We take a turn off Whitechapel Road, leaving the hustle, bustle, noise and fumes of the main thoroughfare behind. ‘Here’s what I wanted to show you,’ I tell him proudly as we turn into the narrow cobbled road. ‘Welcome to Stepney Green.’
‘Gosh, this is unexpected. It looks a bit like Hampstead. Do you remember?’
‘How could I forget?’ We both smile.
A few days after the charity gig date we met again in Hampstead village and made our way to the swimming ponds on the Heath. Before Daniel, my dates invariably involved drinks in a pub somewhere or, at a stretch, a film before drinks in a pub somewhere. This felt different, and not just because there were no beer mats. We already had that comfortable certainty about each other that usually comes after months of going out. We got a running start at it during our course together.
I’d been at the Open University four years by the time I took our architecture class, up to my back teeth in criminology courses, so it felt pretty decadent to take something so unrelated. But that was the point of Kell and my family giving me the City Lit voucher for Christmas.
Daniel signed up for the same reason. On the other side of London he’d been up to his back teeth in the water charity where he worked. So we were both branching out. It just so happened that our branches intertwined perfectly, first as study friends and then as something a lot more exciting.
That didn’t mean I was crazy about the idea of swimming with Daniel in a duck turd-filled pond, though. It’s hard to be alluring when you’re trying not to drown.
For the record, I can swim. I just don’t like putting my head underwater. But with Daniel going on about how much he loved the weekend swims he’d done there with his dad since he was a teen, I couldn’t very well tell him that the only time my swimsuit came out of the drawer was to sun myself in the back garden.
I sneaked glances at his lean torso and muscular just-hairy-enough legs as we made our way to the dock. ‘Jump straight in?’ he asked, reaching for my hand.
‘Or go down the ladder?’ I said, snatching it back.
‘Yah, of course, if you’re more comfortable that way. Do you mind if I jump in?’
He sliced easily through the water with hardly a splash, emerging several yards away to grin at me. ‘It’s lovely!’
Slowly I lowered myself down the ladder, not showing Daniel my best side.
I managed to swim with him to the other side of the pond, all the while imagining what might be living in the murky water. The more I imagined, the more I was sure there were things, live things, dangerous things, swimming just out of sight under the water.
So nobody should have been surprised when Daniel’s fingers on my leg unleashed such blood-curdling screams. I stopped swimming, naturally, and dove for my date.
Reader, I climbed him.
‘Emma, it’s okay!’ he said, between gasps as I pushed him underwater. ‘You’re all right, just relax. What’s wrong? Here, hold on to my shoulders. That’s it. I’ll swim us in.’
As I floated on Daniel’s back to reach the ladder, he calmly suggested that we dry off in the sunshine and then have a picnic on the Heath. My hysteria hadn’t fazed him.
Daniel found my attempt on his life perfectly understandable. That’s a sign of true love. Though we haven’t swum together since.
We walk over the blue cobbles of Stepney Green to peer through some imposing wrought-iron gates at the tall red-brick house. ‘It was built in the late sixteen hundreds.’
Daniel nods. ‘Yah, Queen Anne style. As you know.’
‘I do know.’ We grin at each other. I’m not just showing him this to prove it’s not all market stalls and junkies round here. It’s a nostalgia trip. And actually, we nearly didn’t meet. I would have taken an art history course instead if it hadn’t started during my exam week. ‘Imagine if one of us hadn’t signed up for that course.’
‘My life would be quite literally unbearable,’ he says, ‘without you.’
‘You are such a kiss-arse.’ I love when he says things like this. ‘You wouldn’t know about me, so you wouldn’t know what you’re missing.’
‘Right, but I do know. Unbearable.’ He turns me to face him and plants a soft kiss on my lips. ‘I know I tell you this all the time, but you’re rahly not like anyone I’ve ever met, Emma. You never take anything for granted. It’s so rare and I love you for it.’
I squeeze his hand. ‘You don’t take things for granted, either.’ There isn’t a silver spoon anywhere near Daniel’s mouth. It’s not even hidden in his cutlery drawer.
‘I do try not to,’ he says, ‘but sometimes I catch myself. Then I’ve got to remember that I’m where I am because of everything my parents gave me. This charmed life of mine is an accident of birth. People love to say they’re self-made when that’s bullshit. Excuse the expression, but when you’re born into a family that has the time to read to you instead of working day and night jobs to make ends meet, or that can afford to send you to a good school or even just properly feed and clothe you and put a roof that doesn’t leak over your head, then you’re not rahly self-made, are you? People congratulate themselves when they’ve benefitted from small classes and motivated teachers and tutors to help with revision, when they haven’t had to worry about paying tuition or working through uni or parents who can’t pay their bills. That’s why I admire you so, Emma. You haven’t had any of the privilege that I’ve been handed and yet here you are, about to graduate from university.’
‘I see what you mean, but that’s not really true, Daniel. I had most of those things too. I’ve had the supportive family who read to me, despite working multiple jobs, and teachers who believed in me and I had enough money to go to uni. We might have had to work for those things, but I’ve had a lot of help too.’
He shakes his head. ‘You’re right, I’m being too literal. Privilege can mean more than one thing. So we’re both wealthy.’
I do feel pretty rich as we walk hand in hand from Stepney Green to Uncle Colin’s pub where I know everyone is waiting. It’s best not to tell him what I suspect: that it’s probably not just my family inside. ‘Just remember not to mention Uber. My dad’ll go spare.’
Dad may not drive a cab anymore but a lot of his friends do. You want to start an argument, try telling one of them you’ve got an Uber account.
He’s about to push open the door when he hesitates. ‘Should we get a bite to eat first?’
‘There’ll be seafood later,’ I tell him. ‘Go on, don’t be a coward.’
I run into the back of him, though, when he stops dead in the doorway. Everyone in the packed pub is staring at us. ‘Erm, welcome to my side of the wedding,’ I whisper, giving him a gentle shove.
‘Hi Daniel!’ they all chorus over and over as they fall about the place laughing.
Shyly he raises his hand in greeting.
Mum waves us over to their table, where Daniel kisses her cheek and shakes my dad’s hand.
‘Mum, this is cruel!’ I say. ‘The Inquisition ended in the Middle Ages, you know.’
‘Don’t blame me. Everyone wants to meet Daniel.’
Mrs and Mr Ishtiaque are sitting opposite my parents. They have smiles plastered to their faces. I can’t remember the last time I saw them in a pub. Don’t blame Mum, my arse. ‘I suppose you just fancied a pint tonight, Mrs Ishtiaque?’ I tease. She’s never drunk anything stronger than prune juice. ‘Mrs Ishtiaque, Mr Ishtiaque, this is my fiancé, Daniel. Daniel, the Ishitaques are our next-door neighbours.’