He looks at Lizzie and Dan, then raises his eyes ceilingward and says, ‘I do like espressos.’
We maintain a stilted beverage conversation until our own beverages arrive, and then we both sip slowly until I’ve finished my tea. Obviously an espresso is small and vanishes quite fast but I have a whole teapot so I drink two and a half cups, as slowly as I can.
By the time I’ve finally finished, Lizzie and Dan’s tarte tatin has arrived, so it feels as though the end is in sight.
‘Guessing you might have observations on apple-based desserts?’ Jake asks me.
‘Many,’ I confirm, smiling to indicate to Lizzie and Dan – should they spare the odd second or two to look away from each other in our direction – that Jake and I are getting on very well.
Jake raises his eyebrows, and off I go. Tarts, crumbles, strudels. Jake nods and smiles, clearly having reluctantly bought into the idea of not making the others uncomfortable. Occasionally he makes an apple-based comment himself, but basically he leaves the heavy conversational lifting to me, which I do not appreciate, because I’m getting a very dry throat, and I have no more mint tea and – as I’m slightly losing the will to live – I can’t really be bothered to try to attract the waiter’s attention to ask for more tap water.
Eventually, thankgoodness, Lizzie and Dan finish their bloody pudding.
‘Wow, it’s a lot later than I thought,’ Lizzie says, staring at her watch.
Dan’s phone is lying right next to him on the table, but he leans over to check Lizzie’s watch rather than just turning the phone over. Cute.
‘What time’s the last train?’ asks Jake, clearly pretty much as desperate as I am to get home and wanting to nudge them in the direction of thinking strongly about leaving rather than, for example, spending an eternity cutely drinking coffees together.
‘Good point.’ Dan checks Lizzie’s watch across the table again and then he picks his phone up to check train times. ‘We’d better get the bill. I’ll order us an Uber to get to the station.’ He swipes a bit on his phone and then says, ‘There don’t seem to be any Ubers available that will take four people, so we’ll need to take two.’ That sounds like a very transparent ploy to get some time alone with Lizzie. ‘I can get one in two minutes and one in maybe ten. Why don’t you two take the first one?’ He smiles at me and Jake. ‘And we’ll see you at the station unless you get a train before us.’
After a slightly longer than acceptable pause, Jake says, ‘That’s very kind, if you’re sure.’
‘Yes, thank you, if that’s definitely okay,’ I chime in. We clearly have no choice.
From the way Dan’s grinning at Lizzie now, Iverystrongly suspect that it isn’t true that there are no Ubers around that would be able to take all of us.
We all hug goodbye (one or both of Dan and Lizzie issoclearly planning to miss the train), Dan whispers in my ear that Lizzie has told him the whole New Year’s Eve story and I wince (and, no, I’m not sharing it more widely), I dash to the loo (far too much mint tea) and then the first (and perhaps only) Uber arrives and Jake and I climb into the back.
The driver is very chatty and assumes we’re a couple.
I begin to correct him and then decide to just let it go and give vague responses to his questions. Jake says nothing at all. I look over at him and see that his stupidly perfect profile is pointed straight ahead and his features are totally unsmiling. That does actually cheer me up a little.
‘There you go,’ the driver says as he pulls into the station. ‘Safe journey and enjoy the rest of your evening.’
‘Thank you so much. You too. Good luck with your guitar exam,’ I say. He was just telling us how he took up the guitar for his fiftieth birthday and his teacher has him doing exams and he’slovingit.
I turn round and catch Jake rolling his eyes behind me.
‘What?’ I say as I wave goodbye to the driver.
Jake just shakes his head.
The train’s delayed by fifteen minutes. I decide that I’ve had enough of Jake for this evening so I go and sit on a bench by myself. Within about twenty seconds I realise that there are greater evils than sitting on the same bench as him; there’s a big group of drunk men about ten feet away from me, who aren’t holding back on the shouted arsehole-letchy comments.
I’m actually – to my extreme annoyance – pleased when Jake comes and sits down next to me and gives them the evil eye and they shut up.
‘Thank you,’ I mutter.
‘Please don’t thank me. They’re stupid dicks and I’m not specifically being helpful to you, I’m just ashamed of the world we live in and the way some men behave.’
‘Okay. Well, good.’
‘Yeah. If it makes you feel any better, itreallywasn’t personal. Like, we both know that I wouldn’t doyoua favour.’ He’s making a rare fair point.
I nod.
Then we sit in silence.
