Page 20 of Cross Her Heart

So it’s going to be one of these nights.Anotherone of these nights. More business problems that are somehow all my fault. We used to laugh together on this sofa. Seems a lifetime ago now.

My lasagne grows cold. Untouched and unwanted. I know how it feels.

18

LISA

There is no way I’m going to be able to eatanything. My stomach has folded itself up into a tiny square and while I don’t have the awful cramps of last week, it’s a whole different kind of anxiety. I must look ridiculous too. When I’d quietly told Marilyn about the dinner she’d looked so stunned I thought she was having some kind of haemorrhage but then she burst into life and insisted we get away early and go and buy something new to wear.

At least she didn’t go crazy with the shopping, I think as I get out of the taxi and walk on shaking legs towards the restaurant door. A black dress which is slightly too clingy for my taste but way better than the shorter one she originally picked out, and a pair of black patent heels I don’t trust to carry me. She also made me buy a new underwear set. ‘Not for him,’ she’d said. ‘For you. It’s like wearing a disguise.’ That unnerved me. Hiding. Always hiding. The bra strap is cutting into me, but I’m wearing it anyway. Maybe she’s right. I do feel slightly more confident with the lace next to my skin. I feel like somebodynot me.

‘This is the best time,’ she’d said, wistful, linking her arm in mine as if we were teenagers. ‘The flirting. The promise of the future. The perfection before you truly know each other.’ I couldn’t see how this could be the best time. I was too busy fighting a panic attack of nerves and excitement and fear of letting someone get to know me, and wondering if it was too late to change my mind.

But here I am, and as I see him get up from where he’s waiting at the elegant bar, it feels very much like whatever a date should be. My hands tremble. I feel ridiculous. Clumsy. Ugly. Obvious. He doesn’t seem to notice.

‘I was worried you’d cancel.’ He leans in to kiss me on the cheek and I smell the citrus and warmth mixture that has such a stupid effect on me. It doesn’t help my nerves as I mutter a hello.

‘You look beautiful,’ he says, standing back. I want to shrink into myself. I don’t look beautiful. I still have dumpy thighs and the shifting skin tone of an ageing woman. My hair could use highlights. All those things. His words make me think of how Ava had stared at me as I was going out the door. She’d called me ‘pretty’ and she was shocked enough to have meant it. It made me feel warm and happy and sad all rolled into one. Pretty is only luck or effort and yet it can have such an effect. No one should trust pretty, not really. Not just for itself.

He’s not wearing a tie and his fitted shirt is undone at the top button and the suit is expensively stylish enough to be something like Paul Smith. In fact, I’m pretty sure it’s Paul Smith. A suit that is not office wear. Ava would be surprised at me. She thinks I have no real interest in clothes. She’d be wrong. When I was her age and younger I was obsessed with fashion, poring over the pages of any magazine I could get hold of until the colour and gloss of the favoured pages had worn away. And for a while, before she was born, I would go into the big designer stores simply to touch the different fabrics and breathe in the wonder of the design. Even if I could have afforded to, I wouldn’t have bought any though. Those clothes weren’t for someone like me.

A waiter takes us to our table and Simon orders bread and olives and some sparkling water. I sit, happy to be off my trembling legs, and glad the lighting is soft.

‘How did Ava’s last exams go?’ he asks as a waiter hands me a large menu. The words all shimmer on the surface of the card as if they might slide off at any moment.

‘Oh, good – I think.’ I sip some water. My throat is rolled sandpaper. ‘She’s sixteen. Getting a full analysis out of her is never going to happen. But she didn’t slam any doors and she seems happy enough.’

‘Is she going out to celebrate?’

I nod. ‘And it’s the River Festival tomorrow, so I’ll barely see her. She has a good group of friends. I don’t worry too much.’ The lie comes so easily. I worry all the time. All I do is worry. ‘It’s hard to know how much freedom to give her,’ I continue. ‘They’re so grown up at sixteen and yet not grown up at all.’

He glances down at his menu and I realise how dull this must be to him. ‘Sorry, I forget you don’t have children.’

‘No, I don’t. But I like hearing about yours.’

‘Why?’ I try not to sound defensive.

He smiles. ‘Because I like you, Lisa. I want to learn more about you, but you’re hard to get to know.’

‘Oh, there’s really nothing to know. I’m quite dull.’ I try to make it sound fun and flirty but I fall short.Daniel. My heart aches with the weight of him.

‘I don’t believe it for a second. Still waters and all that.’

‘Well, it’s true.’

Thankfully, the waiter returns and I randomly choose the scallops and the sea bream and a glass of Chablis.

‘I’m not much of a drinker,’ I say. ‘So only order a bottle if you’re prepared to drink the rest.’

He laughs. ‘I have to drive to Kent tonight for a meeting at my Grainger House Hotel in the morning. No rest for the wicked. So, a single glass for me too. If I’m honest, I’m not a great fan of getting drunk either. I’m too old and too busy for the hangovers.’ This sends a dual wave of relief through my nerves. He’s not a big drinker, and he won’t be trying to get me into bed tonight. It’s a ridiculous thought anyway, that he would want to have sex with me, but I still fear it. I haven’t been naked with a man for years. I haven’t been anything with a man for years.

‘So,’ he says, and I know from his tone what question is coming. Some variation onTell me about yourself. ‘You said you’ve been at PKR for about ten years. What was before that?’

‘Ava,’ I say, simply. Oh God, where would I start? There is so much before that. Too much. A universe of existence. How nice it would be to be able to condense my life into a pat paragraph or make the years thus far into a hugely entertaining anecdote. I can do neither.

‘Ah.’ His eyes are full of quiet interrogation. Marriage, divorce, Ava’s dad, other boyfriends – all the information men are interested in. Things that boil down a woman’s relevance in relation to other men, rather than anything in and of themselves. Theinside informationcomes later. Those talks are for the middle of the night, heads on pillows, faces only outlines in the darkness. That’s when people surrender their weapons to each other and hope they don’t end up stabbed in the night by them in the future.

Our wine arrives, and I take a sip. He’s still waiting, expectant. ‘Someone once told me,’ I say, ‘that the human body replaces its cells in their entirety over the course of seven years. So in essence we are all completely different people than we were seven years ago, and that person was different to the one seven years before. This makes me wonder why everyone is always so fascinated by other people’s pasts, because none of us are those people any more.’

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