“The thing is, when I was in Paris—you probably know already, Alison, but I was stuck in Paris all day with no money and no phone—I had this niggling feeling. About your texts.”
Si laughed nervously. “Come on, Han, why don’t we go and mingle?” he said, trying to steer me out of the stairwell. “There’s loads of people you haven’t spoken to yet. They’ve all been asking after you.”
I shrugged Si off. “And so the thing is, Si,” I said, turning to face him, “I checked your e-mails. While I was in Paris.”
I let my words hang in the air for a second or two. I knew Si and Alison must be desperate to look at each other, I could almost feel their eyes bulging in their sockets.
“What?” said Si, seemingly incredulous. “What’s got into you, Hannah? Since when do you go snooping about in my stuff?”
In a different moment, I might have felt bad. But now I was only glad that I’d done it. Because there was an engagement ring in his bag, and there was the small matter of my future happiness at stake.
“That’s beside the point,” I said, looking at Alison. “I’m just wondering why my boyfriend was lying about going to the gym so that he could come and see you?”
Si was now not just pale but a sickly shade of gray. “All right, Hannah, I think that’s enough. Why don’t we get back to the wedding, see if Cath’s all right? After all, it’s her day, isn’t it? Wouldn’t want to spoil it for her, would we?” he said through gritted teeth. “Come on, let’s go. Let’s all go back to the terrace.”
A couple in their mid-thirties brushed past me, heading for the staircase. “Sorry, guys, can we just squeeze past?” the woman said in a plummy accent. And then, “Oh my God, Simon, is that you? It’s me, Joanna. Cath’s roommate from Durham?”
Si, who had begun sprouting sweat from every pore, had turned into a stuttering wreck. “Hi! Um, blimey. Long time no see, Joanna. How are you?”
“We’re good, we’re good,” said Joanna, who was wearing a knee-length coral shift dress with a matching fascinator. “This is my husband, Daniel. And you must be . . . ,” she said, extending her hand to me.
“Hannah,” I said. I couldn’t quite bring myself to explain that I was Si’s girlfriend, because until someone told me what was going on, it didn’t feel as though I was.
“Lovely to meet you, Hannah,” said Joanna, shaking my hand warmly. “You’re Simon’s partner, aren’t you? I’ve heard lots about you from Cath. All good,” she clarified, laughing.
Alison introduced herself and if the circumstances had been different, I would have been in awe of her self-assurance. She was cool as a cucumber, and seemingly not fazed by the fact I’d just all but accused her of having an affair with my boyfriend.
Joanna and Daniel, perhaps sensing an atmosphere, shifted awkwardly from one foot to the other, then sidled past, heading up the stairs. “Just popping up to our room,” called Joanna over her shoulder. “Catch up later, yeah, Simon? And lovely to meet you both,” she said, giving me a strange look.
I turned back to Alison. I thought I might as well finish what I’d started.
“Catherine tells me you’re pregnant,” I said, gauging her reaction.
She had the good grace to look embarrassed but also slightly smug, which I thought was very insensitive.
“Thanks. Yeah. A bit of a shock, but you know . . .”
“I didn’t even know you had a boyfriend. You didn’t mention him on the hen weekend,” I said.
“No, no. It was a casual thing,” she said, looking awkward.
I turned to Si, bracing myself. “I was wondering whether it was yours?” I asked.
“What?”
“You heard me, Si.”
“No!” he said. “For fuck’s sake, Hannah, of course not.”
“You’ll have to tell her, Si,” said Alison, putting her hands on her hips. “I told you something like this would happen.”
“Here we go. Tell me what?”
“Look, let’s go up to our room, talk about it there,” he said. He put his hand out to touch me. “Come upstairs. Please. I’ll explain everything.”
“Fine. But don’t bother feeding me any more lies,” I told him. “Oh, and I know about your job,” I said, unable to stop myself now. “That you left. What have you been doing for the last few weeks, Si? Where have you been going every day, all dressed up in your shirt and tie?”
And then I pushed past him and stumbled up the stairs. My heart was beating everywhere: in my chest, in my temples, in my mouth. And as though things couldn’t get any worse, when I looked up, I saw Joanna and Daniel standing on the floor above, watching me, Joanna’s hand flung dramatically across her mouth.
22
He caught up with me when I was nearly on the third-floor landing. I’d had to slow my pace because I was out of breath; he’d been sprinting up behind me, taking two steps at a time.
“Hannah! Wait,” he was saying.
I ignored him and carried on climbing but then he was there, next to me, trying to take my arm. I wriggled out of his grasp.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his breath ragged. “I’m so, so sorry about all of this.”
“You still haven’t told me what you’ve got to be sorry about,” I said.
“Stop a second,” he said.
I turned to face him, catching my breath, holding my arms out in front of me to create a sort of barrier between us. He didn’t look like Si anymore. Everything about him was different: his posture, the way there were lines of tension etched across his brow, the sweat rings under his arms, the flat, watery eyes. Or perhaps it was more that this was the first time I’d seen him for what he really was, imperfections and all. I’d been happy to take him at face value, was so flattered that somebody like him would want somebody like me that I hadn’t thought to scratch beneath the surface.
“I love you, Han. I’ve made a terrible, terrible mistake and I’m truly sorry. I am. But I’ll make it up to you, I promise I will.”
Over his shoulder I could see faces peering up at us from the foyer—a cross-looking Alison had been joined by Pauline, whose mouth had dropped open like a sinkhole.
“Please, Han. Hear me out.”
I turned my head to the side, not wanting his hot, acidic breath on my face. And yet, at the same time, I had a compulsion to know all the gory details, every one of them. Perhaps if I did, I could have some sort of closure. I’d had some experience of this, after all: I’d found it was best to know where you stood with someone, even if it hurt, so that there was no ambiguity, no back-and-forth. Like with Dad; now that I’d started to accept him for what he was and was not capable of, I was able to bear the fact that he wasn’t in my life anymore and was never likely to be again.
“Let’s go to our room,” said Si. His voice had a tremor flecked through it. “We can talk there.”
Our room. Insinuating that we were still a partnership, that we still loved each other, like I’d thought we always would. I started up the stairs again, each step an effort, my head loaded with the things I wanted to say. There were questions buzzing around in there, lots of them, but not fully formed ones. I fumbled in my clutch bag for the key card and as I swiped it in the door, I was aware of Si behind me, felt him breathing heavily on the back of my neck, inhaled the familiar scent of him, the sharp citrus shower gel he used. Was this really the end of our relationship? Could it be that simple, this fast?
I flung myself into the room and he followed me inside, closing the door quietly behind him. I went over to the window, resting my forehead against the glass. There was a view of a canal, just like the one I’d imagined when I’d pictured the idyllic morning we were supposed to have together the following day. So much for rose petals and proposals and waffles.
“I’ve been fired from work,” Si said, coming to stand next to me, his hip inches from mine.
I t
urned to him, incredulous. “When?”
“Six weeks ago now.”
“What for?”
He went to sit on the edge of the bed, throwing his head into his hands. I leaned against the window, too exhausted to stand.
“I hit Dave,” he said.
My stomach turned. “What?”
“He’s a bully, Hannah, he never let up. Every opportunity he had to belittle my work, he jumped on it. It killed me, after everything I’d put into that fucking company.”
“When was this?” I said.
“There was that party, wasn’t there, back in May? At that restaurant in town?”
“May? Si, that’s ages ago.”
“I’d had a terrible day at work. A really fucking stressful day. When I got to the party, I started drinking heavily. And I couldn’t stop, even though a few people told me they thought I’d had enough.”
I shook my head. “I can’t believe this.”
“I lost it, Han. Something just snapped. I started laying into him, telling him exactly what I thought of him, what an arsehole he was, how nobody respected him. I had to be dragged off of him, apparently, not that I can remember much about it.”
I put my hands over my mouth in the prayer position. “God, Si.”
“Apparently I broke his nose, or so he said.”
I sank down onto the windowsill, trying to take it all in.
He sighed. “They fired me on the spot. Said it was gross misconduct, that violence in the workplace was unacceptable. They said they couldn’t keep me on.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I said, shocked.
This was worse than an affair, because it was so out of character. I’d never even seen Si get properly angry; I certainly couldn’t imagine him hitting anyone.
His eyes filled with tears. “I was embarrassed, Han. And devastated about it all, because now you’d know that I wasn’t the nice guy you thought I was. I was so used to providing for everyone, being the strong one that everyone leans on, looking after people, that I couldn’t stand the idea of people—you, mainly—feeling disgusted by me. And once I’d kept it a secret for a few days, I didn’t know how to get out of it. I spiraled into a sort of panic. A depression almost, if I’m honest.”
I rubbed the tops of my arms with my hands. I was shaking now that the adrenaline had worn off. What I felt was a sort of resignation, a dull, thudding pain. What kind of relationship did we have if he didn’t trust me enough to share these huge life events, to show me the good and the bad parts of himself? If he thought me too fragile to bear it?
“Where were you, then, when I thought you were at work?” I asked him.
“In the library mostly. Sat trawling through the papers for jobs. I went to join some agencies, that sort of thing. I even thought about getting a bar job at one point. During the day so you’d never find out.”
“They haven’t been paying you, then?”
He hung his head. “No.”
“The joint account,” I said, remembering how the card had been refused. “There’s no money in there, is there, because you haven’t been putting anything into it?”
“I’ve been trying to keep it topped up,” he said. “But, yeah. I don’t know what we’re going to do now, to be honest.”
There was some noise outside the window. Laughter; a cork popping.
“And the Venice trip?” I said, realizing now that he must have spent a fortune on it. A fortune he clearly didn’t have. “Couldn’t you have canceled it?”
“I tried,” he said. “I called the travel agent, but I’d got a special deal and it was all paid for in advance. They were sympathetic and all that. I lied and told them I’d been made redundant. But still . . . they wouldn’t give me my money back. Since it was all paid for, I thought we might as well go.”
I nodded, prying myself to my feet, walking into the bathroom, pouring myself a glass of warm, soft water from the cold tap and sipping it slowly, looking at myself in the mirror. Then I went back into the bedroom and began to gather up my things, dropping them haphazardly into my suitcase. All I knew was that I needed to get away. It would take time for it to sink in, all of this, the lies, the sham our relationship had become. I couldn’t be around him, not tonight. Not any night. And not just because of what he’d told me, but also because of what I’d discovered about myself. That I was not the person he thought I was, either. That I wanted more from life than I’d admitted to. And that clearly we weren’t as “right” for each other as I’d thought.
“What about Alison?” I said. “What’s she got to do with all of this?”
“The baby’s not mine, Han. I don’t know why you would think it could be.”
“You haven’t slept with her?”
“No. Of course not.”
“What is it, then? Because I know there’s something.”
He coughed. “She was . . . in a bar one afternoon. I needed a beer, so I stopped at this pub in town, and she happened to be in there with a couple of mates, ones I didn’t know. And we got talking about Catherine, the wedding, a bit about school. I hadn’t seen her for years, since we were all teens.”
“But you’d always had a thing for her?” I said, scooping up my camera, putting it carefully around my neck.
He shook his head. “No, there’s nothing like that.”
“What, then?”
He flung himself back on the bed, staring glassy-eyed at the ceiling. “We got talking. She’s a corporate lawyer, isn’t she, so she’s got loads of contacts. She said she’d do what she could to help if it goes to court.”
“Are the police involved, then? Is he pressing charges?”
“ ’Course he is.”
I shook my head. “Bloody hell, Si.”
How could he keep something that important from me? Something that affected us both.
“I asked Alison to keep it between the two of us, told her I didn’t want to worry you, but she’s been going mad at me. Said she didn’t think it was right.”
“Well, at least someone’s talking sense,” I said, picking up my still-damp ballet pumps from the end of the bed and shoving them into my suitcase.
There was a knock on the door.
“For fuck’s sake,” said Si, sitting up. “Go away!”
We waited in silence for whoever was at the door to give up and go back downstairs.
“What are you going to do?” I asked him quietly.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I’m waiting to hear about a court date.”
I sighed, collecting the remainder of my things: the toothbrush I’d put in the glass by the sink, Sylvie’s clothes, which were in a crumpled heap on the floor. The hair straighteners I hadn’t had time to use. I stuffed them all inside my suitcase, zipping it up. Then I stood it upright, the handle poised in my hand.
“What are you doing?” asked Si, standing up, his eyes bulging.
“Leaving.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said, laughing hollowly. “Where would you go?”
“Back to London. I’ll stay at Ellie’s for a bit, until we can sort out the flat.”
“What do you mean, sort out the flat?”
“I guess we’ll have to give notice or something. God knows. I can’t think about that now.”
I felt a pang of regret about our lovely little home. We’d spent so long choosing colors together, splashing out on a Farrow & Ball cobalt blue for the hall, a matte slate gray for the kitchen. I thought about the bits of furniture we’d bought, the plant pots and rugs and picture frames we’d treated ourselves to. What would I take with me, I wondered: What was his and what was mine?
“No, Han. No. Look, don’t do anything rash. Please. Nothing has to change.”
“It does, Si.”
“I still love you. And I know I’ve fucked up and I know how much
I’ve hurt you. But you’re still the person I love most in the world and I’ll do anything to make things right. It’s why I stopped drinking, so that nothing like this can ever happen again. I promise you, you can trust me, Han. You have to believe me.”
I had one last look around the room to check I’d picked up everything that was mine. I didn’t know what to make of his declarations of love and his heartfelt apologies. Were they genuine, or was it just that he couldn’t stand the idea of me leaving him?
“Please, Hannah,” he said, scrabbling in his bag. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you. I was going to do it in Venice but I bottled it because there was this huge thing I was keeping from you and it didn’t feel right. But I want to ask you now.”
I looked at him in horror as he produced the ring box and crawled in my direction, coming to a stop in front of me with one knee bent.
“Hannah, will you—”
“Don’t,” I said, putting my hand out to stop him.
“Please, I love you and I—”
“No, Si,” I said. “You can’t propose to someone like this!”
He staggered to his feet and threw himself between me and the door, holding out his arms to stop me getting past.
“Let’s talk some more. See if we can’t sort through this. Work something out. This can’t be the end, Han, it can’t.”
All I could hear was our breath, the ragged ins and outs of it.
“Please, Si. Just let me go.”
I couldn’t believe I was actually walking out on the man I’d thought I was going to marry. But something had died inside me, I realized, almost from the moment I’d read Alison’s texts on the train. I’d been left with the shell of our relationship, the superficial, external part. I could remember clearly what we’d had, how important it had been to me. But I would always be wondering when he would keep something from me again. I’d thought he’d been sitting happily in his office in Fenchurch Street like always. For weeks now I’d imagined him popping out to Pret at lunchtime, having meetings in the boardroom, writing figures on a flip chart. I’d never thought he’d be flicking through the jobs section of the paper in our local library or getting legal advice from old school friends in pubs in town.
The Paris Connection Page 24