‘Okay, I trust you. You have a lovely singing voice, by the way.’
I realise that I’ve not actually moved from the mirror, so I sit back down on the couch as elegantly as possible. ‘Thank you.’ Like every wannabe manic pixie dream autistic, I had an open mic with a ukulele phase.
‘Oh gosh, I thought you’d gone then.’
Oops, I must have left a big gap. ‘Sorry, I forget you can’t see me. I’ve never been the best at phone calls either. I always get distracted.’
‘What distracts you?’
‘Oh. Anything I guess. I’ve always got a few million thoughts going on at once. Though at work it’s usually a goat with its head stuck in a fence or something.’
‘A… goat? What do you do?’
I explain that I work on a city farm in London’s East End, and I’m not just wrangling various animals from an office cubicle.
‘Well, I wouldn’t judge you if you were.’
I laugh, and I can feel the smile in the mirror stretching my cheeks. It’s a real, real smile. I can justtellhe’s a good person. You just can’t be a bad person when you sound like he does; he’s sunshine, I think.
I’m trying to work out how to ask for his biography – I really think we should all come with a Wikipedia-type summary – when he says, ‘Can I ask you a question, Carys?’
I nod and then remember he can’t see me. ‘Yes! Go ahead.’
‘Okay. If we were hosting a dinner party and you could invite any one person, living or dead, who would you invite?’
Well. That’s a different train of thought than I was expecting, but I’ll go with it. I know it’s probably the opener he asks everyone, but throwing awein there from the off just feels special. I repeat the question back to him just to make sure I understood.
‘I know my answer,’ I say eventually. ‘But it does make me sound like a bit of a nerd.’
‘I’m sure I won’t think that.’
‘Okay.’ I feel the excitement of talking about something I love ripple in me. ‘I would invite Jane Austen because her novels are such interrogations of people, of how we act and love and who we are, and even if she was quiet at our dinner party, I know she would have thoughts that I’d be fascinated to hear.’
I feel my cheeks flush – I have alotof feelings about Austen.
The thing I don’t add is my opinion that her novels, particularlyPride and Prejudice, are about autistic people of the past. Her characters are people I know and understand (sometimes literally), even if they act completely bananas sometimes. It’s like their DNA is familiar to me: the way Darcy restrains himself to the point of squashing; Lizzie’s loud brilliance and opinionated nature; Lydia’s impulsiveness. Even Mrs Bennet’sobsessionwith propriety. I see them in me, and my family, all the time.
‘Which is your favourite novel?’ he asks, which is always a good sign because men usually seem to think she only wrotePride and Prejudice. That’s if they even know it’s a book and not just a film or a TV show.
‘It changes, but I love Lizzie and Darcy. Their spiky romance is my heart-story.’
‘I’m more of aSense and Sensibilityman myself but I must admit that’s because I love watching Alan Rickman as Colonel Brandon.’ He says it so boldly that I know this is a truth. ‘There’s something so wonderful about him.’
That’s when I know for sure that my first instincts are right; there’s something special about Patrick. I’ve never met a man who would choose lovely dependable (and kind of old) rescuer Colonel Brandon as their favourite if they were trying to impress. They’d choose Fitzwilliam Darcy because they know he’s rich and because Colin Firth walking out the lake is imprinted on so many women’s minds. Or if they do knowSense and Sensibility, they choose Edward Ferrars because he’s played by Hugh Grant.
I know Victor said that liking the same things isn’t everything, but this feels important. This isn’t just taste, this is like a literary horoscope. Brandon isreliable.
‘I love Colonel Brandon,’ I whisper. ‘Are you a romantic too, Patrick?’
‘I am. To a fault. I imagine all of us must be.’
I spin his question back to him.
‘Oh, I’m afraid my answer is a bit boring but I’d pick David Attenborough. I think he’d just have lots of really good stories from his lifetime of adventures.’
‘That’s not boring. He’s what my capybara is named after.’
‘You have a capybara? On your city farm?’
