You Had Me At Hello. Mhairi McFarlane

Ben and this scary bloke. And maybe, possibly, it occurred to me that four was a better number for one-on-one conversations. I knew Caroline would relish the opportunity to do some hands-off, safe-distance admiring of Ben.

      ‘Graeme didn’t mind you coming, did he?’ I ask, as we set off, me trying to keep lock step with Caroline’s long stride. ‘Sorry you had to rearrange your evening.’

      ‘Yep, you’ve ruined our annual trip to the cinema. I rule out anything with submarines and he rules out anything with Meryl Streep and we stand in the foyer arguing until Gray buys me off with Revels.’

      ‘Sorry …’

      ‘Joking. It was cancelled anyway. He fobbed me off with some bullshit about spreadsheets so he can sit in picking his feet. Who are we meeting again? Apart from Ben?’

      ‘His friend, Simon.’

      She raises an eyebrow.

      ‘What is this, matchmaking?’

      ‘Don’t be stupid. That’s not Ben’s kind of thing.’

      ‘Errr …’

      ‘What?’ I ask, nervily.

      ‘You haven’t seen Ben for ten years, his thing could’ve changed completely.’

       18

      Ben nominated a fashionable bar in the city centre that I haven’t got round to visiting yet, rather giving lie to the idea that I can show him where to go out. It’s all poured, polished concrete surfaces, with dramatic under-lighting, tropical flower displays and chairs that are so low-slung you end up talking to a collection of windpipes and kneecaps.

      As we enter I see Ben at a table in the far corner, chatting to a tall, blond-haired, mid-thirties man whose expansive body language implies that all the world’s a chat show and he’s the host. The would-be Michael Parkinson gives us both a languid up-and-down full airport body scan as we reach their table.

      ‘Hi … Ben, you remember Caroline?’ I say.

      ‘Of course,’ Ben smiles. ‘How are you? Simon, this is Rachel, who works for the paper.’

      Ben stands up, still in his work clothes, an artfully rumpled (as opposed to the crushed it’d be on a lesser mortal) cornflower blue shirt and dark navy suit trousers, jacket with bright lining slung over seat next to him. Part of me, the part of me that Caroline rightly points out has failed to notice a decade has elapsed, wants to whoop with excitement and throw my arms around him. It’s you! It’s me! I know I have to stop. This is nothing. This is a drink with an old face from university days. He leans in to peck Caroline on the cheek and naturally she goes gooey. Ben and I nod in acknowledgement towards each other, communicating that we did the kissing thing the other day and neither of us fancy a repeat.

      Simon unpacks his collection of rangy limbs and rises to his feet also.

      ‘Delighted. What’re you having, ladies?’

      ‘Uh, no, it’s OK, I’ll go, what are you drinking?’ I say, realising as I do that resistance is futile: alpha male Simon’s never going to allow it. I am far more used to beery betas.

      ‘No. What are you having?’ he repeats, firmly.

      ‘Vodka tonic,’ Caroline says to Simon, sweetly undermining me.

      He turns expectantly.

      ‘G&T? Thanks.’

      ‘How are you, Ben? Rachel says you’re married, and a solicitor?’ Caroline asks.

      ‘Yeah, family. My wife’s in litigation.’

      ‘You studied English at uni, didn’t you?’ Caroline asks.

      ‘Yep. I did the wrong degree,’ Ben says, bluntly. ‘Good for almost nothing.’

      This hurts. Not because I have huge pride about my qualifications. More that we wouldn’t have spent three years in each other’s company if he hadn’t done that degree.

      ‘Good for nothing if learning has to be vocational,’ I say, prissily.

      ‘Yeah, sorry, I didn’t mean good for nothing, obviously – you’ve done really well,’ Ben says, remembering himself, and I can see he’s surprised at his own lapse in tact. ‘I was skint after graduating that’s all, and I was only qualified to study more. Can’t even teach English abroad without a TEFL. And I’m not cut out for journalism like Rachel. I could never buckle down and hit deadlines the way she could.’

      I know he’s trying to repair the ‘good for nothing’ damage and, while I appreciate it, I still feel a little wounded. I feel his eyes on me and pretend to be fussing with putting my coat on my chair to avoid his gaze.

      Simon returns with two chunky lowball glasses full of ice. ‘Lemon in the vodka … lime in the G&T.’

      ‘Thanks,’ we twitter in unison.

      He gets a round in without getting another for himself? I’ll have to tell Rhys these men do exist. He’d probably recommend Simon donate his brain to medical science. Immediately.

      We do the obligatory amount of ‘getting to know you’ chat, and after establishing Caroline’s an accountant, Simon goes off on a tangent with her.

      ‘How’s Abigail?’ I ask Ben.

      Abigail, Ben’s bug-eyed, skinny little sister, was around thirteen or fourteen when we were students. Ben doted on her in the way much older brothers usually do. Ben warned me before I met her that she had Asperger Syndrome, which meant she said whatever was in her head, with no checks, balances or social graces. Sounds no different to most of my family and my boyfriend, I joked, though privately I was apprehensive. What if she asked why I had sideburns? When I met her, I found she was one of those rare people who have few unkind impulses or nasty thoughts so it didn’t matter as much as it might have. She admired a knitted hat I had bought at the student market, with: ‘Can I have it, please?’ Ben was appalled.

      Afterwards, I sent her one similar. Ben said she was so pleased she was ‘practically in tears, the gimp’, even though it was so large for her it made her ‘look like one of the aliens from Mars Attacks’. He reported this in a letter, having taken the unusual step of writing to me during the holiday break.

      ‘Abi is,’ Ben smiles, ‘really well, actually. She has a part-time job in a travel agent’s. My aunt works there so she looks out for her. And she still lives with my mum, so it’s good knowing neither of them are on their own.’

      I remember how much he used to worry. ‘That’s great.’

      I recall the way Abigail once attached herself to me, and say: ‘I bet she loves having a sister-in-law.’

      Ben grimaces. ‘Hmm, she did at first.’

      I make a questioning face.

      ‘Abi assumed she was going to be a bridesmaid at our wedding. Liv had already asked her two friends. She said she wasn’t going to sack one of them because Abi jumped the gun. And Liv said if she had Abi, she’d have to have her demonic nieces and she wanted to avoid that at all costs. I tried to explain Abi’s not manipulative, she doesn’t understand. Well, you know how she is.’

      I find it touching he presumes I understand Abi, despite all these years.

      ‘You couldn’t have intervened, somehow?’ I ask. ‘I know how tricky these things get.’ Do I ever.

      ‘I wanted to. I tried. Ultimately I couldn’t tell Liv who to have as bridesmaid.’

      ‘Ah. Sure.’

      ‘Abi dug her heels in, got into a “bridesmaid or nothing” mindset. It was so political between my mum, Abi and Liv. I stayed out of it. Anyway, upshot is that things have been a bit strained between all