‘This is amazing, thanks, Rosy. I can’t tell you how timely this is or how much I need it.’
‘Rough few days?’ she asked, leaning over him and grating cheese. ‘Tell me when.’
‘When.’ The smell of her reminded him of those penny chews, Fruit Salads, that had always been his favourite. Then his gardener’s nose kicked in and he could identify rose, rhubarb and a hint of something else. It would come to him later, he knew it. She smelt delicious and, like every part of her, this scent appealed to the child and the adult within him.
She plopped back into her chair and smiled broadly at him.
‘So, what’s been happening?’
‘I couldn’t make it up if I told you. But since I saw you on Sunday, I’ve been beaten up by the Russian mafia, and thrown, actually thrown out of a club. I tell you my arse is still sore – pavements are hard! On top of that I was offered cocaine, which I didn’t accept by the way, in a grimy alleyway by a rather frightening woman. Although not in that order. How about you?’
He couldn’t help but grin at the way neither shock nor judgement flashed across her face but instead Rosy erupted in a proper deep belly laugh.
‘Just a regular couple of days then. Mind you, I would have paid to see the throwing out bit. Was it a proper back of the neck and hurl like they do in movies? Did it hurt as much as it looks like it would?’
‘Yes, why are you still laughing? About me being in pain? Humiliated and in pain? You have a bit of a mean streak, don’t you? Clearly I got you all wrong!’
‘Clearly you got it all wrong about a whole host of other things as well. What on earth did you do?’
‘Why do you assume it’s my fault?’ Matt aimed for the air of an aggrieved child who’d been caught out. Any minute now and it’d be hand against forehead à la Victorian heroine. He was enjoying this.
‘You’re an idiot! Your face fools no one,’ sputtered Rosy.
‘The insults just don’t stop coming, do they. Here I was thinking I was coming over for a civilized, neighbourly bowl of pasta, but no, it’s just attack, attack, attack with you, isn’t it?’
She held her hands up and bowed her head in a gesture of apology. ‘OK, straight-faced now. How? Why? To all of it. Was it not your fault?’
‘Well, it’s a long story and I don’t want to be disloyal, but…’
‘Oh my God, it was all about Angelina, wasn’t it?’
Matt smiled one of those what-do-you-expect smiles and spread his hands, and Rosy shook her head.
‘I’m a glutton for punishment?’ He shrugged.
‘Clearly, and that’s not all.’ She leaned forward and completely unexpectedly drew her fingers across his cheek, just in the corner of his face. ‘You’re a glutton for my cooking too – you’ve got pasta sauce everywhere! There, that’s it.’
He didn’t really hear her words; it was almost as if it were one of those bad film moments that make you wince at the obviousness of it, as everything around the main character is suspended in time and slows down to a near halt, whereas the main character himself is highlighted, sharpened, in focus as he moves forward, hyper-sensitized, and in this particular case grabs the wrist near him.
He wasn’t trying to be aggressive and he didn’t grab her roughly; it just kind of happened, and he held lightly onto her wrist as she attempted to move away. He looked into her eyes. Her action, its level of intimacy, had shocked him and he wasn’t quite sure what he was doing. It was instinctive, intuitive, not at all thought out and he didn’t want to look away. He wanted to pull her, gently, determined, even closer still.
‘I’m so sorry!’ Rosy spoke and the spell was broken. ‘I didn’t realize what I was doing, I’m sorry. It’s inherent, a work thing, I guess. Forgive me.’
Matt dropped her wrist immediately. Whatshehad been doing? Was she joking? What about what he had done! That was so unlike him.
‘I’m sorry too, I didn’t mean to grab you. I don’t know what came over me.’
‘Oh, don’t be daft, you weren’t aggressive in any way. Everyone would raise their hand to protect themselves if some mad woman came at their face as if they were six.’
He didn’t feel particularly like he was six right now.
‘And anyway, I quite liked it.’ Her face looked as surprised as he was as she realized what she had just said. He watched as the flush rose from her neck to the roots of her hair. That didn’t look like it was something she had meant to say out loud. Matt held her eye contact. Something was fizzing all over him, and he found himself pushing his chair out and standing up. Slowly and deliberately he walked around towards her. He took in every last detail as he went: her dark hair as it fell across her shoulders, curtaining the curves of her neck. Her big eyes, wider than usual as she watched him move nearer; her mouth, slightly ajar as if surprised or, as he watched her tongue flick across the lips, as desirous as he was for what was about to happen next. One hand held on to the table, the other awkwardly on her lap as if she weren’t quite sure what to do with it, how to position herself.
Whilst it took a matter of seconds to cross from his chair to her, it felt as if it were all going one slow frame at a time, a compulsion, a black-and-white movie but without the desperate kind of flinging at each other. A more heightened, modern, slow and silent realization of what they had both been working towards since the night they’d recognized a mutual attraction. That first meeting as they’d bickered on the pavement, then the night they had stayed up laughing, drinking, talking, learning. This had always been going to happen and as he looked in her eyes he knew she had known it too.
He reached her and held his hand to hers, pulling her out of her chair. They remained wordless, and just stood there for a second or two, staring at each other, almost cementing the moment on their brains, wanting it to be clear for future recall. This could be momentous.
She quivered in front of him, as a baby rabbit in the hand of a man. Her tremble though was not with fear; she maintained his eye contact, daring him on. Tongue still flicking across her lips, unaware she was doing it, nerves fully on show. Yet she did not step back and he lowered his head to meet her lips in a deliberately measured way, offering her every chance to step back, scream no, slap him. Yet she didn’t. She instead moved almost imperceptibly closer, willing him forward until he could bear no more.
