Lemon-Lime Sorbet 10 [Divide and Rule]

[lost_spook]

Title: Even the Bad Times Are Good
Author: lost_spook
Story: Heroes of the Revolution (Divide & Rule)
Flavor(s): Lemon-Lime Sorbet #10 (what you do to me)
Toppings/Extras: Chopped Nuts + Brownie
Rating: Teen
Word Count: 10,491
Notes: 1960s AU; Edward Iveson/Julia Graves, Christy Graves. (I am still working my way through these Lemon-Lime Edward/Julia AUs, & every time I begin one I promise myself it will be short, but it never is, even when they’re this frivolous.)
Summary: In which dating is complicated, Edward can’t stand modern music, and Julia can’t stand Edward’s clothes.

***

Edward stepped outside of Farringdon Station with his coat flung over his arm, and paused to straighten his jacket. It was a mild September evening and still light, but he was running late for his assignation. He’d been tied down at the Foreign Office and not managed to get away till half an hour after he’d intended and had barely had time to change, let alone fiddle around until he was sure the bow tie was exactly right.

He was here to meet a young lady he hadn’t seen for about five years, and then only fleetingly across the room at one or two large family gatherings. The last time he’d seen her for any length of time, she’d been only fifteen and he’d been staying with her family, tutoring her elder brother Christy. He wondered how she’d turned out - Julia had always seemed to him to be the most level-headed of the three Graves siblings. He was vaguely looking forward to discovering, but he wasn’t too sure about the rest of the evening.

Hanne Graves, Julia’s mother, had asked him if he would accompany Julia to an event that Christy had had to pull out of, but she hadn’t been entirely clear on what it was - some kind of music awards, hence Edward’s hasty formal dressing. However, modern music wasn’t Edward’s forté, so he envisaged a potentially trying night, at least as far as his eardrums went. It was hard to refuse Hanne Graves anything, though, and she’d seemed worried about Julia going alone. Edward wondered what Julia felt about that; she was old enough to be independent and no doubt impatient with her mother’s old-fashioned feelings. He hoped she wouldn’t take that out on him. Hanne had seemed to think something more was wrong - that Julia wasn’t dealing well with Rudy’s death. That had made her request impossible for him to refuse. Hanne, after all, must be every bit as distressed herself.

His agreement had been followed by a brief, brisk phone call from Julia two days later during which she arranged where to meet. She’d sounded as if she was accustomed to marshalling whole groups of people and he wondered in amusement if she was a school teacher or an efficient secretary.

He still couldn’t see her, though, and he glanced up and down the street again, only to spot her hurrying out of a nearby newsagents and then, evidently spying him there, she dashed across the road.

“Edward!” she said breathlessly as she reached him and held out her hand. He shook at as she gave him a brief but dazzling smile. “I suppose I should say Mr Iveson now, but that seems a bit silly, don’t you think?”

He nodded, having trouble recovering his voice, because he knew from those previous brief encounters that she’d turned out quite pretty, but up close, she also had a liveliness that made ‘quite pretty’ seem an utterly inadequate description. “Yes,” he managed eventually. “Unless you want me to call you Miss Graves all evening?”

She wasn’t even paying attention, stepping back and surveying him with an unflattering disapproval, even alarm. “What are you wearing? I didn’t tell you to come in evening dress!”

“Your mother said it was some kind of awards ceremony,” he said, his first enthusiasm dimming at her criticism. “What else would I wear?”

Julia put a hand to her mouth, but didn’t succeed in covering her attempts not to laugh. “Oh, dear. Well, yes, I do see. But it’s really not that kind of thing. Very informal. You’ll stick out like a sore thumb. At least take off the tie -” She moved in as if to do it for him, but he batted her hands away and pulled it off himself.

“It’ll be dark,” she added in what were presumably meant to be comforting tones, and she slipped her arm in through his. He glanced down at her. She was wearing a red mini-dress that looked glamorous enough to him, if the club didn’t have rules about length, but evidently she didn’t think so.

Julia looked up at him as she pulled him along. “You’re not going to like it, you know,” she said. “I’m so sorry. I thought Mother had warned you.”

Julia’s prediction proved true. The event was being held in a club hidden somewhere down a backstreet halfway between Farringdon and Kings Cross, the sort of place Edward could only describe as a dive and it wasn’t an awards ceremony, it was a competition. As far as Edward could tell, what the acts were competing for was to be as loud, discordant and tuneless as they could with all the added electronic screeching and wailing that could be mustered by what technology they had to hand.

“Don’t tell me,” said Julia, in the all too short, blissfully quiet period between bands, “you don’t like all this noisy modern music.”

He was caught between the desire to agree and at length, at least as far as these singers went - his ears were still ringing with the efforts of the last group - and a sudden wish not to appear quite as old and fuddy-duddy as he knew he must seem to her. He was out of place in this crowded cellar and would have been even if he hadn’t managed to wear the wrong outfit. He gave her a non-committal smile instead.

“Don’t worry, it’s nearly over,” said Julia. “Angie’s up next.”

Edward blinked. “Angie?”

“Didn’t I say? My friend from work - I promised I’d come and cheer her on. I thought it might be fun - maybe we’d spot the next big thing. You never know. Doesn’t look like it, though, does it?”

Edward turned his head, about to say that it certainly didn’t sound like it, when he was abruptly clapped on the back by Christy Graves.

“Ned!” he said. “Julia said you were standing in for me.”

Edward turned, putting his hand to his head, confused and beginning to feel distinctly exasperated with the whole Graves family. “Yes, so what the hell are you doing here?” He had to raise his voice as the next band began. “If you could make it, why didn’t you tell me?”

“Not stopping,” said Christy, shouting and, Edward realised, either drunk already or busy working on it. “I had to come and see if they’d really got you into a place like this. And here you are… and why are you wearing a dinner jacket?”

Edward gritted his teeth. “Why not?”

“Oh, go away, Christy,” said Julia. “You’re supposed to be somewhere else, so get on and go there, and don’t make fun of Edward.”

Her brother only laughed and put his arm around her, saying something that Edward couldn’t catch, not over the unearthly sounds the band up front were making. Christy glanced over at Edward with a grin and back at Julia, who laughed; something about Edward evidently being cause for some amusement between them. Edward felt his face heat even further and he wished he’d never come. He didn’t want to be in this appalling night club - if you could even dignify it with that name - being deafened by the most talentless entrants to a talent show he’d ever come across, feeling out of place, and now, it turned out, entirely surplus to requirements anyway.

Edward put his drink down on the table, picked up his coat, and started to try and force his way back through the crowd, getting somebody’s beer spilled over his lapel as he went.

Somebody else caught at his jacket and tugged and he turned back to see Julia there. “If you want to go, I don’t blame you,” she said, and had to yell. “But you can’t storm out just because of Christy. You know what he’s like. He won’t stay.” She turned her head away and then looked back to Edward with a rueful smile. “See. Gone already. I can go home with Angie, though - but I was hoping you’d hang on and help me out. This is the crucial moment, you know.”

“Oh?” he said, still annoyed, but willing to be mollified.

The band ceased, mercifully. Julia put her hand through his arm and stared up at the stage, pulling a comically tragic face. “I’ve got to find something nice to say to Angie afterwards.”

Edward let go of his temper, ashamed of himself. He did indeed know only too well what Christy could be like, and this horrible collection of performances was at least nearly over. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Of course. I suppose you could certainly say that it was innovative, although - Oh God!” he added, wincing as the band opted for an encore.

Julia leant against him, laughing helplessly now. “Are you in pain?”

“Yes!”

She stared ahead again, furrowing her face in thought. “I suppose… I’ve never heard anything like it?”

“Out of this world,” said Edward, equally straight-faced.

Angie’s band made their exit, and Julia breathed out. “Oh, thank goodness,” she said. “They were the last.”

Edward felt himself relax a little, probably for the first time that evening. “You didn’t like it, either?”

“Well, who could?” said Julia. “The first few weren’t too bad, but they’ve been getting worse and worse all night. And they went on for so long!”

He grinned. “Do you need another drink?”

“Not if it’s over,” she said. “Oh, Edward, I am sorry about this - about Mother. I thought she’d at least explained and you knew what you’d signed on for, and now I feel like a pig, putting you through that. I thought it was odd you agreed. I wondered what she’d said to you.”

Edward shrugged, not wanting her to keep labouring the point about how much he didn’t belong here. It was true, but he almost wished it wasn’t. “It’s only one evening,” he said. “And I’ve survived. I don’t suppose you really needed an escort, either?”

“No, not really,” said Julia, and then smiled at him, “but it is nice to have moral support. Talking of which - here comes Angie!” She grabbed at his hand as her friend came hurrying over through the crowd, her face alive with excitement and still slightly breathless from her piece.

“Julia,” she said, still shouting, “you came! What did you think?”

“Oh, it was very original,” said Julia, hugging her. “Innovative. Unforgettable.” She looked carefully away from Edward, but he saw the brief smile she had to hide.

“I’d certainly never heard anything like it,” added Edward and felt Julia give a slight shake beside him, nearly undoing him, but he persevered in keeping his expression as serious as he could.

Angie gave an eager nod. “Thanks!” She looked from Edward to Julia in enquiry. “You’re Julia’s boyfriend?”

“No,” said Julia - much, much too hastily, in Edward’s opinion. “Just an old family friend.” As Edward tried to stifle irrational annoyance at that perfectly correct description, she stole a glance up at him and said, “But he was - well, quite overcome at your performance. Weren’t you, Edward?”

“Well, you can’t say I didn’t warn you,” said Julia, as they emerged back onto the streets of north London. It was much cooler now than it had been earlier; a sign that autumn was creeping in. “You really did hate every minute of it, didn’t you?”

They headed towards King’s Cross, and Edward glanced down at her. Out of the club, he could relax a little more, and he smiled at her. “Maybe not every minute.”

He watched her as the walked through one pool of orange lamplight to the next. He wasn’t likely to see her again soon, he knew and he found himself wanting to memorise the details of these last, quieter moments.

“Oh, there’s no need to try and be kind,” she said. “My ears are still ringing.” She turned suddenly, halting him in his path. “Really, I feel bad about it all. How about I telephone you and we arrange another evening? Something you’ll enjoy this time, I promise - my treat to make it up to you.”

Edward hovered between the undeniable temptation of spending more time with her and recognising the perils of her careless, casual offer. It didn’t mean anything to her, but he suspected that it wouldn’t take much more time spent with Julia before it did matter to him, unbearably. Maybe everyone was right; maybe he had led too dull a time of it since the divorce from Caroline if this evening now stood out in his life like a mountain, rising above an otherwise unremarkable landscape. God, he thought, impatient with himself, and said, “You mustn’t worry about it. Ordeals like that help to keep life in perspective.”

Julia laughed. “No, really. I’d like to. Edward?”

“I doubt it would be a good idea,” he said, and despised himself for it. It was self-preservation, perhaps, but also cowardice. Worse, he saw her look away, hiding hurt. He put his hand to her arm lightly, and ruined his efforts at ending things here by trying to explain. “Come on, you don’t want to spend another evening with someone as stuffy and old-fashioned as me, do you?”

“I wouldn’t say so if I didn’t mean it,” she said as they reached the front of the station. She hesitated before leaving him there to go and find a taxi while he caught whatever train was still running back home. “And I’m not so sure you are, you know.”

Edward patted her shoulder. “I must be. Everyone tells me so.” Then, because old family friends could do such things, he kissed her on the cheek before watching her walk away. He’d see her again soon, he thought, and felt the unfamiliar warmth of pleasure at the idea. Julia might be too inclined to find him ridiculous, but she knew who he was and she wasn’t merely asking because she felt obliged, or was on male short for a tedious dinner party, or any of the other such awkward events that seemed to have made up too much of Edward’s social life, such as it was.

Julia didn’t call. She’d forgotten, Edward realised with a sinking heart, as Friday came to its close and the telephone remained obstinately silent. Of course she had forgotten. She was probably out somewhere else tonight, Edward already and forever banished from her mind.

On Saturday morning, however, she turned up at the door, taking him entirely by surprise. “I was passing,” she said, smiling at him from the doorstep, “and thought I’d see if I could catch you in. I’m sorry about yesterday, but would you believe, somebody vandalised the phone lines at the flat? I wondered if it was you, if you were that desperate to avoid any more musical events.”

Edward held the door open for her. “What did you have in mind?”

“Just dinner,” she said. “Maybe a club afterwards, if you wanted - a much more civilised one, I promise. Nothing you wouldn’t like. How about next Friday?”

He nodded. “Next Friday it is, then. Now, tell me - what do I wear?”

Julia looked at him and cast what he felt sure was a disapproving eye over his old cardigan - it was Saturday and he hadn’t been expecting company, he wanted to say, feeling suddenly defensive - and then she gave a small smile. “Oh, well, this time you can be as formal as you like.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I was forgetting my manners - would you like tea or coffee?”

She laughed. “No, thank you. I really was just passing, so I’d better go. But I’ll see you on Friday - and I promise you’ll enjoy it this time!”

Julia waited in the silent office, perched on a desk in a long evening gown and wondered where Edward was. She’d feel a complete fool if he didn’t turn up. He wasn’t the sort of person not to be punctual and yet she’d already had time to change her mind twice about wearing her hair up or down - up, she’d concluded, it was that sort of dress - and double check every aspect of her appearance until she’d decided to stop thinking about it.

She sighed and stood, straightening out her skirt and crossed to the window again. She was wearing a white sleeveless dress with black edgings, and a rounded neck with the waist cut high and the skirt full. It only served her right, if she’d made all her wicked plans and then Edward didn’t even put in an appearance. She laughed at herself and then, when she turned around, she found he’d got in somehow without her knowing.

“Julia,” he said, walking across to her. He was, despite her instructions, wearing a very nice but perfectly normal suit and tie this evening. He still looked far too proper, far too neat, she thought, finding herself fighting the urge to untidy him in some way. “Your caretaker pointed me in the right direction. Sorry about the lateness - we had yet another crisis in the office and I couldn’t get away. But I’m here - the taxi’s waiting outside.”

She gave a nod and held out a hand to him, but he merely took it and hurried her out of the room.

“Come on, Julia - the caretaker wants to lock the building and I assume we have a reservation to keep.”

“That doesn’t matter,” she said, knowing they would hold it for her. She had been able to set the evening up easily enough. Edward’s fortunes might be above hers these days, but the Graves family had been very well-off and well-connected in former times, and between her father’s contacts, her mother’s, Christy’s and - if she was willing to resort to it - her wider family, like her Uncle Lionel who was a banker, she could wangle just about anything she wanted. The restaurant was a favourite of her mother’s and the chef there adored Hanne and had instantly cleared a table for them. The nightclub, despite its exclusivity, was run by a friend of Christy’s. It had even been part Christy’s when it first started up, but Christy had rapidly lost interest as he did with most things - and then as soon as he’d sold his shares at a low price to his friend, it became successful, which everyone had thought a great joke, except the friend who still felt guilty, and would always let any member of the family in free.

“You’re supposed,” she said, outside on the street, “to stop and say good evening and admire my dress. And if you can’t manage a compliment, you at least say, why, Julia, what a very interesting outfit!”

Edward grinned at her as he opened the door of the taxi, ushering her in. “Why, Julia, what a very interesting outfit.”

Oh, dear, thought Julia as she sat down inside it. In her plans of how this evening would go, it hadn’t begun like this. Because, she reminded herself, that had been mere fantasy, and this was reality. Edward was very much a real person, and she shouldn’t play such games.

But then he sat beside her as the taxi driver set off at reckless speed, and he took her hand. She couldn’t see his face properly, too shadowed in the car, but she could hear the smile in his face. “I thought you looked beautiful the other evening, so you’ll have to forgive me if I’m not sure what words are left for tonight.”

“Oh,” she said and put her hand to her face. “Oh, you pig!”

He turned his head. “Wasn’t that complimentary enough?”

“It’s no good if you make me cry and ruin my make up this early in the evening.”

Edward laughed and shifted his hold on her hand. “Then you should try to look less ravishing.” He paused. “How about me? Am I acceptable this time?”

“Yes,” she said and squeezed his hand in return. “You’re very - acceptable.” He was, she thought: entirely acceptable, presentable - and nobody should be only those things. She renewed her determination to rescue him from that fate, even if for her own selfish reasons.

After the waiter had brought the starters, Edward glanced over the table at her and said quietly, “I meant to say last time - I’m sorry about Rudy. I saw the report - at work, I mean.”

“Yes, well, then, let’s not talk about that,” said Julia, putting down her fork, abruptly losing her appetite. Rudy’s death had been particularly pointless. He had been over in America, studying, and he’d been involved in some protest, but it wasn’t that which had killed him, only a hit and run accident afterwards. It had warranted a report that had been sent to the Foreign Office, but it had been nothing worse. “I appreciate the thought, but let’s not - and I won’t ask you how your mother is, because I saw her the week before last and I know. I’m sorry, too.”

Edward gave a wry little grimace and nodded. “Yes, let’s not, then. But thank you.” He paused to take a few more spoonfuls of his soup. “Is there something wrong with your asparagus?”

“No,” said Julia, and ate one to prove it. “How is your soup of the day? Do you know what it is yet or shall I ask someone?”

Edward gave a slow grin. “Leave it. I like a mystery. It’s just - very green.”

“Spinach,” said Julia, after a long look over at it. “It must be. I don’t think anything else could be that green, do you?”

“It could be, I suppose. It’s very nice, whatever it is.”

Julia committed the crime of putting her elbows on the table and then rested her chin on her hands as she surveyed him. Talking about death and spinach wasn’t going to help her achieve her aims, either. Besides, what did he think of her? Perhaps she’d been mistaken the other night, and he thought her a spoilt, much too modern miss and was merely humouring her because of something her mother had said? She knew only too well that Hanne could have said anything, because she had obviously decided that Edward would do nicely for Julia. And what if she was wrong; what if there was no hidden Edward to excavate, if the stuffy façade was all there was?

“It’s very nice here as well,” he added, gesturing at the restaurant with a small, vague movement of his hand before attending to his soup again. “Well done.”

Julia raised an eyebrow and glared across the table. “Did you think I couldn’t manage to find anywhere even halfway decent? I don’t actually spend all my time in caffs and dives, whatever you might think!”

He looked up in blank surprise and laughed at her, and all the more when she stared back at him in affronted incomprehension, eventually reining in his amusement. “I’m sorry,” he said, “and I certainly didn’t mean to imply anything. But that’s the last thing anyone would imagine, looking at you now.”

It wasn’t exactly a terrible date, but it was not going to plan. Edward was an extremely awkward man, Julia decided, and it’d be his own fault if she didn’t bother to seduce him after all.

That, though, would mean going home alone and facing the usual nightmares. She had a whole collection of reasons for her decision, but the wish not to be alone, to be with the person who still sometimes, in dreams, let her out of the locked room in her nightmare, was becoming paramount. Whenever things were bad, the dream surfaced again and after Father’s death three years ago and going out with that toad Michael Campbell, Rudy’s death seemed to have been the last straw. She couldn’t talk about it to Mother or Christy - it would have seemed like claiming that it was more difficult for her than for them. After all, why else was Christy running about London being far more of an idiot than usual, or her mother sitting there worrying about them both and even trying to push Julia together with Edward?

Thinking about it was putting her off her gammon, despite its perfection, and she sipped her wine instead and hoped that one of them at least would remember how to flirt again soon. She lifted her head, and tried for shock tactics. “There’s something I should have warned you about, you know.”

“If you’re about to say something about this chicken, it’s a little late.”

She laughed. “No, not that. You do realise Mother is trying to match-make, don’t you?”

“That doesn’t sound like Hanne,” said Edward. He hadn’t given very much of a reaction, only a brief flicker of something she couldn’t identify passing across his face. “Are you sure? I thought she was just worried about you.”

Julia smiled. “She’s not the romantic type, no, but that’s it: she’s very pragmatic. She thinks that living alone is too precarious for me and she’s decided that you would do nicely to solve that problem. I suppose she has a point, but she really shouldn’t have drawn you in.”

“Do you always do what your mother tells you?”

Julia shook her head, playing with her wine glass. “Only if I want to - or if she’s right.”

“Then there’s no need to worry,” he said, turning her attack aside easily. “I certainly don’t have to do what she tells me.”

Julia sighed again and felt what little of her dinner she’d eaten lying heavy on her stomach. It was because she was trying too hard, she thought. If she’d talked, the way she did usually, it would have been fine. Or maybe if she tried harder and flattered him instead of insulting him, but she had a feeling Edward would only be suspicious and wonder what she wanted.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, his head inclined slightly to one side as he watched her. “Something is, isn’t it? We don’t have to go on anywhere after this, you know. I can take you home.”

Julia shook her head. She was counting on the club and getting to dance with him. “Oh, no,” she said, shaking herself into action again. “You’re not getting out of it that easily.”

“Oh?”

“I promised you a nice evening,” she said. “Is it really so bad you want to run away from me already?”

Edward couldn’t reply as it was then that the waiter brought the coffee. Julia, who in her nervousness hadn’t eaten very much of her meal, but had drunk perhaps a little more than was wise, was glad of it.

“No,” said Edward, in delayed response to her question, after the waiter had left them again. He gave her a smile, a definite glint in his eyes. “I can’t imagine wanting to run away from you. Oh, and I think your mother’s always been a sensible woman.”

Julia felt the heat rise in her cheeks and stared down at her coffee as she stirred in the milk and sugar. It seemed it was only she who had forgotten how to flirt.

Once they were inside the club and having availed themselves of a table and drinks, Edward leant forward. “I thought this place was pretty exclusive -?”

“Aha,” she said, giving a grin. “So I’ve impressed you at last. Which means I can’t possibly explain the joke now or I’d spoil everything. How about a dance instead?”

He nodded and took her hand, following her out onto the already busy dance floor. He had a slight frown on his face and, as he put her arm around her, said, “A joke? Don’t tell me this was the place Christy used to have an interest in? I remember him saying something once - but Midnight! Really?”

Julia leant against him as she laughed, nodding. “Oh, yes. And now Ben feels so guilty about it, he’d never keep any of us out. Mind you, it being such a success after Christy went and not before probably wasn’t coincidence.”

“Probably not,” Edward agreed with a grin. “Poor Christy!”

Julia abandoned herself to the moment: the dark, the coloured lights, the singer and the band, and Edward. She didn’t think of any of the rest of it, allowing herself simply to be happy.

“I don’t know how long it’s been since I’ve done something like this,” said Edward suddenly and inconsequently, a little while later.

Julia looked up, all her original intentions flaring back into life in her mind. “Why ever not?” She tightened her hold on his hand. “Because of Caroline?”

“It was more complicated than just Caroline,” said Edward. “But the divorce - all of that - yes, I suppose so. It was easier not to during and afterwards, and by and large it’s not my scene. Not this, though,” he added. “I don’t mean tonight. Tonight is very nice.”

Julia nodded and moved in nearer to him as the music slowed, leaning her head against his shoulder, feeling him shift his hold on her, accepting the adjustment. She glanced upward and he smiled. She was aware now of his hand at her waist, their other hands entwined, folded in between them, the backs of her fingers brushing over his lapel as they moved.

She’d done it, she thought with a flash of dark triumph. She only had to look up again, slide her other hand about his neck and kiss him lightly and lead him away from the dance floor. She’d have him, she thought, raising her chin; she wouldn’t be alone tonight at least - no more bad dreams -

She stepped back in dismay at herself, heedless of the dancers on either side who had to navigate round them; appalled by how strong that selfish need merely to silence the nightmare was, over and above anything she felt for Edward. The emotion was an ugly stain over the moment. It wasn’t nice at all in the nightclub, suddenly - it was dark and crowded and far, far too hot and stuffy and she couldn’t breathe. She thought she might even faint or be sick. “I need some air,” she gasped, and then she ran away.

Julia sagged back against the doorway and put her hands to her face. She had made about as big a mess out of the evening as she possibly could. She didn’t know where to start. Her original plan, selfish as it was, wasn’t as bad as what she’d just managed to do. And, honestly, she told herself, if she had wanted to have a one night stand with Edward Iveson; if she was stupid enough to try that with someone who knew her whole family, the last thing she should have done was take him to her mother’s favourite restaurant, and follow that up by taking him to a nightclub whose proprietor knew Christy well. It was no way to keep a relationship secret. She turned her face slightly and pressed it into the stone of the brick wall. And if she’d realised how badly she was behaving, she should have pulled back and said goodbye politely at the end of the evening and gone on her way, not raced out of the nightclub, making him look foolish at best and caddish at worst.

“Julia,” he said from behind her. He still sounded polite as yet, probably checking that she wasn’t about to die of something before he shouted at her.

She closed her eyes, and made herself try and face him, even if she couldn’t meet his gaze. “Edward. I’m sorry. I just - didn’t feel well, but it’s passed. I’ll go home - you stay.”

“Are you drunk?” he said. “You didn’t eat enough at dinner and you did -”

She raised her head, anger reviving her briefly. “No, I’m not! I’m going home. Please, go back in - find someone else - excuse me -”

He just stared at her and gently caught at her arm when she tried to step past him. “Do you and your family suddenly hate me?” he said. “Is this a conspiracy, first to deafen me, then to humiliate me?”

“Don’t be stupid,” she said, shaking him off and stepping forward, her heartbeat thudding in her ears. Perhaps she was even a little drunk, but certainly not enough to excuse or explain anything. “I’m sorry, Edward. I’m a terrible, awful person, that’s all - and I’m not feeling too well, and I’m going home.” Alone, she reminded herself and it made her shake.

Edward walked alongside her. “All right, then,” he said. “I’ll go back for our things. You wait here.”

“Oh,” said Julia, and watched him go. By the time he’d returned with the coats over his arm and handed her bag back to her, she’d found a taxi and while Edward kept his distance from her, he said that they’d planned to share one back and as long as she could bear it, he thought they might as well still.

Julia didn’t argue, but she sat as far away from him as she could manage and watched the blurry neon lights go past out of the window. It was raining, droplets all over the glass. She closed her eyes and wished for the journey to be over. Edward didn’t understand; how could he? She could feel his hurt bafflement from here without even looking at him. She was an idiot, she thought.

When they stopped outside her flat, she was too slow to react, her claim of being unwell not so untrue now that she had to go home again, and she didn’t get out quickly enough to prevent Edward hopping out to open the door for her. He shut it behind her, and she stepped forward, finding suddenly that the square art deco buildings above her seemed to loom over her like some gothic castle.

“Julia,” he said quietly, standing beside her. “Something’s wrong and it’s either you or me. If it’s me, I need to know - and if you aren’t well, then if there’s anything I can do -”

Don’t be reasonable, she told him silently. What kind of man was reasonable in the face of behaviour like that? He obviously didn’t care anyway, probably had just taken her out because her mother had pressed him into it. If he cared, he’d have been furious. Anyone would. She turned. “It’s not you,” she said, patting his arm. “You were lovely. It’s just me. I said - I’m all out of sorts and I’m a pig anyway.”

He merely paused, still looking at her, utterly uncomprehending, and said, “Are you sure you’re not drunk?”

She pushed at him in anger and marched on into the lobby and when she glanced back, she saw he hadn’t followed her. She closed her eyes in mixed relief and misery and made her way across to the stairwell. It felt as if the whole building was pressing down on her in its gloom and height and silence. In fact, the stairs then seemed to twist about in an intensely annoying way and the floor was suddenly in the wrong place. Oh, she thought in dull surprise, she was going to faint.

Edward would have followed Julia into the building - he was still both thoroughly confused and concerned - but the taxi driver had yelled and he’d had to go back to find the man handing him Julia’s shawl. “You left it,” said the man, redundantly. “D’you want me to wait or have you sorted things out with your lady friend?”

Edward thought about trying to explain that he hadn’t been trying to wangle his way into Julia’s place, thank you, and then decided that would be an idiotic conversation to have with the cabbie. He merely thanked him stiffly and asked if he’d wait, before running after Julia.

She didn’t notice him enter, even though she was still only in the lobby, standing as if she didn’t know where to go and then she swayed, falling forwards without even putting out a hand to stop herself.

He was in time to catch hold of her, steadying her and lowering her onto the bottom step, where she looked up at him in dull confusion. Edward was all the more concerned, but also slightly relieved. He had no idea what to do or say at Julia’s previous behaviour, but there was a set response to this. He crouched down in front of her, as she sat with her head on her knees, and said, “Is there any pain?”

She shook her head and then frowned at him. “I fainted. I don’t faint.” She rubbed her forehead. “Didn’t you go?”

“You forgot this,” he said, putting the shawl about her shoulders. “Just sit there - no, keep your head down.” He rose again, looking for the lift, and hoping there was one, but there was. He returned to help her up and into it.

“I usually use the stairs,” she said, leaning back against the metal of the side. Edward cautiously released her - she had, after all, been telling him to leave her alone - but kept his hand near in case she went over again.

He pressed the button for the third floor. “Yes, well, I realise you’re evidently out to make me suffer for something, but forgive me if I pass on trying to drag a fainting young lady up three flights of stairs this evening. I don’t think it’d do you much good either.”

“My head’s still fuzzy,” she said, in faint apology. She was very pale. “I’m not with it. I’m sorry - such a fuss.”

Edward shook his head. “Shh,” he said as the lift made its creaking, groaning way upward and stopped with a worrying jolt. He helped her out, but in the corridor she shook him off, evidently feeling slightly more herself, and she let herself into her room. He followed.

Julia walked over to the sofa and dropped into it, while Edward went out into the kitchen and hunted for a glass, returning with it filled with water and handed it to her.

She drank it, and then pressed the heel of her free hand to her head. “I always used to think it sounded romantic,” she said. “Fainting. But it’s just rotten when it happens, isn’t it?”

“I don’t think I ever actually have, not properly,” he said. “Look, Julia, can’t I phone someone for you? You’re obviously not well and I don’t like leaving you like this. Shall I call Hanne?”

She looked up in immediate alarm, causing her to pale again. “No, don’t you dare! She’d worry!”

“I don’t blame her,” said Edward. “A friend, then - Christy, even?”

She shook her head. “I’ll be all right,” she said, but she was shaking as she tried to drink the water.

Edward didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t make things any better by staying. She ought to have a cup of tea or something at least, but he was aware of the awkwardness of the situation and also the inevitably mounting taxi meter down in the street below. The longer he hung around here, the more it was going to cost him.

“You should go,” she said to him. “I’ll be all right, and, really, I am a pig.” She wiped tears away and rubbed her head again. “An idiot. You shouldn’t be fussing over me. I was going to seduce you, as if that’s any way to cure a nightmare - go away!”

Edward backed against the wall at her unexpected confession, nearly knocking over the side table with the phone on it. It gave a slightly offended ‘ding’ in retaliation. He decided he’d better assume she really was drunk after all, or delirious. Maybe she’d fainted because she was coming down with flu. He glanced at her again and she was slumped forward over the sofa arm, her hand pressed to her head.

“All right,” he said. “I’m going. It was a very interesting evening, Julia!” He turned and headed back to the door, and then stopped. He couldn’t stay, but he really couldn’t leave her alone like this. She probably would be all right presently, but what if she wasn’t? Never mind their disastrous date, what would Hanne Graves say to him if he marched out on Julia like this, or Christy, or even his own mother come to that? He was supposed to be a friend - and, maybe, he thought, if that was how he behaved, there was something he could do.

“Julia,” he said, sitting on the sofa, beside her but keeping a careful distance between them. “Are you absolutely sure there’s nobody I can call for you?”

She sat up with a slight gasp, evidently having assumed he’d gone, and then sagged back against the chair, but she didn’t tell him to go again. “Nobody. Not at this time on a Friday night.”

“Well, then,” he said. “Let’s forget the rest of the evening, at least for now. Let’s just be logical. You shouldn’t be left alone like this and I happen to have a spare room. It wouldn’t be any trouble if you wanted to stay in it for one night.”

Julia turned her head and frowned at him. “You can’t mean that.”

“Yes, I can. The question is, would you be all right with that?”

She bit her lip and nodded.

“Then that’s what we’ll do,” he said, keeping his voice level, normal, as if this sort of thing happened on a regular basis, even though she was his first real damsel in distress. “Come on - can you collect a change of clothes? I’ll fetch your toothbrush.”

When he finally returned to the taxi with Julia, he apologised again to the driver, who said, “Your funeral, guv,” but then gave him a wink. “I see you’re in luck after all.”

“Thanks,” said Edward, deciding that there was no point in trying to explain that his life wasn’t like other people’s, and got in the back with Julia before making this journey any more expensive than it already was. He had, however, gone past annoyance now, and had reached the point of finding every new occurrence all the more amusing. Well, not Julia’s state, of course, he thought, casting an anxious glance at her. He shouldn’t have been so concerned about the taxi; he should have stopped and made her drink some tea first.

“Are you all right?” he asked, as the driver set off with a lurch.

She nodded. “I still feel rotten, but mostly I could kick myself. Making such an fuss about nothing -”

“You know,” said Edward, “I don’t know what’s going on, but if it was nothing I doubt very much you’d have fainted.”

Once they were safely back at his house, he left her sitting in an armchair and went off to the kitchen to finally get her some tea. He made some toast while he was at it, taking a slice before he carried the plate back in.

Julia perked up almost immediately on drinking the tea. He hadn’t asked her how she liked it; the circumstances dictated that it should have plenty of milk and sugar. She looked across at him, finishing off another piece of toast and jam. “I’m sorry. This is ridiculous, isn’t it?”

“I had noticed,” said Edward, giving a smile. “But never mind. As long as you’re feeling a bit better.” He crossed to the sideboard and poured a small brandy into a glass and then passed it to her.

Julia raised her eyebrows. “Do you think that’s a good idea? Especially after the way you kept accusing me of being drunk earlier.”

“Take it up with you; have it once you get in bed,” said Edward. “It’s not the sort of thing to make a habit of, but, all considered, it ought to help knock you out for the night.” He shrugged. “It’s up to you.”

Julia gave a nod. “And that’s a hint, I see,” she said, getting up. “Care to show me to my room?”

Edward came back downstairs and wandered back over to the sideboard and pondered having a brandy himself, but then shut the bottle away. He suspected he might need a clear head in the morning with Julia about and grinned to himself.

It hadn’t exactly been the evening he’d hoped for, but then he didn’t know what he had hoped for. Until she’d run away from him, he’d been pleased and considerably amused by the fact that she’d seemed easily discomposed by his compliments. He hadn’t expected her to take him seriously but, it seemed, she had, even if it was only due to a guilty conscience. He didn’t know, but for the moment, she was here and he had hopes he would receive some sort of explanation in the morning. It didn’t matter how bad she’d felt, she wouldn’t be here with him if she hadn’t wanted to.

And, he thought, for the first time in a very long while, he had no idea what would happen tomorrow. He found he liked the feeling.

Julia woke up and for the first time in her life experienced the classic moment of confusion before the events of last night returned to her. She sat up and put her head in her hands. “Oh, dear,” she said. Oh God, what had Edward thought? Why had he let her anywhere near his house?

She felt much better in herself, however. Still a little odd, a little headachy, but nothing out of the ordinary and last night had been thankfully dreamless for the first time in a week or two. She sighed and decided that she had better get up and dress - and face Edward Iveson.

“Julia!” Edward looked up in surprise as she peered in round the kitchen door to find him sitting at the small table, eating his breakfast. He got to his feet. “I’m sorry - I thought you were asleep and I didn’t want to wake you.”

She smiled. “It’s all right. Have you got some cereal? Or oats - I would like porridge, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course not,” he said and hunted out the oats and a saucepan, while she looked in the fridge for the milk and then set about making it herself. He glanced over at her. “How are you feeling?”

She smiled. “Much better now, thank you - and thoroughly ashamed of myself. I don’t know what to say.”

“It seems our dates are doomed to be disasters,” he said, polishing off his scrambled eggs, and giving her a smile as he pushed the plate away. “I’m intrigued as to what we can do next to compete with the previous two.”

Julia brought her bowl over and gave him surprised stare, clearly taken aback. He had to stifle a grin. “You - you think there should be another?”

“I’m hopeful,” said Edward, folding up his newspaper. “But you’ll have to tell me. Your signals were rather mixed last night. On the one hand, you said you were thinking of seducing me but on the other you ran away.”

Julia hid her face behind her hands. “Oh, no,” she said in obvious shame and dismay. “Oh, dear. Oh, Edward, I really am sorry.”

“Do you like cream?” he asked, and stifled more amusement as she looked up again in confusion. He was being a little unfair, he thought, but it was hard to resist the temptation.

“Cream?”

Edward crossed to the fridge and pulled out the pot and passed it over, along with a teaspoon. “You know, you get it from cows, although don’t ask me how. I don’t care for it, so feel free to use it up.”

“I’m not going to faint again, if that’s what you’re worried about,” said Julia, giving him a sharp look, beginning to pull herself back together. “You don’t have to feed me up.” She helped herself to a spoonful nevertheless and then frowned at him. “Why do you have cream if you don’t like it?”

Edward grinned at her. “Well, contrary to what some people seem to think, I do occasionally have visitors, and one I had last week is partial to cream.” He watched her, clearly fighting the urge to ask who, and gave way to a further grin. “My aunt,” he added.

“It’s none of my business,” said Julia, attempting to recover her dignity and eat her porridge. “I’m not interested.” She paused, and then made an effort to be polite. “But thank you. It’s rather nice.”

He waited for a few moments, until she’d made a start on her breakfast and then said, more seriously, “Julia, I would like some kind of explanation. Whatever you can tell me. It’s not only that I’m confused about last night - I’m concerned about you as well. You weren’t yourself.”

“Yes,” she said, and nodded. “Although I still don’t know where to start.”

Edward clasped his hands together on the table, watching her. “You said something about a nightmare. Is that what this is about?”

“Yes,” she said. “Only Mother and Christy don’t know, so please don’t tell them.” Then, before he could protest, she gave a small smile. “Of course you wouldn’t. I’m sorry, Edward. You see, ages ago, when I was about seven or eight, we were all supposed to be going to Austria and Germany to visit Mother’s relatives, only I got something - maybe it was measles? I don’t remember - and I was too ill to go. They thought about cancelling it, but it had been something they’d been planning for years, and Mother’s Aunt was getting very frail, so in the end they went and left me with my great-aunts. As you can imagine, I wasn’t very happy. The aunts weren’t too bad - for them - and their housekeeper was a very nice lady called Mrs Geddings. The problem was that Aunt Millicent was starting to go - well, a little funny - and I don’t think anyone had realised how bad it had got and one evening when Aunt Laura was away with a friend and Mrs Geddings had to go out for a few hours, I was left alone with Aunt Millicent, I did something - cheeked her or ate too many jam scones for tea, or whatever it was that day.” She gave Edward a bright smile and a quick shrug. “I was never a saint, but you know that.

“Anyway, she told me off and marched me up to the attic room and shut me in there. She said she’d come back in half an hour, but she forgot afterwards and went out. I was sitting there and I heard the front door go and I just knew I was completely alone. I could feel it. It’s funny,” she said, glancing up, “then and when I look back, I never seemed to think much about being locked in, it was being alone - because Mother and Father and Rudy and Christy had all gone, then Aunt Laura, Mrs Geddings - everybody. I was in quite a state by the time Mrs Geddings came back, and then they had to find where my aunt had wandered off to, so there was a large fuss all round and they had the doctor in to see her after that.” Julia looked up again. “And that was that, and I don’t know if I even remembered it to tell Mother by the time they all came back. I don’t know if the aunts did, either. Which would all have been fine, except when I get stressed, it seems to come back and haunt me in my dreams. Failing my eleven plus - when I was dating Michael - when Father died - and now, again, with Rudy.”

Edward tilted his head to look at her. “When you were dating Michael?” he murmured, unable to resist. “Was it that dreadful?”

“Yes,” said Julia. “He was a toad! Well, all right, obviously it wasn’t that dreadful to begin with or I would never have gone out with him in the first place. But I didn’t go to university, I just did my secretarial course and that was fine. But I was nineteen when I met Michael, and he was in his last year at uni while I was a lowly member of the typing pool and by the end he really did make me feel rather a dunce. And as I eventually worked out, he kept sweet-talking me into doing all his housework for him while he ran off to campus to see someone else. I’m still annoyed that he dumped me before I managed to dump him.”

Edward tried to focus on what he thought were the essential points. “He made you feel stupid - and that started off the nightmares again?”

“Yes,” said Julia. “More or less. Anyway, that’s what the nightmare is - I’m locked in somewhere and everyone’s gone away - and you would think I’d have learned to take no notice of it by now, but it doesn’t seem to work like that. Still, that doesn’t explain why I plagued you about it.” She paused, and pushed her empty bowl aside. “I’m so sorry. It’s only - do you remember when you stayed with us, when you were tutoring Christy that summer? And he shut me in the cupboard under the stairs?” Julia gave a small smile. “I love him, but sometimes he really is the worst.”

Edward nodded, his good mood beginning to drain away, because he could see exactly where this was going. “I let you out,” he said. “I had no idea.”

“No, well, Christy wouldn’t have known either,” she said. “And he’s always worse when he’s worried about something, like not being good enough to get into uni like Father wanted - and now, not being there for Rudy.” She raised her gaze again. “Edward, I am sorry. I saw you again last week and I was having a more than usually bad time with these dreams - and of course, because you’d let me out, you got all tangled up in them and I came up with this stupid idea - well, I don’t need to explain any further, do I?”

Edward shook his head. He had been naively assuming that Julia’s interest in him, her presence here, must at least bode well for the future, but he could see what she meant only too well, and why she had picked on him - and it had nothing to do with liking him. All his earlier buoyancy deserted him and he was trying to think what to say, how to end this disastrous association, when he looked up and was entirely distracted by the sight of her idly licking the teaspoon out of the cream pot.

“Oh!” said Julia when she caught his glance. She put it down and gave a sheepish smile. “Sorry. My manners. It’s probably that sort of thing that got me into trouble with my aunt in the first place. Seemed a shame to waste it, though, don’t you think?” She got up and carried the crockery across to the sink and began washing up.

Edward stood, mindful of what she’d said about Michael and coughed. “You don’t have to do that.”

“I owe you,” she said. “I mean it. I don’t think I’d have been any use left to myself last night and you had no reason to be so kind.”

He tried to smile. “No, no. No trouble at all. Just let me know when you want to go home and I’ll drive you.”

“Oh,” she said, turning and her face was a picture of blank dismay, enough so to miraculously restore his dampened spirits. She didn’t want to go. “Oh, well, yes, of course - thank you.”

“Or you could stay,” he said, not quite able to hold back a small smile. “If you liked. We could go for a walk up Primrose Hill and out somewhere for lunch - see what new disasters we can find. I don’t have any plans, so it’d be my pleasure.”

Julia’s face brightened and she nodded. “If you really don’t mind -”

“I really don’t.”

She said, then, her hair falling over her face, hiding her expression. “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever actually told anyone all of that before.”

Edward reached for the tea cloth and paused beside her, brushing back her hair, the back of his fingers against her cheek. It seemed too natural a movement not to. “Then it’s possible that might help in itself, but of course we’ll have to see. And if not, then you really should see someone, you know.”

Julia, as she tipped out the water and found the towel to dry her hands, didn’t seem to notice quite what he said - or rather what he’d so carelessly assumed and implied: that they’d be together now, after this. She merely nodded. “Very sensible,” she said with a smile. “Much better than my idiotic behaviour.” Then she disappeared out of the door, leaving him standing there, a bundle of cutlery wrapped in the cloth in his hands and his heart beating faster than usual. It would, he thought, in sudden fear, be unbearable this afternoon when she finally left.

Julia, having returned upstairs to clean her teeth and put on her jacket, hurried down the stairs, found Edward coming the other way and stopped dead on the step above him. “Edward! What are you wearing now?”

He glanced down at his suit. “Well, you didn’t seem to care for my cardigan the other day. I thought this was unexceptional.”

“Well, it is,” said Julia, “or it would be, if you were going to the office, but this is Saturday! At least take off the tie.”

He moved past her. “Julia, this is fine. Now excuse me.”

Julia watched him go and hesitated, standing there, then took one step down, before making her mind up and running after him, following him into his room.

“I need to see your wardrobe,” she told him, heading towards it. “Haven’t you got anything decent to wear?”

He blocked her way, catching hold of her. “Julia!”

She tugged at his tie, despite his half-hearted attempts to stop her, and fiddled with the knot, pulling it off with triumph. “There.” She looked up at him, letting the tie drop out of her hand, and stretched up to kiss him and undo his top button while he was distracted.

“Julia,” he said again, half-laughing, half-protesting. He caught hold of her wrists to stop her trying anything else and pressed her up against the wardrobe, before pulling back, but not releasing her. “Julia,” he said again, more seriously. “Yesterday, you said you didn’t want to -”

She didn’t take her eyes off him. “I didn’t want to kiss you - or anything else of that sort - to cure a nightmare. That would be a stupid reason, wouldn’t it?” She was a little breathless now, but she didn’t care. “This morning, I have a much better idea what I’m about - and, God, I wanted to do that the moment I saw you outside the station, in that stupid bow tie!” As if somehow, her mother had managed to deliver him there, all done up with an actual bow on top. Someone, she’d thought immediately, ought to untidy him, to ruffle him, and fairly rapidly after she’d decided that it would clearly have to be her.

He leant in to kiss her, and she closed her eyes, because while in some ways this was very strange and new, there were others in which she’d wanted him to do that, quite desperately, since she was fifteen. He pulled her in against him, and she slid her arms about his neck, and let herself finally run her fingers through his hair, both of them rapidly losing sight of everything else.

Later, Edward experienced a sudden stab of fear that perhaps this was still all some game to Julia. It was understandable for him to lose his head over her, incomprehensible that she should do the same over him. He couldn’t think, though, what she would gain from it and he’d known her for long enough to know that she wasn’t the sort of person who set out to be wilfully cruel to anyone. He glanced over at her and saw that, far from plotting any mischief, she was sleeping again, utterly defenceless and with a faint smile on her face.

Julia woke with a start to find Edward dressed, although minus the offending tie and jacket this time, shaking her gently; saying her name. When she pulled herself up slightly, under the covers, he passed her a glass of milk, which she took with drowsy surprise.

“I’d have let you sleep,” he said, sitting on the side of the bed as she cautiously sipped the milk, “but I thought we ought to go and have lunch. I don’t think someone who fainted yesterday evening should miss out any meals today.”

Julia bit back a laugh and looked down at the milk. “Oh,” she said, “and this is so I don’t pass out on the way? Honestly, Edward!”

“Well, it would be awkward,” he said, leaning over to kiss her cheek. “Besides, I promised your mother I’d look after you.”

She couldn’t keep from laughing, despite having only just taken another mouthful of milk, snorting it back into the glass and up her nose as she giggled helplessly.

“Julia,” he said in disgust, and passed her his hanky so that she could wipe away the milk. “Really, must you?”

She managed to get herself back under control and put the glass aside, since she didn’t really need building up with dairy products, whatever he thought. “Of course,” she said, giving him a smile. “And she told me I ought to cheer you up. I hope I did?”

He didn’t answer that, but she could see him biting down on laughter. “Come on, get dressed - lunch.”

“Mind, I expect she really meant that we should just get married -”

“Julia!” said Edward. “Is that a proposal? It seems rash to me, but I accept - although only on condition that we manage to survive the weekend first.”

She punched his arm, but she was relieved. Of all the idiotic things to say, she thought. It would have served her right if he’d run away this time. “Don’t be silly.”

“I’ll have to find out how you go about getting a marriage license,” he said, ignoring her, as he headed for the door. “I mean, I can’t disoblige Hanne, especially not now.” With that, he disappeared, the door closing behind him before she could even throw one of the pillows at him. It left her no choice but to get up and get dressed if she wanted to follow him and tell him what she thought of him. Edward was really rather underhand and unfair, she decided - and certainly not stuffy at all, she’d been right about that all along.

***