“Sorry again, dear boy,” Jane said softly, getting to her feet. She gave Amber and Theo a curt nod as she passed, which they returned before approaching the table.
“Can we sit down?” Amber asked.
I folded my arms, looking at them both in turn. I felt a flash of anger at how perfectly matched their solemn expressions were—as if they’d rehearsed all of this.
“You two make quite the team,” I said. “You do realize that I’ve flown back from Lisbon for this? My mum is out there on her own.”
Amber and Theo exchanged looks. I clenched my fists under the table. I hated this—the subterfuge, the little unspoken language they seemed to have developed.
“Please,” Amber said, “can we sit?”
I shrugged. “Be my guests.”
They slid into the booth on either side of me, a pincer movement which infuriated me even more.
“It was hundreds to get a return flight on that short notice, by the way. Cash or check’s fine, whatever’s easiest for you both.”
“You don’t have to pretend, mate,” Theo said calmly.
“What? I’m not fucking pretending.” I yanked down my collar. “This isn’t a fake tan, mate. And . . .”
It was only as I looked at Theo again that it began to dawn on me what he’d meant, and I felt a great rush of panic hit me head-on, like I was standing on a hilltop, bracing myself against a powerful wind.
I didn’t have to pretend . . . because Theo had told Amber that I was dying.
I braced my hands on the table. Amber and Theo both moved toward me—concerned I might collapse, or maybe that I was going to push past one of them and make a run for it. I couldn’t bear to look at Amber. This wasn’t supposed to be how it happened. One of my legs was shaking uncontrollably. Every sound in the restaurant—the braying laughter, the cutlery scraping off plates—was amplifying in my head, a furious cacophony. Then Amber took my hand and everything was quiet again. I turned to face her and our eyes met.
“I’m so, so sorry,” I said.
“It’s okay,” Amber said. “I’m just so glad I’ve found you again.”
I heard Theo clear his throat.
“Joel, I—”
“Shut the fuck up, Theo.”
I sensed him shrink back into his side of the booth.
“Hey,” Amber said gently. “Don’t be angry at him, please. He was just trying to help.”
But I barely heard her. My mind was racing now. I was imagining Theo picking up the phone, dialing Amber’s number—or finding out where the house was in Hampstead and turning up out of the blue. I turned to glare at him, but he was looking down at his feet.
“Look at me,” I said. When he didn’t, I slammed my fist on the table and said it again, louder. The conversations at neighboring tables stopped abruptly, heads turning in our direction, but I didn’t care.
Theo looked up reluctantly.
“What made you think you had the right to do that?” I asked.
“Joel,” Amber pleaded, but I could feel the anger taking hold of me, and I welcomed it, because the longer I could take it out on Theo, the longer I could avoid facing Amber. Blood from the tiny cut on my knuckle was blossoming now, a dark red bead trailing down the side of my hand.
“I bet you loved the drama of it, didn’t you?” I said. “I bet you told yourself you were doing the right thing—that you were being honorable or something.”
“I’m sorry,” Theo said in a small voice. “I thought she had a right to know. I didn’t want to lie.”
I let out a mirthless laugh. I couldn’t actually believe it—the fucking audacity of the man. “Wow, what a weird moment to choose to find some balls for the first time in your fucking life.”
“Joel, that’s—”
“Oh, what, sorry, you don’t agree?” I said, clenching my fist tight now. “Let me remind you of the facts, shall I? Let’s see—I tell you I’ve got liver disease, and yet you’re more concerned about a TV show not getting made.”
“But—”
“Not content that you’ve hurt me enough, you decide to wait until I’m on holiday with my mum before telling the woman I love that I’m dying. I mean, Jesus fucking Christ, Theo, I can’t wait to see what you’ve got planned for an encore.”
Theo had gone very pale, his eyes wide. He looked scared, like I might hit him, but there was something else lurking there, too—something I couldn’t read.
“You’re looking slightly confused. Sorry, did you think this was going to be more of a laugh? That maybe I’d just say, ‘Don’t worry about it, pal—plenty of good fodder for the eulogy. Anyway, shall we be really naughty and have a starter and pudding?’ ”
I thumped the table again and a knife clattered onto the ground.
“Say something, for fuck’s sake.”
But Theo was looking at Amber, who was sliding along the booth away from us.
“Amber,” Theo said, “you knew . . . didn’t you? Please say that you knew. That’s what we were talking about at your place that night, right . . . Right?”
Amber was starting to hyperventilate. I went to move toward her, but she put her hand up to stop me, breathing faster all the time.
“What . . . are you both . . . talking about?” she said in between breaths. “Tell me. Tell me now what is happening.”
I turned to Theo. He looked like he might be sick.
“You told me you knew,” he said. “That night at your place. You said you knew.”
“That—that’s not what I . . . I was talking about Alice.”
“Alice? What do you mean? What are you talking about?” Theo moaned.
Amber tried to stand but stumbled. I leaped up and tried to take her hand, but she wrenched it away. The maître d’ began marching smartly toward us from the other end of the restaurant, sensing trouble from afar. Theo was on his feet now, too.
“Look, can we just slow down for a second,” he said.
“Oh, fuck off,” I said, enraged at Theo thinking he could ever be the sensible one among us. It was his fault that Amber had found out the truth about me like this, in the worst way possible—he didn’t get to have a say in anything anymore.
“No, you fuck off,” he snapped back. “For fuck’s sake, Joel, I didn’t say anything I thought Amber didn’t know. All I told her was that you were with me for the week—that you hadn’t been with your mum. I didn’t say anything about your . . . about what’s happening with you, okay?” He turned to Amber, hands clasped together in front of his chest as if in prayer. “Amber, please can you tell me what you meant about Alice?”
Amber looked at me. As I finally realized what was going on, I shook my head, eyes wide—trying to signal that she didn’t have to tell him. But it was too late.
“When I said I assumed Joel told you everything, I thought we were talking about Alice,” Amber said, clutching the booth for support. “Theo, it was me behind the wheel. I was the one who hit her. Joel kept telling me to stop, but I wouldn’t listen. And then I let him take the blame for me, because he thought he had to, because I had all these grand plans to be an actor. Theo, please believe me—there’s not a day that goes by when I don’t feel guilt about what I did. And I know that doesn’t make anything better—not for Alice, not for you . . .”
Theo shook his head, uncomprehending. “No,” he said, “but that can’t be right . . . that would change . . .”
The maître d’ arrived at our table. “Is everything okay?” he asked.
Theo looked at him like he’d seen a ghost. “No,” he said at last. “No, not really.” Then he turned and walked away, reaching up to grab his hair with both hands, dropping them only to throw the door open, and then he was gone.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Theo
I heard car horns blaring. It took me a moment to realize the cause of th
e noise was me. But I couldn’t cross the road any faster; it felt like I was wading through mud.
A montage in sickening sepia was playing over and over in my mind—Joel and Amber stepping out of the car, their feet crunching on broken glass . . . me and Joel in tears at the Thames Head stone . . . shouting at each other on the North Bridge through the wind and the rain. And then there was the night at Amber’s, where it was clear now she thought we’d been talking about Joel taking the blame for her for Alice’s accident. He told me he wasn’t going to tell you, no matter how many times I asked him to . . . I’m so sorry, Theo.
All this time I had been burning with anger for something he hadn’t done. And now he was dying, and there was nothing I could do to make up for it. As I stepped up onto Waterloo Bridge, walking with my head down, tears stinging my eyes, all I could think was, It should be me.
I slammed into someone coming the other way.
“Watch where you’re fucking going.” The man I’d walked into rounded on me. He was bald, with a thick gold earring in his ear and a mottled purple birthmark scalded across his cheek.
I stood there looking at him.
“Got something to say?” he snarled.
I could see the thrill of excitement in his eyes that the weedy, pathetic-looking man who’d shouldered him wasn’t backing down. And I wasn’t. Because I wanted pain, and I wanted punishment. So I took a step forward and shoved him as hard as I could. I swear I saw a glint of glee in his eye as he drew his fist back. The punch connected hard just below my right eye. I collapsed sideways onto the ground, then I felt a boot slam into my ribs. I might have been eleven again, Darren kicking the crap out of me on a cold stairwell. I covered my head with my hands, vaguely aware of voices, of car horns blaring once more—and then the pain stopped abruptly, and there were hands, gentle this time, on my shoulder, and someone was saying “Jesus, Theo—is that you?”
I took my hands away from my head, pushing the hair off my face, locking eyes with my rescuer. Her hair was cropped much shorter than when I’d last seen her, and she was wearing glasses when she’d always worn contacts. But there was no mistaking her. It was Babs.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Joel
For one ridiculous moment, I thought I could try to pretend this was all a big mistake, that Amber had misheard what I’d said, but the way she was looking at me meant I knew that was impossible.
After Theo had left, we’d sat down next to each other in the booth, our foreheads gently resting together like the first time we’d seen each other after Alice’s accident all those years ago. I held Amber’s hand until her breathing finally leveled out and she was able to speak again.
“How long have you known?” she asked.
“About a month,” I said at last.
“What about . . . Oh god, Joel, I can’t even say it . . .”
“They’re not sure,” I said.
“And there’s nothing . . . I mean, surely there’s something . . .”
I swallowed hard. “I need a transplant, but there are hundreds of people ahead of me on the waiting list. I . . . It doesn’t look like there’ll be enough time.” Now, finally, I was saying the words I’d dreaded for so long—and it was worse than I could have imagined.
“And you’ve known about this for a month,” Amber said, only now fully taking this in.
“Yeah,” I whispered.
“So, hang on, all this time,” Amber continued, carefully separating her hand from mine, “you’ve kept it from me.”
“The thing is, I—”
“I can’t believe it . . . You’ve been lying to me this whole time.”
She shifted away from me on the bench.
“It’s not like that,” I said.
“What is it like, then?” Amber shot back, her voice trembling.
“I just couldn’t bear to,” I said. “After all I’ve put you through in the past—I didn’t want to tell you until I absolutely had to.”
“And you thought that’s what I’d want—like I’d be grateful or something? Like I’d look back and go, ‘Well, at least I got an extra month in the dark’?”
“But—”
“Joel, we could have spent this time together trying to come to terms with this, trying to be strong for each other—that’s what a relationship is. This is real life, and we face all that it throws at us together.”
She stood up.
“You know what? I should never have let you take the blame for what happened to Alice. That poor girl. God, I was such an idiot, and so selfish.”
“Amber, please just—”
“But do you know what’s worse, Joel? I let you think that it was noble to do something so self-destructive. And now look what’s happened. I’m sorry, but . . . I don’t know if I can bear . . . I think I need some time on my own, okay?”
As I watched her go, I felt the strangest sensation come over me. It was the feeling of stumbling across someone else’s tragedy—walking past a ring of people crowded around a body while someone half-seen through a forest of legs tries to resuscitate them, yet I knew if I were to push my way through the crowd and look down, it would be me on the ground, glassy-eyed. Lifeless.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Theo
I’d pictured various scenarios post-breakup where I ran into Babs in the street. They normally involved me doing something gallant. Often on a horse. Her rescuing me from a fight I’d started with a man who looked like an extra from Hook wasn’t one of them, funnily enough.
At first—once I’d established I hadn’t been knocked unconscious and this wasn’t a dream—I tried to brush the whole incident off, asking Babs polite questions: “So what brings you to London, then? Work, I expect.” But all the while I felt the bruise under my eye swelling, and it’s hard to sound interested yet aloof—Lovely to see you, but I really must be getting back to my girlfriend; did I mention she’s a yoga-teaching nuclear physicist who speaks nineteen languages?—when you’re slowly losing vision in one eye.
“I think we need to get you to a doctor,” Babs said.
“Oh no, no need for that,” I said brightly. “So did you get the train down or . . . ?”
Babs took a clean tissue from her bag and carefully dabbed at my cheek while I winced. She was standing very close to me. When I stopped babbling, she became aware of our proximity and took a small step back, glancing at her watch.
“How about we get you to a barman instead, then? I’ve got an hour or so to kill before I need to be at King’s Cross. You’re not feeling concussed, right?”
“Nah, definitely not. He barely touched me.” (I’d deal with the irreparable long-term brain damage another day—this was a drink with Babs we were talking about!)
We found a pub around the corner and Babs ordered a pint of Guinness for me and white wine for her, along with some ice. She dropped a couple of cubes in her glass—the rest she wrapped in a scarf and gave to me to press on my cheek.
“Jesus, that is going to be one hell of a black eye tomorrow. You’ve not got any modeling jobs lined up, have you?”
“Just Dolce & Gabbana. But they’re only shooting pecs and abs, so it should be fine.”
“That’s a relief,” Babs said. “Cheers, then.”
We clinked glasses and drank.
“So,” Babs said, “I’d ask, ‘How are things?’ but I’m guessing they’re perhaps not completely brilliant?”
I took another sip to buy me some time. “I suppose they’ve been better. But it’s all relative, isn’t it?”
Just then a man and woman in their early twenties greeted each other awkwardly at the bar in the way only people on a first date can. There was a handshake, a hug and a kiss on one cheek. The boy went for two, but the girl left him hanging. I wondered what their fate was. Would this be their only date—she having to send a text refusing his offer to mee
t up again, citing a lack of chemistry? Or was this the start of a long and happy relationship—the awkward ballet of how they’d greeted each other at the bar on their first date making it into the groom’s well-received speech?
“Do you know those people?” Babs asked.
“No. I was just . . .” I picked at some candle wax on the table. “Well, I was just thinking that was us once.”
Babs turned to look back at the bar. “I’d never have worn those shoes. And he’s much taller than you.”
“That’s not quite what I meant.”
Babs sighed. “I know. I’m just trying to stop you getting all sentimental and nostalgic. At least wait until I’m drunk.”
“What’s wrong with me getting all sentimental and nostalgic?”
“Because I know you too well. It’ll start with you being quite sweet and talking about us and what it was like when we first met, and it’ll end with you getting very, very upset about pubs from your youth that have closed down and confectionary that no longer exists.”
“Fair enough,” I said. (I’d stopped listening at “quite sweet.”)
“Come on, then,” Babs said. “You can’t keep putting it off.” She gestured to me to press the ice to my face, and I complied. “What got you so upset that you picked a fight with a man twenty times your size?”
I dabbed tentatively at my eye with the improvised ice pack, then lowered it to the table. Part of me still didn’t want to soothe the pain.
Babs was looking at me expectantly, so I gathered myself and began to tell her about the last week. By the time I’d finished the whole story about Joel, and our walk, and his diagnosis—and what Amber had just told me in the restaurant—the ice had melted into a large pool of water.
“Gosh, Theo, that’s awful. Poor Joel. Liver disease is such a fucker. Do you remember my cousin Max? His best mate went through this last year. In the end—well, it doesn’t matter, I imagine Joel’s explored that, but . . . And, Jesus, I can’t believe that he took the blame for Amber, too. Have you told Alice yet?”
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