Sushi for Beginners
Page 45

Occasionally she allowed herself a little treat, and had a quick fling with one of these gorgeous no-hopers, but never made the mistake of thinking there was any future in them. They were human Milky Ways – the man you can eat between meals without ruining your appetite.
Her real relationships were with a different calibre of men. A dynamic magazine executive – it was this romance which led to her getting her first job on Sweet Sixteen. An Angry Young Man novelist, who ditched her rather nastily, and whose novels she subsequently ensured got vitriolic reviews (which made him even angrier than he already was). A controversial music journalist, whom she was mad about until he discovered acid jazz and grew a goatee.
Oliver straddled the two categories of men. He was beautiful enough to belong in the first, but talented and stylish enough to hold his own in the second.
With every visit that Oliver made to Chic, the connection with Lisa intensified. She knew he liked and respected her, that their attraction was much, much more than physical. In those far-off days, not everyone she worked with hated her, but the more she became Oliver’s favourite, the more she became Most Loathed Colleague.
Especially after she began doing special favours for him. When she tracked down four missing transparencies, Oliver had good-humouredly blasted the rest of Chic. ‘Listen up, you lot of useless tossers, this lady here is a genius. Why can’t the rest of you be like her?’
At that, a disgusted glance shot around the office like an electric current. Lisa may well have found the missing transparencies, but she’d done bugger all else for the previous two days.
Lisa had been vaguely aware that Oliver had had a girlfriend, but it came as no surprise when the news broke that he was once again single. She knew she was next in line. Though they flirted like mad with each other, they were never coy. Their solidarity was so obvious, it would have been disingenuous to deny it.
So obvious was it that Flicka Dupont (assistant features editor), Edwina Harris (fashion junior) and Marina Booth (health and beauty editor) hatched a plot to cut her out of her share of a basket of free John Frieda shampoos, on the basis that she was getting enough perks.
The expected day finally dawned when Oliver showed up at Chic, made straight for Lisa and said, ‘Babes, can I take you for a drink on Friday night?’
She hesitated, about to play hard to get, then thought better of it. With a shaky laugh she exhaled, ‘OK.’
‘You were going to make me suffer, weren’t you?’ he exclaimed.
‘Uh-huh,’ she nodded solemnly.
They both screamed with laughter so loud that, three desks away, Flicka Dupont muttered, ‘Please!’ and had to twiddle her finger in her ear to dislodge the ringing.
Flicka later sniffed to Edwina, ‘I don’t envy her.’
‘Gosh, neither do I!’
‘He’s a loose cannon.’
‘A pain in the bum,’ Edwina agreed.
They plunged into silence.
‘I’d quite like to have sex with him though,’ Flicka eventually admitted.
‘Would you really?’ Edwina had never been the sharpest knife in the drawer.
On the appointed Friday night, Oliver and Lisa went for a drink. Then he took her for dinner, where they had such fun that afterwards they went to a club and danced for hours. At three a.m. they went to his flat and had breathless, long-awaited sex, before snatching a few hours’ sleep. The following morning they awoke in each other’s arms. They spent the rest of the day in bed, talking, dozing and intermittently savaging each other with passion.
That evening, sated, they voluptuously rose from their lovers’ nest and Oliver took Lisa to a fairly crappy French restaurant, its only virtue that it was walking distance. Lit by red candles stuck in wine bottles, they fed each other tasteless mussels and tough coq au vin.
‘It’s the most delicious food I’ve ever tasted.’ Lisa licked her fingers and gazed across the table at him.
On the way home, they got swept up into an Armenian wedding that was being held in the local church hall. ‘Come, come,’ an expansive man invited, as they drifted past. ‘Celebrate my son’s happiness.’
‘But…’ Lisa protested. This was no way for a style warrior such as herself to spend Saturday night! What if someone she knew saw her?
But Oliver said easily, ‘Why not? Come on, Lees, might be fun.’
Drinks were pressed into their hands, and they sat in a bubble of dream-like ease as all around, young and old in embroidered, flouncy peasant clothes, danced strange polka-like jigs to shrill, speedy bazouki-style music. An old woman with a headscarf and a thick accent pinched Lisa’s cheek affectionately, smiled from Oliver to her and said, ‘In laff. So in laff.’
‘Does she mean I am or you are?’ Lisa asked anxiously, belatedly realizing that she might be wearing her heart on her sleeve too much.
‘You, lady.’ The old woman gave a gappy smile.
‘Naff off,’ Lisa muttered.
Instantly Oliver exploded into laughter, his beautiful lips stretched around his rows of strong, white teeth. ‘Touchy!’ he teased. ‘Must be because you do love me.’
‘Or maybe you love me,’ she replied huffily.
‘I never said I didn’t,’ he replied.
And though it wasn’t the kind of thing she normally went around feeling, there, in the unexpectedness of that surreal, beautiful wedding party, Lisa felt as though they’d been touched by the hand of God.
On Sunday morning, they’d awoken coiled around each other. Oliver bundled her into his car and belted up the motorway to Alton Towers, where they spent the day daring each other to go on ever more dangerous roller coasters. Even though she was terrified, she went on the Nemesis ride because she didn’t want to show fear with him. And when she went a bit green and staggery he laughed and said, ‘Too much for you, babes?’ To which she replied that she had an inner-ear disorder. Oliver challenged and interested her more than any man had ever done. He was like herself, only more so.
Then they went home for pizza and bed. Their first date lasted sixty hours and ended when he dropped her off at work on the Monday morning.
By their third excursion they were officially in love.
On their fourth, Oliver decided to take her down to Purley to meet his mum and dad. Lisa thought it was a fantastically good sign, but, as it happened, it was almost the undoing of them. The unravelling began when they’d been in the car about half an hour and Oliver remarked, ‘I’m not sure Dad will be home from work yet.’