‘Please, God, no. Never again,’ Max said faintly. ‘Have you forgotten how much I sucked at bowling?’
‘But if you did want to do something on your actual birthday with me …’ Neve trailed off as she realised how presumptuous she was being. ‘I know you’ve got to get up early on Monday but you have to come round to my place to drop off Keith and I … I could cook you your favourite meal, anything you want, as long as it doesn’t involve making pasta from scratch. I’ll even cook something heaving with butter and cream and lard.’
‘Can I have roast chicken with roast potatoes, and can you make proper Yorkshire puddings?’ Max sounded wistful. ‘I’d like that.’
‘Of course I can. I have Yorkshire blood running through my veins,’ Neve declared, though she was pretty sure that she didn’t even own a mixing bowl. ‘And you get to pick the DVD and it doesn’t have to be a chick flick. Honestly, I’ll watch a mafia film or something really violent by Quentin Tarantino that’s full of popular culture references that I absolutely won’t get.’
‘You’ve got yourself a deal then,’ Max said, and Neve was sure he was smiling. She was also sure that it was probably time to wrap things up.
‘Well, I suppose …’
‘Neevy? I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it but Mandy’s getting married in Manchester in a couple of weeks’ time and I think you should come with me. It’s a Thursday to Monday deal so I don’t know if it would be a problem taking the time off work.’ She heard him swallow. ‘What do you think?’
‘Who’s she getting married to? Oh! It’s a footballer. Darren Somebody.’
‘How can you not know this stuff?’ Max asked in an exasperated voice. ‘Do you read the newspapers?’
‘I don’t have to,’ Neve said defensively. ‘My specialist area is British literature between the wars, and the papers are full of depressing stuff about the economy and terrorism that I don’t need to know. Why is it a whole weekend?’
‘They’re getting married on the Saturday, after all the guests have relinquished cameras and phones because they’ve sold the rights to Voila magazine, but there’s a cocktail party on the Thursday evening and Mandy’s really nice and her family have been really good to me and I want you to meet them.’
‘As what, your girlfriend?’ Neve stopped. ‘They’re not going to believe that I’m your girlfriend.’
‘Why wouldn’t they?’ Max demanded.
‘Because of the way I look and well, because of the way I dress and because I haven’t got much to talk about that isn’t British literature between the wars.’
‘I thought I was the one who talked utter crap,’ Max said very tersely. ‘Are you going to come to the wedding with me?’
‘Can I think about it?’
‘No, you have to decide right here, right now,’ Max insisted.
‘That’s not fair!’
‘If I give you time to think about it, you’ll come up with a hundred lame reasons why you can’t go. And you never know, Neve, if you do come, you might have fun. You were meant to be having more fun, remember?’ It was just as well that Max delivered that insightful glimpse into her psyche with his most playful tone so it was impossible to take offence, which was a pity, because a WAG wedding would be sheer hell.
‘I seem to recall that I did have some fun once in 2005.’ She hoped that cracking a joke during these fraught negotiations might make Max soften.
‘What’s the worst that could happen?’ he demanded. ‘You get to drink free champagne and mix with some Premier Division footballers and their wives and girlfriends. That’s not so bad.’
‘The worst that could happen is that I’ll walk in there with you and they’ll all think I’m a badly dressed, dull as mud, fat blimp.’ It was the constant voice nagging in her ear, and Neve couldn’t believe that she’d said the words out loud, though from Max’s bitten-off groan, she probably had. ‘For example.’
‘You have the lowest self-esteem of anyone I’ve ever met,’ Max said quietly. ‘It’ll be a fun weekend where we get all gussied up and spend seventy-two hours mocking everyone and everything in sight. It’s very hard to mock when you’re flying solo.’
That did sound like fun. Sort of. ‘Does it really mean that much to you that I’m there for mocking duties?’
‘I wouldn’t have asked otherwise. I could have taken one of the Skirt girls or, y’know, picked someone up in a club in Manchester on Friday night,’ Max revealed, and Neve felt something that might have been her heart plummet. ‘But I don’t want to do that. Not just because I’m sick of doing that but because I want to go with you.’
The non-specified internal organ hoisted itself up to its proper resting place. ‘But I have nothing to wear!’
Max laughed. ‘You really are starting to sound like a proper girlfriend. Wear that dress you had on the first night we met.’
‘But it’s black. Isn’t it bad luck to wear black to a wedding?’ Not that she’d said she was going for definite.
‘They’re having a black and white theme, probably so Mandy can really stand out in a pink wedding dress, or leopardprint. She does love her leopardprint,’ Max mused. ‘And they’re putting us up at Malmaison and I’m going to drive up there so you’ll be delivered door to door and—’
‘It’s all right, you can stop with the hard sell,’ Neve sighed. ‘I’ll come. I’ll mock. I’ll wear something black.’
‘Well, OK, then. Actually I thought I’d have a harder time persuading you,’ Max said with another chuckle. ‘So, we’re sorted then?’
Neve murmured her agreement and stared stonily at her laptop, which she’d have to fire back up once she was off the phone.
‘And we’ll have one last crack at sleeping together on Sunday and if you still can’t get the hang of it, we’ll leave it.’
The relief that Neve felt almost rivalled the relief from earlier that afternoon when she’d realised that her friends still liked her and she still had a job. ‘Well, at least we’re very good at the kissing part,’ she said. ‘I think I’ve got the hang of that.’
‘Gold star every time,’ Max said. ‘And remember, you can tell me about anything that’s bugging you and as long as it’s not about the carb content in whatever I’m eating, there’ll be no judgement.’
‘Well, that goes the same for you,’ Neve replied, her voice wobbling slightly because she was touched beyond all measure. ‘Even work stuff. Well, especially work stuff because I’m an impartial third party.’
There was silence, but it wasn’t awkward. It seemed to Neve that it was charged with something deep and significant but she didn’t know exactly what it was until Max said, ‘I think we’re having a moment, aren’t we?’
‘We totally are,’ she agreed. Then she spotted a book in the pile on the floor that was the answer to all her immediate problems. ‘Sorry, Max, but I think the moment’s over. I’ve just found my inspiration.’
‘Well, I guess they’re called moments because they don’t last very long. Get back to work and I’ll see you Sunday.’
Neve finished the call and reached for the book she’d spotted, then she reopened her laptop and began to type.
As she moved through the rest of the week, Neve felt a vague, nagging discontent, as if she’d forgotten to turn off the oven or had misplaced her keys. Work, workouts, working and then reworking the synopsis – instead of feeling as if she had a safe, comfortable little routine, it was starting to seem as if Neve was stagnating, standing still rather than moving forward. The only bright spot was sending Dancing on the Edge of the World and a copy of her synopsis (after it had been approved by Chloe, Rose and Philip) off to Jacob Morrison. As Neve handed the Special Delivery package over to a Post Office employee, she vowed that once it was out of sight, she was going to do her darnedest to make sure it was out of mind too.
Then there was the prospect of a Max-less Saturday night, which felt downright wrong. Max was Saturday night and had been for the last few weeks, but when Neve finished he
r afternoon workout with Gustav and she told him she didn’t have any plans, he invited her out for dinner with him and his boyfriend Harry, which was always a treat.
Not only was it a novelty to see Gustav in casualwear, even if it was all black like his gym clothes, but Neve adored Harry, six foot four inches of strapping jovial Australian who always told Gustav off when it was obvious that he was mentally calculating how he’d make Neve work off the calories in every mouthful of food she ate.
But the best thing about going out with Gustav and Harry was that Harry would always get Gustav drunk (which wasn’t hard, since he had even less tolerance for alcohol than Neve did) and Gustav was a very giggly drunk. By the time Harry’s pudding arrived with three spoons, Gustav’s head was on Neve’s shoulder and he kept patting her breast in an avuncular manner, even though Neve kept telling him not to.
‘If I wasn’t homosexual, I’d love you even more than I do, Neve,’ he said, nuzzling against her neck. ‘You remind me of my mother.’
‘Aw honey, you must feel so proud,’ Harry said between guffaws, as Neve tried to make sure that Gustav didn’t dribble down her dress, which was dry-clean only.
‘Gustav, if you don’t get off me, I’m going to eat all of Harry’s chocolate fudge cake,’ Neve said warningly, but Gustav just snuffled happily.
‘You always smell nice,’ he remarked. ‘Even when you’re very sweaty.’
‘I think it’s time to get this lightweight home,’ Harry said, and Gustav smiled slyly at Neve.
‘I love Harry too,’ he confided. ‘He has a huge penis.’
Neve was still laughing as she helped Harry to put Gustav in the back of a taxi. ‘I’m going to remember this conversation and bring it up every time you try to make me do jumping jacks,’ she said to Gustav as he lolled on the seat and blew her kisses until the cab pulled away.
She was left standing in the middle of Old Compton Street at nine on a Saturday night, and even though she knew that Charlotte was in Brighton for a hen weekend, Neve didn’t feel like going home.
If she’d been with Max he’d have come up with half a dozen places to go or things to see, but Max didn’t have the monopoly on having fun, Neve decided as she walked down the escalator at Leicester Square tube station and in an audacious move headed for the southbound platform. Chloe’s band, The Fuck Puppets, were playing in Brixton, and even though Neve tried to avoid screechy guitars and south London at all costs, she could stick both of them out for a couple of hours.
‘Oh my God, did you get stopped at Border Control?’ Chloe asked tartly, when she discovered Neve queuing to get in. Then she gave Neve a sudden, fierce hug. ‘Let me stick your name on the guest-list.’
Simply turning up at a gig (a gig!) in a spur-of-the-moment, off-the-cuff, completely spontaneous way gave Neve a giddy thrill at her own daring, which carried her through the rest of the evening, even though The Fuck Puppets were very screechy and someone spilled their drink over her. The audience was a strange mix of emo-kids and young academics, and Neve didn’t just cling to her colleagues from the Archive as she’d planned to, but bumped into a couple of people she knew from Oxford and managed to strike up a conversation with a man whom she recognised from the British Library, who was also obsessed with Our Lady of the Blessed Hankie who made guest appearances there too. He even made interested noises about going for a coffee the next time their paths crossed in the Humanities Reading Room. It wasn’t a date because he had really bad halitosis and she had Max, but it still put a small, proud smile on Neve’s face, which was still there when she got home at a scarcely believable two thirty in the morning.
Chapter Twenty
Neve wasn’t smiling when she opened the front door the next afternoon and found Max leaning against the wall all puffy-eyed, pale-faced and unshaven.
‘You’re two hours late and you look awful,’ Neve said, as she crouched down to pet Keith.
‘I feel awful,’ Max moaned. ‘I have a fucking monumental hangover and I thought the fresh air might make me feel better, but actually it made me want to die.’
‘I have no sympathy for you. It’s entirely self-inflicted.’ Neve stepped aside to let him stagger through the door. ‘It’s as well that I’ve only just put the chicken on,’ she added, flushing slightly because the only reason the chicken was late going into the oven was because she’d spent two hours failing to make Yorkshire puddings from scratch and then William had emailed her unexpectedly from Rhode Island where he was giving a paper and needed help sourcing some quotations.
‘Not sure I can keep anything down right now,’ Max said, as he collapsed on the bottom stair. ‘When will I learn not to mix grape and grain?’
All the good work of their last telephone conversation was rapidly unravelling, Neve thought as she bit down on an angry tirade about the organic, free-range chicken that she’d just stuffed and trussed.
‘I might be able to manage a small cup of espresso,’ Max said pitifully, just as the door to the ground-floor flat opened and Celia stuck her head through the gap.
‘Keep the noise down,’ she snapped. ‘I have a hangover and jet lag and I don’t need to hear you two having a lover’s tiff.’
‘We aren’t,’ Neve rapped back. ‘And you can’t have jet lag from a two-hour flight from Berlin.’
‘Actually, you can.’ Celia stopped to sniff the air. ‘Hmmm, something smells good. Is it chicken? Is there enough for me?’
‘No,’ Max said from the stairs, as he lifted his head to give Celia a baleful glare. ‘It’s my special birthday tea. No presents, no admittance.’
‘Are you going to let him talk to me like that?’ Celia demanded of her sister. ‘Can you bring me down a plate when it’s ready? Lots of potatoes and … Fuck! What the fuck is that and why is it growling at me?’
Keith had been hiding behind Max, but now he’d rested his snout on Max’s shoulder to see where the noise was coming from. Because it was coming from a tall girl with sticky-up hair and ghostly white skin, it was a perfectly normal reaction to flatten your ears and growl.
‘It’s Keith, Max’s dog,’ Neve explained, rushing over to pet Keith, who even bared his teeth at her, until she held out her hand to show she didn’t have any concealed weapons. ‘He’s growling because you’re giving off a really hostile vibe. He’s more scared of you than you are of him.’
‘People always say that about dogs, right before the dog rips their arm off,’ Celia insisted, inching away from Keith who refused to stop growling. ‘I’m going back to bed now. You can text me when you’re just about to come down with my dinner.’
Neve and Max both winced as Celia slammed her door.
‘Can you manage the stairs?’ Neve asked tartly, as she stepped past Max. ‘Or I could throw down a blanket and a couple of pillows?’
‘I’ll be all right,’ Max said bravely. ‘I just need to lie down.’
It was Max’s birthday and he was perfectly entitled to spend it nursing a hangover, but Neve had planned all sorts of treats for him and blown half her weekly budget in the process, so she felt rather aggrieved that all he wanted to do was collapse face down on her sofa when he got to her flat.
‘Coffee,’ he mumbled. ‘I need coffee.’
Neve took her sweet time making coffee, especially as there was another email from William waiting for her. You’re an angel and a lifesaver, she read, as she waited for the kettle to boil. I don’t know what I’d do without you and I hope I’m never in a position to find out.
William really was a prize among men, compared to Max who’d managed the difficult task of rolling on to his back while she’d been out of the room, and now had his sneakers resting on her favourite cushion.
‘Have you got the energy to pour the coffee yourself or do you need me to do it for you?’ Neve enquired peevishly as she put the cafetière and a mug down on the coffee table.
Max sat up and ran a hand through his unkempt hair. ‘You’re not allowed to be snippy with me today, not when you haven?
??t even said happy birthday.’
Neve capitulated immediately. ‘I’m sorry. Happy birthday.’ She took a step closer so she could gingerly ruffle Max’s hair. ‘Would you like some paracetamol?’
‘Rather have the first of my birthday kisses,’ Max said, tugging Neve half on to his lap so he could kiss her soundly, his tongue sliding into her mouth, one hand shaping her breast, thumb rubbing against her nipple, which obediently peaked on Max’s command.
The ancient sofa creaked in protest as Max pulled Neve down so she was squashed between the cushions and his hot, hard body. ‘I need to put the potatoes in the oven,’ she said breathlessly, after what felt like hours of long, sweet kisses. Max had unbuttoned her cardigan slowly so he could mouth her breasts through her dress and now the material was clinging damply to her and her breasts felt swollen and full. ‘Do you still need those paracetamol?’
Max smiled and he looked so sleek and sexy, his face inches from hers, that Neve could hardly believe he was hers to have and to hold for the next few weeks. ‘It turns out that your kisses cure hangovers, Neevy.’
She blushed and his smile got wider, more wicked, the way it always did when he was teasing her. ‘So, that’s a no then?’ she asked, slapping away a hand that was creeping towards her breast again. ‘I’m going to put the potatoes on.’
Yet another email had come in from William and Neve felt an unfamiliar twinge of shame. There was William, the one true heir to her heart, and there was Max, who’d be the first to admit that he wasn’t steadfast or reliable or ready for anything other than a good time. They had two separate places in her life, but it seemed wrong and wholly inappropriate to still be light-headed and sore from Max’s kisses while she quickly replied to William’s message asking her if she’d listened to a Radio Four podcast on Christina Rossetti.
Max was slumbering on the sofa, Keith was slumbering in a patch of sun by the bay windows, so Neve could get on with chopping vegetables and polishing glasses and reliving the heated memory of every single one of Max’s kisses. Then when she started to feel guilty, she’d switch to trying to remember every word of William’s phone call to her.