Ten Years On (14 page)

‘Joe, we can’t do this.’

He lets me go. ‘You’re right. Forget about it. My mistake.’ He walks away, out of my room, along the corridor.

‘Joe!’ I call out.

When he turns to face me I drop my arms by my side. We rush towards one another, he takes my face firmly in both hands again, but this time he kisses me urgently and I kiss him back. We head back to my bedroom and shut the door. I pull off his T-shirt; he unbuckles my belt. I wriggle out of my trousers, his hand slips inside my red silk knickers, his touch teasing, but soon they are peeled off and we’re on the bed, naked, kissing, our hands exploring one another. ‘I’ve wanted you for so long,’ he says, lifting my legs to wrap round his waist.

We fall asleep in each other’s arms, our clothes strewn across the floor, daylight already creeping in through the window.

17

Lying in bed late that night I feel relieved I’ve told Annie the truth.

It was a long time ago, yet when I shut my eyes I can see the following morning so vividly. I woke up hearing Olly calling my name. Events from the night before flashed in front of me. I shook Joe awake.

‘Becca!’ Olly groaned. I could hear the sound of footsteps coming towards my bedroom.

Head pounding, I slipped on my dressing gown, shut the door behind me and met Olly outside the bathroom. ‘I feel terrible,’ he said.

‘Go back to bed,’ I urged, guiding him back to his room. ‘I’ll bring you a cup of tea.’ I felt sick, as if my head was about to explode.

‘What would I do without you?’ he murmured, as I propped him up on the pillows.

‘You’d be better off,’ I said, fighting hard not to cry.

‘I had weird dreams last night,’ he recalled. ‘You were with someone.’

‘What?’ A shiver ran down my spine.

‘In Florence. You’d fallen for a Luigi, or was his name Giuseppe?’

‘Olly, just rest.’

‘He was serenading you in his gondola.’

I smiled faintly. ‘That’s Venice.’

‘I’m sorry I’ve been crap …’

‘You haven’t.’

‘I haven’t been much support, have I? Things haven’t been that great between us …’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘We still haven’t spoken about what happens when you go. Do you think long-distance relationships can work?’

‘We’ll never know if we don’t give it a try,’ I replied, guilt streaming through my veins, ‘but let’s not talk about it now.’

‘I love you, Becca,’ he murmured, before shutting his eyes.

When I returned to my room Joe was sitting up, but he was still in my bed, undressed. I wanted him out,
gone. I couldn’t bear even to look at him. ‘You need to leave,’ I said quietly, terrified of waking the others.

‘Becca, we need to talk.’

‘No. No, we don’t. Just go. Last night was a mistake, Joe.’

‘No, it wasn’t.’

How could he be so calm? So controlled? Didn’t he feel guilty?

I picked up his clothes off the floor, gathered them into a bundle and shoved them at him. ‘You and me, nothing happened,’ I said shakily. ‘What we did, it’s wrong, all wrong.’

Joe pulled on his jeans.

‘What’s Olly done to deserve friends like us?’ I asked, disgusted with myself. ‘I was drunk! I didn’t know what I was doing …’

He stood up and faced me. ‘Don’t say that. I’m not saying it was right—’ he took a deep breath ‘but I knew what I was doing, and I think you did too.’

‘No!’ I lashed out, hitting him on the chest. ‘You shouldn’t have come into my room. All of this – it’s your fault!’

‘That’s not fair.’

‘I hate you!’

He took me into his arms. For a moment I stayed there. ‘You don’t hate me, Rebecca.’

I pushed him away.

‘I’ll go,’ Joe said calmly. ‘But later we can talk—’

‘There’s nothing to talk about!’

‘Becca?’ I heard Olly calling.

Joe and I froze, a painful silence filling the space between us.

I heard Sylvie’s door opening … footsteps heading to the bathroom.

‘Leave. Please go,’ I begged tearfully. ‘We can’t see one another ever again.’

Joe walked out of my room and out of my life. That was the last time I saw him … until we met again in Maison Joe, ten years on.

‘I’m so sorry, Olly, I should have told you,’ I whisper now, ‘but at the time I was so confused and scared. I was a coward. I didn’t love Joe. It was one night, just a one-night stand. We had an attraction, I can’t pretend that we didn’t, but he wasn’t you. I know that doesn’t make it any easier, or excuse it in any way. I love you.’

I hear nothing. I tell myself that it isn’t real when I hear his voice. I imagine it. Grief does strange things
to you. Yet deep inside I know I’m not hearing him now because his silence says it all.

The following morning my body aches with loneliness, my heart dreads the empty day ahead. I realize I can’t work for Joe. What was I thinking, even considering it? I force myself out of bed. I’ll feel better when I’ve had a shower, I tell myself.

‘Call him.’

‘Olly?’

‘You can’t keep on watching
Come Dine with Me
.’

‘You’re not angry?’

‘I am angry. Of course I’m angry. You two went behind my back.’

‘I know,’ I say, ashamed.

‘I trusted you both.’ He pauses. ‘If I’d known about it then, you would have broken my heart. But I can’t do anything about it now, can I?’

I launch into another apology, but he stops me. ‘I think part of me was always scared you’d fall for him.’

‘I didn’t fall for him, Olly. I wouldn’t have married you if I’d loved Joe, but I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you, that it destroyed your friendship. I can’t help thinking—’

‘Becca, stop! If we haven’t learned that life’s too short, then we’ve learned nothing at all. Enough damage has
been done already. Be friends with Joe. You need all the friends you can get right now.’

Tears roll down my face.

‘Why are you being so forgiving?’

‘I’ve done many things I’m not proud of.’

‘Like what?’

Silence.

18

I walk into the crowded bank and fill in a paying-in slip before joining the queue.

Clutching Glitz’s cheque, I work out that my bonus has given me enough to buy the essentials for the baby and put down a deposit on a rental place plus my first month’s rent in London. My maternity cover helps too, and if I combine this with our savings, I have enough to keep me going for approximately six months. After that, who knows?

I shuffle forward in the queue. It’s my turn next.

Thinking of money and work, I still haven’t decided what to do about Annie’s suggestion of a part-time job at Maison Joe. Should I drop by on my way home to see him? When I saw Annie two days ago, she said his course started soon. If I want the job I need to do something about it now.

‘Cashier number five,’ says the recorded voice, in a tone that suggests I’ve just won a prize. A car would be nice. Or a house. No. All I want is Olly back.

‘Good afternoon,’ the cashier says, dressed in a cream-coloured blouse and navy jacket, plump lips covered in pink gloss. ‘How are we today?’

‘Great.’

‘How can I help?’

I slide the cheque underneath the barrier. ‘Can I deposit this into my savings account, please?’

‘No problem. Do you have the details?’

She enters the account number into a keypad, a delicate gold bracelet sliding up and down her wrist. Then she slots the cheque into a machine. ‘When’s it due?’ she can’t help asking me.

‘December.’

‘You must be excited.’

I nod.

‘You should go on holiday with this, whoop it up, because once you have a baby you can kiss goodbye to any social life … but it’s all worth it,’ she adds, smiling, to end her story in an upbeat way.
Tap tap tap
. ‘Right. Well that’s been deposited for you. Is there anything else?’

‘Can I check the balance, please?’

‘No problemo.’ She swivels the monitor screen towards me. I look at the figure, puzzled. It seems a little less than I’d remembered. Then I stare at one of the transactions made about six weeks before Olly died. It was a withdrawal for a thousand pounds. What did Olly need a grand for? Why didn’t he tell me? We made a pact not to touch our savings unless there was an emergency. This money, before now, was our deposit on a house. I can feel the colour draining from my cheeks. Was he having an affair? What did he buy?

‘Is there anything else I can do for you today?’ the assistant asks.

‘No. Nothing.’

‘Tell me, Olly,’ I mutter under my breath, walking home as quickly as I can. ‘What did you need that money for?’

‘I packed in my job,’ he says, finally.

‘You what?’

‘I left. Quit.’

I cross the road. I can’t have heard right. ‘You mean you lost your job?’

He says nothing.

‘You resigned!’ I burst out, much to the alarm of a passer-by, but right now I don’t care if people think I’m mad.

‘I was unhappy. Tired of being a teacher. I was desperate to finish my novel. All I ever wanted to do in life was write. I felt this was my last chance.’

I open the gate. I’m seething. I unlock the front door with a trembling hand. ‘I wanted to paint, Olly, but sometimes we have to grow up, you know, do the responsible thing in life and work to pay the rent!’

‘Becca, I feel terrible.’

‘So was I just going to bankroll both of us until you finished your script?’

He doesn’t answer. I sit down at the kitchen table, trying to make sense of it all. ‘What with my bonus and our small savings,’ I’d said to him that last morning, ‘we could move out of here, rent something more central. Look Olly. This flat is perfect!’

‘There was me going on about renting a place close to your school,’ I say, ‘and you weren’t even working there any more.’ I shake my head. ‘Why didn’t I see this? I’m such an idiot.’

‘No. I’m the idiot. I should have told you.’

‘What if you’d received another rejection? What then, Ol?’ I chew my nail remembering how I’d dread seeing his scripts returned in those brown stamped addressed packages. ‘I won’t give up,’ he’d say to me, sensing my doubt.

‘I don’t know,’ he speaks softly. ‘I let you down.’

I drop my head into my hands. ‘So this is why you were distracted on your way home? You were terrified of telling me?’

Silence.

‘Oh Olly, it was only a job,’ I reflect, my anger subsiding. ‘Only a flat.’ Tears come to my eyes. ‘I would have forgiven you. Nothing is worth losing your life for. Nothing.’

That evening I yearn to tell Kitty, but if I do I shall have to explain about how I hear his voice, and I can’t. Not yet. I decide to keep his secret to myself. I wouldn’t like my parents to know either. I fell in love with Olly because he had so many dreams. I look back to our first date, when he’d told me he wanted to be a pop star or a famous writer. I sense Mum and Dad thought Olly unrealistic chasing too many dreams.

Deep down I know I’d started to feel that way too.

19

‘You want this job?’ Joe asks down the telephone the following day.

‘If you haven’t found anyone else,’ I reply, aware Mum is pretending to read the business section of the newspaper.

Joe is silent. Perhaps he’s thinking the same thing: won’t it be as awkward as hell? But I know now I have to get this job. I can’t stay at home any more. I need to keep busy, keep sane.

‘I can’t pay much,’ he says. ‘The budget on these courses is tight.’

‘That’s OK. It’s not really about the money.’

Joe tells me his wine tasting course doesn’t start until the first week of September. That’s in just over a fortnight’s time. It runs for eight weeks. ‘Can you work until the end of October?’

‘Yes.’

‘And I can always do with an extra pair of hands behind the bar.’

‘Fine. I can work at least a couple of days a week. I’ll start tomorrow, if you like.’

‘In that case, Luis will show you the ropes.’

‘What did he say?’ Mum asks the moment I’m off the telephone.

Luis is half Spanish, in his mid-twenties, with short dark hair, eyes the colour of coffee beans and olive-coloured skin. When I arrive he puts me at ease immediately, showing me round the open-plan kitchen and introducing me to a couple of the chefs, Bruno and Luke, who look young enough to be my children. I attempt a trial cappuccino and make a mess of the frothing switch, milk sloshing everywhere. ‘I have done a bit of waitressing before, believe it or not.’

‘You surprise me,’ he laughs.

I smile, explaining to Luis that I had worked briefly in a restaurant in Chiswick, and this is where I’d met my art gallery boss, Glitz, for the first time. I had just turned twenty-seven.

‘When I served him a mocha instead of an espresso,
he shooed me away with his napkin, shouting at me that it wasn’t rocket science.’

‘Oh yes.’ Luis nods. ‘We get a few of those in here.’

‘It’s the spoilt kids I don’t like,’ adds Bruno, ‘tearing round the place.’

‘What happened next?’ Luis asks, touchingly gripped by this minor drama.

‘I told him he was rude. He then told me that he was in a foul mood because his third assistant in a row had walked out on him. I confided I was in a bad mood too, because I was an artist but my work had dried up, so I was going to have to think of an entirely different career. He offered me the job.’

‘Just like that?’ Luis clicks his fingers.

‘Well, not exactly. He asked me what I knew about modern British art, and I told him I knew more about the Renaissance because I’d studied in Florence.’ He had also asked me who my favourite artist was. I told him I loved Cezanne’s landscapes, Jean-Antoine Watteau’s paintings of musicians and fêtes galantes. I loved Mark Rothko because each time I looked at one of his paintings I felt at peace. ‘It was pure luck meeting Glitz, because at least working there had something to do with art,’ I say. ‘And you, Luis? How did you end up here?’

Luis tells me he read engineering at Barcelona, but it was the wrong subject for him. ‘I was seventeen! Who knows what they want to do at that age?’ he exclaims in his strong Spanish accent. ‘It is like plucking something out of a bag.’ He makes a disgruntled sound. ‘A degree, it is just a piece of paper. That’s why I think Joe employed me. He likes to give people a chance. I am passionate about wine. He does not care about qualifications.’