offered to tie them up. You know, as one of those jokes that aren’t really jokes. But he doesn’t really fancy Nicola, with or without rope etc.
There’s quite a long pause.
‘God, you’re hard work, aren’t you?’ She grins. ‘Don’t look so serious. I’m teasing. What are their names?’
‘Clematis. That’s my sister. We call her Clem. Bryony’s my cousin. My half-sisters are Plum and Lavender, but they’re just kids still. My father remarried after my mother went missing on an expedition . . .’ Nicola doesn’t respond to the missing mother thing, which is odd, so Charlie explains about the family tradition of giving a botanical first name to anyone not certain to keep the famous Gardener surname, although of course Clem kept the Gardener name anyway when she married Ollie. Then he explains about his great-great-grandfather, Augustus Emery Charles Gardener, who was a famous horticulturist, and his great-grandfather, Charles Emery Augustus Gardener, who was supposed to be overseeing a tea plantation in India but ended up falling in love with a Hindu woman and founding an Ayurvedic clinic and yoga centre in Sandwich, of all places. And then his grandfather, Augustus Emery Charles Gardener, who . . .
‘Can I tell you about the desserts?’
Nicola immediately looks up at the waiter, and Charlie realises he has been boring her. Good. Maybe she’ll leave and this will be over. He has had enough to eat, and definitely enough carbs, but agrees, after some pressure, to share an exotic fruit platter. He’ll have a bit of kiwi or something. But he insists on ordering a glass of dessert wine for her. He likes watching girls drinking dessert wine for reasons that would probably be disturbing if he ever thought about them. He has a double espresso, which won’t be as nice as the one he could have at home.
‘So why are you on a blind date?’ Nicola asks him.
Charlie shrugs. Right, well, if she doesn’t want to know any more about his family, she won’t hear about his great-aunt Oleander, who just died, and who used to be a famous guru who even met the Beatles. She also won’t hear about his mother, who is not just missing but presumed dead, along with both Bryony’s parents and Fleur’s terrible mother. And the deadly seed pods they went to find in a place called – really – the Lost Island, far away in the Pacific. And that’s Nicola’s loss, because it’s really a very exciting story, with loads of botany in it and everything. But then all girls like Nicola want to talk about is how many people you’ve slept with and what your favourite band is and how many children you want.
‘I don’t know,’ he says. ‘How about you?’
‘Izzy sort of took pity on me because I got dumped.’
‘Sorry to hear that.’
‘What’s your history . . . ? I mean, when did you . . . ?’
‘I got divorced about ten years ago.’
‘Mine was last month.’
‘Was it bad?’
She shrugs. ‘We’d only been together for three years.’
‘Yeah, but I mean, did you, were you . . . ?’
‘What, in love? Yes. Well, I was. How about you?’
‘I suppose I was. Yes. Just not with my wife.’
Nicola pauses. Sips her wine. Puts her finger in her mouth, and then in the bowl of salt on the table, and then back in her mouth again. Why on earth is she . . .
‘So who did you fuck instead?’
Charlie’s cock stirs ever so slightly at the sound of the word ‘fuck’ coming out of her full, quite posh, red-lipsticked mouth. She reapplied her lipstick when she went to the loo. He likes it when girls bother to do that.
‘It’s complicated.’
She sighs. ‘Right.’
‘How about you?’
‘What, did I fuck anyone else?’
Again, a very slight emphasis on the word ‘fuck’. The consonance of it. Another small stir.
‘Yes.’
She smiles. ‘I can’t tell you that. I hardly know you.’
Eyebrows. Smile. ‘We could change that.’
‘Really? How?’
‘Go out to the fire escape and take off your knickers.’
She pauses, looks shocked, but probably isn’t. Laughs. ‘What?’
‘You think I’m joking?’
‘I’m not sure. Er, most men wouldn’t quite . . .’
‘But what if I’m not?’
‘Surely we could find somewhere more comfortable to . . .’
‘But the excitement is all in the discomfort.’
‘Well . . .’
He looks at the door. His watch. ‘I mean, if you have other plans . . .’
‘Take off my knickers.’ She acts like this is a joke, could still just about be only a joke. ‘Right. OK. So I’m standing on the fire escape in the freezing cold with no knickers on. And then what?’
‘You put them in your mouth.’
‘I’m not doing that.’
‘Why not?’
‘Well, why should I?’
‘So that people are not disturbed by your moans of pleasure. Or pain.’
‘I’m going to feel really stupid anyway. I can’t . . .’
‘Well, just take them off then. I’ll pay and then come and join you in a second.’
‘And you won’t be long?’
‘No.’
She flushes a little and gets up. ‘OK. Don’t be long. I can’t believe . . .’
Is it always this easy? Yes, when you actually don’t care.
Afterwards, Charlie drives his green MG back to Hackney. The house is just off Mare Street on a long road of huge Victorian houses in various states of renovation. Charlie and his ex-wife Charlotte (how much fun that was when they met: ‘I’m Charlie,’ ‘Hey, so am I!’, although it became complicated later on when they started opening each other’s letters by accident and one of them was That Letter from Bryony) split the proceeds on their flat in Highgate in a way that only their lawyers understood, and he ended up with just enough for the deposit on the Hackney place. He worked out that unless he asked his father for money, he could just about afford to continue living in London only if he bought a tired old student let, did it up a bit, and advertised for some housemates. He took two weeks’ holiday and painted all eight rooms, including the ceilings, while a friend of a friend
