was genuinely keen on him.
But who wouldn’t be? He was a real catch: handsome, kind, successful, principled.
How weird to think of him like that.
Thoughts flashed quickly in and out of my mind like trout in a stream, one after the other, each more unsettling than the last.
Nothing changed the grim truth that I had a terrible crush on Jonathan, though. Admitting it to Gabi had been weird, like taking a weight off my mind. But surely that would pass with time. Actually, it would pass the day he asked me to find him a girlfriend.
Or the day he saw me not being Honey.
Maybe it was time to cut my losses there, and concentrate on making Melissa happy – and who was better to do that than Nelson?
I carried on rolling over and over until it was time to get up.
18
Accompanying Jonathan to social dinners slowly began to take second place to accompanying Jonathan, full stop. Mid-week, I’d get a studiedly offhand phone call – ‘Have you heard of Borough Market? Would you take me there?’ – and off we’d go, to sip freshly roasted coffee and buy organic meat that I seriously doubted he’d cook in that huge kitchen in Barnes. I’d feel a little sorry for him, wanting to fill in his weekends with me, instead of doing the familiar married things he was probably used to. Then when I got there, Jonathan would be such excellent company that it was impossible to imagine him being lonely at all.
And so as September stretched into October, and the trees outside my office turned bright copper and gold and bronze, I started to see more of London than I’d ever thought possible. I did wonder if Jonathan had acquired a Victorian Guide to England, since most of the things he insisted we visit, I’d never heard of. Debtors’ prisons, sites of ancient nunneries, shops that had supplied apricot creams to Queen Anne, you know the sort of thing. Doubtless hoping for hog roasts and urchins in knee-breeches, Jonathan had been on at me for ages to take him to a ‘proper’ Bonfire Night – so much so that I was beginning to dread it on behalf of Wandsworth Borough Council.
He absolutely insisted on coming with me to whichever ‘local’ fireworks event I was planning to attend – ‘to get a real flavour of London life’. I wasn’t sure what sort of display I’d take him to otherwise: a private one in the back garden at Buckingham Palace, maybe, with the Queen doling out the Roman candles from a biscuit tin, and screeching at Prince Andrew not to keep running back to check the blue touch paper. Nelson and I usually went to the big display in Battersea Park: it was close to home and Nelson knew some good free parking spots.
Jonathan claimed it was perfect. I told him to get a cab there and not to bring any valuables.
On Bonfire Night, Nelson and I arranged to meet Gabi in the Prince of Wales for a pre-display blood-warmer. Gabi was a rather more subdued girl of late: she and Aaron had, tearfully, agreed to spend two months apart, to work out what each really wanted from their relationship, and consequently she was spending more and more time round at our flat, to the point where Roger Trumpet was considering asking her to join his pub quiz team. And if that didn’t focus Gabi’s mind on her future, I didn’t know what would.
Nelson parked and checked each door lock several times before we were allowed to set off for the Prince of Wales. We were in good time, but already the pub was heaving with pink-cheeked men bulging out of their jumbo cords, braying at girls in ski-wear. To the delight of my ever-rumbling stomach, there was a tempting hog roast going on outside.
‘So what do you want to drink? Mel? Mel! What are you looking around for now?’ asked Nelson as we struggled towards the bar.
‘Um, mulled wine.’ I hadn’t actually told Nelson I was meeting Jonathan. He’d been very snippy on the topic of Jonathan lately, which made me wonder afresh if Gabi was right about him being, well, fonder of me than he let on. I’d been waiting for the right moment to tell Nelson I’d be slipping off to be with Jonathan for an hour or so, but it hadn’t yet arrived. Now I suspected that Jonathan would arrive before the right moment would.
While Nelson was at the bar, Gabi rushed in, looking flushed with excitement. ‘Mel!’ she said, breathlessly, pulling off her gloves. ‘Have I got some gossip for you!’
‘Did you leave the office at the same time as Jonathan?’ I demanded. I couldn’t risk Jonathan seeing me with Gabi; she was bound to call me Mel by mistake, and quite honestly, I didn’t think I could throw myself into being Honey with those two knocking around in the background. ‘Is he on his way?’
Gabi looked confused. ‘No, he was still there when I left. Why? Listen, you won’t believe . . .’
‘As long as he didn’t see you coming here. He’s coming here tonight to see the fireworks. So remember,’ I said firmly, ‘when he arrives, kindly make yourself scarce. You’ll put me off.’
Gabi looked around for Nelson, saw he was at the bar, turned back to me and hissed, ‘You want Jonathan on your own, don’t you?’ She rolled her eyes at me. ‘I know you. You just don’t want us around to spot you making cow eyes at him. You don’t want a lecture from Nelson about getting the hots for your client.’
‘Absolutely not,’ I spluttered. Something had certainly cheered her up, and no mistake. But there was a tiny shred of truth in what she’d said. ‘Where’s Nelson with that drink?’ I added nervously.
‘Well, fine with me,’ said Gabi, arching her eyebrows at me. ‘I am quite happy to be left alone with Nelson. It’ll give us a chance to chat. You
know, he’s been really sensitive about all this business with Aaron. He’s offered me his shoulder to cry on any time.’
Before I could address my misgivings about that, Nelson was back, pressing two hot plastic cups of mulled wine into my hands. ‘I got two each,’ he said, juggling the squashy cups. ‘The crush at the bar is obscene. I’ve had less intimate encounters with girlfriends. Oh, er, hello, Gabi,’ he said.
‘Hello, Nelson.’
I looked between Nelson and Gabi quickly. Did I detect a frisson there? Or was it just my paranoid imagination?
‘Did Mel tell you she’s working tonight?’ Gabi enquired, taking his spare cup of mulled wine.
‘No, she did not.’ Nelson glared at me.
‘You and I have to make ourselves scarce for the duration of the display,’ she went on. ‘I might have to hang on to your scarf so we don’t get separated.’
‘Mel!’ snapped Nelson. ‘Why didn’t you say? Who is it? Remington Steele, I suppose?’
‘Oh, come on,’ I protested. ‘Jonathan wanted to see a bonfire, and I don’t have any other free nights this week, and I thought since we were already coming to this one . . .’ I flushed. ‘Sorry. It was a planning error. You know I don’t like mixing up work with my private life.’
‘Oh, we’re the problem! I thought you were getting a bit overdressed for Battersea Park.’ Nelson nodded at my new coat and red leather gloves, both Outdoor Honey acquisitions. ‘What if Gabi and I wore disguises too?’ he enquired sarcastically. ‘Would it be OK to join you then? I could be your brother, Silas, and Gabi could put on your ridiculous hat and pretend to be a Russian émigré duchess.’
I touched my hat self-consciously. It was a large fake-fur trapper hat that had made perfect sense in the shop, but now seemed a tiny bit de trop. It was definitely more Honey than Melissa. I’d put it on before Nelson got ready, partly so he wouldn’t notice I was also wearing my blonde wig beneath.
‘Don’t take that off too quickly,’ Nelson said, darkly. ‘You don’t want to take your hair off at the same time.’