Page 56 of Meet Me in Berlin

‘I attempted a crash course by podcast when I arrived, but not a lot has stuck,’ she says, pouring us both some water.

I pick up a menu and hand her one. ‘Well, you’re about to get a lesson in food, because this menu is in German.’

She opens it and I sneak glances at her while she reads. Her brows are drawn together in concentration, and it’s adorable. ‘I might need your help,’ she says in a hushed voice.

‘I’m having the Kalbsleber – it’s veal liver.’

She grimaces. ‘Ugh. Not for me.’

‘The Schweinebauch is nice,’ I say. ‘That’s what I had the other night. It’s pork belly.’

She nods. ‘Schwein … of course. I should’ve worked that out. Okay, I’ll have that.’ She looks at the menu again. ‘Oh, some of the sides are in English and they have mash and gravy. I have to have that. It reminds me of my mum.’

‘It does?’

She closes the menu and places it on the table. ‘Long story.’

‘Liver reminds me of my parents.’ My face heats. Jesus. What a thing to say. I glance around. Where the hell is that wine?

‘Yeah?’ she says, actually sounding interested. ‘Why’s that?’

‘Oh, they own a butcher’s, so I grew up eating all sorts, but Mum loves liver.’

The waitperson returns, pours our wine and takes our food order.

Once he’s gone, I say, ‘It’s how my parents met. Dad was doing his apprenticeship there and Mum was working in the shop. They liked each other straight away and that was that.’ I rush to get it all out, like I need to make up for not telling her anything about my family when we first met.

‘That’s cute,’ she says.

I nod as I take a sip. ‘It is. They’re still kind of cute together.’

‘So, you might inherit a butcher’s shop one day?’

I shrug. ‘Maybe, although my sister and I never got into it like they hoped.’ I reach for my glass. Why the fuck am I talking about my parents and butchering? ‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘That’s such an uninteresting topic.’ She laughs and my stomach flips at how beautiful she looks in the candlelight.

‘Well, it’s something you never told me the first time we met, and it’s not every day someone has a story about why liver reminds them of their parents.’

I grin. ‘I guess not.’

She takes a slow sip of wine, taking me in over the rim of the glass. My body warms and I remove my jacket, placing it over the back of the chair. When I face her again, she’s eyeing the tattoos covering my arms, her head tilted. It takes me right back to showing her around galleries –the way she’d always angle her head when looking at a piece of art, as though that was the only way she could make sense of it.

‘Sorry,’ she says, eyes cutting back to mine. ‘Your arms were bare when we … before. I didn’t expect it.’ Her gaze drops again. ‘They’re amazing.’

I extend my left arm and turn it slightly. ‘It’s taken me years to get to this, but it’s my art, I s’pose.’

‘You designed them?’

‘Some of them.’ I lift my T-shirt sleeve and point to a tattoo that circles my upper arm. ‘This was the lace design that was on my gran’s wedding dress – my dad’s mum.’ I point to the one underneath – a multicoloured abstract of a woman dancing. ‘This is new. It’s a watercolour tattoo.’

She takes it in. ‘Huh. Looks just like a watercolour painting.’

My first tattoo is hidden under my other sleeve, but I don’t want to show her that. Not yet. ‘So,’ I say, pulling my sleeve down. ‘I think you’ve probably heard enough about my parents and butchers and tattoos. What have you been up to for the past eleven years?’

She gives a short laugh and places her glass on the table. ‘Where do I start?’

Please don’t start where we ended, I want to say, but I shrug. ‘Wherever you like.’

We catch up on each other’s lives, from finishing university to our postgraduate degrees, jobs, friends and families. I ache for her when she tells me about her dad dying from testicular cancer, her mum’s stroke three months later and the dementia diagnosis. Although I’m desperate to know about her past relationships and that bloke in the photo, she doesn’t mention anyone and I don’t ask. As the wine bottle empties and the food disappears from our plates, we settle into a lovely ebb and flow of effortless conversation, like we’ve never lost touch, like it was just this morning our naked bodies were entwined.

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