Loving Danny (10 page)

‘We should get you in the band, doing backing vocals,’ he said. I wasn’t sure how seriously to take him, so I just blushed and smiled. The idea of standing up on stage and
singing horrified me. The last time I’d tried – in a school concert five years before – I’d had such terrible stage fright that I’d dried up entirely, standing fixed
to the stage in silent terror until one of the teachers rescued me.

When Danny’s fingers grew tired of playing, he put down his guitar and went into the kitchen to make us toasted cheese sandwiches. After we’d eaten and wiped the globules of melted
cheese from our chins, he dimmed the lights, lit some candles and put on a chill-out CD. Then he spread himself out on the sofa and motioned that I should join him. I snuggled into his body,
resting my head on his chest and hooking my legs around his so that I didn’t fall off the edge. He stroked my hair and my face, placing his other arm around my waist. Self-consciously, I held
in my tummy for as long as I could. For a while we just lay there, listening to each other’s breathing, our eyes closed. From time to time he would pull me up towards him, so that I was
almost lying on top of him, and we would kiss.

It’s almost impossible to describe how good I felt. ‘Nice’ or ‘warm’ or ‘lovely’ or ‘wonderful’ or ‘content’ just don’t
sum it up. When you’re a child and you have a tummy-ache and someone asks you what type of pain it is, you can’t say, because you don’t have the words to explain it – so you
just say ‘it hurts’. It was the same with the pleasure I felt while I was with Danny. I simply don’t have the words in my vocabulary to explain it. All I knew was that I really
couldn’t be happier, physically or emotionally.

We must both have fallen asleep because when I next opened my eyes the candles had burned themselves out and the CD had finished playing. Trying not to wake Danny, I sat up and looked at my
watch. It was eleven o’clock. I tiptoed into the bathroom and splashed some water on my face. My hair was dishevelled, my lips slightly swollen, and the skin around them red from kissing.

I heard Danny coming into the bathroom behind me. ‘Hello, Omi,’ he said, smiling. He yawned and stretched, rubbing his eyes with his hand. The side of his face was imprinted with
creases and lines from the sofa. ‘Are you OK?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Apart from a bit of stubble rash.’

He grinned. ‘Occupational hazard.’

‘Have you seen the time?’ I asked. ‘My parents will be worrying about me.’

He looked down at his watch. ‘It’s too late to go home now,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you stay on the sofa? Call home while I go and get you a duvet and
pillow.’

I hesitated before pulling my mobile phone out of my bag. Was ‘sleep on the sofa’ a euphemism for something I wasn’t ready for? No, Danny deserved the benefit of the doubt. He
had given me no reason not to trust him; he was so gentle and thoughtful.

I decided against calling my parents – I knew they would already be in bed. So, I texted Emily instead.
HI EM. IT’S L8 SO STAYING WITH
D’S PARENTS. TL M+D NT 2 WORRY. C U 2MORROW. NX

I knew she’d received it because a few moments later my mobile beeped and there was a message in return. It read:
OK B GOOD X

‘Everything all right?’ asked Danny. I hadn’t noticed him come back in. I nodded, a little shyly. He was carrying a double duvet and two pillows, which he must have taken from
his own bed. He also had with him a huge, white T-shirt. ‘For you to sleep in,’ he said, handing it to me.

I went into the bathroom to change and squeezed out some of Danny’s toothpaste, which I swished around my mouth with my finger. Once again, I conceded that I wouldn’t be able to
remove my make-up.
Danny really isn’t good for my skin
, I thought.
But who cares?
I would gladly have endured a faceful of zits if it meant that I could spend the whole night
just a few feet from Danny.
Just a few feet
. . . The realisation made me feel uneasy and excited at the same time. Did he intend to stay in his room all night, or would he tiptoe in to join
me in the early hours?
No
, I decided again,
from all the evidence I’ve seen today I’m certain that Danny really is the perfect gentleman.

When I came back into the living room I saw that he had already made up the sofa. He pulled the duvet aside and waited for me to climb in, before smoothing the cover over me. Nobody had tucked
me in like that since I was a little girl.

‘Goodnight, Omi,’ he said, leaning over to give me one last, lingering kiss. He paused, as if he couldn’t make up his mind about something, and then stroked my cheek.
‘I’ll see you in the morning,’ he whispered. ‘Sweet dreams.’

‘Good night,’ I said, smiling up at him. I felt happy and warm and protected. Looking back, I think it was at exactly
that
moment that I started truly loving Danny.

I
came round to the sound of a distant vacuum cleaner. Danny was standing over me, holding a cup of tea. He was wearing just a T-shirt and boxer
shorts and I couldn’t help noticing how unexpectedly good his legs were – strong and toned, like a footballer’s.

‘Good morning,’ he whispered. ‘That’s just the cleaning lady in the main house. Don’t worry, she doesn’t come in here on Mondays.’

‘What time is it?’ I croaked.

‘About ten,’ said Danny. ‘Pretty early for me, actually.’

‘Ten? Oh my God!’ I sat up, forgetting for an instant how dreadful I must look and then wishing I could hide back under the duvet. ‘It’s Monday. I was supposed to be at
work an hour ago!’

‘Oh.’ Danny sounded disappointed. ‘I suppose I could drive you there if you want.’

‘But I haven’t got my work clothes with me.’ Now I was panicking.

‘Calm down, Omi. It’s not the end of the world. Look, why don’t you call in sick and we can spend the day together.’

‘No, I can’t. I mean I shouldn’t. Oh, I don’t know!’

‘What are they going to do to you? Arrest you?’ he gently mocked. ‘Hang you? I don’t think so. Go on, live dangerously.’

I thought about it for a second and then realised Danny was right. Calling in sick was simpler than going home, getting changed and then being two hours late. How would I explain that? And what
could they do to me, anyway? I hadn’t taken any time off sick before, not even when I genuinely didn’t feel well. Surely one day was acceptable. They probably wouldn’t even miss
me.

‘OK, I’ll do it,’ I said, before I could change my mind again. ‘Danny Evans, you are a bad influence.’

I insisted that Danny leave the room and sent him off to get dressed while I made the call. I was worried I’d burst out laughing if I saw his face. I’d previously told him that my
boss, Mr Stevens, was a stickler for discipline and Danny had done a wicked impression, marching around the room like a sergeant major, shouting ‘Attention!’.

As I’d anticipated, the phone was answered by Kathy, the office receptionist.

‘Hello, Kathy,’ I said, in the huskiest voice I could muster. ‘I’m really sorry, but,’ (cough) ‘I’m not very well today.’

‘Oh, you poor love,’ said Kathy, with so much sympathy that I felt guilty. ‘You sound terrible. Don’t you worry, I’ll tell Mr Stevens. Now go back to bed and
we’ll see you when you’re better.’

‘Thanks,’ I whispered, adding another cough for effect. ‘I’m sure I’ll be much better tomorrow.’

I hung up, sighing deeply. Danny had been waiting just outside the door and he now came back in, grinning broadly. ‘See, it wasn’t so bad,’ he said. ‘Now drink your tea
and then we’ll decide what to do with the day.’

Content, he sat down next to me, leaning back against the cushions and crossing his legs. It was the first time I had seen him close up and jacketless, in sunlight. He was wearing a clean grey
T-shirt and faded black jeans, which still smelled of washing powder. His forearms were lean and muscular, with a light covering of dark hair, and I could see his veins protruding. And then, when
he stretched out his left arm towards me – I think he was intending to take my hand – I saw something else: a long, spidery pinkish mark, like an old scar. Next to it, there were other
marks, some redder, some whiter, etching up and down his arm like doodles in a sketchbook.

‘What’s that?’ I asked.

‘What?’ he exclaimed, surprised, snatching back his arm as if from a fire.

‘That,’ I said, pointing to the big scar. ‘Did you hurt yourself? Was there an accident?’

He furrowed his brow. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That’s right, I had an accident, at school, a long time ago. It was nothing.’ He appeared to shrink back from me, pulling
himself up straight and staring into the distance. The action told me:
I don’t want to talk about this now.

‘Poor Danny,’ I said. My instincts told me there was more to it, but I didn’t want to spoil what promised to be a perfect day. ‘Poor Danny.’ I didn’t know
what else to say, so I left it at that.

We spent a wonderful day together. I said I’d prefer not to go out anywhere, in case I bumped into someone from work, so we stayed in, listening to music and chatting
about our pasts and our friends. We were filling each other in on the background to our lives, swapping anecdotes and memories. That’s the funny thing about new relationships – you feel
closer to your lover than to anyone else and yet you know virtually nothing about them, or they you. I didn’t know what Danny’s favourite colour was (he said green, like my eyes, but I
think he was trying to flatter me), or whether he could dance or swim (he claimed he could do both, and well). He didn’t know that I had broken my leg on a school trip to France five years
earlier, or that I had a pet rabbit that had died, leaving me heartbroken when I was seven. I found out that Danny had appeared in a TV advert for a breakfast cereal when he was four; he was too
embarrassed to show me the video clip and made me promise never to mention it again.

Telling each other these things is very important – you never know when the knowledge might come in handy.

‘I’ll remember never to order rabbit, then, when we go out to eat,’ said Danny, with a dark grin.

‘And I won’t mention porridge. Ever,’ I said, giggling.

I told Danny about Debbie and Holly and Natasha, and how much I missed them. I said I was certain he’d like them too and that he must meet them when they came home. He agreed, but, looking
back, he didn’t seem all that interested. He didn’t ask many questions about my friends – not like I did when we discussed his – he just nodded and ‘uh-huhed’ in
all the right places. I put it down to his being a ‘bloke’, but, if I’m honest, I was feeling a little hurt. My friends were important to me; I wanted them to be important to
Danny too.

At the start of the day I’d made Danny promise that he would drop me home by four in the afternoon, so I could shower and change before Mum got back. I’d already decided I would
pretend I had been to work and had simply left early. So, at three-fifteen, while Danny was showing me around his studio, trying (and failing) to impress me by twiddling various knobs and pressing
odd buttons, I said, ‘Danny, I think I’d better go home now.’

‘Oh, Omi,’ he said. ‘Stay a bit longer. Can’t you?’

‘No.’ I was insistent. If Dad found out I had skipped work I would never hear the end of it. I didn’t want to tell Danny my reasons – he might have thought me
childish.

‘Go on,’ teased Danny, tickling me under my chin. ‘Just a few minutes.’

I giggled and squirmed. ‘No, please, Danny. Now. Anyway, you’ve got to go and pick up the picnic basket from the park. If it’s still there, which I doubt.’

‘OK,’ he said, with the exaggerated pout of a petulant little boy. ‘I’ll go and get my jacket and keys and your stuff. Wait for me in the hall by the front
door.’

Danny took ages. I paced up and down the hall, stopping to admire the paintings on the wall (all originals) and the vases and other ornaments displayed on the sideboard. In my house we had vases
from IKEA and Habitat, but the ones in Danny’s house looked like museum pieces. I was carefully turning one around, so I could admire the ornate decoration on its handle, when I thought I
heard the front door creak open behind me.

‘Hello,’ said a woman, with a deep, throaty and rather posh voice. ‘And who might you be?’ I jumped and turned simultaneously, almost knocking over the vase. The woman
was extremely tall and elegant, with blond, sculpted hair. She was wearing an expensive-looking navy trouser suit and her make-up was perfectly applied, from her brown, pencilled-in brows to her
blood-red talons.

‘I’m Naomi,’ I said, only too conscious of my own dismal appearance. I was wearing yesterday’s muddy combats and I’d finger-combed my hair and applied new make-up
over the remnants of the old. ‘Hello.’

I moved forward to shake her hand, but she ignored me. Then she looked at me with disgust, as if I were a creature who had just stepped out of a swamp.

‘Naomi who?’

‘Naomi Waterman.’ As soon as I said it I realised she hadn’t wanted my surname. ‘Er, Danny’s Naomi.’

‘I see,’ she said, smirking. ‘Well, I’m Danny’s mother, Caroline Evans. I take it Danny is with you, or have you just wandered into my house on your own?’