From: clairebixby@farfaraway.com
To: nica453@monstermail.com
Subject: Trip ideas
Dear Nick,
It was lovely to chat the other morning. I’m really pleased you think Far, Far Away was the perfect place to come to plan your trip. I wondered if you’d had a chance to think about some more personalised destinations? If not, maybe asking yourself the following questions might help you narrow the field down. (Excuse me for using ‘she’ below, but I realised I didn’t ask what your girlfriend’s name was):
1. Is she the outdoorsy type who likes walking and sailing or would she prefer to spend time at a spa being pampered?
2. Which would she enjoy most – a summer’s day out in the countryside or the bright lights and bustle of a night out in the city?
3. If you think about her clothes and jewellery, are they quirky and individual, from markets and independent shops or does she tend to go for understated and elegant pieces, possibly by well-known designers?
I know the questions seem random, but they really will help me start to pin down the right kind of trip suggestions for you.
Many thanks,
Claire
*
Dominic stared at his computer screen. He hadn’t ever thought something as insubstantial as an email could make you feel as if you’d been placed firmly at arm’s length but Claire had managed it. It dented the good mood he’d carried with him since yesterday morning a little. They’d been getting on so well until he’d put his stupid mouth into gear without thinking.
Oh, well. The only thing to do was answer her questions and answer them well. He still wanted to prove to her he wasn’t the dunce in the romance stakes she thought he was, and he’d been thinking about what to do with his non-existent other half most of last night and had finally come up with a plan.
At first he’d decided to dump her – before any firm bookings were made, of course – then the trip could easily be amended for one person, but after further thought he’d decided that maybe she would dump him instead. Guys would mock, see that as a sign of weakness, but Claire definitely wasn’t a guy, and it might just make her feel a little warm and sympathetic towards him too.
Not that he liked to manipulate. That really wasn’t his style. But, given the two options, he’d be stupid if he didn’t choose the one that suited his goal, wouldn’t he?
He pulled his keyboard forward and started to type.
From: nica453@monstermail.com
To: clairebixby@farfaraway.com
Subject: RE: Trip ideas
Hi Claire,
Thanks for getting back to me so promptly, and thanks for the questions – I think! You’re right. I don’t really get where you’re going with these, but I’ll put myself in your very capable hands.
The only problem was, now he was definitely going to have to answer those damn questions. Hard enough if the girlfriend had been real. Doubly so now he was basing her on Claire. A woman like Claire would expect him to know stuff about his girlfriend, the kind of stuff he hadn’t got a clue about Claire after only two meetings. He stared down at number one:
Is she the outdoorsy type who likes walking and sailing or would she prefer to spend time at a spa being pampered?
Hmm. He really didn’t know. On the two occasions he’d met her in the flesh, Claire had been immaculately put together, with neat little dresses and high heels. The spa seemed the obvious choice, but then he started to imagine her walking on a hilltop in the Peak District or up on top of a tor on Dartmoor and he could envision her there too. The picture in his head reminded him of an old-fashioned holiday photograph, one of those little ones with the thick white borders held in an album with black pages.
He could see her sitting on a rock, turning to smile at him in red three-quarter-length trousers and a crisp white blouse, the warmth in her eyes hidden by a pair of tortoiseshell sunglasses. He could also see her skipping lightly down a grassy footpath, turning back to laugh over her shoulder at him now and then.
Okay, so he wasn’t quite sure about that one. Maybe he should just move on to number two?
Summer afternoon or night out in the city?
He let his lips puff out as he blew out a breath, then gave up keeping his fingertips hovering over the keyboard and instead planted his elbows either side and rested his chin on his hands.
He shook his head. Once again, he could see her doing both. The summer afternoon carried on in the same vein as the little hilltop walking fantasy he’d had going, only this time it involved a long and lazy lunch at a charming little country pub by a stream, Claire choosing to sit under the shade of an umbrella so the faint freckles on her nose didn’t darken too much.
Dominic sat up a little. She did have freckles, didn’t she? Just a light dusting. He hadn’t realised he’d noticed.
But he could also imagine Claire dressed up, looking elegant in a form-fitting dress, hopping from a black cab in the West End, ready to walk, head held high, into a fashionable bar or Michelin-starred restaurant.
He didn’t even bother with question three. What did he know about women’s clothes? He knew when they looked nice in something, but he hardly paid attention to designers and labels when he was in the back of beyond filming. The only requirements for most of his own clothes were that they didn’t fall apart on his rigorous trips and didn’t look too bad with a bit of dust or dirt thrown in.
He frowned and repositioned his keyboard. He’d wanted to wow Claire with his insight and detail. Instead, he had nothing. He ended up finishing the email, trying to keep it jaunty and light without letting on he actually had nothing to say.
As for the questions, I think I’ve learned after our recent meeting that I’d better give them some thought rather than typing the first thing that comes into my head. I’ll get back to you very shortly.
Nic
And then he realised how she’d spelled his name in her email – the same way she’d written it on the napkin at the party.
Not ‘Nic’, but ‘Nick’.
His finger hovered above the ‘k’ key, but he didn’t press it. Just that one little letter felt like a big fat lie. Worse than the ones he’d already told. Probably because he’d stumbled his way into those ones. This one would be a choice.
He sighed and got up from his desk. Bin day tomorrow. He’d better put his recycling out. How he’d actually remembered the right day he wasn’t sure. He must be getting into the rhythm of life back here now. He wasn’t sure whether to be pleased or fed up about that.
He looked at the stack of magazines standing – well, falling over and spilling onto the floor – in the corner of his spare bedroom. She was right. He did get too many. Not because they weren’t useful, but because he wasn’t here long enough to digest the information from one a year, let alone multiple subscriptions.
He walked over to the pile, grabbed the top one and tore the plastic wrapping off, then he flicked through to see if there was anything of interest. There wasn’t, so he threw it on the floor, making a new pile, and picked up the next one.
Two hours later, the teetering stack was gone, replaced by a large pile of magazines to recycle, a smaller one of issues to keep and a cloud of shredded plastic wrapping in between them. He went to get a bin bag.
He just about managed to fit the discarded magazines in his paper bin and heaved it outside to sit next to the pavement, wearing a hoodie for disguise in case Claire should look out her window. Then, before he went back inside his front door, he carefully tiptoed across the hall to where her recycling bin sat ready for the next morning in the little nook at the bottom of the stairs. He picked it up and took it out to stand next to his. The least he could do after the countless times she’d done that for him.
When he came back in the front door, he looked up the stairs. Was she in there? Probably. It was now close to midnight. Quietly, he crept back inside his flat and reached for a scrap of paper. He was going to use the plain back of a printed leaflet for The Bombay Palace, then stopped himself. He thought about Claire’s letters, about the lovely thick paper, the way the blue ink of her fountain pen flowed across the paper.
He didn’t have nice stationery. He didn’t have much stationery at all. But he could at least use a clean, fresh page nicked from the printer and a fineliner with steady ink, rather than the ballpoint which sometimes decided to deposit sticky blobs of ink on the paper and sometimes didn’t. Using both those items, he wrote a short note, letting her know she didn’t have to worry about her recycling bin – it hadn’t been stolen, just put in the proper place – then he crept up the stairs to post it through her letterbox. Hopefully, she’d find it before she left for work in the morning.
When he got back to his desk, he found the email he’d written to Claire still open on his computer and realised that he hadn’t pressed ‘send’. It seemed odd, corresponding in these two very different ways. He was having to be so careful on both fronts, not to reveal his identity, not to say the wrong thing. He knew, even though on the face of it he was lying to her – by omission mainly, rather than outright deception, by not putting right what she’d got wrong – it still felt as if it was the right thing to do. The fair thing to do, so they could get past the awful first impressions they’d created and discover the truth beneath.
He stared at the bottom of the email. He couldn’t add that ‘k’. It was too much. In the end, he hit the backspace key twice until he’d just signed off as ‘N’. That much he could live with.
And then, in a moment of pure honesty, he hastily typed the following as a postscript:
Thanks for all your help and sorry I’m so rubbish at this.
It felt good to say something real amongst all the half-truths and sidestepping. Before he could change his mind, chicken out and keep his ego undented, he pressed send and heard the whooshing noise as it disappeared into the ether, travelling from server to server around the country, maybe even the world, only to reappear feet away in the flat above.
*
Claire heard her phone ping as she lay in bed reading. For a couple of seconds, she stayed absorbed in the thriller, but when she got to the bottom of the page, she leaned over and took a look at her phone on the bedside table. She knew she ought to go back to her book, to find out what happened to the girl being chased through moonlit woods, but she saw the subject header.
Carefully, she placed a bookmark between the pages, put her book down and picked her phone up. She let out a small sigh then swiped the screen to bring it up.
Short and sweet. This man didn’t gush, did he? The last bit made her smile.
Sorry I’m so rubbish at this …
She smiled again. He was rubbish at it. But the fact he’d owned it, rather than hidden it all behind a layer of bravado, made her like him more.
It was such a pity he was planning this all for someone else.
She sighed again. She seemed to be doing a lot of that these days.
She pressed ‘reply’ and began to type with her thumbs.
She stopped typing and backspaced, jabbing her right thumb on the right little button, hitting the ‘p’ a few more times than was strictly necessary along the way, meaning she just had to backspace all the more.
Not ‘dear’ Nick. That was too affectionate, too intimate somehow, even though it was perfectly proper. She replaced it with ‘Hi’ and carried on.
*
Dominic heard his phone chirp as he walked past where he’d thrown it on the sofa on the way to the bathroom. He picked it up and took it with him while he brushed his teeth, savouring the knowledge that she’d not only read his answer but had replied so quickly, but it wasn’t until he’d stripped off and crashed onto his bed that he read the full reply.
Hi Nick
Please don’t worry about being rubbish at all this – and I gather by ‘all this’, you mean romantic stuff. I’ll let you into a secret … Most men are. Even the ones who come to me to book their holidays. Maybe especially them, because the truly romantic ones can do it all on their own.
There’s nothing wrong with acknowledging a weakness and seeking help. No one’s good at everything, and that’s what I’m here for, after all, to help. It’s not only my job, but what I love to do.
I’ll let you into another secret: you just need to think outside the box. Most men have a very narrow definition of romance.
He sat up, his eyes suddenly wider than when he’d lain down. It wasn’t? Then why were all those things shoved in front of men’s noses at Valentine’s Day and Christmas? Was the whole retail industry cynically exploiting this error? He shook his head and read on.
Well, it can be those things …
He let out a relieved sigh and rubbed his free hand through his hair.
… but it’s also a lot more. Romance isn’t in the object itself – the gift. You’ve heard the saying ‘it’s the thought that counts’? Well, that concept goes a long way for a woman. The gift better be good, but the gift on its own isn’t enough, and sometimes the strangest of presents take on a whole new level of meaning and romance when the right thought goes behind them.
I have a friend whose husband made her chips on Valentine’s Day one year and she said it was the most romantic thing anyone had ever done for her.
I can almost visualise you scratching your head, Nick. It’s very funny. Even so, I’m not going to tell you the rest of the story now. Think about it. And I’ll tell you why it was so romantic when you give me the answers to those questions.
Look forward to hearing from you soon,
Claire
Dominic flopped back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. He wondered if the flat layout was the same upstairs. If so, Claire could be up there right now, mere metres above his head. He wondered if she was still holding her phone too, if she wasn’t quite ready to let go of it yet. He brought it up in front of his face and skim read the email again.
It was strange. In person, Claire, while friendly and open, always seemed a little guarded too. There was a ‘keep off’ quality about her that wove in and out of her engaging personality. However, in her last email, unlike her stiff notes on the doorstep, he felt as if she’d let that barrier down, as if she was whispering those precious secrets she’d told him right into his ear.
He growled with frustration, even as he chuckled and slid his phone onto the bedside table and turned out the light. Now he was going to have to come up with seriously good answers to those questions, and he still had no ideas whatsoever.