‘Hello,’ she says, her voice wobbling between the syllables. Her knees are weak, like those of the teenager she once was, waiting in the sixth-form common room for the boy she liked to come in and play pool so she could watch him from the corner of the room. She hates being a cliché, and yet here we are.
‘Hello,’ he says. He leans over and kisses her cheek, in a swoonworthy and gentlemanly manner. Chaste and respectful. She probably should not be disappointed by this. Other people would no doubt find it delightful.
‘Nice flat,’ he says, almost too quickly – almost before he’s had the chance to notice her freshly hoovered carpet, her newly dusted bookshelves. But she notes approvingly that he takes his shoes off out of respect of her clean floors, so maybe he’s just a quick observer. He’s wearing Mr Tickle socks. A gift, no doubt, from a beloved niece or nephew. Another very endearing thing.
She probably needs to breathe. Calm down a bit.
‘Thanks,’ she says. ‘I love living here.’
Would she like a bigger flat, with more room for her books? Space to throw dinner parties? A spare room so her little cousin Ivy can come and stay from time to time, take the pressure off Val and Alan, give them more breathing space to put their feet up, maybe do some of that extended travelling they’ve been dreaming of for years? Of course. But none of that erases that this is home. That every day, still, after three years, she’s delighted to live in Pimlico – a short walk from St James’s Park, where each spring she lingers among the tulips and each summer she lazes on the grass, people-watching and trying not to drip chocolate ice-cream onher novel. The Tachbrook Street Market, where she’s tried every kind of olive and ranked them in order of preference in one random Substack post that was linked to by London Centric, bringing her more new subscribers than a thoughtful review of the latest buzzy book ever has. And so close to the places that tourists fly thousands of miles to see: the Houses of Parliament a twenty-minute walk away; just beyond that, Whitehall and Trafalgar Square; or, across the river, the South Bank, where she loves to linger on sunny days, taking pictures of the ever-changing skyline of the capital or browsing through the book market under Waterloo Bridge.
And besides, when this book of theirs is a bestseller, maybe she’ll be able to treat herself to a bigger flat. She can already picture the arguments with Alex, once they’re together properly. Hampstead is so pleasant, there’s no doubt about that: the beautiful Heath with its views of the City and its wild swimming in the Ladies’ Pond, the pub up the hill with the best fish and chips she’s ever had, the ever-present possibility – more thrilling than she’d like to admit – of bumping into any number of old white male writers of literary fiction. But it’s not Pimlico, and it’s not close enough to her beloved grandparents. She’ll work on Alex bit by bit, have Val bake some more of her treats, till he realises that living near them is indispensable.
She is getting ahead of herself, she knows that. She’s not even sure if they are officially an item, or just two writers who got a little distracted, when they were supposed to be working on a book, and had a bit of afling. Then again, hadn’t he said he’d fallen in love with her? That seems like more than a fling, or a distraction, or a way to pass the time in between chapter edits.
‘I’d like to kiss you,’ Alex says now, setting his bag down by the front door. ‘But I’m afraid we won’t get any work done if we start there.’
‘Would that be such a bad thing?’ She tries to keep it light, playful. Not begging and pleading, which is what she is doing in her head. It’s been four days. Four interminable days.
He chuckles. ‘Deadlines,’ he says. ‘The bane of my existence.’
‘Fair enough,’ she says, but she doesn’t think it is.
Lily, of course, was thrilled when Jess texted her to tell her what had happened. She responded to Jess’s WhatsApps with a longer and longer string of emojis, ranging from hearts to flowers to blushing faces and ending with all the party icons – streamers, balloons, champagne. She’s never hidden that she wants Jess to have what she has with Gareth: they met at a Spanish evening class, their attraction growing stronger as the weeks went by. Jess would wait for Lily to return just after 10 p.m. every Tuesday night and they’d spend a delicious evening analysing every accidental brush of the hand as Lily and Gareth shared a textbook and every potential Freudian slip during conversational role play, until one night Lily texted Jess:Don’t wait up. The stuff of romance novels; the stuff that convincedJess that meet-cutes really can happen; the stuff she dreams of for herself. Gareth has so far managed to be an exemplary romantic hero: flowers bought, cards written, thoughtful gifts purchased and delivered on important dates and sometimesjust because. Jess had worried that she’d never think anybody would be good enough for Lily, but she’s glad that Gareth has proved her wrong – even if part of her wishes he hadn’t materialised and disrupted the life that she and Lily shared in the Brixton flat.
All in all, Jess should probably not be surprised when there’s a knock on the door on that Thursday afternoon, just as she and Alex have sat down to a writing session in her flat. They both seem to be pretending that the plan has worked, that the weekend has got their attraction out of their system and now they can return to being professional. They’ve exchanged a polite kiss in Jess’s doorway; she’s made tea; they’ve got their notebooks and pens and laptops and manuscripts out. They’ve barely had time to say,Now, where were we?when they were interrupted by a knock.
‘I was just passing,’ Lily says, hugging Jess in the doorway. ‘Thought I’d pop in for a cup of tea.’
‘You were just passing Pimlico?’ Jess is not fooled. ‘On your way from West Dulwich to where, exactly?’
Lily’s grin confirms Jess’s suspicions. ‘Nowhere in particular.’
‘Uh-huh.’
Poking her head around the corner into the living room, Lily pretends to be surprised that Jess is not alone. ‘Oh,’ she says, nodding at Alex. ‘Hello.’
Alex does a friendly little wave, a smile at the corner of his lips. He’s apparently not any more fooled by this accidental drop-in than Jess is. Nonetheless, Lily makes a show of looking around at the flat – the table strewn with paper and highlighters, the stack of novels Jess has pulled out for reference – pretending to slowly piece the information together and figure it out.
‘You must be the famous Alex Maxwell,’ she says. ‘Jess mentioned that the two of you were working together.’
Jess bites her lip hard to avoid sniggering. That certainly isn’tallshe’s mentioned.
‘I don’t know about famous,’ he says. The humility doesn’t quite ring true, but Jess appreciates the effort in that direction.
‘He got recognised in a pub in Godalming, of all places,’ she points out. ‘And if that’s not fame, I don’t know what is.’
‘Well, to be fair,’ he says, ‘that’s probably the most excitement they’ve had there in some time.’
‘Since Cameron Diaz and Jude Law came to film, in fact.’
‘The Holiday! I love that film.’ Lily clasps her hands in a prayer pose beneath her chin. ‘So romantic.’
Jess watches, amused, as a blush creeps up Alex’s neck. He clears his throat. ‘Yes, well.’
‘Shall I put the kettle on?’ Lily asks. She’s clearly planning on staying for a while to suss out the situation.
‘I’ll do it,’ Jess says. She’s just fishing out the teabags when her phone buzzes in her pocket. She’d ignore just about anyone at this crucial moment – she trusts Lily,of course, mostly, but does she trust her not to playfully embarrass her in front of Alex, the way she imagines a sister might? She isn’t 100 per cent sure, and it feels like it might be too much of a risk to take for the sake of a phone call.
