Chapter 22

CHAPTER 22

January moved dark and quick and erased December. February was still cold, but the sun cut through. I was refilling the marshmallow jar, and Stefan was telling me about his love life: I just don’t see why that can’t happen for me. I mean, she’s sat on the plane with her dry Chardonnay, and he, like, just appears?

When my shift finished, I stepped through the glass doors and heard my name:

Enola! Oi oi!

Virinder hugged me, which felt strange, because we had always had a counter between us. His coat was the expensive wool that made your skin itch. His aftershave was strong, and, in the cold, it caught in my nostrils. I asked him why he wasn’t at work. It’s Fri- Yay ! he said. I waited for the sarcasm, but it didn’t come. He told me that I looked different. Have you changed your hair?

My hair had only half grown back, currently somewhere between short and long, and too frizzy to look deliberate. My hands went to my head in apology, but he told me that it was cool. I said that no one would describe me as cool.

You’re ridiculously cool! You and your friend Ruth!

Ruth is cool. I’m just her sidekick.

He laughed and asked me what I was doing now. There was something about how unguarded he was. It wasn’t unexpected that he might be interested; he had bought me that candle and Ruth had thought that he liked me. But I hadn’t considered him like that. He was attractive and nice. His face was the sort that my grandma called “open.” Why hadn’t I considered him like that?

I started to tell him that I was going home, but then a breeze curled down the street and lifted the edges of my coat and I said instead: Nothing, fancy a drink?

Now?

Now.

Before I change my mind.

He said that his friend was having drinks on the King’s Road. I don’t suppose you fancy it? I wasn’t dressed for a West London pub and I hadn’t brought any makeup, but it was a new year and I was a new person. Why not? I said. It is Fri-Yay.

T HE PUB LOOKED LIKE it belonged in Lincolnshire. Deep green walls and vintage sports prints in gold frames. Virinder led us to a formation of Chesterfield sofas, where he was greeted by a man who looked like a gnome. Spilly, this is Enola, he said as Spilly kissed me on both cheeks with damp lips. Spilly said something I didn’t understand that made Virinder howl, then waved to ice buckets on a gilded table.

Virinder started to pour champagne, but I told him that I didn’t like champagne. Who doesn’t like champagne? he said, before adding that I was a cheap date. He said that he would go to the bar. What would you like instead? I told him a white wine. He asked me what kind, and I told him any kind. He seemed to find that amusing.

I sat down and a blond woman held out a manicured hand with a large diamond: I’m Jonesy’s fiancée. I told her that I was with Virinder. She glanced over her shoulder and leaned into me. He is such an angel, she said. Honestly, I can’t believe that man is still single.

Virinder returned and handed me a glass of wine. He said that it was a dry Chardonnay. Don’t worry, he said. I tried it first and it was lovely. I imagined him swilling and gargling like the man in the self-serve wine bar. He introduced me to the table. Enola is a writer!

Fun! said a woman in a sheer pink dress. What do you write?

I’m working on my debut—a young adult book—with my agent.

Virinder’s mouth dropped open. Enola! Amazeballs! I didn’t know you had an agent. That’s the big leagues. My mum met the woman who wrote—oh, what’s that one with the fish on the cover? She met her in Waterstones. Oh, bloody hell, what was her name?

Virinder searched for the name, and I searched his face. His cheekbones were chiseled, his jaw square, and his dark eyes contained flecks of amber.

He put his hand over his face. What? Have I got a bogey?

I told him that I hadn’t noticed his eyes before. He laughed and said that they matched his highlights. I told him that I liked his hair. Does it move in the wind? He put his hand on the sofa, and his thumb grazed my leg. He said that my eyes were the first thing he noticed about me. They’re crazy! You look like a superhero!

We stayed in the pub for an hour, talking, laughing a little, and then after my second glass of the nicest wine I had ever tasted, a sixties melody from the speakers lifted me like the breeze had lifted my coat, and just as unexpectedly, I said: Do you want to come back to mine?

I DIDN ’ T CARE THAT my flat was messy or that I was wearing old bleached pants. Virinder told me that he had thought about this since the first time we spoke. He bit his lip and, holding my wrists, lifted my arms over my head. I didn’t mean to but I laughed.

What? he said.

Nothing.

But I was thinking about how many men had read Fifty Shades of Grey thinking that because it was written by a woman it must be what every woman wanted.

What do you want? he said. Tell me what you want. I told him that I wanted him to fuck me, because I did; I wanted to be fucked the way that he used to fuck me. Virinder folded his clothes neatly: white shirt, chinos, golf socks. I threw mine haphazardly and pulled him onto me. His warm, dry body felt alien on mine. His muscles were sculpted, and his skin was a hairless, soft brown. I tried not to think about how different this man was to the other. But then something unexpected happened; he was moving so gently, so slowly, that in the middle of pretending to feel intense pleasure, I actually felt it. I started touching myself.

Yes, baby, he said. That’s so sexy.

A sensation like elastic stretching started and started and started. He noticed a change in my breathing, and he started thrusting faster and deeper until—

Oh my god.

I STAND UP TOO quickly, and everything fades to black, reappearing pixel by pixel. But before it does, in that quiet, dark second, everything is clear.

I scoop up last night’s clothes, take them to the kitchen, and shove them in the machine. In one hour and three minutes, my THIS IS WHAT A FEMINIST LOOKS LIKE T-shirt will be clean of last night.

Just a few things to say that I miss you and that I’m still quietly confident…—Virinder

When we broke up, Virinder said that he wouldn’t wait for me. And yet here he is, leaving gifts on my welcome mat. At the time, I wasn’t quite ready to be loved; I didn’t have the daily agenda of getting someone to want me, and feeling settled wasn’t something that I was used to. Idle hands , my grandma would say, like she was worried about something more serious than boredom. But maybe I’m ready now.

On our first official date, a poreless woman sat us in a booth by the window in a city bar where an app matched virtual surroundings to fifteen-pound cocktails. Virinder’s face lit up when he talked about sunsets in Mumbai and his aunt’s dal makhani, and I knew I wanted to see him again. The first morning at his, he led me up a spiral staircase to a roof terrace. The pancakes are almond butter , he said, pulling out a chair. At night, we sat up there under the stars. You could see the stars in Primrose Hill.

I go back to the bedroom and read the messages I’ve been ignoring:

I would love to talk to you. I’ll pop over on my break. V xxx

Hey, babe, I dunno if you’re getting these but I left you a surprise outside. V xxx

The last time I checked Virinder’s profile picture, he was skiing in the Alps. Now his hands hold the wheel of a boat, yellow tank top clinging to his leonine frame. His status appears: “online.” I write the words quickly, ripping off the Band-Aid.

Come over?

There are immediately two blue ticks and—

…

I’ll be over in fifteen?? Just round the corner in the pub! xxx

I check the time: just after seven thirty. I feel a rush of energy quickly followed by panic. I sweep the room for trauma, closing drawers and smoothing bedding. I return the elephant box to the wardrobe. I brush my hair and spray perfume. I dust my cheeks. Fill in my eyebrows. Fix my lips. The buzzer in the hall goes. I press enter on the intercom. What have I forgotten? The cereal bowl! I begin scraping out the soggy contents, but there is a knock at the door. I drop the bowl into the bin.

I walk down the hall and imagine seeing Virinder in the doorway: he smiles and holds out his arms and everything falls into place. It’s like what Ruth’s dermatologist said: When a person takes care of one problem area, the other problem areas take care of themselves. Virinder listens to me. Virinder asks what I want. Virinder makes plans for our future. Virinder loves me. Virinder’s only shortcoming is that he isn’t someone else and that’s not a problem anymore. Ruth once said that Virinder was the sort of man you would call to help you drag a body across the kitchen floor.

I open the door and there he is, smiling like he’s won the lottery.

Shit. I’ve made a horrible mistake.