of crème fraîche as it rolled towards the coat-stand.
‘I’ve bought you flowers too,’ I said, producing a cellophane cornet of white hothouse roses from one of the bags. ‘I feel as if I’m seducing someone by proxy, like Cyrano de Bergerac.’
‘Superb!’
I knew I must’ve been fond of Ben, ’cos I sure as hell didn’t want to be seducing Georgina Race with anything more than a bouquet of stinging nettles, severed rat tails and tampon strings. And yet, apparently, I was.
With the help of supermarket recipe idea cards, we assembled something fairly respectable: asparagus starters, stuffed chicken breasts, potato gratin, white chocolate mousse with raspberries. I delegated tasks to Ben and he put music on while we worked. He actually proved quite an able deputy. The fridge gradually filled up with foil-wrapped dishes.
‘I didn’t know you could cook,’ he said.
‘I can’t, really. I’m making it up as I go along.’
‘Now she tells me.’
‘Here are the timings.’ I jotted down oven temperatures on a scrap of paper and tucked them behind the kettle. ‘Follow them in that order and give her the bubbly as soon as she arrives. You can get away with much imperfection when people are pissed. What are you wearing?’
‘A shirt?’ said Ben, uncertain. He was in a red ’66 World Cup top. It directly contravened Article 7.1 of Rhys’s Wanker Law that stated you didn’t advertise any event you hadn’t attended, any place you’d never been, or any band you didn’t really listen to.
‘Think smart. No sports-related casual wear.’
‘Got it.’
‘I’ll leave you to get ready.’
I pulled my coat on, picked my hat up. ‘Good luck,’ I said.
‘You are my angel and your reward is in heaven,’ Ben said.
‘It’s certainly not on earth,’ I grumbled.
As I walked back to my house, something niggled, and it wasn’t the fact I’d cooked a meal I wasn’t going to eat.
Knocking round with Ben platonically – catching the odd envious look from girls who misconstrued the situation – obscured something that could be decreed by any efficient eugenics programme: boys like him dated and procreated with girls like Georgina Race. I didn’t want to date, much less procreate with, either of them, but there was something diminishing in having it confirmed.
I was back at those fireworks, remembering that there were females for fun sexy secret times, and then there was good old doughty Ronnie. A minx for spotting a discount deal on Sainsbury’s pain de campagne.
The next day, we met up at our ten o’clock lecture, Ben sliding into the seat beside me, wearing a sly grin.
‘Soooo … how did it go?’ I said, grinning back, chewing on my pen lid.
‘Good,’ Ben said. ‘She loved dinner. Absolutely loved it. Thanks.’
‘You’re seeing each other?’ I asked.
‘Doubt it.’ Ben shook his head.
‘Oh.’ I didn’t know if I should ask any more questions, or if Ben wanted me to. I thought he was turning away from me to bring an end to the topic, then realised he was making sure we weren’t being overheard.
‘She was boring! Christ, she was boring. At first I thought it was nerves, but she’s so dull. And self-absorbed. The weird thing is, I don’t even think she’s that fit any more. The shine’s rubbed off. Nice girl and all that. But … not for me.’
I ignored the lightning-flash of joy that zapped across my insides.
‘Never mind. At least I shopped for dinner. You only wasted a trip to Lloyd’s Pharmacy …’
‘Oh, we still did it,’ Ben replied. ‘Not going to all that effort for a conversation about Hertfordshire prep schools and collecting Tiffany bracelet charms.’
I looked at him. His expression was impassive. I remembered the conversation in MacDougal’s about swordsmanship. There was a strange churning where the lightning had been.
‘What? That’s grim!’
‘Eh?’
‘You don’t like her as a person, but you still had sex? That’s shallow and appalling. Poor Georgina, you’re calling her boring after she’s become a notch on your bedpost? Talk about disrespectful.’ Rachel Woodford, defender of Georgina Race’s maidenhood. This was a new one.
‘Alright, settle down.’
‘I thought more of you than that,’ I said.
‘People do have casual sex out here in the real and imperfect world, you know, it doesn’t have to be seen as an aggressive act,’ Ben hissed.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘I mean, we’re not all lucky enough to be with our soul mates, but we’re not going to be celibate while we wait for them to turn up.’
I could’ve said something here about not harbouring any delusions that he was living like an ascetic monk, but Ben had matched me in righteous anger. I’d never felt so grateful for a lecture starting.
Soul mate. Had I said that? In the Greek holiday blather? Oh God. Maybe I had. I realised now I’d laid it on thick in case Ben had sussed the fact I’d swooned during last year’s kiss. In actual fact, Rhys and I had definitively exited the honeymoon period. Being treated as an equal by peers at university had made me less willing to tolerate the slightly domineering, aloof manner that had felt so Mr Darcy in our early days. In turn, he accused me of ‘getting up myself’. If I was truly honest, I knew Rhys’s surprise holiday stunt was as much about him re-establishing who had the whip hand as it was about summer lovin’ and dolmades.
After a while, Ben pushed his notes towards me so I could see he’d written in the margin: ‘Joking.’
I scowled in incomprehension, drew a question mark underneath it, pushed it back.
‘We didn’t,’ he wrote, underscoring the second word several times to make his meaning plain. ‘What’s the matter?’
Good question. I read it, shrugged, passed it back. Was I really so uptight I expected my single friends to live by my rules?
Lecture over, we had tutorials in different parts of the building. I was out of my seat, down the steps and by the door in seconds. Ben caught up with me, grabbing my arm before I could stalk off.
‘Look, I was being laddish, you usually find it funny,’ he said, under his breath.
I
