‘What doyouwant?’ Our faces are only inches away now.
Before I can answer his lips are on mine and we don’t pull apart until our pod comes to a halt, an assistant telling us to hop off. ‘And do us a favour,’ he adds, ‘get a room.’
It’s Saturday morning and I’m at the supermarket trying to remember the ingredients for lasagne and chocolate tart because stupidly I forgot my list.
Tonight I’m cooking supper for Dan. It’ll be our first night alone in my flat. Since our afternoon on the London Eye we’ve had a couple more dates. He has been the perfect gentleman, taking it slowly, but I’m hoping he’ll drop the act soon and bring a toothbrush.
Dan makes me feel like a schoolgirl who writes all over her pencil case ‘January 4 Dan, 4ever’ accompanied by little love hearts. When I think of him my body fires up with desire. I can’t switch him off; can’t eat, can’t sleep. He is driving me insane. I try to visualise my list and shove in another packet of dark cooking chocolate just in case.
I’ve let my reading slip at work. I begin on a script, only to replay our first date again, remembering how he’d walked me home. We’d spent hours strolling across London. ‘Why get the tube and be underground when you can see all this?’ Dan had said, gesturing to the Albert Bridge lit up in the night sky. When we reached my front door hesitation hung between us. ‘I’ve had a great time,’ I said, before asking if he wanted to come in for a coffee. ‘No,’ he said, giving me his hand instead. ‘I want your number.’
I dug into my handbag to find a pen.
‘Now I’ve got no excuse,’ he’d said, glancing at his hand tattooed with my email address, mobile and phone number. He pulled me towards him, hooked an arm round my neck, his forehead pressed against mine. ‘Not that I want to make any.’
As I stand dreamily in the checkout queue, I find myself thinking about how my mother and father had met by accident in that cafe in New York. My grandparents told me how happy they’d been together, despite the opposition from my father’s parents. Granny said that their disapproval of Mum had deepened her insecurity that she hadn’t been to university like his previous girlfriend. ‘She didn’t want him to have to choose. She went to his parents, urged them to reconsider, she couldn’t bear to see your dad so hurt, but it was all in vain. Oh, I could have killed those parents for being so stubborn and making her feel she wasn’t good enough for their son. OK, she didn’t have a long list of qualifications, but so what? What she did have, January, was an abundance of fun and kindness, and she brought it out in your father too. He was an academic you see, and could be on the serious side, rather like Lucas.’ My father must have been devastated by their rejection. How I would have loved to hold him in my arms and tell him how proud I was that he’d stood up for my mother and had had such belief in their love.
Later that day, I flick between the radio channels before I make my lasagne. There’s a programme dedicated to the Queen Mother, who died last month. More than a million people lined the streets outside Westminster Abbey. There’s news on the forthcoming election for the presidency in Pakistan… gossip about Britney Spears after her split from Justin Timberlake… ‘January Wild is cooking for her new man,’ I say, making up my own headline, ‘and hoping food is the way to a man’s heart. Tune in to find out what happens later.’
Music playing in the background, I tackle the white sauce for the lasagne. ‘Melt the butter.’ I pop a creamy lump into the pan and read the next instruction: ‘Add plain flour.’ I decide to pour myself a glass of wine first. Let’s get priorities right. ‘Stir in the milk.’ Oh I love this song, I think, turning up the volume to Kylie.
‘Granny!’ I say five minutes later on the telephone. ‘It’s gone lumpy.’
‘What has?’
‘My white sauce!’
‘You stirred it continuously?’
‘Yes,’ I pretend, rereading the recipe and cursing under my breath. ‘I’ll have to start again.’
‘Just calm down and whisk it.’
Time is running on and Dan will be here in an hour. My hands are sticky; my T-shirt stained with tomato sauce. I need to phone Granny again.
‘It says here put the butter and chocolate into a bain-marie – what the hell is that?’
She’s trying not to laugh. ‘It’s a basin of hot water. You—’
‘Well, why don’t they say that?’ I hang up.
Granny calls me back five seconds later. ‘January, this Daniel chap hasn’t come round to test you on your culinary skills, darling.’
‘Just as well.’
‘He’s come round for a bit of nooky, hasn’t he?’
‘Oh, Granny!’ Embarrassed I hang up.
‘Something smells good,’ Dan says, after I have given him a quick tour of the flat, kicking my T-shirt and jeans under my bed before showing him into my bedroom. Now we’re back in the kitchen, the table laid with candles and wine glasses.
‘We should eat soon,’ I say, as he stands so close to me. His hair is washed, his skin fresh and I breathe in the intoxicating smell of his aftershave. ‘Here,’ he says, with a hint of a smile, ‘you’ve got a bit of chocolate.’ Gently he wipes his finger across my cheek… next he’s taking my face into his hands and we’re kissing quickly, passionately, Dan lifting me on to the countertop, me coiling my legs around him, not caring when the pinger for the chocolate tart rings.
Dan and I lie in bed, a tangle of limbs, both of us out of breath, our clothes strewn across the floor. ‘Beats going to the gym.’ Dan strokes my arm that rests over his chest. ‘Fancy another workout?’ he says just as we hear a thud against the wall.
‘That’s Morag,’ I whisper, holding my breath and trying not to laugh. ‘Grumpy old neighbour.’
‘Yes,’ Dan groans, trying not to laugh. ‘Do it to me baby! Yes, yes, yes!’
