by Susan Lewis
The gall of him! Feeling her hand itching again, she said, sweetly, ‘To old friends and moving on.’
He seemed to find that amusing, and kept his gaze on hers as he took a sip of his drink. ‘So, I’m an old friend, am I?’ he said. ‘Is that what you’ve told David about me?’
Bristling, as though he had no right even to mention David’s name, she said, ‘What makes you think I’ve told him about you at all?’
He cocked a curious eyebrow. ‘Have you?’
Not wanting to get into his banter, she said briskly, ‘As a matter of fact, I have. He knows you and I were together, on and off – more off than on – for about ten years, and that we’re no longer in touch.’
His frown was baffled. ‘I remember it as more on than off,’ he told her, ‘but hey, that’s me. I was always the more romantic one, whereas you … Well, let’s just say the words commitment-phobe and manic independence spring first to mind.’
‘That was with you, Tony. David’s … Well, David’s …’ She was struggling desperately to come up with something that wouldn’t sound corny.
‘Different?’ he suggested helpfully.
‘He’s certainly different to you.’
He nodded agreeably. ‘Your first true love.’
‘Indeed he was. How do you know that?’
He seemed surprised. ‘Because you told me. Several times, as I recall.’
Flushing slightly, she said, ‘Well, I’m sorry if I repeated myself, but it’s true. David is the big love of my life.’
He shook his head. ‘No, no. First love, I’ll accept, or current, or even last if I have to, but we both know that the real big love of your life was – is, as we’re both still motoring around the mortal coil – yours truly.’
Her jaw dropped as outrage almost rendered her speechless. ‘Well, you really do flatter yourself,’ she said bitingly. If only she could come up with something to really cut him down to size. She probably would – long after this was over.
‘As you, my darling,’ he drawled, ‘are very definitely the big love of mine.’
Having seen that coming, she affected a bored roll of her eyes as she said, ‘Of course, and this would be why you uttered not a single word of protest when I told you it was over between us.’
He looked at her in amazement. ‘What was there left to say?’ he cried helplessly. ‘You wouldn’t marry me, or even live full-time under the same roof as me, and God knows I asked you enough times. I wanted to have children with you, dogs and cats, fairies on the Christmas tree … I wanted everything you did, but you’d never believe me, until in the end I had to let you go, if only for the sake of my own sanity. Do you know how crazy you drive a bloke?’
‘Stop talking like Crocodile Dundee,’ she snapped. ‘And if you were being completely honest you’d admit that the real reason you didn’t try to make me stay was because you were too ashamed to after very cleverly getting yourself locked up for money-laundering.’
He grimaced awkwardly. ‘But it was all a mistake,’ he reminded her. ‘They never even pressed charges.’
‘No doubt because someone bought off the Filipino police.’
‘Not true. The money in question had all been legitimately acquired, which my lawyer was able to prove. Surely you must remember that.’
Though she did, she still wasn’t convinced the affair had been as above board as either he or his very dubious lawyer had managed to make out. Still, what mattered was that he had regained his freedom, and though the incident had proved the final straw for her, she had to admit she still couldn’t be entirely certain she’d have ended up leaving if he’d begged her not to.
‘So what are you doing now?’ she asked, deciding to steer them off those particular rocks. ‘Who’s the unlucky woman these days? I know there’s sure to be one. Actually, the last I heard you were living with a stripper in Singapore.’
He laughed delightedly. ‘Actually, she was an ex-dancer from the Moulin Rouge in Paris,’ he corrected, ‘and we were living in Senegal, but I understand how these things can get mixed up in translation.’
Her expression remained sceptical. ‘So where is she now?’
‘As far as I know, still there. We don’t keep in touch. I always feel that once something’s over, it’s over, don’t you?’
Knowing how much he’d love her to rise to that, she simply ignored it, and turned to the waiter who’d come to take their order.
‘Actually, we haven’t looked yet,’ Tony told him, ‘but I’m sure it won’t take a moment,’ and after making a quick scan of the set-lunch options he ordered for them both and handed the menu back.
‘Did it happen to occur to you that I might have liked to choose for myself?’ she asked as the waiter disappeared.
‘It did, but then I remembered how you used to love it when I was masterful, so I thought, hey, Tone, why not impress her and show her you can still pull it off.’
Drowning a laugh by taking another sip of her drink, she said, ‘So where are you living these days?’
Appearing pleased she’d asked, he said, ‘The Cotswolds.’
She almost choked.
‘And very pleasant it is too,’ he added.
She was shaking her head. ‘No, I’m sorry …’
‘It’s true,’ he insisted. ‘I’m now a very respectable bloke – chap – fellow – whatever you want to call me. Got myself a tidy little pile, I have, not too far from Stroud, and a regular upstanding member of the community I am too.’ His hand went up like a stop sign. ‘Before you say anything smutty, let me remind you you’ve never appreciated coarse jokes, so please don’t be disappointing or embarrassing yourself now over my upstanding member.’
Trying very hard not to laugh, she said, ‘And how exactly did you come by this pile? Actually, don’t tell me, you won it in Vegas.’
He squinted. ‘Not quite. Monte Carlo.’
She regarded him knowingly. ‘And how long, I wonder, before you lose it the same way?’
‘Not going to happen. Like I said, reformed character, pillar of the parish. I’ve even got myself a thriving little business.’
Her eyebrows rose. ‘Doing what, precisely?’
He glowed with pride. ‘You are looking, my sweetheart, at a gen-u-ine dealer of antiquities complete with shop, stock and toffs on tap.’
She blinked. ‘But you don’t know the first thing about antiques.’
‘You know, it’s odd,’ he said, frowning, ‘but I really haven’t found that to be too much of a problem.’
Laughing, in spite of herself, she watched a waiter refill their glasses, and waited until they were alone again to say, ‘Did you really win the “pile” – if it exists – in Vegas?’
‘It exists, and it was Monte Carlo.’
She waited for him to answer the question.
‘All right, I’ll come clean, I inherited it from my old granny.’
With a sigh she said, ‘You know, I might find that easier to believe if you had an old granny.’
His expression was solemn. ‘Well, of course I don’t any more,’ he said. ‘She passed on a couple of years ago, and it turns out her favourite grandson – namely moi – was sole beneficiary.’
She still wasn’t buying it. ‘How come I never knew about this granny?’ she challenged.
‘Even as you ask, I’m trying to puzzle it out,’ he confessed, ‘and my only answer is that a bloke, chap, dude, whatever you want to call me, has to have some secrets, or next thing you know he’ll have lost his mystery. And as we know a chap etc. without mystery is like a chap without cojones. No good to anyone, least of all himself.’ He treated her to one of his more dazzling smiles, then in a way only he could, he moved the subject on by saying, ‘Now, tell me, how’s the lovely Waltzing Matilda? I always adored that woman. Still do, as a matter of fact.’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘For some peculiar reason the feeling was mutual, but happily my mother is over you now.’
He grinned. ‘Which is, hopefully,
more than we can say for you.’
Deciding to ignore him again, she smiled pleasantly at the waiter as he delivered their first course – spring onion and broad bean risotto with pea shoot salad.
‘So,’ Tony said, after approving the first mouthful, ‘you’re going to be a politician’s wife.’
She didn’t bother to answer, since it was neither a question nor any of his business.
‘Is he very much older than you?’
‘Not really, and anyway, it’s none of your business.’
‘My sources tell me,’ he continued, unstoppable as ever, ‘that he’s set for great things. So who knows, we could be seeing you on the doorstep of Number 10 one of these days. What a lucky fellow he’d be, all that power, wealth, fame, the whole nine thousand yards and you. You really would be at the top then, my girl.’
Feeling suddenly angry, and oddly protective of David, she said, ‘As a matter of fact it makes not the slightest bit of difference to me what he does, it’s him I want to be with, not his job.’
Tony appeared surprised. ‘You know, I actually think you mean it.’
As darkly as she could, she said, ‘Of course I do.’
‘So if he wasn’t who he is …’
‘If he gave up politics tomorrow and decided to become a farmer, or a postman, or a … an antiques dealer that would be fine by me.’
‘Just as long as he has shedloads of cash?’
She sat back, furious and offended. ‘Since when did you acquire such a cynical opinion of me?’ she demanded. ‘You know very well that I’ve never been a gold-digger, or a power freak.’
‘This is true. Just a heartbreaker.’
She took a breath, and let her anger out slowly. ‘I won’t bother reminding you,’ she said deliberately, ‘that it actually happened the other way round, and more than once.’
He was shaking his head. ‘Not true, because I have never been anything less than mad about you, Lisa, and unluckily for me, by the sound of it, I don’t think that’s ever going to change. In fact, do you know what my big regret is?’
‘No, and nor do I want to.’
‘It’s that we never had kids, because if we had I swear we’d still be together.’
‘No, what we’d be is constantly fighting over custody rights or maintenance or, more likely, how the hell I managed to let you talk me into it when I should have known that I’d be the one left at home taking care of everything, while you carried on gallivanting around the globe.’
His voice was tender as he said, ‘You always wanted them.’
Swallowing hard on the disappointment that it had never happened, while reminding herself that if it had she probably wouldn’t be with David now, she said, ‘You know, I really don’t want to have this conversation. What happened between us is in the past, and the fact that we seem to have very different views of it now really doesn’t matter. I’ve moved on, and so, I hope, have you.’
He looked chastened. ‘I see. So what you’re saying is, you don’t have any feelings for me at all now?’
‘None whatsoever,’ she confirmed. ‘In fact, I never even think about you.’
He looked crushed.
‘Ever,’ she added.
He put down his fork. ‘So really I might just as well save my breath and leave?’
She waved a hand towards the door. ‘Be my guest – which is not me offering to pay the bill, and if you leave me with it I swear I’ll find your antiques shop and burn it to the ground.’
His eyes came alive again. ‘It might almost be worth it,’ he declared.
Since he wasn’t showing any signs of leaving, she continued to eat, knowing he was watching her, but deliberately not engaging either with him or with the feelings he was triggering inside her, because she knew from long experience how false they could be.
Finally, a waiter came to clear their plates, and by the time their glasses had been topped up the next course was being presented – sautéed fillets of Rye Bay plaice, razor clams, pickled baby carrots and coriander velouté.
‘Delish,’ he commented.
‘Good choice,’ she agreed after tasting it.
After taking another mouthful, he said, ‘Do you know what I’m doing right now?’
In spite of knowing she should not be going along with this, she said, ‘You mean apart from eating?’
‘I’m trying to say I’m happy for you,’ he told her, ‘but I confess, I’m not finding it easy.’
‘Your happiness is not a requirement,’ she assured him, as smoothly as if she meant it, which she did, to a point.
Instead of laughing, as she’d expected, he appeared to consider the comment for a while, then finally nodded.
Rather than allow his contemplation of her life to go any further, she said, ‘Why don’t you try telling me the real reason you’ve tricked me into coming here?’
‘But I already have,’ he reminded her. ‘I don’t believe you’re cut out for marriage – that is, to anyone but me.’
Feeling her temper rising, she said, ‘And you have chosen to acquaint me with your ludicrous delusions now because?’
‘It’s still not too late for you to change your mind.’
At that her fork hit the plate. ‘Listen to me,’ she said hotly, while trying to keep her voice down, ‘I have absolutely no intention of changing my mind either now, or at any time in the future. This is what I want, it’s what David wants too, and in less than six weeks I will be his wife.’
His own fork clinked more gently against his plate. ‘You know, I have a horrible feeling you mean it.’
‘Believe it.’
He nodded for quite a while. ‘So,’ he said in the end, ‘is there any chance of being invited to this wedding?’
Amazed that he’d even want to be, and deeply suspicious of his motives, she said, ‘About as much chance as you winning another pile in Vegas.’
‘Monte Carlo.’
‘Wherever.’ Then because she still, probably insanely, had a fondness for him, and quite possibly always would, she swallowed her anger and used a gentler tone as she said, ‘Please don’t try to spoil this for me. David’s a wonderful man and what we have together is very special … It’s something you and I never managed to find and no matter how long we stayed together we probably never would.’
He spent a moment trying to puzzle it out, but in the end he had to ask.
‘Trust,’ she told him. ‘I don’t think I realised how much it mattered until I finally found it. We never trusted each other, Tony, or I never trusted you. I had no idea where you were half the time, or who you were with, or what ludicrous or borderline scam you might come up with next.’
‘Project,’ he corrected. ‘I’m not keen on the word scam.’
For some reason that made her laugh, and resisting the urge to put her hand on his she said, ‘OK, project – and by the way …’
His eyes came to hers.
‘I lied just now. I do think of you sometimes.’
Though he smiled, it didn’t last long. ‘I’m finding this hard,’ he told her, ‘but I don’t expect you to believe that.’
‘If it’s true, it’ll be because you know you can’t have me any more. No, listen,’ she said, as he made to protest. ‘If I walked away from David now to become Mrs Antique Dealer of the Cotswolds, you know very well that within a matter of weeks you’d be shipping out to Sydney or Sierra Leone or some other hot spot with bizarre-adventure potential.’
He cocked an eyebrow. ‘Try me.’
‘No. Apart from anything else, I’d never do it to David.’
‘That doesn’t sound a good enough reason.’
‘There are others.’
‘So you really do love him?’
She nodded. ‘Really, I do, and be honest with yourself, if you hadn’t found out about him now another three years or more would have gone by before you came looking for me again, and I’m not even sure you would then.’
He sighed and sat back in his chair. �
��Well, you’re wrong about that,’ he told her, ‘because the whole Cotswolds/antique thing was a project to show you that I really can settle down and live a normal life – if it’s what you want, and I’m still not entirely convinced it is. But OK, let’s not go there. It took me a while to get it all up and running, and now,’ he sighed again, ‘seems I’m too damned late.’
Wishing he wasn’t able to pull on her heartstrings quite so effectively, she said, ‘You’ll find someone else. You always do.’
His eyes came to hers, and after a beat, because he was starting to get to her, she had to look away.
More long moments ticked by until at last she said, ‘I think I should probably go now.’
When he didn’t object she replaced her napkin on the table and picked up her bag. ‘I’ll be having words with Brendan about this,’ she said, trying to lighten the moment with an attempt at humour.
‘Don’t be too hard on him,’ he responded, standing up with her. ‘He’s a good guy.’
Coming round the table, he pulled her into a far more tender embrace than he had at the start. ‘If anything should go … Well, if you ever find yourself …’
She knew what he was trying to say and wished he wouldn’t.
‘I have a card these days,’ he finally managed. ‘That’s a first, wouldn’t you say?’
Smiling as he put one in her hand, she said, ‘It was lovely to see you. You know I wish you well, don’t you?’
He nodded, and she couldn’t be sure, but he seemed to swallow a lump in his throat. ‘Listen, I’m sorry about your job,’ he said, ‘but hey, I guess you don’t really need it now anyway.’
She frowned. ‘I’m on a sabbatical,’ she told him.
His eyes stayed on hers for a moment, then seeming to realise he’d put his foot in it, he gave a groan of despair. ‘Brendan said … Oh hell, I don’t know what he said, but I felt sure he’d told you …’
‘Tony, what do you know that I don’t?’
Clearly feeling worse by the second, he said, ‘Apparently, the magazine’s folding at the end of October. With all the Internet stuff and everything now, they can’t afford to keep it going any longer than that.’
‘I see,’ she said, feeling a rush of blood pounding in her head. That it was happening at all was bad enough, that she should be finding out like this … ‘I obviously need to speak to Brendan,’ she said, and quickly assuming a smile to try and cover how shaken she was, she planted a brief kiss on his cheek, and left.