Harriet Evans - The Love of Her Life

Kate laughed too, and took hold of his arm again, and they continued their unsteady progress up the hill to the bus carrying them north of the river again.

‘So, Kate,’ Sean said, as they turned into Zoe and Steve’s road in the wilds of Kilburn, over an hour later. ‘Are you looking for love tonight?’

Kate stared at the ground. ‘Maybe. I’m going to take it easy this evening, anyway.’

‘Still hungover?’

She stifled a yawn. ‘A bit.’

‘That Charly’s a bad influence on you, girl,’ Sean said. ‘Are you feeling OK?’

‘I’m not feeling great I must say,’ Kate admitted. The excitement of what had happened at work, the drinks with Charly, comforting Sean, rushing to be ready – all had buoyed her up and now, nearly there at the end of the long journey across the city, she was starting to flag. She had had, after all, roughly four hours’ sleep the previous night.

Sean watched her as she rubbed her face.

‘You funny girl,’ he said. ‘Where’s the Kate I know from college who used to wear her hair in a ponytail all the time and sit in her room all night, studying?’

She met his gaze, boldly.

‘She grew up.’

Sean smiled lazily, looking her up and down. ‘You bet she did.’

He was flirting with her; he always did this; it didn’t really mean anything.

‘How about you?’ Kate said, bringing the conversation back on track. ‘You on the pull tonight then? Drown your sorrows?’

‘Oh, you bet,’ Sean said. ‘I’m hoping to break my ’98 Exam Party Record.’

On one heroic night after their finals, Sean had pulled the prettiest girl in the bar, and snogged ten other people – including the barmaid at the pub where they’d started off.

‘You’re such a tart,’ Kate said, as he fell into step with her, her gold high heels clattering on the ground. ‘But – hey. Good luck. Here we are.’

They stood at the garden gate to the house. Sean held out his hand, solemnly. ‘Hey, darlin’. Good luck to you too. May the best party-goer win. Who is Jenna, anyway?’

‘Exactly!’ Kate shook his hand firmly. ‘Definitely.’

‘And we’re sharing a taxi home, whatever happens,’ said Sean. ‘I’m not doing that bus thing at three in the morning, we’ll be taken to, like, Manchester without realizing.’

Despite the fact he’d lived in the United Kingdom for over four years now, Sean’s grasp of the geography of his adopted country was somewhat shaky. He sort of thought that because everything was much smaller than the US, ergo everywhere was literally five minutes away from everywhere else. That is, Edinburgh was a thirty-minute drive away, not an eight-hour drive away.

He released her hand. ‘Let’s go in, Katy-Kay,’ he said.

She was a bit flustered, and fumbled with her bag, but he took her elbow and, as they approached the front door, it flung open and there was Zoe, dressed in a Twenties flapper dress dripping with sequins, her glossy dark hair curled into ringlets.

‘Hooray! You’re here!’ she cried. ‘Now the party can really start! Woo hoo!’ She called out to Steve. ‘Steve, love. Kate and Sean are here. Turn the music up! I’m going to get you two a cocktail each. We’ve got Moscow Mules in the bath. Hurrah, you’re here! Come in!’

Steve appeared behind his fiancee, his dark eyes full of pleasure. ‘Well well well!’ he said, clapping his hands together. ‘Man!’ He slapped Sean’s hand. ‘Kate, you look like – like a dream.’ He kissed her. ‘I could eat you.’ His smile was enormous. ‘Seriously, you two. I kept saying to Zo, the party won’t really get going till you get here. And now you’re here! Yes.’

Sean and Kate smiled at each other on the doorstep, proud of their party-starting status, which was acknowledged and, in Sean’s case, well deserved. Sean rubbed his hands together and Kate smiled. They were good, and they knew it.

‘We’ll see you inside,’ said Kate, and she pushed Sean towards the door again, wanting to get inside, and as she stepped forward, following him in, someone came in from the other side and she stumbled across the threshold, into the house, almost falling into their arms.

‘So this is the famous Kate,’ the someone said, holding her by the arm to support her. She gazed up at him, helplessly, in the dull glow of the swinging lightbulb in the hall.

His open, handsome face, his dark eyes, his ready, wide smile … he looked strangely familiar and yet – she knew him, but she didn’t know him.

‘This is my brother, Mac,’ Steve said, a catlike grin on his face. ‘Finally! You’ve never met, that’s really weird.’

Mac. Of course. He looked like Steve, and yet he was totally unlike him. Steve was easy, open, laughed a lot, restless. Mac was taller, broader, his hair was the same light brown as his brother’s, but closely cropped. He had lines on his forehead, laughter lines by his mouth. Kate suddenly had the irresistible urge to reach out, touch them with her index finger. She stared at him. She was glad Zoe had gone into the kitchen.

‘No, we’ve never met,’ said Mac, still looking at her. He took her hand now, and shook it. ‘I know a lot about you though. A lot ,’ he said.

‘Yeah, sorry about that,’ said Kate, recovering herself, her eyes still on him. His eyes were green, a strange, scrubby, sea-like green colour. ‘I know a lot about you too.’ When she was nervous she talked too much. ‘You’re a medical genius, and you live in Cricklewood, which is weird, because I never thought the two would go together, except we just did an article in the magazine about people who come from unlikely places. Did you know Cary Grant was born in Redland in Bristol and he was an acrobat at the Bristol Hippodrome.’

There was silence. Kate looked down at her feet, hating her high heels, which prevented her from fleeing into the night. She bit her lip, yelling at herself inside her head. What? How? Was she mental? This , this was why she hadn’t had a date in six months, she told herself.

‘I did not know that,’ said Mac, conversationally. ‘Did you, however, know that it took ten million bricks to build the Chrysler Building in New York?’

‘No!’ said Kate, with pleasure. ‘That’s – that’s wonderful.’

Their eyes met again; he smiled, she smiled, and that was it.

‘Kate! Are you coming in?’ Sean called from the kitchen. He sounded almost cross.

‘Better come inside, then,’ said Mac. So she did.

CHAPTER TEN

Two hours later, it was after midnight, and Zoe and Steve’s housewarming party was an unqualified success. Zoe had made vodka jellies, of which Kate had had four. Steve was the music mixer, flipping between CDs and his LPs with the greatest of ease. They danced themselves stupid to Michael Jackson, all pretending they could Moonwalk in their narrow kitchen. At one point there were thirty people doing the conga to Perez Prado through the small, corridor-like flat, out into the garden, down the side entrance and through the front door again. Then Steve – who was a brilliant host, one who only wanted his guests to have a good time and one who didn’t care about the carnage they caused to his new flat, as long as they were enjoying themselves – started making flaming B52s, and Zoe stood on a chair and sang ‘Rescue Me’ into a hairbrush, until she fell off and Steve had to pick her up. He threw her over his shoulder, slapping her on the bottom, and carried her out of the room, as she screamed and the others applauded.

Occasionally she would catch sight of Sean, who was drinking steadily, and wave at him or pat his arm, checking in to make sure he was doing OK. But otherwise she lost herself in a whirl of drinks, of laughing, of catching up. She kept looking over her shoulder to see where Mac was, kept thinking she saw him – had she just dreamt it? – as the party grew more and more raucous. In fact, it turned out the party was so good that when the new neighbours from upstairs – a married couple in their thirties – came down after twelve to complain about the noise, Steve thrust a Moscow Mule each into their hands and had them both dancing with Betty to Britney Spears in five minutes.