Christmas at Tiffany's

by Karen Swan

  ‘She’s just running her business,’ Henry said appeasingly. ‘It’s not her fault we shot off at dawn and didn’t confirm our plans about leaving. And it’s too late now. I don’t want to have to pay for a room twice tonight, do you?’ Cassie shook her head and looked around. The room seemed smaller than it had yesterday. Henry walked over to the windows and leaned against the frame, one arm above his head. ‘Anyway, it’s fine. I’ll sleep on the floor.’

  Cassie looked at the floor. Bare, unyielding, wooden parquet. ‘You can’t sleep on that.’

  ‘It’s amazing what you can do with a rolled-up towel,’ he smiled, looking back over his shoulder. ‘Just don’t use them all up when you have a bath.’

  Cassie chewed her lip for a few moments. ‘No. No, I can’t let you do that. You can’t sleep on a towel whilst I sleep in that thing,’ she said, pointing to the luxurious bed. ‘It’s massive anyway. There’s plenty of room in it. It’s fine.’

  Henry looked dubious. ‘Honestly, Cass. I sleep in snow holes and hanging from ropes sixty foot up a tree. I’m fine on a towel. I really don’t think—’

  ‘I insist,’ Cassie interrupted. ‘There’s no way I can sleep easy knowing that you’re on the floor.’

  Henry sighed, but her tone was final. She sank on to the edge of the bed and pushed her trainers off with her feet, the laces still tied. She fell back, arms outstretched. A bath really seemed like a good idea, actually. Tiredness was stalking her. The nap on the gondola had been as brief as her night’s sleep – Henry had jogged her awake after a few minutes, telling her that if they were spending £100 for the privilege of starring in thousands of strangers’ photograph albums, the least she could do was be conscious for them.

  ‘I think I might have a bath, actually,’ she said.

  ‘Go ahead,’ Henry said, turning back and walking towards the small escritoire. There were some tourist pamphlets and a map on it. He picked them all up and reached into the bag he’d left on the floor when they’d come in. ‘Fancy a glass of this?’ he asked, holding up the bottle of vino fragolini.

  They had been drinking wine pretty much all day – but what the hell! ‘Oooh yes,’ she said as she went into the bathroom and opened the taps. She retrieved a small travel bottle of Anouk’s Nina Ricci bath oil from her washbag and poured it all in, letting the scent perfume the air.

  There was a light knock at the door and Henry’s hand snaked around, holding a filled glass out to her. She peeped out and watched Henry take his drink over to the balcony and stretch himself over the two chairs, flinging open the map like a commuter reading The Times. Thirty-five minutes later she joined him, the white towelling robe tied tightly around her. He dropped his feet and poured them each another glass as she sat down on the chair, and they both angled their legs up on to the balcony. The signore was lighting the candles on the tables below and the firepit was already flaming, gathering heat.

  ‘According to the guides, Calamari Griglia is supposed to be good, and Spaghetti alle Vongole is a local favourite.’

  ‘I could eat them all,’ Cassie smiled. The sky was turning lilac, silhouetting the last of the day’s pigeons as they flew home to roost for the night.

  ‘I was just looking on this map,’ Henry said with the same shame that men reserve for asking for directions. ‘Figured I’d better try to memorize where north is, at least. But it says Campo San Polo is just over there,’ he said, pointing over the rooftops just to the left of them.

  ‘What happens there?’

  ‘Well, in the summer, you can watch movies sotto le stelle,’ he smiled. ‘Under the stars.’

  ‘Oh wow, how gorgeous. I bet that’s just amazing,’ she sighed, before suddenly exclaiming: ‘Oh! That will have to go on the list, won’t it!’ She picked up the pamphlets he’d left on the floor and started flicking through them.

  ‘That’s what I thought. We could come back and see it then.’

  We? Cassie looked at him. ‘You and Lacey, you mean?’

  There was a short pause as he took a sip of his drink. ‘Yeah. That’s right.’

  ‘She’ll love that,’ Cassie said, holding up a leaflet. ‘And look at that – the Lido di Venezia. It’s the beach where all the locals go. You could take her there too.’

  ‘Mmmm.’ He gave the leaflet only a cursory glance before looking back out across the garden.

  ‘Should I start writing things down?’

  ‘Hmmm?’

  ‘For the list. You don’t want to forget. I mean, whether you’ll ever find Campo Whatsit or that tiny enoteca again is a different matter, especially with your sense of direction,’ she teased. ‘Tch. A map. I don’t know. I feel like my world’s been tipped off its axis.’

  Henry chuckled and Cassie stared at his profile as he followed the sun’s tired trajectory.

  ‘How long did it take you to do my lists?’ she asked, taking a sip of her drink.

  He shrugged. ‘Not that long. I know those cities pretty well.’

  ‘Well, I can’t wait to see London’s.’

  ‘You’re not going to now, remember?’ he reminded her.

  ‘Oh yes,’ she sighed. ‘What a shame. It would almost have been worth going just to see what you’d have dreamed up for me over there.’

  ‘Glad to hear you’ve enjoyed them so much,’ he said, stretching back in the chair. ‘Which were your favourite bits, then?’

  ‘Good question. Let’s see.’ She chewed her bottom lip for a while. ‘Well, in New York it has to be Christmas at Tiffany’s. I don’t think I’ve ever been so excited as when I saw my name on that box!’

  Henry chuckled, clearly delighted.

  ‘But the dinner party was special too, so much greater than the sum of its parts. I think I’ll always remember it . . .’ she murmured, a smile softening her expression as she remembered that night. ‘What made you put it on the list, though? It’s hardly specific to New York.’

  ‘No.’ Henry shrugged. ‘But it just forced you on to the next level of living there. Moving off the surface of things.’

  She raised an eyebrow. ‘So – what? The tasks had meanings attached?’

  Henry gave a small shrug, his eyes set on the horizon. ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Then why did I have to run round the park?’

  ‘It calms the mind,’ he said, looking over at her. ‘And I reckoned yours must have been pretty insane at that particular point in your life.’

  ‘Hmmph, that’s an understatement.’

  ‘Not that I mean to suggest you aren’t still completely insane,’ he laughed, and she reached over to give him a playful slap, almost missing and falling off the chair. The wine and exhaustion were beginning to overtake her, and Henry laughed even harder.

  ‘How about for Paris?’ he asked, helping her back up.

  Her smile brightened instantly. ‘Claude, definitely,’ she nodded. ‘He’s changed my life. But I’ll be honest – I thought you’d put him in as some kind of practical joke when I first met him – like maybe I had to shave him for charity, or get him to say a kind word . . .’

  Henry laughed.

  ‘. . . Ladurée I just adore,’ she said, clasping her hands above her heart.

  ‘Well, you’re friends with my sister for a reason,’ he said, getting up and walking across the room. He pulled the other bottle from his bag. ‘Shall we?’

  She hesitated fractionally. They had ploughed through the first bottle in no time – not to mention the lo spritz at lunch – and it was already going to her head. She needed to eat.

  ‘Don’t you want to keep it? Drink it with Lacey?’

  ‘No. It’ll only get confiscated if I take it through as hand baggage.’

  ‘Oh well, in that case . . .’ She smiled, standing up and holding both their glasses out. From the small canal outside, they heard a gondolier singing. ‘It’s so strange to think that this time yesterday we were in Paris. Now we’re here in Venice.’

  ‘And this time next week I’ll be on an ice break
er in the Bering Sea,’ Henry added. ‘Weird.’

  ‘And then a couple of months after you get back, you’re getting married. Even weirder. I so can’t imagine you as someone’s husband,’ she teased.

  He shifted his weight. ‘Can’t you? Why not?’

  ‘Well . . . I mean you, Henry! All grown up and responsible?’ she laughed. ‘I just can’t imagine you doing the whole pipe and slipper thing. You seem way too young to settle down yet.’

  ‘This from the girl who got married at twenty!’ he shot back, his jaw clenched as he looked at her. She felt the atmosphere change in the room. ‘I’m thirty years old, Cass. I’ve met the girl I want to spend my life with. Why would I wait?’ He looked at her, their easy conversation of moments before now tinged with a sharp edge. ‘Do you think that I haven’t seen the world?’

  She shook her head. The suggestion was ridiculous. ‘Of course not!’

  ‘Do you think that I haven’t played the field, taken advantage of every single one of the opportunities that have come my way, is that it?’

  ‘N-no,’ she stammered. The way he said it suggested there had been many opportunities.

  ‘But you still think of me as the bumbling schoolboy you knew as a teenager?’

  The image of his powerful physique reflected in the mirror flashed across her mind. The idea of him as bumbling almost made her laugh out loud. Almost.

  ‘Of course not,’ she said, shaking her head.

  ‘Then why are you so determined to keep me in that box?’

  ‘I’m not. I mean, I’m . . .’

  ‘Yes. You are,’ he contradicted, his tone brooking no further argument. He walked towards her. ‘For some reason, you have to keep me one step removed all the time – I’m just Suzy’s brother, Kelly’s friend. Have I not proved my friendship to you over the past few months?’

  ‘Of course you have,’ she said hurriedly, taking a step back on to the balcony. ‘You’ve been one of the best. I don’t know what I’d have done without you.’ Her spare hand found the balustrade behind her.

  ‘And yet you always have to pigeonhole me.’ He shook his head and shrugged, advancing all the while. ‘Why is that?’

  Cassie mirrored his body language, shaking her own head. He was close now and she could see his breathing was rapid, his eyes burning at her condescension, fuelled by the wine. He leant forward, placing his hands on the balcony to either side of her. She had to lean back, but he wasn’t deterred.

  ‘I’m no boy, Cass,’ he said, his voice so low she could feel the bass in it vibrate through her body. ‘And I’m no angel, either.’

  His lips were inches from hers, his eyes all over her mouth, and she realized she was holding her breath. Somewhere, a tiny red light was flashing in her brain telling her this was crazy, he was Suzy’s little brother, he was like family to her, he was engaged to the girl of his dreams . . . And yet, standing inches apart, he was suddenly none of those things, and the urge to have him kiss her, to feel his hands upon her body, to mould herself to him, rose up like a wave and she felt instinct override logic, pushing her up slightly so that their bodies touched.

  He dipped his head fractionally at the feel of her beneath him and she wet her lips, almost begging for his kiss; she closed her eyes, feeling like touchpaper, awaiting the single movement that would set her alight.

  But it didn’t come. She felt the radiant heat cool and she opened her eyes. The lust in his eyes matched hers, but he was backing away from her as if she was dangerous, his chest heaving as if he’d just run up the stairs.

  And then he turned and marched across the room in four strides and grabbed his jumper from the pile on the floor.

  ‘H-Henry,’ she stammered. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Out!’ he said without looking back, and closed the door smartly behind him.

  Cassie winced at the loud slam, her breath catching as she heard his footsteps pounding down the marble stairs three at a time. She turned and saw him tear out of the courtyard beneath her, flinging open the gate angrily.

  ‘Henry!’ she cried out, but he didn’t stop or come back. He didn’t even look up.

  He just seemed to want to get away from her as quickly as possible.

  The clock read 3.43 when she felt the mattress dip behind her and Henry’s body-heat gradually emanate across the white-sheeted expanse to her side of the bed. She had slept fitfully, dreaming too vividly, her brain feverish and revving too hard. She had got up at midnight to get a glass of water and had seen his side of the vast bed still cold and smooth. Where was he?

  He wriggled into a comfortable position and she felt her heart punching against her ribs at his closeness, wondering whether he could feel it through the mattress, vibrating through the coils to where he lay. She shifted position slightly.

  ‘Cass?’ His voice was quiet and low – but even in that one word she could hear the slur of sambucas – and she heard his hair rustle against the pillow as he turned his head.

  She froze. She knew he was going to apologize to her; he was that kind of man. It had been ungentlemanly to slam a door in her face, to leave her abandoned in a foreign city, to have advanced upon her like a lover when she was just an old friend, to have made her want him and then left her hanging . . .

  His apology would cover all those things, she knew, though they’d both leave the specifics unsaid. But she didn’t want it now. Not here, lying in the dark together, the smell of him covering her though his hands wouldn’t.

  He turned over fully and she could literally feel the weight of his stare. She wondered whether he could tell she was feigning sleep. She struggled to keep her breathing slow and steady, but it was tricky with her heart pounding like a jack-hammer. A deafening silence stretched between them in the blackness. She heard him place his hand on the sheet behind her, and she could feel it glowing like an ember between them.

  ‘There’s no wedding. We called it off,’ he said quietly.

  The news jolted her. It echoed through her like a slap, stinging and hot, but she willed her body not to flinch or start, not to betray her to him. Because if she turned around now . . .

  ‘Cass? Did you hear what I said?’

  He waited for a response – anything at all – but she kept up her pretence, playing dead, and after a minute or two he gave a weary sigh and turned away from her. She listened for the sound of his breathing to change, and within moments he succumbed to a deep, inebriated sleep.

  She lay next to him like a piece of driftwood – far from home, wooden and washed out – with just one thing running over and over through her mind. If there was no wedding or honeymoon, then what were they doing here?

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  When he awoke, she was already dressed and sitting at a table downstairs, drinking a cappuccino and nibbling on a cornetto whilst her mobile phone charged up at reception. She had resolved to continue as though nothing had happened between them on the balcony, and, more importantly, as though she hadn’t heard a thing he’d said – after all, she’d pretended to be asleep and she couldn’t very well bring it up now.

  Not that she needed to worry about keeping up a pretence. One look at his face in the doorway – puffy and pale – told her his hangover was fairly monumental. He probably didn’t even remember telling her the wedding was off. There again, it occurred to her, maybe . . . maybe it had all been a joke, a drunken lie? Maybe his resolve to stay faithful to Lacey had weakened with the drink, and the prospect of coming back to a sure thing was too much for him to resist. One last hurrah. After all, he was about to spend the next two months in the Arctic, and hadn’t he said himself that he was no angel?

  She stared at him as his bleary eyes sought her out in the empty room. She had no idea what the truth was. Everything he did and said was a riddle.

  She smiled politely as he sat down, determined to recover the dignity she’d lost last night. ‘Good night?’

  Henry arched one eyebrow at her to see whether she was being sarcastic, but s
he gave nothing away.

  ‘Not really,’ he mumbled, wincing from the effort. ‘Bad idea.’

  Cassie said nothing, just looked out into the garden. A gardener was out there, pruning some bougainvilleas.

  ‘How about you?’

  ‘Me?’ She picked up her coffee cup, trying to look nonchalant. ‘Oh, I just had an early night.’

  He gave a small painful nod. ‘Did you get anything to eat?’

  She shook her head, almost offended by the question. As if she could have eaten. ‘I wasn’t that hungry.’

  ‘Ah.’

  A pretty young waitress came up, her dark hair tied back in a long ponytail, her pink dress straining slightly over the hips, and handed Henry a menu, her eyes sweeping over his lightly as she did so.

  Cassie felt herself prickle. This was obviously one example of the many opportunities that Henry had been talking about.

  ‘Is my phone ready?’ she asked the girl, her voice tight with irritation.

  The girl looked at her, a languid arrogance in her eyes. ‘I shall check.’ She smiled, giving Henry another glance before walking back to the reception desk, deliberately swinging her hips.

  ‘Ugh, I can’t believe I’ve done this,’ Henry said, pushing his knuckles to his temples. ‘Cass, I’m so sorry.’

  He looked up at her but it was impossible to tell what he was apologizing for. Last night? Or the hangover? He clearly wasn’t in any fit state to go sightseeing.

  ‘Maybe you should go back to bed,’ Cassie said, watching him. ‘I can go out and do some sightseeing on my own. I’m sure I’ll be able to find some good things for your honeymoon list.’ She watched Henry’s reaction as she said this, but from the grimacing and gurning he was doing, it was hard to tell anything other than that his head was about to fall off.

  The girl came back with her phone. ‘Full charge,’ she said, putting it down on the table.

  ‘Thanks,’ Cassie said, not looking at her as she picked it up.

  ‘Could I possibly have bacon and sausages and eggs?’ Henry asked. ‘I know it’s not on the menu, but . . .’ He managed a smile.