The Art of Keeping Faith Read online

  “Sod the books, Lilah.” His lips kiss up my throat while his hands swiftly undo the buttons on my jeans, long fingers dipping below the waistband.

  “Okay, we are going to have to read later though,” I tell him, my mind already far from books as I try to wiggle out my trousers and yank my vest top off in record time.

  “Be quiet, you are ruining it.”

  “Well, I think I was just beginning to understand there were once in fact two Popes. Did you know that, Ben? That a long, long, long time ago, there were two Popes?”

  “Lilah?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Shut the hell up.”

  So I do.

  Later

  “Do you think Pritchard the Pilchard is going to keep us separate all term?” I ask Ben as I kiss along his collarbone.

  “Well I can’t really blame him.” He smiles slowly.

  “Me neither.”

  “At least you will be able to sit in puddles of your own drool while you perve at me across the room.”

  “Ben?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Shut the hell up.”

  So he does.

  20th September

  “Lilah, are you getting up?”

  I shoo my hand at Ben in response.

  Ben is up for a morning lecture. I don’t need to be on campus until this afternoon. So I am not getting up. Well, I wasn’t until Ben decided to try and wake me by nibbling my ear. He may as well throw a bucket of cold water over me.

  I stretch a little as his fingers slide under the duvet and down the length of my body.

  “Stay here.” I link my fingers around his neck and try to coax him back into the bed.

  “Now, Lilah, I am a serious academic student, are you trying to distract me from class?”

  I pull him in and kiss him with a little bit more intensity. “Yes definitely,” I assure him when I finally pull away.

  He extracts himself from my arms. “No chance.”

  I fall back into the mattress. “Boring.”

  “See you for dinner, Lilah.” He smirks and grabs his jumper turning for the door.

  “Dinner?” This makes me sit up. “Where will you be later?”

  “With Dave remember?”

  Nope.

  “Yeah, sure. See you for dinner.”

  “See you for dinner. Love you.”

  “Go away. You are disturbing my beauty sleep.”

  I pull my pillow over my head so I can’t hear him laughing as he leaves.

  21st September

  See you for dinner, my arse.

  I was at dinner. Ben, on the other hand, was not.

  Dinner was a healthy dose of fresh air. Oh, who am I kidding? Dinner was a packet of fags and three glasses of Pinot.

  Ben got home at midnight and was welcomed, can I just say, by a rather frosty shoulder.

  He texted at ten. Sorry, my love, this is taking a long time. Will be home soon. xx

  Ten o’ Clock! Ten bloody o’ Clock.

  This was in response to my text messages.

  Me: Hey, love, what do you fancy for dinner?

  Me: Okay, I am going to order something let me know for what time …

  Me: You’ve just missed Meredith rapping ;-)

  Me: Where are you?

  Me: Are you fucking breathing?

  He finally snuck into bed and snuggled up behind me, kissing the back of my neck as one hand reached down to run up my leg.

  “Oh,” is all he had to say when his hand met the flannelette Christmas pajama’s I had found and stropped myself into.

  Dinner my sodding arse.

  I’ve got the raving hump, it is Saturday, and now I have got to go to work with a grumbling stomach while Ben is passed out in bed after his late night—no phone call—shenanigans.

  Grrr.

  Two Hours Later

  “Lilah, what on earth are you doing?”

  “Sleeping,” I reply to Ben. I don’t bother to raise my head off the counter to greet him. He places his hands on the counter either side of my head, long slender fingers spread wide.

  “She’s hungry,” explains Baz as he pings a penny at the front door. It’s a game we play when we are bored. It’s either flick pennies or drink Bud. It’s too early for a Bud. “Did you see that, Lil? I’m going to be a champ soon!”

  I just groan in response.

  “What’s up?” Ben teases one finger over the counter and along my jaw line.

  “Nothing.” I refuse to lift my head off the counter.

  “Are you grumpy?”

  “No.”

  “Really?”

  “She is,” pipes in Baz.

  Straightening myself up, I look at Ben.

  He is standing there looking all sexy in a navy T-Shirt and faded low-slung jeans, guitar case at his feet. He looks frickin’ hot. It’s so bloody annoying.

  Wanker.

  “Why are you so hungry?” he asks.

  “Just peckish, I guess.”

  “Lilah, you are a terrible liar. Did you not eat last night just because I didn’t come home for dinner like I said I would?”

  “Uh. No. How old do you think I am, like five?”

  “Uh, no, I think you are twenty-six and can’t cook.”

  “Well, I can’t.”

  “I know.” His lips start to curve into his sexy half-lip hitch.

  “Well, you did say you were going to be home.” I am sulking and I know it. I just can’t stop it.

  “I’m sorry, Lilah. It just took far longer than I thought.” The blues are looking at me earnestly and I can feel myself give in a little.

  “Well, Ben, it’s cool that you have stuff to do. You know? No worries, but next time could you give me some advance notice so I can make sure I have some cereal in.”

  “Did the petrol garage not have any?” The half-lip hitch turns into a full-on smirk.

  I pull an exceptionally unattractive face before replying, “No, they had bloody sold out.” This makes him laugh out loud before leaning over the counter and kissing me full on the mouth.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispers.

  ”Yeah, I know,” I say.

  “Can I make it up to you tonight?” The blues twinkle at me and the freckles crinkle.

  I have no willpower at all.

  “What did you have in mind?” I sigh.

  He leans in a little closer.

  “Romantic dinner for two and then lots of missed-you-last-night sex?” he suggests, a trifle optimistically.

  I’ve already given in though, so it makes no difference. I just giggle in response and lean over the counter placing my lips back against his.

  “Oh, my God. Can you two pack it in?” Baz shouts from his rather uncomfortable position of two feet away.

  “Sorry, Baz,” we both say at the same time.

  “So did you just bring the Gibson out for some fresh air or are you going to play and drum us up some business?” Baz moves to the counter and picks up his marker pen, waving it at Ben.

  “At your service,” Ben says and sweeps a bow at Baz.

  “Excellent, it will make up for all my beers you will undoubtedly drink whilst you spend the day snogging my Saturday Girl.”

  He does not look excessively bothered as he sets about making a sign for the window, ‘Ben Chambers from Sound Box. Live this afternoon.’

  Baz loves it when Ben plays. We normally take a month’s worth of takings, and business has been a bit slow over the summer so I am sure he is keen to shift some stock.

  “I’ve got a better idea,” says Ben. He slides his phone out of his pocket, which makes me stare a bit. I find the sight of Ben sliding his hands into tight spaces rather distracting—always have and probably always will.

  “Make the sign into a ‘Sound Box, live this afternoon.’”

  “Really?” Baz hesitates with the pen in his hand.

  “Sure, we need the practice, we have lots of gigs coming up, and also they owe me for last night!” Ben pulls
me in for a peck on the cheek.

  “Actually, I think it is you who owes me,” I say to Ben. He responds by winking, making my stomach take a dip. Damn that sexy man.

  Texting one-handed, Ben slides his other hand into the back pocket of my jeans. I am about to make a comment about how funny it is that he seems to have access to his phone now, but I manage to button it and hold it inside.

  No point making the situation worse. Instead I find my phone in my bag and send some messages of my own. Jayne would be pretty pissed if she knew Dave was in the local vicinity and I did not tell her.

  22nd September

  7.00 a.m.

  Oh. My head.

  Shit. That really hurts.

  I don’t think we went for our romantic meal for two. I have just checked under the duvet and as I am still wearing yesterday’s clothes I am pretty sure that no ‘missed-you-last-night sex’ was had either.

  Far more worrying than a serious lack of memory recall is the fact I seem to have lost my boyfriend. He is not here; well, he is not in bed next to me. Jayne is. I am not sure why, and it is a bit weird, but I hurt too much to a) go and find Ben, or b) wake Jayne up to find out why she is here instead of him.

  I am just going to lie here and stare at the ceiling instead.

  The Post Mortem

  It’s not just Meredith and I having a post-mortem, we all are. Meredith and Beth have been taking it in turns to puke all day. Every time one of them gets up to be sick it sets the other off. I think they were both in there at once at one point, but the less said about that probably the better.

  Tristan has only just got up. It is six in the evening and I think it’s fair to say that none of the University students among us have done their homework or reading.

  Jayne is the only one who is happy and that is because Dave is also here. We found him in the lounge when we eventually got up. He was passed out on our overstuffed chintzy sofa surrounded by debris. Eight empty wine bottles, twenty-five empty cans of beer, an empty bottle of vodka and about three full ashtrays.

  At midday I managed to convince Jayne to go and find somewhere else to die, and Ben who I found passed out on the floor when I finally moved from my ‘stare at the ceiling’ position, gratefully crept back into our bed. He did not say anything just curled himself around me and we went back to sleep again.

  I am pleased to report the headache is better but my right eyeball is burning with the fury of hell. My legs are also aching rather a lot; something that I can’t explain.

  “That was the dancing?” Dave helpfully informs me when he overhears me asking Ben if he remembers participating in upside down monkey sex at any point during the night which could have caused the ache.

  “What dancing?”

  “Don’t you remember? In the shop, it was getting late and Baz wanted to send us all home but you begged him not to because you wanted to ‘move it, move it.’”

  Ben gives a little snigger.

  “I did not!”

  “You did. I remember that bit,” Jayne confirms with a distinct sense of pride that she can at least remember a small part of the evening.

  “Then you also danced in the Tapas,” Dave adds.

  Bugger.

  “We went to the Tapas?” Bloody hell. I am cursed with that restaurant. Last time I tried to turn it into a karaoke bar; this time apparently it was a frickin’ disco. “Anywhere else?”

  Contemplating his response, Dave thinks hard for a moment. “I can’t remember anything else.”

  “Great, it’s the first week of term and we have already thrown our names away for the whole of Putney to see.”

  Sitting next to me Ben has his head resting on my shoulder, his dark hair tickling my face and his thumb tracing patterns on my palm.

  I know he is waiting to laugh.

  “Go on,” I tell him.

  So he does, shaking with laughter, which makes me shake alongside him.

  “Lilah, one day you will be a grown up. I have faith in that.”

  “Ha fucking ha.”

  “Come on, my love, let’s go back to bed,” he says tugging me up from the couch.

  Ten minutes later

  We are snuggling up in bed. Thankfully naked and with no Jayne in sight.

  “I think I still owe you.” Ben smiles in the growing darkness as he traces his fingers up my spine and over my shoulder trailing a path all the way around my throat and down to my stomach.

  “I am not likely to forget a debt like that.”

  “Well then, I had better start the payback.” He moves his lips down to follow where his fingers have just set my skin alight.

  “Oh, Lilah,” he interrupts himself from his task.

  “Mm.”

  “We are playing our first official promotional gig on Friday. Will you come with me?”

  Grabbing his arm I gently pull him up so he is level with me again, “I would love that.” Pushing him back onto the bed, I slide myself on top. “I think that maybe I owe you.”

  He flashes me a wide smile, white teeth glinting in the half-light. “Why’s that?”

  “Just because.”

  Then I stop talking altogether and demonstrate just what Lilah McCannon payback is like.

  24th September

  Pratty Pilchard—as he shall now be known—hates me. It’s a fact.

  In my defence, it is not entirely my fault that I have my head on my desk and occasionally letting out an involuntary groan. I know he has heard bad reports from Professor Johnson about my hangovers, but this time my groaning is legit.

  I am sick. Like dying of man flu, sick.

  Half way through the lecture I am feeling rather drowsy, but that may be a side effect of the hot toddy that Tristan the Arse suggested I have for breakfast. Now I can’t keep my eyes open and Pilchard knows it. Every time I dose off he keeps waking me up, which is bloody rude. “So, Delilah, why do you think blah-blah reacted in this way.” Or “Do you have an alternative opinion to the historian in question here?”

  I am bright red, coughing, sneezing and blowing snot bubbles—not of the crying variety.

  Ben thinks this is highly amusing, so does Meredith.

  Bastards.

  Ben, has been trying to look after me, it is a sign of just how sick I am that I have turned down all his offers of spaghetti Bolognese and sex.

  I’m going home to bed. I need my duvet, a box of Kleenex, and maybe a tot of scotch.

  I am sure the scotch will help; I need to sweat this out or something. It is Sound Box’s first promotional gig on Friday and I can’t miss it. I simply can’t.

  26th September

  I’m going to miss it.

  I look like Frankenstein.

  Worse still, Ben has not even asked if I want sex.

  Shit.

  27th September

  “You’re not coming, are you?”

  Nuzzling my ear, Ben snuggles himself up closer to me and slides one knee between mine. I have no idea why he wants to be that close; I am covered in dry crusty snot.

  “I don’t think so. I’m so sorry,” I mumble back. I am so disappointed not to be going I could cry—in fact, I think I will.

  The gig is in Manchester, which is bloody half the country away. I think it’s stupid the gig is in Manchester when they are a London band. Seemingly, Mihraandah, Ben’s record company’s stick insect PA, has organised it and assured everyone it is the best place to start because of the open music scene. Or some crap like that.

  I say “What the fuck ever.” But no one is listening to me. Secretly I think she has organised it in Manchester to reduce the chances of me attending and killing her for being photographed with her hands all over my man all summer long.

  “It’s okay, there will be plenty more for you to come to. Although I am a little worried you are not going to be there to beat off any female admirers.” He is smirking, I can feel it against my ear.