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“I really don’t. Maybe you should explain.”
“Oh, stop playing silly beggars.”
“I swear I’m not.”
Now she got a sigh.
A heavy one, too.
Though she could tell it was because he believed her.
And knew he had to explain. Awkwardly, slowly, like he was pulling his own teeth out. But he had to, and he did. “If I start talking about how nice you look, if I give examples and all that, you might think it means more than it does. You’ll think I’m trying to cop off with you,” he said. Then he had the nerve to also give her this scrunched-up look, likeFuck, I don’t know what you’re going to think of this.
He should have known, though, really.
Because it was nuts to imagine anything else. “Alfie, I amnevergoing to think that. The very idea is impossible for so many reasons, starting with the type of women you usually date and ending with the fact that we are oil and water. Honestly, you could say to me directly that you want to fuck my face with your cock, and I’d just assume it was code,” she said, and yeah, obviously she immediately regretted going withfuckandfaceandcock.
But it was necessary to drive the point home.
He was being absurd.
And it worked.
His awkward look vanished.
Then was replaced by confusion.
“What the fuck would that be code for?” he asked.
“I dunno. Maybe you want me to eat some sausages you cooked.”
“That makes no sense. I would never cook sausages. They’re horrible.”
“Yeah, I don’t think that’s the problem with what I’m saying.”
“I don’t, either. But I’ve forgotten what the point was, so I went with it.”
“You haven’t forgotten. You just can’t say it because it’s not true. And that’s okay, because not everybody has to be gorgeous in the way you have to be gorgeous to date a footballer. I’m perfectly happy being the way I am. A little bit plain, with a massive bum, and a lot of very unmanageable hair.”
She saw him close his eyes about midway through what she’d said.
Like it was causing him pain. Though she couldn’t have said why.
Or what made him suddenly spit out: “Fucking hell, I hate you so much for making me say this. So when I do you had bloody better erase it immediately from your mind. Got it?” But he was fierce about it, so she simply nodded.
She made a sign, like Scout’s honor. Two fingers up.
I do solemnly swear.
And then he nodded, satisfied.
About a second before he looked away and started speaking.
“You are lovely, Mabel. And not just lovely in your soul, neither. No, I mean lovely like a painting of someone important from a long time ago, reclining on some fancy thing with their thighs all soft and their shoulders all round and everything so plush it makes you ache to touch it. Lovely like the bit of moorland I used to go to near me, all wild and free, with that tangle of hair down your back and those eyes that sometimes seem brown and sometimes seem green and always, always feel like they see right into you. Sharp as a knife, but so soft you hardly care if it goes in. You want it to go in. You say thank you when it does. Because Lord, it feels so good.”
And in the ringing silence that followed, she thought two things:
That this was quite possibly the best compliment anyone had ever paid her.
