laughed. ‘No, I’d make a terrible spy. Very bad at keeping secrets. But I travel a lot because I’m a climber.’
I frowned. ‘A climber? Like… of mountains?’
‘Exactly. Mostly mountains. Walls when I’m in London. Not many mountains in the city.’
‘Wow,’ I said. ‘Cool. I didn’t know it could be a job.’
He laughed. ‘I carry rich Americans up Swiss mountains to pay the bills, then go off and climb elsewhere for myself.’
‘Like where?’
He shrugged. ‘Wherever. Europe. America. Himalayas. I’m about to go to Pakistan to try and climb a mountain there.’
‘Pakistan? Wow, amazing,’ I said. I worried I sounded vacuous. But I didn’t know much about climbing. And if you handed me a map and asked me to stick a pin in Pakistan I wasn’t absolutely sure I could. I taught my 5-year-olds basic reading and writing skills. Not geography.
My phone lit up on the table. A message from Jess.
‘Sorry,’ I said, sliding it into my bag, feeling quite grateful that the screen hadn’t flashed up again with ‘Mum calling’.
Max shook his head. ‘No problem.’
‘Just a mate checking up on me,’ I said, rolling my eyes at him.
‘That you’re not on a date with a crazy?’ he teased. His tanned forehead had lines running across it and smaller lines at the corners of his eyes which crinkled when he smiled. A modern-day Robinson Crusoe who’d clearly spent more time outside than cooped up in an office.
‘Something like that.’
He nodded and ran a hand through his hair. Then he grimaced at me. ‘I’m sorry. First dates are awkward, aren’t they?’
I grinned sheepishly. ‘I thought it was just me. But… yeah, they are. You do many of them?’ Then I cursed myself for letting that slip out. I didn’t want to sound like I was trying to suss his intentions so early.
He shrugged, unfazed. ‘Not millions. I’m away a lot. Don’t do much dating in the mountains. You?’
I shook my head. ‘Nope. Not a huge… dater.’ I could feel the vodka loosening my hang-ups. ‘This is my first date since a break-up, actually, so I may… er… I may be a bit rusty.’
I looked down, fingers encircling my sweating glass on the table during the awkward silence that followed. It was dumb to mention Jake, so I wondered how long it would take me to get to Jess’s from the pub. If I jumped on the Tube to Hammersmith I could probably be there in forty minutes. Buy a bottle of wine from Nisa on the walk to the house, order a Deliveroo. Perfect. It wouldn’t be a wasted night. And I could take this bra off and let my breasts settle back down at their usual altitude.
I looked up again at Max across the table, his mouth in a lopsided smile.
‘What?’ I asked, narrowing my eyes at him.
‘Then we’re in the same boat, you and me.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I broke up with someone not very long ago.’ His smile fell and he looked suddenly serious. ‘Although, to be fair, it was more a mutual decision in the end.’
‘Ohhhhh,’ I said slowly. ‘Brutal, huh?’
He shrugged. ‘All part of life’s rich tapestry.’
‘Why d’you break up?’
He shrugged again. ‘I wasn’t around much. She wanted to settle down. Get married, children, that sort of thing.’
‘And you… didn’t?’ I said it carefully. Again, I didn’t want him to think I was trying to work out his potential as a baby-daddy. For him to think I was on some sort of husband-hunt myself.
‘No. Well, not no. Just… not yet. Things to do. Places to see.’
‘Mountains to climb?’
‘Something like that,’ he said, smiling and leaning towards me. ‘What about you?’
I frowned. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, if we’re having a joint Jeremy Kyle session, how come you broke up?’
‘Oh.’ I grimaced at him. ‘We’d been going out for eight years. Living together. I thought it was going one way, he… didn’t. So that was that.’
I picked up my glass and was raising it to my mouth when Max laughed.
‘What?’ I said, defensively. I still found it hard to articulate my feelings about the break-up. I went over it in my head all the time. Over and over again. Over things I could have done differently. Over moments that I realized should have given me a clue. Over Jake’s increasing reluctance to hang out with my friends. Over his late nights in the office. But I felt like even Jess had heard enough now so I kept quiet about it unless prompted.
Max shook his head and waved a hand at my expression. ‘I’m not laughing at you. I’m laughing at us. Sitting here, nursing our drinks like we’re at a wake. Come on, let’s have another drink and cheer up.’
I laughed back. ‘OK, but my round.’
Max shook his head again as he stood up. ‘No. Absolutely not. Same again?’
‘Yep, please.’
‘Grand. And when I get back, no more talk about break-ups. This is supposed to be a date, not a counselling session. Deal?’
‘Deal.’
I watched him push his way back to the bar and touched my right cheek with the back of my fingers. It was warm. We were one drink in, the point at which I’d envisaged one of us making excuses – ‘Good to meet you,’ awkward kiss goodbye, never message one another again – but I didn’t want to escape to Jess’s house. I wanted to stay here talking to Max. Initial awkwardness over, I could sense that I liked him. Sitting here, chatting, I could feel a spark of excitement at exploring someone new, at finding out all those first things about someone. I hadn’t felt that for a long time. Years, if I was honest. The excitement of finding out about one another dissipated early with Jake and lapsed into something more comfortable. This Saturday night already felt more exciting than most of our relationship. Or maybe that was the vodka.
‘I took the liberty of buying some crisps,’ Max said, returning to the table a few minutes later with a drink in each hand and two packets in the crook of his arm. ‘And also, here’s a menu.’ He put the drinks down, dropped the crisps (one ready salted, one salt and vinegar – promising taste in crisps), pulled two menus out from underneath his elbow and handed me one. ‘You hungry?’
I’d been too nervous to eat much all day. Too adrenalin-y at the thought of the date. Plus there was my dodgy stomach issue. All of which probably accounted for why I felt a bit pissed already.
‘Yep,’
