‘I always remember the important stuff.’ He ushers me towards the table. ‘Now, I’ve ordered us a plate of charcuterie and a plate of cheese, but if there’s anything else you’d prefer, I can get them to give us a menu …’
‘No, no, I’m fine. I mean, that sounds perfect.’ I slide into the seat opposite him, and do my best to slow down my hammering heart. ‘Hi,’ I add, with a nervous laugh, that I immediately try to turn into a cough. ‘God, Olly, it’s been ages.’
‘Way too long. Here.’ He pours champagne into my glass. Quite a lot of champagne, and then the same sort of amount for himself. His hand is a bit shaky – exhaustion, I should think, given the hours he works – which is probably why it slips a bit and why he’s poured such big glasses. ‘You look like you need this. What happened with the scary fashion woman?’
‘Oh, you know, the usual … I mistook her beloved puppy for a rat and threw a large piece of solid metal at its head—’
‘Ah. Of course. The usual.’ He grins at me and lifts his glass. ‘Cheers, Lib. And congratulations. On the exciting new move, that is. Not the puppy-maiming. I need to be absolutely clear that, despite our long and happy friendship together, I can in no way condone that.’
‘And I’d never expect you to.’
I chink my glass against his and grin back.
After a moment, it feels like a rather rictus grin and, to be perfectly honest, he looks pretty frozen too – probably wondering what the hell I’m still grinning about myself – so I take a long drink.
He does the same.
‘So!’ I say, brightly, when we both put our glasses down. ‘That’s honestly quite enough about me—’
‘Oh, come on, Lib, I want to hear all about the new place!’
‘Well, then you’ll have to come over some time. With Tash!’ I add, just in case he thinks I’m suggesting some cosy soirée, just the two of us. ‘But until then, there’s really not much to tell, Olly, honestly.’
I mean, in the past, I’d have bored his pants off, wittering on about my hopes and fears for the business, getting him to join me in over-analysing every word spoken by Elvira and Ben. But now that I fancy him so much – now that I can think of other, far less noble things I’d like to do to get his pants off, quite frankly – I’m suddenly a lot less keen to bore him. Not to mention the fact that there’s the permanent wedge of Tash between us. It just feels wrong to seek that type of support from a man who’s – very much – spoken for.
‘Anyway,’ I go on, ‘you look like you’ve had a tough day, too.’
‘I do?’
‘Well, you look tired,’ I say, after studying him for a moment without quite meeting his eye.
‘Oh, that’s just life in the restaurant business,’ he says. He looks even wearier, for a moment. ‘Things are always so busy, and I just never seem to have enough time. I mean, when was the last time you and I actually managed to do this, Lib?’
‘This?’
‘Yes, sit with a bottle of wine and catch up. It feels like for ever.’
‘Well, no, I mean, it is a long time,’ I say, not wanting to remind him that I’ve cancelled two of our most recent planned meet-ups at short notice (just couldn’t face going through with it) and that he’s cancelled three himself (last-minute restaurant emergencies). ‘But you’re right, life is busy. And, of course, you have Tash to prioritize, too.’ I take another large gulp from my glass. ‘How is she, by the way?’
‘Tash? Oh, she’s great. She’s always great.’ He picks up his own glass. ‘I mean, obviously, there’s always the issue of—’
He stops because, almost as if it’s been eavesdropping on us or something (I mean, it couldn’t have, could it?), his phone starts to ring.
‘Oh!’ he says. ‘It’s Tash! Sorry, Lib, would you mind if I …?’
‘Not at all!’
‘I mean, I usually call her around this time every evening, when she gets off her shift at the hospital …’
‘Olly, I don’t mind! Honestly! Answer it.’
‘Thank, Libs.’ He picks up the ringing phone. ‘Hey,’ he murmurs into it. ‘You OK?’
That murmur – low, intimate, the tone of voice you only ever use with your Significant Other – makes me want to cry.
But, thank God, it’s right at this moment that a waiter appears bearing two large platters of food, which he places on the table in front of me. I mean very specifically in front of me, in fact, with a somewhat lascivious smile and an assurance that if there’s anything, anything at all, that I’d like his help with, I only need to—
‘Yeah, thanks, Didier,’ Olly says, breaking off his phone call for a moment to speak, rather sharply, to the waiter. ‘I’m sure she can manage to find her way round a plate of cheese on her own … Sorry, Tash,’ he adds, into the phone again, ‘just fending off an ardent Frenchman … no, no, not for me! I’m having a bite with Libby …’ There’s a short pause. ‘Tash says hi,’ he tells me.
Of course she does, because Tash – annoyingly – is nice and friendly and downright perfect.
‘Hi, Tash!’ I trill back, waving a hand, pointlessly, because it’s not like they’re on a FaceTime call or anything.
And then I make a gesture at Olly, which is supposed to indicate that he should just carry on with the phone call, that I’m perfectly fine – delighted in fact – to be sitting here tucking into plates of delicious cold meat and cheese, and that everything is just so fine and dandy in the world that I’m only inches away from leaping up on to the table and kicking off a rousing chorus of ‘Oh Happy Day’.
Because I think I might need to go way over the top just to avoid giving the slightest hint that I’d actually rather crawl under the table and miserably hiccup my way through ‘Where Do Broken Hearts Go?’
This is why I should never have come this evening; why I should just have made up some spurious excuse and cancelled again.
The thing is, it’s not like I’m not well used to sitting across a table from someone I’m in love with who isn’t in love with me back. Dillon O’Hara, for example, whom I remained convinced I was in love with despite the fact that our relationship was a car crash, with him in the driving seat. And not even just Dillon: as an incurable romantic, especially one who spent most of my life convinced I was an unattractive frump compared to my stunning little sister, I’ve enjoyed a long and fruitless history of falling in love with men who wouldn’t have noticed me if I’d been standing in front of them stark naked with a sign hanging around my neck reading Available and Desperate: Please Apply Within.
The difference – the colossal, heart-shattering difference – this time, with Olly, is the knowledge that this isn’t how it should have been. That thanks to a disastrous combination of cruel fate and my own stupidity, he and I have passed each other by like ships in the night.
In fact, it hurts so much to dwell, even for a moment, on the role played by my own stupidity that I think I need to shift as much of the blame as possible on to the Cruel Fate part. Because otherwise it’s just too sickening to endure. Like Juliet would have felt if she’d woken up beside a lifeless Romeo in the tomb and realized that she’d absent-mindedly put a poison bottle next to the orange juice in the fridge. Bad enough her soulmate is doomed to be lost to her for ever; soul-destroying to confront the fact she just should have been paying more attention.
‘No, of course,’ Olly is saying, into the phone. ‘And I meant to … well, what time will you be home? … no, I imagine I’ll head straight back after I’m finished