Dinner for Two (18 page)

It’s Saturday morning, over a week since Nicola and I went to Burger King, and I’ve vacillated between feelings of acute excitement and complete terror of being caught. No matter what I do Nicola is always on my mind. I’ve been rolling the situation around in my head thinking that there must be a solution to what’s going on if only I can find it.

Nicola and I have been talking on the phone, trying to sort out another time when we can meet up next but it has been difficult. Today, though, I’m going to see her because Jenny, Stella and Izzy set off to Brighton for a day out early this morning. When I found out they were going I called Nicola to see if she could meet me. Ever since I’ve been feeling nervous and now I feel like a teenage boy on his first date. I’ve even bought a new pair of Diesel jeans and I’m wearing a dark-blue Evisu sweatshirt Izzy bought me and my favourite white shell-toe Adidas trainers. Kids are obsessed with designer labels and, though it might be shallow, I want Nicola to be one hundred per cent impressed with me.

I’ve arranged to meet her two streets away from her home and told her to look out for me in a white Mercedes convertible. When she sees me she waves and a big grin spreads over my face. I pull over, get out of the car and put the hood down – it’s not the warmest day of the year but it’s not freezing either.

‘This car’s wicked,’ says Nicola. ‘I didn’t realise you were so cool.’

She’s wearing a knee-length denim skirt, an Adidas track-suit top zipped right up to her chin and chunky-looking trainers. She looks like a miniature streetwise pop star and seems a lot more at ease than the last time I’d seen her.

‘Where does your mum think you are?’ I ask, as she climbs into the car.

‘At drama club, and then I told her I’m going to the library.’ She adjusts her seat-belt. ‘So that gives me about five hours. Where have you told Izzy you are?’

‘Nowhere. She’s gone to Brighton for the day.’

She nods but doesn’t say anything for a while. Neither of us is proud of ourselves for having lied to people we love.

She turns to me and says, ‘I’ve decided I’m not going to worry any more.’

‘You’ve decided, just like that?’ I repeat.

‘We’ve only met twice and . . . well, both times I spent too much time worrying and it’s a waste of time, isn’t it? This isn’t
that
weird, is it? You’re my dad. I’ve got every right to spend time with you if I want to. So I’m over all that being nervous lark. And I’m not going to worry any more.’

It’s strange seeing these two sides of her personality: her shy side and her slightly more precocious side. Multiple personalities must run in the family. It’s definitely stretching a point but I feel like at the moment I’ve got four: ‘po-faced music journalist’, agony uncle, husband and now father to a thirteen-year-old.

‘Okay,’ I say. ‘No more weirdness. No more worrying.’ I reach for the ignition key and stop. ‘One thing, though.’

‘What?’

‘Have you thought about what we’re going to do today? What do you fancy?’

‘I don’t mind,’ she says.

‘Cinema?’

She shrugs.

‘Are you hungry?’

She shakes her head.

‘The park?’

She shrugs.

‘Come on,’ I encourage. ‘What would you really want to do if you could do anything right now?’

‘I’d like to see where you live,’ she says, almost inaudibly.

‘Why?’

‘Because I’m interested in your life.’

I think about her request and the attendant problems. First, the neighbours in the flats above and below might spot her. Second, if the two of us are going to sit in the flat for the next few hours I’m going to have to entertain her and I’m not sure how to entertain a thirteen-year-old without fast food. Third, there’s the terrifying but unlikely scenario of Izzy returning early.

However, if this is what Nicola wants, I want her to have it. Of course she’s curious about my life – I’m just as curious about hers. I want to know all about the thirteen years of her life that I’ve missed out on. I want to know what she was like as a baby and as a toddler, her first day at school, who her friends are. I want to know everything too but I’m aware of pressuring her. I just have to remind myself that I’ll learn all about her in time.

‘Are you sure that’s what you want to do?’ I say eventually.

‘If that’s okay with you. You won’t get into trouble with Izzy, will you?’

‘No, of course not.’

I start the car and as we head towards Muswell Hill I take out the Ministry of Sound album I’ve borrowed from the
Teen Scene
office and slip it into the car’s CD player. And even though I can’t stand dance music I turn the volume right up for Nicola’s benefit and drive.

‘That was
so
cool,’ says Nicola, as I pull up outside my flat forty-five minutes later, having made a detour through Crouch End and Highgate so that she could spend more time posing in the car.

‘Yeah, it was.’ I point to the house where the flat is. ‘This is where I live.’

She climbs out of the car, helps me put the hood back up, then follows me up the pathway. I don’t have any plan ready in case I bump into anyone – whatever happens, happens.

‘Are you thirsty?’ I ask, as we go in.

‘I’m all right for the minute, thanks.’

The cat strolls into the hallway from the kitchen and eyes her with a degree of alarm. ‘This is Arthur,’ I say, pointing to the cat who is now sat by the radiator watching me carefully.

Nicola kneels down and starts rubbing her fingers together to attract him. I can see he wants to go to her but he’s not sure. He looks at me disdainfully, then takes the plunge and heads straight for Nicola and starts rubbing against her ankles. She strokes his head gently and suddenly he’s purring loudly, entwining his tail around her ankles. She’s made a new best friend.

‘I take it you like cats, then?’

‘Arthur’s great,’ she says. ‘He’s got really nice eyes. But we can’t have one because Mum’s allergic.’

‘Well, you can make a fuss of Arthur for as long as you like. He doesn’t get as much attention as he’d like from me and Izzy.’ I open the door to the living room and Nicola follows, with Arthur at her heels. I turn on the TV and switch it to one of those teenage channels that have endless repeats of
Sabrina the Teenage Witch
.

Nicola doesn’t even look at it; she’s too busy stroking Arthur, who has now rolled on to his side exposing his belly.

I watch her for several moments without speaking. She seems fine. And this makes me happy. So I disappear to the kitchen and take my time over making myself a coffee.

‘So, what do you fancy doing now, then?’ It’s half an hour later and even the cat is bored of being the centre of attention. ‘I’ve got videos and DVDs we can watch – action films mostly and arty sub-titled nonsense – CDs we can listen to – a fairly eclectic collection although it doesn’t feature any Ministry of Sound compilations whatsoever.’ I point to the TV. ‘We’ve got Cable TV, so you can flick through forty-odd channels, or we could . . .’

Nicola doesn’t seem interested in any of the things I’ve suggested.

‘You don’t fancy any of it, do you?’

‘Not really.’

‘So what
do
you want to do?’

‘I was thinking about this on the way over . . .’

‘And?’

‘I’d like to see photos of you.’

‘Photos of me?’

‘I want to catch up on all the stuff I missed.’

‘Are you sure? I mean . . . won’t you be a bit bored? I’ve got a PlayStation, you know, and some pretty good games too:
Colin McRae Rally 2.0
,
Tekken 3
,
Dino Crisis 2
 . . .’

‘The photos will be fine. I really want to see them if you’ve got them.’

So that’s what we do. I collect together every single photo album in the flat, and the small suitcase filled with photos that lives under the bed and I bring them all into the living room. I show her all the black-and-white photos of my mum and dad, taken when they first arrived in England from the Caribbean; pictures of me as a baby, at school and university. I get out the wedding album too and tell her how beautiful Izzy was on that day. In the group family photos I point out Izzy’s mum and explain to her why Izzy’s dad isn’t there. Nicola asks a lot of questions about Izzy so I dig out some photos of us taken when we first met, when we were still just good friends, and then I tell her how we got together.

Izzy and I had been friends since 1992 when we’d met on a year-long post-graduate journalism course at Cardiff University and become friends almost immediately. Initially I’d thought she was pretentious because she was obsessed with being cool: wearing the right clothes, listening to the right music and going to the right clubs. Nicola asked me what had changed my mind about her and I told her that my mind hadn’t needed changing because as well as being gorgeous and cool, Izzy was an incredible person.

When we first got to know each other she and I had raging debates. ‘I’m a man,’ I used to tell her. ‘I don’t worry about relationships. If it’s working I stay. If it’s not working I leave. What’s the point in carrying on with a broken relationship when you can just go out and get yourself a brand new one? Surely I’ve got enough on my plate with working at my job to come home after a hard day and have to work on a
relationship
!’ This was why the majority of my encounters with women had lasted a total of six weeks. That, I’d discovered, was enough time for us to be passionate (weeks one and two), to fool ourselves into thinking we might be in love (weeks three, four and five), then have our first argument (week six), at which point I’d bail out.

My behaviour infuriated Izzy, who harangued me for the way I treated women. Especially when I ended a relationship because ‘she likes me too much’, ‘she likes me too little’ or my all-time favourite, ‘she’s got two Blur albums!’ when the truth was I’d got bored.

Over two post-college years we’d meet up regularly to bitch about our separate love-lives in spectacular fashion. Usually this would involve Izzy calling me up to ask my advice about whichever guy she was seeing at the time. When she’d get bored of telling me about her love life, even though I would want to talk about music, she’d drag out whichever nightmare of a relationship I was in and tell me in no uncertain way why I was acting like a pig.

On the night we got together – 14 July 1995 – we had just such a session, which took place in the flat she shared with Stella and Jenny in Ladbroke Grove. I was freelancing for
Below Zero
and Izzy had just graduated from junior to senior writer on
Femme
. I’d just split up with a beautiful girl called Katrina because I felt she was getting a little too serious. Izzy said to me – and I remember this clearly, ‘What are you afraid of?’ And I said, nothing. ‘So why do you act like such a . . .’ she began, but she didn’t finish her sentence because I kissed her and that was how it all began. That kiss led to another, and another, and with each one I realised I wasn’t feckless: I’d just never found the right woman until that moment.

After that Saturday afternoon with Nicola something changes in our relationship. The strangeness disappears. We’ll talk regularly on the phone and not just to arrange the next time to meet up – she’ll actually call me when she’s got nothing much to say. We’ll have a disjointed, awkward conversation, where I’ll ask her about her day and then she’ll ask me about mine and then she’ll tell me after five minutes that she’s got to go because her mum has got her tea or something and I’ll think to myself, Why did she phone? And then I’ll realise that in her world when you like someone, you talk to them even when you haven’t got much to say – in fact, you talk to them
especially
when you haven’t got anything to say. Because the call isn’t about communication as much as checking and double checking that your relationship is fine. Nicola has taken it upon herself to be caretaker of our budding friendship. She’s made it her job to reassure me – a thirty-two-year-old man – that everything’s okay. It feels like we both have a new, urgent mission to get to know each other before anything goes wrong. Over the following month we meet up once a week.