Sweet Sorrow(121)

‘No. I’m sorry it ended badly.’

‘Was it bad? It was painful, but not bad.’

‘All that shouting in shopping centres.’

‘I suppose so. But I think if it ends amicably, it probably should have stayed amicable in the first place. If you can give it up without a fight … Anyway, we were seventeen. Different people.’

‘Entirely.’

Somehow we were holding hands now, sitting in silence, and I found myself wishing we could sit opposite each other so that I could look at her, rather than steal glances, take in the old laughter lines etched a little deeper around her eyes, new lines bracketing her mouth like the indentation of thumbnails in clay, the small raised seam in her lower lip, the chip in her tooth like the folded corner of a page. She tucked her hair behind her ear, turned and smiled.

‘Your tooth!’ I said, without thinking.

‘What?’

‘I remember you used to have this little chip on your front tooth.’

‘Oh, that!’ She bit her thumb to display the tooth. ‘I had it filled. Not vanity – my agent said it was stopping me getting commercial work. Turned out that wasn’t the problem after all.’

‘It’s a shame. I liked it.’

‘I’ve had some fillings, if that’s any consolation,’ she said, hooking her finger into her mouth.

‘That’s okay.’

A moment, then: ‘At these things, when people say “You haven’t changed a bit,” even if it were true, are you meant to be pleased?’

‘I think it means “You don’t look any worse”.’

‘But you look much better,’ she said.

‘In middle age?’

‘Are we middle-aged?’

‘The borders.’

‘Well it suits you, Charlie, you look good.’

‘Please don’t say I’ve “filled out”.’

‘Yes, what does that even mean?’

‘It means fatter.’

‘It’s not that. No, your face, you’ve grown into it, like you’ve … grown up to meet it.’

‘Well, you look great. Glowing, is that what people say?’

‘Blood pressure and rage. Bigger hips too. That’s babies for you. You don’t have any?’

‘Kids? No. We’d like them. I mean desperately. We’re trying – I think that’s the phrase. I mean really trying.’

‘Well … good luck!’

‘Thank you. Thank you.’

And I wanted to change the subject, but had nothing to change it to.

‘So,’ I said.

‘So.’

‘We should go down.’

‘Oh. Okay.’

‘It’s good to see you.’

‘You too.’

‘Looking so well.’

‘Well, bit tired.’

‘No, I think you look beautiful. I can say that, can’t I?’

‘I don’t know, George is a man of great violence. I think so.’

And here we should have stood and left but instead she lifted my hand, and looked at our interlaced fingers. ‘This is weird.’

‘It is.’

‘Not terrible.’

‘No, but …’

‘I thought about it, about what I felt, about this, and I don’t want to get mawkish or anything,’ she said, ‘but first love, I think it’s like a song, a stupid pop song that you hear and you think, well that is all I will ever want to listen to, it’s got everything, it’s clearly the greatest piece of music ever written, I need nothing else. ’Course we wouldn’t put it on now. We’re too hard and experienced and sophisticated. But when it comes on the radio, well, it’s still a good song. It is. There, isn’t that profound?’

‘Very.’

‘And you are happy, aren’t you?’

‘I am.’

‘Well, so am I! So am I! There you go. We had a happy ending.’

‘So we’re not eloping then?’

‘Well, normally I’d say yes but I’ve got a Caesarean booked and you’re getting married, so …’

‘We’ll leave it then.’

‘Yes. Let’s leave it.’

She tapped her head, just once, against my shoulder, and we looked back to the view, the drizzle in the air caught by the yellow light. Fran shifted on the bench. ‘The rain’s soaking through now, so …’

‘Let’s go down,’ I said, and with a groan and a long exhalation, she stood. At the top of the stairs, we paused. ‘Hold on,’ I said. This would be goodbye, I knew, and so before I could think too much I said the words that had been caught in my throat all night.

‘So what I came for …’

‘Go on.’

‘It’s really corny. Don’t throw up.’

‘I promise nothing.’

‘Well, that was quite a weird time. I wasn’t very happy, I don’t think, when we met. And then I was. I mean, delirious. So I think it’s just – thank you.’

She puffed out her cheeks satirically, but just for a moment. Then she leant back against the doorframe, looked at me a while and smiled and gave a nod of her head.