Long anticipation-dashing story short, it turned out that she was as beautiful, funny, gorgeous, smart, kind, adorable as I remembered (seriously, I had alonglist of superlatives for her) but in a ridiculous quirk of fate I found out, straight after I blurted out that I loved her, that she was leaving for a year-long stay in Kazakhstan the next week, on a teaching exchange.
I considered for a mad moment asking her if she’d like to start dating anyway and… came to my senses halfway through asking her.
And that was that. We said a very final goodbye, which involved a long, somewhat desperate, kiss in the middle of a South London park, and then we left in opposite directions. I looked back at Flavia; she didn’t look back once. And we haven’t seen each other since.
Nine years on, I know that it’s a good job we didn’t start dating, for many reasons. The biggest two from my side being that I now know that I am not relationship material, and that our mothers are very good friends, as are her brother and I, so given those family links we could really only get together if we were literally going to get married. Which, given my relationship-wrecking abilities, we certainly wouldn’t.
And because of all of that, I don’t like the thought of being on the trip with her.
When I think about it properly, though, rationally, I realise I’m being ridiculous. We had a very vaguethingonce – that’s all. And we won’t be the only ones on the trip; we won’t have to spend a lot of time talking to each other.
It will be fine.
The question now is whether or not I should go over and say hello.
On balance, I think not. I’m sure neither of us wants another vaguely awkward conversation like the one we had at her mum’s last week. We can wait until we arrive in Cape Town.
As I walk in the opposite direction, I can’t help taking a look over my shoulder. There’s something… very kind ofdelicate… about the way she eats sushi, which is very… yeah, I’d have to say attractive.
Whatever. Lots of people are attractive.
I turn away from her again and head for a steak restaurant in the opposite direction.
* * *
I’m unsurprised when I catch sight of the top of Flavia’s distinctive head of dark brown curls in the boarding queue ahead of me, and I suppose I should be equally unsurprised when I see her in the seat next to mine when I get to our row, but for some reason I’m quite astonished, and not in a good way. I just don’t want to sit next to her. Another gut feeling.
‘Flavia,’ I say, reminding myself of the times we’ve met in her parents’ house.
‘Dominic,’ she gasps. ‘What are you doing here? Are you…? Did you win the raffle? Are you going on the safari?’
‘Yep.’
‘Oh.’ She clamps her lips very hard together for a moment and looks as though she’s having to try hard to remember how to breathe normally. Eventually, after several seconds, during which I almost laugh, because I don’t think Flavia’s a naturally rude person and itisrude to look this unhappy about my on-the-safari-together news, she says, ‘Great,’ in freezing tones.
I nod. ‘Yeah.’
Then she frowns. ‘Are you… sitting next to me?’
‘Yep.’ For the first time, I register the chaos surrounding her. She seems to have emptied alotof stuff out of her large shoulder bag.
She catches the direction I’m looking in and says, ‘I was hunting for my mints and my Kindle.’
I can’t help thinking that surely a Kindle is quite large and easy to find, but I don’t comment, I just nod, and wait while she begins to refill her bag so there’s space for me to sit down. I don’t want to look, because it feels a little intrusive paying attention to what someone keeps in their handbag, but it’s difficult not to notice that she has alotof stuff in there.
I find my lips twitching when I am eventually able to take my seat.
‘Something funny?’ she enquires frostily.
‘Did you forget the kitchen sink?’
‘It’s very important to be well prepared when you go on holiday.’
‘That is true,’ I concede. I really don’t think she’s going to need woolly gloves in South Africa in December, though, or indeed nail varnish on a safari, or a bag ofmarbles, and certainly not a toy lorry, but none of those things are any of my business, so I just nod again and turn to my emails on my phone.
‘Mint?’ asks Flavia just as I think I’ve worked out how I’m going to reply to an unrealistic request from one of my clients.
‘Erm.’ I look at the box of mints.Sounhealthy. Fake sugar plus a million additives. ‘I’m good, thank you.’
