Years After You

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Years After You Page 7

by Woolf, Emma


  “Come back to bed.”

  “We don’t have time!” Lily disappeared into the kitchen and reappeared with two mugs. “Here, coffee.” She set one of the mugs on the bedside table and leaned down to kiss him. “How are you feeling this morning?”

  “I feel great.” Yet again, Harry had rung on a Sunday afternoon in a bad way; he’d argued with Pippa again, and he was heading into London—could they meet for dinner? Could he stay over? “I feel fantastic now. I don’t think I’ve slept so well in months. Just being here with you—it’s magical. This place—we were right to buy it, Lily . . .”

  Her throat tightened, and she got up from the bed. “Come on, we’re going to be late, we have the acquisitions committee at nine a.m. I’m presenting and I haven’t even finished my notes. You need to get in the shower now.” She tried to keep her voice light.

  Harry groaned, threw back the duvet, and headed for the bathroom. Lily stood in front of her wardrobe, her calm morning mood completely shattered. We were right to buy it—had he just said “we”? Every time Harry stayed over, he went on about how good it felt to be there with her, how much he loved the new flat. And now he’d just said “we,” as if it was their flat, as if she needed reminding that she owed him a quarter of the price—or rather, since he didn’t want her to repay him, he owned a quarter of her flat?

  It made her feel panicky, as if she was involved in his family finances, as if somehow she’d been dragged into his marital affairs. Of course it wasn’t logical—even though she couldn’t talk it through with Cassie, she knew it wasn’t logical—but every time Harry said “we” it made her think of his wife. She imagined this woman might find something out, a bank statement, land registry, mortgage documents, something like that. It filled her with insecurity. Could the woman turn up and demand a quarter of the flat’s value back? Could she sue her or get her thrown out? Lily didn’t know where this anxiety came from.

  Stop it, she told herself. You love this man, and it does feel good being here together. She had to trust him. When he says “we” it means the two of us. They’d had a lovely evening, ordering Thai food from a local restaurant, then Harry had wired up some fancy Sonos speaker system he’d bought her and they listened to old music.

  There were so many contradictions in her feelings around him: fear that she was getting in too deep, that this love would hurt them both terribly in the end; anger that she was his secret refuge from his wife; guilt that she was destroying his family; and anxiety that he was going off the rails. Not just the drink, but drugs too—when he arrived yesterday afternoon she was pretty sure . . .

  “OK, I’m ready!” Harry stood in the doorway, transformed from the sleepy, troubled man of a few minutes ago to the strong, handsome strategic director she had first fallen in love with. “Lucky I left some fresh shirts here.” He took out his phone. “Will you be ready for an Uber in, say, five minutes?”

  “Harry, no, I get the bus to work, and we probably shouldn’t arrive together . . .”

  “Don’t be silly. We both need to work on our notes and we’re running late. Anyway I’m not leaving you to wait for public transport while I get a cab. We’ll get them to drop us around the corner from the office.” He fiddled with the app on his phone, then came over to kiss Lily. “Good morning. I’m looking forward to your presentation, Miss de Jongh.”

  She laughed and pushed him away. “If I’m too tired to think straight, I’ll know who to blame! Come on, I’ll do my make-up in the cab.”

  Suddenly it was all OK again. This was the Harry she loved. In control, capable, making decisions and looking after her. Lily fastened the last button on her silk shirt, and they headed for the door.

  “I have no right. I know that, I have absolutely no fucking right to ask her who she’s seeing, where do they go, what does she mean by ‘friend,’ is she sleeping with him . . .”

  “It seems to be causing you significant stress,” Dr. Christos observed.

  “Stress? Yeah, and anger and outrage—I can’t help it, I’ve never felt this jealous before.”

  “What actually happened?”

  “Oh, nothing. She mentioned she’d bumped into an old boyfriend, they went for coffee on Hampstead Heath. That was it, as far as I know, and she says she hasn’t seen him since. But I swear it makes me furious. I wanted to find this guy and ask him—I don’t know, just look him in the eye and ask him what he wants from Lily—I guess he’s only after one thing.” Harry stopped, aware how unhinged he was sounding.

  “Before the Christmas break, we discussed the possibility of you spending more time at home. Perhaps not going into London over the holidays?”

  “That was a failure. The first few days I was at home with Pippa, but the boys were hardly there. I thought I’d go mad if I didn’t see Lily. The more I told myself I couldn’t, the worse the situation with Pippa got. We just . . . There was nothing to say to each other.”

  He continued. “Anyway, I started thinking more and more about what Lily might be doing, who she was spending her time with. We had to stay with Pippa’s family, but then when we got home, I was drinking a lot, and it became a sort of obsession. To cut a long story short, I started spying on her.

  “The first day back, I went to the pub on the corner of England’s Lane—she never goes there—I got a double whisky and sat in the window, with a clear view of her flat opposite. It was nearly four by this time, already dark. About fifteen minutes after I got there, a dark-haired man walked up to the front door. He rang the bell, and a few minutes later, the old lady emerged, the one who owns the rest of the house. She gave the young man a hug for a long time, and then I saw Lily coming down the stairs behind them.

  “Lily was wearing a sort of sparkly Christmas dress and high heels, she looked fantastic.” Harry’s face was etched with pain. “I’m not sure, I couldn’t see clearly, but . . .”

  “Did she know this man?”

  Harry sighed. “I got the impression he was a friend of the old woman’s, maybe a nephew or something, and she was introducing him to Lily. Who knows? But why was Lily all dressed up like that for someone she didn’t know?”

  “As an outsider, it sounds perfectly innocent. Festive drinks, perhaps, or a family party.”

  “You’re right. It could have been a party—there were lots of cars parked on the driveway and the ground floor was all lit up. But I wasn’t thinking straight: seeing Lily in that doorway, so near to me, smiling at another man . . .”

  “And what did you do?” Dr. Christos asked.

  “I wanted to hurt the guy, whoever he was, but I didn’t do anything. Just stayed in the pub for hours, drinking alone, then I went and bought some coke and did a lot, walking around London, in and out of pubs. I got home very late and had an almighty row with Pippa.” Harry made eye contact with his psychiatrist for the first time. “That’s why I had to see her over the holidays, it felt as though she was slipping away from me. I had to see her to make sure . . .”

  Dr. Christos took a deep breath. “I wonder if this is overstepping the mark,” he said quietly.

  “What, the drink and drugs?”

  “No. I mean waiting for her, watching . . .”

  Harry nodded. “It is, isn’t it? I know I have no right to do that. I have no right to ask her who that man is, or any man. I’m the one who’s married. Some nights lately I’ve come so close to going round there, maybe just standing in her street, checking on her; I even thought about reading her emails—I could do that through the work server—or putting some spyware on her phone, for God’s sake.”

  Dr. Christos raised a hand. “We’re out of time. But I should say, this concerns me.” He paused, choosing his words carefully. “This kind of behaviour could be construed as—well, intercepting someone’s personal communications is a serious . . .”

  “Look, I won’t,” Harry said. “I know it’s illegal and I won’t. It was just a moment of madness, it’s been a rough few months, and it’s har
d, with Lily, never knowing where I am. Because she’s so much younger, I imagine her living this wild, promiscuous life, even though she tells me she loves me, and I believe her when she says it . . . But I know, this has to stop. I’m going to take her somewhere next month. The boys and Pippa are going away with her sister for the February half-term. We just need some time alone.”

  It was their last day in Saint Lucia, and they were having breakfast on the hotel terrace. Lily came back from the buffet, a plate piled high with fruit and a bowl of natural yoghurt balanced on top. Harry waited for her to sit down, smiled at her, and began eating his scrambled egg and toast.

  “Mmm, the juice is good today.” Lily took a gulp and gestured towards his glass. “I think it’s mango. Or maybe papaya?” They had devoted much time over the previous fortnight to the various merits of the island’s tropical fruit juices (mostly mixed with rum).

  “Mango, definitely,” Harry said. “So, what’s the plan for today? Shall we go and visit the sulphurous springs, explore the banana plantations, drive around the island, or what?”

  “Or what?” Lily said, smiling. “Or lie on the beach, you mean? Let’s see . . . our flight isn’t till ten this evening, so we’ve got all day. Maybe some swimming and sunbathing, and then after lunch, we could see if we feel like being active?”

  The likelihood was almost zero, they both knew that. It had been two weeks of doing pretty much nothing except lying on the beach and reading. The hotel was situated on the west coast of the island, in between Saint Lucia’s iconic peaks, Gros Piton and Petit Piton, and the guest rooms were actually separate bungalows and villas scattered across the valley, nestled into the jungle. These small villas offered absolute privacy, which was exactly what they wanted.

  Being alone like this was a novelty for Lily and Harry. They were used to London life: emails, meetings, trains, and office politics. The change of pace in the Caribbean had taken a few days to get used to. Now that they were winding down, the prospect of returning to the rain and rush hour was far from appealing. And then the other problems, the lies and deception, which awaited them back home. Out here, they managed to escape all that. The hotel was so exclusive that no one seemed curious about Harry and Lily, no one stared or whispered. It wasn’t until they got away from London that they realised how nice it was to be left alone like any other couple, to be anonymous and unobserved.

  Lily in particular felt the strain at work. Harry was so senior (and bloody-minded) that he’d never much cared what anyone thought of him. For Lily it was different—when she first joined HEP she’d been part of the gang. They were all in their twenties, working in editorial, production, and design; they went to the pub every Friday after work, some lunchtimes too. They discussed jobs and relationships and flatshares and, of course, their bosses. Gradually, the others began to notice that she and Harry were spending more time together. They weren’t overt, but they didn’t hide it either, and when they came in from the park together, or an author lunch, or were spotted in Pret A Manger eating sandwiches (the scandal!), people started to talk.

  Months before anything physical actually happened between Harry and Lily, their colleagues had put two and two together and made five. According to the office grapevine, they were torridly, passionately in love. Which meant, of course, that they acted differently around Lily, as if she were a spy planted in their midst to gather secret information and report back up the food chain. They weren’t unfriendly, just wary: they no longer bitched about their jobs or their salaries or their managers when Lily was around. Everything at work changed for her once it was decided she was sleeping with the enemy.

  Since they got together, Lily had been spending most of her free time with Harry anyway. Even though she told herself that the situation at the office didn’t matter, it was a strain. She hated being watched and gossiped about, and she felt frozen out by her contemporaries.

  Harry’s contemporaries found out too. The other directors and the Managing Director, Colin were aghast when the news of their strategic director’s love affair filtered out. They liked Harry’s wife and family, and they regretted this entanglement with a younger member of staff. What would Harry be telling Lily in those intimate, unguarded moments; how could they trust him to maintain professional confidentiality? They felt that he was blurring the boundaries between “them” and “us” in a dangerous way.

  However, Harry coped—and Lily knew that he brushed it off when the other directors raised it with him—but she did not enjoy the notoriety. Being away from it all was immensely liberating for both of them. And Saint Lucia was very far away.

  By the time Lily and Harry finished eating breakfast and reading the papers, it was nearly ten a.m. They wandered down through the landscaped gardens towards the beach. The sun was already high in the sky and the heat of the day had begun to gather. It drove away the morning chill and dried the dew on the huge waxy leaves of the tropical plants.

  On their way down the tiered hotel terraces, they passed an open-air courtyard where a huge chessboard had been painted on the flagstones. Every chess piece was human-sized, and Harry took a photo of Lily grinning between the black bishop and the white queen. Down at the shore, the beach was already filling up with other guests, a few jogging along the sand, others chatting over coffee. Not far away, the morning aqua-aerobics class was taking place in the shallows.

  “There you go.” Lily waved at the mature ladies in their swimming costumes bending and stretching underwater. “That’s what we should be doing. Some exercise!”

  Harry, already lying face-down on the sun lounger, murmured in reply, “Definitely . . . exercise later on, I agree . . .”

  Lily lay back, feeling the sun warm her face. The sun loungers were huge and soft, swathed in the hotel’s monogrammed white towels. “This is heaven,” she said quietly. “I could lie here forever.”

  Harry turned to face her, then leaned over and dropped a kiss on her shoulder. “So why are we going home?” He sat up. “I’ve got an idea, Lily. Let’s not. Let’s never go home.”

  She felt herself tense. Why did he keep doing this? They were having a wonderful time, they had regained the intimacy and trust which seemed to have been lost over the Christmas holidays. Lily was enjoying the moment and not thinking ahead. Then Harry would bring up these impossible questions about the future—how they could be together, what he should say to his wife, when he might leave—and Lily tensed up. She adored him with every fibre of her being. But how could she live with herself if she wrecked another woman’s marriage? She wanted Harry all to herself, but to get that she would have to let him walk out on his family. So she went quiet, or changed the subject.

  After lunch on that final day, they swam, then went back to the villa, made love, and slept. When they woke, the villa was quiet, and they lay in each other’s arms, in silence, under the cool air of the ceiling fan. It was time to pack.

  Harry had arranged a surprise for their departure. Lily had expected they would wait in reception for the hotel’s four-by-four Jeep to take them back to the airport the way they had come: a long and jolting drive over the island’s rutted tracks and potholed roads. Instead, Harry had arranged for a helicopter transfer from the hotel to the airport.

  It was eight p.m. and darkness had fallen on the beach. Their luggage was loaded up, and then Harry and Lily ran across the helipad flooded with fluorescent light. The whirring helicopter blades seemed dangerously close above their heads, close enough to touch, and they climbed on board, filled with exhilaration. They were the only passengers flying so late at night, so they buckled themselves into the front seats next to the pilot.

  They were used to planes and runways, the gradual gathering of momentum and velocity, but flying in a helicopter was completely different. Taking off, it just lifted straight into the air. Apart from the steel roof and floor, it was plate glass all around, so they felt as if they were floating through the night sky. The pilot made sweeping, swooping turns around t
he valley and between the two great pitons, pointing out the banana plantations far below. As they banked sharply and passed over their hotel for the last time, Lily and Harry gazed in silence at the dotted lights of the beach bar, the swimming pool illuminated against the dense greenness of the gardens, the tiny bungalows scattered in the dark forest.

  Somewhere above the rainforest, Harry turned to Lily and stroked her cheek. “Thank you for this.” His voice was barely audible over the roar of the engine.

  “Thank you?” Lily said. “There’s nothing to thank me for! You arranged everything, it’s been the most amazing holiday of my life.”

  Harry didn’t smile. “I mean it, Lily. Please remember. Whatever happens, we had this time together.”

  Lily caught something defeated in his tone, something final and frightening. In the darkness of the cockpit, she saw that he had tears in his eyes.

  * * *

  In the end, it was easy. I didn’t need to go looking for the lies or the proof. Everything fell into my lap.

  Rewind a few months: my trip to Florida in February with the boys. I haven’t updated the blog since then because . . . well, because of what I found out. A few of you left comments asking if I was OK, and I’m grateful—even though I write this anonymously, it still feels like having real friends. I don’t know how I got so isolated here, and your support helps a lot.

  So, Florida. Harry drove us to the airport and was helping the boys put our luggage through the self check-in. An hour or so later, after he’d gone, we were having breakfast and waiting for our gate number. I got a call from Harry’s number—except it wasn’t him. A man explained that he’d found this smartphone somewhere in the terminal and was ringing the most recently called numbers to try to locate its owner. Harry must have dropped his phone there or on his way back to the car park. The man was nearby, so we met outside the duty-free shop, and he handed it over.

  At that point, our gate was boarding, and obviously I couldn’t call Harry to let him know I had his phone. So I left for our fortnight in Florida with my husband’s smartphone—which doesn’t have a password, surprisingly—and made quite a few discoveries.

 

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