‘Clara,’ he says, cheerily. Then, less cheerily, ‘Agathe.’
Clara and Agathe share a look, then Clara smiles. Gregg is mentally preparing his notes.
‘We’re just finishing up,’ says Clara, taking Gregg’s elbow. ‘Let’s walk.’
So, they walk, and she lets him talk, and she nods along with a thoughtful expression as she steers him back the way he came, the crowd parting for them this time. It’s only when they near the edge of the square that her expression changes, her face brightening in the fading light.
‘So, what do you think?’ Gregg says.
Clara is looking at a random man crossing the road with a ginger-haired little girl.
‘It’s perfect,’ she says.
Gregg beams. ‘You think so?’
‘What?’ She looks at him. ‘Oh, yeah. It’s really useful. I’ll need to think about it, obviously.’
‘Of course,’ Gregg says. ‘Of course.’
She gives him a million-dollar smile, and he gives her a billion-dollar smile, and then she opens his door, and it’s only then that he realises that she’s led him back to his car. Halfway to the airport, he’ll begin to wonder if she was even listening at all.
his best friend
How many people has Nimesh been over the course of a lifetime? When he was younger, it would frustrate him, the idea that he’d only get to live one life. He wanted to do all of it. He didn’t want to choose between university and the band, between being a vet and being a rockstar. He would have been a thousand different versions of himself, if he could. So, he grew his hair, because if he didn’t, he never would have. He got one tattoo, at Seb’s insistence, so he wouldn’t be someone who never had. He became a vet, but because he became a vet, he never found out what his life would be like as a playwright, or a political activist, or a parish priest. It seemed like a tragedy, back then. Now he’s starting to think that every one life contains many, and that one might be enough.
Nowadays, Nimesh is a runner. His younger self would make fun of him for getting into triathlons, for wearing Lycra and putting tape on his nipples. But Nimesh is a father now. Less prone to embarrassment. More motivated to keep fit. That’s the noble reason. Really, he enjoys the escape. Kids are tiring. He gave up his job as a head vet for this, trading time with animals for time with his family. He bores himself with hisclinical director chat, talk of inspections and applications and endless stacks of paperwork. But he no longer works weekends, and that alone is worth being boring for.
This Saturday night, dinner has happened, and bathtime is yet to come, because Finn is busy kicking a ball about in the garden, and Maisie is keeping Priya occupied with finger paints at the kitchen table. Nimesh will take a moment to be himself. He leans forwards into a calf stretch, hears his phone vibrating on the windowsill. He knows who it will be, despite the fact that he never calls. Tonight is a big night for Seb.
‘Hi, mate,’ Nimesh says, taking the call through his running headphones. ‘I can’t pick you up, no matter how scared you are.’
‘That’s funny,’ Seb says on the other end of the line.
‘Seriously,’ Nimesh says. ‘You nervous?’
‘Tell you the truth?’ Seb says. ‘I’m shitting myself.’
‘You’ve done it all before,’ Nimesh says. ‘Just think back to everything awkward you did on your old dates with Clara. The stuff that’s kept you up at night. Then, don’t do that stuff.’
Seb breathes heavily. ‘That doesn’t help.’
More than anything, Nimesh has tried to be someone helpful. He spends half his time being Seb’s therapist, half being Maisie’s creative sounding board, and the other half trying to be a half-decent dad. He knows that’s more than two halves. He is full to the brim, and yet he feels like he still has so much more to give. He has kept up his habit of adopting dogs, and now there are too many for this house, a veritable pack of them circling his legs as he tries to warm up, to work some life into his sluggish muscles. It was a joint decision, to move up here. Maisie’s PhD, an opportunity for Nimesh at a localpractice. More space than they’d ever have found in London. Back then, they’d been living together in the flat that used to neighbour Seb and Clara’s, drawn together even after those two had split apart.
‘The divorce rate for vets is very high,’ Nimesh had warned Maisie, right at the start.
‘That’s fine,’ she’d replied. ‘All the best poets die alone.’
They’d survived. Each still regularly tells the other that they’re the smartest person they’ve ever met. It was exhilarating, conducting their kind-of affair, texting in secret before her boyfriend became her ex-boyfriend. He’d been awful to date, always cancelling with a grovelling apology because of another surgery, another overrunning shift. It was Maisie who helped Nimesh realise that life wasn’t just work, that there was more to one than the other. He’s a better husband than he was a boyfriend, just as he was a better vet than he was a trainee. He was a terrible roommate, once, to a man and his dog. Nimesh still can’t talk about Jasper without crying. He’s never been able to think about work without getting stressed. People have always said he cares too much. He was a vegan before it was fashionable. Girls used to like it when he brought out his acoustic guitar. Now he’s taken it up again, to play for his kids. Soon, he’ll be closer to fifty than forty. And forty already felt fucking old.
‘It isn’t like old times,’ Seb says. ‘Or maybe it is. The stuff we didn’t talk about then, we still haven’t talked about. Clara’s obsession with work. Me wanting…’ He still can’t say it. ‘Other things.’
‘But now you have Nora,’ Nimesh says.
‘Do I?’ Seb says.
Nimesh is surprised. ‘You love Nora.’
‘I do,’ Seb says, his voice heavy. ‘But it doesn’t make it any easier.’
