I look up to see Ben standing there with a twinkle in his eye. He pulls up a stool.
‘Hey!’ I immediately sit up straighter.
‘Are you alright?’
‘The waiter is being a dickhead.’ I indicate our surroundings. ‘I couldn’t think of anywhere else to suggest.’
He laughs and looks behind him. ‘I might nip to the bar. You okay?’
‘Yes, thanks. He’s bringing me a wine.’
‘Cool.’ He gets up and walks off. I watch him go, feeling extremely surreal and disjointed from reality.
He looks gorgeous in faded grey trousers and a short-sleeved dark-grey T-shirt over a long-sleeved black one. It’s the sort of thing Nathan could wear, and Nathan is twenty-five. Ben definitely, definitely doesn’t look old, I decide once and for all. Thank bollocks for that.
Was he wearing a ring?
He returns a minute later with a beer. I can’t see his left hand clearly from this position.
‘This is weird,’ Ben says, grinning.
‘Mmm,’ I murmur.
‘So what have you been doing?’ He leans towards me and rests his elbows on his knees. The waiter finally returns with my drink. I wait for him to leave before speaking. And then I see Ben’s hand. No ring. My heart skips a beat. He’s still waiting for my answer to his question.
‘This and that.’
‘What sort of this and that?’ he persists. ‘Tell me. We’ve got a lot of catching up to do.’
‘Oh, I work as a receptionist in the city.’ He nods. ‘It’s for a publishing firm. I covered for someone on a magazine recently,’ I blurt out. ‘That was good fun. I’m just temping . . .’ My voice trails off.
‘No photography?’
I shake my head. ‘Sadly, no.’ I feel like a massive failure. He expected so much of me and I’ve delivered nothing. My eyes return to the space on his finger where his wedding ring should be.
‘Divorced,’ he says suddenly.
‘Pardon?’
He lifts up his wedding finger. ‘Divorced.’
Someone is hoovering the inside of my head. My thoughts are befuddled with all the white noise.
‘Five years ago,’ he reveals.
‘Five years?’
‘Yep.’
‘Have you been in Sydney for the last five years?’ Out of the blue I feel like crying. If I’d met him five years ago I never would have met Richard. I never would have had to cause him any pain. But I’m getting ahead of myself . . .
‘No,’ Ben replies. ‘I stayed in the UK for a while before moving back to Adelaide and then to Perth. I’ve only been in Sydney for a year.’
‘A year. Okay.’ I breathe a sigh of relief. ‘Did you go to Perth because of your mum?’
He smiles. ‘I can’t believe you’d remember that.’ I nod and he continues. ‘I had to get away after a couple of years of it.’ He looks at my left hand. ‘What about you? No ring?’
‘Ring? No,’ I say hastily, unable to help misleading him.
