LOVE'S GHOST (a romance) (16 page)

I knew that I should stop, that I was notionally considering having Russell move back in. But tonight, my mind, or at least the rational part of it, was completely divorced from my body. They had fallen out with each other.

Carl laid me down on one of the large cylindrical ducts and lifted my dress. I felt the need to show him I wanted it as much as he did, so I hooked my thumbs under my thong and ripped it off.

There were no niceties. It was just hard, passionate sex. It was two souls affirming life in the most basic way. He slammed into me, and I held onto his exposed buttocks to take him as deeply as possible. Then I arched my back, draping my arms over the sides of the chrome cylinder.

A decision had been made.

IT HAD BEEN over a week since I’d met up with Russell. I’d sent him a text to see when he was available. It turned out that he had to go to a conference in Madrid at the weekend. It wasn’t until halfway through the following week that we would meet up. He apologised for not being available sooner, but said he was really looking forward to seeing me again.

I’d actually sent the first text the morning after the press night for the exhibition. I wanted to meet sooner rather than later because I was worried that there would be pictures of me with Carl in the newspapers. Luckily, the newspapers only had photographs of him and his work.

If I appeared in any of the media it would be the weekly gossip mags, or the fashion monthlies. I hoped to escape both, but I was the squeeze on Carl Rask's arm, and that’s what these publications liked to feature.

I didn’t want any of Russell’s friends to see a picture before we’d had a chance to meet up.

At the office we have all the magazines sent to us. The day the weeklies were delivered, I made sure I arrived early and was the first to flick through them. Thankfully, there was only one picture. And the magazine that it appeared in wasn’t that influential. So I slipped it into my bag, determined to make sure that nobody in the office saw it.
 

When I walked home that night, I tore out the offending page and shredded it before scrunching up the rest of the magazine and throwing it in a bin near Covent Garden. I don’t know what people thought of this if they saw me. I don’t know what
I
thought of it. If photographs really do capture the soul, I’d just ripped mine into pieces.

Russell and I arranged to meet at the same pub. This time I was determined to be late. That’s hard for me because I’m never late for anything. If there’s the slightest chance I’ll be late for something, I start sweating and begin to panic.

But this time, I wanted to be late. I didn’t want to go through all that waiting around again. I was so nervous.

Of course, it’s not easy to change the habit of a lifetime, so I found myself outside the pub ten minutes early. I had to circumvent it and go for a walk by the river. It was dark and quite a chilly evening. I paused by the river, and looked out across the water, half-expecting Carl’s boat to emerge from the blackness to whisk me away. The minutes dragged.

I finally walked in to the pub five minutes late. Sure enough, Russell was already sitting down. But it wasn’t the same corner location we’d had last week. The table wasn’t exactly in the middle of the pub, but it was closer to the bar than I would have liked. He’d bought us both drinks.

“Do you mind if we sit somewhere else?” I asked.

Russell looked surprised. “Sure.”

I pointed at a table in an alcove, far away from the bar.
 

“Perfect,” he said. Perfect for what?

My heart raced faster than I think it had ever done before. It’s funny how passion and nervousness have a similar effect on the body. I felt quite sick.

“Sorry I couldn’t see you at the weekend. The Madrid conference was important for us. And it went well. Very well. Next year I can take a partner. That will be fun, won’t it?”

Oh, shit,
I thought.

“I much prefer Madrid to Barcelona. It just feels more Spanish, which it is. The Catalans would agree. In fact, they’d be glad to hear that Madrid is more Spanish. Imagine if I said it was the other way round. I think I’d get lynched in Barcelona.”

“Russell.” I gulped.

“Yes, hon?”

“I don’t want us to get back together. I think we should call it a day.” Without any warning, a tear ran down my cheek. It was fast too. It reached my chin in no time at all.

“Oh.” He took a slug of his whisky.

“Don’t cry, hon. It comes across as hypocritical when you’re dumping somebody.” His voice was harsh. Harsher than I’d ever heard it. But then he softened. “I’m sorry.”

I wiped the tear away. But it was followed by another. I’d been with Russell for seven years. Only six months ago I’d had no idea what I’d do without him. I just couldn’t envisage my life without that face on the pillow next to me. And now, here I was, ending our relationship. I’d always thought that if you’re the one to end a relationship it can’t hurt that much. But my heart was breaking. The words weren’t coming out easily. They were reluctant partners in my plan.

“I’m sorry, Russell. I’m really sorry. But when you left it hurt so much. I mean, I was just devastated. I spent days hunched up on the floor crying. Just crying. My heart couldn’t take it. I’d always thought that whatever life threw at me I’d always be able to rely on us. But then you went. And it broke something. It broke something that can’t be mended.”

I reached for my vodka and cranberry and drank half of it in one go.

“I’m sorry, Fay. I just got a bit confused. I made a mistake. It’s been seven years. Aren’t I allowed one wobble?”

I stared at him. How could I do this to him? His eyebrows sloped in sadness, his eyes dulled. I wanted to travel back in time, to go back more than six months when life had been so simple. I loved him, he loved me. That was my world. It wasn’t the most erotic world, but it was safe, secure. And we had our moments.

But try as I might, I couldn’t get over the fact that he had walked out on me. He’d done it once, he could do it again.
 

It hadn’t been a row, there had been no great arguments, just a low key conversation. I hadn’t even been entirely sure why he went. He said he wasn’t feeling good about us anymore. That was all he said. The whole thing had been decided in one night.

Yes, I still wished I’d never heard him say that he was leaving, and that we’d carried on the way we were. But I couldn’t turn back time.
 

And I’d slept with Carl. But it wasn’t as if I was blind enough to think that I’d ever have the stability I’d had with Russell. If anything did develop with Carl it would be… different. Which was scary.

And I wonder if that made it even harder to let go of Russell; despite the words coming out of my mouth.

“I’m sorry, Russell. I’ve been thinking about you so much over the last six months. I even imagined you back in the flat. Imagined you running me a bath, putting rose petals in the water. Really vivid daydreams. But that’s all they were, daydreams. I want you to love me like you once did. But I don’t think you could.”

“Yes, I could. I do. I love you.”

“Even this. This… meeting, you let a week pass before we met. I know you had to go to Spain. I know that.”
 

My breath began stuttering as the tears kept flowing. Only a trickle now, but a constant trickle.

“But once upon a time, Russell, you’d have met me as soon as possible. You’d have left work early to make it happen. Or driven to the agency during your lunch hour. You’d have been dying to meet me.”

I looked up at the ceiling, hoping that by tilting my head up the tears would stop. It helped a little.

Russell interrupted. “So you don’t love me anymore? That’s what you’re saying.”

“That’s the crazy thing,” I said. “Because I do still love you. I love you very much. But I can’t see myself in a relationship with you. Not at the moment at least.”

He twiddled his thumbs. “Is it the new guy?”

I took a tissue out of my bag. “No, it’s not the new guy.”

“Oh, come on. Be honest.”

“It’s not that simple.”

Russell buried his face in his hands. I wanted to walk over to him, put my arms around his shoulders and give him a hug like I used to. But I couldn’t.

He lowered his hands. “Tell me about the new guy.”

“No,” I snivelled.

“Please. I’d like us to go on telling each other everything.” It was Russell’s turn to choke back the tears. “And to be honest, it would help. I know it might sound a bit weird, but we’ve always been able to tell each other everything, and I’d like that to carry on.”

“No, Russell, I can’t.” It was my turn to bury my face in my hands. I could hardly bare to look at him. This was so painful.

“Please, darling,” he pleaded.

“I have to go.” I stood up, grabbed my coat and walked out of the pub as fast as I could, hiding my tear-stained face from the other patrons.

To my surprise, Russell wasn’t far behind.

Outside, my wet face made the night air feel chillier that it was.

“Let me come back to the flat with you,” Russell begged. “Then we can talk about this.”

“I don’t want to talk at the moment. It’s too painful.”

“If it’s too painful, why do you want us to split up for good. If it’s too painful, there must be hope that we can stay together.”

I turned to face him. “Why did you have to leave, Russell? Why? Was there someone else? Tell me. Truthfully.”

“There wasn’t anybody else, hon. I just couldn’t be with you for a while. Maybe it was a mid-life crisis.”

“But you’re only thirty-two.”

“I was just being weird. I can see that now. To be honest, I don’t know why.”

“You’re not telling me the entire truth, Russell. I know you’re not.”

He stared down at his feet as he spoke. “There was somebody else. But only after I left. Not before.”

I screwed up my face, turned around and carried on walking up the dimly lit side street.

Russell kept following me. “I had a wobble, Fay. I admit it, I forgot how much I love you. And I hate myself for forgetting. I let everything else get in the way —
 
work, mainly. It was all becoming a bit routine. And that’s my fault. But now, I think I love you more than ever.”

I shouted, “No.”

“But I do. And I have to tell you.”

“I’m your warm bath, Russell. That’s all. When you’ve had a long day, it’s lovely to have a warm bath to come home to. But eventually the warm bath becomes tepid. And I would just become tepid for you all over again. Eventually. And even if I didn’t, I’d be afraid that I would. It’s broken, Russell. Just broken.”

I kept walking at an even pace, neither speeding up nor slowing down. Russell kept following but didn’t say anything for a few moments. Then he spoke, his voice more calm.

“Okay. I accept that. I don’t agree. But I accept it. There’s no way we can resume our relationship. Not for the moment. But please tell me everything. I want us still to have that. To chat. Leave me with that.”

“No, Russell. It’s creepy.”

“It’s not, hon. I want you to be happy. I honestly do. And it will help me understand what you need.”

I stopped and turned. I’d thought the tears had stopped. But they began to flow from my eyes yet again. I’d cried so much that my blouse’s collar was damp.

“I can’t do that,” I said. “I appreciate the thought. I really do. And it’s one of the things that makes you so special. But I can’t do it. I just can’t.”

I lowered my head and started crying. My chest heaved, my shoulders shook, my vision blurred.

Russell approached and put his arms around me. I thought it would be best if I stepped away. But I couldn’t. I felt safe, secure. My heart was so heavy I thought it would drop through my body.

IT WAS DIFFICULT to concentrate at work the following morning. The sunglasses came in useful a second time. I’d hardly got much sleep the previous night and the face that greeted me in the bathroom mirror was one that had gone fifteen rounds in a fight with my emotions.

Life in the office wasn’t made any easier when Anna called. I still hadn’t told her that she wasn’t on our books anymore.

“Hi.” I couldn’t use her name. Although everybody in the office wasn’t paying me the least bit of attention, it felt like they were listening in.

“Hi, Fay. How are you?” she asked. “I was just thinking about you. You were a little tired when we had that lunch. I was worried that you were okay.”

Typical Anna. Anna was the only model who would ring me up and not ask me what I was doing to further her career. There was no side to her. If she asked about your wellbeing, it was because she was concerned about your wellbeing. In fact, I couldn’t remember a single phone conversation with Anna when she’d asked if I’d secured any modelling assignments for her. And if not, why not. It was an attitude made even more notable because I rarely did have any assignments for her.

“I’m feeling much better,” I said, which wasn’t exactly true. Or was it? Part of me was feeling better for having seen Carl Rask at the gallery this week, and part of me was feeling like shit for breaking up with Russell. These conflicts were still battling it out in my head.

“I can see why. You have a new boyfriend.”

She must have seen the picture in the magazine. Even though I’d thrown the office’s copy into the bin, it wouldn’t be long before word got around. But so what? I wasn’t ashamed of him or myself. And it’s not as if I pursued him because he was famous. And yet, it was odd to hear him referred to as my boyfriend. I still couldn’t quite think of him as that.

“Fay!” The voice calling my name didn’t come from the telephone. It was Polly calling me from her office.

I whispered into the phone: “Anna, I’ve got to go. Polly’s shouting for me.”

“Oops, good luck.”

When I put the phone down, I slunk off into Polly’s office. I wished I could stop feeling like a naughty schoolgirl who had been summoned for sticking chewing gum under the desks, but I never could. Oh well. As usual, she made me wait. Something on her computer was always more important than talking to her staff.