I should be back in blessed Blighty by the middle of July and I’m longing to see you. I’ve so much to share with you that I think you’ll need to block an entire fortnight out of your schedule (rest assured I haven’t started pronouncing that word in the same way as my American colleagues) so we can get reacquainted.
Though I feel that I know you so deeply. How strange that the years and ocean between us have brought us closer together.
I have to go now. Did I tell you that some ex-pats and I have formed a cricket team? I fear I’m late for practice.
Much love
William
PS: Sorry to impose (yet again!) but could you possibly look up the enclosed references for me next time you’re at the British Library and fax them to me? Number at the top of the page.
*
Neve put the letter down and sighed deeply. With William so far away and Max suddenly at the forefront of her life, she’d allowed herself to get sidetracked. William was the golden, glittering prize that was just within reach, so close she could almost touch it. It had been the horrible shock of her father’s words that had galvanised Neve into taking the first wobbly steps on her weight-loss journey, but somehow the closer it got to William’s return, the more her transformation became about William. It wasn’t about losing weight so William would drop to his knees and declare, ‘My God, Neevy, when did you get to be so beautiful?’ it was about becoming the kind of woman she wanted to be. The kind of woman who deserved a golden, glittering prize because, damn it, she’d worked so hard and for so long that she was overdue her reward.
But when would she start to feel like a golden girl? Would it be the day she effortlessly zipped up a size ten dress or would it be when William came back and everything just fell into place? She had just over three months before he was in her life again and not just a voice on the phone or a copperplate script on airmail paper, and Neve didn’t feel as if she was ready. God, her body certainly wasn’t and she was still as awkward and self-conscious as she’d been the last time she’d seen William standing on the station platform as she’d forlornly waved at him from the window of the train.
Which was why she had Max. He was meant to be the goodtime guru; bringing the fun into her life and limbering her up for a real relationship. But they still had so much ground to cover and they hadn’t even really cracked the sleeping-together thing yet. Inevitably, Neve’s mind drifted to the dark of her bedroom and the sense memory of Max’s hands on her, in her … and her stomach clenched with a deep, dark pleasure like it did every time she thought about it.
She had to learn to be more like Max, Neve decided as she cycled home. Max wasn’t fixating on every aspect of their fake relationship and Max didn’t have any problem in being with Neve and seeing other women. He’d probably slept with a different woman every night that he’d been away, and she doubted he was having any pangs of conscience over it. Just because Max roused these passions in her didn’t mean anything deeply significant; she’d been virtually celibate all her life, was it any wonder she had all these new confusing feelings that she didn’t know how to deal with?
What she did know, Neve thought, as she quickly changed into jeans and a smock top with an Art Noveau tulip pattern that Celia had said was very on-trend, was that she had to lighten up. All she and Max meant to each other was a no-strings, fun-filled fling, which they’d both walk away from with no regrets and no recriminations – but what she had with William was real. It was what her heart yearned for.
Then Neve heard two short rings of the doorbell and her stomach clenched again.
As soon as she opened her door, Keith was frantically wriggling past her legs so he could bound down the stairs with a series of high-pitched yelps, as if he instinctively knew who was visiting. Then he ran up and down the hall, barking all the while, until Neve opened the front door.
Neve barely had time to register Max standing there with a smile that made his entire face light up, because she was trying to make a grab for Keith’s collar, but he hurled himself out of the door so he could pelt up the path, skid to a halt and race back. He did that several times, until finally on the last sprint back to the door he leaped up at Max, front paws skittering at his leather jacket, tongue frantically licking Max’s hands.
Neve didn’t think she’d ever seen such complete rapture.
‘Hey, little fella, did you miss your old man?’ Max asked throatily, squatting down so Keith could swipe his face with his big, pink tongue. Then he looked up at Neve, who was trying not to go all misty-eyed. ‘Hello, angelface, did you miss me too?’
‘Hi! Yes! It’s really good to see you,’ Neve said, trying to inject huge amounts of light-hearted perkiness into her voice. To her ears, she sounded kind of manic. ‘My goodness, you’ve caught the sun.’
Max’s skin had deepened to caramel and he looked entirely snackable. squatting there in jeans and his stripy jumper.
Keith had calmed down enough that Max could stand up, though the Staffie was glued to the heels of his Converses. ‘It was really hot in LA,’ Max said. ‘Well, when I wasn’t freezing my bits off in air-conditioned buildings. And everyone was so tanned and musclebound that I have to start running again now that it’s getting warmer.’
‘Well, we could go running together,’ Neve suggested brightly. She hadn’t stopped grinning and her cheeks were beginning to ache, and trying to keep some emotional distance was hard when just standing next to Max on her doorstep made her realise how much she had missed him. What’s more, she’d forgotten how handsome he was, and when he smiled at her, all she wanted to do was smile back. ‘I’ve got Keith’s stuff ready for you.’
She stepped through the open door, expecting Max to follow her, but he stayed where he was. ‘Neve? I need to tell you something.’
It sounded horribly ominous and the inane smile was wiped off her face instantly. ‘Oh?’
At least now Max had crossed over the threshold and wasn’t planning on delivering the bad news on the doorstep. But it did sound as if he was going to dump her there and then, which was fine. In fact, it would make things far less complicated, Neve tried to tell herself as Max sat down on the stairs and patted the space next to him.
Neve sat down and looked at Max anxiously. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘Nothing’s the matter,’ Max assured her quickly, and he was gulping as if he was nervous – but then, if you’d never gone in for relationships before then you’d never had to end one either. ‘Are you cool with what happened the night before I left?’
She could feel her cheeks heating up because it was one thing to text about it, but to talk about it … ‘Well, yes. I mean, it was fun, wasn’t it?’ Neve could still feel the echo of that need which had clawed its way out of her with harsh, pained little cries as Max’s fingers twisted and turned inside her, the palm of his hand grinding against her clit. Fun didn’t come anywhere close to describing it. ‘Um, are you not cool with it?’
‘Oh, yeah,’ Max drawled. ‘Made me hard every time I thought about it and I’ve been thinking about it a lot.’
Neve put her hands to her cheeks, which felt like they were on fire. If she was about to be dumped, then Max was going about it in a very circulatory way. ‘So, er, is that what you wanted to tell me?’
Max put his hand on her knee. Neve stared down at his long fingers resting on the dark blue denim of her jeans. ‘It’s just if we’re going to do that, then I figured I’m not going to tart around and sleep with other women any more. It just seems rude, y’know?’
Max’s statement had just made their complicated situation even more complicated, but Neve was almost gasping with relief. ‘Right, well, good. If that’s what you want.’ She patted his hand nervously. ‘I’m fine with doing that, or variations on that, but we’re still agreed that we’re not going to have sex, right? Because if you need to have sex, then I totally understand if you want to carry on with other women.’
Max sighed. Then he grinned. Then he sighed again. ‘Do
you know how many men would love to hear their girlfriends say that?’
‘Pancake girlfriends,’ Neve reminded him.
‘Whatever.’ Max’s hand slowly and deliberately moved from her knee to her thigh. ‘There are a hundred different ways we can get each other off without full-on sex.’
‘Not hundreds, surely?’ Neve frowned, then dug her elbow into Max’s ribs because he wasn’t even bothering to hide the fact that he was laughing at her. ‘Four or five surely, then the rest are just variations on a theme.’
‘So, we’re agreed? Lots of fun sexy times, but no actual shagging?’
‘And no hand-holding either,’ Neve interjected because now she thought about it, agreeing not to hold Max’s hand had been one of her better ideas. During the last few weeks, there had been countless opportunities where Neve could have taken Max’s hand, but she always checked herself because holding hands was what proper couples did. And now that they were going to have ‘fun sexy times’, every time she checked herself it was a reminder that this wasn’t for keeps. She wasn’t in love with Max and, God knows, he wasn’t in love with her, judging from the exasperated expression on his face at that moment.
‘So, you’re cool with me getting you off, but I still can’t hold your hand?’ he clarified with deep and heavy irony.
‘Yes, and when you say it like that it sounds ridiculous.’ Neve glared at him. ‘Don’t raise your eyebrows at me. OK, it does sound ridiculous but I need some boundaries. Boundaries are very good things; without them there’s just chaos and uncertainty and confusion.’
‘Your head must really hurt from all the unnecessary thinking you make it do,’ Max said, standing up. ‘So, I would help you up but I don’t want you to think that I’m trying to cop a feel of your hand.’
Neve got up and started to climb the stairs. ‘Don’t be cranky with me, Max.’
‘I’m not being cranky,’ Max said, but it seemed to Neve that they stomped up the stairs in a tense silence.
‘I just need to put the spare cans of dog food in the bag,’ Neve said, once they were inside her flat. ‘I won’t be a second.’
‘So, no holding hands …’
‘I told you …’
‘If I’m not allowed to hold your hand, am I still allowed to do this?’ Max demanded, and just as Neve was about to ask what this was, he backed her up against the wall, hands around her wrists, and kissed her.
Neve tugged her hands free, not because it was almost too much like holding hands, but because as soon as Max bit down on her bottom lip she wanted to wrap her arms around him and kiss him back.
‘Now, are you allowed to tell me that you’ve missed me or is that against the rules too?’ Max asked, once they’d had to stop kissing, as Keith was barking furiously because if anyone was meant to be getting Max’s undivided attention, it was him.
‘I’m sorry,’ Neve said. ‘Of course, I missed you and will you … do you want to stay for tea or do you have at least three product launches and a shop opening that you have to go to tonight?’
‘I don’t know. Depends what you’re making.’
‘I’ve got two salmon fillets and … oh, I see!’ Neve pouted. ‘Well, I certainly didn’t miss you teasing me. Come into the kitchen and I’ll put the kettle on.’
Neve went to take his hand and checked herself, noticeably pausing, because holding someone’s hand after you’d kissed for ten minutes was such an automatic gesture and just proved that it was a line they shouldn’t cross.
‘You think too much,’ Max said, as he watched Neve spoon coffee into the cafetière. ‘I’m not leaving you on your own again – you have too much time to think and it doesn’t lead to anything good.’
‘What’s going to happen next time you go to LA?’
‘I’ll have to take you with me,’ Max said lightly, because it was a joke. It had to be a joke. ‘There’s nothing else for it.’
‘I don’t think I’m an LA kind of girl,’ Neve said just as lightly, because she thought she might be starting to get the hang of light-hearted banter. ‘But I want to hear all about it. How did the cover shoot go?’
They talked for hours. Over coffee, over dinner and then over the red wine Max bought when he took Keith for a walk.
Max was so good at painting pictures with his words that Neve was right there with him as he drove down Sunset Boulevard, the road lined with palm trees, then pulled into the sweeping driveway of the Polo Lounge where his hire car was parked by a valet wearing a pink polo-shirt. She could picture the minimalist photo studio where he’d waited for five hours for a B-list actress to arrive to be shot, and she could even see the obsequious expression on her publicist’s face as he blatantly lied to Max about the reasons for his client’s no-show.
There was no way her own week could even begin to measure up, but Neve told Max about the expedition to Westfield and Celia storming off in a huff, only to appear a few hours later laden with presents and a shame-faced apology. Neve even told him about the heart-to-heart with her mother and showed him the text message she’d sent to her dad later that evening.
‘Jennifer Aniston has a new film coming out,’ Max read out loud. ‘Maybe we could see it when you’re in London? Is that secret code?’
‘It’s secret code for “I know that you’re sorry and I’m sorry too”.’ Neve smiled at the perplexed look on Max’s face. ‘My dad loves Jennifer Aniston. I mean, he really loves her. Celia and I went halves on the boxed set of the entire ten seasons of Friends for his fiftieth birthday, and we’re sure we saw him wiping away a tear when he opened it.’
Max patted Neve’s feet, which were resting on his lap. ‘So, did it work?’
Neve nodded and held out a hand for her phone, so she could scroll through her messages. ‘He texted me back a minute later. I’d like that. Will check cinema listings. All best, Dad.’
She squirmed a little under Max’s gaze. ‘Look, we’ll go and see the film, we’ll talk about Jennifer Aniston’s Oscar-worthy performance and what a home-wrecking tramp Angelina Jolie is, and everything will be all right.’
‘It’s that easy?’ Max asked.
‘It is if I want it to be. He’s my dad and I can’t change the way he is, so my only other choice is to just accept him with all his faults. That’s what love is, isn’t it?’
‘So I’m told.’ Max suddenly smiled wickedly. ‘Just so you know, if we have a row and you’re too chicken to apologise, text me and ask me if I want to go and see Angelina Jolie’s new film, because she’ll never be a home-wrecking tramp to me.’
Neve picked up a cushion and threw it at Max’s head. ‘We’re Team Aniston in our family.’
‘Say that again and I won’t give you any presents.’ Max pinched her big toe and held on tight as Neve tried to pull her foot away. ‘I have a bag full of gifts but I could just leave them outside Oxfam tomorrow.’
‘You brought me presents? My birthday isn’t for ages.’
‘They’re to say thank you for looking after Keith and I thought that generally, if boyfriends went away, they came back with presents for their girlfriends. Even pancake girlfriends. That’s not crossing any lines I didn’t know about, is it?’
It wasn’t. Especially when Max was pulling out a fancy cardboard bag with ribbon handles from the side of the sofa.
‘I didn’t mind looking after Keith,’ Neve said, cringing ever so slightly because Keith had had her wrapped round his paws the entire week. Max held the bag up and shook it gently so it made a very promising rustling sound. ‘Well, if you insist.’
Neve opened the bag, peered inside and pulled out a large box. ‘Noise cancelling headphones; do they get rid of the background noise when I’m listening to my iPod?’ she asked, taking out a huge pair of headphones that looked like doughnuts attached to a hair band.
‘Well, they can, but they cancel out all background noise too, even if you’re not listening to your iPod, so you won’t have to sit in the bathtub any more.’
‘But my fing
ers will still be making a terrible noise as I type and Charlotte will still bang on the ceiling with her broom handle.’
Max grinned. ‘Yeah, but with these bad boys strapped to your head, you won’t hear her.’
‘How can such a thing be possible?’ Neve held up the headphones. ‘So, I could wear them in bed and they’d drown out the sound of your snores?’
‘I do not snore!’ Max hissed.
‘Well, you do when you lie on your back,’ Neve told him as Max shook his head in protest. ‘I think this is the best present anyone’s ever given me. Even better than when I got the Oxford English Dictionary for my twelfth birthday.’
‘Aren’t you going to open the rest of your presents?’ Max’s eyes were half closed as if present-giving was a tedious chore, but when Neve turned her attention back to the bag, he sat up and leaned forward so he didn’t miss her reaction.
There was a pretty moss-green, velvet pouch to keep her Scrabble tiles safe, a box of gourmet low-carb, sugar-free chocolates, and then right at the bottom was a flat squidgy parcel wrapped in layers and layers of gossamer-soft tissue paper.
Neve felt Max suddenly tense up as she began to delicately peel back the gold embossed sticker that sealed up the parcel. There were so many pieces of tissue paper, each one a pale sherbet shade of pink, yellow, lilac or green, Neve felt as if she was playing a very posh version of Pass the Parcel, but when the last piece of tissue was swept away, there was no toy surprise just three neatly folded pieces of clothing that felt as smooth and fragile as silk beneath her fingers.