Here's Looking at You Read online

  ‘Wow thanks. You can stay,’ Anna said, feeling distinctly more British than Italian in the face of a compliment. He held her gaze and she heard a line of Michelle’s come back to her: you can see the moment it dawns on them that they’re going to get it. It had dawned on Anna and she thought: should I? On the one hand, it would be making meaningless fun, not love. On the other. Rrrrrr, Primo.

  After more food than Anna thought it was possible to eat in one sitting, and speeches, they were all ushered towards the stage for what Anna assumed would be the first dance.

  The band struck up and Aggy appeared, holding a microphone. She launched into a stately a cappella version of a song that Anna didn’t instantly recognise.

  ‘Shakira, “Underneath Your Clothes”,’ Michelle helpfully supplied.

  ‘Oh no. A song about your man with his kit off?’ Anna whispered back. ‘Only my sister …’

  ‘Bold choice,’ Michelle said. ‘The oldies seem to be coping with the frisson though.’

  Anna looked towards her parents and the Barking contingent. They were all looking vaguely baffled, apart from her mother, who was swaying with a look of intense pride. The Italian family seemed similarly nonplussed but generally positive.

  At the other side of the stage, Chris walked on with a microphone and started singing over Aggy. The tempo sped up and her song segued into Cee Lo Green’s ‘Forget You’. The lyrics about money and needing to be rich to be with Aggy were amusingly appropriate, if a little near the knuckle.

  They could both hold a tune, more or less. But more importantly, Anna thought, it must surely end soon.

  Oh, no. Marianne led a gang of PR girls onto the stage behind Aggy and they started singing ‘You Know I’m No Good’.

  Anna turned to Michelle.

  ‘Infidelity now. What next? “The Drugs Don’t Work”?’

  Michelle was shoulder-dancing: ‘The tune works quite well though.’

  Anna looked across the room and her mum and Aunty Carol were bopping about doing mum-dancing to the words ‘carpet burn’.

  Chris’s brother and best man Dave and the ushers piled onto the stage behind him and ‘You Know I’m No Good’ became Rod Stewart’s ‘Do Ya Think I’m Sexy’ in a back-and-forth West Side Story gang sing-a-thon.

  ‘Is it me, or is this arseing mental?’ Anna said to Michelle, weak with laughter.

  Aggy disembarked from the stage as the dance floor filled and passing Anna, skirts gathered in one hand, squealed: ‘What did you think? A riff off! Like in Pitch Perfect! I hope Uncle Riccardo got that taped. I’m putting it online when we get home. No one’s ever had that before!’

  ‘For … a reason?’ Anna said, but Aggy wasn’t listening.

  Michelle had been grabbed and whisked onto the dance floor by an elderly Italian uncle whose gaze was split between Michelle’s face and chest. Meanwhile, Daniel was deep in conversation with the PR crowd. Who’d have thought he’d find such kindred spirits among the Grazia girls? They’d been schooling him in their Recovery Rules after a break-up. Anna doubted Dan needed to watch The Notebook that many times though.

  Primo found Anna amid the crowd.

  ‘Smoke?’ he said, doing a putting-cigarette-to-mouth-and-taking-it-away gesture. ‘Outside?’

  Anna wasn’t well practised in the arts of woo but she recognised that a smoke probably wasn’t all Primo was intending.

  ‘Yeah. Why not?’ she said.

  69

  They walked through the gardens outside, crunching out onto the gravel stones of the wide car park. The edge of it fell away into the mountains, the scenery plunging into blackness. The only light burned from the building behind and the vehicles that winked as they dipped in and out of sight, winding round the mountain.

  ‘It’s so fresh somehow, up here,’ Anna said, shivering, looking up at the low-hanging moon. It was cold but they were glowing with booze-warmth. ‘Like you don’t realise how choked you are down in the cities. All that … pollution.’

  It was quite difficult working out what to say to someone when you thought they might try to stick their tongue down your throat at any moment.

  Primo put his hand inside his suit pocket and produced cigarettes and a silver lighter. Handing a cigarette to Anna, he clicked it alight in one smooth move.

  She sucked smoke down into her lungs with the cold air and started coughing violently.

  ‘I don’t – smoke –’ she said, as she hacked.

  ‘You don’t smoke?’ Primo said, white eyes and teeth sparkling.

  Anna shook her head, spluttering, whilst waving her hand in front of her mouth.

  ‘Ah, no,’ Primo said, laughing, putting a hand lightly on her back.

  Anna barely had any time to get her breath back before Primo had put his arm round her, with one hand right on her backside. Goodness, Italians didn’t muck about.

  ‘Aureliana,’ he said, and it was lovely to hear her name in the appropriate accent. She thought about succumbing. But she didn’t want this. She wanted someone else. All of a sudden, after a day of enjoying so much company, she badly needed to be alone. She drew back.

  ‘Primo,’ she said. ‘Can I have a moment?’

  She wasn’t sure if he understood her.

  ‘Just me,’ she added. ‘And my first cigarette.’ She waved it. ‘And the moon. La luna!’

  ‘I’ll see you inside?’ he said, nonplussed, obviously thinking British girls drank as much as he’d heard.

  ‘Definitely.’

  Primo turned and left her and Anna stood with her smouldering cigarette, shivering, staring at the mountains beyond. She wasn’t the same person to the one who went to that reunion, she thought.

  She wasn’t sure she was going to go back to internet dating. Single Anna was whole Anna. Not finding someone wasn’t a failure, it was just a fact. If others chose to draw conclusions from it, then let them. There were lots of other facts about her. She loved her job, she loved her friends and family. She’d had a crap time at school and she’d tell anyone who asked her about it – but it was time she stopped feeling defined by it.

  Oh yes, and her idea to end the awkwardness between her and Patrick by finding him in World of Warcraft, where he was a panda and she was an Undead Warlock? That was a good idea. Well, she hoped. They were chatting easily again. Though Patrick was trying to get her to go on raiding missions, whatever they were.

  Anna put the cigarette to her mouth again and practised the angle as she took a drag. Anna, she thought, you will never be cool. And you don’t need to be.

  There came a light crunch of gravel underfoot and a male voice, somewhere behind her.

  ‘I didn’t know you smoked?’

  She turned to see James standing in front of her, clean shaven in a dark suit and white shirt.

  Anna stared and stared, and then stared some more.

  ‘I don’t,’ she said.

  Despite the fact that James looked, as Aggy would put it, ‘ZOMGs’, it wasn’t his handsome man-ness but his best friend-ness that struck her, right in the solar plexus. He was one of her very best friends. He was here.

  She dropped the cigarette, ground it under her heel, pelted towards him and grabbed him hard round the middle, with both arms.

  ‘It’s so good to see you,’ she said, squeezing him, feeling the crush of material and the smell of a new shirt and his solidity underneath as he hugged her back.

  The miracle of James Fraser suddenly being in a car park, up a mountain in Italy? Whatever he had come to say, she knew a prayer had been answered.

  ‘Thanks for your message,’ James said, as she disentangled and stepped back.

  ‘You got it! I wasn’t sure about … network coverage.’

  ‘I got it,’ he said, looking at her steadily, and Anna’s insides went a little liquid.

  ‘I maybe shouldn’t have sent it to a married man.’

  ‘Separated. Divorcing.’

  ‘Oh.’

  James cleared his throat.

  �
��You said you remember my stupid jokes? Well, I remember things you say too. You said you liked it when a man made a big declaration of his feelings. This could be quite embarrassing, but shall I have a go?’

  James grinned and Anna nodded.

  ‘OK. So. The thing was, when I met you again, I realise now I was pretty lost. I’ve never been very good at picking the right path. Then there you were, and you changed everything. All my stupid nonsense, it had worked with other people but I knew, almost straight away, you were different. To be around you, I had to drop that and be better. And before I knew it, I was falling in love with you.’

  Suddenly, Anna no longer felt the cold.

  ‘You think school is some sort of shame, but it’s not, or not for you. The way you came through it proved what an extraordinary person you are. That’s what I want to tell you, and it’s more important than saying I’m madly in love with you, because being in love with you is easy, Anna. But what you’ve done is difficult. You are extraordinary.’

  He paused for breath and Anna burst out, ‘James, it’s so nice you think I’m an admirable person, but you need to actually fancy me. You said you thought of me as a sister … and you said yourself I’m not your type …’

  ‘Oh for God’s sake, I was lying to try to seem cool,’ James said. ‘If I didn’t fancy you, would I kiss you like this?’

  He stepped forward and leaned down, his hand on her face.

  Anna may have burned her teenage diaries, but if she had one left, she’d open it write in the margin to tell her past self that her premonition was true.

  One day, James Fraser would kiss her so passionately that she’d forget anything else had ever mattered.

  70

  James broke away from her for the second time with some self-discipline, and adjusted the drooping rose on the side of her head.

  She was always beautiful, but tonight she looked ridiculously lovely.

  ‘We should go inside,’ he said, quietly.

  ‘Can’t we run off, just the two of us?’ Anna said, putting her arms round his middle again. The outline of her body against his made him feel slightly stomach-turbulent.

  ‘Hmmm, we could. I think your sister’s wedding is unmissable, though.’

  He gripped her hand in his as they walked down the path.

  ‘How did you find us?!’ Anna said.

  ‘A combination of Aggy’s wedding invite and then a very arsey taxi driver. I texted her to tell her I was coming and to keep it secret. Do you know your sister’s answering texts on her wedding day?’

  ‘Nothing surprises me less.’

  ‘Do you want to introduce me to your parents?’ James said.

  ‘Yes. Who should I say you are?’

  ‘Laszlo Biro, inventor of the ballpoint pen? Or, how about James?’

  ‘I mean, as my boyfriend?’

  ‘I know what you meant.’

  They bumped into the Alessis almost as soon as they were in the doorway of the venue.

  ‘Mum, Dad, this is James. My … boyfriend,’ Anna said, gripping his hand more tightly.

  They looked understandably startled to learn of a boyfriend at the same time as meeting him, but went with it.

  ‘Anna’s never said a word!’ her mother exclaimed.

  ‘I think she wanted it to be a surprise?’ James said.

  ‘You’re certainly that,’ she said, and Anna rolled her eyes.

  ‘You were delayed?’ her dad said.

  ‘Ah yes. By one thing or another,’ James said. ‘I’m very glad to be here now though.’

  ‘Consider this place if you two ever marry,’ her dad said.

  ‘Dad!’ Anna cried.

  ‘Very reasonable, quality fare and all that outdoor space if you choose spring or summer. Put a tent up, have a barbecue. Anything you like. And Italians aren’t like the British with their drink. No vomiting.’

  ‘It couldn’t be nicer here, Mr Alessi. Zero vomiting. You must be very proud.’

  Her dad reached out and patted James’s shoulder.

  ‘You take care of my daughter. This one’s my favourite.’

  James laughed while Anna’s mum tutted.

  They waved hello to Anna’s friends across the room who looked suitably amazed, her friend Michelle then making a ‘get in’ pumping arm gesture.

  ‘Dance with me?’ James said.

  James led Anna onto the dance floor and held her waist. He could feel the tight layer of material girdling her beneath the rough texture of the lace of her dress. He felt so incredibly lucky that she was his and he was here.

  ‘So. No Eva?’ Anna asked.

  ‘I came to my senses there. Sorry it took so long. Slow learner. She didn’t move back in. However, I warn you that in the terms of the separation, I’m losing the house but keeping Luther. Don’t take me on if you don’t want him; we’re a package deal.’

  Anna smiled broadly.

  ‘Seeing Eva again made me realise it was you I had to have. All I could think about was you.’

  James’s mind returned to the strangeness of the previous evening, Eva walking from kitchen to front room, barefoot, with a bottle of Chablis with an Alessi corkscrew wedged in it, and him staring at it and realising tonight was the night she would expect to stay over. Everything had suddenly come into sharp focus, with a millimetre twist of the camera lens.

  He didn’t want her to stay. He wanted someone else. Someone he didn’t realise he absolutely couldn’t live without anymore until he was required to live without her. He’d simply blurted he’d met someone else. Eva had been stunned, then shouted and wailed about his lack of emotional honesty. Somehow, his falling in love with Anna got very unfavourably compared to Eva falling in lust with Finn, which he didn’t quite follow. The fact he and Anna hadn’t slept together also made it worse, even more confusingly.

  It was as if Eva was behind toughened glass, and they were only speaking on those telephone handsets. I’m so sorry, he kept saying. I didn’t know until now. I didn’t expect it either.

  Eva left and James spent two hours going back and forth over whether the evidence suggested Anna wanted a lovesick divorcee offering her his heart or just a shag on the spur of a moment. Then his phone received a message.

  He’d nearly called her on a steep international rate and stormed about saying florid, half-cut and over-the-top things about how she never need worry about anyone letting her down again. But then he dwelt on the generosity of the gesture she’d made.

  She had no reason to bare her soul, or reassure him he’d done her good rather than harm. Or to say such a warm farewell. Her only motive was care for him. A gesture like that deserved another.

  ‘How did we take so long to work this out, then?’ James said to Anna. ‘It’s probably been glaringly obvious to anyone but us for a while. I mean, we fooled everyone in my office without even trying. That should’ve been a sign, perhaps?’

  ‘I didn’t properly know how I felt until the hen do,’ Anna said. ‘And you can’t have known, then?’

  ‘I had some idea. I was like a slow-wit with a jigsaw of Big Ben and one last piece he was refusing to put in, saying he still couldn’t see the picture. So it was the hen do?’ he said, squeezing her gently, with a smile. ‘Interesting. That was why you made that disgustingly brash play for me?’

  ‘You cheeky sod! I was trying to be enticing.’

  ‘“Come round and rate my rack sometime.” What it lacked in mystery it certainly made up for in earthy appeal.’

  They laughed and James said: ‘I’ve missed that laugh. In all honesty I might have tried my luck earlier but I never thought you liked me that way.’

  ‘Oh, well. I don’t really. I’m just closing my eyes and concentrating on your bubbly personality.’

  George Michael yodelled ‘A Different Corner’ and she put her head on his chest.

  Aggy and her husband were further away on the dance floor and she waved a hello at James, whilst he raised a palm in return.

  He was in
a foreign country at a wedding surrounded by people he didn’t know, and yet he felt more at home than he ever had.

  A word came into his head, about his feelings for Anna. It wasn’t a word that he ever used, but it was the right one: adore.

  He adored her.

  71

  His dark gaze slid over the swell of her bosom in the silken negligee. He ran a hand across his stubbled jaw as he feasted on the sight of her.

  ‘Mi carina!’ he exclaimed, in gruff approval. It was no longer merely a term of endearment but an urgent demand. He required nothing less than the complete surrender of her unsullied womanhood to his power.

  She wilted under the determined intensity of his stare as the rosy bloom of innocence washed her cheeks.

  ‘You have toyed with me long enough, inamorata,’ he said, his breath becoming ragged, taking a lock of her flaxen hair between finger and thumb.

  ‘N-n-no!’ she cried. ‘Think of your responsibilities, Luca! You cannot inherit the estate of the De Vici family if you marry a woman who the family has not chosen for you. And you must not use me as a—’ her voice trembled and lashes fluttered at the indelicacy, ‘passing fancy.’

  A curse in his native tongue escaped his lips and his cobalt eyes flashed. ‘Duty be damned! I must possess you!’ He was poised, ready to devour her, to dominate her as the hungry lion with its prey, as …

  ‘Sorry, have you got a menu?’

  ‘Oh! Thanks,’ Anna said, looking up from her Kindle at the waiter in the spotted neckerchief, who was proffering two textured sheets of paper.

  In the fourteen minutes she’d been sat at the table in Morito in Clerkenwell, the Italian Count had been working up to a serious dicking, and she’d forgotten all about the necessity of choosing tapas dishes.

  ‘Would you like to order drinks?’

  She scanned down.

  ‘Two of the tinto de veranos, thanks.’

  ‘I’m not late, am I?’ James said, appearing beside her. He leant across to give her a quick kiss before flinging his bag down, cold skin pressed against her warmer face.

  ‘A little, but I’ll let you off,’ Anna said, her face lighting up.