Honeybee, page 16
Phil emailed earlier to ask if I like Asian food. I said yes. Does that mean we’re going for Chinese? There are so many different kinds of Asians, which did he mean? I’m wearing a black silk shirt with little ladybirds all over it. I’m nervous, but I’m trying to be relaxed because he wouldn’t have invited me if he didn’t like me, right? I’ve never been on a date before, it feels so American. Like the kind of thing people do in movies, not in real life. I’m a ball of anxiety when it comes to the opposite sex. Up until now anything I’ve done with boys has come at the end of a boozy night. The idea of sober sex terrifies me, the idea of dinner just as scary. What if food falls out of my mouth while I’m talking? What if something gets stuck in my teeth and I don’t know it’s there? I’ve been writing down ideas for conversations all day:
* Guernsey. Did he always want to stay here, or did he want to move to the mainland?
* Work. We could talk about work, and the company, and if we like our jobs. Which I do. So that should be quite positive. But I don’t want it to turn into a gossip session about everyone, that wouldn’t feel right.
* TV. We could talk about the latest series of Big Brother and how that Liverpudlian guy Craig has now got his own DIY show.
I’m doing what I can to be confident in this situation. More like Renée. Blasé about the boys. She’s casual about what happened with Matt; so cool and in control around him, even though he’s like a dog that keeps trying to hump her leg. I know she doesn’t like him, but still it’s how I wish I was with guys, at least a little bit cool. So today, that is who I am trying to be. Carefree and excited for a date with someone I think I might fancy. My vagina is healed. It’s good to go, should the opportunity arise to unleash it.
I jump as an email comes in from Phil. I’ll meet you out front at 6.05? Most people will have left by 6 so we can be a little less conspicuous. Not that we’re doing anything we shouldn’t, of course. A nice early dinner while the sun is still out ;)
Perfect! I reply. I type three kisses and then delete. As soon as I’ve sent it, I wish I’d added the kisses. I look over at Phil, he looks at his computer, then at me. He smiles. I smile back. More of a flutter in my belly than a scratch. It feels nice. Nothing to destroy.
‘Hows ya vag?’ Renée says, coming over to my desk and speaking way too loudly, just as Georgina is walking past.
‘Oooooh, girl talk. My fave. What’s the problem?’ Georgina says, rushing over. I could punch Renée, why can’t she learn how to whisper? Or maybe just stay at her desk and send an email. Actually, no, I don’t want that question on email either. When will she learn how to be professional?
‘Flo had a little slip-up with her scissors preparing for a date.’
If looks could kill, I’d be arrested for murder.
‘Ah, been there,’ Georgina says, stunning us both. ‘Yup, years of the razor blade to make it look pretty. Now I just whip the whole lot off. Bald as a coot down there, have been for years.’ She leans in. ‘Helps with sensitivity too.’ She raises her eyebrows over and over again. As she gets closer to me, I notice that her ’tache is still firmly in place. How fascinating to know she goes to the effort of a full bikini wax but leaves the hairs on her face to thrive. I can now see that Chloe is listening too. She comes over. There is now a huddle of women around my desk whispering about their pubic hair.
‘Landing strip for me,’ Chloe says, flooring Renée, whose jaw has hit the floor. ‘I have a great girl in St Martin who does it for me if you need a recommendation. She’s a honey, we have such a laugh when she does it. Sometimes I even book the last appointment of the day so we can go for a cocktail after. Wax and Cocktails, that would be a good name for a salon, wouldn’t it?’ Georgina finds this hilarious, and she and Chloe share this moment in the most bizarre representation of the female bond I think I have ever seen.
‘Anyway, good luck on the date,’ Georgina says, heading off to the loos.
‘Oooh, I might go too, before my call,’ says Chloe, following her. Renée and I watch them both walk away. I look over to Phil, he didn’t seem to hear any of that, thank God. Renée is still standing there, unable to find her words. ‘Was there anything else?’ I say loudly and professionally. She turns around like a zombie, and heads back to her desk.
‘Hi Flo,’ says Phil, as I walk outside at the end of the day. The way he says my name is so nice. I always thought he was quite shy, but I think it’s a sign of being quite self-assured, when you use someone’s name to address them. People don’t do that enough. I’m going to do it more.
‘Hi Phil,’ I reply, confidently.
He tells me he’s booked a table at the fancy Chinese on the front. I’ve had takeaway from there loads of times, but never eaten in the restaurant. This feels very grown-up. We walk, making polite chitchat about various shops, cafés and bars we like. I feel like people are looking at me and wondering if Phil is my boyfriend, but of course they are not. Why do I do that? I’m such a private person and consider myself fundamentally shy, yet I have enough arrogance, or anxiety, or whatever it is, to suspect everyone around me is thinking negative thoughts about me. Why do I presume they care? I just do. It’s exhausting, I want it to stop. I try to shake those thoughts out of my head, and concentrate on being reasonable company for Phil. He asked me out. He wants me here.
‘I love this place,’ he says when we arrive at the restaurant. He’s looking around and smiling, like this room is full of fabulous memories. ‘My mum and I come here a lot.’
‘Oh, that’s nice,’ I say. Wondering if it is cute or weird that he brought me to the place he likes to go with his mum. I decide it’s cute, for the sake of my nerves. ‘Whereabouts are you from on the island?’
‘I was born in St Sampson. My dad owned a fleet of lorries and his yard was up near L’Ancresse. It’s weird, but we rarely came to town when I was growing up. It always felt like so far away when actually it’s a six-minute drive.’
He laughs. I laugh. We laugh together.
‘Shall we get a drink?’ I say, needing one urgently. We order a bottle of white wine and when it comes, I drink the first glass quickly to acclimatise. He fills my glass up again, which I think is very nice of him. I try to drink the next glass a little more gracefully. This isn’t a night out, it’s a date, there is a difference.
‘I drink when I’m nervous,’ I tell him, a little looser. Suddenly feeling like I need to explain why I drink so much when I’m with him.
‘I think we all do,’ he says. ‘Alcohol has a terrible way of making us feel better in the moment. The amount of times I’ve said, “I will regret this tomorrow” but keep going anyway.’
‘Me too, me too. I sometimes think I won’t drink tonight and then … three bottles later!’ I laugh. He sort of laughs. ‘Three bottles is a lot,’ he says, and I nod because it is.
‘My dad drank a lot. He died, actually, at forty-two. He didn’t take care of himself. A lot of drinking, a lot of smoking, and the most aerobic thing I ever saw him do was chase one of my sister’s boyfriends down the road.’ He laughs, but I don’t find it funny.
‘My dad died too,’ I say. ‘I’m so sorry about yours. Mine didn’t look after himself either.’
‘I know about your dad, Flo, you told me all about it that night at your flat. Do you not remember?’
‘Oh, of course,’ I say, flippantly. ‘Silly me.’ I could die of shame. I told him about Dad when I was drunk? Oh God, poor Phil, poor Dad. Oh, this is horrible.
‘You were very open with me. It was lovely.’ OK, it was lovely, maybe things are all right. ‘Look at us, though, they’d be proud, don’t you think? The best we can do is not follow in their footsteps. Do you exercise?’
‘I run to the fridge,’ I say, sounding like Renée and finding myself hilarious. Phil laughs too. I changed the mood all by myself, Renée would be proud. This is going well. He raises his glass.
‘To our dads.’
‘To our dads.’
‘And to us.’
‘And to us.’ I feel some tears gather at the back of my eyes but manage to keep them in.
‘I wish our dads hadn’t died but I am grateful for this connection, it doesn’t happen very often,’ Phil says. And we both sit in silence for a few seconds. I feel a responsibility to move the conversation on.
‘So, what do you think of the new notebooks I ordered?’ I say. He looks up quickly, as if I must be joking to say something so unthinkably lame. He pauses and realises I wasn’t. I imagine the look on my face is something between shame and needing to go to the toilet. ‘“Notebooks”? Wow,’ I laugh, ‘that’s my very own “I carried a watermelon”.’
He laughs. I am so relieved. ‘Dirty Dancing,’ he says, ‘I love that movie. My sister used to watch it all the time. I pretended not to, but secretly loved it. Maybe later we can try and do the lift down on the High Street?’ I laugh far too loudly. I even snort. It’s the kind of laugh that silences us both again. Like we need to let the air settle after I disrupted it. We look at the menu. He asks me if there’s anything I don’t like, and when I say no, he just orders for us. Probably what he and his mum eat when they come here. It’s OK, I tell myself. That doesn’t have to be unsexy.
‘I’m sorry if you felt embarrassed after the other night, Flo,’ he says, taking me by surprise. ‘I realise you were very drunk, and I felt like we should probably talk about it.’
I pick up a prawn cracker and direct it towards my mouth. The waiter sets down some chicken satay on skewers. I am so relieved that I can continue to put things into my mouth so there is no pressure for me to speak. I have wanted to know what happened that night every second of every day for a week, but now he is sitting opposite me, I don’t think I can handle the conversation. I push far too much of the skewer into my mouth and stab myself in the back of the throat. I violently cough, wondering if I have permanently punctured my larynx. I down another full glass of wine to try to clear it away. Phil calls the waitress over to get me some water, instead I reach for his wine and drink that too.
‘Wow, sorry about that,’ I say, eventually getting my voice back. He’s been trying not to look at me for about five minutes, I should have just gone to the toilet. ‘Those skewers are long. What were we saying? Oh yes, Guernsey. It’s very pretty, no, small. NO, sorry, it’s bigger than what you thought, or something. What was it?’ I casually pick up the bottle and refill our glasses, his first, to be polite.
‘No, Flo, I … What I was saying was—’
‘Phil, it’s fine. We don’t have to talk about it. I’m cool, you’re cool. Let’s just be cool, cool?’ I offer him two thumbs up to highlight my point. Who the hell do I think I am, the Fonz?
‘I think there may have been some confusion. You don’t remember what happened, well I want to assure you I don’t take adv—’
‘Don’t remember? Of course I remember!’ I say, sternly. Why, I’m not sure. He knows I don’t remember because I asked him if we had sex. And I want to know, and this was my chance to find out, so why the fuck am I ruining it?
‘Oh, OK. It’s just that I thought you said you … but if you remember then that’s great. OK, phew,’ he says, looking enormously relieved. ‘Everything is fine then.’
‘Totally fine,’ I confirm, kicking myself. I could have had all the answers and now I will never know. I still have no idea if we kissed or did anything sexual. I signal to the waitress for another bottle of wine. ‘Sorry, I presume you want more white?’ I say, raising my eyebrows.
‘Sure,’ he says. I detect hesitation but order it anyway. ‘It’s a school day tomorrow though, so this will be the last one for me.’
So sensible. It’s quite hot. I imagine him in thirty years being the driver when we go to friends’ houses for dinner parties. He will watch me socialise and think ‘look at my wonderful wife, always the life and soul of the party’. And then he will drive me home and tell me I am cute when I am drunk. I shake my face and stop thinking about the future Mr and Mrs Phil.
The rest of dinner goes well, I think. I did spill a glass of water across the table, but the waitress came over pretty quickly to mop it up. It made me laugh. Phil stood up, his chair made a loud scraping noise. Everyone turned to look. Phil didn’t really laugh, but none of the water landed on him so it was OK. At the end we got fortune cookies. Phil’s said he was likely to make some money soon. Mine said, ‘All the answers you need are right there in front of you.’ Such bollocks.
We split the bill. I made a song and dance about insisting, even though he didn’t offer to pay.
‘Shall we go to a bar?’ I ask, as we leave the restaurant. It’s still light, a beautiful summer’s evening. It feels like we’re emerging from underground. I hold onto Phil’s arm.
‘We can, but I’m done drinking now. I have a pitch tomorrow.’
‘Oh come on, it’s only eight p.m. The sun hasn’t even set yet. I’ll have you all tucked up in bed by nine, let’s go for one more.’
He smiles cheekily and agrees. ‘OK, one more. Because you asked so nicely.’
We arrive at Albion Tavern. Having got our drinks at the bar, we make our way into a smaller room, heading for a table in the far corner. But unbeknownst to me there’s a huge step that divides the room and I fall off it and collapse like a building that’s been detonated. ‘Flo, bloody hell!’ Phil says, bending down to me. My drink has gone everywhere. Someone starts rubbing me down with blue paper towels. I pretend to be totally fine and laugh maniacally, saying things like ‘Phew! That could have been terrible.’ And, ‘I think I owe you all a drink.’ I stand up with the help of Phil, and hobble over to the empty table. The barman comes over with a glass of water and asks if I’m all right.
‘Totally fine,’ I tell him. ‘I just lost my footing.’ Phil looks to the barman and assures him we won’t be ordering any more drinks.
‘Flo, drink some more water?’
‘Why?’
‘You’re not being very … you again.’
‘Very “me again”? What does that mean?’
‘Flo, please, drink the water.’
‘Oh, all right.’ I pick up the pint of water and down it in huge glugs. Phil tries to stop me. ‘No Flo, not like that, you’ll hurt yourself.’ I slam the glass down, attracting more attention from the barman. And then a sharp pain shoots across my chest, like I’m being stabbed. I grab the sides of the table and screech as tears pour from my eyes.
The barman rushes over, he looks mad. Phil says something about it being gas, that I drank my water too quickly. That he will get me out as soon as I have caught my breath. The pain gets so bad, I drop to all fours and arch my back, then lower it in an attempt to get the air out. Eventually, I silence the rest of the bar with a huge, satisfying belch.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say outside, the air hitting my face. ‘That was embarrassing, and I am embarrassed.’
We walk down the high street. I loop my arm around Phil’s and lean on him to disguise any unsteadiness.
‘It’s OK,’ he says, squeezing my shoulders. ‘I did warn you not to drink that quickly, but at least you’re all right. You seem to have sobered up a bit too, I think? That good old Guernsey air.’
‘Sure,’ I say, because I think that’s what I should say. ‘Will you walk back with me?’
‘Of course.’
We get to the door of the flat. ‘Shall I see you up?’ he says, chivalrous as ever. I try to act sober as we walk up the stairs.
‘Renée isn’t home, the flat is all ours,’ I say, knowing what I want to do and hoping he wants the same. ‘Nightcap?’
‘Sure, but just one.’
While Phil waits in the living room, I make some drinks in the kitchen. I make two very strong vodka sodas and down them both. I’m nervous again all of a sudden. Phil is here, he came back, are we going to have sex? I make two more drinks, normal strength this time.
‘Would you like to come upstairs with me?’ I say boldly, handing Phil one of the drinks. I can do this, I can do this.
I hear a voice, like I’m underwater and someone is shouting from above. The voice speaks again.
‘Flo, seriously. I told you if you did that again, I’d leave.’ I see someone standing over me. A man. A big blur that slowly comes into focus. It’s Phil, he’s doing up his trousers. Where am I? Did I zone out from the booze?
‘What?’ I ask. Was I asleep?
‘You heard me. We were kissing and it was so nice, and then … I … I told you three times I didn’t want to do that, but you kept pushing it. I mean it, Flo, I’m going to go home.’
I can’t have been asleep. What was I doing? I realise my trousers are on the floor, my ladybird shirt is open. What just happened?
‘What did I do?’ I ask, coming round.
‘What game are you playing, Flo?’
‘Game? What game?’ I ask, reaching for my trousers and pulling them back on. I do up my shirt, as I try to remember something, anything. These blackouts happen, I wake up in a different world. ‘Phil, I’m really sorry.’
He rubs his hands over his face. ‘Look, it’s fine. I just, how many times did I have to tell you I don’t like that? I’m going home, I’ll see you at work. Dinner was nice. The rest of the night … I dunno Flo, I think you … it’s not my place to say. Get some sleep, I’ll see you at work.’ He leaves.
‘DON’T SLAM THE FRONT DOOR!’ I shout after him. He doesn’t, because he is nice. I lie back on my bed, my head thumping for so many reasons. What the hell did I do? No matter how much I try to remember, I can only recall getting home, downing the two drinks in the kitchen. It’s 10.30, an entire hour just gone.
The door of the flat flies open, Renée is home. She pounds up the stairs and nudges open my bedroom door.
‘Just saw Phil on the way out, he seemed stressed. Was tonight OK?’
‘Fine. Yup. He just has a presentation tomorrow. Tea?’
I go into the kitchen, put on the kettle and get two mugs ready. As I stand there waiting for the kettle to boil, the rat comes to life in my belly again. It pulls and scratches at my insides, trying to get up my throat. Its red eyes burning holes, its sharp teeth trying to bite. No breath will calm it down this time. I open the cupboard to the left of the sink. There is a half-empty bottle of vodka. The rat flinches at the sight of it. As the kettle gets louder, I reach for a glass. I pour as much of the vodka as will fit and drink it all in one go.
