“Sweaty and lovely,” he insists. “Tell me everything.”
I describe my day, show him the blisters peppering my palms. “I didn’t realize how unfit I am. But on the plus side, I did learn how to drive a tractor.”
“On day one? That’s throwing you in at the deep end.”
“Yep. Mind you, at least I didn’t have time to panic first.”
“Nice people?”
“Yes, really nice. Really great.” I smile down at Murphy. “How was he?”
“Well, he did pine for you at first. But I won him round with my killer combination of walks, ball, treats, and tummy rubs.” He drops his voice to a whisper. “Between you and me, I think he’s developed a soft spot for Tinkerbell.”
I laugh. “Tinkerbell’s far too old for him. She’s nearly ten.”
“Hey, don’t knock it. The distraction worked wonders.”
Inside, I feel a slackening of tension, like the sag of a sail as a storm subsides. “Thank you so much.”
“You’re more than welcome. Drink?” He heads over to the fridge, withdrawing a bottle and searching out a corkscrew.
Joel’s flat puts mine to shame—it’s always so clean and orderly, a capsule of calm. In the living room, there’s just a two-seater sofa with a teal-colored throw spread demurely across its shoulders, a decent-sized TV, Bluetooth speaker, and not a lot else—aside from a succulent on the hearth and a coffee table, normally bearing his notebook and pen.
I flop onto the sofa. “You bought proper wine.”
“Sorry?”
“If it’s got a cork that means it’s posh. Or did I make that up?”
“Well,” he says, pouring a glassful, “it’s a good thing, apparently. For the cork forests. I’ve been reading up, now that you work in nature conservation and everything.” He crosses the room and passes me a glass that feels cold as frost. “Here, get stuck into this and I’ll run you a bath.”
Oh, my heart. My heart is singing.
“Thank you,” I manage, but he’s already disappeared into the bathroom to turn on the hot tap. I watch him as he goes—the spread of his shoulders, his dark jostle of hair—and feel an intimate sense of longing.
After several intense weeks together, Joel and I still haven’t had sex. I know he’s reluctant to rush things, that his feelings around relationships are complicated, that he doubts his own competence in matters of the heart. So I’m happy to take things slowly. What we’re doing feels right for us.
When the bath’s run and I go in there, Joel’s lit a candle, set a freshly laundered towel to warm on the rail. It’s like a slow dance of tender gestures, all the things I used to do for Piers that he’d never do back, presumably because he didn’t think I was worth the trouble.
Until recently, Joel probably didn’t even own a candle, let alone the lavender bubble bath he’s poured into the water. It’s like he’s been waiting for years to have someone he can do this for.
38.
Joel
It’s halfway through Callie’s first week at Waterfen, and we’re walking home from dinner at the home of my ex-boss Kieran and his wife, Zoë. After the warmth of their underfloor-heated den (they live in a blond-brick, double-fronted villa on one of Eversford’s most expensive avenues), the outside world feels scaldingly cold.
“Is Kieran your only real friend?” Callie asks me gently as we walk, our breath aerosol-white in the December air.
“Steve’s a good friend.” Better than most, given all he’s put up with from me.
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why are Kieran and Steve your only real friends?” Her arm hooked into mine, she asks the question like it’s no big deal. Except I know it is. I guess she’s wondering if a guy without a serious personality defect can really make it to halfway through his thirties without a crew to show for it. An ever-present stag-night-in-waiting. Doug, who has his own faithful cohort (old school pals, rugby mates, work colleagues, friends-in-law), has never thought so. He’s forever ribbing me about the lack of barbecues on my birthday, summers devoid of wedding invitations. World Cups come and gone without a squad to raise a glass with.
“I guess after the dreaming started,” I admit, “I wasn’t very focused onmaking friends. It felt like a full-time job at times. Trying to keep track of everything, hold my mind together. Still does, if I’m honest.”
