Has Jess slipped and fallen into another dimension, where such things are possible? She manages, just, to keep herself from gasping. She tells herself that her movements should be gentle; she doesn’t want to scare away this miracle.
Or maybe he’s reading in order to find things to criticise? That seems more plausible than Alex reading a book like this for pleasure. Yes, that must be it. She breathes in again, to slow herself down. She had got far too excited at the prospect of Alex reading a romance novel for normal-person reasons. And there’s his scent again. All these thoughts and feelings are giving her whiplash, and meanwhile, there he is, oblivious, reading.
Smiling?
Yes, he’s smiling.
Not smirking.
So maybe he’s genuinely enjoying himself after all. Maybe he’s not reading for criticism.
Curiouser and curiouser.
Without warning, as if coming unstuck from deep mud, the train lurches forward. Jess’s tortoiseshellglasses slide down her nose. The girl next to her sways, leaning into Jess to stay upright.
‘Sorry,’ she mutters, gathering herself, but Jess is feeling very forgiving.
Because, by leaning into Jess, she has pushed Jess into Alex.
His red shirt is indeed very soft.
His scent is even more pleasant up close.
And his breath on her face is definitely more pleasant than the breath of a random commuter.
‘Hi,’ he says again, in the soft voice from before.
‘Hello,’ she repeats, in her apologising-for-the-awkwardness tone, even though she finds herself not fully meaning the apology. Her heart is beating fast, unless it’s his she can feel. She thinks, unexpectedly, that she’d stay in this position quite happily all the way to Godalming. All the way to the end of the trainline.Push me again, she finds herself willing in the direction of the girl with the headphones.Give me an excuse to stay like this.But the girl, of course, doesn’t, and Jess has already let herself lean on Alex a fraction too long. ‘Sorry,’ she says, and she shuffles away from him, though not as far away as she was before.
‘That’s quite all right,’ he says, making eye contact.
She opens her book back up, but her concentration has gone. Not even Katherine Center can bring her back from this kind of distraction. Her pre-departure cup of tea weighs heavily on her bladder, but now is not the time to give up her position in favour of the loo. She will just have to cross her legs. To think of things other than her pressing physiological need. Besides, anotherpressing physiological need, quite an inappropriate one, is making itself felt. Not that she should be thinking of that, either.
Whatisthis other dimension she has fallen into?
And how does she get out of it? Because it’s very unhelpful.
Impossibly, more people get on at the next station. There’s no lurch; there’s no falling into Alex’s arms or being caught by him. There’s just the chance to keep inhaling him from closer still, even while she pretends to read. Sorry, Katherine Center, she thinks, ashamed of disrespecting a book like this. But somehow, she feels that an author of meet-cutes and forced proximity, of denial of feelings and falling in love, would understand completely.
Chapter Fourteen
Alex
That train journey to Godalming felt like both the shortest and the longest of Alex’s life. Firstly, it is extremely frustrating that British trains do not know how to behave – to arrive when they say they’re going to, and, above all, not to be cancelled. What is the point of meticulously planning your life if external circumstances will not cooperate? Or perhaps thatisthe point: meticulously planning your life with an extra half an hour’s breathing space at every turn,just in case. It is all extremely tedious.
He had a plan. He was going to get to the station in plenty of time for a good seat with a table, get one of these romance novels out of his backpack, and give it a try with a pencil in hand and as much of an open mind as he could muster. But, instead: no seat. No way to make notes. And a very distracting blonde who probably didn’tneedto be quite so close to him at all times, but whose closeness he could be forced to reluctantly admit that he did not, exactly, hate. Reading together companionably is the best kind of friendship as far as Alex is concerned. In an ideal world, wouldyou also be standing in a train corridor alongside far too many University of Guildford students exchanging gossip, popping bubble gum, and occasionally breaking into song? The answer to that should go without saying. Still, he is glad that Jess did not insist on small talk all the way to Godalming – or even any of the way – and he enjoyed the faint smell of apple shampoo he caught from her hair when the train’s swaying delivered her closer to him. It was uncanny, in fact, that the descriptions of the heroine in this book he was reading included the pleasant smell of her hair, so that Jess’s presence acted almost as a live olfactory illustration of what he was reading.
Had he known he would be travelling with Jess, he would have packed a different book – a Churchill biography, perhaps – so as not to invite ridicule. He wanted to read romance in private, decide for himself what he thought of it before risking being interrogated as to his views. But if she had noticed he was reading a romance novel, she didn’t say.
Jess seems grateful when Alex lugs her ridiculously heavy suitcase down the train steps for her. She probably has eighteen pairs of shoes in there, even though she and he are only going to be holed up inside the house, arguing about the best way to rip apart his novel and start again. He has stopped short of tracksuit bottoms and ratty T-shirts and made himself bring jeans and shirts in his backpack. When he writes at home, it’s all about comfort, and also all about dressing in such a way that would make him too ashamed to go out, forfear of being recognised by a reader, as tends to happen around Hampstead. He wouldn’t be surprised if there had been a Londonist article forewarning residents and potential visitors to be on the lookout for writers on the Heath, because that is where they go for inspiration. Which is not untrue: he’s seen Alan Hollinghurst on one occasion, Nina Stibbe on another, nodding to each of them as he passed, in an indication that he both recognises and appreciate them but feels no need to interrupt their day. It is not, however, impossible that on this trip Jess will drag him outside for a walk – not impossible that he will draghimselfoutside in an effort to gain some space away from her: breathing space, thinking space, space to express himself without being judged for his supposedly pretentious views.
‘Should we call an Uber?’ Jess asks, once they’re out of the station.
‘If I remember correctly, the house is quite close to here,’ he says. When he saysif I remember correctly, this is really just for propriety’s sake. He definitely remembers correctly; he has planned every step of this journey meticulously. He just doesn’t know what will happen once they actuallyarrive. That is anybody’s guess. Inwardly, and not for the first time since meeting Jess, he curses Nathan and the freshers’ fair at Durham where they met and became friends.
He catches her slightly wincing. Maybe it’s her ankle.
‘It’s a twenty-minute walk, I think.’
