I’m late, I’m late, for a very important date, I sing to myself as I hurry down the road – half-walking, half-running. It’s as if everything’s conspiring against me to get to Joseph’s house: the pesky dog walker with his out-of-control terriers and their ridiculously long leads that seemed to be attempting to trip me up; the traffic getting out of Portsmouth, that saw me getting stuck at every single red light; the lack of car parking spaces anywhere near his house.
I’m desperately trying not to be any later as Joseph hates tardiness. It’s high on his list of pet peeves. I know he’ll tell me that I should have left earlier, but I thought I’d have plenty of time.
Even the little kitten heels I’m wearing aren’t helping. They’re those annoying shoes that fool you into thinking they’re practically flat until you have to get somewhere fast and you realise that you’re tottering about. I should have worn some killer skyscraper heels – at least they would have given me that sexy long-leg look.
I finally arrive at Joseph’s town house, and ring the bell. I see his outline walking towards the opaque glass of the door, and, despite the fact that we’ve been together for almost a year, I get butterflies in my stomach. Proof that it must be love.
‘Ah, hello. At last,’ he says as he opens the door.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I say, reaching up and kissing him, hoping to make up for my lateness. ‘I was at the hairdresser and then I nipped into Waitrose to pick up dessert, then traffic was terrible and I couldn’t get parked.’
I push past him, slipping off my kitten heels, so as not to mark his wooden floors, and pad into the kitchen, depositing the shopping bag I was carrying onto his long oak table. I look round the room – something doesn’t seem right. It takes me a second to register that it’s cold and quiet, which is surprising considering that he’s supposed to be making us dinner.
‘I thought I’d wait for you before I started cooking,’ he says as he walks in behind me, reading my mind. He goes over to the sink and washes his hands meticulously like a surgeon and my stomach lets out a sigh of relief that food preparation is imminent. I’m starving. ‘I just got us some pasta and sauce.’
My heart sinks a little. It’s not as if I’d expected him to have morphed into James Martin overnight, but when he’d suggested a night in with him cooking, I imagined him slaving lovingly over the stove. We always go out for dinner on a Saturday night to some fancy restaurant that seems to feed us the same amount a shrew would eat, and I’ve been looking forward to pigging out on home-cooked food all day. Pasta and sauce was not what I had in my mind. I know it’ll be fresh pasta and sauce from M&S, as Joseph’s a bit of a supermarket snob, but still.
Thank heavens I bought an emergency cheesecake, or else it really would have been a disaster.
I try and shrug off the disappointment and go and wrap my arms around his waist. Nothing cheers me up like a kiss and cuddle. He follows suit, hugging me back and I breathe in his aftershave.
‘So what do you think of my haircut?’ I ask, leaning backwards and giving my long hair a little flick.
‘Did you have much cut off?’ He’s squinting as if he’s trying to see what I’ve had done. Maybe he can’t see it properly because I’m so close to him. Or more likely he’s a typical man who probably wouldn’t notice if I’d had the whole lot chopped off.
‘About half an inch,’ I reply, shaking it about.
In his defence I do have very long hair, and half an inch is probably like throwing a pebble into an ocean, but it looks all glossy and bouncy in that way that only a hairdresser can make happen.
‘Looks nice,’ he says, pulling away from me.
I take that as my cue to unpack the bag of shopping. I pull out the emergency cheesecake and place it in the fridge. Sure enough, there on the top shelf is the M&S-branded tagliatelle and a pot of sauce. I can read my boyfriend like a book.
‘Do you want something to drink?’ he says, turning to look at his wine rack.
He’s a little quiet and I’m wondering if he’s pissed off that I was late, but the dark circles around his eyes bear all the hallmarks of stress. He’s probably spent the afternoon working. He’s been burning the candle at both ends lately with all the pressure he’s been under.
Hopefully a nice night in will help to relax him.
I could give him one of my special back massages or, better yet, we could have a bath with candles and bubbles, like in the movies, in his gorgeous freestanding Victorian bath with feet.
‘Earth to Abi. Drink?’ he asks again, snapping me out of my fantasy in which he’s wearing nothing but a beard of bubbles.
‘Yes, that would be nice. I bought a bottle of Chianti,’ I say, reading the label as I pull it out of the bag and put it on the table.
‘It’s pronounced key-anti,’ he says, enunciating.
I blush a little. Of course it is. I’d gone down the chi route – you know, like the tea.
He playfully gives my bum a slap with the tea towel he’s holding, as if acknowledging my schoolgirl error, before taking the bottle out of my hands.
Before I met Joseph I thought wines were red, white and rosé. He’s been slowly trying to educate me. I’d only bought this Chianti as it was half price and it’d won some wine award.
‘Looks like a good bottle,’ he says as he peruses it before unscrewing the cork with the fancy corkscrew that I can never work.
Pleased that he’s at least opening it, meaning that it’s passed the label test, I sit down at the table.
‘So I was thinking,’ I say, trying to cheer him up, ‘about our anniversary next month. I thought we could perhaps go away for the weekend. You know, to a country hotel or spa, or to a nice city like Bath or York.’
I try and drop it into conversation as if it’s no big deal, and not like it’s been the only thing I’ve been thinking about since I had the idea last week.
‘What date is it?’
‘What date?’ I say far too squeakily and quickly.
I’m shocked he doesn’t know, but men are rubbish with remembering stuff like that, aren’t they?
‘Twentieth March.’
‘Oh, um . . . it’s my mum’s birthday that weekend, and my sister’s coming down for it. I think we’re going somewhere for Sunday lunch.’
‘Right,’ I say, trying not to be too disappointed.
It’s our first anniversary and I’m more than a little excited. It’s the longest relationship that I’ve ever had, so I wanted to milk the occasion a little. I’ve already seen the perfect gift for him and made a Moonpig card with our photo on it.
‘Yeah. Sorry,’ he says, shrugging.
It takes me a minute to realise that he’s neither suggested that I accompany him to the birthday lunch with his family, whom I’ve never met, nor that we go away on a different weekend.
Undeterred and ignoring the warning signs, I plough on.
‘How about just a day spa?’
I can just see us in matching fluffy robes. I look up to see that he’s concentrating on opening the bottle of wine like his life depends on it. ‘Or we could just do the normal, go out for dinner . . . or even just drinks,’ I say, unable to give up on the idea, my voice becoming ever more feeble.
The cork pops out with a lip-smacking noise as if highlighting the silence that has descended on the room. I watch him pour the wine into a decanter stony faced.
‘Or we don’t have to do anything. It’s just an anniversary. No biggie,’ I say, wishing that I’d never said anything.
‘Abi,’ he says, turning towards me and leaning back against the sideboard in a way that makes my stomach flip for all the wrong reasons. ‘We need to talk.’