River Deep (46 page)

‘Are you going to wear
that
tonight?’ he said, trying not to sound as shocked as he felt. ‘You look … um, really … well, I mean.’

‘I might do,’ Maggie said, looking anywhere but at Pete’s face. She had to get out of this dress and out of his sight within the next five seconds or she was going to kill herself by a spontaneous implosion of embarrassment and dismay. ‘Anyway, better get on. Lots to do. But glad that you’re coming, glad that you’re
both
coming.’

Maggie glanced quickly at where Stella had been standing, afraid of her being too beautiful, but she seemed to have gone.

‘Bye then!’ she squeaked.

Maggie pointed herself in the direction of the changing room and launched herself forward, praying that there was some law of physics that would keep her going long enough to get her there, because what little ability she had to walk convincingly in spiked heels had disintegrated the moment she had seen Pete’s face.

It was only when she’d gone that Pete realised he hadn’t introduced Maggie to Stella. In actual fact he’d forgotten that she was there.

‘Hi again,’ Louise said, giving him a sympathetic look.

‘Hi. See you tonight,’ Pete said. But when he looked round, Stella had already gone.

He found her walking at speed up the busy high street, weaving through the shoppers as she made her way back home.

‘Stella, wait!’ Pete called after her. ‘Stella!’ At last she stopped and waited, stock-still, her back still turned on him until he caught her up.

‘Stella!’ Pete said, slightly out of breath. ‘What’s wrong?’ Pete was aware that it was a facile question, but he thought that if he asked it there was a chance she might tell him.

‘What’s wrong?’ Stella turned on him. ‘What’s wrong? You couldn’t stop looking at her!’

Pete put his hand on her shoulder.

‘I didn’t, I … Stella, I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say.’

Stella shook him off angrily and started walking.

‘You can tell me
exactly
what happened when I was away. You said
nothing
happened. You said you were just friends and that nothing happened, but it didn’t look like nothing in there in that shop. It looked like you were more than “friends”. A lot more!’ Stella was shouting and tears streamed down her face.

Pete looked around at the faces of passers-by as they watched the ten-second drama on the pavement.

‘Nothing happened, nothing except for one kiss. That was all – just that one kiss and …’

‘And what?’ Stella said sarcastically, stopping abruptly. ‘And it meant nothing, I suppose?’

Pete looked at her, her upturned face full of defiant anger. This was it, he realised. This was the beginning of their ending.

‘Actually it did,’ he said finally. ‘It did mean something, I think. To me at least. I don’t know about Maggie. I haven’t seen her since, not until just now. But yes, it meant something.’

Stella stared up at him, her face perfectly still, her eyes brimming with tears.

‘What do you mean, Pete?’ she said. ‘What do you mean it meant something? Did it mean more than us? Did it mean more than everything we’ve been through? Is that what you’re saying?’

Pete shook his head. ‘No. I don’t know, because nothing came of it, but I wanted to find out, Stella. That’s what I tried to tell you when you came back. I wanted to find out if it could go anywhere. I wanted the chance to find out without … well, without you.’

Stella crumpled suddenly in front of him, sinking down on to the pavement. Pete quickly scooped her up and held her to him as she sobbed against his chest.

‘You can’t do this, Pete, you can’t do this to me now! I need you!’ she cried helplessly. ‘Please, please don’t.’

Pete put his arm around her and started walking her the last few yards home. When he finally got her into the hallway and shut the door, he’d never felt more grateful to be home in his life.

‘Do you want a drink? A cup of tea?’ he said, aware that he wasn’t feeling this nearly as much as Stella wanted him to. As he wanted to. Now that it was happening it felt unreal somehow, as if it were happening a little distance away from where the real him was actually standing.

Incredibly Stella nodded and, pushing him away, went into the kitchen, taking a seat at the table. Pete examined her closely as she wiped the cuffs of her sweater across her eyes. He set a cup in front of her and, taking a deep breath, began.

‘I’m sorry, Stella, all this … just took me by surprise. I didn’t expect it to happen. And I didn’t just stop thinking about you. That’s why I emailed you. That’s why I told you what was going on, because I wanted to give us every chance to get it right. I’d been so certain that after everything you put me through, what we went through, we’d end up together eventually. I wanted us to, Stella. I wanted that neat, happy ending but … I think you and I both know that it was never going to happen. You were never going to be happy with me, not really. If I wasn’t good enough for you five years ago, why should I be now? What was going to change that? I don’t want to be the man you settle for, Stella. And knowing Maggie gave me this glimpse of how it could be, what it could be like to just be with someone and be happy.’

Pete paused, looking at Stella’s tear-streaked face. It was impossible to tell what she was thinking.

‘And, well, I asked you to marry me, Stella, and you went to the other side of the world. Both of us should have realised then that what we had between us wasn’t enough. It isn’t enough for you, and in the end … well, it isn’t enough for me.’

Stella looked up at last, her light eyes thrown into relief by the swollen red of her lids.

‘But I really meant it this time, Pete,’ she said quietly. ‘I’d really made up my mind to mean it and to be with you and just you. I really had!’

Pete bit his lip. ‘Maybe you did. Maybe this time you did mean it, but I’m sorry, Stella, I really am. I think you were too late. I don’t think there’s anything left for us in the future. I … I care about you so much, I can’t bear to see you like this, but …’

Stella hugged her cup of tea into her body. ‘But you want to be with Maggie,’ she said.

‘No! I mean, I do, but that’s not why this is happening. Not the only reason why.’

Pete struggled to say what he had to.

‘You are like a firefly, Stella. No, you’re like your name, like a star. You burn so brightly. I can’t stand to see you so jaded, and I think – no, I know – that it’s me that’s doing it to you. And that’s wrong. Think really hard about it; think about the future we’d have together. Do you really see yourself shining brightly once you’d settled down with me and only me?’

Stella said nothing, only looked at him for a while.

‘Are you giving me a choice?’ she asked him at last.

Pete shook his head.

‘No. I don’t think I’m the right man for you, Stella, even if I still loved you like I did once. I’m sorry, but that’s the truth.’

Stella nodded and let out a long breath.

‘I knew this was coming,’ she said. ‘I knew it would happen, but I just wasn’t ready for it. Not today. I … don’t want to think of you walking in there tonight and going into someone else’s arms, Pete. I can’t actually bear that.’

Pete stared at her, knowing what she was asking of him and hating the fact that he had to turn her down, for his own sake. He couldn’t pretend for her any longer, he knew that. He didn’t want to hurt her any more than he had, but he wouldn’t lie.

‘I have to go, Stella. I don’t know what will happen, but I have to go.’

Stella swallowed, and shrugged.

‘You’re right, you know, about us,’ she said, her tight voice softening a little. ‘I do know that, Pete, I just didn’t want to face it. Someone hurt me while I was away.’ Stella gave a short, bitter laugh. ‘Someone totally stupid and wrong, but he hurt me anyway, I let him get to me. And after that I just wanted to be with you until you made me feel better about myself again. But you didn’t, you didn’t even seem to really be there. I thought if I tried really hard to make you see how much I needed you … but you just didn’t.’

Stella looked shell-shocked, but calmer at last.

‘I suppose … I have to try and get along without you now.’ She pushed her mug away from her. ‘I suppose I’d better fix myself.’ She pulled herself up in her seat. ‘I’ll phone Mum, tell her I’m coming home today,’ she said.

Pete reached out and took her hand.

‘You don’t have to just rush off. You could stay for a bit and I could help you get sorted, and …’

Stella shook her head. ‘And we could still be friends? I don’t think so, Pete. I think I need to go now, while I can. I’ll be all right, you know. Mum’ll look after me, and before you know it I’ll be back largeing it in the Leeds scene, lunching at Harvey Nicks, crowds of men following me around. You wait, it won’t take long.’

‘I’m sure it won’t,’ Pete said.

‘There’s one more thing,’ Stella said, holding up her left hand. ‘The ring. Can I keep it? I’ll need some cash, you see, to get me started again, and, well, you could call it a sort of settlement. Is that OK?’

Pete looked at the ring illuminating the weak afternoon light, and realised that it meant nothing to him now; it was just a cold, hard, beautiful commodity.

‘Of course you can keep it,’ he said. ‘I bought it for you.’

Stella smiled weakly, pulling her sleeves over her knuckles.

‘I’ll make some calls and then pack. I’ll be gone in an hour, all right? Probably best if you go out or something. I don’t want to say goodbye to you again because it … might be too hard. So just go out, OK?’

Pete looked at her, wondering what his life would be like without her.

‘You’ll always be such a big part of me, Stella,’ he began.

‘Don’t, Pete.’ Stella stopped him. ‘Don’t try and make it all right between us. It won’t be, not now, maybe not ever. So please just don’t.’

Pete nodded, wishing there was some other way for this to happen.

‘Will you call me, though, when you get to Leeds, let me know you’re all right?’ Pete asked her.

Stella shook her head. ‘No, I won’t. I’m not your responsibility any more, Pete. And besides, I won’t get to Leeds until this evening.’

She raised her chin a little.

‘And you’ll already be out by then.’

Maggie only let her breath out again about five or ten seconds after Pete had left the shop.

‘Oh no,’ she said, unable to comprehend exactly how excruciatingly difficult the moment had been, only knowing that it had epic proportions. ‘Oh no no no no no!’

Louise looked somewhat bemused by all the fuss and shrugged.

‘What?’ she said. ‘I thought it went really well, myself. You knocked him dead!’

‘Oh no,’ Maggie said again for the want of anything better. ‘Oh no no no …’

‘Maggie! Enough with the “oh no’s”! We all get the picture, OK?’

Maggie sat on the small seat in the changing cubicle and pulled off the shoes, holding them as if at any moment she might convert their spike heels into lethal weapons. Looking up at Louise, she attempted to find something else to say but found that her entire vocabulary had been boiled down to those two words. So she didn’t say anything.

‘But you’re still going to buy the dress and shoes, right? Aren’t you?’ Louise said somewhat hopefully, leaning against the door of the cubicle and tipping her head to one side.

At last Maggie found the power of speech.

‘Are you mad!’ she screeched before she could stop herself, causing the woman in the next cubicle to stop talking on her mobile and hurry rapidly out of it. ‘I looked terrible in it, cheap and terrible, and … he saw me. Oh no!’

Louise gave her own reflection an anxious look and took the dangerous-looking shoes out of Maggie’s hands, handing them to the assistant, who had been hovering a few feet away for the last minute or so.

‘You can take these back for now,’ she said with an abrupt smile before turning back to Maggie. She was surprised to find that she was starting to feel a bit sorry for her. ‘He could hardly take his eyes off you!’ Louise told her as she began to wriggle out of the dress.

‘He couldn’t look at me, you mean,’ Maggie said through the thin, clingy layer of latex-cotton mix that currently shrouded her head. Maggie yanked the dress off her head, leaving her hair standing on end with static electricity. She glowered at Louise, who she held completely responsible for the entire spectacle. ‘He looked everywhere
but
at me!’

‘Same thing!’ Louise seemed genuinely mystified by Maggie’s distress.

‘Same thing my arse,’ Maggie said as she quickly redressed.

Louise wondered if she should mention she’d buttoned her shirt up wrong, and then decided that now wasn’t the time.

‘He looked as if the worst possible thing that could ever happen to him in the entire known universe had just happened – and it was me!’

Louise made a gesture that is interpreted the world over as ‘Duh!’

‘Yes!’ she said, ‘you’re right, but it wasn’t seeing you, it was seeing you with his whey-faced misery of a girlfriend––’

‘Fiancée!’

‘OK, whey-faced misery of a fiancée in tow!’ Louise sighed through tight lips. ‘No wonder you can’t keep a man, Maggie. You can’t see what’s going on right in front of your face!’

Maggie straightened up abruptly with only one boot zipped up and took a step nearer to Louise, sincerely wishing she still had hold of one of the spike-heeled shoes.

‘OK Louise, that’s enough,’ she said, lowering her voice. ‘I’ve just about taken as much as I can take today, and I’m not taking any more. I’ve put up with the bitchy comments – I thought maybe I deserved them – but you’re no angel yourself, and I thought we were trying to get along with our lives. If you
really
want to go over the fact once again that it was
you
who stole
my
boyfriend right out from under my nose and started this whole thing, then fine, let’s do it, right here, right now.’

Louise held up the palm of her hand.

‘No!’ she said quickly. ‘No. Look, I’m sorry. I just … well, it is sort of true in a way. I didn’t actually mean it to come out sounding so nasty, but I take your point. I’ll try and, you know, be properly nice to you.’