‘It’s not just that.’ Neve closed her eyes momentarily. ‘He’ll ask me if I’ve been seeing anyone and I’d have to say no, and he knew that I wasn’t involved with anyone when I was at Oxford and that night we had … if I was like that with William, it would ruin everything and I’d want to die.’
It sounded so silly and melodramatic when she said it out loud, but Max just nodded. ‘Look, you should have said it was your maiden voyage,’ he remarked cheerfully. ‘We could have taken it slower, much slower. I guarantee you’d have had a good time.’
‘Oh God,’ Neve said faintly, because sex was not something you discussed in such a jovial manner or in a public place or with someone who wasn’t Celia and even then it was under extreme duress.
‘No, really,’ Max insisted, mistaking Neve’s mortification for disbelief. ‘There’s no point in being modest about it; I’m really good at sex. Fantastic at foreplay, never have to be asked to go down on a girl – in fact, I love it, especially when—’
‘Please, for the love of God, will you stop,’ Neve begged. ‘Just stop talking about it.’
‘You really are very repressed. You can’t even say it, can you?’ Max frowned. ‘Look, that night, you said that you’d taught Celia everything she knows and believe me, she knows a lot, and you—’
Neve clutched a hand to her frantically beating heart. ‘Oh, sweet Jesus, you’ve slept with my little sister!’
‘Of course I haven’t,’ Max said indignantly, and Neve wanted to smack him – because even though she was hugely relieved he hadn’t shared Celia’s bed, there was no need for him to sound so affronted. Celia was quite the catch. ‘I never sleep with the Skirt girls – well, apart from the interns and I’ve sworn off them too lately – but I’ve been away on location shoots with your sister and she’s not a shy little flower and I thought you were cut from the same cloth. You practically dragged me to your bedroom.’
Even though it was hot enough in the snug to have Neve red-faced and slowly roasting in her grey wool tunic, she shivered. ‘Look, I said I was sorry in the letter so why are you subjecting me to this postmortem?’
She must have sounded really forlorn, because Max shifted uncomfortably on his sofa. ‘I really did want to make sure that you were all right,’ he said. ‘That you weren’t still beating yourself up over what happened.’
‘Well, I wasn’t until you showed up on my doorstep and now I’m back to castigating myself,’ Neve sighed.
Max leaned forward so he could take Neve’s limp hands in his cool grasp. Neve longed to tug them away but Max tutted as he felt her fingers flutter. ‘Look, Neve, you’re a pretty, intelligent girl and you shouldn’t be spending Valentine’s Night sitting in a crappy pub – no offence.’
‘None taken,’ Neve said, because the only reason she loved the Hat and Fan was because of the memories, not the actual funky-smelling reality of it. ‘But you’re also spending Valentine’s Night in a crappy pub too.’
‘Yeah, but I have three other places to be after this,’ Max informed her loftily. ‘I’m not going to spend the rest of the night home alone.’
Neve did try to tug her hands away then, but Max refused to let go. ‘Stop being so huffy,’ he said. ‘I’m here to help you.’
‘I don’t need your help!’
‘Here’s what’s going to happen,’ Max said, as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘We’re going to go back to yours so you can change into something that’s a lot less, well, sackclothy, and then we’re going into town and we’re going to get you laid. What do you think about that?’
Neve thought quite a lot about that but she couldn’t get any words out as she was coughing and spluttering. ‘I don’t want to get laid,’ she said eventually. ‘I never did. Not for ages. There are other steps.’
‘If I were you I’d forget the other steps for now and just get the shagging out of the way,’ Max advised her, like he was some kind of shagging expert, which actually, fair point. ‘Think of it as like ripping off a plaster really quickly so it doesn’t hurt, and once you’ve got the sex out of the way, then you can get on with the other stuff.’
‘I don’t want to get sex out of the way,’ Neve hissed. ‘In fact, I think sex is completely off the agenda for now.’
‘So, you’re going to wait for this William bloke to do the honours?’ Max clarified, absent-mindedly stroking Neve’s wrist right where her pulse was pounding away. The movement was like a mantra, calming and comforting even as Neve wanted to pick up her mug of rapidly cooling tea and fling it in Max’s face. ‘You’re saving yourself for him because he’s your one true love? Christ, that’s a lot of pressure for someone to live up to.’
Max was right, which was infuriating. But if their stalled sexual encounter had taught Neve anything, it was that she wasn’t ready for sex. ‘I need relationship experience, not sex experience,’ she told him.
‘Come on, I’ll take you to Black’s. It’s always stuffed with literary types and I’ll sort you out some bloke who can bang on about books and then, er … well, bang you.’
Neve did manage to snatch her hand away. ‘Ugh, that’s disgusting!’ She pointed one quivering finger at Max, who grinned at her. Caddishly. ‘You’re disgusting! It’s not funny to be twenty-five and have no idea how any of this is meant to work. There’s no earthly way that someone like you could possibly understand how terrifying and confusing sex and relationships and dating is when you’ve never done any of it.’
She was close to tears, close enough that she had to sniff loudly before continuing. ‘I wasted so much time in this cycle of fat and self-loathing, and now there’s no time and it feels like an impossible task to go out and try to meet someone and flirt with them and laugh at their jokes.’ She shrugged. ‘Then, what? You start to date and there’s all this rigmarole and leaving two days before you call them and that could drag on for weeks and weeks. I want to skip straight to three months into the relationship.’
She wasn’t sharing so much as ranting, but Max looked like he was hanging on her every word and Neve saw there was a crumpled piece of Basildon Bond in his hand that looked horribly familiar. ‘What’s a pancake relationship?’ he asked, tracing that particular line with the tip of one finger.
‘It’s so dumb. Just this really tortured analogy …’
‘I love tortured analogies. They’re my favourite kind.’
It was hard to know when Max was laughing at her. ‘Well, when you make pancakes, the first pancake tastes all right but you’re basically testing out the consistency of the batter and it’s never quite the right shape or thickness so it gets chucked away.’
Max looked confused. ‘I’ve never heard of that.’ He frowned. ‘So when you make pancakes, you throw the first pancake away?’
‘Well, I don’t eat pancakes any more and when I used to make them, I always ate the first one,’ Neve recalled dryly. ‘And the second one and the third one and the one after that, until there was no more batter left. But generally people who aren’t compulsive over-eaters throw the first one away. And I want a relationship like that.’
‘So a relationship that’s OK as relationships go, but it’s not quite the right consistency so you can just dump the poor bloke when this other guy gets back from wherever he’s been,’ Max summed up, then smiled faintly as he picked up his pint glass.
‘It sounds terrible and heartless when you put it like that,’ Neve protested. ‘It’s just a fun little affair, nothing serious, and with no hard feelings when the time comes to go our separate ways.’
‘And what’s in it for the guy in this pancake relationship? Does he know he’s going to get his marching orders or are you going to pretend that he might really be the one and—’
‘Stop! Please, stop.’ Neve picked up her mug but the tea was stone cold. She was tempted to bellow to Bridie to stick the kettle on, because then she’d bustle in and make Max stop talking, but from the sound of raised voices in the bar, Midsomer Murders had reached a particularly exciting bit and Nev
e didn’t have the heart to disturb her. ‘Obviously I haven’t ironed out all the kinks in the plan, but Celia says that ninety-nine per cent of all men are commitment-phobic and a three-month, no-strings affair is about all they can handle.’
‘I don’t think a no-strings affair is anything that you could handle, though. Not at the moment anyway,’ Max noted, and all of a sudden Neve felt as unclothed and vulnerable as she had done that other night. Underneath all that hackneyed charm and scruffy clothing, Max’s perception was razor-sharp. ‘So what would this faux relationship involve?’
Neve wasn’t going to say another word on the topic. She really wasn’t. Except her mind was already going to that happy place where there’d be ‘long Sunday-afternoon walks, even if it was raining, because it’s invigorating walking in the rain with someone else, rather than being on your own. And then when you got home and dried off, there’d be tea and toast and a black and white film on BBC2 with Bette Davis in it. Or maybe there wouldn’t, but it wouldn’t matter because then we could do the crossword together. But if the weather was dry then we could go for a drive in the country and visit National Trust houses. I really must get round to joining the National Trust,’ she heard herself say dreamily.
Then Neve blinked her eyes and came back to earth where Max was looking at her as if she’d been speaking Mandarin.
‘Really?’ he said. ‘Is that what happens in relationships?’
‘Well, I’m sure you know more about relationships than I do,’ Neve said shortly, stiffening her spine and attempting to look more in control.
Max pulled a face. ‘You know how Mariah Carey doesn’t do stairs?’ Neve shook her head but Max didn’t seem to notice. ‘Well, I don’t do relationships. Just can’t see the point in being with one woman, and not being allowed to have sex with anyone else. I’m far too young and pretty for that kind of commitment.’
‘You’re absolutely unbelievable,’ Neve told him, but it was impossible not to be amused and maybe a tiny bit envious. Life must be so easy when you looked like Max. ‘Look, I don’t expect you to understand, but I just want to get a feel for the kind of relationship and see what areas I need to improve on.’ That sounded better – more businesslike.
‘I see.’ Max was straight-faced, but his eyes gleamed with amusement. ‘And do you have any candidates lined up?’
‘Well, no. It’s more in the planning stage.’ Neve fixed Max with a stern look. ‘All that Sunday-afternoon stuff I’ll do with William; it’s the meat and potatoes stuff that I need to practise – like knowing what to say and do when I go out on dates and well, I’ve never even shared a bed with a man, and how do you negotiate who sleeps on which side and when to turn the light out and who’s going to get stuck with the lumpy pillow?’ Neve didn’t know why she kept talking and talking. Because the more she talked, and the more she tried to justify her fuzzy ideas on relationships to Max, the more fuzzy they became and the more out of reach.
‘So, can I put my name down on the list? Do you have a list?’ Max asked, pushing away his empty glass and looking hopefully at the door as if he expected Bridie to materialise with another pint of Stella.
‘What list? I don’t have a list! You’re not taking this seriously.’ Neve realised that her grey tunic had become rucked up and was displaying her splayed thighs, so she made adjustments. ‘You just said that you don’t do relationships.’
‘I don’t, but you made them sound such fun and if you don’t want to have sex, then you’re not going to mind if I get my jollies somewhere else.’ He lowered his lashes. ‘I have needs.’
Neve didn’t know why she’d bothered trying to shine some light on the darkest, most secret places of her psyche. In fact, she didn’t even know why she’d come to the pub to suffer this emotional abuse when she could have been tucked up on her sofa with a nice bowl of home-made vegetable soup and the new issue of the London Review of Books. She got to her feet and stuck out her hand in Max’s general direction. ‘It was nice to see you again but I really have to go now.’
‘Oh, don’t be like that.’ Max took her hand but only so he could stroke her knuckles. ‘You really have to stop taking everything so personally. It must be exhausting.’
‘Goodbye,’ Neve said sharply, removing her hand from Max’s grasp and snatching up bag, coat, scarf, hat and gloves, and wishing that it wasn’t winter because it was impossible to make a speedy getaway when you had so much cold-weather gear to put on first. ‘Tell Bridie to put your drinks on the Slater tab,’ she added, because God forbid that Max should think ill of her. Or more ill of her.
‘So you don’t fancy meeting up again?’ Max persisted, though Neve didn’t know why, because she thought she’d made her position perfectly clear. ‘Swap war stories?’
‘I don’t have any war stories,’ Neve said, and in that moment she felt that she never would. That every night would be spent creeping round her flat in her socks with the telly turned down so low that she could barely hear it, so in the end she’d have no other option but to escape into the pages of books where there were other girls falling in and out of love but not her. Never her. She stared down at the scuffed toes of her faux Ugg boots in sudden and tired defeat.
‘If you don’t have any war stories, then at least you don’t have any war wounds,’ Max said, so quietly that Neve had to strain her ears to catch his words. ‘Take my number.’
It was impossible to tell someone to their face that you didn’t want to see them again because everything they said rubbed you raw, as if they’d taken a gigantic Brillo pad to your soul. It was much easier to limply hand over her phone and watch Max tap in his number, though Neve vowed she’d delete it as soon as she got home.
Chapter Eight
On Monday morning, after her second sleepless night brooding over the conversation she’d had with Max in the Hat and Fan’s snug, Neve trudged down her stairs with heavy feet and a heavy heart. She was still mentally berating herself for how much she’d over-shared, and planned to spend most of the day trying to sort out her confused thoughts about light-hearted affairs and no-strings relationships. Then she caught sight of the blue airmail envelope waiting for her on the doormat.
Neve snatched it up with an excited cry, all thoughts of Max instantly banished, and only the fact that she had forty minutes to cycle to Holborn to meet Philip for breakfast before work stopped Neve from plopping down on the bottom stair and tearing it open. Instead, she had to make do with stroking it against her cheek and imagining she could feel the phantom touch of William’s hand as he wrote her name and address in his beautiful copperplate script until she caught sight of the moony smile on her face in the hall mirror.
Still, it was hard to concentrate on Philip’s latest thesis-related angst when the envelope was burning a hole in her satchel. Philip was a mature student who’d been made redundant from his job in derivatives, got divorced and come out of the closet all in the space of six months. That had been four years ago and Neve wasn’t sure that Philip had entirely got over the shock. He was an anxious-looking man in his forties who’d had to downgrade from a four-bedroom house in Chiswick to a studio flat in Ealing, and had embraced academia along with an antiquarian bookseller called Clive, although neither one was bringing him much joy.
‘… and now he says that we should be free to sleep with other people,’ he told Neve morosely as she waited for her porridge to cool down.
‘So, are you splitting up then?’ As ever, Neve resisted the urge to tell Philip that he’d be much better off without Clive, who’d tried to stick his tongue down Gustav’s throat within five minutes of being introduced to him at Neve’s birthday drinks last year. It wasn’t just that Philip had terrible taste in men, there was also the ex-wife who was currently living in the four-bedroom house in Chiswick with her twenty-three-year-old boyfriend and frittering away what was left of Philip’s redundancy package. He was really, really, really bad at choosing his life partners.
‘No, apparently we’re having an open
relationship,’ Philip sniffed, his eyes suspiciously red-rimmed, as if he’d only stopped crying just before he stepped off the tube at Holborn. ‘I can’t believe that I’m forty-five and I’m still having to go through all this Sturm und Drang. You don’t know how lucky you are to be single and unencumbered.’
Being single didn’t feel unencumbered. It felt extremely cumbersome. ‘Well, I really think I’m almost ready to start dating,’ Neve ventured because Philip was a good candidate to test the idea on. Or maybe not, because he was looking at her with undisguised horror, eyebrows raised so they jutted out from above his half-moon spectacles.
‘Do you?’ Philip asked. ‘Really?’
Neve took a hasty gulp of her skimmed-milk latte and scalded her tongue, but that was better than having to defend her decision to date in the face of Philip’s zero encouragement. ‘I have to start sooner or later. I don’t want to end up like Our Lady of the Blessed Hankie.’
Philip shuddered. ‘No one would want to end up like that. So how were you planning to dip a toe into the choppy waters of romance?’
There was the rub. Making eyes at total strangers hadn’t worked out too well. ‘I did read a thing about speed-dating in Skirt.’
‘Neve! You can’t! You’d be eaten alive,’ Philip gasped. ‘It would be like throwing a paraplegic Christian to the lions.’
‘You could be a little more supportive,’ Neve grumbled. ‘I said I was almost ready to start dating and I do have some experience of the opposite sex, you know.’ Which was true because she’d now almost had sex twice and she knew lots of straight men like her brother and her father and she was on first-name terms with Aziz from the all-night convenience store and Dave from the second-hand furniture shop who always called her when a new bookcase came in, and Mr Freemont at the LLA, though Neve wasn’t sure that he counted as a straight man. She didn’t like to think that he had genitals of any description.
‘Of course you do,’ Philip said soothingly. ‘Well, what about Adrian, Clive’s Assistant Manager?’