Page 85 of I Love You, I Love You, I Love You

We arrange to meet in a strange little café in Soho. It looks more like a gift shop than a coffee shop: black and white sofas; marble tables covered in art books and fashion magazines; the coffee served in ridiculous deep shiny black cups with giant saucers. The owner is a rude woman my mum’s age.

The reason I suggested here is because the owner has ten dogs. They all hang around, posing and showing off in glamorous dog beds that look more expensive than my own with collars that would make you gasp if they came in your Christmas stocking. Dogs make a great ice-breaker. One of them is particularly adorable, a brown and white floppy King Charles Spaniel with one working eye and the other sewn shut, who sits by you, looking like she could read your fortune. PLEASE, READ MY FORTUNE, TELL ME WHAT TO DO, DOG!

I arrive first, carrying bags of my own Christmas shopping (to look busy and to make it clear Lowe wasn’t the only reason I faced the Underground). I take off my oversized, fuzzy, royal-blue hooded coat, order a coffee and wait, bags now by my feet. I obviously immediately regret the coffee; that’s not going to help with these jolts. I flick through a comic book that I found on the table to make myself look artistic, occupied. On the page, inside one of the little rectangles, a cartoon woman cries giant globular tears into a telephone. On the next she has a cape and is flying.

Annoyingly, the entrance to the café is a side street/alley, so I can’t prepare myself for his arrival. Still, I gaze anxiously out the window. Watch the people and daydream.

And the door swings open.

We turn our heads.

All ten dogs stare. And me.

Lowe looks knickerbocker glory delicious today. The structure of his face. His hands. He wears a pendant around his neck, something old but new for him, with stones – a ruby maybe? Turquoise? He wears a shirt, red-wine red. Black jeans and boots. He orders a coffee and I watch him give the best smile of his life to the woman who owns the coffee shop – she doesn’t deserve it – and I see even a woman of her impenetrable stature falter. I watch him pet the dogs, all sniffing his legs and licking his fingertips. I long to be their fur, their chins, their paws. Lucky bitches.

I cross my legs, lean my head on my elbow. I notice that Lowe mirrors my position. If I sit up straight, so does he. If I arch my back, so does he. If I cock my head to one side, he does too. If I sip my coffee, he sips his. I mean this is basic armchair psychology, isn’t it? If somebody is mirroring you it means they like you, right? Well, the guy is a bloody mime!

Smile versus smile. Eyes versus eyes. Hands versus hands.

‘So how’ve you been?’ he asks.

‘Good.’ Sound strong, Ella. ‘My book’s about to go out on submission.’ Realizing that’s probably just how most men in my industry talk about their work.

‘Wicked. Let me know how it goes.’

We still talk about our lives as ‘I’s’ and ‘me’s’ in total singular without ever mentioning partners.

‘What are your plans for Christmas?’ he asks. ‘You going away or … ?’

‘I’m just going to Mum’s. You?’

‘I’ll go to the coast with my dad.’

‘You still do that?’ Since Lowe’s mum died, Lowe and his dad created their own Christmas tradition of driving down to the coast to cold-water swim, and eat a picnic of sandwiches and coffee from a flask in the car. ‘Will you swim?’

‘Course we’ll swim!’

‘You’re crazy! I bet that’s an amazing feeling.’

‘I mean, it’s a cold feeling’ – he laughs – ‘but it’s addictive.’

‘What about New Year?’

‘There’s a few parties but I reckon I’ll just have a chilled one.’

We’re getting good at this.

‘I’ve had my fun anyway.’ He jokes like he’s old.

He doesn’t mention True Love. Only looks in my eyes and smiles and laughs at everything I say. How dare somebody so beautiful as you just tread the universe?

‘I’ve been writing actually.’ He looks shy to tell me this. ‘See, told you I’d get there!’ I like that he refers back to our last conversation. ‘I’ve just been playing around with some ideas, seeing what comes and—’

‘What?’

‘Sorry, it just feels weird and bit embarrassing talking to a proper writer about writing.’

‘Lowe! I’m not a proper anything!’

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