The Unfinished Symphony of You and Me (13 page)

I stood in the apartment of candles and realized I had no idea what to do next. The banter at the front door had stopped and in its place was a noisy silence. Who even was this Julian Bell?

The answer was that he was a complete stranger, a man with whom I was suddenly, shockingly, alone.

Julian was leaning against the wall – half confident, half curious – watching my face as he straightened out his T-shirt. He seemed unaware of the fact that it was back to front and inside out.

‘So, um, sorry again for trying to steal your candle,’ I said.

‘Don’t you worry, Sally.’

I grinned, hearing him saying my name. His accent was absolutely amazing. I told him so.

He looked sceptical. ‘Sally, I think you just told a lie. You think my accent is completely stupid. You’ve done almost nothing to hide that fact.’

‘Maybe. Mine’s no better, though!’

Julian smiled. ‘You’re damn right it’s no better. Can I fix you a drink?’

‘Yes,’ I said decisively. ‘I’d like a bourbon.’

‘Really?’

‘No.’

‘I didn’t think so.’ He crossed over to a kitchen area. ‘What
would
you like?’

I grinned. ‘I’d actually like some white wine, please.’

At this he laughed out loud. ‘I say things like that.’ He chuckled. ‘ “I want a bourbon” when actually I just want a nice cup of tea.’ He paused, smiling at me. ‘You’re funny.’

The idea of him finding me funny was strangely appealing. I watched him as he got a bottle of wine out of the fridge, somewhat confused by what was happening. Here in my skin was a confident girl who just marched into the flats of handsome strangers and asked for bourbon, then wine, and didn’t care if she looked stupid. Who was she?

‘Is this Raúl’s wine?’ I asked. It smelt zesty and crisp, and the glass was already misting. As Julian handed it to me I had an inexplicable urge to cancel everything and just stand in the vast kitchen space drinking cold, heady wine with the man in front of me, who was pouring a glass for himself with a concentration I found endearing. He was nice and broad across the shoulders, I noticed. I liked a man whose shoulders were broader than my backside.

Careful, Sally
.

‘It’s Raúl’s wine,’ he confirmed, replacing the bottle in the fridge. ‘I come here and steal his wine often. He has excellent taste, I have none. And my apartment, unlike this one, is a shithole. Are you any good at wine?’

‘Yeah, not too bad …’ I began. Then: ‘No, actually. That was another lie.’

‘You don’t look like a wine connoisseur to me.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because people who know about wine tend to be very commanding and boomy,’ he said speculatively. ‘You’re kind of uncertain and a bit mad. You also look quite scared. I don’t want to kill you, you know.’

‘Good. Although how do you know I don’t want to kill
you
?’

‘I don’t,’ he conceded. ‘But I wouldn’t rate your chances. I have guns of steel.’ He flexed a biceps to show nothing of the sort, which made me giggle.

I took a sip of the delicious, perfectly chilled wine and noted that Julian Bell was smiling all over, even though his face had gone poker-straight.

‘Why are you trying not to smile?’ I asked him.

‘I’m not!’

‘Yes, you are.’

He started to laugh. ‘I guess it was the same as you asking for a bourbon. I wanted to cultivate mystique. I’ve always liked the idea of being a silent, inscrutable man. You know. Strong, dark.’

‘Oh. That’s not going so well, I’m afraid.’

We looked each other straight in the eye.

He frowned, as if sizing me up.

‘You’re doing it again!’ I heard myself squeak. I sounded more flirty than I’d have liked. ‘Why are you looking at me like that?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said slowly. ‘I don’t know why. You’re
just … Hang on.’ He turned and walked out of Raúl’s kitchen and disappeared round the corner.

I pretended not to follow him with my eyes, and tried to ignore the fact that something borderline wild was going off in my stomach. It felt very early for Julian Bell to make any sort of judgement about me. At the same time, it felt very exciting.

‘AHA!’ I heard him shout from an unseen room. He really was quite bonkers.

He came back waving glasses in one hand. ‘I’m pretty blind without these.’ He chuckled. ‘I wanted to get a better look at you before I said anything more. Can I look at you? Properly?’

‘That depends what you mean. I’m not taking my clothes off.’ I blushed immediately. I had never said anything like that before.

Julian agreed. ‘No. That would be strange. I’d just like to look at you fully clothed, please. May I?’

‘Um …’

‘Excellent.’ He put the glasses on and he looked especially handsome. Clever, too. Thoughtful. Classic …
Shut up
, I told myself.

Julian looked me up and down briefly but was mostly concentrating on my face. ‘My glasses are broken and they fall off all the time,’ he told me, ‘so I never wear them. I’m always being told off for it. By my mom, my roommate, my friends, co-workers.’ He folded his arms and I tried not to look at the inside-out seams of his T-shirt. ‘But this is why I need to be better at wearing my glasses,’ he announced. ‘You! You’re …’ He cocked his head to one side, thinking.

‘Smelly?’ I tried, unused to intensity.

‘Hmm … Nope.’

I sipped my wine, waiting for him to find the right adjective.

He carried on smiling at me. ‘Cool.’

‘What?’

‘I said, you’re cool!’

‘Oh.’ I did a big Italian tomato of a blush again. ‘Thank you. But you’ve just met me. You have no idea if I’m cool.’

‘OK, pretty. I don’t need to know you to say that.’

I gaped at him.

‘No, strike that. Stunning. I think you’re a little bit stunning!’

There was a beat.

And then the magic that had been flitting lightly around us dispersed. I was in the flat with a cheesy pervert, the mad widowed one probably. A tiny shiver ran down my spine. Was I even safe?

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake!’ He grinned, shaking his head. ‘You British! So uptight! Is it so bad to tell a cute girl that she’s cute?’

‘Don’t you “you British” me!’ I replied. ‘There’s nothing uptight about finding it odd that a man you’ve just met is employing strong adjectives on the subject of your appearance. And you said
stunning
, not cute.’

He was laughing now. Openly. And before I could stop myself, I was laughing too. How ridiculous I sounded. Uptight indeed, getting angry with a man who’d just said something so nice to me. A man who was so patently
not
a mad, cheesy pervert.

‘But you’re British too!’ I protested. ‘No Englishman says things like that!’

He shrugged, picking up his wine glass. ‘I guess I picked up the best of both worlds. That’s why I can say things like “You’re stunning” and not prolapse with the effort of it.’

There it was again!
Stunning
! A scrunch in my stomach. Then I remembered that I was not even a little bit stunning and wondered why he was telling porkies.

‘Oh, stop it,’ he ordered, as if he could read my mind. ‘It doesn’t matter what you’re wearing or how you think your hair smells. You were just there, stealing my candle, babbling away and pretending to like bourbon. A girl like you marching around in her nightshirt, generally being a bit of a dick and able to laugh about it, is fantastic.
Stunning
. So there.’

‘Well, then, thanks,’ I said. For a second, I even started to believe him.

‘I call cows beautiful, if that helps me sound less cheesy,’ he added. ‘And dogs. Especially dogs. My roommate’s dog, Pam, is fat and stupid but she is still the most beautiful dog on earth.’ He chuckled, probably imagining Fat Stupid Pam.

‘It’s good to be associated with a fat, stupid dog.’

Julian, laughing, took off his glasses and looked gorgeous. Then he put them back on and looked gorgeous. Then he took them off and put them back on and eventually smacked himself on the side of his head, disrupting a cloud of mad hair. ‘Come through and check out Raúl’s view,’ he offered. ‘Before I make any more of a cock of myself.’

The view, which opened out as if in slow motion, was fantastic. Not perfect: there was a good mile of industrial
mess between us and the river, and someone had plonked a large group of new luxury flats in the way, but it was still like nothing I’d seen before. The East River was dark and slick while Manhattan was vast and twinkling.

‘Jesus,’ I breathed. ‘No wonder Fiona likes Raúl so much.’

Julian smiled. ‘What’s your family name?’ he asked.

‘Howlett.’

‘Hi, Sally Howlett.’ He offered me his hand, which I shook warmly, delighted by the incongruity of it all.
He tells me I’m stunning and then shakes my hand?
This man is potty! I like him!

‘Well, I’m Julian Bell. Me and Raúl are friends from school. He turned into a rock star and I turned into a small-scale journalist. He lives in a warehouse overlooking Manhattan, I share a crappy apartment with a fat dog and her mad owner.’

‘That’s a good self-summary,’ I said. ‘What about me? Well … my cousin Fiona, whom you’ve probably met, has turned into a renowned ballerina. Whereas I’m just a crappy old wardrobe mistress. She’s –’ I stopped. ‘Actually, scrap that. I’m not “just” a wardrobe mistress. I’m proud of my job.’

Julian nodded approvingly. ‘Oh, good.’

‘In fact, I love it,’ I said, buoyed by his encouragement. I never really talked about my enthusiasm for my work, even though it had made me so happy and kept me so safe. ‘I’m working at the Met on
Turandot
and, seriously, Julian Bell, I’m
loving
it … The Met’s wardrobe department is off the scale!’

‘How so?’

‘Um … Hard to explain to someone who doesn’t know anything about the industry. You don’t know opera, do you?’

Julian smiled in a vague way. ‘Oh, a little bit … Not much. Tell it me like I’m a total novice.’

‘It’s just … well, amazing. The dye room alone is bigger than my whole flat in London, and they’ve got twenty-three thousand costumes and the people are
so
talented. It’s like, even if you need someone whose speciality is crooked witches’ hats with secret panels that bats can fly out of, you’ll find them. I love it! I feel happy just thinking about it!’

Julian was chuckling. ‘ “Crooked witches’ hats”,’ he repeated, in a dreadful Black Country impression. ‘Crooked witches’ hats, oh, man, you’re great.’

‘Stop laughing at me!’

‘No way. I like you, Sally Howlett.’

What did he mean, he liked me? I still hadn’t fully got the hang of Americanisms. Did this mean what it meant in English? As in, I esteem you? I’d like to snog you at some point?

‘What does it mean when an American says, “I like you”?’ I heard myself ask.
What was I on?

Julian continued to laugh at me. His whole face creased up and his glasses slid down his nose. I enjoyed the sound of his laughter very much. It was rich and bear-like and it made me feel like I was the funniest person on earth.

I blushed faintly red.

‘ “I like you” means I like you,’ he said. ‘It means, I think you’re cute, and you don’t say the things that other girls say, and I’m liking us hanging out.’

‘Same,’ I said shyly.

Julian, who’d been standing a few feet away, drifted over so he was standing closer to me. ‘Good,’ he said, staring out at Manhattan. I tingled with confusion and anticipation. This was weird! This was right. It was mad! It was lovely.

I did like him. He smelt nice too. A bit like a Jo Malone candle Bea had bought me last Christmas.

‘You smell like my candle,’ I said. Then I winced. ‘Oh. The whole flat is full of candles.’

Julian just smiled at me. His hair, I noted with pleasure, had got slightly out of control during our chat. It was sprouting all over the place, fluffy bits sticking up.

Energy sparked almost visibly between his body and mine and I kept on staring at his hair to stop myself exploding.

‘Oh, shit,’ he said suddenly, clapping his hands up to his head. ‘It’s fluffy, isn’t it?’

I peered at his hair politely as if noticing it for the first time. ‘Oh. Not really,’ I lied.

‘Liar!’ he shouted. He pulled his T-shirt up over his face and head. Then: ‘
Bollocks and bollock
s
!
’ He lurched off sideways like a big, disorderly ghost. ‘Goddamn stupid arse-twat fluffy hair. Arggh!’

He crashed into Raúl’s sofa and reeled off towards the kitchen. His glasses fell out of the bottom of his T-shirt.

‘Where are you trying to go?’ I asked. ‘Do you need some help?’

‘Shut up,’ he said, pointing in what he thought was my direction. It wasn’t. ‘Don’t you laugh at me, Sally Howlett. You have no idea the battles I have with this hair, it’s – ARGGH.’

By now I was shaking with laughter. Julian’s T-shirt was still pulled up over his head as he stumbled around, but the offending fluffy hair was sticking out of the neck-hole, like a naughty puppy. ‘Everyone gets fluffy hair once in a while,’ I tried.

‘I’VE BEEN GETTING FLUFFY HAIR SINCE I WAS BORN,’ Julian yelled. He let out some sort of a war-cry, crashed into the dining table, fell sideways into a massive pouffe, pulled his head out of the T-shirt and sprinted through one of the doors.

I sat on the floor and wept with laughter.

As I finally pulled myself together, Julian returned and sat down beside me, hair tamed and smelling slightly of coconuts. ‘I don’t ever want to talk about that again,’ he announced soberly.

I nodded. ‘Understood.’

He looked sideways at me. I looked sideways at him, then back out of the window because I didn’t know what to do with myself.

Manhattan twinkled away. The candles twinkled away. The connection between us twinkled away. It was thrilling.

‘Do you think I’m a dick?’ he asked.

‘Definitely. Do you think
I
’m a dick?’

‘One of the worst.’

‘I can’t be worse than you,’ I said. ‘For starters, your T-shirt is still back to front and inside out. Second, your accent is the maddest on earth. And, third, you are standing in an apartment of
candles
overlooking Manhattan. It’s like a scene from a weird porn film. What’s wrong with you?’