Nicholas & Matilda

 Chapter 3

The fridge is white, cold and empty. But I am using it as a distraction.

I take one of the two bottles of Heineken lying on the bottom rack and return to my laptop, the white light emanating out of it looking intimidating, sat on top of the desk at the corner of my room.

            I replay the conversation Matie and I have had numerous times about this book.

            Nicholas:         What if it’s not as good as my first two?

Matilda:           That’s what you said about your second. And it was just as good as the first. You are a good writer. You write good books. That is why I like you.

            However, the fear of failure remains eminent.           

            I am not the most decorated writer in London. In fact, I am not even one of the most decorated writers in London. Decorated writers are the likes of Calvin Li, Joy N. Manson, Zareed Hill, Al Hendord, Chioma N. Chibike, Jude B. Butterfield, Matthew Hallyway. Those are ground breaking, decorated writers.

Joy N. Manson sold about a million copies of her book, Birmingham Girls, within the first week of release. Matthew Hallyway won the prestigious Wheel Poetry Prize two years in a row for the same book – what that means is, in the span of two years, the judges of the Wheel Poetry Prize didn’t think anyone in the UK had written poems that equaled the two poems which won him that prize. Jude B. Butterfield has personally been invited by the Queen to perform spoken word at her annual fundraising banquet. Chioma N. Chibike runs London’s most renowned writers’ workshop every summer; the waiting list for the workshop extends into the next two years.

            Half of these writers are about my age. But I have never met the Queen. The only prize I have ever won related to writing was in the sixth form, competing against students like Tobias Graham and James Quincy who had the grammatical composition of first formers. And, no, I do not run world famous workshops.

            But people buy and read the books that I write and sometimes people from across the country (and twice, from Venezuela and China) email me and tell me that they love my work. When I get emails like that, I feel like my life is worth living.

            And, actually, that is how I met Matie. She stalked me.

            Well. Not exactly.

Her sister, Maryann, brought a copy of my first book, Depth over Distance, to Matie’s apartment when she visited and left it behind. She asked Matie to please send the book to her in school in Oxford but Matie had already started reading the book and feigned forgetfulness. For about two months.

After reading it, she hated the way the story ended and hunted me down, asking why I had to let the protagonist die. She told me I was sadistic. I told her the way the story ended wasn’t any business of hers. I remember we had a very animated argument via emails for about a week before I asked her for a drink. She denied initially but I pushed and asked and pleaded and begged.

When she turned up at the pub in Borough High Street, I immediately understood why she hadn’t wanted us to meet. She was about 5 foot 5 inches, and quite fat. She had too much makeup on and looked very unsure of herself. I thanked my lucky stars I had seen her first, so that I could wipe the look of shock off my face before walking up to her and telling her it was nice to meet her.

I have never been attacked to big women so I was disappointed she was fat. We ended up having too much to drink amidst very interesting conversation; much like the emails we had exchanged earlier.

At about eleven, I walked her to a cab stand and I went on my way.

I didn’t call or text or check on her for the weeks that followed. And neither did she. I liked her, but I was not attracted to her excessively big breasts and thick waist and large thighs. She was like the girl all the guys get along with but never think to date.

At Zareed Hill’s book launch that December – for his book, My Country of Foxes – I thought the lady standing a few feet ahead of me in the book-signing queue looked familiar from behind. When she turned around to speak to her father, who happened to have joined the queue behind me, our eyes met and she automatically gave me a stiff smile, as though she had noticed me earlier but had hoped to avoid me.

            “Hey,” I had said.

            “My sister really wants to meet you,” she responded, then got on the phone and called her sister, who showed up about a minute later and engaged me in conversation about the Bachelor’s in English Literature she was pursuing at Oxford University, while Matilda pretended I no longer existed.

            I went home feeling terrible; I really should have called her, even if just once to say hello. I had forgotten how she had hesitated about meeting me at first and how I had pushed and pleaded and begged, only to meet her and then to never get in touch again.

            I suppose she could have called me instead. But I know how these things work; the man makes the ‘get home safe?’ call or sends the ‘good morning’ text.

            That evening, I started reading My Country of Foxes. But I couldn’t stop thinking about how much of a jerk I had been. Given, I was not attracted to her, but did I have to make it so obvious?

I called her twice that night but she didn’t pick up or call back. So I decided to let sleeping dogs lie.

            The next morning, she texted and apologized for missing my calls and asked how I was; did I enjoy the book launch? I replied saying I did enjoy the book launch and had started on Hill’s book. She said she had too but wasn’t really enjoying the two chapters she had read so far. I agreed; it was off to a slow start, it was unlike him not to jump right into the plot from the first few pages; but if he always did that, his writing would become predictable and nobody really liked predicable writing…

            And we texted back and forth and LOL’d and LMAO’d and BRB’d for a week or so before I had the guts to call her again.

We spoke every night between the hours of nine and eleven for another week or so before I found the nerve to ask her for a second date. She rejected me flat out. I asked her if she was going to remain blind to the fact that I was evidently developing feelings for her, I enjoyed talking to her, I loved the sound of her voice, and I thought she was brilliant and funny and witty. She asked me if I had any idea how bad I had made her feel after our first date when I had never called or texted.

            It was a difficult question to answer. And as such I had no answer. So I didn’t ask her out again, but we diligently kept our 9 to 11 vigil.

            One night I asked her if she would ever want to see me again. Her response was, “Sure, when I lose about fifty kilos and look as good as Victoria Beckham.”

I took that to mean Never.

             I admitted to myself that I was falling for a great girl and might have blown up my chances even before I knew I had them.

            When I finished reading Hill’s book, I got the kick in the butt I needed to tie up the loose ends and send my second book, Burning Forests, to the publishers. My deadline was done and I had time on my hands; I could sufficiently stalk Matilda Day.

            I Googled the address of the school she worked in and turned up at the front office one afternoon with flowers and chocolate. It was corny and pedantic. But I figured I could only win her over with excessive romantic gestures.

            I saw her walk down the corridor a few minutes after the receptionist had called her. Her curly auburn hair sat in a rough bun on top of her head and her eyes looked tired behind her rimless glasses. When she saw me, her pace slowed down and I saw her hesitate.

            She had a stiff smile on her face when she stood before me.

            “What. Are you doing here?” She asked, eyeing the flowers.

            “I came to see you.”

            By this point, all the teachers in the school seemed to have left their classrooms and had congregated at the front office, staring at us through the windows.

            “Why?” She asked.

            “Because I want to take you on a date. And call you the morning after. And take you on another date. And maybe have you stay over at mine. And another date. And another. And another.”

            She bit her lower lip and seemed to nearly growl at me. “But I don’t look like Victoria Beckham yet.”

            We laughed. Then the principal came out of her office and I had to leave.