‘Like I said, thirteen years. I wasn’t single,’ I say.
‘Doesn’t always stop people.’
‘Are you looking for, what do they call it, watercooler conversation?’
Simon laughs. ‘God, the ladies at work are nauseating about him.’
‘Yup, that sounds like the Ben Effect,’ I laugh, hopefully lightly. ‘Why did you ask me out?’ I say, to turn the topic, and as soon as the question’s left my mouth I rue it. ‘I mean, I didn’t think I’d be your type.’
‘And what did you think my type would be?’
‘Uh. Zara Phillips? Someone horsey but dirty who you can still take home to Mummy.’
Simon laughs heartily at this. ‘You’ve got me pegged as some upper-crust idiot, haven’t you? Don’t be so quick to pigeonhole.’
‘Hah, like you haven’t done the same in reverse?’
‘Absolutely not. I like people with some mystery.’ Simon rolls his empty glass between his palms.
‘I have mystery?’
‘Oh yes. There’s definitely something you’re not telling.’
For once, a glib comeback doesn’t spring to my lips.
Two drinks down in the dive bar and the landscape starts to tilt. I don’t want to lose control and I don’t meet any resistance from Simon when I say it’s time I went home.
He insists on walking me back to my flat and mentions how he can just as easily catch his cab from there, in case I think he’s trying it on.
I like the city late at night, the blasts of music and the splashes of light cast from bars that are still open, shoals of brightly-dressed clubbers, the beeping taxis and the greasy, savoury smell of meat and onions from the burger vans. We walk briskly, looping round the groups of people who intermittently block the pavement, arriving outside my flat in jump-cut drunken time. On the way out, the same distance apparently took three times as long to cover.
‘Night then. Thanks for a lovely evening,’ I say, amazed to find I haven’t consumed enough alcohol to stop this being awkward. Damn fresh air.
‘Come here,’ Simon says, in a low voice, pulling me towards him, and I think how very Simon it is to issue commands instead of endearments.
He kisses the way I’d have predicted he’d kiss, if I’d given it any thought beforehand: firm, almost pushy, as if one of us is going to be declared winner when we break apart. It’s not unpleasant, but it’s not going to involve tongues, I decide, pulling back. I thought the first person I kissed after Rhys would feel like a watershed, but it feels – what’s the word? Prosaic. Like the intervening thirteen years never happened.
‘What’s the verdict then, Court Reporter-ette? Can I see more of you?’ he says, quietly, and overtly suggestively.
I’m flattered, and drunk. And surprisingly lost. Part of me wants to say yes. Most of me knows it isn’t what I want, it’s just what’s here.
‘Er – Simon.’
‘Er – Simon,’ he mimics, getting louder. ‘Uh oh.’
‘I’ve really enjoyed myself. Even more than I thought I would.’
‘The strength of the compliment depends on how much you thought you would, doesn’t it?’
I wonder if there’s a stage of refreshment where Simon’s less articulate and argumentative. He must’ve honed these skills doing daily battle with members of the Crown Prosecution Service.
‘It’s a bit too soon for me after Rhys and everything. Can we be friends for now? I don’t know my own mind and it’s not fair to inflict myself on anyone.’
‘Fine. Well, obviously I’d rather we were going at it gangbusters, but whatever you want.’
I laugh, feeling a twinge of relief at avoiding intimacies with a man who uses the phrase ‘going at it gangbusters’.
‘Thanks.’
A pause. ‘Night then,’ I say.
‘Night.’
I dig my key out of my handbag. As I walk off, Simon calls back: ‘Know why I’m all right with this, Rachel?’
I shake my head, glancing around.
‘Because you’re worth waiting for,’ he says, raising a hand. ‘Night.’
As I make three attempts to get the key in the lock on my door, I wonder if that was an assumption rather than a compliment.
43
After a lot of – well, some – internal debate about whether it’s appropriate, I email Ben to tell him how it went with Simon. I don’t want him to think I’m some pasta-guzzling tease.
I send: ‘Hi – Bit of a weird one, had really nice time with Simon but not sure if going to see him again. Bit soon, etc. Hope you & Olivia not going to feel put in the middle.’
I come back from a break in court to find the reply: ‘Well … we do ask that you marry him to make any future dinner-party seating plans easier for us. Is that so much to ask?’
I giggle like a moron at this, then see the PS: ‘I’m trying to be healthy during my lunch hour and going for sandwich/walk in Platt Fields at one to get away from the office … want to join & have a chat? No problem if not, I’m not much of an agony aunt.’
I respond instantly in the affirmative and hop on a bus, Platt Fields not being as wildly convenient as I’ll insist it is if he asks. A change is as good as a rest and all that.
When I get to the park entrance, I see Ben is clutching brown paper bags, kneeling down, talking to a little girl in a dark duffle coat. A harassed forty-something woman joins them and as I approach, Ben says, in a slightly kids’ TV voice: ‘Here’s my friend! Rachel, hi.’
‘Hello!’ I say, trying for jolly, unsure as to whether to pitch my response to the adults or the child.
As we move away, Ben mutters under his breath: ‘Speak to someone’s lost kid these days, you’re more likely to get arrested than thanked. Was I glad to see you.’
‘Unless they think we’re a Brady-Hindley double act?’ I say.
Ben laughs: ‘I’d forgotten what I’d been missing with your sick sense of humour.’ Before I know whether to mind being forgotten or pleased at being miss-able, he adds: ‘Did you bring food?’
I realise that in my haste, I didn’t.
‘I bought you this. You still eat ham and pickle?’
He hands me one of the brown paper bags. I peer inside at a ciabatta sandwich, wrapped in a napkin. ‘Thanks!’
I’d never think to go and look at nature in the middle of a day at the courtroom coal-face and yet I’m instantly struck by the springtime loveliness of the park, the light glinting on the lake.
‘So … Simon and Rachel a non-starter?’ Ben says.
He gives me a mouth-full-of-food grin, as we gnaw the edges of our ciabatta sandwiches. I always think these things seem like a good idea and in practice are like chewing bricks, covered in brick dust. I give up and start pulling bits of ham out of the bread, inside the bag, so Ben doesn’t see me looking like I dipped my face in a bag of flour.
‘We went for dinner and it was surprisingly