When Riley arrived at the Admiral, only Monica was there.
“Where is everyone?” he asked her. “I know Hazard’s finishing up a garden on Flood Street, but I thought the others would be here.”
Monica looked at her watch.
“It’s twenty past five. Perhaps no one else is coming. How strange. I’ve never known Julian to miss a Friday, except on New Year’s Eve. Even when he was barely leaving his cottage he said he still came here every week. I hope he’s OK.”
Riley took out his phone and pulled up Julian’s Instagram account. “Don’t worry. He’s more than OK. Look.”
“Bloody hell, you know that’s Kate Moss he’s with? And a bunch of self-satisfied fashion types, drinking mojitos at Soho Farmhouse. He might have mentioned that he was going out of town,” said Monica, sounding a bit like a sulky child. Julian was a grown-up, after all. He didn’t have to get permission from them to go and hang out with celebrities for the weekend. “Hey, talking of Julian, I realized that we have an art class on the fourth of March, which is the fifteenth anniversary of Mary’s death. I figured that Julian might find it a bit hard, so I thought we could throw a sort of surprise memorial party for him. What do you think?”
“I think you are one of the most thoughtful people I’ve ever met,” replied Riley, who’d never been one for holding back or playing games. “And clever. How do you remember dates like that? I can barely remember my own birthday.”
Monica blushed, which made her look less scary, and really rather cute. And now there were no secrets between them, Riley felt lighter and more like his old self. So he leaned over and kissed her.
She kissed him back. Tentatively, but it was a start.
“I feel a bit awkward about kissing in a graveyard, don’t you?” she asked him. But she was smiling.
“Something tells me the Admiral’s seen a lot worse over the years,” replied Riley, shuffling closer toward her and putting his arm around her shoulders. “Don’t you think Julian and Mary would have, you know”—he waggled his eyebrows suggestively—“at some point over the years. Back in the swinging sixties, perhaps?”
“Ew, no!” said Monica. “Mary would never have done that! Not in a cemetery!”
“You didn’t know her, Monica. She was a midwife, not a saint. Perhaps she had a naughty side. You’d have to, married to Julian, surely?”
He leaned in toward Monica, muscle memory melding their bodies back into the familiar jigsaw. He tried to kiss her again, but she pushed him away, gently, but firmly.
“Riley, I’m not angry anymore,” she said. “I’m really glad we’re friends. But, honestly, what would be the point? You’ll be leaving soon, so it really makes no sense to start this up again, does it?”
“Monica, why does everything have to have a point? Why does it all have to be part of a plan? Sometimes it’s best to let things just grow naturally, like wildflowers.” He was quite pleased with that one. He was sounding positively poetic.
By way of illustration, Riley gestured over to a group of perfect white snowdrops, pushing their way up through the frozen February soil.
“Riley, that’s beautiful,” she said. “But I don’t want to get hurt again by becoming embroiled in a relationship that has a natural end point. Life isn’t as simple as gardening!”
“Isn’t it though?” asked Riley, who was getting frustrated and was a little bit hurt by his profession being described as “simple.” It all seemed so obvious to him. He liked her. She liked him. What was the problem? “Why not just see where it goes? Fly by the seat of your pants. If you don’t want to say good-bye in June, then you could always come with me.” As soon as he said it, he realized what a brilliant idea it was. They’d make perfect travel buddies (with benefits, he hoped). He could be in charge of fun, and she could do culture.
“I couldn’t go with you, Riley,” she said. “I have responsibilities here. I have my business. Employees, friends, family. What about Julian? Look what happened last time we left him alone for a few days—he nearly died of hypothermia.”
“It’s easy, Monica,” said Riley, who really thought it was. After all, he’d left his whole life on the other side of the world with hardly a backward glance. “You find someone else to manage the café for you for a few months. Your friends and family will miss you, but will be thrilled that you’re having an adventure, and as for Julian—he seems to have picked up hundreds of thousands of new ‘friends’ recently. I don’t think we have to worry about him.”
Monica tried to interject, but he cut her off. “When did you last see anything of the world beyond Fulham and Chelsea? When did you last get on a train without knowing where it was going? When have you ordered a weird-sounding dish off a menu, for the fun of eating something you weren’t expecting? Have you ever had sex just because you wanted to, and not as part of some sort of life plan?”
Monica was silent. Perhaps he’d gotten through to her.
“Will you just think about it, Monica?” he asked her.
“Yes. Yes, I will. I promise.”
They walked together toward the cemetery exit. Monica paused next to a gravestone on her left, bowed her head, and muttered something under her breath. It must be the grave of a relative. He read the inscription.
“Who’s Emmeline Pankhurst?” he asked her.
She gave him one of her looks. The type he didn’t like. But said nothing.
So often with Monica, he felt like he was failing an exam he hadn’t realized he was taking.