Ben Page 7

  “I’m saying goodbye now. I’m going home on the tube.”

  He lurched towards her, and tried to hold her shoulders. She seemed to be swaying – or maybe it was him. “Layla. Layla. I don’t want the night to end like this. Come back to my place. Please.”

  “Oh, I see. I come to you and tell you how afraid I am that those men are going to use me, and your solution is you’ll do it yourself?”

  “I didn’t mean that, baby. Why don’t you trust me?” He swayed dangerously. He knew he was messing this up. He tried to gather her into his arms.

  “Get off me. I’m going to find the tube station. Now.”

  I’ve got to kiss her, he thought, or she’ll be gone. If I kiss her she’ll change her mind. He tried to lean in to snatch a kiss but she kind of ducked out of the way. He reeled unsteadily on his feet and he had to put his hand out and touch the brick wall beyond in order to avoid falling over.

  “Look at you!” she said. “You’re in a worse state than I thought you were, Ben.”

  Ben kept hold of the wall with one hand, and stared down at the pavement near his feet. He wasn’t sure but it seemed to be moving, slower than the London traffic speeding along the road beside them, but moving all the same. “Then take me home and look after me, baby.”

  “No! If you think I’m going back to your place with you in that state, you’ve got another thing coming.” she said, bitterly. To his surprise, she swept hot angry tears away from her pretty face, sending a dark smudge of makeup sliding off the side of her face and into her hair.

  “Oh, no,” he said. “Don’t cry. Crying’s bad. Crying means I messed everything up.”

  She seemed to be trying to stop, but the tears kept coming. “Look. It was a lovely meal. Really it was. Lovely place, lovely evening. Until about forty minutes ago. That’s when I started to get worried.”

  “Layla. I’m sorry,” he managed to let go of the wall and made a huge effort to stand up straight. “I’ll come with you on the train. I’ll walk with you back to the Rookeries. That would be the decent thing to do, wouldn’t it? I won’t even kiss you. I just want to take you home.”

  She was shaking. “No.”

  “Are you scared of me?” he asked, in surprise, as the idea wafted into his alcohol-saturated brain.

  “No I’m not. I’m not scared of you. Not like I’m scared of Ray and the people he knows.”

  “I want to help you with that. Like I said I would. And I want to look after you tonight.”

  “But Ben. You’re no good to me or to anyone like this. Look at you. You’re drunk.”

  “I’m know. I’m sorry. I was nervous.” It was quite an admission. He hadn’t been nervous on a date for years, and he’d dated several very sophisticated women. But then, he’d never really wanted any of them, not like he wanted her. “Please. Please, Layla. Let me take you home.”

  She stared at him, and he saw rain and heartache in her big grey eyes. She almost shook her head, but then, she sighed instead. “Okay. You can come with me on the train to Bethnal. If you really want to.”

  A small victory. A shred of hope. For which he was very grateful.

  * * *

  As the tube train rattled its weary way towards their stop, he risked a glance at her, sitting there beside him. She was pale and composed. She had dried her eyes and wiped away the stray eye makeup using the window of the train as her mirror. She was beautiful. Even in the harsh, flickering light of the underground train, she was very beautiful.

  The carriage was almost empty. Apart from Ben and Layla, there were only two others, further along. A couple of kids who were getting on much better than they were, swapping sweet talk and kisses. Ben glanced at them with a lonely kind of envy. Layla said nothing. It took over an hour to get back to the East End. And in that hour the effect of the award-winning chardonnay started to diminish. Ben sat there, reflecting on his sins, and the closer to the Rookeries they got, the closer he got to being sober. And the more acutely he felt a sense of shame. He had made her sad when he’d meant to make her happy.

  She wouldn’t let him come to her door. She said goodbye to him at the boarded up pub where he had picked her up just a few hours earlier. When he was still in with a chance.

  “But, Layla,” he objected, “it’s dangerous to walk through the Rookeries at night.”

  “Not for me, it isn’t. No one’s going to touch me, coz I belong to Ray. And Ray belongs to Jimmy and Jimmy belongs to Mr. Birch And nobody messes with Mr. Birch. They wouldn’t dare.”

  Ben nodded. She was right, and he was out of his depth. “This was nice,” he said desperately. “We must do it again.”

  “No,” she said. “You may be a wonderful doctor, but as a human being, you pretty much suck. And my dad always told me not to throw myself away on people that don’t deserve it.”

  Ben swallowed. He had been told.

  “Goodnight,” he said and sighed. He watched her walk away from him, briskly – high heels clicking on the pavement and her pretty legs gleaming pale in the light of the passing traffic. He pushed his hands into the pockets of his black cashmere coat and started making his way home, alone.

  * * *

  At Mile End Station, while he was waiting for the train back to Richmond, he phoned his sister.

  “Ben, it’s nearly two o’clock in the morning,” she said, sounding sleepy but benevolent.

  “Ruth, I’ve met this girl…”

  “Good,” she said, and it reminded him of Layla.

  “I took her out tonight. For the first time.”

  “Great,” she said. Waiting for more.

  “I’ve messed it up and I don’t know what to do.”

  “Oh, dear,” Ruth sighed. Like this was always happening. “Poor Benjy.”

  There was no way he was telling Ruth the whole story, but she got at least part of it out of him. He told her about the restaurant and the black dress and the chardonnay. He admitted to her what he’d said and what he’d done and how the evening had ended. She made him repeat exactly what Layla had said to him when they parted. He dare not tell his sister how he’d met Layla – or her age – or her diabolical situation. Ruth was a lawyer, she’d tell him he was crazy. The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, just couldn’t be revealed.

  So armed with only a portion of the facts, Ruth tried to advise him. “Okay. I feel like I’m brokering a plea bargain, but here goes…” She told him what to do. “Go round there. Apologize. Say you’ll take her anywhere she wants. Get her to name the place. Do you hear me, Benjy? Or are you still drunk?”

  “No. I mean yes. Go round there and grovel.” He ran a hand through his dark hair. “Do I get her some flowers or something?”

  “No. She doesn’t want to be bought, remember?”

  Ruth was a mind-reader, thought Ben. He hadn’t even told her that the girl was terrified of being sold.

  Ruth summed it up for him, in case he’d forgotten. “Go and say you’re sorry. You fucked up. Ask her what she wants you to do to make it up to her. Then do it. It’s not that hard.”

  “It seems hard. What if she tells me to jump in a lake?”

  She sighed. “For a person of your intelligence, Ben, you can be amazingly stupid, sometimes. She doesn’t want you to jump in a lake. She dressed up, she wore jewellery, perfume. You said so. She wanted to impress you as much as you wanted to impress her. It was the only the Chardonnay that killed it.”

  Doubts

  Ben went to work hung-over and not for the first time. Maybe he should have tried the old saline trick. At med school, he’d known people who used to swear by it. You hook yourself up to a saline drip and while you sleep, it rehydrates you. Ben hadn’t bothered. He’d crawled into bed feeling like a failure and dreamt alternately of Layla and the consequences of pursuing her. He got through his caseload today on auto-doctor. Distant and grouchy, he barely looked at the patients’ faces. He’d glance at the rash or the itchy finger, scribble on the notes, ditto the prescrip
tion, and move on to the next. No trouble sticking to seven minutes today. He averaged six all morning. After lunch, he had it down to four.

  Maybe Layla was right. As a human being, he pretty much sucked.

  He felt bad. He was better than this. A better doctor, and a better person. And oh, if she would only trust him, he’d prove he could be a better lover.

  He wondered if she was feeling any sense of regret, too. They’d gone through the whole rigmarole of getting her off his patient list for nothing. Nothing at all. And if she really wanted to hurt him, she could lay a complaint. He knew that. She’d been so vulnerable and she’d asked for his help – perhaps inappropriately – but she was the patient, and that’s what patients do. He was the one who was supposed to act properly. And instead, he’d let his longing and his loneliness lead him into that ethical no-man’s land where no doctor was supposed to go.

  But they did. Everyone knew that. Hospital staffrooms were full of it. Newspaper headlines screamed about it. And the medical tribunal saw it all. Misguided GPs who got carried away on home visits. Married doctors who erred and strayed. Psychiatrists – for heaven’s sake – who tossed away long careers (and their own sanity) for a beautiful, bewildered woman and an hour of pleasure on the consulting room floor.

  Ben couldn’t believe he’d turned into one of those men.

  He should call a halt now, while there was nothing for the papers to scream about.

  Alone in his room at closing time, he put his head in his hands again. And wild thoughts flooded his mind. Suddenly he didn’t care about screaming headlines. He didn’t care about them at all. Screams of pleasure – that’s what he wanted – hers and only hers. Please, Ben, don’t stop. Oh, Ben, please!

  * * *

  He knocked at the door of her flat in the Rookeries, and when she opened the door the look on her face said it all. She was hostile, like her heart was surrounded by barbed wire. “You can’t come round here, Ben. I don’t want you coming round here.”

  “I behaved appallingly. I’m sorry.”

  “Just go, Ben. You don’t belong here. It’s not safe for someone like you. You’ll get mugged. They’ll steal your car. At very least they’ll smash your windscreen and take your stereo. And if you’re stupid enough to use the underpass… well, you’ll come out a different man from the one you was when you went in. Understand?”

  He was heartened by the fact that she was thinking of his safety and well-being. That gave him hope. “Layla, I need a second chance.”

  “No, you don’t.” She attempted to close the door on him, but he was stronger than her, and he held it open with the flat of his hand.

  “I’ll scream,” she warned. “And in ten seconds flat there’ll be men up here a lot bigger and uglier than you are. I’m not joking, Ben. They’ll make you sorry you ever came up here. People at the Rookeries stick together.”

  “I know,” he said. “But I need you to know that I wish things had been different and I want to prove to you that they could be.”

  “I don’t think so,” she said, shaking her head.

  “I was nervous. I was drunk. I’ve been single for over a year and lonely for a lot longer.”

  “I can see why.” She was harsh and he knew he deserved it.

  “And Layla, I was so strung out about it being unethical, it was hard for me to behave like a normal person. Even once I’d decided to risk it all.”

  She frowned, slightly. “But you’ve come back to ask for more?”

  He nodded. “It’s too important just to let it go.”

  She gazed at him. Big grey eyes, fringed with black lashes. No mascara. Just natural, unadulterated charm.

  So he pressed on. “Yes, Layla, I’m telling you how much this means to me. Enough to say to hell with my career. Come on. You wish things had been different too, I know you do. It’ll be better second time around. Where do you want to go, Layla? I’ll take you anywhere and ask for nothing in return. Only give me the chance to be with you for a couple more hours. Then it’s up to you.”

  There was a long pause. She wouldn’t look at him, but he could see she was thinking about it, and he wasn’t going to quit while he was winning.

  “Please. Name the place. Somewhere that makes you feel happy.”

  “Happy?” she said, like this was a foreign concept.

  “Yes. Think back to the last time you were happy. Think about where it was – and I’ll take you there.”

  He let the silence happen. Determined not to break it first. Convinced that if he gave her enough time, she’d cave in and name something she’d like to do. The silence expanded and grew. But he stuck it out. Held his ground.

  And finally, in a small shaky tone, she said, “The flower market. I used to go there with my dad.”

  “Okay,” he said, quietly. “The flower market. I’d love to see the flower market.” He didn’t have any idea where the flower market was, but that was no obstacle. He’d find out.

  “We had pancakes after,” she smiled. Remembering better times. “When I used to go there with my dad.”

  “We could do that, too,” Ben said. “Make it a proper date.”

  “It’s not like a date,” she explained. “It starts early. Sunday mornings at eight o’clock. It doesn’t really count as a date.”

  “Then it’ll be easier for both of us, won’t it?”

  She nodded. “Maybe.”

  “Is that a yes?” he said. “We’re going to the flower market.”

  She still looked doubtful. “Ben. I got so scared when you got drunk. Everyone I know is on something. Downers, uppers, vodka. You name it, they’re on it. That’s how it is around here. But I hate all that and I need to know you’re different.”

  “I am,” he said, and he meant it, most sincerely. “Let me take you out and I’ll prove it to you.”

  “You have to do it without chardonnay.”

  “If you go out with me, Layla, I could do no chardonnay for a month.”

  “Could you?” And then she put her hand up to her face and looked all girlish and naïve. And she smiled. “Okay, then.”

  Ben felt a surge of wild hope and optimism swelling like an orchestra inside him . This was going much better, thanks to Ruth.

  The Flower Market

  It was misty at quarter past eight at the Columbia Road flower market. The street was full of flowers and the scent of them brought a freshness to the air, a burst of the dewy countryside, that you don’t normally get in central London. Nowhere else but here, Ben realized. No wonder the idea of coming here had entranced her. It was unique. Each side of the street was banked with flowers – and the growers were still bringing out more to fill the spaces. The market stalls lined both sides of the road. Bright splashes of colour and soft daubs of green, like an impressionist painting. Poppy red and sunflower yellow. In November? It amazed him. Lavender blue and pale pink and every other colour that flowers come in. They went as far as the eye could see – snaking off into the mist – and people wandering in the narrow lane between them, stopping to touch and savour, to lift a plant up and admire it, to smell the heady scent of the roses.

  “Two for a fiver!” the street sellers called. “Any two for a fiver. Everybody’s got a fiver…”

  Ben took in an elated breath.

  Real London. And Layla beside him. Perfect. Everything was perfect.

  Don’t mess it up this time, Ben.

  She was wearing the same duffel coat as the night they went to the restaurant, but this time there was no danger of her taking it off. It was cold, and her warm breath made a cloud when she turned to speak to him, “Do you like it?”

  “It’s wonderful,” he said, and his breath mingled with hers.

  She smiled. “It’s alright, innit?”

  She wore jeans this time, and trainers, and almost no makeup. Just a tiny hint of peachy-pink lip-gloss that he’d love to – really love to – kiss. But he kept to the plan. He walked beside her, companionably. No reaching for her hand, no pu
tting his arm around her waist, no obvious attempts at possession. He kept stealing looks though, while her mind was on the flowers. Her eyes were bright and her pale complexion looked fresh and innocent in the morning light. She liked this place, it was magical for her. And it was magical for him now too, seeing her like this. Ruth had been right. Ruth was a genius.

  “Oh, look, Ben. Snapdragons. Every colour. See those little yellow ones, aren’t they lovely? You can see why they call them dragon flowers, can’t you?”

  Ben shook his head. “No. Why?”

  “Because if you squeeze them ever so gently…they open for you.” She picked one up and showed him how, placing pale delicate fingers on either side of the bloom until it opened its tiny mouth like a gasping baby dragon. “Like this.”

  He smiled. “Let me try,” he said, and she held the flower up while he made the dragon’s mouth open once or twice. He grinned. Then she stood the pot back with the others and they walked on past banks of orchids against a soft green haze of leafy ferns.

  “Oh, look, Ben. White lilies – fully open – and scented hyacinths – breathe them in.”

  He breathed and the early morning air was full of the scent of flowers. It was so unlike the petrol-scented smell of London that it felt like they’d stepped into another world.

  “Oh,” she sighed. “I’d forgotten what it’s like. You can get anything you want here – every flower you can think of, don’t matter if it’s out of season.”

  Ben struggled to understand how it all worked. “They raise them in glasshouses, do they? Or do they fly them in from somewhere?” Ben felt very ignorant. She knew all the names of the flowers in bloom, both the common name and the Latin one. He only knew the names of drugs and diseases.

  “Some are imported, some grown here. They bring them on under glass outside London. That’s the only way you’d get all these flowers together on a day like today.”

  She paused by the scented lilies, touching them lovingly.