He stood to one side, wringing his hands, not knowing what to do with himself.
“Bye, Si,” I said, walking out the door and slamming it behind me.
As I walked along the corridor, I thought about Léo again. He was the first person who popped into my head, the person I wished I could talk to most. He’d have told me I should have left Si months ago. That I’d been settling for something I thought I wanted, and how it hadn’t been what I’d wanted at all.
Catherine’s carefully orchestrated playlist was in full swing and I could hear the dulcet tones of John Legend’s “All of Me” drifting up from the dining room. The lift appeared to be stuck in the basement and I was worried that Si would come after me, so I began to pick my way down the stairs, bumping my suitcase behind me step by step, floor by floor. There were wedding guests milling about everywhere; I could see them lurking in the atrium and I couldn’t wait to get out of there so that I could breathe again. I would dart past them so quickly they’d think I’d been a figment of their imagination.
I remembered to collect my passport from the front desk and handed in my room key. The concierge asked if I’d had a nice stay and I said not really but thanked him for asking. I had no real concept of time, but I guessed it must have been about 7:30. I heard a couple of people jovially calling my name but I didn’t turn round. And then, as the porter opened the door for me and I stepped out into the most beautifully cool, quiet evening air, Catherine came running up behind me, her dress swishing around her ankles.
“Hannah? What are you doing?”
I closed my eyes for a second. The last thing I wanted was to ruin her big day; was there a way, I wondered, to explain myself without giving her all the facts? To make it seem less awful than it was?
“Is everything all right?” she asked, laughing nervously.
A tram came squealing past on the street at the end of the driveway. The sky had begun to darken and I could see the first few stars popping on the skyline.
“Everything’s fine,” I said, trying to sound as though it was.
“Why are you leaving, then?”
I looked down at my feet, flexing my foot, which only hurt very slightly now. And then, while I was stalling, trying to compile an answer that was a softer version of the truth, Si came charging through the doors behind us, his shirt open at the neck.
Catherine looked at him expectantly, crossing her arms. “Si, what’s going on?”
“Go back inside, Catherine,” I said gently. “There’s nothing for you to worry about, honestly. Go and enjoy your day.”
She put her hands on her hips. “Can somebody please tell me what is happening?”
“You know what?” said Si. “I may as well come clean. Get it all out there.”
I shook my head at him. Even I could see it wasn’t the time.
“I’ve been fired from work,” said Si. “And understandably Hannah is very upset. So she’s going to find a hotel for the night. That’s it, that’s all there is to tell.”
Catherine looked at him, her forehead creased in confusion. Part of me had wondered whether she already knew, whether she’d been in on it all along. But seeing her now, I knew that she hadn’t had a clue, either.
“Is this true?” Catherine asked me. I nodded.
“You’ve lost your job?” she said, turning to Si. “When?”
He dropped his eyes, like a child about to be scolded. “Six weeks ago,” he mumbled.
“I’ve only just found out,” I said quietly.
A silence.
“What did you do?” asked Catherine, incredulous.
“I broke my manager’s nose. But he’s an arsehole, Cath, you’ve heard me talk about him. He deserved it.”
She still looked confused. “You actually hit someone?”
“I know, I know,” he said. “I was drunk and I don’t remember anything about it, you have to believe me. Both of you, please.”
And then, out of the blue, Catherine launched herself at Si, pushing him so hard that he nearly stumbled backward onto the cobbles. Even the porter did a double take, probably of two minds about whether or not to step in.
“What is wrong with you? How could you keep this from your family, from your own girlfriend? That’s not what you do in relationships, Si! And now you’ve lost her—look, she’s walking away and I don’t blame her. I don’t blame her at all.”
I stood watching them for a while, wondering what to do, how to make things better for Catherine, because I felt guilty now that she had to hear this stuff about her brother on her wedding day. If I’d just kept quiet, put a brave face on it, she could have enjoyed herself without all of this. My only hope was that she’d go back inside, find Jasper, forget about me, get back to her celebration.
I picked up my suitcase and walked away, down the driveway to the street beyond, bumping my suitcase over the cobbles.
“Hannah, wait!”
I sighed, turning round. Si was there, bent at the waist, his breath ragged.
“Is there anything I can do to make this up to you?” he said, looking at me with desperation in his eyes. “I’ll beg if you like. Is that what you want?”
“For God’s sake.”
“Aren’t I allowed to make a mistake?”
“It’s a pretty big mistake,” I said.
A tram screeched to a halt at the stop on the corner. I heard its doors hiss open.
“Anyway, it’s not just that,” I said, wondering how much to tell him. It didn’t seem fair to make him think that he was entirely responsible for what our relationship had become. “It’s more that we don’t communicate. About anything, Si.”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
A small crowd had gathered in the courtyard. I noticed Pauline was desperately trying to usher them inside.
“We don’t really know each other, not properly,” I said. “We don’t tell each other anything. I think we’ve presented these watered-down versions of ourselves to each other. And that once we started, we couldn’t stop.”
He laughed. “You’re not serious.”
I went to walk away.
“Sorry!” he said. “Go on, I’m listening.”
“Look, it’s not the fact that you hit Dave that bothers me. Okay, it bothers me a bit. But it’s more that you didn’t feel able to tell me. That you created this web of lies to keep it from me, and for what? This can’t be how you want to live your life, Si. What kind of partnership is that?”
He looked so deflated, I almost started to feel sorry for him.
“Also, I met someone,” I said. I’d have to tell him sometime, it was only fair. “In Paris.”
He did an exaggerated double take. “What?”
“Nothing happened, before you go mad. We just talked. We walked around Paris and we talked. About our parents, our pasts, our hopes for the future.”
“I knew you weren’t at the station when you called me!”
“You don’t even know that I’ve been to Paris before, do you? That there was a whole lot of stuff to do with my dad. Because you’ve never asked.”
“That makes it all right, then, does it, for you to go off with some French idiot as soon as my back’s turned? Did you do it on purpose, then? Get on the wrong bit of the train?”
I took a deep breath. “This isn’t getting us anywhere, Si.”
“Well, knowing you’re not perfect either is making me feel much better,” he said nastily.
“Great. Glad I could be of service.”
I turned and carried on down the driveway. “And don’t follow me this time,” I shouted over my shoulder.
23
I hugged the canal, which was beautifully lit by the warm, orange glow beaming out the windows of the canal houses. Bobbing on the water was a row of houseboats, some of them huge, modern structures that must have cost
tens of thousands of pounds, some more traditional, painted in muted colors that I couldn’t quite make out under the shadows of the trees. Groups of people sat on the edge of the water, swigging from beer bottles, hanging their feet over the edge.
I spotted a phone box and reluctantly went inside, tiptoeing over the newspapers and crisp packets covering the ground. I scrabbled in my purse for some coins and then wiped the handset on the hem of my dress. Because I didn’t know who else to call, I dialed Mum and Tony’s home number. My stomach turned at the prospect of explaining what had happened. She’d be disappointed in me, no doubt, would assume that I was the one to blame, because how could the wonderful Si be at fault? I’d never turned to her in a crisis before, because she’d made it clear very early on that she couldn’t handle my “emotional outbursts”—i.e., any exploration of feelings at all. And on the odd occasion she did try, she’d end up saying something to make the situation worse. I’d learned to keep things from her, preferring to pretend that I was coasting happily through life, which Mum seemed easily and conveniently to accept.
While I listened to the dial tone I leaned my shoulder against the smeared glass of the phone box, realizing that for the first time in years, nobody was expecting me to be anywhere. And that might have felt terrifying once, being alone in a city I didn’t know, without the safety net of Si or Ellie or any of the other people I’d leaned on over the years, but I felt strangely liberated. A bit foggy-headed, completely exhausted, but with the inner conviction that whatever happened, I would be able to cope.
“Hello?” said Mum, a touch of panic in her voice. It would be a little after 6:30 in England. She’d be having tea, watching Britain’s Got Talent or some equally middle-of-the-road light entertainment show.
“Hi, Mum,” I said, cradling the receiver between my shoulder and my chin while unzipping my suitcase and pulling out the first warm thing I could find: Léo’s hoodie. I slipped it on, burying my face inside the shoulder of it, inhaling the scent of him.
“My God, we’ve been out of our heads with worry here,” said Mum. “Why haven’t you called us? I’ve been texting you like mad.”
“My phone got stolen in Paris,” I said. “Remember?”
“That explains it!” announced Mum. “I don’t know how I managed to forget that.”
I sighed, listening while she relayed the whole thing to Tony.
“Did you make it to the wedding, then?” she asked.
“I made it.”
And then I dropped the bombshell, got it out there before I bottled it. I didn’t want these filtered relationships anymore, ones where I second-guessed what people were thinking, what it was they needed. Because I had proof now that life did not work that way. Even by doing what I’d thought was the right thing, by becoming what I’d thought Si wanted me to be, it had still gone wrong in the end. I may as well show people who I really was; at least then, if nothing else, I’d be being true to myself.
“I’ve left Si, Mum.”
There was silence for what seemed like an age. A group of lads wearing cowboy hats and T-shirts with someone’s photo on them staggered past. One of them banged on the window and waved and I wiggled my fingers back.
“Mum, are you still there?”
“What do you mean, left him?”
I would have to tell her straight. There was no easy way to do it. She adored Si and she was going to be gutted, however I sugarcoated it. She, too, had thought Si was the perfect man, the answer to all my prayers and hers. But of course, the glaringly obvious fact that we’d both been missing was that nobody could ever be perfect. And also, that nobody could sort my life out for me except me. And that was, starting from this very moment, in this grimy phone box in the middle of Amsterdam, what I fully intended to do.
“He’s been fired from work,” I told her. “Weeks ago, without telling me. For punching his line manager at a party. Calling him names. Being threatening, all that.”
I heard her coughing, gulping down mouthfuls of the always-stale water I knew she kept on the coffee table.
“What? No, Hannah, no. He couldn’t have done all that,” she said eventually.
It would have been the last thing she’d expected of him; it was the last thing any of us would have imagined.
“Are you sure you haven’t got it wrong?” she asked. “You know, read too much into things? Have you actually spoken to him about it, Hannah? Because I’m sure he’d put you straight, tell you it’s all been a silly mistake.”
“It’s true, Mum. He told me himself.”
I heard Mum sniffing and wondered whether she was tearful or something, which would have been odd, since that would require her to have actual feelings on my behalf.
“We thought he was going to ask you to marry him,” she said, her voice all quivery.
I pinched the top of my nose. “Honestly, Mum, I’m not entirely sure that our relationship was everything I thought it was.”
I thought briefly of Léo, who I’d dismissed initially for being rude and brash and full of himself, which (apart from the rude bit) couldn’t have been further from the truth. You had to get to know people. You had to open yourselves up to them, so that they could do the same.
“Si loves you, Hannah, I know he does.”
“But I don’t think he understands me. Not in the way I’ve always wanted someone to.”
“It’s not about that, though, is it? What’s this need to know everything about each other?”
I bit my lip. This was probably the most honest conversation I’d had with Mum in years.
“Tony gets you, doesn’t he?” I said gently, by way of an example. “Somehow he just knows what you need. He loves every part of you, the good bits and the bad bits. And that’s what I want, Mum. Not someone like Dad, who only wanted the fun stuff and wasn’t prepared to stick around when things got tough between the two of you.”
“He loved you, you know,” she said. “Your dad.”
“Sure. But not in the way I deserved. I’ve wasted enough time worrying about what I might have said or done to make him go, to make him not care enough to keep in touch. And the last thing I want is to be in another relationship where I feel like being myself isn’t good enough.”
Mum sighed heavily. “You want to find your own version of Tony.”
“I think so, yeah.”
Admittedly, my version looked very different. But I was beginning to think it might be possible for me to meet someone who made me truly happy, a deeper, more honest, less idyllic kind of happy. I was only thirty, it wasn’t too late yet. I could hear Tony mumbling in the background, no doubt bewildered by this unexpected turn of events. Mum and I never talked like this. Everything was brushed under the carpet, everything went unsaid, either eventually forgotten or relegated to a position of simmering resentment. And now that I’d said it, put stuff out there that I would usually have kept from her, it felt good. Like a release. And, importantly, I felt as though she was actually listening for once.
“Don’t do anything rash, Hannah,” she said. “Take some time to think it through.”
“I will, Mum,” I said, although in my heart, I already knew.
I waited while she whispered something to Tony and then she came back on the phone, sounding all businesslike.
“Where are you now?” she asked.
“In a pay phone, somewhere in the middle of Amsterdam, not far from the wedding venue.”
“Let’s think . . . have you got money?” she asked me.
“Not much. I’ve got my credit card, a few notes. Let me see,” I said, opening my purse, which I was relieved to have back, totting it up. “I’ve got about eighty euros in cash.”
“Well, if you need anything, anything at all, money or whatever, or for us to come and pick you up from somewhere, you ask us, all right? We’re here, aren’t we, Tony?”
I hear
d him mumbling in the background.
“Why don’t we book you into a hotel? Let me get the laptop, we can do it from here. Tony, get your card. Quickly!”
I was amazed that she was being so helpful, and wondered whether I’d underestimated her all this time, whether I’d always looked for the worst in her and not seen the best. I was angry when Dad left. I was mad at him for going, but I was also angry with her, because if she’d been different, if he’d loved her more, then maybe they could have worked things out. I’d been unfair. I’d blamed Mum, deep down, when it should have been him I took all my disappointment and frustration out on.
I talked Mum through the bookings.com website. She originally tried to check me in to the cheapest hotel she could find, which was out near Schiphol airport, but we eventually worked out where I was (Tony was a whiz on Google Maps) and they booked me into a B&B about half a mile away. I would ask for directions, I told her.
“But how, when you don’t speak Dutch, Hannah?” she said.
“I’ll find it, Mum.”
“Call us when you get there, all right? And then we can think about flights home and things.”
I hadn’t even thought that far ahead: I was booked on a flight home, the day after tomorrow, but I didn’t think I could wait that long, and also, I’d left my tickets with Si. And there was the small matter of having to sit next to him for an hour on the plane.
“And if you like,” said Mum, “you could move in here for a bit, couldn’t she, Tony, if you need somewhere to stay? Just until you get back on your feet.”
I nibbled on the nail of my little finger, suddenly very touched. “Thanks, Mum.”
“Oh, and Hannah?”
“Yes?”
She cleared her throat. “Thank you for telling me. I know it can’t have been easy.”
I smiled, even though she couldn’t see me. I didn’t want to get too deep, it wasn’t the time, but I felt as though something might be beginning to shift, that there could be a newfound respect for each other, one that had been bubbling away under the surface all these years but that neither of us had been able to tap into.
The Paris Connection Page 25