Already my stomach has relaxed. There we are. It’s all fine! Never say never. That’s all I needed to know. I can see that I’ve overreacted; in fact, it’s all very clear to me. I’ll convert him! The vegetarian gods have sent him to me for this very purpose!
“What should I do with this?” Matt adds, nodding at a pile of papers, and I click my tongue. I intended to tidy that away earlier.
“Er…put it on the bench under the windowsill. It’s my stuff for my course.”
“Right.” He nods. “The aromatherapy.”
“Different course, actually,” I say, chopping fresh coriander. “Career coaching. I want to take that up part-time.”
“You have a lot of interests.” He raises his eyebrows. “When will you finish your aromatherapy qualification?”
“Not sure,” I say, slightly defensive, because don’t people realize how hard it is to fit everything in? “Anyway! The food’s nearly ready. Have a crisp.”
I pass him a bowl of posh crisps which I bought especially for tonight, and Matt takes a couple. But before they can get to his mouth, Harold appears from nowhere, adeptly leaps onto the bench, removes the crisps from Matt’s hand, and crunches them. He jumps down and scoots quickly away while I try not to laugh, and Matt gazes at him in astonishment.
“Did he just take that out of my hand? I didn’t even notice him.”
“He’s pretty deft.” I grin. “You have to hold food at chest level or else. Vamoose.”
I’m expecting Matt to laugh, but he still looks astonished. Even…disapproving?
“You allow him?”
“Well, no, obviously, I don’t allow him,” I say, feeling caught out. I turn to Harold and say, a bit self-consciously, “Harold, darling, Matt is our friend and we don’t steal food from friends. OK?” As Harold buries his nose in my hands, I rub his head. “No stealing food!”
I kiss him on the head, then look up to see Matt watching me with a flummoxed expression.
“What?” I say.
“No. Nothing. I…” He stops himself. “No.”
“You were going to say something.” I stare at him, my eyes narrowed. “What?”
“Nothing!” He shakes his head. “Really. Let’s…have another drink.”
I don’t believe him, but nor do I want to force the issue. So in bright tones I say, “Glass of wine?” and fetch a bottle I bought in Italy.
Just the glug-glug-glug sound soothes away whatever tension was in the air. We clink our glasses and smile at each other, and as I taste my first sip, it’s Pavlovian. Or do I mean Proustian? Whatever it is, I could be back there, in Puglia, in the courtyard with the herbs and the agapanthus and the birds silhouetted in the sky.
“The last time we had this wine we were at the monastery,” I say, and Matt’s brow relaxes.
“Seems an age away already.”
“I know.”
He’s leaning against the counter and I come to join him. I lean into his broad chest, inhaling him, remembering him as he was then. Dutch. My Dutch.
“It’s good to see you,” I say softly. “Missed you.”
“You too.”
There’s a moment of silence, then Matt puts down his wineglass and I put down mine. And the moment we’re kissing, I can’t think why we’ve waited this long. I’m devouring him, remembering him, wanting him more desperately than ever.
“I haven’t thought about anything except you,” I whisper into his ear.
“Yesterday, all I could think about was you,” returns Matt, his stubble pressed against my neck.
“I never even asked you how your meeting was,” I say, with sudden self-reproach.
“I don’t want to think about my meeting,” he growls back. “Fuck that.”
He’s already undone my bra; I’ve unbuttoned his shirt….Whatever tiny tensions were between us have vanished. We’re in synch with each other. Moving with each other. In the zone together. This man is all I want or need….
Then a timer suddenly pings, and we both jerk in shock.
“Oh. I set that earlier. Sorry.” I wince. “It’s…doesn’t matter.”
“We could eat,” suggests Matt. “And then…” He raises his eyebrows, and as I remember what we got up to in Italy, I feel a cascade of responses all over my body.
“OK. Let’s do that.”
I ladle out my tagine into two shallow pottery bowls and usher Matt to the table.
“Interesting chairs,” he says, eyeing my vintage school chairs. I found them at a car-boot sale and they’re quite rickety, but Maud is going to upcycle them as soon as she’s done the shelving unit. “Don’t tell me. Rescue chairs?”
“Of course,” I say, laughing at his expression. “All my furniture is rescue furniture, pretty much. ‘Adopt, don’t shop.’ ”
“Not your bed, surely,” he says, looking slightly repulsed.
“Especially my bed! I found it in a skip,” I say proudly. “Maud painted it and it’s as good as new. I just hate new furniture. It’s so blah. It’s so…functional. It has no character.”
“If you say so.” Matt sits down and picks up his fork. “Bon appétit.”
As we both take our first mouthfuls, I hear a sound a bit like a twig cracking. I can’t quite tell where it came from, though.
“What was that?” I say in puzzlement. “Was that—”
But I don’t get to finish my sentence, because the next moment there’s the sound of splintering wood and Matt yells with shock—and before my eyes, his chair collapses with him on it, as if he’s in “The Three Bears.”
“Oh my God!” I shriek in horror.
“Shit!” Matt sounds like he’s in actual pain. “What the fuck?”
“I’m so sorry!” I say desperately.
I’m already on my feet and I try to help Matt up from the mess of wood, although Harold is barking frenziedly and capering around and generally getting in the way.
“Right now…” says Matt heavily, as he finally gets to his feet, “right now, I would probably take function over character.”
“I’m sorry,” I say again, feeling waves of mortification. “I’m so sorry…Wait, your arm.” I feel a stab of dread as I see his sleeve. It’s drenched with red. What has my rescue furniture done to the man I love?
Wordlessly, Matt pulls up his sleeve to reveal a horrible gash which has gone right through his shirt.
“Shit.” My stomach is hollow. “Shit! But how—what—”
“Nail.” He nods at a huge rusty nail sticking out of my salvaged kitchen dresser, which is also on Maud’s upcycling list. “Must have caught me when I went down.”
“Matt, I don’t know what to say,” I begin, my voice trembling. “I’m so incredibly sorry….”
“Ava, it’s fine. Not your fault.” He puts his uninjured hand on my arm. “But maybe I should go to A&E, get a tetanus jab.”
“Yes. Right. I’ll get a cab.” Flustered, I whip out my phone to call an Uber. I can’t quite believe it. This is not how things were supposed to go.
“Don’t stress. Shit happens.” He squeezes my arm. “And apart from that, it’s been a great evening,” he adds. “Really, it has. Thank you. I loved the…um…” He stops as though he doesn’t know how to finish the sentence. “I loved the…the…” He pauses again, and I can see him scrabbling for the next word. “I loved…you,” he finishes at last. “I loved seeing you again.”
“Well, me too. Cab’s on its way.”
I soak a tea towel and wash his arm, wincing at the blood, then grab a packet of biscuits from the cupboard.
“We might have a wait at the hospital,” I say, nodding at them.
“Ava, you’re not coming with me,” says Matt, looking taken aback. “It’s not necessary.”
“Of course I am!” I stare at him. “I’m not going to leave you. And…d’you want to come back here afterward?” I ask tentatively. “The rescue bed won’t collapse,” I add in earnest tones. “I promise. It’s sturdy.”
At the phrase “rescue bed,” a weird, fixed look comes over Matt’s face, which I can’t quite read.
“Let’s see how we go, shall we?” he says after a long silence. “We could come back here, yes, we could do that.” He pauses again, his eyes running over the heap of broken rescue chair. “Or we could always go to my place.”
Nine
I’m feeling upbeat and undeterred as I stand in an unfamiliar corner of west London the next evening, waiting for Matt. OK, so we didn’t have the best outcome last night—but it doesn’t matter. Tonight will be different.
We were at A&E until 1 A.M. By the time Matt had got patched up and signed all the forms, it felt too late to embark on anything more romantic than going home and collapsing in our separate beds. We agreed to start again tonight after work, and Matt said he’d come and meet me at the tube station.
So I’ve drawn a mental line under everything. We’re starting afresh tonight. Harold and I are going to stay at Matt’s place, and finally I’m going to see his life!
“Are you excited?” I say fondly to Harold, at my side. “We’re seeing Matt! Our new friend! Oh, look, there he is!”
God, he’s an impressive sight. I mean, anyone would say he’s gorgeous. He’s walking down the street with that easy gait, his dark hair glowing in the sun, his eyes crinkling into a smile, his muscles rippling as he moves. (OK, so he’s wearing a suit, but I can fill in the muscles for myself.)
He greets me with a kiss and takes my enormous case.