Ingrid regularly popped into the cafe to see Emma and Theo, she had long since decided that as bizarre as it appeared the two of them had nothing going on. She wondered if either of them were gay, but Emma a Christian, and Theo a Jew – albeit lapsed – didn’t make that a likely prospect. Instead she contented themselves that they were obviously sufficiently screwed up with various love tangles of their own that they missed any prospect of romance. Had Ingrid been more astute in the art of match-making, she wondered if this pair would make a suitable experiment.

Instead as she waited for them to finish their shift she admired her handiwork and speculated that few of the customers probably realised that the artefacts which gazed down on them as they enjoyed their meatballs or falafel had formerly been real animals. Maybe it would put them off their food. She had never rejected a commission, her finances did not accord her that privilege, but when Emma had first accompanied her into the office, and arranged the meeting, and Ingrid had presented her ideas and they had become animated, even excited, and passionate about the artistic vision that she portrayed. The invitation to furnish all their restaurants with custom pieces was a dream come true, but it was strange. Why would a chic cafe chain wish to place dead animals of their walls. She did contemplate if it might be all an elaborate rouse, and she would be stung as they switch around one hundred and eighty degrees to make a very public protest against the practice of taxidermy with her as the scape goat. But that was rather unlikely, they had all been friendly, but not that too friendly type of friendly that might have aroused her suspicions.

Emma swung round the counter and suggested that they tagged along with Theo as he had some time to kill before his big date. Theo looked aghast as his private conversation with Emma was broadcast to the public and the person in front of him who he found it necessary to tolerate because Emma seemed to enjoy her presence.

Ingrid was patently aware of the latent hostility that Theo held towards her and the look that he cast as Emma spilled the details of his evening’s plans confirmed this beyond any doubt. Emma was irrepressible, she seemed to rise above all of the traumas that surrounded her but Ingrid was not convinced that everything was as fine as she made out. In particular she suspected that that Emma was less thrilled than she made out that Theo was off on a date. Maybe she just wanted to be right about their romantic prospects but it wasn’t just that, she looked at him a certain way, that one does not normally look towards those who are merely friends. Ingrid confessed in the conversation that was taking place in her head that she had never really had close male friends she didn’t fancy and forced herself to assess once again whether she liked Theo, or if she was just convincing herself that she was not interested to protect herself against the pain of his rejection. It could have been the same story as frequently before, she was either immediately enamoured by them or as long as she wasn’t disgusted at their presence found herself questioning why she was not interested, and whether her disinterest was a facade that she subconsciously erected to guard her emotions when actually she was very interested.

Emma dragged Ingrid out of her spell of introspection by trying to draw her into conversation with Theo, but she remained muted throughout the late afternoon as they wandered towards the West End. It was only after Theo had moved on, to go home before meeting Talitha that Ingrid began to open up.

The coffee cup scratched against the saucer as she contemplated the frequency that she was now inhabiting the role of relationship advisor. All rather ironic Emma thought given the paucity of her romantic liaisons, but that she kept quiet, far easier to preserve and aura of mystery, let people believe that she knew what she was saying when the words flowed freely from her mouth. Emma had not known what to advise Theo when he had presented his dilemma. She had heard from the pulpit time and time again that the guys were supposed to pursue the girls, but firstly, Theo was not Christian, and secondly, no one had been pursuing her so she was ready to scrap that rule anyway.

Not know anything about the other person was hard Emma thought, but allowed her to remain detached from the situation. It seemed a little weird that they had parted at the beginning of the year as vaguely friends but certainly nothing else, yet as she boarded the flight to come to the UK Theo was firmly contemplating asking her out, more working on the how than whether to. Emma for her part had advised caution, she didn’t want to be held responsible if it all went wrong. She suggested to Theo finding some convenient group settings where they could get to know one another without having a exclusive bond too soon, better to scope out the territory before raising the stakes she had told in one of their innumerable conversations as the custom at the cafe drew slack and interspersed the hissing of the coffee machine and the hammering of knives against boards in the kitchen behind.

Theo had not been impressed when Emma had suggested finding group settings to get to know Talitha, there were no such convenient settings, the only time they met without specific arrangements was at very occasional family celebrations. Which was perhaps why building a relationship when she was on the other side of the world was easy, she was there, unable to view the chaos of the world he inhabited. She did not have to know the dysfunctions of his family, or his failure to achieve very much of anything, all she saw was the him who he chose to show. But now there was no way to pursue things without being too obvious about it, and he rued the day he took on the extra project which meant he had to pull out of dinner. Theo had expected that to be the last that he heard of her, he fully anticipated that having experienced his fickle time management she would walk away. Instead she was the one who made contact with Theo, she was the one who had asked him out, suggested they meet tonight. He felt slighted by her initiative but compelled by her intent.

Emma turned back towards Ingrid and knew that she had to explain what was going on. It wasn’t fair on her to let her see half of a story and then deny access to the rest. Ingrid sat in rapt attention throughout Emma’s retelling. Only speaking at the end, and it was not to enquire any further into Theo’s romance, “So Emma, who do you like?”

This was not a question Emma was prepared to answer. As she thought about it, it was not a question that she was able to answer even if the propensity to do so suddenly hit her. Instead she found ways of suggesting no one in particular, without actually uttering the words. She waited until the silence had stilled beyond the expectation of an answer before she decided it was safe to change topic and move on.

Sam scrambled through the carriage searching for his seat, he’d desperately been hoping as he stumbled onto the train that the reservations were in operation. The last time he’d got on a crowded train he ended up in an argument with the passenger in his seat and starred up to see the flashing display board kindly informing him that reservations had been cancelled. Heading all the way to Liverpool crouched in the aisle or sat by the toilet did not fill him with glee. Fortunately this adventure provided no such torment, as his forward facing, window seat, at a table and with a power point. It was the little things in life that provided the greatest pleasures he thought as they pulled out of Euston station, well maybe not the greatest pleasures, but in the grand scheme of things they rated pretty highly.

Ever since he had started working at Holland Park, this was what he had looked forward to. Although teaching had given him his fair share of challenges, Sam reflected that it did not stretch his brain. Now he would get to study again, each month he got to spend a few days away from the tedium of mundane tasks that filled his day, directed at the whim of the Reverend Doctor. He pulled out his notes and started going through the reading he had rushed to finish last night.

While the theology was the best bit of his work, it was also the most anxiety inducing. He didn’t like to think like other people thought, he had a penchant for the provocative, enjoyed sparking a lively debate. It gave him the chance to hide his uncertainties behind the role of Devil’s Advocate, with everyone else assuming he held to the same views as everyone else but was sufficiently confident to play with alternative arguments to test the strength of other people’s beliefs.

In actuality Sam did not think the same as everyone else. He was not wedded to the same doctrines, or at least he saw no reason why he should be if he felt that they did not stand up to scrutiny. He pondered the questions to be discussed over the next two days, and wondered whether he could get away with advocating some of Rob Bell’s views without everyone realising how close they came to his own. On the first day at the church he had read over the church compact with a heavy heart before placing his pen to paper to cement his deception. He could not say with all integrity that he agreed with all the statements, but nor did he have the courage to speak out and lose his job.

He thumbed through Love Wins and found the pages he would need in his arsenal when assumed his now expected position of provoker in chief. He almost wept as he realised he would have to lie through his teeth to retain any credibility.

Kathy realised he had no idea who he was sat opposite, obviously he hadn’t made as close a study of her facebook page as she had of his. But she wasn’t going to say anything, they had several hours of close confinement ahead and if he was in blissful ignorance who was she to shatter the illusion.

She hated trains, almost swore to herself and out loud as someone barged past and their coffee lurched dangerously close to coating her with steaming liquid. Kathy had tried to persuade her parents to let her take the car, it would be cheaper than the train she pleaded, until they booked her tickets and disputed that claim, it is more convenient, it is safer, but her request fell on deaf ears.

It had been a very impetuous thing to do. And strangely ironic now Sam sat across from her, but the night after their ill fated and never requited date she had decided she was going to be a missionary and head to Africa and escape having to deal with the never ending quest to find guys who liked her and were not freaks. Benin she picked, and not without good reason, there had been a fascinating feature on the country in that week’s Sunday Times magazine. And they spoke French which was an advantage.

What she had not expected was the interrogation from first her parents, then the church, and now she was on her way to Liverpool for the official interview. Kathy thought they would be crying out for people to go and help in one of the most deprived countries in the world, but it seemed they just wanted to throw obstacles in her way. She could speak the language, and she wanted to help, what more could they want?

Kathy tried to partially shield herself behind her notes as she finished her preparations. She didn’t want to give Sam any more chance than he had already garnered to establish her identity. She would then have to plead ignorance to recognising him, because why else had she said nothing. Then she recalled that she had told Emma about seeing him and mystery girl in the restaurant and was sure the message had been passed on because she had come back with his absurd tale of miscommunication and misunderstandings.

What had shocked Kathy was when he pulled out Love Wins from his bag. From everything that Emma had said Holland Park was a stickler for correct doctrine and couldn’t imagine that they would tolerate that sort of reading material. She was pondering whether to strike up a conversation about the book, but realised eventually she’d surely need to disclose her identity, or would so accidentally somehow. And well she weighed her options her phone nearly vibrated off the table.

“Hello”

“Hello, it is Sebastian,” the heavily accented voice at the other end of the line responded.

“Um, who is this, I think may be you have got the wrong number?”

“Is this Kathy? It is Sebastian from Avignon.” As Kathy heard these words her heart filled with dread, her palms started sweating and she prayed for a tunnel to approach which would terminate her dilemma.

“Hello Sebastian, yes I remember, do you want to speak in French?”

“No, I have been learning English, I must practice.” Kathy sensed the pause before it materialised, and wondered where this was going. “Kathy, would you like to have brunch on Saturday, at near Waterloo, I would very much like to see you again and get to know you better.”

Kathy now was the one to pause, she leaned out the window and no tunnel was in sight to rescue her in time, she could fake it and just end the call, plead ignorance if he every called back and pray to God that he wouldn’t. But that would not really match up would it, asking God to cover over her deception, Kathy thought.

“Er, I, er, I’m not really able to talk right now.” Remembering that he must have got her number from the card she had so stupidly handed him as she tried to get away from him when they waited for their flight. “Er, email me.”

As she put the phone back down Kathy saw Sam looking at her inquisitively. She returned to the guide book to Benin as she tried to swot up on the political and social history of Benin.  Kathy was immediately embarrassed by the conversation which she became convinced that the entire carriage had overheard both sides of. What had she been thinking, she rebuked herself,what sort of response is ’email me’? Kathy was furious that she could have found the words to be articulate in her rejection, clear and compassionate. Leaving him knowing in no uncertain terms that she would not go on a date with him, but at the same time letting him know what he was missing, detached but alluring, that was the pitch she was going for. But she knew she has missed by a long shot, soon her phone would bleep with the email which would necessitate the requisite rejection, exposing the frailty of her postponement only moments earlier.

But for know that wasn’t the principle concern that Kathy encountered, that would wait for another time, it would creep up on her unaware, but it didn’t need her attention this moment. What did need her attention was Sam still staring straight through her guidebook which failed to cover her face as it had sunk into her lap from lack of attention. May be if the book had been the right way up the cover might have been a bit more convincing. He knew, she was certain of it.

“Sam Engle, I think I should introduce myself, I’m Kathy, I live with Emma.” The immediacy of her intervention had caught him unaware, it seemed he had been caught in a cycle of deliberation about whether to speak up and discover if his suspicions were correct, or stay mute and endure continued ignorance.

“Er, yes, I was just wondering if it was you.” He knew she had known who he was all along, but any attempt to address it would seem overly confrontational. “I’m sorry for not being very observant, I didn’t notice until you were on the phone just then, for some reason I knew I knew you, but couldn’t quite get it. I think you look different than the photo’s I’ve seen.”

That sounded weird Sam decided, “Photos of Emma, that you happen to be in. It’s not. I don’t. You know, I don’t make a habit of looking at photos of you, because that would be, well, that would be a bit weird.”

Kathy felt sorry for Sam as he stumbled into and out of that particular hole. “Don’t worry, I had a look at your facebook before we were supposed to meet, I wanted to recognise you.”

“Oh, that would probably have been a good idea, I didn’t really have any idea who I was looking for. I spent a while wondering if it was this girl sat along the bar, but she was from New Zealand and I knew you weren’t.”

“What happened Sam?” Kathy decided once again on the blunt approach. “Last month, when we were supposed to go on that date, what happened, I was just about to come into the restaurant when you turned and walked from the bar to the tables beside another woman.

“I’m sorry but in just about anyone’s form book that’s pretty off colour behaviour. You were supposed to be meeting me for a date, and you ending up with someone else. I’ve got a pretty bad view of men, but that’s just crazy. Emma said you were a quiet kind of guy but turns out you’re a complete arse!”

“I waited for you for over an hour.” Sam didn’t like the fact that he was the one that was considered at fault when she had stood him up. “And I wasn’t hitting on anyone else, I wasn’t ‘with’ them, and if you’ve got a bad view of men then it’s probably because you few them with the same default suspicion and interpret their action as the worst possible scenario.

“It might suit you to think of us all as jerks,” Sam couldn’t bring himself to swear with the same casual abandon Kathy showed, “but to be honest, if you always think of guys like that what about being innocent until proven guilty.” Until same drew the sentence to the close he thought he was on the cusp of a profound and thundering point that would make Kathy change her view of men, but in the end it all rather petered out.

“I wasn’t with that girl, we had coalesced around a shared experience of being stood up. We chatted and decided we both needed to eat, there was nothing else too it, it was as simple as that.” Sam waited to see if she was going to come back at him, he braced himself for the torrent of anger he anticipated. He knew that it might have looked a bit dodgy, but he couldn’t stand being misunderstood. He hated the idea that this girl’s first impression of him was based on such a false premise.

But no response came, it was as though she was waiting, wondering, perhaps she was as confused as he was. “I’m sorry Kathy,” and as he said it realised it was the first time he had spoken her name to her, “I shouldn’t have had dinner with Talitha, it was the wrong thing to do, and I’m sorry that when you saw us you got the impression that you did. There is nothing between her and I, she’s interested in someone else.”

“And you, are you interested in her, or in someone else?”

Sam decided to deflect that one, not willing to open up to another stranger after the trouble that his loquaciousness with Talitha had caused. “After the stunning success of Emma’s first effort at finding me a date, and my conspicuous failure on my own to date that’s not much of an issue.”

Kathy swallowed hard and knew she had to reciprocate the apology, “and I’m sorry too. I waited outside while I watched you sat at the bar on your own. I walked around the building and you were still alone, on the third time you were talking and on the fourth as I finally mustered the courage to come in I saw you walking to your table.

“I was furious, furious with you for stealing this from me. Furious with myself for waiting until it was too late, if I had come in just as you were walking out it would have been just as bad, you’d have given up on waiting, and I was waiting for I don’t know what. I’m furious for getting mad at you, and I’m furious that you had dinner with a beautiful woman, who has found some place in your head, even if not where you expect.”

During the patient silence between them Sam saw Talitha had replied. They’d been in touch a little over the weeks, and today was the day she had decided to tell Theo how she thought. This most recent communique was short and to the point. ‘Done it, he thought the same’. And Sam wondered if it was worth giving this blind date a second chance in the light of day.

Why was it that the wrong things always seemed so right, thought Alex as she walked towards her impending error. She knew that she should not be doing what she was about to do. She could find all sorts of ways of excusing it, of dismissing it as perfectly normal, she could convince herself that it was harmless and meaningless. That it was just one person having dinner with another person.

Except Alex knew that she would not have been this apprehensive had it been as simple as that. She would not be encountering the butterflies that gave lie to her anxiety if it were as innocent as she wished it was. When the call had come she engaged in the mindless chatter that came so easily, drifting into and out of casual enquiries and questionless propositions. But all of a sudden the conversation shifted from the safe sands of small talk and onto more considered and serious grounds.

Dinner sounded like a good idea, she was desperate to be asked out on a date, but she forced herself to accept that this couldn’t be a date. He was not available. But where exactly this left her she had no idea. The safest thing would have been to say no, to run away, leave the church and find a place a world away from here that would embrace her anonymity with abandon. Yet as with so many things Alex decided, being good was never any fun. She had never known someone who made her smile with such little effort, someone her made her laugh with their most inconsequential of remarks, or whose appearance was so instantly appealing.

All in all, as she rang the bell, Alex knew she should not be here, however, she had decided to let go of her reservations and enjoy herself. She knew he would not take it any further, she granted herself some solace in the depressing reminder that there was no future for them, but which guaranteed it would not get out of hand.

As he opened the door and led Alex through the corridor and into the expansive open plan kitchen and dinning room she pushed it all to one side, trying to hide it altogether under a mountain of glee that his presence created. Alex slowly ate to prevent the evening going too quickly as well as mask her uncertainty with activity. She needn’t have worried, her reservations stilled as soon as they moved passed the awkwardness of opening exchanges.

“Alex, I think you’ve got real potential and I think you should do a lot more in the church. I see that the student team are looking for someone to lead the women’s student Bible study. Maybe you could do it?” He carefully segued from the casual conversation from the now evident purpose of their meeting.

“I’m not sure I’m really good enough to do that, I’ve not been to Bible college, or had any kind of theological training, I’m sure there are many better people, what would they think if it was just me, some of them probably know far more than I do.” Silently Alex was thrilled at the prospect as opportunities for doing things in church were pretty limited as the leadership put a very definite cap on what women could do. Leading a women’s Bible study was about as much as she could hope for.

“I wouldn’t worry about that,” he reassured her, “I could give you some help, help you prepare and go through the study plans. I’m not sure any of the woman have any formal theology training, so it will be good for them to learn from you. And you’re a natural teacher, you said last week how much you’re enjoying lecturing.”

As they sat down after eating Alex was concious that he was sitting unnecessarily close to her. And it was not a bad thing. He could have chose the separate armchair she thought, it would have facilitated easier conversation, and wondered if when she found a reason to stand up, may be for the toilet, she’d return to that chair instead of the couch she now shared. But it wasn’t a bad thing because she liked him beside her.

As the sirens whistled past the house, and the music came to an end, his arm stretched behind her. And she knew that this was always going to have happened. From the moment she answered the call and he asked her to come around. Through the prevarication of casual conversation and faux formality of church organisation. After the prelude, and the interlude, after acts one and two, came the climax. Alex looked at him and his hand froze, almost as though he was ready to remove it from her shoulder but not until she actually asked him to.

In an instant she relaxed into his arm, leaning towards him, giving up the fight that she knew she would always concede. He clearly was unsure about it, but had been so deliberate in his actions Alex thought. As she clasped her hand in his she wondered why other guys were not like this. Why had none of the eligible bachelors made such a move, why were they so hesitant, so unsure. Why were they so satisfied with platonic companionship, or so afraid of putting themselves on the line that they settled for that pleasant but limited alternative and repressed their true feelings.

He leant towards her, but backed off to choose to rest his head against hers instead of the kiss she thought had been his intent. Was she kidding herself to imagine that maybe at least some of the guys who were so ostensibly content with friendship would actually desire more?

Her mind whirred so that she barely noticed when he stood and suggested that perhaps he should be getting to bed, the cue for her to take her leave. Perhaps he had rediscovered his senses and realised the road that he had embarked on needed to be squashed before it got out of hand.

Alex walked towards the door sensing everyone of his steps as he followed her. And at the door as she donned her coat and opened it to leave he closed it before she could exit onto the street. He took her arm and spun her in the way that had appealed to her every time he did it.  He drew Alex towards him and hesitantly moved to kiss her. In an instant he withdrew and bid her goodnight before ushering her out of the house.

Alex was rooted to the spot as the door closed behind her. She knew it was not what should be happening. She resolved to have nothing more to do with him. The winds forced the trees from side to side as the bus refused to arrive leaving her lingering in the street dredging her mind for any semblance of sense. But she found that only sensibility was there. Attraction had ruled over her better side, it had pushed it into oblivion and now here she was following it into the steep descent. She should be joyful, excited, passionate, but instead she started to cry.

It was late when Alex left the campus, she was exhausted after marking essays all evening and wondered whether it was really a good idea to be taking on all this extra work. It wasn’t as though she really needed the money but was worried that if she wasn’t seen as having to work to pay her way through her studies her friends might start to ask questions about how she afforded it all.

The day had begun in a very strange manner when she realised that her day was going to be disrupted by the student protests that were taking place throughout the city that day. So as Alex sat wading through the undergraduates’ rather torrid, and in all but a few cases, rather poor accounts of union and government relations during the inter-war years. It seemed as though everyone thought that they had something unique to offer to the tomes already written about the Jarrow marches while copy and pasting from Wikipedia.

Alex had put the final essay back on the pile and decided that she wasn’t going to head over to see Sam this evening. They had been due to meet at the church after he finished but she had to postpone as her deadline loomed, it felt to her as though she had not moved on from the last minute culture that had plagued her life to date.

Sam had been very understanding, but then, he always was understanding, she knew that he wouldn’t mind when she fired off the text, but also knew that should she choose to turn up later he’d also have the door wide open. The bus didn’t turn up for a while, and when one did it went via the church so as she jumped on she gave Sam a call.

“Hey Sam, are you still at church”

“No, I’ve just got home, are you coming over?”

“Maybe in a bit, I just jumped on a bus, I thought you might still be at work so I’ll be coming the long way round as I’m nearly at Holland Park.”

“Alex, could you do me a huge favour? I’ve left some stuff I need tomorrow morning at the church, the building should be still open, it’s Christianity Uncovered, there’s a brown paper bag with a bunch of paper on the desk”

“Okay, no problem, I’ll head over to yours when I’ve got it”

Alex jumped off the bus and headed into Holland Park Baptist Church (continuing), carefully avoiding the hordes of people now assembled in the main hall. She thought it strange that of all the things that Sam was involved with he didn’t have anything to do with the thing that he liked most. All the time they had known each other Sam was always looking for ways to talking to people about Jesus. And it was the thing that he was least looking forward to about working for the church, that he would no longer have contact with non-Christians.

She resolved to ask him about it when she saw him, because he’d not had anything to do with it so far, and this she thought was strange. Before she left the church Alex lingered around and talked and all in all delayed her inevitable departure and then arrival at Sam’s. Maybe because she felt guilty about bailing on him earlier, but more likely because he knew that he just wanted to talk about his blind date and all that had gone wrong.

It wasn’t hard to avoid leaving, there were people spilling out of the hall and she allowed herself to be held up several times. Including twice by someone she knew she shouldn’t stay near.

By the time she got to Sam’s house Alex had rotated the conversation and interaction that had just occurred several times in her head. She knew that she had be injudicious in her selection of conversation partner, but it hadn’t really been her choice. He had come over to her as she returned from the office and cut off her path to the door. He was as friendly as ever. But it was the way, after several other superficial conversations had passed by, that he had walked out of the kitchen, and clasping her elbow in his palm turned her around to face him and say goodbye. He was all too close, and has his had left her arm he flicked the hem of her sleeve with the lightest of intentional touches.

It was nothing, Alex told herself, it was nonsense, she was reading something where there was nothing to read, she was chasing phantoms in the dark, looking for a mountain where only molehills were present, she conjured clichés out of the air to dismiss her thoughts but still they prevailed. It was impossible, it was not going to happen.

As Sam started to regale her of his torment of waiting for Kathy in the crowded restaurant her mind constantly drifted, replaying in her head the split second contact that had gone before.

“It was absolute torture, I was sat there nursing my drink waiting for this girl I’m sure I wouldn’t recognise. I’ve never felt so self conscious, I’ve been left waiting for people – you most of the time! But this was a whole different level, I don’t like it ever, but when you’ve thrown everything on the line, when you’ve asked someone on a date and then they don’t show up.”

“Sam, you didn’t ask her on a date, your sister did.”

“Well I guess, technically, you’re right, but it was still a first date, and this was maybe even worse because I had nothing to go on, when I’m waiting for you I know you’re probably still coming. With Kathy I just had to wait, I didn’t even have her number and Emma was stoically refusing to pick up when I called.

“She says Kathy was delayed, and then when she got hit by a bout of nerves, and by the time she’d decided to come in she saw me sitting down to eat with another woman. I’m sure that’s not how it happened, reckon she just decided to go elsewhere and spare herself the agony she instead inflicted on me.”

“You were sitting down to eat with another woman? Did she see you? She must have been there.”

“Maybe, I guess she was, but then why didn’t she come in.”

“Because you were with someone else. Sam, when did you become such a player?”

“I’m not a player, it’s not like that, it’s not anything, it was nothing.” Sam felt it necessary to be emphatic with his denial, Emma had not seemed fully convinced, and now Alex was casting sceptical glances in his direction and he knew he would have to explain.

“While I was waiting at the bar, I got talking to a girl, she’d been stood up on her date, and we got chatting, really we just comparing notes on our derisory evenings, and the other parties who had dishonoured us.” Sam paused as he rued his melodramatic streak, but ploughed on regardless, “She was waiting for a guy she thinks likes him, but has been sending all the wrong signals, I thought it sounded like your situation, I could see that she needed the company. And it gave me the chance to have a bitch about Kathy.”

“So instead of having dinner with someone who had been waiting outside, you were inside with another girl, giving her advice, and tearing shreds out of the poor girl’s character?” Alex felt that this flush of managed anger was acutely appropriate to the insensitivity and relational blindness of the guy sat opposite.

“Something really strange happened tonight when I went into church to pick up your stuff.” Alex decided to change the subject before she could cause any more offence and decided it was about time some attention was paid to her rather than the pity story which Sam had written himself into.

“This guy at church has been pretty friendly with me recently.” As Alex went on Sam internally wearied as he anticipated a severe encounter of de ja vu. “It’s not the same as before,” she immediately corrected, “I’ve never been more sure that someone is interested in me, but I know it’s trouble.

“He’s just not the sort of person that I need to be with, I know that he can’t give me what I want.”

Sam was getting more and more confused, “Can you stop talking in circles, who is it? And what’s wrong with him?”

“I shouldn’t say, we’ve just been flirting with each other. This evening the way he took my elbow, was so sensual.” She could see Sam wince at the mention of the word. “I just wish we could be together.”

“How long has this been going on with the mysterious man, you seem awfully sure that it’s so perfect, yet oh so wrong. Sorry to put it bluntly, but it rather sounds like we’ve transported into the set of Eastenders.”

“It’s not perfect, otherwise we would be together. It will never be perfect and we’ll never be together.”

“If he’s interested in someone else that he’s a tool for flirting with you, and to be honest, so are you for letting him.”

“I know, I know, that’s why I dreaded it when he cut me off at the bottom of the stairs, I’d seen him and I tried to avoid eye contact and make a quick exit. But he lured me in with his charm.”

“Is he going out with someone else Alex, because maybe someone needs to have a word with him?”

“In a way he is, he’s certainly not available.” She withdrew from the room to get a drink, or some food, or to go to the toilet, Sam wasn’t sure as he shock his head in bewilderment at this enigmatic turn of events.

Sam sat and decided that maybe there was a way of addressing it without finding out who the person was. Perhaps a sermon, or a discipleship course. People in the church, or so he had heard, kept saying how they wanted more teaching on relationships. And if one self-evident pointer – not trying it on with someone when you’re taken – had gone amiss then this shouldn’t be left to chance and the awkward spoils of fate and occasional indiscretion to determine the potential future happiness of the congregation’s eligible young bachelors.

While his mind had gone off on countless tangents Alex reappeared, “Tell me a little more about this girl you met on Saturday, do you think there’s any chance the two of you could, well you know, have something going, they say ever cloud had a silver lining?” Alex made a mental note to brush up on some new phrases because too many she was currently deploying were far too tired and stale.

“I doubt it, she is totally hooked on this guy Theo, she’s been out of the country for six months and the pair of them seem like love struck teens who just can’t quite get it together. Basically I told her that if he’s not manning up then maybe she will have to.”

“I think you’re covering. You like her and you’re smitten with her, and there’s just this little thing in the way called her supposed ‘friend’, she could have made it all up you know, just to seem less threatening.”

“I doubt it, not sure she seemed the mendacious type.” Sam suddenly was examining his motives and was now doubting his earlier confidence that he wasn’t interested, or was he just thinking that because Alex had planted the thought, and before long he was doubting his doubts and convinced only that he was over thinking the whole malarkey.

“Have you got her number? Give her a call.” Alex fully expected him to say no, it had taken him six months to work out how to get hers without it sounding like he was interested. By that point Alex was sure that he was fixated on him, and was nearly cruel enough to give him a wrong number.

“Yes, it was really strange, I asked without thinking about it, then realised, and almost tried to stop her.” This certainly sounded like Sam to Alex, managing to make a smooth and slick move into the epitome of awkwardness. “She’s from a Jewish family.”

“You mean she’s Jewish, and what’s that got to do with anything?”

“Well it’s yet another reason, as if I needed to keep listing them for you, why there is nothing between me and a girl I met for the first and in all likelihood last time on Saturday.”

“Jewish, you say, that’s not like being an atheist, she’s more like us than most people.”

“For centuries we collectively held her people responsible for killing Jesus, and in case you have forgotten it was in the name of our God, in however distorted and mediated a manner, that a psychopathic dictator rounded up and killed millions of Jews. I hardly think that the threshold between the two religions is inviting. Turning up at a synagogue with a rainbow guitar strap and hand printed copies of Shine Jesus Shine is not going to go down to well.”

Sam relaxed and realised that although with a hint of inquisitive seriousness Alex had been stringing him along. “It’s so much fun to watch you squirm, if you’d actually liked her I don’t think you’d have been anywhere near as good company, I’ve not heard you as animated in ages.”

After what seemed like an age Alex asked the question that had lingered in the air, “Do you think you’re going to give the date with Kathy another run?”

“Emma would like us to, and maybe I would be seems like I’ve permanently blotted by copybook with Kathy, so don’t think I’ll be seeing her any time soon.”

When Alex had left Sam pulled out his phone and found Talitha’s number. ‘Hey Talitha, it’s Sam from Saturday, hope everything is well, how are things with Theo?’

Kathy sat upright in her chair, waiting for the basket to come her way, she had dutifully leant forward and spoken the couple in front and glanced around to check that her neighbours were not needed her attention and now just wanted the collection basket to have passed by so she could relax and fade once again into anonymity.

This was a difficult Sunday, usually she preferred to enjoy church shut off from the rest of the world, relaxed in the knowledge that no one was watching her, no one cared if she was there or not, paying attention or drifting to sleep. But today she had to be on her best behaviour as to the left was Emma, and to her left was Theo. They had met a couple of times, but today was the first time he’d stepped foot in a church in years, he said since he walked out of his parents’ temple ten year before.

Kathy’s suspicious side assumed it was all a ploy because he was interested in Emma, their connection seemed abundantly obvious but Emma repeatedly refused point blank that there was any trace of romance between the pair. Which led Kathy to assume that Theo was gay but she had denied that too. The two of them were frequently thick as thieves, she’d find them walking home together, speaking quietly on the phone, as though waiting for the moment when they could truly be alone. Theo did not seem as interested as Emma, and Kathy worried for her friend. She worried that Emma had bought the line that Theo was not interested, and on the surface accepted it. But deeper down she enjoyed his company and at the moment was prepared to go along with the friendship angle if it ensured that they got to spend more time together. It also Kathy, supposed, made the dilemma of whether to go out with a non-Christian a moot point for the interim.

Emma shifted uncomfortably in her seat as she waited for the conversation Theo had struck up with his neighbour to come to a close. She had intently avoided embarking on a fresh line of enquiring with Kathy so she could ensure that she was alert to what he was saying and reading to respond if the situation became unsustainable. Who ever thought bringing friends to church was to tough, she thought, Emma was paralysed with worry that either Theo would say something out of place, or the person who had in such a well meaning manner been so polite to talk during the regulation two minute break might stumble upon the truth that he wasn’t a Christian and somehow undo all the good work she had invested over the past month.

As she listened she realised that Kathy was sat still beside her, not talking, or interacting, or even making a show of being involved in another conversation with someone close by. Nor had she taken the usual step of slipping out to the toilet to avoid the obligatory conversation with a neighbour. Emma had not quite got to the bottom of last night’s activity. She’d heard from both Samuel and Kathy, and it was possible that both their descriptions were accurate, in which case she was furious with them both. But she suspected that neither were being fulsome in their disclosure, because it struck her that something was missing.

Emma could not imagine Sam casually hitting on a girl he’d met just moments before, after all she’d received a barrage of texts asking where Kathy was. And Kathy can’t have been that late. Sam still didn’t know what Kathy had seen but he’d made no attempt to deny that he’d met another girl and they’d had dinner, which would have been odd had he been trying to hide anything. Kathy having seen them through the glass doors assumed the worst and refused to be talked down when Emma relayed Sam’s version of events.

In fact, Kathy thought that it was slightly preposterous, the idea that you walk into a restaurant and stumble upon someone else who has also been stood up and strike up an immediately platonic friendship. Yet Kathy was also confused because everything that she had heard from Emma about Sam did not line up with the sort of player she had supposed she saw through the doors. And an innocent friendship was a lot more amenable if there was ever to be anything between them which she now severely doubted. Kathy had decided as the basket passed her by and the minister began to resume the service that she would now be going out of her way to avoid his presence.

Theo was glad that the unconventional interval was coming to a close. He was not a fan of small talk, especially with someone he assumed he would never meet again. Suddenly, as he looked up to the stage to wait for the minister to begin the sermon, instead of turning to speak to the entire congregation his finger struck down the centre of the aisle.

“You may have come for our wallets, but God has come for your soul!” The Reverend William ‘call me Will’ Sutton, bellowed towards the solitary individual lurking suspiciously beside the collection baskets gathered at the rear of the hall. He shirked, and turned away, making a quick get out before the police were called. “You might think you can escape the police’s pursuit, but God will never stop pursuing you.”

Maurice did not expect to receive a lecture in return for pocketing a couple of notes out of the baskets. A quick bundling to the ground, a few screams, maybe a call to the police, or an over eager parishioner chasing him out the door perhaps. But a sermon directed straight at him from the pulpit left him utterly bemused. He slipped the notes out of his pocket, and out onto the floor, before a final glance at his accuser as he fled the scene.

Samuel could barely believe he had agreed to this, it went against all his instinct, it was really quite a bizarre situation when he chose to think of it the morning after Emma had cajoled him into a blind date. He had been stung from behind, caught off guard, Samuel thought that his sister had rather unfairly taken advantage of his vulnerability. He had carefully allowed his emotions to seep out rather than maintain their confinement, which was usually where he let them fester. And Emma had grabbed them, interrogated them and decided that what he needed best was a date with her best friend.

Having never been on a blind date before Samuel was slightly flustered as to what to expect. He had booked a table for dinner at a restaurant where he knew he could afford to pay for them both, it wasn’t very fancy but decided that it was better this way than going somewhere a little more up market but then inducing the possibility that he’d either have to pay more than he could, or politely find a way of encouraging her to pay her way. Probably not the impression to give Samuel reflected as he weighed up his next dilemma. He starred straight into his wardrobe and for all the good it was doing him he might have well been starring through glass and out the other side. Samuel was faced with a suddenly myriad set of combinations for what to wear, all composed from the meagre contents of his wardrobe.

He plucked for the smart but not too smart option and hoped that he would neither be over or under dressed. At every turn Samuel was faced with the option of bailing out. He thought of phoning the restaurant and cancelling the booking, of calling Emma and asking her to tell Kathy he wouldn’t be coming. It was his sister that stopped him from pulling the plug. He wondered if she would actually pass on the message, if out of some tortuous learning game Emma would let Kathy turn up all alone and Samuel would become hated by a tiny subset of the female population he had never known and was now likely to never know.

Samuel decided that this was the longest he had ever spent in front of a mirror and all for a girl he had never met. It didn’t occur to him until later that despite his sustained and unrelenting interest in Alex he had never put in such effort when he knew they were to meet. He had always argued with himself that he didn’t want everyone else to know that he was interested, so scaled back any moves that might uncover his motive. On this occasion he had even bought some aftershave, the first time in a decade since an ill fated experiment at the end of school prom, the torments which ensued had plagued his memory since. As he dabbed the strong scent his senses kicked off some memory receptors in a reclusive corner of his brain and he was overcome with another wave of doubt and almost at this last minute bailed, and thought perhaps he’d just not turn up.

In another bedroom in London Kathy was preparing. When Emma had first broached the subject she had not quite been sufficiently fulsome in explaining that it was a date she was setting her up on. Kathy’s initial assumption was that she was being invited by Emma to keep her company at a something her brother had in turn invited her to. It had only been the day before last that the truth had murkily emerged.

“What’s this thing we’re going to with your brother?”

“Well, it’s not really a thing, and I won’t be there, because that would be a little bit odd.”

“Odder than me going to some social event with your brother and you staying at home, is there something that I need to know, I’m usually pretty keen for most things and I don’t really need an excuse but I’ve heard that the Holland Park bunch can be a bit stuffy and I’m not sure I can face an evening full of discussion of imputation.”

“I thought I said,” Emma hesitatingly began, “it’s just with Sam. You’ve said you wanted to get asked on more dates, and we were chatting last week and I thought you’d make a good couple.” Emma stopped speaking knowing that she had been less than honest when the date had been arranged. She had always intended on telling the full truth but had pulled out at the last possible moment and swiftly concocted an alternative plan which seemed less offensive and which she was now having to deconstruct before her supposedly best friend.

“So basically, I’m going on a blind date with your brother?”

“Well it’s not really blind, he’s my brother.” Emma realised that this was a rather weak response as Kathy’s eyes glowered into her. “Okay, well it is a blind date, I know you’ve never met, but it’s not as though he is a complete stranger, is he? You can just imagine you’re on a date with a female version of me.” Emma stopped speaking, accepting she was rambling and not making sense, and also because she was not entirely sure she approved of the descriptor she had just ascribed to herself.

Kathy was silently fuming, and visibly annoyed but made an ostensible show of acceptance as she agreed to the date. Now as she prepared she was having doubts yet again. If the prospect of an evening with a group of stuffy Christians talking theology was her nightmare, what hope did she have one on one with someone who was working for the church.

As she left the house and checked where she was going she texted Emma to say that she was on her way to meet Sam. That was another point of rather confused discussion, whether to call him Sam or Samuel, he had apparently always been Sam until he got the post at the church and seemed to have been coerced into using it’s full form. For Emma and those who had known him for years apparently he didn’t make too much fuss over it, but to all new people he met he was now always Samuel. Kathy couldn’t decide which to use, everything she had ever heard about him was about Sam, but then she thought, perhaps if I start with Samuel I’ll make my own mind up rather than filter everything through Emma’s anecdotes and frequently critical asides.

Samuel waited at the bar. The table was ready but thought he should wait for Kathy at the bar, he also didn’t want to be seated alone at a table in a restaurant so conspicuously full of couples. He worked out he’d been waiting twenty minutes, he’d been ten minutes early, so he couldn’t hold that against her, but as each further minute went by he was frustrated at her tardiness and lack of consideration for his nerves. But he reckoned that this was still within the scope of acceptable, in fact anything up to around 30 minutes he thought was able to be categorised as ‘running late’.

He couldn’t help himself but overhear the phone call taking place just along the bar, or the half of it he was privy to. The New Zealandn girl was trying to remain measured and calm but was clearing frustrated that someone she was meeting was going to be late. It made Samuel angry that he didn’t even have that recourse, Emma had insisted that all arrangements were done through her, and only if the date was a success could they choose to exchange numbers. It meant that he couldn’t call to find out where she was, but instead stayed clasping the bar as he nursed his drink carefully not to have finished it before she arrived.

“Are you waiting for someone?” The girl from along the bar enquired. This was not a conversation Samuel wanted to get into. He suddenly visualised him talking to her when Kathy walked in, and he turned and she saw them together and immediately walked back out. A bit Hollywood perhaps, but this was dangerous territory.

“Yep,” he thought he’d keep this brief and resisted the natural reaction of shifting closer to make conversation beneath the din of the restaurant more plausible, “I’m waiting for someone. They should be here soon,” he felt it was necessary to add.

“So am I.” She paused and Samuel thought that might mercifully be the end of it. “He’s going to be late,” she added with purposeful emphasis on the masculine pronoun.

“At least you’ve got that comfort, I’m waiting for someone I’ve never met, whose number I haven’t got whose face I just about think I should recognise.”

“A blind date! How fun.” Samuel immediately gave away with his eyes raised to the ceiling that he disagreed with this optimistic assessment. “I’m Talitha,” the girl along the bar slid a little closer and offered her hand in a polite greeting.

“I’m Sam,” pausing before deciding not to extend it, worried at how natural it had become in just a few months to have to force himself to only go by the name he had used for the previous twenty six years. “I’m not convinced it’s going to be fun, my sister’s set me up on a date, and now I’m here waiting alone.”

Awkward silences penetrated the staccato conversation that ebbed and flowed as it ranged from polite pleasantries to abstract discussions about the protests taking place across the street outside St Paul’s cathedral. One such silence was suddenly disrupted by her phone buzzing on the counter when Samuel was trying to decide what else he could say to this complete stranger.

“Well, looks like I’m done here.” Talitha stood and made to leave before turning back, “how long have you been waiting?”

“Er, just over an hour, I’m sure she’ll be here soon.”

Talitha moved back towards him, “I don’t think she’s going to come. Do you want to get some food?”

“I should wait a bit longer, I don’t want her to arrive, and me not be here.”

“Or having dinner with a complete stranger?” Talitha read his mind and he nodded his ascent. “It’s okay, we’re just two people both jilted at the alter, well, at the restaurant anyway. If I go home now I’m going to be on my own and I’ll just get more and more frustrated that Theo’s left me waiting for him.”

As he weighed up his options Sam grabbed his phone to see what time it was, and check for the twelfth time that hour to see if Emma had any news of where Kathy was. “Okay, let’s eat, but I’m pretty sure I’ll be rubbish company, mopping over a failed date which I didn’t really want to go on.” Talitha laughed in an almost hysterical tone and they made their way to their table.

Kathy walked past the entrance for the seventh time, carefully staying out of sight, hiding beneath the shadows of the trees. For the past hour she had circled the restaurant, sat on a park bench, ignored numerous calls from Emma undoubtedly enquiring as to her presence. And she was finally about to go in when he saw him pick up his coat and not make for the door as she had thought he was about to do. The challenge of walking in as he was about to leave was obliterated with the revelation that he was about to sit down to eat with another girl. Devastated she walked away, heading over Millennium Bridge towards the station, and home to face Emma, and to decide before she got there exactly what she would say. The truth she thought was probably the best option, that she was bottling it, but when she made to go in her wonderful brother was already making moves on another girl.

Meanwhile Samuel, oblivious to this perception that Kathy had taken home to share with his sister he sat down confident that he would now have to pay for only his dinner. “I hate dates,” he declared with a flourish as he sat down, “far too much pressure, completely destroys any chance of actually getting to know the person.”

“How else do you get to know people? Anyway I wasn’t really waiting for a date, Theo’s just a friend.” Samuel almost got up and left as he felt he’d been coerced into having dinner with someone in the same position as him, and Talitha sensed this and moved to fill in the details. “We’re not exactly going out, it’s, well, it’s confusing.”

Samuel was partially reassured that she did not have designs on him that she had obfuscated to secure this outcome. “It’s okay, I don’t need to know, I was just venting my frustration.

“Everyone else who I’ve ever been interested in I’ve met through church. I get to know them, become friends with them and decide whether I like them more than that. But it usually is a bit more impetuous than that, I suddenly realise in the middle of a conversation that I’ve become obsessed with her, and clock how much time she’s been consuming in my brain.”

“But you’re going on a date tonight, or were supposed to be, with someone you’ve not met before. You not interested in anyone else at the moment.” Samuel felt her investigations were gaining ground on his reservations, it was odd for him to be talking more to a complete stranger than he usually would to a close friend. “Sorry I don’t mean to pry, I’m just thinking about it a lot at the moment, you’re right dating rituals are all a bit odd.”

“It’s okay,” Samuel found himself saying against his better judgement to bitterly resist opening up any further, “it’s complicated, the person I like doesn’t like me, we went on a few almost dates, and I thought it was going well but she turned me down when I actually asked her out.”

“So your sister set you up on tonight’s date to compensate?”

“Yes, guess it’s not really that complicated!” Samuel laughed, and surprised himself as it was more than the regular dutiful laugh that he had grown accustomed to imitating at necessary intervals, but a laugh that came from the soul as this stranger’s insight cut straight to the heart of the issue. And Samuel realised what chaos he caused himself when he wrote melodrama into his life in every conceivable way. None of which properly justified the extent to which he elevated them. Perhaps Samuel wondered as he decided to switch the conversation around, perhaps life was easier when lived out loud than ruminated in silence.

“So tell me about Theo, is that a complicated arrangement?” Samuel decide it was about time to turn the tables and while openness might be a good thing, he thought to himself, you can have too much of a good thing.

“Me and Theo are friends, and I’m not sure if it’s ever going to be anything more than that. I’ve come back from six months back home in New Zealand, and I know that it’s not the same as when I left. And just when I think he’s really into me something like this comes along. He’s been working like crazy, he kept saying he’d be along soon, but soon sure enough turned into never as another crisis erupted at work.

“So we kept in touch while I was away, actually we’d skype most weeks, message most days and I started to feel my day had not been complete if it went by without having contact with him. I even tried to shut down all contact, just for a week or so. I wanted to see what it was like, how I’d cope without speaking.”

“How long have you been back in the UK? Have you had any sort of indication from him of how he feels?” Samuel felt slightly voyeuristic peering into someone’s life who a little over an hour before he had never met. He was also uncomfortable talking about relationships with anyone, never mind a stranger, but somehow this was different. Cathartic maybe.

“I’ve just been back a few days, we’ve seen each other, just not alone, there was some family function which I rather surprised my father by going to, it was his cousin’s birthday, but I knew Theo would be there.” She paused as though to pose the same thought as had gone through Samuel’s mind, but seemingly decided that she was content to share this story with him. “We couldn’t talk too much there, I’ve never seen anything like our families for a goldfish bowl. All I would have to do is spend fractions of a second alone, or have two separate conversations with him for some aunt or another to start interfering and deciding on how we should get married three weeks on Friday.”

“I know I’m being pretty impatient, but I was so sure that he was into me, and then he goes and blows all cold all of a sudden. You decide what to prioritise in life. If he had wanted to be here, if I had really have mattered to him he would have let his work sort itself out and come and had dinner with me.”

“It’s not dinner you wanted from him, it was a declaration of love.” Samuel wondered why he said that, and even as he pondered it later couldn’t decide if it was profound or pointless. “You wanted him to come here tonight and say to you that he loved you and wanted to go out with you. And how do you think he felt about that. How hard would that be?

“I’m not trying to make excuses, he’s acted like a jerk, but that’s not it. He’s faced with seeing you in the flesh. Your relationship is going to be very different than it has for the past half year. He’s got used to you being at the other end of a screen, mediated by technology, available to turn on or off. To access at his whim, decide when he wants you and when he can remember you are on the other side of the world.

“But now he’s faced with you here, with him, as a person that he has to interact with. Someone who demands all of who he is and not just the part he can transmit across the airwaves.” Samuel paused to wonder if skype worked on airways or not before continuing in his new found vein of rhetoric which surprised him with each word he spoke. “He’s got to decide if he really likes you, or just likes the idea of liking you. And you have to. This is not just his decision, you can’t leave him to do all the hard work. If you like him, and know that you like him then there’s a responsibility on you to say something about it.”

“Not sure my parents would be too keen about that, they’re hardly the most devote Jews but women are meant to take the back seat in this line of work.” Talitha wondered how she had ended up here, in a restaurant half a world away, taking dating advice from a guy who had to be set up by his sister, and even that didn’t work out.

It was later as they left the restaurant after each paying their share that Samuel thought it completely natural to ask for her phone number. Just as he did and she pulled out her phone to check her new UK number he realised he’d never been quite so forward. Talitha caught the sign of what he had realised as he started to hesitate and put his phone away, correcting him she punched her number in and walked away.

The tube quickly became very overcrowded as it made its way into the centre. Kathy was on her way to meet Emma after work. Since they’d moved in together she’d hardly seen each other, after a summer together on top of their time at Durham Kathy had assumed they would be inseparable as they carved out their new life in London. She liked having time on her own, but on top of spending most of her day teaching English she was not fond of returning home to an empty flat each evening.

The forced loneliness was not something that she would have expected. Her family were in London, the church was the same as she had attended all her life. But everything seemed different. When she had returned during the summer and holidays while at university she dropped straight back into the same formula of friends returning, catching up, going away together and then dispersing to the respective corners of the country for another term. Kathy had expected that moving back would be like that in extended form, but the people were not the same, and those who were had their  own friends. People who had never left London had a whole life of their own which she was not a part of.

In short, as Kathy walked into Leon she realised that she was probably more alone than Emma. Emma had moved into London on a whim, and seemed to have thrived off the novelty. Kathy had not wanted to ask too many questions of her plans, especially when it came to money, art was unlikely to pay the bills so she had guessed Emma would find some other work. She had been a bit picky about the jobs Emma was looking at, to be honest she would not have wanted to work in a cafe, but then her job was hardly what she dreamed off she she choked back her complaints and congratulated along when Emma got the job. What had surprised Kathy most was just how much Emma seemed to enjoy it. When their paths occasionally crossed in the kitchen before she headed out to work she would always have a story about someone who had come in, or a colleague, or something otherwise designed to interrupt the monotony of the day. For herself there was very rarely interesting diversions from conjugating verbs and teaching lists of vocabulary.

*  *  *

Ingrid was in deep concentration as she finished mounting the stuffed otter on the wall. This was one of the oddest commissions she had ever received, but also a bit of a coup. The life of a taxidermist was rarely glamorous, but she had made it her niche to turn it into a minor art form. It had been a few weeks back at a small gallery opening that she had exhibited a few items of work alongside some, perhaps, more conventional artwork.

As she tidied up her work and made ready to leave she saw Emma and Theo behind the counter, it had been the pair of them who had suggested that she might be able to get a wider audience for her work. Emma had been exhibiting at the same gallery and Theo, who Ingrid assumed was Emma’s boyfriend, encouraged her to bring her work into the head office.

Emma saw Ingrid looking over at them and was glad she’d been able to give a fellow artist a bit of a leg up. She couldn’t, however, help but be slightly frustrated that it was Ingrid’s work now adorning cafes across London and not hers.

When she saw Kathy walk in she knew that it was about to all come to a head, she had tried so hard to ingratiate herself with those she worked with, and felt a slight smug satisfaction that she had settled into her new life so swiftly. Suddenly her credibility would be affected by Kathy and Kathy was a hard person to predict. She’d persuaded both Ingrid and Theo to join her and Kathy and come along to the boat party St Bart’s was organising. It could all go wrong if Kathy decided to be difficult thought Emma, she was also very conscious that she didn’t want anyone to think that her and Theo were together, she’d still not quite got her head around being friends with guys. Particularly guys who asked for a lot of advice about their potential relationships.

As they all left the cafe Kathy seemed to have taken an immediate shine to Theo, the pair were chatting away in a very animated manner as they made their way towards the river. Ingrid was probing Emma about the church, in particular whether there would be any strange rituals at the party. This Emma could provide some reassurance of, however, if they came along to church as she hoped they might it would be a different story. Emma remembered her first impression of church when she had gone along with Sam to a service in Manchester. It hadn’t been anything like St Bart’s but it was still so very different from the church she’d attended for school carol concerts.

Emma hadn’t really got the measure of Ingrid. She seemed fascinated by all things religious but very unwilling to actually talk about her views. Maybe it was the South African mentality, maybe it was just her personality, but the questions never seemed to stop, there was always something else that she wanted to know. It was only on their second meeting that Ingrid had started probing her about Theo, and what was going on between them. And the answer of nothing didn’t seem to suffice. Emma had to be careful because Theo had talked a lot about his potential romantic liaisons, and it wasn’t her place to let anything slip to Ingrid, not least because she didn’t want to either give away that he wasn’t really available, or conversely, provoke her to start pursuing him.

Theo was not really there throughout the evening, and only Emma really knew why. And that made it hard, he was in an unfamiliar setting, Emma was his only point of contact, yet it was clear to Theo that she was trying to keep her distance. Now wasn’t the time for them to talk but there needed to be time, Theo felt there was so much going on in his life at the moment and could only process so much at once. He needed Emma’s advice and if coming along to this boat party would help guarantee it then he was willing, but he just hoped there was no preaching. Suddenly memories of his families strict Jewish practice came flooding back, not that this party even faintly resembled anything of that heritage, but it was still religion and he had done is utmost to avoid all hint of religion for the past decade. It was not until his sixteenth birthday that Theo was allowed to stop attending synagogue with his parents. And that wasn’t a moment too soon.

The problem for Theo was Talitha. She had completely confused him. Before she went back to South Africa there had been nothing between them, but that didn’t really seem to hold true any more. But Theo had no idea what was true, she was also a far better Jew than he was, and that made life harder. If anything was going to happen he’d need to sharpen up his act, which perhaps was why he equated his friendship with Emma and his acquiescence to attend this evening with some strange religious development which might make him more prepared to step foot in a synagogue once again. Even on a boat full of people who he should have been attracted to his eyes had nowhere to go. In everyone he looked at he saw a feint relic of Talitha. In every conversation that was of interest he was reminded of something she said. Each time he felt lonely in the midst of the crowd he wondered what she was doing.

Emma knew that Theo was lovestruck, and therefore did not see him as a threat, and despite Ingrid’s suspicions knew that because they were spurious it did not matter what she or anyone else thought. She watched Ingrid and Kathy chatting away, and was glad to have introduced them before the waves of familiar faces meant that Kathy was far too busy to look out for the new arrivals. Ingrid seemed to adapt to any new situation with a chameleon like ability to shift style and morph into a person suited to that scenario.

Snippets of conversation which Emma had overhead proved this once again, she would take about religion and the experience of the mystical in vague terms, perhaps conscious that her definition of embracing mystical experiences was perhaps rather different to that of those she was being introduced to for the first time. The details were kept scant to avoid any conflict. Ingrid seemed to float between groups of people, talking with excitement and moving serenely from group to group without a care that each group was a bunch strangers, each person relating to their own friends which she had chosen to intrude in and grace with her presence for a few moments of her precious time.

And through it all Emma sat and watched. She felt alone among a crowd, she seemed lost amid friends, she was aimless while travelling down the river. Emma felt as though her existence was now tied to those she related to. Not out of any personal ambition, but that these were the things that mattered. Not having a job which was a career was in some way liberating. She heard the stories of stress and overwork and was glad that she was able to switch off at the end of the day. Emma was grateful for the people who she had met, those at Leon, her colleagues, the customers, the regulars who came in at the same time each Sunday, just as the breakfast menu was coming to an end and ordered their porridge and sat in the corner to write. She was grateful for the church, even though it was hard to know where she belonged. She looked around and saw people she knew and many she didn’t and wondered whether this would ever feel like home.

The music carried on playing and she walked onto the dance floor, found Theo, Ingrid and Kathy dancing together. Emma realised that the Christian format of dancing was perhaps a little strange, Theo and Ingrid were doing their best to behave, but Ingrid’s inhibitions lowered she started to pull Theo towards her and he turned and walked away, found solace on the upper deck as the boat drew into it’s dock he was ready to get off. Talitha was not here, so he didn’t want to be.

The wind swept across Samuel’s face as ducked beneath the vaulted roofed atrium for protection from the elements. His eyes crossed the myriad stalls which mirrored what he imagined might be a Morrocan bazaar, he saw the cafe and decided to linger outside rather than head in. He hung back from the stalls and their wares, backing himself into a corner where he forced himself to chose whether to enter the Sushi restaurant, or at least pretend to be interested in the hand painted tiles on sale before him.

Fortunately before he found himself having to purchase some pointless item to justify his continued presence Emma emerged from Leon and he moved to intercept her as she made her way to the street. Why was she in such a hurry, and on a day when the rain descended in sheets, drenching you twice, on the way down and on it’s return as it flew off the ground with such force? Samuel found the crowds conspiring to block his way as Emma started to drift out of sight, her hair only marginally visible among the flocks of tourists and businessmen.

He backed out of his current silo and slipped out the back of the market and sprinted round three sides of the square to catch his sister just as she was crossing the road towards the tube.

“Sam, what are you doing here?”

“I said I’d meet you after the interview, I was waiting outside but you sped off before I could catch you.”

“Oh, sorry, I can’t of got the message,” Emma tentatively plunged into her bag searching for her phone to find the unread message from her brother. “You look exhausted, are you sure you’re okay?” This was Emma’s diplomatic way of pointing out his breathlessness as well as the damp patches that formed across his t-shirt as it betrayed the sweat that dripping from his chest.

“It’s just, I had to run all the way round to catch you, I thought I’d never get to you. The blasted crowds!” Sam breathed deeply, “Shall we head off, or do you need to go home first? Actually we could do with popping into the shop, I need to pick up some noodles.”

Sam was pleased that Emma had come round. He was glad he didn’t have to talk to Alex about this. Emma also grabbed the shopping, raided the fridge and started concocting dinner. He slunk into the chair in the corner and tried to work out how he was going to say this.

He’d made the tea, and washed up. He even thought about starting the ironing, but that would be a procrastinating step too far. So instead he begun, “Emma, I think I need some advice.

“I’ve got a bit of a dilemma. I’m not sure what to do. A few weeks ago I met someone.” Emma’s eyes suddenly burst to life with this revelation, maybe this evening would be more interesting than she had expected. “Don’t get too excited quite yet.” But that ship had already sailed. Emma had never met Alex, but had picked up enough from her brother’s carefully enigmatic statements to know enough of their friendship, and she hadn’t thought Sam was even vaguely over her.

“Alex persuaded me to go to this thing run by your church.” Emma recoiled even further in shook at the thought of Sam in St Bart’s as he continued this monologue. “It was really quite odd, I’m not sure what I think to a church running a dating service but anyway I met someone and we agreed to meet up again.”

“And, what happened?” Emma was sufficiently fascinated in this most unusual turn of events that the noodles had over cooked and she plonked them onto the plate without her customary grace.

“Well, we’ve met up a couple of times, and it’s all fine, and it’s great, and to be honest, I was a bit shocked that it seemed to be going so well. Yesterday we spent the day at Hampton Court, and it was surprisingly easy. I’d been a bit worried that spending the day together would be tough. That we’d run out of things to talk about, and the day would be marred by awkward silences, or I would mistakenly try to fill the void by postulating about why Henry VIII had the fountains built, and their probable intended usage as an aural distraction to cover his carnal indiscretions.”

“But none of that happened. The day was fantastic, it went quickly and smoothly. And I turned around in the middle of the Georgian state rooms and had to pinch myself as I realised just how much I liked Grace.”

Emma had eaten her way through most of the food as Sam became increasingly animated. And this was what she couldn’t understand. He paused from the flow of speech to take a few mouthfuls, and Emma anticipated that there was still much more to say so let him enjoy the food for a moment before helping him move the tale on. “Sam, this isn’t where the story ends is it?”

“You’re right about that. We sat on the train coming back and I was trying to work out how to take the next step. I couldn’t quite work out what was appropriate, whether to ask her to dinner, or just explain, right there how much I liked her. I even thought of just leaning across and kissing her. But that didn’t outlive the heartbeat in which I entertained and rejected such a rash response.

“As we pulled into Waterloo I knew my time was up, so while I was still floundering around in how to respond I thought there was a chance that this wouldn’t be the end of the day, that I might get an extension on needed to know what to do next, so I asked her what she was up to that evening.”

Sam paused again to wind the noodles round his fork which had kept slipping back onto the plate as he had told the story. “Grace obviously didn’t think I was asking to do something with her. She grabbed her bag and coat and wistfully spun around and said she was going on a date.”

Emma kind of knew that something like this was coming. She didn’t know Grace, but from the short time she’d been at St Bart’s she knew the type. While trying to work out what words formed the appropriate response she tidied off the rest of the food and let Sam settle into eating his.

“I’m sorry Sam. That’s rubbish. Did she say anything else, did you get a chance to talk about it. Does she know how you feel?”

Sam didn’t feel ready for this sort of inquisition but he knew Emma was just trying to be helpful. “I thought we were both on the same page. I thought we were dating. So when she told me I just swallowed hard and said have fun, and vanished through the doors to catch the bus. I’ve tried to work out what to do next. Do I just leave it, walk away, and pretend that there was never anything, or do I find a way of confronting her, of telling her how I feel. I must have written about 13 texts which I deleted and never sent.”

“In the end I just asked if we could chat. And we met up this morning.” As Sam went on with this tale Emma just wished he could put him out of his misery. She wanted to tell him to be done with her, to walk away and not to worry about her. To remove any vestige of feelings that he might have, and move one. She knew that it was not as easy as that in real life, and she had a hunch it was about to get a whole lot more painful.

“I could muster none of the usual easy small talk when we had met up this morning. I’d been waiting for a while, and when she arrived, all the awkwardness that I fear came back. I had nothing to say, so I just went for it.

“I said to Grace, ‘I was a bit surprised when you said you were going on a date last night’. It took her a while, but just as she was about to respond, I carried on, ‘I really like you, and I, well, I kind of thought that we were, you know, almost dating.’” Sam caught his breath before he continued to retell his tale of woe.

“She had this guilty look as she started to answer me, she said: ‘I shouldn’t have said I was going on a date yesterday, it wasn’t very discreet, it had been arranged for me, and it is nothing to do with you and me’, I almost got made then, but somehow I mustered the restraint to let her go on. ‘I like hanging out with you, you’re fun, and interesting, but, it’s just that I don’t fancy you in the secular sort of way.’”

“What’s the secular sort of fancying someone?” Emma asked the inevitable question, “does it mean that she loves you as a Christian brother?”

“She actually started to say something like that, but managed to stop herself, perhaps as she realised how ridiculous it would sound. I probably shouldn’t of, but I kept asking her questions, I wanted to get to the bottom of how she was thinking. I asked if she’d have said yes if I asked her to hang out again, to do something together, just the two of us, and then she said yes. But then I said, well, can I ask you out on a date, and she said no, she ‘thought that was perhaps not wise’, so what’s the difference? Just because you call something a date, it doesn’t suddenly make it any different.”

Sam looked at Emma as she started to collect his plate despite the remnant of food that remained. She smiled and raised her eyebrows and walked towards the sink, and as she returned sat back down. “Sam, the thing is, it seems like Grace didn’t realise that you like her in the way that you do. She was quite happy to hang out with you. Had you done anything to let her know that you liked her?”

“We’d hung out a few times on our own, and yesterday had been specifically organised for just the two of us, I thought I was being pretty clear in my attention towards her, I thought my intentions were clear, but it seems that she just thought we were friends.”

“Bloody friends.” Emma’s language shocked Sam, “They get in the way of everything. To be honest, I’m not sure it’s worth having friends of the opposite sex, maybe it just makes it all a whole lot more complicated.”

“I think you can have opposite sex friends, Alex and I are friends, well, now we are, it took a while to get it all ironed out.”

“Grace probably saw you as a safe person to hang out with. Girls like to have guys who they can get a bit of attention from without it needing the commitment, and guys can be like that too. Honestly, Sam, you’re like that with Alex, you like the fact that you can hang out with an attractive girl, you like the fact that you can offload your problems. You like the emotional support that it provides. Even though you know that it’s going nowhere. Or maybe you don’t maybe you are holding out that at some point in the future it will all be different, that her affections will have changed, that she will have been moved towards you. Her satisfaction with friendship replaced with an attraction not present before.

“But is that going to happen right now? She can get as much of you as she wants, and you’re going to carry on giving it to her, because think you are honoured by the fact she chooses to use you as her emotional dumping ground, that’s not a privilege, it’s borderline abusive behaviour.”

Emma finished the flush of anger fuelled rhetoric that had been building up Sam had laid out is misadventures. She knew that she’d just thrown a lot of things out at Sam, and most of it was anger towards Alex. She’d seen how her brother screwed himself up over her, how he desperately wanted her to want him, so took the meagre scraps off the table that she offered.

“I know you don’t like Alex, but this is not about her, it’s about Grace.”

“No it’s not, it’s about you. It’s about how you try to get close to girls but cannot convey your interest so you end up being a basket case.

“This is harsh, but no one else is going to say this to you. You need to stop letting your self be used, you need to know what you want and decide to get it. If you really like Grace, then you need to man up and ask her out, and be completely up front about how you feel. But if you’re really still cut up about Alex, if you’re not ready to define your affections toward anyone else because somewhere in the back of your mind you are hoping that things might be different between the two of you. Then that’s what you’ve got to sort out first.

Sam was shell shocked. He loved his sister, the two of them had become particularly close after they both became Christians, it was a minor source of solace in a family that didn’t really understand. He also knew she had a bit of a temper, and that she was silver tongued when she needed to be. But he’d never been on the end of it. He felt drained from the barrage of words and ideas she had hurled at him. Yet he wasn’t inclined towards being defensive, because a lot of what Emma had said made sense.

He slowly begun to respond. “Alex is complicated, and yes it affected how I thought about Grace. Not really on the surface, but I think somewhere, somehow I was holding back. But I don’t think I want to pursue anything with Grace, she doesn’t like me like I like her.” Sam gasped at how pathetic he sounded, “I think I just need to move on.”

Something had been troubling Emma throughout this tale, Sam had never been very proactive when it came to pursuing relationships, yet here he was in the vortex of two complex and dysfunctional arrangements. “Sam, what’s prompted all this? You suddenly seem pretty keen to have a girlfriend.”

“Well, I’ve always been on the lookout, but I’ve probably become a little more attuned to what’s going on. Also, Holland Park are pretty keen that their leaders are married. I hadn’t realised, but they only let married couples lead their Bible study groups.”

“So what happens if you don’t? They can’t just get rid of you for not being married?”

“No, but I’m only the apprentice, if I want to work for the church longer term and have any sort of responsibility it’ll be a bit of a problem. Adam made this pretty clear last week when I sat in on the training for the Bible study leaders, that it was a privilege to be allowed to observe.”

Emma had been toying with a thought for at least part of the evening, she couldn’t decide if it was fair on Sam, or fair on Kathy, but she decided it was time to intervene. “Why don’t I set you up on a date? You know Kathy don’t you?” Sam didn’t actually, they had never met, but he’d heard plenty about her. “I think the two of you should go on a date,” Emma declared.

“Does Kathy know anything about this?”

“No, but I’m sure she’ll be interested, she’s generally pretty easygoing.” Emma perhaps should have checked before she made the grand offer but she reckoned the chances of Sam taking her up were pretty slim.

Sam shrugged his shoulders and with a resigned expression nodded,”Why not, you set it up and tell me where we’re going. Maybe all dating should be done this way, takes a lot of the stress away.”

 

 

 

Kathy and Emma had decided on a whim to spend the summer in France. When they left all they had planned was a train ticket and a return flight two months later. What they were to do in between was meant to be an adventure.

Emma thought about this as she tried to settle into life in London. She couldn’t quite work out if it was the beginnings of a new depth of friendship or the ebbing away of a once close bond as they moved onto a new stage of life. Two months is a long time to spend with one person, and that was a difficult discovery to come to terms with.

Before they set off all the talk had been of adventure and discovery, of excitement of creativity. They’d even joked about writing a book together, writing in English and French and illustrated with scenes from their travels telling the tales of what they had done. This hadn’t happened. The days and the weeks and the things that they did were all good and fun and interesting. But somehow, the cumulative affect had been slightly disappointing.

Emma could fully understand why when she decided to come home a week earlier Kathy stayed on alone. Although Emma did feel somewhat duty bound to return for a week with the family before Sam moved to London. She had not got used to him insisting on being referred to as Samuel, hard to change twenty odd years of what you call your brother she reasoned. It also struck her as slightly odd that he needed to go by his full name. The church he was working for, she’s visited a few times over the past two years and they didn’t seem too weird, albeit not what she would choose, but this she found odd in any conceivable understanding.

That had made the decision to come to London a little harder as she knew he wouldn’t really understand. When she got home she announced that she was going to move to London, her parents thought it was rather sweet that she wanted to be with her brother and naturally assumed she’d go to his church. Neither assumption was true, as her wanting to live in London had nothing to do with Sam and she’d made clear to him already she would be attending St Bart’s. Her parents had been very confused by all this, almost as much as when Sam had tried to explain why Holland Park Baptist Church had added (Continuing) to its name.

She had nearly backed out of coming to London at the last minute because of Kathy, and she struggled to articulate even in her head why she was reluctant to live with her. They had lived together for the last year in Durham, that was why they assumed they would get on well enough to avoid strangling each other as they made their way through France. But it was different, being alone together in a foreign country was different that living in a house with other people as part of a social group that never quite settled down. The first week of their trip and gone exactly as expected, as they took in the sights of Paris, went up the Eiffel Tower, down the Seine and through the Arc de Triumph.

Emma supposed it came down to money in the end. They had disagreed on where they would stay and how they would travel. When they planned it in the tea rooms of Durham they had spoken excitedly of walking from one village to the next, taking six weeks to cover the nearly 400 miles they would need to traverse to make their return flight. They would stay in barns they found along the route, gently and politely impose themselves on villagers too shell shocked that a tourist was visiting their settlement to find the words to turn down their request for accommodation.

It had been Emma’s parent’s who had expressed the most concern about this idyllic proposal. They had insisted she take a credit card to use in case of emergencies. Kathy had not quite been so excited at this plan to embrace the rural side of France, especially to spend six weeks travelling by foot. But she also knew that Emma could not afford to pay for the hotel, or even hostel costs on top of transport. So they settled into the walk. Emma still rued the day she told of her parents’ concern. Maybe the conversation had just dried up. Maybe there were less visually aesthetic surroundings to distract them. But she let slip that she had her parents’ credit card.

“So do I,” exclaimed Kathy, “That means we can have a bit more fun, try out somewhere else to stay. We could get the train and visit some other places before we get to Avignon.”

“It’s for emergencies, not for upgrading where we stay. You’re okay with what we’re doing? The place we’re going to stay tomorrow is beautiful, I think we should take a day off to rest and enjoy it.” Emma knew that despite not having any more money that Kathy thought she had before, the possibility of splurging on some comparative luxuries would crop up again and again.

Money had always been a bit of an issue between them. At Durham it hid away most of the time, only rearing its head when it came to shopping for ball gowns or Emma ducking out of the ski trip. As Emma thought back, that had been one of the most difficult moments and they’d recovered from that. It was not that Kathy didn’t care, just that she didn’t grasp that she was okay not having buckets of money, but needed everyone else to be okay with it too. Offering to pay for the trip to Val de Trios was mighty generous but hugely problematic, what would she say if asked how she afforded it, there was no part time job to pretend she’d been working overtime, or a generous grandparent doting on her only grand daughter.

And now they had both come to London their differences were never so evident. Kathy could wistfully talk of her plans for the future, and not worry about where the money came from. Whereas Emma had no safety net. Moving to London was a risk, she knew that making it as an artist was not going to be easy, even with the exhibitions under her belt she needed something that would give her a kick start. But art was never going to pay the bills, and Kathy barely understood that. Emma wanted a job that would not take it all out of her, but where she’d have enough time to get on with her real work.

It was just a few days after arriving in London, in fact, straight after her first visit to St Bart’s, that she saw the recruiting poster outside Leon. Kathy urged to hurry up because they were falling behind the gaggle descending on some generic central London pub and its unsuspecting landlord, but Emma scribbled the number down before skipping along to catch up.

If Kathy hadn’t moved to London at the same time, Emma wondered if she might have thought again about whether to go to Holland Park with Sam. It was only really the comfort in having someone to go with, someone to ensure that you were not alone that really made her mind up for her. She wouldn’t have known anyone else at Holland Park, and presumably Sam would not be available to stay with her through the service.

St Bart’s was a bit different from what she’d been used to in the past, while it was part of the Church of England Emma wasn’t entirely sure her parents would see it that way. At least when they visited Holland Park they could put on their suits, Sunday best had a far more flexible interpretation at St Bart’s which together with the songs, volume, and occasional pyrotechnic embellishment to illustrate a particularly important part of a sermon. It didn’t quite fit the image of a nice quaint Church of England service.

The most incredible unusual and disorientating part of it all was the social events that they arranged. That first Sunday she had literally been press ganged into joining a crowd at the pub for lunch, and perhaps what shocked her most was that the church paid the bill. She’d been used to church being pretty stingy, finding any excuse it could to avoid parting with a penny, but here was a church that didn’t flinch at paying for her half pint of cider as well as for the food. If it wasn’t for Kathy Emma thought she might have bailed after week one, and looked for somewhere in between, something more amenable to her tastes. A service which didn’t make her freak out, and with people who were not quite so friendly. 

As Emma made her way to Leon she couldn’t stop trying to work out what was wrong with people being friendly. When she first walked into the church she thought she knew what to expect, her church back in Durham thought of itself as lively and friendly. She wondered if when she returned she’d have to inform them that in the grand scheme of things it was more like a mausoleum than a lively church. Maybe it was the doughnuts they handed round during the interval, maybe it was the preacher wearing shorts, but most of all she thought it was the rock concert worship that threw her off balance.

Yet despite all her hesitations, Emma liked it. It was what she needed, something to keep her distracted to stop her fretting about the non existent artistic career she was intent on fostering. And there were plenty of young people around. After spending every holiday going to church with Sam she decided that other people within a decade of her age was an absolute must.

Even after just a couple of weeks she’d picked up that people liked to have a gentle poke making fun of the church and its practices. Rather abruptly, and to be honest Emma felt, inappropriately her small group started suggesting who they might set her up with. Suddenly the whole room had descended into something faintly resembling a very good natured squabble as they suggested that as she was so new why should she get the pick of the boys.

For Emma this was all a bit foreign, she was private, almost puritanical, about her romantic interests. So to have a gang of almost complete strangers conspiring, and then arguing whether she deserved their conspiratorial intents was incomprehensibly unusual.

But the thing that she definitely agreed with was their assessment of the competition she had to get a guy in the church. Certainly in her small group, of the eight single people, only two of them were guys. And although she was not inclined to jump to rash judgements, these two particular guys would not score particularly highly.

Was that the problem? Emma wondered, that the church just didn’t have enough guys and those there were tended to be rather tawdry. It must be quite a problem she thought for the church had taken it upon themselves to set up special date nights to get people together. That was not really how she thought it she work. All a bit functional, turn up, wait in line, move a long, give them marks, and decide which ones you want. It was not what matched up to the romantic ideals that Emma strove for. Or more pointedly, hope that others strove for in their pursuit of her.

It had been an unusually difficult dilemma this morning for Emma as she decided what to wear. Usually an interview demanded smart clothes, and the rest of the time she did her best to fit the bohemian artist image that others had perfected at immense expense but she replicated with a stylistic lack of effort. She’d tried to hit it somewhere in between, casual but neat. The downside of her apparel anxieties was that it had deprived her of a coat, and she ducked into Spitalfield’s Market just as the rain intensified and prompted the rivers running through the pavement

Fortunately she was only off to meet Sam later, otherwise she might have been more concious of the  effects of the rain. If she was going to enter the ring and compete with the countless, more attractive, and apparently more hardened girls at St Bart’s she realised that not caring what she looked like might have to take a rest. Emma caught herself in the middle of her train of thought, because it was not that she didn’t care how she looked. She wanted to look good, and gave thought to what she wore. It was simply that she didn’t hold a great deal to the categories that others would apply to her dress. She knew what she liked, and wore what she liked. It was not for anyone else that she made these decision.

But with a market place as competitive as the one she had entered she thought it perhaps a little conformity to what attracted attention was deserved. Kathy did not have the same challenge, not only could she afford to buy the faux charity shop items all the rage, but she insisted that her motives were the same as Emma’s, to wear what she wanted, not with an iota of credence to what others thought.

Until the summer Emma had never had any reason to question Kathy’s integrity, assuming that she had a natural style and ease that she lacked. It was a couple of weeks into their meanderings through the countryside that Kathy came down one morning into the spacious breakfast room in the farmhouse that so kindly had taken them in when they arrived after dark, with the story that became a well worn friend of chaos and confusion, and the need of two damsels for shelter for the night. Kathy was wearing a trouser and jumper combination that few Icelandic blacksmiths would consider fashionable.

Aghast, Emma failed to find the words to respond, but Kathy caught the meaning. “Why should I care what I look like, no one important will see me today.” Which was perhaps true, if a little hurting to Emma, she did not expect any effort but it pulled the veil away from the lens through which Kathy determined importance.

They had talked around it while on the road, dipping into and out of why they wore what they wore. Emma couldn’t decide if she felt betrayed by the inauthenticity of her friend. So many times she had suggest that she was wearing what she wanted, but all the time it was for the attention of a guy, or in the absence of any particular target, for guys in general. Emma had tried to do it before, mimicking the choices of those she had followed Hollywood in dubbing the plastics. But it didn’t really work and any confidence that Emma had in the way she looked plummeted through the flaw. 

As Emma made her way into Leon and sought out the manager she pushed this out of her mind with a the continued realisation that she was going to struggle with this unconventional rat race. At least, very unconventional within the church.

As she walked into the cafe her eyes scoured the room, she assumed he would already be here. Her attentiveness had begun before she reached the entrance as she flitted her gaze through the windows and failed to find her subject among the crowded throngs.

This was okay, Alex thought to herself, it would make a change for her to be the one waiting for Samuel. But it was anything but acceptable, Alex hated the awkwardness of being on her own, which was especially unfortunate as she had a tendency to spend more time alone than in company. And she was never quite sure if that was the way that she wanted it, or if it was a unhappy product of some antisocial gene she had inherited via a great aunt on her mother’s side.

Her time was not particularly precious, but there was still an in built need to occupy every moment of it. So time spent in a chair, with a latte, and doing nothing, was not something she appreciated. That trial was still to come as she joined the queue taking advantage of every possible delay, not wishing to be abandoned with no clear sense of activity any sooner than absolutely necessary.

Alex eventually forced her way to an empty chair and and table and contemplated the next frustration that might occur. Before her sat her drink, waiting to be drunk. She looked back up at the queue, still snaking round the counter and realised that even were he to arrive at this very moment she would have pretty much finished her drink before he joined her. For a moment she wondered if he might have the sensitivity to her anxiety and skip the drink. As this unusual train of thought pulsed through her mind she also realised she had chosen her seat poorly so swiftly switched sides to maximise her observance of the entrance. Not that this would make him arrive any earlier, and it also presented her with yet another challenge, how to watch out for him coming down the road while minimising the chance that he might catch her starring into the street betraying her visual enquiries as to his presence.

It was a wonder that all these people managed to navigate their way through this obstacle course to ensure that two people were in the same place at the same time to consume warm beverages together. It was also a fairly typical response from Alex. She found that she relied on other people to provide her social stimulus, but got agitated when their offers dried up. Social norms were an odd thing, they helped others navigate these complicated waters but for her they were another obstacle that prevented an easy life.

Alex realised it was perhaps unusual to give this much attention to the minutiae of social interaction. And it also immediately occurred to her that this very thought process might contribute to the complexities she encountered when trying to build this unusual thing called friendship. Which was why she was glad Samuel found it just as hard, not that he’d ever admit as much but it comforted her to know that someone else was in the same boat.

By the time he eventually made it through the door the queue at the counter had subsided and he found his way to her table. She couldn’t decide what his lack of acknowledgement meant as he got his drink without even a nod of the head to show he’d seen her.

“Sorry I’m so late, you wouldn’t believe what I’ve had to do today.” Usually when struck with a fresh challenge Samuel relished it, so his demeanour suggested something else. More likely boredom Alex felt, but that would not explain his delay. He slowly disentangled his bags and coat to make his way into the armchair. “I’ve been to Brighton and back this afternoon.”

“Why?” Alex dutifully enquired, knowing their conversation was going to take a while to get round to what she wanted to talk about.

“The reverend doctor Adam decided that he wasn’t sure he could make it from our church to where he is speaking on Sunday afternoon so he dispatched me on a trial run.” He paused for breath, grasped his cup, tried to sip and failing to cope with the heat swiftly picked up his flow. “The most ridiculous part of it was I was told to walk from the station to the church because he didn’t want any unnecessary expense on Sunday and needed an accurate time.”

Alex got the point, but thought it best to let him spell it out, “Surely the cost of two train tickets is more expensive?”

“Absolutely, and there’s no way he’d be unable to make it unless he decides to take a unicycle to economise further.”

“The church are paying for your train ticket?”

Samuel suddenly discovered a sense of dread had descended. “I sincerely hope so, they’ve said they’ll pay for my travel expenses on top of my allowance so I’ll just add it to that.” But Samuel was far less confident than he made out. After less than two weeks working with the reverend doctor he’d come to realise that he should be surprised by very little. And when money was concerned, today’s little escapade should have pointed him to this conclusion before Alex prompted him.

It took a while to realise that there was little else to say on this. It frustrated Samuel that even after knowing each other for two years there was still this acute awkwardness between them on occasions. She was grateful that Samuel took the hint and moved the conversation on. “How have you been? Has term started well?”

Alex let his ignorance slide. Holidays were not so plentiful any longer, since she’d started her PhD Alex had found that everyone assumed the life was just like any other student, lazy holidays, the odd lecture scattered around and work that was supposed to be done, but if skipped without any serious repercussions. “Well the students are back so I’ve got a couple of classes to take.” In the end she couldn’t resist the chance for a corrective nudge. “But there’s still so much research to do, I’m not anywhere near where I need to be. Other than that, not much is happening.”

Samuel could never get his head round this. There was clearly plenty going on, she’d asked to see him to chat and now she was stonewalling him.

“It’s just that, well, I’ve had a bit of a weird couple of weeks.” Alex grabbed her cup and finished it off in a single gulp, composing herself slowly. “Why are men such trouble?”

He had nowhere to go with this. Nothing to offer, the past was too complicated to make this a straightforward question.

“Some of them are just wimps, most are confused, a few are freaks, and there’s just not enough of them.”

Samuel was not sure where he fit into this. And couldn’t work out if this was an invitation to defend himself, or a hint to stay quiet because anything would make it worse.

“And which am I?”

“Um, you don’t count.” Which was probably the worst of all. “Oh, I don’t mean it like that,” Alex corrected herself rather belatedly, “it’s just I don’t think of you like that, you know that, I’m talking about other people. I’ve tried so hard over the summer to work out what’s going on, but every time I think I’m starting to understand, it all changes.”

“It’s mostly that guys just don’t seem to ever ask girls out. I’ve not been asked out on a single date in the past year.”

This was going to be difficult. Samuel knew that he couldn’t leave this hanging in the ether, it needed some sort of response. He also wondered exactly which girls she was talking about, maybe she was right, but he couldn’t understand why. That though, was the problem, he was not an impartial observer.

“Alex. What am I supposed to say to this? You suggest that I’m not even worth counting and you seem to want my advice in confirming to you what a pile of junk guys are. I can do that if you want, I can call us all a bunch of wimps and freaks, I can say that we’ve not even got the balls to cross the road. I can make up whatever sort of crap you like if it’s going to make you feel better. But I’ve got a feeling it won’t.

“You want something that I can’t help you with. Especially if you won’t tell me what’s going on. I’ve tried to stay out of interfering, I don’t want to do anything that’s what you’d describe as inappropriate, but you’ve hardly given me any choice. Last year I told you how I felt, I asked you on a date, and now you come and complained that no one else has asked you since. If it’s being asked out which you’re after then I’m sure I can oblige. But I don’t think that’s what you want either.”

“Sam, I’m sorry. I just hadn’t got anyone else to talk to. I’ve missed talking to you. And you’ve been a gent this past year, and I’m an idiot. This is what’s happened: basically I liked a guy, I thought he liked me, but when push came to shove he walked away. And in my definition that makes him a jerk. That’s not you.

“To begin with I thought there was nothing going on, I’d make sure I turned up when he was around, I even started going to the morning service because I knew he’d be there. To be honest, I even changed what I wore, don’t laugh.” Maybe Samuel had failed to catch the smirk as she said that. “I had pretty much convinced myself that he wasn’t interested, I made sure we were alone every now and then, making sure I was walking home alone so he’d feel duty bound to walk with me. And nothing. But then he went to America over the summer and we messengered each other pretty much every day. The first Sunday he was back he gently turned me around by the elbow as he went for his doughnut.”

Samuel thought this last encounter was stretching the bounds of credibility but let her go on. “I was waiting for what I was sure was just around the corner, but it never came. So last week I again made sure we walked home together and asked him straight if he fancied me.”

The shop was thankfully nearly empty because as she came to her peroration tears had started to form and edge out of their ducts and shimmer down her cheeks. “He said he didn’t. That he had just started seeing someone he’d met online. He said he had no idea I liked him, for God’s sake, he’d lent me his jumper, what kind of mixed signal is that! I nearly slapped right there, I should have waited to ask until we were at least close to home. I had to struggle through them the never ending minutes as we picked up our pace to make it home before the awkwardness killed us both.”

“I guess, it’s hard for him to know whether someone’s interested, you said you didn’t know if he was, maybe he was just trying to be friendly.

“It’s not very nice right now, I know, but in a couple of weeks I’m sure you’ll be glad that he said no.” This was not what Samuel should have said. But the tears were falling to fast for it to make much of a difference.

“I want to help you if I can. I know you’re hurting, it’s hard. But maybe it’s a tad too soon to write all guys off.”

Alex tried to breathe deeply now very aware of what a scene she’d made. “It’s not your fault. I just needed to have a bit of a rant.”

The tears shifted to an uneasy laughter and Samuel took this as his que, “You know what, maybe it’s time to try something a bit different. My sister’s just started going to this church, it’s a bit different to Holland Park, but they run date-my-mate. Seems they want to get everyone married off, it’s open to anyone, maybe you should go?”

“With you?”

Samuel hadn’t thought this far ahead. “Well, yes, but the whole point is that you go with a friend who you don’t want to date, and you find someone for each other.”