“Harold’s not the problem! It’s the room! It’s freezing!”
“Freezing?” He seems astounded. “My room?”
“Yes, your room! It’s like an igloo! And your bed is…” I catch sight of his worried face and rein myself in. “It’s just…you know. Different from mine.”
“Right,” says Matt, digesting this. “I guess it would be.” He comes up to me and puts an arm round me. “Ava, let me run you a warm bath. Does that sound good?”
“Yes,” I admit. “That sounds wonderful. Thank you.”
I take my cup of tea back to bed and sit stroking Harold, letting his presence soothe me, listening to the bathwater run into the tub.
“It’s ready,” says Matt at last, and I peel off my pajamas, already cheering up at the prospect. Matt’s bath is generously sized, and I can smell some kind of nice musky bath essence. “Thank you so much,” I say gratefully to Matt as I step into the scented water and sit down. Then I gasp forcefully as the lukewarm water meets my skin. What the hell is this?
“Sorry!” I exclaim in dismay. “This is…It’s not…” I’m already standing up, water streaming off me. “It’s tepid! I’ll freeze in here! Sorry.”
“Tepid?” Matt gapes at me. “It’s warm!” He dips his arm into the water. “Warm!”
Is he telling me I’m wrong? About my own body temperature?
“It’s not warm enough for me.” I can hear tension in my voice again. “I like it really warm.”
“But…” Matt’s arm is still in the water, and he’s gazing at me in disbelief.
For a moment we stare at each other, both breathing hard. Things feel almost…confrontational. Then, as though realizing this, Matt removes his arm from the bath and steps back, drying it on a hand towel.
“Let’s not sweat it,” he says carefully. “You let some water out, Ava, run it the way you want it.”
“OK,” I say, equally carefully. “Thanks.”
I step out, wrap a large towel round me, let out half the bath and start running hot into it. Apart from the sound of the streaming water, there’s silence. We seem to be good at silences.
As I swoosh my hand back and forth, I’m letting a few unwelcome thoughts stray into my head. I know Matt’s the perfect man for me, I know he is, but there are just a few aspects of his life which are…what? Not negative, definitely not, but…challenging. The weird art. The golf. The meat. The parents.
I glance at Matt, and he seems to be brooding too. I bet he’s thinking along similar lines. He’s probably thinking, She’s turned out to be a vegetarian whose dog mangled my shirt. And she doesn’t like Japanese punk. Can we make this work?
The thought gives me an unwelcome jolt. We’ve only been back in the UK for a few days and already we’re having doubts?
As I turn off the bathwater, I say impulsively, “Matt?”
“Yes?” He looks round warily, and I can tell, he is having the same thoughts as me.
“Listen. We have to be honest with each other. Agreed?”
“Agreed.” He nods.
“Things are…We’ve had a couple of hiccups. But we can do this. We can make it work. After all, we built a pebble tower together, remember? We leaped off rocks together. We both like ice cream. We’re a great team!”
I shoot him a hopeful, encouraging smile, and his own face flickers, as though with fond memories.
“I want to make it work,” he says firmly. “Believe me, Ava. I do.”
He wants to make it work. I want to make it work. What’s the problem, then? My brain is whirring in frustration.
“Though I guess my life is like a foreign country to you,” Matt adds—and something twangs in my brain.
A foreign country. That’s it. I remember thinking that Matt was a wonderful new land waiting to be discovered. Well, now I’m doing the discovering. And so is he.
“That’s exactly it!” I say with new animation. “That’s how we need to look at things!”
“What is?” Matt doesn’t seem to be following.
“We’re like two different countries,” I explain. “Call them Ava-land and Matt-land. And we need to acclimatize to each other’s cultures. So, for example, in Matt-land it’s perfectly reasonable to keep phone chargers in a tub labeled ‘chocolate rolls.’ Whereas in Ava-land that’s a capital offense. We just have to learn about each other,” I emphasize. “Learn and become accustomed to each other. You see?”
“Hmm.” Matt is silent for a few moments, as though taking this in. “In Matt-land,” he volunteers, “dogs sleep on the floor.”