She ducks under the umbrella and sends me a little smile of gratitude and for a second, I wish we were walking home, the two of us in this small space protecting us from the elements as they attack, just me and her as I lead her to safety. God knows what that says about me. Ever needing to be the bloody hero. Instead I walk her around to the passenger side door, and open it for her.
Whilst the work ethic is all her own, I feel a little bit responsible for the crazy effort she is demonstrating at the moment. If Jamal had come through then she’d be doing the school stuff, working with app developers, and wouldn’t have to be killing herself to make the rent. I still haven’t got to the bottom of what had happened but I have scheduled in time to catch up with him over Christmas when he’ll be back in the city again for a few days.
‘I’m not used to this,’ she says.
‘What? Being treated like a human being?’
‘Nah, I’m fairly sure human beings just have to get on with stuff, you know, get wet in the rain, open their own car doors. This is being treated like royalty.’
‘Behave! I’m just not letting you touch the car cos you’d have the handle in your hand and a helpless look of confusion on your face if I did,’ I say before I shut the door on her and walk around to the driver’s side, shaking the umbrella out before I put it in the back.
‘True,’ she says turning to face me as I get in and turn the engine on. ‘Although I am behaving. For example, I haven’t teased you about your non-existent lights phobia. You’re parked in front of the glitteriest most light-flashy shop in the whole city right now and seem perfectly fine.’
‘How dare you suggest my phobia is made up.’ I laugh as the car purrs out of town, up the hill and towards the flat. She doesn’t know yet that not only have I been outside the shop this evening, I was also inside it earlier in the week.
‘Oh, I dare. And lights in the rain are fab. Squint and then shake your head, it’s so much fun. You should try it.’
‘You want me to drive the car, squint my eyes and see if I can make things look trippy as I drive?’ I say. ‘I’m willing to try new stuff but I think careering down that hill the other day on something that looks like it was stolen from a school dining room in the Fifties is probably my limit. I’m going to keep these bad boys fully open until we get ourselves to the flat.’ She laughs but it’s clear her energy is not full Belle.
‘You look shattered, do you want me to run you home so you can go straight to bed?’ I offer.
‘Tempting, so very tempting, but you promised me free food and a Christmas movie. I reckon I can last a little bit longer.’
‘Okay, but if at any point you hit a wall and need to get home super quick then say and I’ll take you straight back. Here we are.’
Belle’s face is a picture as she looks up at the Georgian townhouse.
‘It’s so beautiful, you’re lucky to live here.’
‘Renting for the month and only a flat, not the whole thing. But yes, it’s pretty special.’ I understand her wonder. Child me could never have dreamt of renting somewhere like this. Somewhere that sums up the affluence and the history of this city as perfectly as the housing in the centre of Bath does. It was Jessica who had helped me expand what was usual for me, embrace the more chi-chi elements our success brought.
‘Can you imagine the sights this building has seen? Jane Austen herself could have stayed here, or nipped in to have tea before taking the waters.’
‘I imagine if she had, there would be a blue plaque and the rent would be twice the price. Here.’ I dash around the side of the car to open the door for her, umbrella aloft.
I hold out my hand to help her up. She looks at me as if I am mad and then decides to play along and takes it.
The touch of her hand in mine sends my head into a tailspin and I call on all my years of self-control not to make it look as if thirty thousand volts are racing up my arm at her mere touch. What is this? It certainly isn’t how my friendship with Belle is meant to feel. Part of me wants to drop her hand and part of me wants to act as normally as humanly possible. Dropping her hand would imply things. This isn’t some budding romance, I’m not an adolescent boy, this is me thanking a friend who’s making my stay back in the UK far more bearable. I’m not going to indulge my brain with any other scenarios. I’ll be back halfway across the world in no time, two weeks to the day, and then I probably won’t ever see her again.
When we were dancing at Tyntesfield I had had a similar reaction but assumed that it was because it had been a long time since I had held a woman’s hand, and my body was getting confused. But this is twice now. That excuse can’t play twice, can it? Yes, it can, I tell myself. It’s been years, to be fair, and you’re not the most tactile guy. This is just friendship, the fear of anything more is nothing but your anxieties coming to the fore, the perpetual fear that you are being unfair to Jess. I keep rationalising, reassuring myself, and she keeps hold of my hand.
‘I’m going to play Georgian heroine this evening,’ she explains, bobbing a curtsey once I’ve locked the car, led her up the steps and let us both into the dry.
I shut the door with my back and still holding her hand twirl her around the tiled floor of the hallway. We’re getting good at this dancing thing.
‘It seems to me, madam, that you are very fond of playing the historical heroine, as this is the second time you’ve done it in a week,’ I say, relieved that a sense of normalcy has returned to my body and that my voice isn’t giving my momentary doubts away.
‘This is true, it is my one natural calling,’ she acknowledges. ‘It seems a shame to rob you of the chance to do the same. I know deep down you really want to be a villain.’
‘I do, I do,’ I say, twirling an imaginary but very villainous moustache. ‘Welcome to my lair.’ I unlock and throw open the flat door and usher her in with a particularly nefarious sweep. ‘Do come into my parlour.’
‘My mother has warned me about men like you,’ she says, picking her feet up daintily and role-playing her way into the flat.
‘And yet still you came in.’
‘I did. Like a fly to a spider’s den,’ she says with a big grin and then she stops short as she takes in the scene in front of her. ‘What’s this?’
‘This, madam, is your carefully curated sofa spot. Let me lead the way.’
