‘I promise,’ Niamh said as she held out her little finger and waited for Erika to link it with her own. ‘Hoes before bros, no matter what.’
ERIKA
ROSES
London, 2012
The scent of damp lingers in the early morning air. I can feel the soft splat of dew against my bare calves as I run across the lawns of Kensington Gardens. As always, I stop by the statue of Peter Pan and stretch my arms up high before bending forward, enjoying the gentle pull along my hamstrings.
My eye falls upon a fellow jogger, his breath heavy and laboured, his run more of a shuffle than a sprint. He gives me a small nod as he passes and I look away to the river, where a pair of coots is swimming side by side. Two lines of rippled water follow behind, muddling the reflection of the sky above into a swirl of blue and palest grey. It makes me turn around, seeking out whatever it is that seems to be missing.
There’s something about the day that doesn’t quite fit. The feeling was there when I woke, followed me as I shut the front door and tucked my key under the pot of begonias still in bloom. A sort of niggling sensation that stayed with me as I ran all the way along Portobello Road, swishing past me through rails of clothes that the stallholders were setting out for the day’s market. It whispered to me as I turned the corner on to the High Street, which was already busy with traffic.
Perhaps it’s due to the dog who trotted over as I entered the park, looking up at me in a way that suggested we’d met before. Or could it have been the song I heard playing on the radio of a car that was waiting at the lights as I crossed the road? It was a song that seemingly played on a loop throughout that long, hot summer when so much of my life suddenly changed.
I’m being ridiculous. It’s nothing more than memories getting me a little spooked because so much is about to change all over again. No doubt it’s just my subconscious, reminding me that in only a few short weeks I will be running through a different part of London, with a different person waiting for me back home. No more the pink mews house tucked away behind Portobello Road that has become a kind of sanctuary for Layla and me over the years. Every morning I run through the dawn, twice around the park and back again before standing in a claw-footed tub, praying there’s hot water in the tank.
Soon enough my routine will have to change. I won’t be coming back to the sound of a creaking floorboard as I cross the hallway into the bathroom, nor will there be the scent of coffee and spun sugar that seeps under the door from my favourite café only one street away. And no more shared bottles of chilled wine on a summer evening, the windows open to the night as Layla bustles around the kitchen throwing herbs into pots and trying not to burn everything in sight.
My life is about to become exposed brick and oversized windows in a converted warehouse all the way across town. There will be no silk scarves bought on a beach in India draped over the back of chairs, no Metallica played at full volume to welcome me home. Instead it will be the scent of beeswax and cologne, along with Miles Davis and the tapping of fingers on a keyboard.
The wedding is so close, so very real, but it sometimes feels as if it’s happening to somebody else. Like I’m watching it from behind a curtain, peeping through the crack. Only yesterday I was standing in front of a mirror whilst a stick-thin sales assistant tightened the corset of my gown. (I’m convinced it was the same one who did Layla’s fittings. A girl with a sharp, sour face who told Layla that all brides lose at least a couple of pounds before their big day.) I remember staring at my reflection and thinking that I didn’t recognise the woman I’d become. A woman who was willing to stand up in church and declare my love, my fidelity, to a man who can swear like a trooper in four different languages, make the best scrambled eggs I’ve ever tasted, and who calls his mother every Sunday without fail.
Not that there’s anything wrong with being close to your mother, it’s just not something I can really relate to. Layla is my family, has been ever since we first worked together behind the bar of our local pub, and soon Hector will be too.
My feet have brought me back to the same spot where I always finish my run, even though my mind is clearly somewhere else. Going up on tiptoes, I look both ways across the street, almost as if I’m waiting for something to happen, something to appear that wasn’t there a second ago.
Stepping off the pavement, I cross over and join the queue that’s already snaking out of the door of my favourite artisan café.
Whilst I wait, I scroll through my phone, mentally mapping out the upcoming week and firing off a couple of replies to emails that came in overnight. There’s a deal I’ve been working on ever since the start of the year, one that could prove to me that stepping away from the corporate world was actually a good idea. My salary may have been drastically slashed when I joined the non-profit sector, but my work-life balance, my mental health – all the crap you’re told is actually the key to happiness – is literally bubbling over. I need this to work, but more importantly, I want this to work for all sorts of reasons that I never considered when my career consisted of doing nothing more than making rich people richer. I seem to have finally figured out where I want to be and who I want to share it all with.
Which is awfully clichéd, I know, this whole sense of self-worth, of finding your purpose and all that, and sometimes I have to laugh at how long it’s taken me to realise that money really isn’t the answer. So much of that is because of Hector and his everlasting patience with me. He’s taking me out this evening to a new Catalan restaurant that’s owned by someone he met on his last book tour. Before, I would worry about having nothing in common with his friends, the people he spends his time with – because, let’s face it, finance is exceedingly dull to anyone who doesn’t work in the industry. Now I feel included, part of the conversation, someone who actually has something worthwhile to say. It’s liberating and I wish I’d had the guts to make the leap a long time ago.
Looking up, I scan the never-ending queue and the packed tables inside, my weight shifting from foot to foot like it does when I’m waiting at the lights, poised and ready to run.
‘Drapetomania,’ I mutter to myself. It’s a word I collected during my undergraduate years from a fellow student who was writing a paper on racism during the American Civil War. But I have no need to flee, do I?
In the café I wait, listening to the sound of milk being frothed, spoons being stirred and music spilling from the radio that rests on a high shelf behind the polished wooden counter.
It’s from this radio that a familiar song begins to play, the same song I heard as I crossed the street in front of a dark green sports car. Once again, it pulls my thoughts back to a summer years before when I was just a girl with a heart full of hope.
I move forward to collect my order, and that’s when I see him.
Leo.
Shit. What am I supposed to do?
Of all the people in all the places, why him, why now?
Another second goes by, during which my heart squeezes so tight it makes me gasp, then I spin on my heels and push my way back out of the café.
But it can’t be Leo, not after all this time. There is simply no way he could be there, in my café, just sitting by the window, sipping his coffee as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
My laughter soon turns to tears and I rub them away, my shaking hand blocking my line of sight so that I trip over a bucket full of roses and land with a cry and a thud of knee against concrete.
I hate roses.
‘You all right, love?’ the florist asks as he pokes his head out from behind an enormous bunch of lilies, watching as I scramble to my feet, righting the bucket and muttering an apology before sprinting away.
‘Layla?’ I call out as I slam the front door behind me and run straight upstairs.
A creak of floorboard makes me turn my head towards the door at the other end of the landing, underneath which a shadow passes, along with the sound of someone opening and closing a drawer, turning on a tap and brush
ing their teeth with an electric toothbrush. I picture the room beyond, with black-tiled floor, roll-top bath and a hanging pot of ivy that trails almost to the ground.
‘Everything will be OK,’ I say to myself with a slow inhale as I wait for my world to fall back into place. Then the bathroom door opens and Layla steps out wrapped in a bright-pink towel.
‘Jesus,’ she shrieks, leaning against the doorframe. ‘You scared the crap out of me.’
‘Sorry,’ I reply, staring at her face, at the full lips, tanned skin and eyes as blue as the Caribbean Sea.
‘Everything all right?’ Layla says, running her fingers through damp curls.
‘Yes. I mean, I think so.’ Because there are so many memories rushing around inside my head. All those neat little boxes I carefully and meticulously filed away that are now open and fighting for my attention.
‘What happened to your leg?’ Layla steps towards me and I back away.
I look down to see a trail of dried blood running down my shin. I turn and go to my room, sitting down on the edge of the bed to peel off my running shorts.
Layla is hovering on the landing, tiny droplets of water falling from her hair to the carpet.
‘Did someone hurt you?’
‘No,’ I say, but my heart would seem to disagree because its rhythm is off. Two slow beats followed by one that skips and falters, making my whole body feel on edge.
‘Let me get dressed. Then you can tell me what happened.’
‘I’m fine.’ I peer at my knee. The cut isn’t deep, not much more than a graze, but there’s a pulling sensation when I press against the skin.
I stand up and walk across to the wall of wardrobes and slide one open to reveal row upon row of designer clothes, each item carefully organised into colours, styles and seasons. I rub the hem of a black silk blouse between finger and thumb, then pull down a skirt from the very last hanger and shut the door, only to open it again and tilt my head to look up.
At the top is a shelf, bare of anything other than dust if you only look the once. With one hand on the shelf and a foot on an open drawer, I pull myself up to the top of the wardrobe and stretch my arm back into the dark space. My fingers creep over cobwebs, and no doubt a couple of dead spiders, before they find what I’m searching for.
I sink down on to the bed. In my lap is a tapestry bag with a drawstring neck, embroidered with brightly coloured bumblebees and butterflies.
One by one I take out all the contents and line them up on the windowsill, neat and ordered like soldiers, winking back at me in the morning sunshine. The feeling they arouse in me is a bit like finding a long-lost earring stuffed down the side of the sofa. Something you haven’t thought of in ages, but recognise nonetheless.
Picking up a miniature porcelain boot, I slip it on to my thumb then put it back down. Next to it is a thimble made out of emerald glass with a golden rim that always makes me think of a wishing well, toasted chestnuts and a bitter caramel sweet I once broke my tooth on. A tooth I seek out with my tongue, feeling the chip worn smooth, and I try not to go back to the day it happened, because she was with me.
Going back to the wardrobes, I open them each in turn, tossing aside t-shirts and pyjamas, pulling open drawers and peering inside boxes. Then I move across to the dressing table, glancing at a tube of hand cream as I open the top drawer where a notebook and a small velvet box are waiting.
There is no need for me to open the notebook to know all the words hidden inside. Instead I reach for the box to find a pear-drop diamond ring as large as my thumbnail, which I slip on to my finger, turning my hand towards the light. It’s comforting and makes it easier to shut the notebook away.
‘Is that new?’ Layla asks as she comes back, holding two steaming mugs of coffee and nodding her head at my skirt.
‘What’s wrong with it?’ I say, smoothing my hands over the layers of lace, just as the memory of another day and a visit to a second-hand clothes shop appears in my mind.
‘Nothing.’ Layla passes me one of the mugs. ‘I like it. It’s just not very you.’
Maybe it is, I think to myself. Maybe what I saw, who I saw, in the café was precisely what I needed to make me finally own up to what is missing from my so-called perfect life.
Layla’s at my side, watching me in that inquisitive (some would say downright nosey) way of hers and I can smell eucalyptus, a branch of which always hangs from the shower head and permeates her skin with its scent.
‘Whatever it is, you can tell me.’
Opening my palm, I let go of the small emerald thimble that I picked out of the line on the mantelpiece. It falls to the floor, rolling across to bump against the wall.
‘Is that a thimble?’ Layla asks, crouching down to retrieve it, then holding it to the light, turning it round so that thin lines of green glance over her hand.
‘It reminds me of someone I used to know.’ I clear my throat and pick up my mug. The bitter scent fills my nose and I’m transported back to a small café in Oxford that sold sugary pastries and coffee so thick you could stand a teaspoon in it.
‘Do you ever get the feeling,’ I say, ‘that you’ve woken up in someone else’s life? That you’re not quite where you’re supposed to be?’
‘What’s going on?’ Layla puts the thimble down and perches on the end of my bed.
I let out a sigh, trying not to think of the reason I started collecting all these random things in the first place.
‘I can’t do it,’ I say as I take a long sip of coffee and stare at my reflection. Suddenly I’m struck with the strangest sense of time slowing down, then spinning around and flinging me back in time – back to an attic room in Oxford where two girls were getting ready to go out, completely unaware of what was about to happen.
‘Do what?’
‘Marry Hector.’
‘Not this again,’ she says. ‘Yes, you could get hurt, but you could also end up living happily ever after.’
‘There’re no such things as fairy tales.’
‘Nor is there such a thing as perfect, but for some strange reason, nobody is ever good enough for you.’ There is a distinct undertone of disapproval in her voice, one that I know has more to do with her past relationships than me and Hector.
‘Surely it’s better to walk away now?’ I ask, taking another sip of my coffee and wincing as the heat hits the back of my throat.
‘If you do, it will destroy him.’
Walking away is so much easier than admitting life hasn’t quite worked out the way I thought it would. On the surface all the boxes are ticked – rewarding job, financially secure, gorgeous fiancé with an adoring, stable family. But it’s still not enough.
‘Layla,’ I say as I put my mug down and turn to face her, ‘there’s something I need to tell you.’ Something I should have told her years ago, perhaps back when we first met. But secrets are so easy to keep when you think they’re protecting you from harm. And for a while they did, but now I need to be honest about the real reason I left Oxford, and everyone in it, behind.
‘I think you need to talk to Hector, not me.’
Except I don’t want to talk to Hector. Because if I do then I would have to tell him everything, not just the bits about my life I’ve filtered and polished to look their very best.
I go across to the window, looking at my collection one by one before putting the thimble back in place.
Layla comes to stand next to me, no doubt trying to figure out how the line of unfamiliar objects is relevant to me announcing that I no longer want to get married.
‘All of these things are linked to a specific moment in my life that made me stop and think.’
‘What’s this really about, Erika?’ Layla asks as she picks up a tiny silver key, then puts it down next to a hand-painted turtle.
‘There were three of us back then.’ I reach into the tapestry bag, take out a crumpled Polaroid and hand it to her.
Layla peers at the faces, bright with youth and possibility, only one
of which she knows. She looks at me, then back at the photograph, reading aloud the names written on the strip of white at the bottom.
‘Erika, Duncan and Niamh,’ she says, her eyes travelling back and forth between us. ‘Oxford, 1996.’
‘They were like my family,’ I say, looking at the people I find so impossible to forget. ‘We used to be so close.’
‘What happened?’ Layla asks as she gives the photo back, and I can imagine her noticing both the similarities and subtle differences between the woman standing before her and the one smiling back from the past. ‘Why haven’t you ever told me about them?’
‘Because of Leo.’
‘Who’s Leo?’
‘For fifteen years I’ve wondered if I should have chosen differently,’ I say with a glance at the watch wrapped around my wrist. It feels like time is running away from me, too quick to catch on to. As if stumbling across Leo was only the beginning of something more.
‘If it weren’t for him, everything would have stayed exactly the way it was supposed to.’
NIAMH
Quatervois (n.) – a crossroads; a critical decision or turning point in one’s life
Oxford, 1995
At the corner of Turl Street and Broad Street a second-year law student cycled past, freewheeling as he took the turn. He had to swerve to avoid a tourist who stepped off the kerb in order to take a photograph of Oxford’s gleaming spires. When he glanced back he saw the photographer was completely ignorant of what had nearly happened, and it made him think, momentarily, of how a fraction of time has such a compounding effect on the world.
Pushing down on the pedals, he barely slowed as he reached the crossroads, speeding past the King’s Arms and catching both the sound of music and the scent of stale beer.
The Love We Left Behind Page 2