Page 1 of A Face in the Crowd
Five Years Ago
Ben pats the breast pocket of his suit jacket, then his trouser pocket, his backside and his wrist. Keys, wallet, phone and watch. It’s the new head, shoulders, knees and toes.
‘Got everything?’ I ask, unable to come up with anything better to say.
He checks his trouser pocket once more, removing his phone to make sure it’s definitely there. I don’t like it when he’s nervous; his anxiety feeds mine, a contagion that’s spreading along the hallway of our house.
‘We’re close,’ he says, answering a question I hadn’t asked. ‘If I can just get this bloke to invest…’
He tails off, biting his lip and glancing towards the front door.
‘Train tickets,’ he says to himself, going back through the routine of checking all his pockets.
Keys, wallet, phone and watch; phone and watch… and eyes and ears and mouth and nose…
Ben eventually finds the train tickets in his inside pocket, breathing a sigh of relief. There’s a bead of sweat along his hairline, which he wipes away with his sleeve. He scratches the base of his neck, tugging at the collar of his shirt, where the top button looks as if it’s done up a little too tightly. After that, he rubs the scar that’s underneath his Adam’s apple. He does this a lot when he’s worried. The mark is barely there and, if he’d not pointed it out on our very first date, I’m not sure I’d have noticed it unless I really looked. There’s a narrow trace of squiggly purple that hoops under the bulge in his throat – an old rugby injury, apparently. He needed reconstructive surgery.
I was shocked when he said he got it playing rugby. He’s not particularly tall or broad, and nothing like the rugger-bugger type. He said it happened at school.
‘This is it,’ he says. ‘We might be able to book the venue tomorrow. It’ll be the wedding you’ve always dreamed of.’
I almost tell him that the venue doesn’t matter to me. That it feels like, for all the talk of whatI’vealways dreamed of, what we’ve really spent months looking into is the weddinghe’salways dreamed of.
Montgomery Manor is out in the countryside, a massive building that’s featured in at least half-a-dozen movies and television shows. We’ve visited twice, ostensibly to decide the room in which we’d like to be married. There’s the Robinson Suite that overlooks the stream at the back, with lots of natural daylight during spring and summer, apparently. If not that, there’s the Westley Room, in which Kate Winslet once snogged some actor whose name I can never remember in a film I’ve not seen. The reason we’ve committed to neither room is that we can’t afford it. Even marrying on a weekday off-season is beyond our budget. I don’t mind. I’d get married in a register officer with no hesitation. I’d do it this weekend. I’d do it tomorrow.
Ben breathes out deeply and strides towards the front door. He opens it and then pauses before leaving, taking another deep breath.
‘I’ve been thinking,’ he says, half turned. ‘Once we’ve got the house by the park, we could maybe think about getting you those stables…?’
It takes me a second to process what he’s said – but it still makes no sense. ‘Getting thosewhat?’ I ask.
‘Remember on our second date when you said you liked horses and always wanted your own when you were a girl? If everything comes through today, I might be able to make that happen.’
He stares at me with such clear, unblinking focus that a tingle flickers up my spine, making me shiver. One of the first things I noticed about Ben was those long eyelashes. They make his brown eyes appear even duskier than they are. Some women would kill for eyelashes like those – either that, or pay a small fortune to a doctor somewhere. It is part of what makes him so seductive; so appealing. But the darkness of his eyes is also what makes me feel as if there’s something else there. Something about him that I’ll never understand.
‘I’m not sure if I want stables,’ I say, stumbling over the words. The truth is, I’d forgotten telling him about my young dreams of owning a horse. Seven-year-old girls want for all sorts of things. That was eighteen years ago. I’ve barely thought about it since. I wanted a pink helicopter and an endless supply of Cadbury’s Fruit ’N’ Nut bars when I was that age, too.
‘It was only an idea,’ he replies. ‘I want to provide for you.’
‘I don’t mind working. Ilikeworking.’
He nods, but it doesn’t feel as if he’s listening. ‘You’ll be able to do what you want. Work or not work. Study or not study.’ There’s a momentary pause and then: ‘Take a few years off and we can try for kids…’
I fight away a roll of the eyes. We’ve been through this and I’m not ready for kids. I want to visit Thailand and travel through south-east Asia. I want to finally go to university, or study for a degree from home.
It’s not the time to point all that out, however. I don’t want to burst Ben’s bubble when he’s got such an important day ahead of him. I’m hoping that, if today goes well, it’ll put an end to the mood swings and the nights by myself when he sleeps on the sofa.
Ben works as a day trader, buying and selling shares from the relative comfort of our living room. I can always tell the type of day he’s had by the way he greets me when I get home from work. Or, indeed, whether he greets me at all. There’s darkness and light within him – or, more recently, darkness and dark.
The light makes it worth it, though. The way he smiles; the times we cuddle under a blanket on the sofa to binge-watch some overhyped drama series; even the way he says my name. He’s never called me ‘Lucy’, always ‘Luce’ – or ‘Loose’, I suppose. It’s hard to describe, but it makes me feel as if I’m at the centre of the world. As if there’s only me. That’s love, isn’t it? When a single word spoken can make a person’s throat dry up.
From nowhere, Ben grimaces. He angles forward slightly, as if about to bow.
‘What’s wrong?’ I ask.
He closes his eyes for a moment and then reopens them. ‘Last night’s sushi, I think.’
‘Will you be okay?’
