The Flavours of Love (50 page)

‘And do you understand why I couldn’t tell you this? It’s a huge thing to admit to myself that it’s not been two years yet and I’ve fallen in love with someone else, let alone admit it to you when I so want to be with you and I can’t.’

Another unhappy nod.

‘I’m sorr—’

‘Shhhh,’ he hushes, ‘don’t say sorry. Not about that. Be sorry about other things, but not that.’

He takes his hands away from my face as I drop mine from his, then presses the palms of his hands onto his eyes, before he rubs
roughly at his cheeks to dry his face. He leaves a trail of red marks as he rubs. ‘God! Why am I always crying with you? It does my reputation no good, you know. You’re no good for me, woman.’

‘You’re not the first man to say that.’

Blotchy-faced, he steps forwards again and slips his arms around my waist. ‘So, fancy a couple of hours in bed for old times’ sake?’ he jokes. I know he’s joking, what he is doing. He is taking my hand and leading us back to surer ground, to where we were. He wants, like I do, for us to go back to who we were before my attempt to find another way to obliterate the pain led to me kissing him when I didn’t want him to leave one night. Before he tried to do the same and we almost irreversibly damaged ourselves in the process. Fynn wants to find the spark of who we were amongst the wreckage of the last twenty months of our lives. We both know we were friends, first and foremost, and we both believe we can have that again.

I laugh, ruefully shake my head while I dab at my eyes and fix my expression to suit the change in conversation. ‘Erm, correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t there another woman’s DNA all over your bed right now? Probably all over this flat.’

‘Details, Saff, details. Although you could have a point.’

He closes his eyes and pulls me close. His face against my neck, he murmurs into my skin: ‘I love you. Always.’ The words imprint themselves onto me like an invisible tattoo, to be carried with me for ever.

Before I can reply, he takes several steps away from me. ‘I love you, too,’ I whisper back. ‘Always.’

He grins at me with all the warmth and affection I’d grown accustomed to with a genuine, easy Fynn smile.

‘Will you be my friend again?’ I ask.

‘Of course.’

‘Good. Thank you.’ I pause, inhale as deeply as I can to expand my chest, to make room for as much courage as I can muster. ‘I’m going to get help, too,’ I say. If I utter it aloud I will do it. I
will
do it. ‘For the … For my eating disorder. I’m going to get proper help and I’m going to get through it.’

He stares cautiously at me but doesn’t speak. It’s hardly surprising he is wary of talking about this again after I lost the plot last time. He’s probably worried, too, that I’m saying those words because it’s what he wants to hear and not because I’m actually going to do it. But I am.

‘I really am going to get help this time.’

‘Did Joel know?’ he asks.

I nod. ‘It’s the only thing we ever really argued about.’

Fynn picks up the bag with the muffin. It is heart-shaped in case I needed to be a bit more obvious about my feelings. ‘Let me try this,’ he says. ‘Which is your favourite flavour?’

He’s testing me. ‘I’m not sure,’ I confess. ‘I haven’t tried it.’

Decisively, he breaks a piece off the muffin and I watch as small crumbs rain down into the bag. He puts it into his mouth and immediately chews. As if it is the most natural thing in the world to simply put food in your mouth and chew. His eyes close briefly before he opens them again. ‘My God, the flavours in that!’ he says. ‘They’re incredible.’ He eats another piece, reacting in the same way. ‘You have to try this, Saff.’ He breaks off a third piece and he visibly inhales, steels himself before he holds it to my lips.

The panic billows up and I am suddenly drowning in the feathery, wispy fronds of my fears. I can’t do it. I can’t do it. I want to do it, I want to be able to do this, but I can’t. ‘I can’t,’ I say.

‘Try,’ he encourages. ‘Just try.’

‘I can’t.’

‘Try.’

I close my eyes, open my mouth and let him slip the food inside. Tears of terror escape from my closed eyes. I can’t do it.

‘Which is your favourite flavour?’ Fynn asks.

I need to spit it out, to remove this poison from my mouth.

‘
Try, Ffrony,
’ I’m sure I can hear Joel say. ‘
I know you can do it, just try.
’ This has been happening more since I screamed and cried in the kitchen, I can hear him, feel him, it’s like he has come back to me. I’m no longer falling through potholes in time to be with him,
I can sense what he would say. I can feel him when I need him to be there. ‘
Try, Ffrony.
’

I bite down,
chew
, and tastes explode quietly in my mouth: the creaminess of white chocolate, a tang of under-ripe blueberries, a subtle stroke of coconut. I haven’t tasted food in so long: I stuff food down, I bring food up, but I rarely eat it, enjoy it, know when I have had enough. I often never start because the fear I won’t be able to stop is too immense.

I haven’t been present while I eat in so long. But it’s incredible. Tasting food is amazing.

‘Go on then, which is your favourite flavour?’ Fynn asks again.

I shrug like Phoebe, frown like Zane. ‘All of them, I think.’

(
It’s been about 2 years, 1 month
)

‘I’m not sure what you’d like to know.

‘Or if, where you are, you already know. The children, they’re fine. I finally bit the bullet and got them proper, professional counselling. I should have done it a long time ago, but I’ve done it now so I’ll try not to beat myself up too much about the delay. Phoebe is much better. She’s sort of dating Curtis but they’re mates first and foremost, allegedly. Watch this space for more teen angst, I suppose. I try not to freak out when she tells me stuff about them being unsure about restarting their physical relationship. It’s not easy to hear, but at least she’s talking to me. I found her a new school, which is a bit of a drive away, but she seems happy there and has made new friends. She talks to me sometimes about the pregnancy, it still plays on her mind, but at least she talks about it and what she thinks she would have done. I’m proud of her, you know, Joel. Really proud of how she’s grown from this experience.

‘Zane is still at St Caroline’s, I didn’t want to take him away from the place where he was so happy and secure. He is so much happier, I wish you could see him. He talks much more, laughs again, and he loves to spend weekends at your parents’ house every few weeks. You couldn’t get Phoebe there if you paid her, but that’s her prerogative.

‘Ernest and Zane are still friends. A few weeks back Ernest told Zane his dad doesn’t live with them any more, so I’m guessing Imogen and Ray have finally split up. Knowing Imogen, and how much she hated the thought of being a single mother again, I think she probably did all she could to sweep it under the carpet to make it work. But it didn’t. Imogen and I acknowledge each other in the playground but that’s it. She has her problems like I have mine.

‘Aunty Betty is still in the attic and her whole life is now centred around the hospital. I spend a lot of time taking her there and picking her up. When I can’t, Fynn does. It’s like we’re divorced co-parents of a teenager. It’s funny that the most selfish woman on God’s green Earth, as she branded herself, has found her true calling helping others.

‘Fynn is Fynn. You understand what that means. I’m sure he spends copious amounts of time talking to you, anyway, but we take care of each other, we’re the best of friends again, which of course means he drives me insane, sometimes, but that’s what friendship is, isn’t it? I love him as much as you did. He’s helped me put up a greenhouse where the vegetable patch used to be so no more slug orgies. And I’m getting the money together to pay him back for the beach hut.

‘Lewis and I hang out as friends occasionally and it’s nice. Going nowhere despite his best efforts, but that’s all right because it’s nice. He’s nice.

‘And me? I feel better now that
she
, Audra, has been sentenced. She pleaded guilty to manslaughter, as we hoped, but also pleaded guilty to attempted murder of me, which meant no trial, thank goodness. She’s finally got a minimum twenty-five-year tariff. She’s been warned that if she tries to contact me again the harassment charges will be reinstated so, hopefully, I don’t have to have anything else to do with her. That has helped everyone so much, knowing where she is and that she’s going to be there for a long time. The world seems a less uncertain, scary place.

‘The job is going well, too, now that there is no Kevin and no Edgar. I’m still working on getting that image of Gideon out of my head. But, moving swiftly on, it helps that I’m back in my old role and there’s a possibility of promotion one day.

‘And … and … the big elephant in the graveyard. The other stuff. I’m doing OK with that. It’s been six months since I first got help and three months since I last purged. Getting better doesn’t seem to happen fast enough sometimes and I want to give up, go back to what I know but I remind myself that I can’t. That way of living,
coping, hiding was killing me. And I know I have to be kind and patient with myself. I have to believe and accept it’ll take as long as it takes to get better.

‘And you, my lovely, Joel, how are you? I hope you’re surrounded by others, I hope you have the chance to be who you are wherever you are. I hope it’s peaceful but you’re able to be that bouncy energetic man you always were. And I hope you don’t spend any time worrying about us. We’re OK.

‘I’m still pissed off at you. I’m still incredibly angry that you’re not here and that I have to keep doing this life thing without you, but that’s not all I feel any more. I feel other things, and some of them are fantastic and some are awful, but I’m feeling again and that’s a good thing. A great thing.

‘The Flavours of Love continues to be a work in progress, like me, like most things in life, I guess. I’m learning what foods I like by cooking them and tasting them and I’m adding recipes all the time. It’s going to have thousands of recipes, I think, when I finally put your ones and my ones together, but it’ll be ours. Something for us to share even though we’re apart.

‘I have to go now. We’re taking Aunty Betty’s boyfriend from the post office out to dinner. I mean all of us – Aunty Betty, Fynn, Phoebe, Zane, Curtis and me. He doesn’t know that yet, poor guy – he’ll wonder what hit him.

‘I miss you. I love you. For honestly, real. I’ll see you soon.’

I’m going home tomorrow
.

I don’t know if I want to return to that life I have over there. I don’t know if I can do it. Maybe I should just stay here. I love Lisbon, I love the cobbled streets, the sandstone-coloured buildings that don’t so much rise up from the ground, but feel like they are there to comfort you, cuddle you. Maybe I should stay and leave all the other stuff back at home. I’m normal here. Even on my own I don’t feel so panicky and scared, I’m not on edge and terrified all the time.

I have no money left to stay, but if I go home, take that job in Brighton, carry on living in Worthing, I could maybe do it again. I could come back, maybe to see more of Portugal. Maybe travel is what I can do with my life. Maybe I can start saving really carefully again and then take the time to see the world. Maybe the panic will subside if I just let myself go and move around the world in small, manageable chunks
.

The air is warm, fragrant, filled with the promise of a light rain. I come up the narrow, winding street from the Avenida da Liber-dade and round the corner to my hotel. The man from the plane, the one who held my hand during the hideous turbulence, is sitting on the edge of the tiled evergreen-filled planter opposite the hotel’s entrance. He stands as I approach the hotel. I’ve been seeing him and his girlfriend – a woman who is obviously a model – everywhere. It’s like we’re pre-following each other around.

He smiles as he comes towards me, and I smile back.

‘Hi,’ he says.

‘Hi,’ I say, confused.

‘This is going to sound like a cheesy chat-up line, and if you get to know me like I hope you will, you’ll get to know that I’m not like that, but there’s something about you … I think you’re part of my future.
I know it sounds stupid and strange and I honestly don’t believe in all that spooky stuff … But I think you’re part of my future.’

I stare at him: he’s tall and well-built, but not overtly so, and I know he’s strong because of the way he held my hand on the plane. His cheekbones are smooth but slightly prominent, his eyes are dark and look how mahogany would if you could melt wood. And his mouth, plump and inviting, keeps moving to smile at me. There’s something about him … there’s something about him that tells me he could be right.

‘It doesn’t sound as weird as it should,’ I say to him.

‘You think so? For honestly, real?’

‘Don’t you have a girlfriend?’

‘Um, no, not any more. I’m booked to go on a flight home tonight, three days early because she dumped me. All I do is stare at you, apparently. She said she had too much self-esteem to stick with a man who kept staring at a lass who didn’t even know he existed. I tried to explain to her that it was because I saw my future with you and she didn’t take it very well. ’

‘I can’t imagine why.’

‘Yeah, I have a bit of a problem with honesty.’

‘It’s a good problem to have.’

‘Can I give you my number? Will you call me when we get home?’

‘Yes.’

‘For honestly, real?’

‘Yes, erm, for honestly real. My name’s Saffron.’

‘Saffron. Sa
ffron
. Ffron.
Ffrony
. I like that. I
love
that.’

‘No one’s ever done that with my name before.’

‘Cool, huh?’

‘Yes, it’s cool.’

‘It’s great to meet you, Saffron. I’m Joel.’

Thank you to you, the reader, for buying this book, for taking the time to read it and, if you’re that way inclined, for letting me know what you think. I’m grateful, always, for your continued support.