Alphabet Weekends - Elizabeth Noble [37]
‘I don’t, really. We met once, years ago. Guess we remembered each other.’
‘I guess so. Never expected to have the air on the altar so heavy with sexual tension at the baptism of my firstborn child.’
‘What can I say? I’m unforgettable and irresistible.’ At that moment, it was how she felt.
Stella was called over for photographs, and Simon sauntered in her direction. ‘So, what is your connection with the happy parents and the elephantine child?’
‘Stella is a friend – we work together.’
‘As what?’
‘Radio producers, at the BBC.’ She thought he looked a bit impressed. He wasn’t to know she meant assistant producer, and regional at that. ‘And you?’
‘I was at school with Ross.’
‘And now?’ If he could be economical with language, so could she.
‘And now I need a drink. When the hell did christenings get like weddings? How many hours are we expected to stand out here while they snap away at young Algernon like he was David bloody Beckham?’
‘Hector. And it’s only been about ten minutes. Are you always so impatient?’
‘Yes.’
He was a surgeon. Well, almost. Turned out he was younger than she was. He hadn’t looked it, in 1989, and he sure as hell hadn’t acted like it. He’d been almost nineteen, and just about to start his pre-clinical studies when they’d first met – at St Thomas’s in London. Now he was an SHO, he said, and about to start training as a surgeon. ‘Another long haul. That’s why I took some time off,’ he said. After he’d qualified, he’d been round Australia and New Zealand working stints in A&E departments to fund dive courses and extended holidays in the Whitsundays and on the Barrier Reef. He’d only come back three months ago – that explained the tan: he had the kind of skin that held colour. ‘Theory, practical, specialisation… It’ll be another few years before they start letting me cut people up on my own.’
‘So, you’re going to be the kind of doctor who doesn’t have to be bothered by his patients because they’ll all be unconscious – is that right?’
His eyes narrowed, and then he smiled. ‘How incredibly perceptive of you.’
‘And is it a calling?’
‘It’s a living.’
‘A pretty good one, I suppose.’
‘Not yet. I’m pretty much destitute right now. But it will be.’
That was the first time she’d paid for dinner. Mind you, that was two all-day breakfasts at a Little Chef on the motorway so it hadn’t even cost her a tenner.
He’d hitched a lift back to Bristol with her, after Hector had declared the end of his party by yelling so loudly that he threw up over his three-generations-old Belgian-lace christening gown. Simon didn’t have a car of his own. Which didn’t stop him implying that her battered red Fiat Uno wasn’t a proper one. His superiority and self-assurance were attractive, which surprised her: she hadn’t known arrogance did it for her. ‘You’re going to have a proper God complex, aren’t you, when you’re qualified?’
‘Absolutely.’ He grinned at her. They both felt it, the new thing between them, and they both liked the feeling.
In town, Natalie had dropped him by a bus stop. ‘I’m not going your way.’
‘I could be going yours, if you liked.’
She didn’t know how, but she managed to resist. ‘You’ll have to try harder than that.’
‘I’d like to be going your way. Please.’ He made a face like a spaniel.
Natalie laughed. ‘Not tonight, Josephine.’
He acknowledged defeat with a nod. ‘I suppose it’s up to me, then, isn’t it? All those years ago I let you walk out of my life, and now you’re going to do it again.’
‘Oh, please. Where are you getting this stuff? Have you got a Mills and Boon stuffed up your jumper? Or is Barbara Cartland feeding you dialogue into a hidden earpiece?’
He laughed. It was a good sound. When he spoke again he seemed younger and more vulnerable. ‘I really like you. You can see through the bullshit, can’t you?’
‘Helen Keller could have seen through those lines.’
He shook his head. ‘So, cynical one, can I see you again? I’d really like to.’
Of course he could. And in reality, the only thing she could actually