Dominic stood outside Pete’s front door, feeling a sense of déjà vu because of the bunch of flowers and bottle of wine in his hands. They were from the petrol station again, but one with a Marks & Spencer food shop, so they were much classier than the previous ones. Pete opened the door. ‘Hey,’ he said, somewhat less enthusiastically than he had last time.
‘Hey,’ Dominic said back, then followed his best friend inside.
Ellen was ready and waiting, hair brushed, blouse ketchupfree. She received his peace offerings gratefully and gave him a hug and a kiss. ‘I’m so glad you could make it.’
Was he mistaken, or did he hear a soft grunt from Pete’s direction?
Ellen shook her head and looked first at her husband then at Dominic. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever met two such thickheaded, stubborn men! It’s about time you both stopped sulking and made up.’ She glanced over at Sammy, who was glued to something with robots and strange creatures on the TV. ‘His emotional age is higher than yours at the moment, and that’s saying something after the lie-down tantrum he pulled in the supermarket this afternoon.’ With that, she stomped from the room into the kitchen, which left him and Pete staring at each other.
Dominic scuffed his shoe on the carpet. ‘Sorry I was a bit touchy last time,’ he mumbled.
‘A bit?’ Pete said, but he shot a look over his shoulder towards the kitchen and reconsidered the tack he was taking. Ellen might seem sweet and lovely, but both of them knew she was like a rabid Rottweiler when her patience finally snapped. Dominic was guessing that if Pete wanted to get lucky sometime in the next six months he was going to have to do as he was told. ‘Sorry I opened my big fat mouth,’ Pete mumbled back. ‘I don’t think you’re a loser.’
Dominic let out a weary breath. ‘I know. It’s just …’
Pete nodded, and Dominic knew he knew too. Pete walked towards him and gave him a stiff hug. Dominic patted him on the back and then they pulled apart and looked away from each other.
‘Want a beer?’ Pete asked.
‘Always,’ Dominic replied and, just like that, all the tension between them melted away as if nothing had ever happened.
Pete went to the kitchen, where his wife gave him an approving smile, and got a couple of bottles out of the fridge. Dominic went up to Ellen, gave her another hug and whispered an apology for running out on her and her spag bol as well, then he and Pete sat at the kitchen table and sipped their beers, half watching her as she bustled round the kitchen roasting a chicken. Dominic’s mouth was already watering, even though it looked as if the bird still had a long way to go.
‘What have you been up to since we last saw you?’ Ellen asked. ‘How’s work?’
Dominic shrugged. ‘I’ve been doing more research on that free-diving documentary. It turned out a couple of the top people in the sport were passing through London last week, so I met up with them and asked if they’d like to be involved if I get this thing off the ground. They also gave me some useful pointers about research.’
‘Did they say yes?’
Dominic nodded. ‘The more I find out about free-diving, the more it intrigues me. I mean, going that far beneath the waves without scuba gear is dangerous. It takes intense concentration and training. I’m not sure I could do it.’
Ellen shuddered. ‘Neither could I! All that water above my head …’
‘I’d do it,’ Pete said, with an air of confidence.
His wife turned and gave him a look. ‘Give over. You had a panic attack snorkelling in Spain the other year.’
‘No I didn’t! A speedboat went past and sloshed water into my snorkel, that was all. It was a coughing fit, pure and simple.’
Ellen snorted softly and peered at the chicken in the oven.
‘Well, that’s what I want to explore,’ Dominic said, steering the conversation back on track. ‘I want to find out about the sort of people that do this, about their tight-knit community. How do they not panic when oxygen is just a distant memory, knowing that people die each year doing what they do? How does knowing they’re so far below the surface with no safety net not freak them out of their tiny little minds?’
‘That sounds really interesting,’ Ellen said. ‘Anything else new?’
Dominic sighed. ‘I’ve also been to the physio a couple of times. He’s given me a bunch of exercises to do three times a day – which I’m actually doing, mainly just to stave off the boredom. It’s all thrilling stuff.’
She made a sympathetic face. ‘I thought you loved your job.’
‘I do. It’s just … I don’t really like the desk stuff. I only do it so I can get to the good bit, which is going out there and filming things, seeing the big wide world. Unfortunately, all I have at the moment is desk stuff, stretching on forever and ever, it seems. As you can see, I’m finding it all fairly depressing. Can we talk about something else?’
‘Okay,’ Pete said. ‘In other news … What’s up with you and your upstairs neighbour? Has she hired a hit man to put a bullet through your forehead yet?’
‘No,’ Dominic replied, chuckling to himself. ‘And she’s not going to, either.’
Pete gave him a disbelieving look. ‘And why, pray, would that be?’
Dominic grinned at his best friend. ‘Because for once in my life I’ve decided to take your advice about women.’
Pete slumped in his sear, pretending to faint, but Ellen poked him with a spatula on her way to the vegetable drawer and he miraculously woke up again.
Dominic didn’t mind the theatrics. He knew he was holding the trump card. He kept smiling. ‘I’m going to ask her out to an early bird dinner, just like you suggested.’
That’s when Pete stopped mucking around and looked as if he was going to faint for real. ‘What?’
Dominic just shrugged. ‘I’m going to do everything I can to win her round and make her mine, what can I say?’
Ellen stopped heaping carrots onto the chopping board. ‘You’re serious, aren’t you?’
‘Deadly.’
There was silence in the kitchen.
‘You said I didn’t have what it takes to be romantic,’ he told Pete. ‘You have to admit, if I can woo this particular woman and get her to like me, then you’ll have to admit you were wrong.’
Pete held his hands up. ‘Hell, I’ll admit I’m wrong now if you want! And that’s not exactly what I said. But, Nic, there’s proving a point and then there’s …’ he paused to shudder ‘… proving a point.’
Dominic couldn’t hold it back any longer. He burst out laughing.
When he’d finally got his breath back and wiped his eyes, he looked them square in the eyes. ‘Don’t look at me like that. What I didn’t tell you is that the old lady who lived upstairs doesn’t live there any more – her granddaughter does.’
The look of relief that washed across his friends’ faces almost set him off again.
‘Why didn’t you say so?’ Pete asked.
Dominic grinned back at him. ‘Because it was too much fun watching you two do the mental gymnastics.’
‘You’re a sadist,’ Ellen said, as she turned back to her carrots, but she was smiling as she shook her head.
Pete thumped him on the back. ‘Good one! Now …’ He leaned forward. ‘Tell me about this granddaughter. Is she hot?’
‘I’m standing right here!’ Ellen called out over her shoulder.
‘Aw, Ellie, you know you’re the only one for me,’ he crooned, all the while nodding at Dominic, egging him on.
Ellie humphed. ‘Come and peel these carrots then and prove it.’
Pete sighed, took his beer with him to the other side of the kitchen and took over. Ellen swiped the beer back while he wasn’t looking and went to sit opposite Dominic. ‘Is she nice?’ she said, getting a dreamy look in her eyes. ‘I could do with some female company when you come round. With him and him,’ she said, nodding in the direction of first Pete then her son in the living room, ‘I’m trapped in a testosterone-filled world, where the punchline to every joke involves bottoms or farts. You raise the standard slightly, but not much.’
Dominic chuckled. ‘She’s nice. Clever. Funny.’ He shot a glance at Pete, hard at work peeling carrots and decided to throw him a bone. ‘And blonde.’
Pete punched the air and mouthed the word ‘result!’ while his wife’s back was turned.
Ellen swigged her contraband beer. ‘And she’s totally forgiven you for being … What was it? An “unbearable, egotistical lout”?’
That’s when Dominic’s grin dimmed a little. ‘Not exactly.’
‘What does that mean?’ Pete said, taking his eye off the carrots and nearly adding his finger into the mix. ‘Ouch!’
Dominic stood up and leaned against the kitchen counter. Looking straight into Ellen’s eyes across the table was unnerving him a little. ‘It’s only a flesh wound,’ he told Pete as he showed him the minuscule cut on his finger. ‘What it means is that, yes, I’ve met her, but she doesn’t know I’m the guy from downstairs yet.’
Ellen frowned. ‘How on earth did you manage that?’
‘Met her at that party I went to last week, the hotel thing.’
Ellen looked even more worried. ‘And she hasn’t worked out you live in the same building? How is that possible?’
‘We just seem to have very different rhythms,’ he explained. ‘She’s out when I’m in and vice versa.’
Pete plopped the peeled and chopped carrots into a pan and got himself another beer from the fridge, sending his wife a knowing look as he did so. She just smiled angelically at him. ‘But this girl—’
‘Claire,’ Dominic added helpfully.
‘Claire … You’re going to bump into her in the hall eventually, right? You know that?’
Dominic nodded. ‘Of course I do. I’m not stupid.’
Pete gave him a look that said he wasn’t sure about that. For once, it looked as if his wife agreed with him, because she said, ‘Don’t you think she’s going to be cross when she finds out?’
Dominic shook his head. ‘I have it all planned out.’
‘Oh, gawd,’ Ellen said.
‘It’s just we had such terrible first impressions about each other that we jumped to all the wrong conclusions. I just need a little bit of time to undo that. Not long. I’ll ask her out to lunch or something.’ He shot Pete a look. ‘Or an early bird dinner …’
Pete narrowed his eyes. ‘Ha, ha, ha.’
‘We’ll go out, have a nice talk … And when she sees I’m not such a bad guy after all, I’ll tell her the truth and we’ll have a good laugh about it.’
Ellen shook her head. ‘You make it sound so simple. Are you sure it’s going to be that easy?’
‘Yup. Because in the meantime I’m going to convince her she’s got it all wrong about her annoying neighbour.’
Pete sat down at the table again and let out a guffaw. ‘How the heck are you going to do that?’
Dominic narrowed his eyes a little. ‘Well, obviously, I’m going to stop being annoying.’
‘Not possible,’ Pete interjected. Dominic ignored him.
‘And I’ve come up with a new gift, one she’ll really like, and I’ve written a really nice apologetic letter. She’s always out until about half-ten on a Tuesday, so it’ll be safe to leave it on her doorstep and she’ll find them when she gets home.’
‘What does the letter say?’ Ellen asked.
Dominic unfolded a piece of paper from his back pocket and started to read it to his friends.
‘Dear Ms Bixby
I realise now that my clumsy attempt at a peace offering may well have been misunderstood, and that, while with the best intentions, my note may have come across as a little patronising. Please accept my sincere apologies. I hope we can start afresh and get to know each other better, as I will be staying in London for the next couple of months and I’m sure neither of us want to be at loggerheads for all that time.
Your downstairs neighbour,
Dominic’
‘That is a nice letter,’ Ellen said softly, but then she frowned, ‘but I’m still not sure all this sneaking around is the right way to go.’
‘What else can I do? If I tell her the truth now she’ll never give me a chance.’ And, although he hadn’t told Pete and Ellen this yet, he really wanted that chance. He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her for the last six days and it was torture knowing she was often so close – right above his head – and yet he couldn’t do anything about it. ‘What do you think, Pete?’
Pete leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head. ‘I think it’s genius.’
Ellen shook her head and got up. She was halfway to the hob to check the carrots when there was a wail from the living room. She instantly turned and ran to check on Sammy.
A moment later, she shouted, ‘Pete! Your son has … Well, let’s just say you’d better get those rubber gloves on again!’