Saturday 20 August
I walk behind Ady towards the party, with the brilliant day I’ve had moving through my head – Ady lounging in the sun and Clem dancing around the pool in slow, swim-like moves to the strange beat of Zoë Keating’s ‘Escape Artist’.
‘Play some music that’s me,’ Clem had said, and I immediately thought of the song with the throaty cello lines, the unexpected beat. When I put it on she arced her hands around her to the sound of those sliding notes, slicing them through air, telling us dangerous secrets about her and Stu.
I’m hoping he loves her. I’m worried that he won’t.
Ady’s worried, too.
But I’m tired of worrying. I want to do.
It was strange spending time with Ady and Clem at the pool, at my pool. It felt right, though. It felt good to clear out the rubbish that people had thrown into my space, clear out the leaves. I didn’t even mind that. Time for some new sound.
As Clem spoke about Stu, I thought about Oliver. Not platonic thoughts, either. I let myself give into the thought that I want to kiss him. I don’t think he wants to kiss me. He’s so serious, about music and winning. We are crossing a line, but it’s a line that’s to do with music, I think. I don’t know.
Today was the first time I’ve let myself actually have the daydream. Rules felt suspended today. What would it be like to kiss him? Would he kiss as seriously as he plays? With the same attention to technique? The thought found the sweet spot in my body and I shut it down before I melted in the cleaning suit that Ady called a giant condom.
‘I thought about Oliver quite a bit today,’ I call to Ady, who’s ahead of me. Clem’s far head of her, so far I can’t see.
‘I never would have guessed,’ she calls back. ‘Are you drunk?’
‘I have not touched a drop. I’m drunk on having friends. I called Max and invited her tonight. I gave her your number so she can find you in there if she can’t find me.’
‘Did you invite her hoping she’d invite Oliver?’
‘Not entirely.’ I want her here. But I want Oliver, too.
‘Just call him, Kate. He’ll come. Don’t say anything but your name.’
‘If I were you, that might happen.’
She stops walking, turns and looks at me. The smell of garden – dark and green – is all around. ‘Do it now.’ There’s a flower hanging above her, a white burst on a tall bush. It makes her look otherworldly, like she’s wearing a crown or her aura is showing.
I take out my phone, and key in his number, and when he answers, I look at Ady and say my name.
Wait, Ady mouths, and I do as she says. I wait for what feels like a long time.
Eventually he asks, ‘Where are you?’
I give him the address and hang up. ‘That was amazing. I mean, that was a-mazing. I said my name, and he said he’d be here. Are you a witch? That worked like a spell.’
She grabs both my shoulders. ‘You’re gorgeous, you’re smart, you’re talented. Any guy would be lucky to have you, but you’re a geeky guy’s dream.’
‘I’m going to wait for Oliver,’ I say, excited by these revelations.
She keeps moving forward towards the party. Her steps certain, calm. ‘Ady,’ I call, and she turns.
‘Come to the farm with me on the long weekend. Sit by the river. Eat spectacular food.’
‘Apple pie?’ she asks, only slightly making fun.
‘If you order it,’ I say. ‘But I suggest the plum cake.’
‘Plum cake it is,’ she says.
I text Max to look for Ady when she arrives: She’s alone. You need to find her. Then I wait.
I’m wearing a dress of Ady’s, the silk one I’d seen on her before. I asked, and she said yes without a second thought. ‘Don’t wear tights,’ she said. ‘It feels great on your skin.’ When I said I might be cold she offered to lend me the coat she was wearing that day we had coffee.
It takes Oliver a while to get here. I search for his face in the groups that walk past. I think about how strange it is that I like him now, and wonder when it was that I started to, and then think about how I probably started before I knew I’d started, and how strange it is that changes can start in us long before we know they’re starting. It’s a long thought, a string of beats that I follow from one to the other, so I’ve forgotten to watch for Oliver and then, without me noticing how he arrived, he’s standing in front of me.
‘Proof of my theory,’ I say.
‘And what theory is that?’ He laughs nervously.
I fight the urge to tell him to relax.
‘Do you come to these kinds of parties a lot?’ he asks, staring behind me in the direction of the noise, at the people walking past, people already drunk and smelling of what even I pinpoint as dope.
‘It’s a friend of Clem’s,’ I say, as screaming laughter starts up behind us.
‘Interesting friend.’
We’re back to being awkward again because I’ve made the strange phone call and I’m dressed up and I’ve asked him to a party that I’m not exactly invited to, so I decide that we need loud music and crowds to drown out the fact that we’re not talking.
Before we get to the door, there’s a huge crash on the lawn, and then the sound of splintering. ‘Oh my god!’ Oliver yells. ‘Oh my god! Kate, I think someone just pushed a baby grand out the window.’
He’s running, and when I don’t follow he comes back, grabs my hand and pulls me in the direction of the drunk, stumbling crowd that’s gathering. People above are laughing, staring out the window, and people below are starting to contemplate how ‘close we were to fucking dying’. Oliver has pushed his way through them and cleared a circle so he can kneel next to the piano as if it’s a living thing.
‘It’s not a baby grand,’ he says to me. ‘It’s an old Yamaha.’ He presses a key and it lets out a sad plink. ‘They pushed a piano out of the window. A piano.’ He looks up at me. ‘I would like to leave here, Kate. And I would like you to come with me.’
We decide to walk for a while, and to hail a taxi from the street.
It’s now that I see Oliver. I don’t think I really saw him before, at least not properly. He looks as if he’s much more comfortable with a cello in his arms. He doesn’t quite know what to do with his hands, so he shoves them in his pockets. Brown hair. Tall. Tall enough to play the double bass, actually.
‘Why don’t you play the double bass?’ I ask.
‘I heard the cello,’ he says.
I think maybe Oliver is looking at me for the first time. At least looking openly, his whole stare on me, on the dress, and my eyes and my skin.
‘Borrowed,’ I say.
He touches his shirt. ‘Borrowed also. Dad and I have been lazy with the washing.’
Seeing a piano fall from a window and smash at our feet seems to have had a relaxing effect on Oliver. He scoops up three pebbles and juggles for a while. I’m impressed and I tell him so. He shows me the trick, and for ten minutes or so, we stand on the side of the road, juggling and dropping pebbles.
‘So, how did a girl like you end up at a party like that?’ he asks, once we’ve started walking again.
‘A girl like me?’
‘Serious.’
‘I’m not entirely serious.’
‘I like serious.’
‘I’m a little bit serious,’ I admit. ‘Clem told me about the party. We were in detention today.’
‘On a Saturday? You get more and more interesting.’
‘Are you flirting with me?’
‘No. Maybe. I don’t know what I’m doing. This is new terrain. I’ve been trying to flirt with you for a while.’
‘That’s worrying.’ And exciting.
‘Why were you in detention?’ he asks.
‘I ate a piece of cheese.’
He laughs.
‘No, really. I ate a piece of cheese. A big piece of cheese. And a strawberry. In the Oak Parlour at the Winter Fair with Ady and Clem.’
‘How long can you stay out tonight?’ he asks.
‘As long as I want. I’ve served my detention. My punishment is over. I have a genuine pass that says I’m staying at Ady’s.’
‘Don’t they know most cheese eaters are recidivists?’
‘Apparently not.’
A taxi approaches. We hail it and run to where it’s waiting.
Lights, trees, the broken night rhythm moves past the window and Oliver takes my hand. It’s comfortable and exciting at the same time. I’m not drunk, but I feel as though I’m floating. I stare out the window and think about happiness.
We get out of the cab and a light goes on in a room of Oliver’s house. An older version of Oliver opens the window. ‘Good party?’
‘They threw a piano out of the window,’ Oliver says.
‘Good god.’
‘Indeed,’ Oliver replies. ‘Dad, this is Kate. Kate, this is William, my dad.’
‘So this is the beautiful cellist,’ William says, and gives me a wave.
I wave back. I am the beautiful cellist?
‘You are,’ Oliver says, which I assume is mind-reading until later when he tells me I spoke out loud.
We walk down the side of Oliver’s house to the shed, but it feels different this time. I feel trees brush my arm and smell jasmine. There’s a wall of mint that I didn’t see before, and Oliver breaks off a leaf as though it’s his habit, and hands it to me.
I think of kissing.
We set up, an unspoken understanding that since I’m here, we’ll practise.
Practicing is our way of talking, I realise, and tonight something has shifted and the conversation isn’t awkward, or slightly awkward. Maybe it’s because the secret is out, and we’re not playing around it anymore. I like Oliver and he likes me, and we’re both obsessed with music and we both want to win.
We play without worrying about the mistakes. If I make one he waves his hand for me to go on, and when he makes one I do the same. Once I stop him because the mistake sounds good, and he agrees and we decide to keep it.
We sample Lou Reed.
We listen to the song over and over to choose the part we want.
We loop and mix and play it back.
‘It’s good,’ Oliver says, but I disagree, so we loop it again until we’re both happy.
I lose sense of time while we’re playing. After a while, I take over the computer and looping while Oliver makes tea because computers are what I do best. He puts a cup in front of me on the table.
He takes a sip.
I take a sip.
‘Listen,’ I say, and play back what we’ve recorded. He takes over the computer, changes some things. Then I take over and change some more.
My concentration starts to drift. ‘Long day at detention.’
‘What’s the punishment for eating cheese and strawberries?’
‘Cleaning out the pool wearing giant condoms.’
‘At a later stage we might get into that when I know you better.’
He’s lying on his bed now, hands behind his head. He pushes himself up and puts on a record. It’s Bowie. I like it. There’s nowhere else to lie but his bed, and it’s comfortable, and it’s next to Oliver, so that’s where I rest myself.
‘Will your dad mind if I stay here?’
He says no.
The track changes.
‘One of your eyelashes has escaped,’ he says, taking it off my shoulder, hands shaking as he flicks it into air. ‘I find myself thinking about you,’ he says.
‘I find myself thinking about you, too,’ I say.
‘You make me nervous.’
‘I would like, very much, to kiss you,’ I say, imitating Oliver’s formal tone.
Oliver is, as always, really good at what he sets his mind to. Later, I will remember this as my first real kiss, with someone I respect, like, need. I will remember Bowie playing in the background as Oliver’s hands find their way. I will remember falling asleep, records spinning.