Loving Danny (8 page)

‘That’s nice,’ I said. I no longer felt like telling her about Danny and I wanted the conversation to be over as quickly as possible.

‘So what’s been happening with you? Oh yes, have you gone out with that guy yet?’

So she did remember.

‘Yes, it was last night.’

‘And?’

‘And it was great. We had a really good time and I’m seeing him again tomorrow.’ I left out all the detail because I could tell she didn’t have time to hear it. The
evening deserved to be more than an anecdote; I had hoped to give her a minute-by-minute account, so she’d be as excited about Danny as me.

‘Are you upset with me, Naomi?’ she asked, meekly. She knew it wasn’t like me to be so concise.

‘No,’ I half-lied. I was upset, but I knew it wasn’t entirely her fault. If only she wasn’t so far away, then we could talk for hours, like we used to.

‘Oh. You just don’t sound like you, that’s all.’

‘Must be a bad line,’ I said. ‘Listen, I’d better go – I’ve got to go and meet Emily. I’ll call you tomorrow, after my date.’

‘Please do!’ she said, her voice rising an octave or two. She was trying to make up for her previous lack of enthusiasm. ‘Actually, no, I’ll call you – when we get
back from our trip.’

‘All right, then,’ I said. ‘Speak to you then.’

I put the phone down before she could finish saying goodbye. Was this what our friendship was going to be like from now on – snatched exchanges of headlines with no details? Then I had a
little cry and decided to do the only thing that would cheer me up: I went shopping.

I was in the Topshop changing room, working my way through a pile of chocolate brown and khaki trousers, when my phone rang. Call me psychic, but I knew it was Danny before I
saw his name come up on the screen. I had the butterflies to prove it.

‘Naomi,’ he said. I could only just hear him over the din of the music. ‘How are you?’ The intimacy we had shared the night before was gone and I was conscious once again
of the odd inflections in his hybrid accent. We were strangers again, polite and nervous strangers.

‘I’m good, thanks. How are you? Did you get home OK?’

‘I’m good, yes, no hassle. Where are you? It’s the middle of the afternoon, but if I didn’t know better, I’d swear you’d gone clubbing.’

‘You’re almost right,’ I said, laughing. ‘I’m in Topshop.’

‘Do you want to go outside? I can hardly hear you.’

‘Um, yes, wait a minute.’ I couldn’t move. My trousers were round my ankles, my shoes buried under the reject-trouser pile. ‘Actually, Danny, can I call you back in a few
minutes? I’m in the changing room and I, er, need to get dressed first.’

‘Oh, OK.’ He sounded embarrassed. He wasn’t the only one. ‘Sorry.’

‘I’ll be literally two minutes, I promise.’

I pulled on my jeans and shoes as quickly as I could and rushed out of the changing room, handing a messy pile of trousers to the shop assistant. I hadn’t put them back on their hangers
and she tutted as I walked away.
Serves you right
, I thought,
for being so unhelpful when I asked for a different size.

Once I was outside the store I paused to catch my breath. The high street was heaving with Saturday shoppers, and the roar of the traffic, with buses lined up end to end, was almost as loud as
the music I’d escaped. I headed down a side street and found a small café with tables outside. Sitting myself down, I called Danny, using the ‘Last Call Received’ option. I
wondered how long it would be before I knew his number off by heart. Would it be presumptuous of me – tempting fate – to put it on speed dial?

He picked up immediately. ‘Hi there, I was beginning to think you’d changed your mind,’ he said. ‘Or are you wearing your entire wardrobe today?’

‘I had to change into my Wonder Woman costume,’ I joked. ‘I’m out of practice. No, I thought I’d find somewhere I could actually hear you.’

‘Good. Well, you know why I’m calling. It’s about tomorrow.’

I felt a little sick. He wasn’t going to cancel me, was he? Had he had second thoughts about me? ‘Yes? Is it still all right? Weren’t you going to text me?’

‘I was,’ he said. ‘Well remembered. But I couldn’t think of a clever enough code, so I gave up and thought I’d give you a call instead. I apologise.’

‘Some spy you’d make, double-O Evans.’ I cringed at my terrible joke. He kindly ignored it.

‘So, if you still want to see me again, here’s the plan. Meet me by the pond in King Edward’s park at two p.m. And wear your Wonder Woman costume.’

‘It’s got to go to the dry cleaner’s, I’m afraid. But two in the park sounds good. I’m intrigued. Are we going to feed the ducks?’

‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘Maybe not. Enough questions – you’ll have to wait and see. I’m looking forward to it.’

‘Me too.’ He had no idea how much. ‘Bye, Danny. Take care.’

‘Bye, Omi.’

And with a click, he was gone.

I went to bed early that night, but I couldn’t sleep. Lying in so late and doing very little all day had left me with an excess of energy and no outlet for it. I tried to
read for a while, but the words danced before my eyes. After scanning the same page three times, and absorbing none of it, I gave up. The truth was that I wasn’t interested in the lives of
the characters in the novel. I only wanted to know about Danny, to discover what the next day, the next chapter in
our
story, would bring.

Even then, I had an instinct that our burgeoning relationship was to be an important one for me, something that would mark and change me, that I would talk about in years to come. I’d had
two ‘serious’ boyfriends before I met Danny, the first at fifteen and the second from sixteen to seventeen. I had cared for them both, but I had never really loved either of them, at
least not in the way I believed love should feel. Both relationships had developed out of friendship, jogging along sweetly until I grew bored and felt it was kinder to put an end to things.

Mark, the boy who had made me the compilation CD, was the son of my parents’ friends. We’d grown up together, spending summer Sunday afternoons at barbecues and evenings at each
other’s houses, ordered to play upstairs while our parents hosted dinner parties. By the time we’d turned fifteen, getting together seemed like the obvious thing to do; it would almost
have been rude not to. It was the lazy option, so much easier for both of us than meeting a stranger at a party or youth club and enduring weeks of uncertainty, coded looks and gossip. To me, Mark
represented familiarity and safety. We could practise kissing and fumbling with each other without any risk of getting hurt, or anybody else finding out.

The trouble was, I don’t think I ever really fancied Mark – I thought of him as a mate and I assumed he felt the same way. It turned out that I was very wrong. When I broke up with
him, one hot Tuesday afternoon in the summer holidays after our GCSEs (not long after he gave me the CD), he cried. He told me he’d thought we’d be together for years and that one day
we’d get married. After that, he never spoke to me again.

My second proper relationship was with Jack, a guy who joined my school in the Sixth Form. We took the same classes and often found ourselves working on joint projects. We got together at his
house while revising for a test and our relationship lasted the whole school year. I really fancied Jack – he had a mop of blond hair and an athletic build, a bit like David Beckham (though
that’s exaggerating his handsomeness). He was kind and sexy, but he was too much like hard work. He thought of himself as the strong, silent type – he rarely revealed what he was
thinking or feeling and I’d have to drag it out of him. But what he had to say was never interesting enough to merit the effort. When he had his hair cut short, I did the same to our
relationship.

Since Jack, there had been nobody special, just a few snogs at parties. I was impatient, ready for ‘the real thing’, for love and passion and excitement and intensity. And now, there
was Danny, with his music and his dark lyrics and his ambition. You could say we were a perfect fit.

I
’ve never been one for surprises – I don’t like being thrown off guard and having to improvise. I always like to be prepared, to
be wearing the right clothes and to have my things with me, just in case. What’s more, I’m not a good actress – my real emotions are too transparent – and surprises are
almost always a disappointment for me. Generally, I end up feeling guilty and the person who has gone to the trouble of surprising me wonders why they bothered.

So, while it was a lovely, romantic idea, Danny’s surprise date had me fretting. You know where you are with a bar, restaurant, cinema or club – but a park? At the end of October? I
had absolutely no idea what to wear (it might rain or be muddy), how much make-up to put on (bright sunshine can be unforgiving), and whether to shave my legs to the knee or all the way up. I was
afraid I would be forced to do something I hated, like rollerblading, or something which might require me to take off my clothes and reveal my pale, untoned body, like swimming (which, I’ll
admit, was highly unlikely at that time of year). There were simply too many unknown quantities.

In the event, I left all my options open. I wore combats (hard-wearing, comfortable) and a pretty top (for glamour), draped a chunky, wool zip-up cardigan over my shoulders, and I packed my most
compact umbrella in my shoulder bag, together with a swimming costume and a small towel – just in case – and my make-up bag. I shaved my legs from ankle to thigh, applied fake tan,
waterproof mascara, concealer and long-lasting lipstick. I felt like a soldier, preparing myself for a campaign in a foreign country.

And, like every good soldier, I was on time, arriving at the park at fourteen-hundred hours prompt. Danny was late again – eighteen minutes and twenty three seconds late, if we’re
being (militarily) precise. On this occasion I had no doubt that he would turn up and I was merely annoyed. It may have been mid-afternoon, but I was alone in a wide open space and I felt
vulnerable. I didn’t even have anywhere to sit – there were no benches near the pond. It was a grey and sunless day, and I shivered, wishing I’d brought a coat. Still, waiting for
Danny again, and now beginning to recognise that he had at least one flaw, made me less nervous about this, our second date.

I saw him before he saw me. He was walking up the path that leads from the main entrance of the park and snakes around its perimeter, branching off in several directions towards the pond or the
tennis courts or the cricket pitch. He appeared to be carrying something heavy, which was causing him to stoop and making his progress uneven and slow. I wondered if I should run towards him and
offer to help, but I didn’t want to spoil his surprise. So I turned the other way and feigned intense interest in a family of swans swimming across the pond. When his footsteps drew close
behind me, I pretended not to hear them and tried to stifle the smile that was involuntarily spreading across my face.

‘Hello, Naomi,’ he said, over my shoulder. He was panting. ‘Are you ready for your surprise?’

Not as ready as I was twenty minutes ago
, I felt like saying. He hadn’t even apologised this time. But when I turned and looked at him, breathless and stiff-armed from carrying what
was now obviously an enormous picnic basket, my irritation vanished. ‘Absolutely,’ I said, allowing him to kiss me on the cheek. The sensation of his lips on my skin again made my heart
lurch. I ached for him to kiss me again, properly, like he had two nights before. ‘Bring it on.’

‘OK, but first you need to trust me. I’m going to blindfold you. Is that all right?’

‘Um, yes, OK.’ I was nervous and excited at the same time. ‘You’re not going to push me in the pond, are you?’

‘Not my style,’ he said, smiling. ‘Maybe it was, ten years ago, but no, what I’ve got planned does not involve dunking you.’

Danny placed his hands on my shoulders and I let him turn me around. Then I felt the caress of smooth fabric – it must have been silk – across my face, slipping over my ears and
around the back of my head. He tied it loosely, smoothing down my hair with his palm. ‘OK, now take my hand.’

We walked, awkwardly, for a few minutes, the picnic basket bashing into Danny’s legs with each step. I humoured him by acting disoriented – it made him grasp my hand more tightly
– but I could actually see the grass and the path through the bottom of my blindfold.

‘We’re here now,’ he said, sighing with relief as he put down the picnic basket. ‘You can stop.’ He untied the blindfold, letting it drop to the floor at my feet.
There, in front of me, was one of the most beautiful sights I had ever seen. The park’s ancient gazebo had been decorated with multicoloured flowers and ribbons and tinsel. There were even
bunches of grapes hanging from its poles. It looked like something you’d see in an epic movie set in Roman times.

‘Oh my God!’ I exclaimed. Had Danny really done this just for me? When had he done it? I’d had no idea how thoughtful he was, how inventive. Worried that I might begin to cry,
I hugged him, a little too tightly. Then, embarrassed, I pulled away.