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 had pinned all her hopes on, that other human? She couldn’t believe it now. Ticky was that person to him, it was absolutelyobvious. And she—she breathed out, raggedly, not sure she could go on with this charade, and suddenly felt a cool hand on her forearm.
‘You OK?’ Adam said in a low voice, as if it were just the two of them, as if Will and Ticky weren’t there, and she felt herself say calmly, ‘Fine.’
He squeezed her wrist, quickly, his thumb on the underside of her skin. ‘Yes.’ He turned back to the others. ‘Well, cheers,’ he said. ‘Great to see you both.’
They sat in silence again and drank their drinks, and Tess glanced at him, her mind racing.
‘Thanks, thanks a lot, bruv,’ she said, as they walked back down the high street later that evening. ‘I owe you.’
Adam stepped back and held his hand up. ‘No worries, g’friend,’ he said. ‘It’s his loss.’
Tess stared at him. ‘Are you drunk?’
Adam shrugged. ‘A bit, maybe. I did have four pints. I thought they were never going to leave! I’m sorry, I know he’s your ex.’
‘I know,’ Tess said, glaring down at the paving slabs, watching her feet step on each crack. ‘I know. He’s so different from me. He looks—’ she trailed off.
‘He looks like a member of the Bullingdon Club on his way to a reunion,’ said Adam, his tongue loosened by alcohol and release from stilted conversation. ‘I didn’t think people like that still existed.’
She wanted to be cross, but she couldn’t be. ‘You’re right,’ Tess said. ‘He was a bit like that. I don’t know, I just never saw that in him…’ She paused. ‘He wasn’t—I don’t know. He wasn’t a bad man. He isn’t a bad man.’
‘Never really knew what you saw in him, if I’m being honest,’ Adam said simply. ‘Sorry again. That’s rude.’
‘It’s OK,’ she said. ‘I…I think I was looking for something. Something that wasn’t there.’
‘I have known you for a while now, you know.’ Adam poked her in the arm. ‘He just never seemed—’ He shrugged. ‘Oh, well.’
There was silence; it was a chilly evening, and the high street was virtually deserted. ‘You coming back to ours?’ said Tess.
It was an obvious question—they were nearly home, and Adam’s house was the other end of the town. ‘Um, if that’s OK,’ said Adam.
‘Of course it’s OK,’ said Tess. She laughed. ‘I liked it when you told them we were going to a Sandals resort for our holidays. Will’s face.’
‘I liked it more when you told them you liked it when I spoke to you in a Russian accent,’ Adam replied. ‘God only knows what they think now.’
There was a silence again. Tess said in a small voice, ‘It was—good to see him. But…I don’t really care what they think.’
‘Good,’ Adam said. ‘Neither do I, Tess.’ They carried on walking for a little while. ‘Listen, T—’ he said.
But at the same time Tess suddenly burst out, ‘I don’t know why I went out with him.’
‘Right,’ said Adam. ‘I have to say…’ He trailed off.
‘Two years, too,’ Tess said, faltering. It seems like a dream now, she wanted to say. But it wasn’t, because a few drinks with him again and she could see now what that time with Will had done to her. He was so…oh, she’d never really seen it before, but he was a little pompous. So sure he was right and reluctant to hear her point of view, as though she was a stupid little girl. He spoke slowly, and when she tried to interrupt him, he simply carried on talking. And the sex—what sex. At first—and she cringed to think of it now—she’d rather liked his professorial, grown-up way of treating her, had found it rather a turn-on that he was so formal, reserved, buttoned up. Now, when she thought of how she’d tried to get him to want her more, tried to excite him, it made her want to disappear, as fast as possible, into the ground. And she’d begun to think that was normal, that it would always be like that…She looked down at herself with disgust. He just hadn’t fancied her, that was all, and why would he? He was hanging on in there till something better came along, something Ticky-shaped, with honey-coloured limbs and hair and friends in common and…Ugh.
‘Penny for your thoughts,’ came Adam’s voice in the darkness, startling her. Tess laughed, hollowly. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘What’s on your mind?’
‘You don’t want to know,’ Tess said bleakly.
‘Come on,’ said Adam. ‘It’s me, T. I’ve just spent the evening pretending to be your boyfriend.’ He said, in a thick Russian accent, ‘We have no secrets, Misha.’
Oh, I was just thinking about the last time I had sex with Will,