Eight
By the time I’m standing on a street corner the next afternoon, I feel almost limp with the exertion of waiting to see Matt again. My head has ached. I’ve paced around. I’ve checked my phone every five seconds for a text from him. It’s only been twenty-four hours, but I’ve barely survived.
My body has actually been pining for him. I don’t want to sound overdramatic, but he’s crystal meth. In a good way. My physiology has changed. I can never not be with him again.
As I see him emerging from the tube station, I feel such relief and exhilaration I could almost burst into tears…mixed up with a sudden shyness. Because here’s the weird thing: This guy in his black jeans and gray T-shirt isn’t Dutch. He’s Matt. Matt with his driver and his job and his life. And I don’t really know Matt, not yet.
He looks a little trepidatious, too, and we both laugh awkwardly as he nears me.
“Hi! You made it.”
“Good to see you.”
He wraps his arms round me, and as we kiss I close my eyes, remembering the taste and feel of Dutch. For a moment I’m back in Italy, back in the glorious bubble…but as we draw apart, my eyes open and we’re in London again, and I don’t even know if he has a middle name.
“So! Come and meet my…my life, I guess!” I say, trying to sound relaxed as I lead him along the street. “I’m not too far from the tube.”
As I say the words, I have a sudden mad flashback to Sarika’s deal-breaker and imagine Matt replying severely, “Well, as long as it’s not more than ten minutes.”
The very thought makes me want to laugh. It just shows how messed up modern love has become! Deal-breakers are wrong. Deal-breakers are anti-love. If you ask me, deal-breakers are the work of the devil.
Matt has taken my hand and we’re walking in step together, and right now I can only pity all those tragic people who place such weight on artificial factors that have nothing to do with genuine love. I mean, I love Sarika to bits, but no dancers? What kind of rule is that? What if, like, the main guy at the Royal Ballet asked her out? What then?
“Do you believe in deal-breakers?” I can’t help saying aloud as we walk along. “I mean, do you have any?”
“Deal-breakers?” Matt looks startled. “What, you mean—”
“Do I need to worry?” I clarify teasingly. “You know, like, some guys won’t date a girl who’s a smoker, or…” I think a moment. “Drinks instant coffee.”
This is a real one. A few months ago Sarika saw an article saying 53 percent of people would never drink instant coffee or date anyone who did. Whereupon she sent round a WhatsApp to the squad: Urgent!!! Throw out your instant coffee!!! I didn’t have any, but I had some instant carob substitute drink, which I moved to the back of my cupboard, just in case.
But Matt seems perplexed by the idea.
“Jeez,” he says after a moment. “No. That’s not how I think. You can’t define…I’m not wild about smoking, but…You know.” He shrugs. “Everything depends.”
“That’s how I think too,” I say eagerly. “It’s not about deal-breakers. I don’t have any either. I can’t even imagine having any.” We walk on for a few minutes, then I add, “I read up about your family company. It sounds amazing!”
It didn’t take much sleuthing. Googling Matt Warwick brought him up straightaway. Chief operating officer, Warwick Toys Inc. Brands: Harriet’s House, Harriet’s World, Harriet’s Friends.
And of course, once I read the words “Harriet’s House,” I realized. It’s those dollhouses with the thatched roofs. Harriet is the doll with the red hair and the tartan skirt. Loads of my friends had one when I was a kid. I never had the house or the doll, but I had a secondhand pony and a couple of Harriet’s rabbits.
According to the website, there are seventy-six different houses, plus more than two thousand figures and accessories to collect. Which I can believe because one girl at my school had a whole roomful of the stuff. What I didn’t realize was that Harriet’s House is a global phenomenon, according to the website. There are even Harriet’s House theme parks in Dubai and Singapore. Who knew? (Not me, obviously.)
The company is still “proud to be family run,” so I got a good look at Matt’s dad, who is CEO and has his own page on the website. He’s very good-looking—a lot like Matt, just with gray hair and a warm, craggy face. I have an instinct that we’ll really get on.
“Yup,” says Matt. “Well…it’s a thing.”
He doesn’t sound like he wants to talk about his family company much, and it is Sunday, so I decide to drop it for now. It’s not like we’ll be short of topics.
As we approach my house, I feel prickles of excitement. I’m so proud of where I live. I’ve decorated and furnished it with love. I’ve been creative with my ideas and really pushed myself. Nothing’s bland.
“Well, this is me!” I say as I usher Matt through the main front door. “At least, I’m on the top floor. It’s up the stairs.”
I fell in love with my attic flat the minute I saw it. It’s so original. It’s so quirky. It has cornices and original fireplaces and even an old wrought-iron fire escape leading down from the kitchen, which I love. I’ve filled every step with scented herbs in pots, and sometimes I take a glass of wine out and perch on the top step. It gives Harold a route out into our little garden too.
As we climb the last flight of stairs, I can hear Harold yelping excitedly—he knows I’m coming—and I beam at Matt.
“Harold’s waiting. I can’t wait for you to meet properly.”
I open my front door, and Harold leaps on me with joy, barking and snuffling and lifting up his front paws in expectation.
“Sorry,” I say, smiling apologetically over his head at Matt. “We have this routine when I come home….I missed you.” I address Harold lovingly and kiss his head. “I missed you. I missed you.” I’m holding Harold’s paws and waltzing round with him, and I suddenly wish Matt was in this with us.
“Join in!” I say invitingly, and extend a hand to him, but Matt gives us a slightly frozen smile.
“It’s OK,” he says. “I’m good. Were you out all day or something?”
“No,” I say over my shoulder. “I just popped to the tube to meet you.”
“Right.” Matt seems baffled. “So…you do this dance every time you come home?”
“It’s our thing. Isn’t it, Harold, my love?” I kiss his head one last time, then release his paws, and he trots off to the kitchen. “He’s a rescue dog,” I tell Matt. “He was found abandoned by the A414 when he was a puppy.” Just the thought gives me a stabbing pain in my heart. Who could abandon a dog as adorable as Harold? Who?
“That’s rough.” Matt winces.
“But I gave him a home, and—” I break off before I get too emotional. “Anyway. He’s happy now.”
“Good for you.” Matt takes a step down the hall, looking around with an expression I can’t quite read. It’s not the widest hall, but I’ve brightened it up with turquoise paint and lots of Portuguese beaded hangings, which I got on holiday. Plus gold paint on the cornices, which is an idea I saw in a design magazine.
There’s also a huge, ugly shelving unit blocking the way, which I hasten to explain.
“Remember I said I was into furniture? Well, that’s going to be upcycled.”
“Right.” Matt stares at it for a silent moment. “When you said you were into collecting furniture, I thought…” He seems to stop himself. “Anyway. No. Great!”
“My friend Maud upcycles furniture with chalk paint. She’s amazing, only she’s got a backlog at the moment….Careful, don’t get a splinter,” I add as he takes another step. “It needs to be sanded.”
“Got you.” He nods, edging carefully past it. “Nice plant,” he adds, looking at my yucca in the corner.
He’s saying all the right things. I love him even mor
e.
“That’s my rescue yucca.” I beam at him.
“Rescue yucca?”
“I found it in a skip. These people had just thrown it out!” I can’t help sounding indignant. “A living plant! They shouldn’t be allowed to have plants. So I thought, I’ll give you a home, lovely.” I touch its leaves affectionately. “And now it’s thriving. So. Anyway. Come and have a drink.”
I lead him into the main room, which is a living-room-cum-kitchen. It’s a drop-dead gorgeous room, even if it needs a bit of a tidy, and I survey it with bursting pride. It’s decorated in the same turquoise as the hall, with purple-painted bookshelves everywhere I could fit them. It has multicolored floral House of Hackney feature wallpaper in the chimney breast. And—pièce de résistance—two amazing sixties chandeliers in orange glass, which complement the dark-green sofa perfectly.
For a moment Matt stands in the doorway, seemingly speechless at the sight.
“Colorful,” he says at last.
“I love color,” I say modestly. “It’s my thing.”
“I see that.” Matt nods a few times. “Yes. I see that.”
“Glass of wine? Or a beer?”
“Beer, thanks.”
As I head to the fridge, Matt surveys the nearest bookshelf—and when I join him, he glances up with a furrowed brow.
“Drystone Walling in the Vales. Theory of Modular Electronics. You have eclectic tastes.”
“Oh, those.” I hand him his beer. “Cheers.”
“Cheers.” He swigs his beer, then adds, “The Chevrolet: A Guide, published 1942. Seriously? And this one’s in…” He pulls out a hardback. “What language is this? Czech? Do you read Czech?”
“A lot of these books I didn’t exactly buy to read,” I clarify. “I suppose they’re like…rescue books.”
“Rescue books?” Matt looks dumbfounded.
“Sometimes I go into a junk shop and I see an old book…and it speaks to me. I think, if I don’t buy this book, no one will. And then it’ll be destroyed. It’ll be pulped! I feel as though it’s, like, my responsibility to buy them.” I run a sweeping hand along my bookshelf. “These would all be pulp if I hadn’t rescued them!”
“Oh.” Matt swigs his beer. “Would that matter?”
I stare at him in shock. Would that matter? For the first time ever, I feel a tiny tension between us—because what kind of person doesn’t care about the plight of books?
But, then, we can have our little differences, I remind myself. It’s not a big deal.
“Sit down. Let’s have some music.” Smiling at Matt, I find my favorite playlist on my phone and hook it up to my Buddha speakers. I sit next to Matt on the sofa and sip my drink contentedly as the music fills the room. Then I blink. Did Matt just wince?
No. He couldn’t have winced. No one winces at music. Especially music as relaxing as this.
“What is this?” he says after a pause.
“It’s called Mexican spirit power music,” I explain eagerly. “They use special pipes and flutes. It’s guaranteed to calm you.”
“Huh,” says Matt after another pause.
“What kind of music do you like?” I ask conversationally.
“Oh, all sorts.”
“Me too!” I say quickly. He might prefer chimes, I’m thinking. Or the harp. I’m already summoning up my Spotify playlists when he adds, “I guess mostly Japanese punk.”
I stare at him, a bit dumbfounded. Japanese punk?
“Right,” I say, after a long silence. “Awesome. Er…” I glance down at my phone. “I’m not sure I’ve got that much Japanese punk…”
The closest I have probably is “Cardio Energizing Music,” and I’m not sure that’s very close at all.
“This is fine.” He smiles and swigs his beer, then surveys a nearby poster, which I bought from a gallery. Its frame is covered in silk petals and it’s gorgeous.
“ ‘You can cut all the flowers, but you can’t stop spring from coming,’ ” he reads aloud.
“I love that, don’t you?” I say. “Isn’t it inspiring?”
Matt looks at the poster again with a puzzled frown. “Well, actually, you would,” he says.
“What?”
“You would stop spring from coming. Surely. If you cut every single flower before it had a chance to set seed. And what about pollination? If you cut every flower literally at the moment it bloomed, bees would die out. Cut all the flowers, what do you have? Dead bees.”
Dead bees? He looks at a lovely inspirational quote about flowers and sees dead bees?
“Although I suppose it depends what you’re defining as ‘spring,’ ” he continues thoughtfully. “Cutting all the flowers wouldn’t affect the earth’s rotation; it’s more of a biodiversity issue.”
I’m feeling a weird emotion rising inside me. Is it…annoyance? No. It can’t be annoyance. Of course it’s not. This is Dutch. This is Matt. This is my love.
“I don’t think it’s supposed to be literally about flowers,” I say, making sure to smile.
“OK.” He gives an easy shrug, and my heart melts again, because he’s not trying to score points, is he? He’s just a logical person. Super-logical. (Possibly over-logical.)
“Come here,” I say, and pull him in for a kiss, and as soon as I do, I forget I ever felt even a smidgen of annoyance with him. Because, oh God, I love this man. I want to kiss him forever. I want to be with him forever.
At last, reluctantly, I pull away and say, “I’d better check on the food.”
“Cool.” He touches my cheek softly, then says, “Where’s the bathroom?”
As Matt disappears into the loo, I take the opportunity to whip out my phone, because I’ve promised to let the squad know how it’s going, and frankly, I’m looking forward to telling them it’s all going brilliantly.
They’ve all been so cynical. So negative. Especially Nell, who keeps saying, “But you don’t know him.” Even Maud, who is generally a very positive person, said, “Ava, you need to stop using the word ‘love.’ You don’t love this man. You don’t know enough about him to love him.” And Sarika predicted he would ghost me.
Ghost me? I was so insulted. Ghost me? This is Dutch. I mean, this is Matt. He would never ghost anyone!
Sure enough, as I open up our WhatsApp chat, it’s full of messages:
So? Ava?
Come on, spill!
Are you married yet???
Firmly I type:
All wonderful!! A-plus date!!! We’re 100% compatible!!
Which is true. We are. Apart from a couple of minute details like the Japanese punk. But that makes us 99.9 percent compatible, and I’m rounding up.
In the kitchen, my tagine is bubbling away nicely, and as I lift the lid, it fills the air with delicious, spicy fumes.
“Wow,” says Matt appreciatively as he enters. “Looks fantastic.”
“Thanks!” I beam at him.
“Your back doorframe has gone soft,” he adds, prodding it. “Dry rot, maybe. And the glass doesn’t look too secure. Did you know?”
“Oh, it’s been like that forever.” I smile at him. “It’s fine.”
“Isn’t that a security risk?” he says, undeterred. “You should get someone to look at that. Or replace it with double glazing.”
Double glazing? Replace my quirky original door with double glazing?
“Don’t worry.” I laugh. “We’re really safe here.” I stir my tagine a few times, then add, “Could you pass the harissa?”
“Harissa?” Matt’s brow crinkles as though he doesn’t understand the question.
“Harissa paste,” I elaborate.
Maybe he uses some different word for it. An authentic Lebanese word. Although, wait, isn’t “harissa” Lebanese?
“Harissa pas
te?” repeats Matt blankly, and I swivel round, feeling equally baffled.
“Harissa,” I say, reaching for the little jar. “Spice paste. Ottolenghi.”
“What’s Ottolenghi?” replies Matt with interest, and I nearly drop my spoon on the floor. What’s Ottolenghi? I peer at him to see if he’s joking, but I don’t think he is.
“He’s a cook,” I say faintly. “He’s quite famous. Really famous. Like, incredibly, incredibly famous.”
I’m waiting for the light to dawn in Matt’s eyes. For him to exclaim, “Oh, Ottolenghi.” But he doesn’t.
“Huh.” He nods, watching as I stir in the harissa. “So…what’s in the stew?”
“Um…um…” I try to get past the fact he’s never heard of Ottolenghi and focus on my dish. “Adzuki beans, onions, sweet potatoes…”
“Cool.” Matt nods again, then adds, “What meat?”
“Meat?” I swivel on my heel and stare at him, baffled. He’s not joking. Oh my God. My stomach has plunged to my heels, because how can he…Meat?
“Is it chicken?” says Matt, peering at the tagine.
“I’m vegetarian!” I say, more shrilly than I intended. “I thought you realized! I thought…” I swallow. “I thought you were vegetarian.”
“Me?” He seems astounded. “Vegetarian?”
“The monastery was vegetarian,” I point out, trying to contain my agitation. “I’ve only ever seen you eat vegetarian food.”
“I know, right?” He grimaces. “I was, like, it’s only a week. I’ll survive. But I tell you, last night I fell on a burger.”
For a moment I can’t quite answer.
“Right,” I say at last. “Right. Well. I’m a vegetarian. So. That’s…So.”
I’m stirring my tagine in agitation, my face hot. How can he not be vegetarian? I almost feel like he fooled me. He deceived me.
It’s not the end of the world, I tell myself desperately. It’s just…Oh God. It was all so perfect.
“But you have a bone simmering on your hob,” says Matt, gesturing at the stove with a baffled look. “How is that vegetarian?”
I focus on the stove anew. Oh, right. That’s why he got confused. Actually, that’s quite funny. I’m so used to Harold’s food by now, I almost blank it out.