The Story After Us: A heartwarming tale of life and love for modern women everywhere
Page 25
‘Going to be a big old do you’re going to,’ he said. ‘My wife does baking and they’ve ordered five massive apple pies, two peach tarts and a chocolate cake.’
‘Is it all local people?’
‘No. Place turns into a circus this weekend every year. Jane organises what she calls an art festival, but really it’s just a few loony bits of art in the village hall and then her excuse for a big piss up.’
I smiled in the back seat while he went on. ‘I’m not moaning, mind. They need loads of taxis for all the drunks going back to the B&Bs and hotels. Got my son out in the other car and my brother-in-law in his ’cos I’m the only taxi in the village. The wife’s taking the calls – but don’t you worry, I’m bringing you back at midnight. The woman who booked me gave me a big tip too.’
I smiled at Claudia’s efficiency, hoping she was happy, back in the arms of her young MP and over her crush on Ben.
We eventually passed through iron gates and started to climb a gentle hill. I could see a converted barn – only with one giant wall replaced with glass – from which thousands of lights cascaded like a waterfall in the dusk.
‘Wow,’ I said and, through the open windows of the taxi, I heard the babble of people, spilling out of the doorway across the drive.
I climbed out and was glad I hadn’t brought a jacket. It was still around twenty degrees as the yellow ball of the sun started to turn gold. To one side of the giant sheet of glass was another pale stone barn, to the other, meadow poured down a hill.
‘Good luck,’ shouted the cabbie and sped off to collect another member of the circus.
I pushed my way through what looked like a group of artists – the women with long, centre-parted hair, the men with beards – who were crowding the doorway. ‘Maurice’s parties are so decadent,’ one of them was telling another as they swigged glasses of bubbles. The living room stretched the length of the barn: there were huge abstract canvases on the double-height wall; a massive scarlet sofa on the floorboards. A creeper climbed up one wall and came to rest on a balustrade that stretched around the upper floor on two sides.
I’d been imagining this party a little bit like an art opening – warm wine in paper cups, everyone quoting The Guardian. Instead there was a very Eurotrash group to my left; one gorgeous statuesque blonde wearing what I thought was Valentino and drinking Moët straight from the bottle. A group of teens was raucously trying to dance in a corner.
But there was no Ben and I didn’t know where to start to find him – or my hosts. A waiter appeared from the crowd and offered me a tray of drinks that didn’t seem to have a soft option on it. I grasped a glass of champagne and looked around with embarrassment. ‘Do you know where I can find Jane?’ I asked the waiter.
‘Are you looking for me?’ I turned. Jane had wild white-blonde hair sticking out at angles from her pixie-shaped face, a gold smock and colt-like legs in faded blue jeans. She walked towards me with her arms outstretched, looking exactly as I remembered her from all the fuss in the papers.
‘Darling,’ she shouted, as if she’d known me forever. ‘I’m so glad to see you.’
She’d clearly got me muddled up with someone else. ‘I’m Amelia Fitch, Ami,’ I said as Jane hugged me in a waft of Chanel No5. ‘I really hope you don’t mind me coming – Ben invited me.’
‘I thought you must be her,’ shouted back Jane. ‘Ben’s been here all afternoon, going on about you. Now what’s this bollocks about you being just friends?’ By this time, I was being led by the elbow as Jane pushed her way through the throng to a door that led, via a packed kitchen, out onto a huge stone terrace that perched on the top of a tumbling valley.
‘It’s so beautiful,’ I said.
‘It is, isn’t it?’ Jane didn’t bother not to look smug. She carried on steering me through the crowd until she came to a fat, short man holding a giant cigar and a group of guests in stitches. His red face shone with good living; his shirt, pulled tightly over his belly, came from the wardrobe of an unashamed bon viveur.
‘Maurice, this is the gorgeous woman that Ben’s been talking about all afternoon.’ Jane handed me over to her husband. He stopped talking mid-sentence but then immediately started asking me questions in an East End brogue about whether I’d got a drink, travelled here easily and why I wasn’t staying with them, as there was plenty of room.
‘Thanks so much for having me,’ I said. ‘Do you know where Ben is?’
‘I’m here.’ Ben appeared from behind Maurice. ‘I heard what Jane said. You do look gorgeous but I promise you I haven’t been going on about you all afternoon.’
Ben was holding a glass of champagne and wearing very old jeans and a faded red T-shirt with a CND symbol on the front. His big arms stretched the fabric; his feet – like many of those in the group – were bare. There was a grass stain on his left big toe.
‘You can run around in the grass too, later,’ he told me. ‘I’ve had such a great day hanging out here. I haven’t been to this party in ten years but it’s just the same.’
He’d lost some weight, I thought as he kissed me on the cheek – there was just muscle under the old T-shirt and he smelled of barbeque. I wrinkled my nose slightly and he laughed. ‘They’re spit-roasting a pig down there.’ He pointed towards one side of the house. ‘I got the job of sorting it out. I did have a shower though.’
He looked at me more closely. ‘Love that dress. Is it tough at the folks’ place?’
I grimaced. ‘They just keep going on and on about Lars.’
‘At least you can forget about it tonight.’ Ben took my hand. He was warm, as if the sun had supplemented his own body heat. ‘Let’s get you another drink and some of my fantastic pig. They’ve been breeding her just for the party and everyone is going on about how fantastic Henrietta tastes.’
She did taste really good, I agreed half an hour later, replete on a massive pork and apple sauce roll and with another two glasses of champagne inside me. By this time, I was enmeshed in the group on the terrace where Maurice held the stage with outrageous story after story about his days in fashion houses.
‘You’ve never seen so much coke… She had to be sobered up with ten cups of coffee and a cold shower before she could go on the catwalk… He just never got round to designing a collection so we had to cut up the curtains in the studio the night before, pin them on the models and say we were going with a chintz theme. Got better reviews than the real collections…’ He probably wasn’t letting the truth get in the way of a good story, but he was such a fantastic raconteur nobody minded.
After a while a ten-piece funk band started playing soulful tunes that ramped up to very seventies disco; the crowd spilled out from the house and the packed terrace began to move. The Valentino-clad beauty danced barefoot on a bench.
Ben pulled me into the middle of the crowd and we started to dance about two feet from each other. He wasn’t exactly Mick Jagger but he was on the beat and obviously enjoying himself. Occasionally someone came over and he’d shout, ‘Hello,’ and kiss cheeks, but mostly he seemed to love every minute of whooping along to the horns with me. I found myself grinning widely as I danced; I felt free.
We had more drinks when the band had a break. Jane walked around the terrace shouting at people to ‘bloody eat the pudding I’ve bloody cooked for you,’ and Ben sniggered when I told him all the desserts had been provided by the cabbie’s wife.
‘What lovely people,’ I said.
‘Amazing. It was Maurice who said I should go to Milan all those years back.’
The band launched into another set and the party got wilder. At around ten the sun disappeared over the horizon and lights lit up the gold of the barn walls. Stars started to appear in a sky the colour of purple ink. I danced and it was as if I were shaking off my cares and worries forever. Maurice threw me enthusiastically around the terrace but when he looked as if he was about to have a coronary, Ben appeared again at my elbow.
‘You want to go and look at the river?’
he shouted. ‘I need to cool down.’
36
As we slipped down the terrace steps into the long slope of the wild grass, I pulled off my sandals and felt the cold springiness underfoot. Eventually the noise of the band died to just the beat and we walked side by side, Ben carrying a bottle of champagne in his hand, first with the lights of the house to guide us and after that with just the stars and the big round moon.
‘How far does their land go on?’ I asked after we’d walked for five minutes.
‘There’s a little river – more of a stream – and a wood at the bottom.’
I relaxed. There was an hour and a half until I turned into Cinderella and went back to my folks and the children.
A cow moo-ed vehemently from the other side of the valley as we came to a copse of trees and there, in front of us, was the gurgle of the stream, sliding gently downwards and making a natural break.
‘Sit for a bit?’ Ben gestured with the champagne bottle. He disappeared for a moment behind a tree and came back out with an old picnic blanket and what looked like an oil lamp.
‘Where did you get those?’
‘Jane and Maurice keep them in an old box for when they come here. They reminded me this afternoon.’
Such matchmakers. I teased him. ‘They thought you might pull at the party and come down here with someone?’
‘No. I was talking about how beautiful it was here and, well…’ He went silent for a minute. ‘They think I’m keen on you. Anyway, come and sit down and we’ll have a drink.’ He pulled out a match and lit the lamp, which fluttered into life and smelt of the past.
I felt a big stab of disappointment but went and sat on the rug. He didn’t say he wasn’t keen on me. Taking a swig of the champagne, I said, ‘Here’s to friendship, eh?’
There was a pause. I seemed to move slowly towards him, without even knowing why, so I shuffled my arse back on the rug again.
‘It’s a beautiful place,’ Ben said.
There was another pause and I wondered if it felt as long for him as it did for me.
Nothing was going to happen. It mustn’t.
I gabbled on. ‘You should have brought someone else down here with you.’
But then he simply said, ‘For fuck’s sake, Ami, stop it.’
I couldn’t look at him. Did he really just call it? Say it out loud? There was another silence. It was the kind of silence that could have been a million years, covering a couple of formations of new planets, at least one ice age, a range of continental displacements and the extinction of entire animal species.
Or it could have been less than a second.
‘Hey,’ he said next.
And then he moved his hand over mine.
I took a breath at his touch and we both heard it.
‘Look,’ I said, looking straight ahead into the darkness rather than at him – but I didn’t move my hand. ‘There’s no point. I have to think of the kids and… you’re moving back home. We have to work together.’
‘Any other big old reasons you want to list?’ He said it with a sad smile.
I looked at him and stuck out my bottom lip.
He stuck his out back at me and it was impossible not to laugh.
I wanted to forget about being half married and forget about him leaving.
I wanted him to kiss me and I knew he mustn’t.
‘The thing is…’ he went on very seriously now, and he looked not at me but down at the blanket. ‘I think it would be wrong not to tell you before I go how much I like you, Ami.’
Was this really happening? Had I let myself think or hope it might? Of course I had. But it had been really hard work pretending to myself I hadn’t.
He didn’t seem to even be breathing but his hand was big and warm. Mine was shaking.
‘I… I… like you too,’ I whispered. ‘We’re good at being friends…’
‘But we could have been more and we both know that.’ He looked straight at me now in the darkness. ‘Let’s not pretend any more.’
I nodded slowly. I would never know what it might have been like to be more than friends and that hurt more than it should have.
‘I just want you to know how much I would have loved that,’ he went on very gently.
‘I wouldn’t have wanted to be another one of your…’
‘You wouldn’t have been. It would have been different with you,’ he said with the same brutal honesty.
‘What about Claudia?’ Every time he’d left me to go home, I’d imagined he’d been going to her even though he’d said he was going home. I’d just poured myself another glass of wine and convinced myself I didn’t care.
Ben burst out laughing and just for a moment all the tension disappeared. ‘Oh, yes, Claudia. Well, the last thing she said to me was how stupid I was not to be with you.’
I sniffed but with some satisfaction. ‘Really? So you haven’t been…?’
‘There’s been hardly anyone – a one-off with Elizabeth…’ I knew this was his ex-lover and now-friend but I still bristled; she was a fairly spectacular blonde. ‘Ami, if you just knew how hard it’s been not to try to kiss you, all those nights when I took you home or was sitting with you.’
‘Well, why didn’t you?’ I still didn’t move my hand, but I did know that if he’d tried to jump me before now – despite wanting him to quite a lot – I would’ve pushed him off me and told myself I was shocked.
‘Because I promised you I wouldn’t? Because of all the reasons you’ve just said? Because you were so vulnerable and so brave and you haven’t quite split up with your husband and…’
I thought for a few moments about how Lars was pretending that he still had feelings for me, still believed in us – and all that shit about bogus. I knew I should get up and go back to the party but, maybe because of that, I didn’t. Instead I said, ‘But I…’
‘And because I couldn’t risk falling in love with you.’ Ben half-whispered this as if to himself.
Oh, no, but oh, yes. I felt myself move closer to him and rest my chin on his big shoulder. He smelt of dancing now as well as the barbeque and his big hand gripped mine tighter. ‘I couldn’t stand lying to you any more.’ He smiled the big sad grin again.
‘If only it wasn’t so complicated.’ I wanted him very badly to forget about all the reasons why it was complicated.
Ben’s face flickered in the light of the lamp. ‘So, I just wanted to tell you, that’s all. I know I shouldn’t but I’m going back to Italy and… I promise I will never mention it again. It’s been a very special time for me, Ami, hanging out with you.’
‘And for me.’ It felt as if he was going to leave a hole that no one would be able to fill.
‘Look, I shouldn’t have said any of this and I’ve tried very, very hard to leave you alone. You just are bloody gorgeous.’
I smiled and bit my lip. Our eyes met and I felt as if I might just fall into him.
Instead Ben took a deep breath. ‘I wouldn’t have said anything if I hadn’t been drinking and it’s so…’
‘Romantic?’
‘Yes, but we can make it unromantic. Let’s just lie down for a while here, look at the stars in a really unromantic way and then go back to the party.’
Bugger. That wasn’t what he was supposed to say next. I unplugged my hand from his, edged my arse down the blanket and lay down aching with disappointment. The stars looked as if they might tumble from the sky and land around us.
I felt Ben lie down too and he passed me the bottle of champagne and our hands touched again. I could feel his shoulder occasionally rub against mine.
‘I must not seduce Ami Fitch. I must not seduce Ami Fitch,’ Ben muttered to himself.
All I could think about was rolling over and demanding he pull me into his arms and seduce me very thoroughly indeed.
He had to kiss me. He had to.
There was a silence.
‘I’ve got an idea,’ I heard myself say.
‘Go on, then.’
‘That’s a really, really bad idea,’ he told me in the darkness. ‘I want you far too much.’
I took another involuntary breath of excitement. I should really go back to the party. What harm could one kiss do? And I very badly wanted to kiss him. I rolled over slightly and he rolled too so that we were facing each other.
‘One kiss,’ I said, hardly breathing.
‘Stupid idea.’ He shook his head but seemed to come a little bit closer.
‘We would just know what it was like and then we wouldn’t go round wondering all the time.’ Please just bloody kiss me.
‘Do you go round wondering all the time?’
I’d been wondering quite a bit over the last few weeks but pushing the thoughts away as fast as they came.
‘I spend pretty much every waking hour wondering what it’s like to kiss you,’ he told me then and I melted like ice cream left out in the sun. He came closer still until I could feel the warmth of his breath.
‘Listen, Ami, the thing is… I know I shouldn’t do this…’ and then his lips came down on mine and he was pulling me into his arms roughly.
‘Just one kiss,’ I managed but I was kissing him hard back, trying to be as close to him as I could. My back curved up to meet him as he pulled me closer and kissed me as if he were never going to stop. I didn’t know if I ever wanted him to.
‘My God,’ he said eventually into my neck. ‘I wanted you so much, but I didn’t know whether you were going to go back to Lars and… I wanted you to trust me. I upset you in the beginning and then I really started to care about not hurting you. I promise never to hurt you and I promise to…’
‘Oh, kiss me again,’ I pleaded and he did and that was when it seemed as if the washing machine in my stomach would never ever finish the spin cycle.
37
The next morning, I came into my parents’ kitchen to find Tessa, Finn and Dad sitting at the table while Mum fussed around, feeding everyone eggs and bacon.