Greg’s eyes continued to rest on me in an impassive, flat stare until I finished talking. ‘I don’t fucking fancy Jen. I never have, I never will.’ His voice was low and angry. He sounded convincing, but then he would. ‘Have you got that? Or do I need to repeat it? Louder, maybe? Because I can do that.’
‘Why have you been so weird about them moving in together, then?’
He inhaled a couple of times, trying to calm himself. ‘Come sit down and I’ll tell you.’
I suppose there’s nowt to lose by listening. But I mustn’t get talked round into believing it wasn’t him. As I moved to the dining table Greg relieved me of the knife and sat beside me.
‘So . . .?’ I asked.
‘Do you want to get married, Amber?’ he asked. Then added quickly, ‘Not to me. I’m not proposing, I’m saying, theoretically, do you want to get married?’
‘No,’ I replied. ‘I don’t believe in marriage. But I suspect I might.’
‘Why?’
‘Because if I want to stay with someone, marriage will probably be a compromise. Most relationships don’t survive a refused proposal. Will I want to? No. Will I do so? Probably.’
‘And what happens when you meet the person you want to marry, because there’s always someone out there who you’ll want to marry.’
‘Even if there was, which I’m not saying I agree there will be, I’d be married so I couldn’t do owt about it. Anyway, what’s this got to do with Matt and Jen and you avoiding them?’ Duh! The second the words left my mouth, DUH! smacked me in the face.
‘Has Matt met someone else?’
‘Nope,’ Greg replied without acknowledging that he’d practically given me a heart attack.
‘But you think Matt doesn’t want to move in with Jen, he’s doing it to keep her happy?’
Greg paused. He always paused. And I hated Greg’s pauses. Nothing good came from a Greg-made pause. ‘Matt and Jen are Matt and Jen. I don’t want to get involved in it.’
What? I asked silently, raising my hands and opening them questioningly. ‘That doesn’t mean anything,’ I said. ‘And it certainly doesn’t explain anything.’
‘I . . .’ Greg paused, his eyes searched the air for the right words on some ethereal script he could read from. ‘Matt isn’t the person Jen thinks he is. And I’m sure you know stuff about Jen that Matt doesn’t know about. I think they’ve rushed into this. Neither of them knows what they’re doing.’
‘And we do?’
‘Our relationship is different. We started off being friends so we’ve started off being honest, haven’t we?’
Sean. Ex, Sean. Tall, blond, rugged. Strong features. ‘Fuck me quick’ smile. Can’t think why he suddenly came to mind. ‘Yup. Totally honest.’
‘Well there you go. There are things Matt and Jen need to sort out or they’ll explode right in their faces and I don’t want to be around when that detonation takes place. Aren’t you the one who’s always following the path of least resistance? Well, I’ve got a licence to drive on that road too.’
True. But that doesn’t change the fact that it was Greg’s word against Jen’s.
Jen. Best mate since first year at college; trustee of most of my secrets; newly christened cow (still bitter about the fat comment)
vs
Greg. Tart; had shagged 100 women about a year ago; kissed God knows how many; made a pass at even God probably stopped counting how many; newly established boyfriend.
Who was I meant to believe? Who did I instinctively believe?
Actually, maybe there was nobody to believe. Maybe, seeing as they were both drunk, they’d lazily gone to kiss each other’s cheeks and had bumped lips. It had happened to me before. Even with female friends. There were loads of women I’d bumped lips with and I hadn’t been trying to seduce any of them, not even the good looking ones.
That was it. Jen and Greg had nothing to hide. It was all innocent. It had to be. I didn’t want it to be anything else. If it was, then one of them had tried to seduce the other and I couldn’t . . . wouldn’t think through that possibility. At all.
chapter nineteen
true chocolate lover
I was doing something I hadn’t done since I’d stopped being single in the purest sense.
My secret lover would be horrified if he knew what I was about to do, what I used to do regularly before I started seeing him: I was going on a chocolate run.
I wasn’t going to go buy chocolate; in fact, when I went on a proper, hard-core chocolate run, I never bought chocolate.
On a proper chocolate run, I went and stood in the aisles of a supermarket, picked up chocolate, read the ingredients, felt its shape, tried to sniff it through the wrapper. Basically acted like a complete lunatic. On every trip I half expected to be physically ejected from the supermarket and banned for life.
Since I’d become part of a couple, albeit a secret couple, I’d become too respectable for this. Sniffing chocolate in supermarkets wasn’t the sort of thing you did when you had regular sex and everything. But, now, those aisles were calling me just like six-inch ponyskin mules called a shoe fetishist – it was the siren’s song you couldn’t resist. I’d held off as long as possible. I’d ignored the callings, the cravings, the chocolate’s song; I’d pretended that the sex was good enough to see me through. You can only pretend so much, though. I needed a chocolate run.
I wasn’t a chocoholic. I didn’t simply crave it or use it as an anaesthetic when things were bad; I liked chocolate. To look at, smell, feel, think about, to compare people to. The eating part was a bonus.
I went into Morrison’s wearing my navy combat trousers, a plain white T-shirt and my black mac. I hid my pervy face under a cap. I picked up a wire shopping basket – a good cover for what I was doing – and headed for the confectionery aisle, my heart skipping with excitement. I almost ran the last few feet to the promised land. As I turned the corner into it, the aisle stretched before me, two pure straight lines of confectionery. I almost did a Homer Simpson, ‘Hhhhnnnnhhhhh!’
I walked to the middle of the aisle. Smack bang in the middle, and stood there, looking at the chocolate. The individual, giant bars. The mini versions ganged up in their bags. The multipacks of normal bars. Hhhhhhnnnhhhhh! Chocolate, chocolate, everywhere . . . Hhhhhnnnnnhhhhhhh!
I picked up a multipack. Twix. Fingered it through the wrapper, felt the bumps and ripples through the slidy packaging. Then I turned it over, read the ingredients. First in English. Then in all the other languages they’d crowbarred onto there, cross-referencing it with the English so that I knew that ‘Glucose Syrup’ was:
Glucosesiroop in NL
Glukosesirup in A
and Sirop de Glucose in F.
Once I’d improved my vocabulary without actually knowing which country’s language I now knew better, I looked both ways, checking I was alone down that aisle before I raised it to my face and inhaled. A mammoth inhalation. Nothing. Physically I knew I couldn’t smell anything, but mentally I could. Mentally I drank it in. The sweet vanilla, the bitter cocoa, the powdered milk, the glucose syrup. Caramel. Sugar. Flavourings. Hhhhhhhnnnnhhh! My eyes slipped shut, imagining it melt. On the tongue, in a pan, on the dining table. Watching it as the surrounding temperature heated it up so it disintegrated, slipping off into little pools on the wrapper. Oozing all over the place. Lowering my head and using the very tip of my tongue to tease it up into my mouth, slowly and gently—
My eyes flew open because I sensed I was being watched. I was about to be frogmarched out of there. I cautiously checked to my left. The only other person down that aisle was a man, but he wasn’t watching me, he was salivating at the chocolate as though it was going to strip for him. He was tall, solid, with a shaved head and dark brown skin.
He picked up a bar and lifted it to his nose. Took a deep breath and held it. Is that how odd I look? I wondered. Probably. Now there’s a sobering thought. Not sobering enough to stop me, obviously, but it’s sobering.
His lust-filled eyes slowly turned and caught me watching him. I glanced away, willing myself to become invisible. Moments like this generally preceded the words ‘What you looking at?’ and precipitated a hospital and/or police station visit.
‘I try not to, but I can’t help myself,’ a voice said beside me.
I jumped a little before turning to him. ‘I noticed,’ I said and looked away.
‘I always imagine that I can smell the ingredients,’ he said.
My head snapped round to look at him. Was he taking the piss? Clearly he was strange, but was he ridiculing me too?
‘Right,’ I said non-committally.
‘Mars smells the best,’ he said.
‘No, Terry’s Chocolate Orange smells the best,’ I shot back.
He looked at me for a moment as though wondering if I was ridiculing him. ‘You’re a sniffer too?’ he eventually asked.
I shook my head. Don’t talk to the strange man. ‘No, not really. Occasionally. Not much.’
The chocolate sniffer grinned at me, his smile lighting up his face. ‘I don’t know if you’re old enough to remember this, but there used to be a Terry’s Chocolate Lemon too,’ he said.
‘I remember it vaguely. I remember there was more than one in the Terry’s range and it was yellow.’
‘Yep, it was withdrawn after two years, in 1981.’
‘That was over twenty-five years ago, so forgive me if I only vaguely remember that. I suppose it’s a bit like Snickers always being Marathon in my eyes. In about ten years only old people like me will remember it.’
‘No!’ he protested. ‘It’ll never die. In the minds of right-thinking people it’ll always be Marathon. For goodness’ sake, Snickers! Rhymes with knickers, you don’t want to eat something that does that, do you?’
I couldn’t stop myself laughing. ‘No, you don’t.’
‘Although Marathons are a bit sweet for me.’
‘No, the sweetest chocolate ever is Mars.’
‘Actually, Milky Way is deceptively sweet. You don’t expect it to be, but it is,’ he commented.
‘I haven’t eaten Milky Way in yonks,’ I said.
‘Crunchies are sweet too, you know. All right, you knew this question was coming: what’s your favourite chocolate?’
‘Maltesers.’
‘You didn’t even think about it.’
‘I’ve thought through the possible traumas of being sentenced to eat only one chocolate for the rest of my life and I’d pick Maltesers, no messing. What about you?’
‘Erm . . .’
‘You have to think?’ I teased. ‘What kind of chocolate fan are you?’
‘No, no, don’t write me off. Sorry. I go through phases. You know, one day it’s Galaxy, the next day it’s Mars. Other days I’d give my left testicle for a pack of peanut M&M’s.’
‘Not good enough,’ I said.
‘OK, OK . . .’
I put my hand up like the clock on Countdown. ‘Dard-dada, dard-dada . . . tick, tick, tick, tick . . .’
‘BOUNTY!’ he shouted. ‘I choose Bounty.’
‘Lucky, you just got in there under the clock.’
Mr Chocolate Sniffer smiled. ‘OK, another question of vital importance,’ he said. ‘Do you read the ingredients before or after you sniff it?’
‘Before.’
‘Me too. It makes the mental smelling easier, doesn’t it?’
My stomach flipped. This was wrong. He was touching me without laying a finger on me. He was talking my language and that was a turn-on. This was foreplay, where the main act would be sitting in the middle of a room devouring chocolate together. He’d hold a Malteser and I’d nibble the chocolate from the outside until all that was left was the malt sphere. Then he’d slip it between my lips and I’d suck it until it melted.
I’d present him with a Cadbury’s Creme Egg and bite the top off for him. And he’d dip his tongue into it and slowly lick all the sweet filling out . . . Jeez, this was wrong. Very wrong.
I chanced another look at him. He was more my type than Gregory. He was slightly older than me, thirty-eight, maybe forty. Lined, worn-in face, shaved head. His smooth dark brown skin a shade lighter than mine, his eyes a chestnut colour. He radiated a calmness that encompassed anyone within a few feet of him. And that calmness was intoxicating. I wanted more of it. I could lean forwards and press my lips onto his. Just to experience that calmness from his lips. He had that spark, the way to connect to my mind, imagination and sense of humour. I could recognise myself in this man – that was easy to feel even after a few seconds together.
I swung towards the shelves, reached out, picked up the first thing that came to hand, lifted it to read it. I couldn’t even read the ingredients because my hand was trembling. Actually shaking. No man had ever had this effect on me.
‘Do you fancy going for a coffee or something?’ he asked.
Just like that. No waiting a year, insinuating himself into my affections; no befriending me; no lunging at me with his tongue out when he’s pissed. Just a straightforward request to accompany him for a beverage. There was, of course, the possibility that he, a stranger, was often propositioning women in supermarkets, going off for coffee with them only for them to be never heard from again.
‘No,’ I said. No matter what his motivation, I couldn’t go for a coffee with him. If Greg was doing this I’d murder him.
‘I’m not a weirdo. Look, I’ll give you my business card then you can call a few people and tell them who I am. Give them my details, say you’ll call them every ten minutes to tell them you’re OK.’
He reached into his pocket, pulled out his battered black leather wallet, flicked through it until he found what he was looking for. He pulled out a business card and handed it to me. I took the small white square card without looking at it.
‘I’m, erm, seeing someone,’ I explained.
‘Oh,’ he said, genuinely disappointed. ‘But it’s not serious, is it?’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘No wedding or engagement ring,’ he said as he waggled his thick fingers with their neatly trimmed nails, and Greg’s badly bitten nails came to mind.
‘Not all married women wear wedding rings,’ I replied.
‘True, but you didn’t say you’d got a husband or fiancé. And you didn’t say you had a boyfriend or a partner. “I’m seeing someone” is uttered by people who aren’t used to being with someone yet.’
He had a point.
‘Even though you won’t come for a coffee with me, am I allowed to ask how long you’ve been a true chocolate lover? I hate that term chocoholic. It’s such a non-word. I prefer TCL. Anyway, how long?’
‘A while.’
He grinned again. ‘I stopped for a bit. You know, the sniffing in public, but when I came to Leeds I started again. It helps me to feel grounded. I feel a bit lost. This isn’t my home and I don’t know many people. But chocolate . . . No matter where you go in the world you’ll always find chocolate.’
‘What do you do that takes you all over the world?’ I asked.
‘I’m a director,’ he said.
‘For which company?’
‘No company. Films. I’m a film director.’
‘Anything I might have heard of?’ I asked, instantly knowing I was conversing with the director of Welcome to Vomit Central.
‘Probably not,’ he said. He named a couple of films and my stomach flipped. I loved those films. I’d insisted we show them at the Festival and we’d asked him to come to the Festival a couple of years ago but he was away filming.
‘I saw them both.’ I had an encyclopaedic memory for films and the like, but not other things. I couldn’t, for example, name all of Henry VIII’s wives off the top of my head but ask me to list the five top-grossing Sandra Bullock films and I’d be able to throw in international release dates as a bonus. ‘One was about a wall in a small town that had, over the years, become a way of airing grievances between the religions of that town; the o
ther was about a week in an African road. Who used that road, where they were going, where they were coming from.’
He was well known in film circles, but he was – if I wasn’t misreading his eyes – flattered. ‘How come you’ve seen my films?’ he asked earnestly.
Now, do I tell him who I am and thereby give him licence to plague my very existence for the next few weeks – years, probably, as he tries to get me to show everything he does? ‘I, erm, watch a lot of films.’
‘I’m taking a break from directing and teaching a directing course. Anyway, tell me, how long have you been a fan of my work?’ he asked with a big grin. I liked this man, he was wonderfully disarming – as was well-known serial killer Ted Bundy.
‘Where do you teach directing?’ I asked. ‘And I’m ignoring that last question because I have no proof you are who you say you are so I might start complimenting the wrong man.’ I’m flirting. I’m actual flirting. This is unlike me. In general. And particularly now that I’ve got a boyfriend. I’ll be giggling and flicking my hair next. Batting my eyelids won’t be far behind. And if I do that, I’ll have to go stand in the traffic and make sure the number 55 bus runs me over. In fact, I’ll wear a sign around my neck saying ‘PLEASE REVERSE’, to make sure the eye-batting never happens again.
‘I teach down at the community college in Meanwood. It’s a three-month starter course. Why, are you thinking of signing up?’
I shook my head.
‘Good. I can’t go out with you if you’re my student.’
I giggled. Oh Jeez, it’s started. A giggle has been issued from my lips. ‘Boyfriend, remember? I have one,’ I said, with the sternness of one trying to remind herself, not the person she was talking to, of her couple status. In short, I wasn’t allowed to do this. This wasn’t simple flirting, this was flirting with possibility. The possibility of something more. Maybe a fling, maybe a relationship. Whatever it was, it was a possibility. One I’d willingly explore – if not for the boyfriend.