‘Mhhm,’ Adam said, with gusto. ‘Shall I just meet you in the pub in twenty minutes or so?’
‘Lovely,’ said Tess. ‘Perfect, in fact.’
He took her hand and kissed it. She clutched his hand back, inexpressibly touched by the gesture, and he shook his head and smiled at her.
She should have known as she walked into the Feathers a little later, her basket laden with food for three, that they’d be there; should have known that Will, totally intrigued, would want to stay for a drink before they set off again. He had a kind of prurient curiosity; she’d always found it rather contradictory, that he could be so concerned with wearing the right tie, and presenting the right face to the world and yet also so fascinated with the mundane, private details of people’s lives. How much things cost, how often So-and-So had sex, how big X’s new house was. She hadn’t noticed it, till it was almost over between them, of course. Harmless, yes; kind, patrician, with his curling upper lip and cufflinks; impressive, probably. Tall and strong, the kind of man who would protect you—yes, undoubtedly, apart from the time that pitbull had barked at them in the street and he’d pushed Tess in front of him.
As Tess walked through the bar to the terrace outside, directed there by Mick’s jerk of the head, and found the three of them sitting companionably, looking out over the great view across the valley towards Thornham, its church tower golden in the afternoon sun, she almost nodded to herself at the inevitability of it all, then remembered, with a start, the part she—and her new boyfriend—had to play.
‘Hello!’ she said, feigning a brightness she did not feel. ‘How nice!’
‘Well,’ said Will, standing up, his hands slapping the wooden table. ‘We thought it’d be nice to check out your new local pub. We’ve got ages to get to Dorset.’
Pointless to tell him that it wasn’t her new local, that she’d lived here all her life, known it longer than she’d known him, this view, these hills, the old city wall down to the left, covered in ivy; and Adam, standing next to him, watching him with amusement. Will never remembered what she’d told him. He’d visited her parents, he knew they’d taken early retirement and lived by the sea, but it wouldn’t occur to him to remember anything beyond that.
Channel one of the nice ladies of Langford, she told herself. Jan Allingham would know how to cope with this. Tess put her basket down on the table. ‘Who needs another drink?’ she asked, hoping against hope that the answer would be ‘Oh, no, thanks. We’ll be on our way now!’
‘I’d love another pint of Butcombe’s,’ Will said. ‘Thanks very much.’
Ticky smiled up at her, slightly vacantly. ‘Just a sparkling water for me, thanks, Tess.’
‘I’ll get them.’ Adam jumped up, and pushed her ahead of him into the shady corridor. ‘Hot air balloon,’ he said, briefly. ‘Just remember, hot air balloon. Over Bristol.’
‘What?’ Tess said, quite bewildered.
‘No time. Hot air balloon. Oh, and it’s been a month.’
‘What?’ she said again, exasperated, but Adam pushed her back out onto the terrace.
‘They’ll be gone soon,’ he said into her ear. ‘Go!’
Ticky patted the bench. ‘Your house is wonderful,’ she said, with the charm of the privileged. ‘It’s so cute!’ She smiled, displaying dazzling white teeth, as Will lolled beside her, his hand carelessly draped between her thighs. ‘I love it.’
‘Thanks,’ said Tess, sitting opposite them. ‘I like it.’
‘We got the bureau in, no worries,’ said Will. ‘Looks jolly nice in that little sitting room.’
She turned to him gratefully. ‘Thanks, Will. And—look, thanks a lot for bringing it all this way. It’s really sweet of you.’
‘No problemo,’ he said, with hearty gusto. ‘I’m—uh—I’m glad you’re all sorted now. Seems to suit you, out here.’
‘Thanks,’ she told him. ‘It does. I love it.’
‘Well, that’s really good,’ he said, staring intently between the slats of the table. ‘And you and Adam—that’s, yep.’
‘And it’s so romantic.’ Ticky interrupted her reverie. ‘Just so sweet, I love it.’
‘What’s so sweet?’ Tess said, blankly.
‘How you got together. His birthday present. That’s so sweet of you. I’d love to do that.’ She edged closer to Will, snuggling against him, and swinging her legs over his so she was almost sitting on his lap, like a little girl on Santa’s knee.
‘Do what?’ Tess said. They looked at her curiously. ‘Oh!’ she exclaimed, realization flooding through her. ‘Sorry! The hot air balloon.’ Bloody Adam, what was he thinking? ‘Yes, it was a lovely way to spend, er—to spend his birthday.’ His birthday was in the next couple of weeks, wasn’t it? Or was she dreaming?
Happily, Adam appeared then, carrying a tray.
‘We’re just talking about the hot air balloon,’ Tess said.
‘Oh, of course,’ Adam said, setting the tray down on the table. He wiped his hands.
‘That’s just fantastic,’ said Ticky. ‘So—impetuous, for a first date.’ Adam looked at Tess.
‘Yes, I suppose so,’ he said. ‘But when you know, you know.’ He paused.
‘You’ve known each other since you were—’ Will gestured towards the ground—‘yay high, what took you so long?’
‘It’s a good question,’ Adam said. ‘I don’t really know.’
He bit his lip and flicked a glance at Tess.
‘Me neither, sweetums,’ she said, but the name was starting to grate, now.
‘I forgot to ask you what you wanted,’ he said. ‘So I got you a pint as well. I know you love a bit of bitter. Hah.’ He laughed, nervously.
Bitter. She hated bitter, almost as much as she hated aubergines. ‘Oh,’ she said, narrowing her eyes as she took the drinks off the tray. ‘Thanks.’
‘You?’ Will asked. ‘You like bitter? I thought you never drank beer. You always said it made you, er—full of wind.’
There was a silence. Ticky swung her legs back and nodded sorrowfully at Tess, as if acknowledging a dreadful truth no one else was brave enough to admit.
‘Hey,’ Adam said, raising an eyebrow. ‘Tess does a lot of things these days she didn’t used to.’ He cleared his throat, realizing this was maybe a bit too much.
Tess kicked him under the table and took a deep breath, letting the scent of wood smoke and country air fill her nostrils, calm her down. Then she looked at Will, almost impassively. His hair was ever so thick; rudely so, corn yellow, almost ginger, it stuck out from his bowed head, veering alarmingly towards her. She saw, as if it were a scene from someone else’s life, a film, her hands running through that hair, the pleasure she once felt at being with him, in his rush-matted, neutral flat in Fulham, how correct and safe and proper she always believed she was as his girlfriend, when they were a unit, a neat unit of two. She shook her head, trying to recall this person she had been then.
They had discussed Aristophanes’s speech in Plato’s Symposium that morning in class. The Symposium said that humans were originally two people joined together until the gods, fearing their strength and their speed, had ripped them apart. So that humans are condemned to spend their lives merely one half looking for that other half and when they find the other half, they can finally be together with them for ever. Tess loved that idea, had always loved it. But was it true? Was Will, this person she