Ten Years On (24 page)

‘Who’s that?’ Kitty asks, noticing someone waving at me. ‘Another of your perky pensioner friends?’ Earlier today, we visited Janet and Woody for tea.

I smile. ‘It’s Mavis. She looks after Joe’s dad.’

‘And that person?’ asks Peta, when Adam sticks his thumbs up at me. He’s wearing a cap and a brown leather jacket.

‘Adam, Mavis’s son.’

‘What a weirdo.’

I want to say something, but Mavis is approaching us, dressed in a woollen skirt and frilly shirt. She places her hands around mine. ‘Mr Lawson liked you, Rebecca. I could see he had a lovely time with you and Joe.’

‘You’ve met his dad?’ Peta asks, the moment Mavis bustles back to her table to join her team.

‘The other day, it was last-minute.’

‘What did you think? I couldn’t believe the state of him. When we wheeled him out,’ Peta says, as if Francis were a sack of potatoes, ‘he fell asleep over his lunch.’

‘He’s old, Peta, and unwell,’ I say quietly, making sure Joe can’t hear.

‘Can’t do illness. In sickness and in health? I don’t think so. I’d pack my bags first thing!’ She laughs, and I find I have to give her credit for her honesty, if nothing else.

Joe and Jamie head over to our table with drinks.

‘Becca was saying she met your father,’ Peta says, when Joe hands her a glass of wine. ‘How is he, darling?’ she asks.

‘Not too good at the moment.’

‘I do worry, Becca, such a lovely man. But honestly, Joe, you should think about a home,’ she says, stroking his back. I’m shocked by how two-faced she is. I’d be nervous of what she’d say about me behind my back.

‘Let’s not talk about it now,’ Joe replies, as supper is served. ‘This is my night off.’

After lasagne and a hefty slice of cheesecake, untouched by Peta, the atmosphere heats up as the organizer, Jackie, in her late fifties, hands each team the question papers assembled into different categories.

Over the microphone she thanks us for being here tonight and tells us that so far The Black Dog has raised over three hundred pounds. Everyone cheers, especially Adam, who waves at me again from across the room. ‘You have thirty minutes, and make sure you put your team’s name at the top, please.’

Joe is assigned the task of writing down our answers.

First category is general knowledge. This is where I need my father.

‘That’s the one,’ I say, when Jamie whispers, ‘José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.’

‘Spell it right!’ Kitty screeches. ‘We get penalty points if it’s wrong!’

‘God, she hasn’t changed at all, has she?’ Annie rolls her eyes at me.

When it comes to soap operas and scandal, I’m on a roll. Joe says I should be ashamed. ‘I’ve had months of being at home,’ I remind him. ‘It’s great to know my time hasn’t been entirely wasted.’

Joe is in his element in the booze category.

‘Federer’s won Wimbledon four times,’ I say, certain Dad told me Federer’s record when he was watching the tennis last summer. ‘Or was it five?’

‘Is that your final answer?’ asks Joe.

‘Or do you want to phone a friend?’ Annie suggests, laughing.

‘Put four,’ I say, causing Peta to stir in her seat.

‘Federer? It’s six,’ she overrules me. ‘Keith loves tennis. She’s wrong.’

‘Who’s Keith?’ asks Annie.

‘My father.’

‘My sister loves tennis too,’ I say, not meaning to sound quite so spiky.

‘Why not compromise?’ Jamie proposes. ‘Plump for five.’

Peta dismisses him in a flash. She’d eat him alive if they were going out.

If only Pippa were here …

‘That’s cheating!’ Joe attempts to stop me sending her a text message under the table.

I clutch my phone tightly. ‘Stop it, let go,’ he’s saying teasingly, his hand still on mine.

‘It’s six.’ Peta glares at us.

‘Put six,’ everyone urges, including me.

‘It’s only a quiz.’ Jamie attempts to thaw the atmosphere.

Joe is either brave or stupid when he says he’s going to stick with four.

The bell rings. Time’s up. Everyone has to swap answer sheets with a neighbouring table. We are marking ‘The Nitwits’. The grey-haired leader of the Nitwits smiles at me; he’s missing one of his front teeth, I notice.

‘We got that.’ Kitty nods when it’s announced Zapatero is the Spanish prime minister.

‘
Come Dine with Me!
’

‘
Salad Days.
’ Annie points out that she knew that one.

‘Botticelli.’

‘Beaujolais.’

‘Cheryl Cole.’

‘Cherie Blair.’

When it comes to Jackie telling us how many times Roger Federer has won Wimbledon, my heart is beating like a drum. Peta sits poised. Kitty, Annie, Joe and Jamie wait with baited breath.

‘Six times.’

Fuck.

‘I’m so sorry, Peta,’ I concede.

‘I knew I was right.’ She fans her face with one of the question papers.

Jackie, the team organizer, reads out the results. Our team, ‘The Silly Billies’, has come second. ‘Only one point in it,’ she says.

Annie and I do a celebratory high-five. Peta turns to Joe. ‘If you’d listened to
me
, we would have come joint first.’

Joe seems tense. ‘Fine. I’m sorry, but it’s only a game, Peta, for
charity
.’ As he heads over to Jackie to thank her for the evening, Adam bounds over to our table and introduces himself to everyone. ‘We came third!’ he announces. ‘First the worst, second the best, third the one with the hairy chest!’ I tell him his leather jacket makes him look like Tom Cruise in
Top Gun
.

‘For God’s sake,’ says Peta under her breath, watching Joe talking to Jackie.

Adam sticks his thumbs up. ‘Got to go! Mum’s calling me.’

‘Oddball. What’s wrong with him?’ Peta asks, when he’s out of earshot.

‘He’s a lovely man,’ I say.

‘Is he stupid or something?’

‘He’s not stupid.’ I defend Adam. ‘Actually, he was one of the best students on Joe’s course.’

‘
He
was on Joe’s course?’

‘Adam’s a kind, funny, big-hearted soul,’ I say with feeling. ‘Life probably hasn’t turned out quite the way he’d hoped, but he doesn’t deserve your scorn.’

Joe returns. ‘Right, are we ready to …?’ He stops, sensing the atmosphere. ‘Everything OK?’

‘Absolutely.’ Peta smiles. ‘I just met Adam. Sweet boy.’

I stare at her. She’s an excellent actress, I’ll say that for her. Part of me wants to tell Joe what she has just said, but I force myself to keep quiet.

‘And I’m sorry about snapping about the Federer thing, but I’m not feeling too good. Faint, a little sick.’ She fans her face again. ‘Maybe I’m pregnant too! Wouldn’t that be funny?’

A silence descends. I notice Joe’s face turn grey.

‘Do you mind if we go home, darling?’ she says.

36

I’m in the loft, drawn up there by something Joe said. I scan the shelves for my old wooden paintbox, finally seeing it next to a case filled with Pippa’s tennis trophies and medals. It’s covered in dust.

I remember Joe taking me down to his father’s cellar that day we visited Winchester College. ‘Can I show you something?’ he had asked after tea.

‘Of course.’

I took his hand as he helped me down the steps. ‘You know that thing I said about finding yourself? How when Mum died, I felt I had to start over again?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’d always been interested in wine, since I was about ten. I was mystified and fascinated by all the different names on the bottles and what they could tell me.
Careful here. Your mother would never forgive me if you fell.’

When I open my paintbox and look inside, I feel as if I have been reunited with a friend. I pick up a tube of red oil paint. When I was a child, Dad used to take me to my favourite craft shop at the weekends, where I’d spend all my pocket money on these tubes of oil paints – sweeties I called them. I unscrew the top, try to squeeze a little on to one finger. It’s impossible. The paint is dry, hardened by age.

My mind wanders back to Joe and me in the wine cellar. It was a dark room, with a wooden table in the centre, and on top of the table were a couple of wine glasses and a claret decanter. Racks of wine stood against the walls, displayed in order of vintage and region. ‘I used to spend all my time down here,’ he said.

‘Drinking?’

‘No. I’d have been hung, drawn and quartered! Dad was saving his wine. It was an investment. I’d just read the labels.’ Joe pulled out a bottle of red. ‘1982 Chateau Lynch-Bages, Pauillac. Grand Cru Classé.’

Impressed, I said, ‘Not the kind of wine you’d drink with spaghetti bolognese then?’

‘Not the kind of wine you drink at all.’

I shook my head. ‘Your dad should share it with you now, while he still can.’

I search for my A-level art portfolio. It’s tucked away on one of the bottom shelves, lying underneath some of my old art books. I slide it out and carefully sit myself down, before unfastening the ribbon that binds the folder together. As I flick through my work, I come to one of my charcoal drawings of San Miniato al Monte, the church that my Great-Aunt Cecily painted, close to the centre of Florence. It came to be my sanctuary, a place I visited when I needed time alone, away from the studio. I took Olly there when he came to see me in Florence. We revisited it on our honeymoon. We had promised ourselves we’d return one year, maybe for our tenth anniversary.

‘Where is she?’ I overhear Mum asking my father.

They spot the ladder.

‘Are you all right, darling?’ Dad calls up into the roof. ‘What are you looking for up there? You should have let me get it for you.’

I stagger to my feet. ‘Dad, you’re over seventy!’

‘And you’re pregnant!’

‘What’s going on?’ Mum sounds cross. ‘For God’s sake, Rebecca, why didn’t you just wait for us to help you?’

‘You used to be passionate about your art,’ Joe had
said, ‘ever since you were a little girl. Go back to the beginning, Becca.’

‘I am being careful,’ I promise, handing my portfolio down to Dad. ‘I’m going to start painting again.’

‘No, you’re not. You’re coming down here at once,’ Mum says. ‘Darling, you help her. I’ll hold on to the ladder.’

37

The following morning, I am sketching Woody from a photograph. When it’s finished, I’m going to give it to Janet as a present for her eighty-fifth birthday. As I work, she asks me to tell her about my time in Florence.

‘I was there for a year and met some lovely people.’ I describe my flamboyant American teacher, Vivian Rogers. I tell her about my brief romance with Luca.

‘What about Olly?’ Janet asks, jutting out her chin.

Before I’d left for Florence, Olly had accompanied me to the airport. There was an emotional goodbye. At the time I was still struggling with guilt about Joe, but I don’t tell Janet that. Olly and I promised to give
us
a chance, to see if we could make a long-distance relationship work. To begin with, we wrote cards and telephoned regularly. However, after a couple of months our communication started to dwindle, like a fire going out. I was
beginning to make friends, and other things were getting in the way, like study, wine bars, parties, late nights and romantic walks with Luca, a chef I’d met in a nightclub. When I discovered he worked at my favourite restaurant, close to the Ponte Vecchio, he seemed too good to be true. He was handsome, in a dark, Italian way. I remember mad rides on the back of his bottle-green scooter, me clinging on when he took a bend too quickly. When I plucked up the courage to tell Olly, he also confessed he’d slept with someone else. We were being unrealistic, we decided. There was hurt on both sides, neither one of us wanting to let go completely. I missed his friendship almost more than anything else.

‘When he did visit, for the first time, I hadn’t seen him for six months, Janet.’

We’d arranged to meet inside the Duomo. My heart lifted when I saw him. He was standing, his back to me, wearing his old cord jacket and jeans. We hugged, before Olly tentatively suggested we go and have a coffee. As we walked to the nearest cafe, to fill the silence we talked about the weather. After ordering drinks, Olly asked about my course and I wanted to hear about Bristol, and how he was feeling, especially since finals were looming. Our conversation felt awkward, too
polite. I wondered if Olly were here to tell me he had met someone else.

Finally, Olly said, ‘I haven’t come all the way here to talk to you about your course or my finals. I’ve tried hard to forget about you, Becca, but I’m not interested in anyone else.’

‘Oh Olly.’ I took his hand, the relief overwhelming.

‘I can’t serenade you in a gondola, not in Florence …’

We both smiled, the tension disappearing.

‘And I’m not a very good cook,’ he admitted, ‘but I love you. I want us to go back to how we were. Of course you need to finish the course, I understand that, but I’ll fly out again, after finals. I mean, wow, look at this place! Who wouldn’t want to be here? I’m so proud of you, Becca.’

I called Luca that night, broke it off. He met someone shortly afterwards. I’d wounded his pride, but I didn’t break his heart.

Olly stayed with me for three weeks. Another thing I don’t tell Janet is that we barely left the bedroom for the first ten days.

‘Olly did visit again, after finals, and then we flew home, for good, at the end of my course. We shared a flat with Kitty and Jamie in Balham.’

‘I remember your wedding,’ Janet sighs. ‘Olly sang
and played the piano. There was lots of dancing too. I remember your father boogying on the dance floor!’

I smile at the word ‘boogying’. ‘We rented a flat in Ealing after that and I set up my illustrating company.’

‘Oh, how wonderful,’ she says, putting the kettle on. ‘Come to think of it, I do remember your mother mentioning that.’

‘It worked well for a while,’ I say, without looking up from my drawing. ‘I did some illustrations for magazines, a few restaurants, travel brochures. I worked with a writer on a couple of gardening books.’ But my income was as precarious as balancing on a tightrope, and I didn’t have time to do my own work. ‘I’d get nervous when I didn’t have a single commission. It kept me awake at night.’