Page 28 of People In Love
Nora holds her breath as she stands in her dressing gown, watching the screen domino down with message after message. Robin still singing next door. Onions caramelising by now, in the pan.
So I know I’ve screwed up but it would be nice to see you again, if you wanted.
For dinner, maybe.
Three waving dots, for another half a minute, but then nothing else appears. He’s done. So Nora picks up the phone just as Robin begins a deep baritone ofI Don’t Careby Ed Sheeran in the kitchen and she replies, before she can decide not to.
Dinner, yes, is all that she types back.At mine?
_
Which is how Bren ends up on Nora’s doorstep, almost a week after the time before. It’s early March, now, the sky an antiseptic, English grey. In the daytime he wastes hours in a Costa Coffee in town, avoiding his mother and that house, that shared driveway he does not think about. Night dark and damp by six in the evening as he rings her doorbell, a bottle of wine under his arm.
It’s been six days since the party. Four since the cold swim and noticing how long and pale her legs were; four of wondering, between his meandering walks and mindless chat withhis mother and single-line emails to the outdoor centre – back soon, yes, zero-hour contract, still fine – whether her legs had always been so long. Hard to tell, over video call. Over traded emails and unsent texts. Not that he wants to think about her legs. Not that he makes a habit of that.
It is a Friday. He’d showered and put on aftershave, hated how it made him smell of teenage boy and so showered again to get it off. He has a jolt of a moment where he realises the Robin guy might answer, but before he can arrange his face for such a meeting, the door opens and it is just Nora, like last time, and she looks pretty, and nervous.
Here’s the chocolate, Bren says, before she can say anything.
He pulls it out of his back pocket, the slab he’d bought as a last-minute thought at the airport. Weighty in its green sleeve and gold foil.
It really is life-changing, he assures her. Even if you don’t like coconut, it’s like. Really great.
I do like coconut, she says.
Great, Bren says, again. He says, too, that he brought wine – doesn’t tell her this was because his mother insisted, you don’t go for dinner at a friend’s, Bren, without wine (like she’d know) – but Nora ignores this and does something he is not ready for: steps forward and puts her arms around his neck. It is the first time they have hugged since he got home. The first time they have touched, properly, since he left.
The wind lifts his hair, and hers too.
He puts his own hands on the small of her back.
It’s just an acknowledgement, he thinks, that he is here, as he said he would be; pre-planned, pre-arranged. Bringing chocolate and wine after a string of apologetic texts; he does wonder when she is going to apologise to him, too, but that dissolves as he breathes her in, scent of clementines, bright, and alive.
Stupid, Nora whispers, and she sounds breathless.
What is, Bren asks, but she steps back, small shake of her head, says to come in, that Robin’s in the shower. And then they’re in the kitchen and there are crisps and beers on the table but she can open the wine, if he’d prefer.
Beer’s fine, he says.
Great, she says; that word again, so limp and lifeless. Likelovely, his mother’s favourite.
Your flat’s really nice, Bren says, as she takes a bottle opener from a drawer. I didn’t say that to you, at the party.
I didn’t give you a chance to say much of anything, she concedes. And then when I did, I jumped down your throat.
She must mean the upset in the café, post-swim, and Bren realises that they’re both on the back foot, here; both apologising without actually saying it. It relaxes him, somewhat. He takes the beer from her. They hear the creak of the shower tray from the next room; a thud and a bounce, as if Robin has dropped the soap.
He was late home from work, Nora says.
It’s fine, Bren says.
He’s really keen to meet you, she says. Bren drinks some more beer, says yeah. It’ll be good to meet him, too.
Great. Lovely. Good.
So what’s – Bren says at exactly the same time that Nora says how’s – and they break off, saying no you go, no – what were you –
How’s your mum, she asks him.
