When You Are Mine(11)
Paul Crilly was my English Classics professor at university. He was only thirty-five but dressed like a young fogey in tweed jackets and corduroy pants; and he smelled of books and Old Spice aftershave. God, he was gorgeous. I used to leave love poems in his pigeonhole, quoting Keats and Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Byron, but Professor Crilly showed zero interest.
The fourth most beautiful man was David Sainsbury, my long-haired, motorbike-riding, rebel without a cause, who had wine-stained teeth and smouldering eyes and a thing for college-age girls – all of them except me. He slept with at least seven girls I knew at university, including the Oakdale twins. There were also whispers about boyfriends, which didn’t surprise me because David had that sort of androgynous beauty that appealed to men and women.
Henry rounds out my top five. Last but not least. Before he came along, I had dated a dozen different guys, all of whom had something nice about them: their eyes, or their laugh, or their smell. Maybe I was setting the bar too low, but if they showered regularly, picked me up on time, and ate with their mouths closed, they tended to get a second date. Make me laugh and they’d sometimes get lucky. That makes me sound uber-confident, with clearly defined rules, but nothing could be further from the truth.
My mother thinks Henry rescued me from a lonely spinsterhood, or from becoming a weird cat lady, even though I’m allergic to cats and I was quite happy being single and financially independent. I was twenty-five when we met, hardly old, but I am rather pleased that he came along, with his dark curly hair, piercing blue eyes and the cleft in his chin that he has trouble shaving. He has a world-class bum and I keep telling him he could be a butt-double in the movies and do those scenes where Brad Pitt or Matt Damon have to step out of the shower.
‘I don’t want people looking at my bum,’ he replies.
‘What about me?’
‘Except for you.’
I met Henry two years ago on one of those humid, heat-heavy summer evenings where London is transformed into an incubator for madness, racial tension and sexual mores. People were spilling out of pubs onto pavements and dining at open-air cafés or taking a stroll.
The air-conditioning had broken at the karate academy, and I had taken my junior class to a park across the road. Barefoot on the grass, my students looked cute in their uniforms, like miniature ninjas. I had them jumping over things, and sliding under them, and dodging trees. I teach Goju-Ryu, which is a traditional Okinawan style of karate that means ‘hard-soft’ and reflects the closed-and open-hand techniques. It’s the same style that Ralph Macchio learned in the Karate Kid movies, and the Netflix spin-off Cobra Kai.
I was packing equipment away when I noticed Henry watching me from beneath one of the trees. He was dressed in black jeans and a T-shirt and had a small boy with him, who had an identical haircut.
‘Looks like you need a hand,’ he said, as I wrestled with the mats. ‘We’ll help, won’t we, Archie.’
I led them across the road to the studio, where we stacked the mats against the wall and put away the rest of the gear. Henry wiped his hands on the back of his jeans and introduced himself. I blew a strand of hair from my forehead and tried not to fall into his eyes.
‘You made that look like fun,’ he said. ‘How do we sign up?’
‘I can give you a form and a timetable. How old is Archie?’
‘Four.’
‘He could start in our junior programme. We have classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays.’
‘What about private lessons?’
‘For Archie?’
‘Both of us … together, I mean.’
‘That wouldn’t work. You’re too big. He’s too small.’
‘I don’t want to fight him.’
‘Sparring is an important part of karate training.’
‘But it’s mainly defensive, right?’
He had a nice voice, low and sexy, with a London accent that swallowed the occasional consonant.
‘I was hoping we could do it together – a father and son thing. We only get to see each other on certain days.’
Ah, a clue! He was either divorced or separated; or maybe it was a drunken one-night stand and a broken condom. He didn’t run away, which was a good sign.
‘I could ask around and see if one of the other teachers are willing.’
‘What about you?’
‘There are better teachers than me.’
‘Yes, but I know you. We have a connection.’
Please don’t blush. Please don’t blush.
I found myself agreeing and wondered later if my ovaries had made the decision for me. They sometimes jiggle when I’m around a man I fancy. Some people get butterflies in their tummies. I have jiggling ovaries.
That’s how it began. The private lessons, the first date, the second date, the first sleepover, the day that Henry said, ‘I love you.’ Now we’re engaged, but no date has been set. September would be nice. I don’t believe in long engagements. Too much can go wrong. I’m the sort of person who can talk herself out of things if I spend too long thinking about them. It’s like when I was buying a new car. I spent months doing the research, looking at reviews and pollution ratings, talking to sales people, taking test drives, until eventually I had so much information that I couldn’t make up my mind. Henry called it ‘decision paralysis’.