We lose the set six love and Nadia laughs all the way through, which makes the rest of us laugh too. When it finishes, the four of us walk off court (well, three of us walk and Nadia limps), and then Josh, Jameel and I accept strawberry- and cucumber-decorated Pimm’s from my mother, while Nadia says she’d love a drink but that shehasto go and get changed first. We all look at her and, as one, nod, because, yes, it’s clear that any sane person would be a lot happier out of that tennis dress and the frilly pants and into some more normal clothing.
She returns about five minutes later, walking barefoot across the lawn, and Josh suggests we all go and sit under a tree to cool down. Josh and I are six weeks apart in age and his parents’ house is only about a mile away, and we have a lot in common, interests and personality wise, so he’s always been a very good friend as well as my cousin.
Jameel seems to have fallen under Nadia’s spell when she congratulated him on his tennis and then he showed her how to do some basic strokes and she totally failed to get it but laughed and laughed about it.
‘I’dloveto learn to skate,’ Josh is now saying, ‘and I’m pretty sure Jameel would too. Why don’t the four of us go sometime?’
And, honestly, it feels even worse than the lie we’re presenting to my mum. It’snormalto lie a little bit to your mother; lots of people do, for everyone’s sake. I mean, okay, they don’t lie about their fake date, but equally there’s definitely, at certain times in your life, a lot of economising with the truth to your parents, to protect their sensibilities. But I’ve never lied to Josh, or he to me. I mean, I was the first person he told when he came out. And here I am sitting under a tree with him and his husband in my parents’ garden with a random woman I’ve known for eight days pretending that she’s my new girlfriend.
I do not feel good about myself.
‘Definitely,’ I say.
‘So we haven’t asked yet how you two met,’ Jameel says.
‘Erm.’ I’m slightly speechless.
‘There was a false alarm bomb scare at Waterloo last Saturday and we got stuck together for hours under the clock on the concourse, and we just got chatting,’ Nadia supplies. ‘And ended up going for dinner afterwards with the others who were also under the clock, and talked some more.’
‘Oh, wow, so it’sveryearly days,’ Josh says.
‘Yeah, you get to know each other surprisingly fast in that kind of situation,’ Nadia continues. I’m very grateful to her; I don’t want to say anything because I don’t want to feel like an even bigger liar than I already am.
‘Such a romantic way to meet,’ Jameel says. ‘That clock’s going to beyourplace.’
Josh nods.
This is terrible. They’re gettinginvestedin me and Nadia as a couple.
Thankfully, Nadia says, ‘Ha, yes, the clock. We’re a walking cliché. So tell me aboutyoutwo; how didyoumeet?’
‘Even more of a cliché,’ Jameel says. ‘Injury-free minor car crash. Which was his fault. But he still believes it was my fault.’
Reminded of our conversation in the tapas place about meeting someone in a car crash, I instinctively look at Nadia, who’s smiling at me, her thoughts clearly having gone in the same direction.
‘I need to hear the full details,’ she tells Jameel, laughing, and then she continues to question him, keeping the conversation firmly on them and not us.
As Nadia and Jameel chat, Josh leans close to me and says, ‘You alright?’
I hesitate, wishing I could just confess, and then realise that I can’t. It would be ridiculously awkward and ruin the day for everyone. I just need to chalk this up to life experience. Do not do fake dating; it’s stupid and farcical and rude to your family and friends. And I should fake split up with Nadia and move on.
‘Yeah, all good,’ I say. ‘Just suddenlyreallythirsty for some water.’ We’ve been drinking Pimm’s since we finished playing tennis. ‘Let me go and get us a jug and glasses.’ And I jump up and practically sprint across the garden towards the kitchen.
When I get back, the three of them are deep in a really serious conversation about why the ice cream section is near the start of supermarkets because it makes it even more likely for it to have melted by the time you get home. That’s a very good question, actually, I realise.
We’re all discussing whether it makes more sense to put chocolate or cheese near the tills, bearing in mind the necessity for cheese to be refrigerated (Nadia is very much a cheese woman it seems), when Mum calls Josh and Jameel over for their next match (yes, we are having rounds; family tennis tournaments are serious business for my mother).
‘You have a very nice family,’ Nadia tells me. ‘Friends as well as relatives. And they all care about you a lot.’
I nod. She’s right. I should probably be more appreciative. Sometimes you can take the best things in your life for granted. And you shouldn’t. And, also, you shouldn’t lie to them. And if you do lie to them in a totally gratuitous, utterly ridiculous way, as I am doing, you should probably not make yourself feel better by owning up; you should probably slide out of the lie as quickly and as gracefully as you can without ever upsetting your relatives by telling them you did such a bad thing, and then learn from your mistake and never do it again.
So I lean back on my elbows and say, ‘Yeah, I’m lucky. Can’t really imagine my life without them and I should probably just be grateful that they – Mum in particular – care enough to hassle me about my “life plans” as she calls them.’
We’re under the biggest tree in the garden and it’s a hot afternoon, plus I haven’t seen my family as much as usual recently because I’ve been very busy at work with A-level and GCSE exam season, school trips, the usual summer busyness, so my relatives are keen to catch up with me and even keener to meet Nadia, so gradually everyone who isn’t still being forced by my mother to play tennis comes over and joins us.
It’s really nice, one of those family get-togethers where you just feel deeply, contentedly relaxed amongst people you’ve known your whole life whose company you enjoy and who you know have your back.
Except, also, it isn’t, because Nadia fits inreallywell with them, humour-wise, conversation-wise, everything-wise; no-one’s talking to her only because they feel theyhaveto because of me, she just slots right in, as though there was a little hole in our family group waiting to be filled by her.
