Summer at the Lake (53 page)

When they drew apart, she matter-of-factly tossed the lolly stick into the basket on the handlebars of her bike. ‘Hop on,’ she said, indicating the saddle, ‘and I’ll give you a lift.’

‘Better still,’ he said, ‘you go on the back and I’ll pedal.’

‘Only if you agree to sing “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on my Head”,’ she countered.

He laughed. ‘A tribute to
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
, I wouldn’t have it any other way!’

A beautiful Sunday morning in mid-September and to the sound of bells calling out across the rooftops, Floriana was cycling to work. It was one of those flawless sun-drenched days when, in a show of golden mellowed splendour, Oxford reminded her, as if she ever needed reminding, that she couldn’t live anywhere else. This was her home and always would be.

With the university term yet to start, the city was in that slumberous state of taking a deep breath to recharge itself before the onset of a new academic year. A soft early morning mist had hung over the University Parks when Floriana and Adam had gone for a run before breakfast. It was years since she had donned a pair of trainers to go running, but inspired by Adam’s efforts to keep fit, she’d joined him and surprised herself by how much she enjoyed it.

But then, as cheesy as it sounded, she enjoyed most things she did with Adam. It still made her smile that they were now officially an item and that things were going so well between them. Better than well, they were going brilliantly well! He frequently stayed over with her in Church Close, and though nothing had been said, she had the sneaky feeling he was building up to ask her to move in with him when he had the bulk of the renovation work completed on his house. Certainly that’s what Esme believed his intentions to be. And had the wise oracle that was Esme Silcox been wrong thus far? No she hadn’t!

Occasionally Floriana imagined herself living with Adam in his Latimer Street house; oddly it was always a Christmassy scene she pictured, a sort of soft-focus, Disneyfied version with snow steadily falling, and in the bay window of the front room, a ceiling-high tree tastefully decorated with just the right amount of sparkly baubles and twinkly lights and she, stealthily padding down the stairs in her pyjamas on Christmas Eve to hide Adam’s presents under the tree. As rosy-tinged imaginings went, it didn’t get any rosier. But really, that’s how life felt right now for her.

Just as she’d expected, Floriana’s parents had taken to Adam straight away and even her sister had given him her approval. ‘He seems like a fully formed adult,’ Ann had remarked, ‘not a bit like your usual haphazard choice.’ Praise indeed!

Amazingly, Ann had taken Floriana’s advice and she and Paul were now seeing a marriage guidance counsellor. It was early days, but there were signs that things were moving in the right direction for them as a couple – Ann was learning to relinquish her iron fist of control, and Paul was learning to be more involved with the children and to do more around the house. Floriana guessed it would be a long time before Paul got over the embarrassment of the rest of the family knowing he’d had an affair, as brief as it was, but they were all doing their best to move on and behave normally around him. What else could they do?

The same week Ann and Paul attended their first counselling session, Adam’s father was discharged from hospital. A couple of days later Adam took Floriana to meet him and his stepmother, and his brother Giles. It was when they’d been driving back to Oxford that Floriana had confessed to Adam that she’d actually been a bundle of nerves beforehand. Meeting a boyfriend’s family had been a first for her – it was a relationship milestone she’d always managed to avoid in the past, for the simple reason no relationship had lasted long enough, or was committed enough, to warrant such a step.

Meanwhile in Buenos Aires, Sara was demanding to be kept up to date with regular news bulletins and photographs. She had also invited Floriana and Adam to stay with her when she’d found herself an apartment. Floriana couldn’t see that happening any time soon, but Adam was all for it.

Her group that morning had signed up for the City Highlights tour. Amongst them was a Swedish couple and every now and then the husband would translate for his wife when she nudged him with her elbow.

Leaving behind them the cobbled quaintness of Merton Street and the gargoyle delights of Merton College, Floriana led the group back towards the High, cutting through Magpie Lane and omitting to tell them the narrow street’s original name in case its earthiness caused offence. A more polite variation on the name was Grope Lane – so given because back in the thirteenth century it was an area where prostitutes plied their trade.

When they were once again outside the office for Dreaming Spires Tours, Floriana said goodbye to the group and after checking in with Tony, she headed for home. She was pedalling across the junction between Catte Street and Parks Road when her mobile rang. Thinking it might be Adam asking if she could stop off for something he’d forgotten for their lunch with Esme, she reached into her bag in the handlebar basket. ‘Yes, Chef, what do you need?’ she asked.

‘That’s a strange way to answer your phone,’ said the last voice on earth she expected to hear.

‘
Seb!
’

‘The one and only. How’s it hanging?’

How wonderful it was after all this time to hear from him! ‘It’s hanging just fine,’ she said, pedalling nearer to the kerb as a car swept by. ‘Couldn’t be better. How are you? And where are you?’

‘It’s neither here nor there where I am; all that’s important is that you’re OK. Are you OK? Is Adam behaving himself? Does he make you happy?’

‘Yes to all three questions. What about you? Are you happy?’

‘Yeah, I’m doing fine.’

‘Really?’

‘Would I lie to you?’

‘It’s been known.’

Ahead of her was Keble College, and remembering how Seb had surprised her once with a phone call there, she said, ‘Go on, give me a clue where you are.’

‘Not a hope. It’s better you don’t know.’

‘Why?’

‘No special reason, I just prefer it that way.’

‘You’re not in prison, are you?’

He laughed. ‘Nothing like expecting the worst of me! How’s that old lady friend of yours?’

‘She’s on excellent form. Remember I told you about her first love who became a priest? Well, he came to stay with Esme a few weeks ago for her birthday. I keep teasing her that she’s finally going to get her man and marry him. It would be the perfect romantic ending to their—’

But she didn’t get to finish what she was going to say, as to her left, and pulling out of Keble Road, was a van. It was upon her before she could register that the driver hadn’t seen her and she could do nothing to avoid it. The impact caught her side on and threw her into the air and as she lost all sense of what was up and what was down, she heard a terrible noise: it was the sound of her screaming.

Feeling weirdly suspended in time and motion, she thought how unfair it was that she would never see Adam again.

She was told that because she’d been wearing the cycling helmet Adam had bought her just a few weeks ago, and which he’d made her promise she would always wear, she had been spared a serious head injury. Or worse. Up until he’d given her the helmet, and despite all the statistical evidence to prove she was an idiot not to wear one, she hadn’t bothered. It was another of the many things she had told herself she would eventually get around to doing.

But while her head had miraculously survived unscathed, the rest of her had not fared so well. She had two cracked ribs, a badly grazed knee and a bruised hip, and a shoulder that had been dislocated and then very painfully manipulated back into place.

‘Sorry about spoiling lunch,’ she said, when Adam was allowed to see her in the curtained-off cubicle. ‘Sorry too for putting you through this, I know how you hate hospitals.’ A distressed child in the cubicle to her left started to cry. Floriana suddenly felt like crying herself.

‘Doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘None of that matters.’ He bent down and kissed her lightly on the mouth. ‘How’re you feeling?’

‘Funnily enough, like I’ve been hit by a truck. And a bit paranoid that maybe I’m wearing a target on my back – knocked over twice in less than a year, do you think that’s a record?’

‘Record or not, let’s hope that’s your lifetime quota of accidents, because I never want to go through another scare like that again.’

At the gravity of his expression, she said, ‘It really wasn’t my fault, you know, the driver, he just came straight at—’ She flinched as she recalled the exact moment when the van hit her and threw her off her bike.

‘Don’t think about it,’ he urged, taking her hand in his. He perched carefully on the edge of the bed. ‘You might not want to hear this, but the van driver’s here. I’ve spoken to him.’

‘Is he hurt as well?’

‘No, but he’s very shaken at what he’s done and wants to know that you’re all right. He knows it’s his fault and that he’s probably going to be charged for dangerous driving, but he wants to say sorry to you. You don’t have to see him, not if you don’t want to. There’s a policeman here as well.’

‘Queuing up to see me, eh? We should charge an entry fee.’

Two hours later Adam took Floriana home to Church Close. After he’d helped her change into her pyjamas, he settled her on the sofa with a blanket, made her a cup of tea and then telephoned her parents. Next he spoke to Esme to put her mind at rest. Esme had been with him when the police had telephoned; she’d just arrived at Floriana’s where he was cooking them lunch.

It was thanks to Seb that Adam had received the call. Speaking to Floriana from New York where he was currently working, Seb had heard the accident actually happen and had immediately alerted the emergency services in Oxford and told them to get in touch with Adam Strong who lived in Latimer Street.

‘Do you want anything to eat?’ Adam asked Floriana when he’d said goodbye to Esme and passed on her love and best wishes.

‘No, thank you. Come and sit next to me. I feel like I never want to be more than a few feet away from you.’

He knelt on the floor beside the sofa and, taking in how vulnerably pale and drawn she looked, he was suddenly overcome with the intensity of his love for her. The thought that she could have gone off to work this morning and not return filled him with an anguish he couldn’t put into words. Perhaps it was delayed shock, but he found he couldn’t speak. All he could do was gently squeeze her hand.

‘Do you want to know what went through my head when the van hit me?’ she said.

He nodded.

‘That it would be so unfair if I never saw you again. It made me realise something very important.’

‘What was that?’

She smiled. ‘That I love you, Adam.’

He cleared his throat, managed somehow to find his voice. ‘I love you too.’

‘Really? You’re not just saying that because I said it?’

He shook his head and smiled. ‘I’ve known since we were in Italy that I loved you.’

‘And you kept it to yourself?’

‘You know what I’m like.’

‘I do indeed. You take inscrutableness and reticence to a whole new level.’

‘Guilty as charged.’

‘But admit it, I’m wearing you down and gradually easing open that clamshell demeanour of yours.’

He stroked her cheek. ‘You’ve been doing that since the first day we met.’

‘Nice to know my efforts haven’t been in vain.’ She put a hand to her mouth and yawned.

‘How about you get some sleep now?’ he said.

She gripped his hand. ‘You won’t leave me, will you?’

‘I’ll stay right here with you.’

‘You promise?’

‘I promise.’

Her eyes fluttered and then closed. ‘That’s good,’ she murmured sleepily.

He watched the steady rise and fall of her breathing, and was just considering changing his position to stretch his legs, when her lips began to move. ‘Adam?’

‘Yes.’

‘What would you like for Christmas?’

The question took him by surprise. ‘But it’s only September,’ he said.

‘I know, but I’m planning ahead.’

‘In that case, I’d like
you
, please.’

‘But you’ve got me already.’

‘I want you for ever.’

She opened her eyes.

‘No more talking,’ he said, placing a finger lightly against her mouth. ‘Go to sleep. You need to rest.’

Almost a fortnight after Floriana’s accident, Esme received a letter from Marco. It was a letter she had been dreading.

Carissima Esme
,

I have read your letter again and again and with a heart that grows heavier with each repeated reading. I find there are no adequate words to express how I feel. Why did you not tell me this when I stayed with you in Oxford?

Never will I be able to repair the damage I have inflicted on you. To my dying day, I will live with the guilt of my actions. Yes, cara, I know you have said there is no guilt to be suffered on my part, but I am afraid that is not so. If it were within my power to turn back time, then I would surely do things differently. If I had known you were pregnant with our child – our daughter, Grace – I would have married you. How I wish you had not hidden it from me, but I do understand that you behaved selflessly, believing you were doing the right thing for my sake.

You say in your letter that you did not want to change the course of history that lay ahead for me, but perhaps you did, perhaps the true course of history was for us to be together, to be husband and wife, mother and father. You also say in your letter that you wish for me to forgive you for withholding the truth, but it is I who must beg forgiveness of you.

After much reflection, and prayer, I have no answer for why our lives followed the path they did, it would be too easy and convenient for me to say it was God’s will. Not for the first time in my life I am left trying to understand the unfathomable.

What I do believe is that we have been brought together at last for a reason and we should make the most of it. I so enjoyed my stay with you in Oxford and would like to invite you to spend some time here in Venice with me. Please let me know if that would be possible.