New Beginnings at the Chatsfield

by Fiona Harper

I shake my head and call myself a fool.

  As stupid as this is, I can’t leave him there. Another indicator that maybe Gareth and I weren’t as compatible as I’d thought.

  And while I’m not going to pin Cristian down to the dinner table and have hot steamy sex with him in front of a restaurant full of shocked customers, thinking of Gareth makes me realise that having dinner with a nice man who actually wants to spend time in my company isn’t such a horrible idea after all. Maybe it’ll be good for me.

  The decision comes to rest inside me. For the first time in more than a week—apart from those timeless moments on the dance floor last night—I felt a sense of peace.

  The lift doors whoosh open mere moments later. He’s there, standing near the bottom of the stairs, slightly turned away from me. As the doors slide closed again behind me, cutting off my escape route, he turns and smiles.

  I feel something warm and jittery inside. The memory of the music from last night washes over me, so clear I can almost believe it’s playing from secret speakers in a pot plant nearby. I remember how warm and solid he felt against me, how I let go of everything and just trusted him. How I hadn’t been either sad or afraid. Would it be wrong to dance with him now…just dance our way out of the lobby and down the road, through the parks of London and out of the city, in a tango that would never end?

  Clearly, the insanity thing is getting worse.

  I smile back at him. A tiny nerve in the corner of my cheek spoils the effect.

  He doesn’t seem to notice, though, and his smile grows wider, brighter. I realise he is much more handsome than I first gave him credit for.

  ‘You came,’ he says.

  ‘I did,’ I reply, and leave it at that. I can’t even explain my presence here to myself.

  He holds out his hand and I look at it, a silky feeling of déjà vu creeping over me. I don’t hesitate this time, though. I don’t argue and try to escape. Instead I slide my fingers past his until we are joined, and then we walk out of the revolving door into the soft golden light of a London summer’s evening.

  Chapter Six

  We eat dinner in a little Italian restaurant tucked down a side street in Kensington. The decor is dated, the space a little cramped, but the staff are welcoming and knowledgeable and my linguine gambari is amazing.

  I look across the table at my companion and realise he is a rare sort of man. Cristian is not like Gareth. He is not interested in impressing me with the price tag of a luxurious meal; he merely wants me to enjoy the good food and even better wine. We talk easily. I find myself smiling, laughing even. It feels strange—alien—but good.

  ‘So,’ I say as I try and scoop up the last of my spicy tomato sauce with my remaining prawn, ‘where are you off to next after London? France? Italy? Australia?’

  He puts his fork down and looks at me. ‘I am going home.’

  I nod. Somehow I understand this is significant. Not the fact that he’s going back to Argentina, but that this trip is different. ‘When?’ I ask, then busy myself with arranging my cutlery on my empty plate.

  ‘Tomorrow.’

  I look up quickly, see the regret in his eyes. I wonder if he experienced the same stab of cold I did at his reply.

  ‘I’ve been raising the finance to buy back the vineyard my family once owned. I’m going back to Mendoza to finalise the deal.’

  I leave my knife and fork alone, look up and smile softly at him. ‘That’s marvellous. I mean, I know that I don’t know you…not really…but somehow I can tell you’re going to make amazing wines.’

  I see the smile in his eyes. I want to smile back, grin so wide it feels as if my mouth can’t stretch enough to accommodate it, but I don’t. I look at the half empty wine bottle on the table between us. ‘What’s the name of your vineyard?’

  ‘Why?’

  I shrug. ‘Because I want to look out for it. Maybe I’ll find a bottle of your wine one day and I will think of you.’ My words have made me sad, even though I know that is all the future connection I could ever hope to have with this man.

  ‘Then I hope you will enjoy it.’ His voice is as rich and warm as the Shiraz we’ve just drunk. I can feel him looking steadily at me. ‘But it will be a long time, and it will take a lot of dedication and hard work before that moment arrives.’

  My face stays tilted down, but my eyes look up. ‘You won’t be coming back to London again?’

  ‘I will come to visit Tomas and Felicity at some point in the future, but I will not be in London as frequently as before, no.’

  He smiles again, but this time it is tinged with sadness. Neither of us say anything for a while and then he breathes in sharply, as if being woken from a dream, and looks into my eyes. ‘I wish I could stay longer.’

  His words tug at something deep inside me.

  ‘I do too,’ I reply, even though I know how insane this is.

  He reaches out across the table and laces his fingers between mine. We both stare at our intertwined hands. It feels as if we’ve just made an important statement. I want to cry, but at the same time warmth rushes through me, making me feel giddy.

  Cristian looks at the large clock on the far wall of the restaurant, above the bar, and then back at me. ‘We have tonight.’

  I nod. We do. A perfect bubble of time.

  We begin to talk again. It is as if we were back on the dance floor. Our conversation was going along one way, but we have paused, taken a turn, and now it heads off in a new, brighter direction. We discuss music and film, food and wine, politics and religion. Finally, a surly waitress slaps a dessert menu down on the table and coughs.

  We are the last people left in the restaurant. Cristian and I look at each other, as if sharing a secret, then we smile and shake our heads. It’s only as he pulls away to reach for his wallet that I notice we’ve been holding hands the whole time.

  Oh, Lord, I think, as we break eye contact so he can pay the bill. What am I doing? I really don’t know. All I know is that I’ve been feeling so empty, so sucked dry by life, that now this oasis moment is here I can’t stop drinking of it.

  We leave the restaurant. It’s late. People are spilling out of the pubs and heading to the clubs. All week I’ve found the city nights warm and dusty, but now the light breeze tickles the hairs on my arms and the bright lights make the humid evening seem full of possibilities.

  We walk without talking, making our way slowly through the bodies lining the streets. We haven’t touched again since we let go of each other at the restaurant, but I still feel as if we’re connected.

  I forget. Just forget.

  I forget the trauma that has brought me here, the events that have led me to this night, to this man. I just enjoy the strength of his silent presence as he walks next to me through the crowds. He was my first proper dance partner, and I still have that sense that we’re a unit of two amongst all the other bodies, communicating wordlessly, always in synch. I let out a deep and lengthy sigh. It feels as if I’d been holding it in ever since I stepped into my wedding dress last week.

  My phone buzzes in my bag and I absent-mindedly take it out, a slight smile curving my lips. But when I see who the message is from I stop smiling. In fact, I stop altogether.

  Cristian has walked on a few steps, not noticing. Someone bumps into the back of me. Suddenly all the heat and claustrophobia and noise of the city at night comes rushing back in.

  We need to talk. G x

  I close my eyes, hoping the mirage of a text will have disappeared again when I open them, but it doesn’t.

  Now? Seriously? After all this time with nothing?

  This is when Gareth finally decides to man up enough to contact me, when I have found one moment—one brief moment—to forget what he did to me? And with a text too! Not even a phone call! Really, he ought to be outside my hotel room on his knees, begging me for forgiveness.

  And that careless little kiss at the end of the message…

  I feel as if I could burst into flames on the
spot, as if I could turn and punch one of these faceless people jostling round me, just because they have the nerve to be here when he is not.

  ‘Sophie? Are you okay?’

  Cristian’s voice is warm and full of concern, pulling me back from the brink. I shake myself and look up. He rests his hand lightly on my shoulder. His eyes are questioning. They dart momentarily towards my phone and then back to my face. I breathe in and tuck it quickly back in my bag.

  I want to believe this man cares, I realise, but I really don’t know him. And I’ve already proved that I’m too trusting, that I don’t scratch far enough below the surface in men to see what’s really there.

  ‘I’m tired,’ I say, and I’m telling the truth. ‘I think it’s time we went back to the hotel.’

  Chapter Seven

  We walk in silence. I don’t look at Cristian. I’m too scared to. On the dance floor I agreed to trust him completely, and I fear he can now tell I have reneged on the deal. My brain tells me I’ve done the sensible thing, while my heart yells ‘Traitor!’.

  But when we’re safely inside the revolving door of The Chatsfield, preparing to go our different ways, I realise he has been my one bright moment in the week from hell. Maybe I’m weak, but I don’t want to let go of that yet. I don’t want to go back to the darkness that pulls itself over me like a blanket, thick and suffocating.

  He stops in the middle of the lobby and I take a breath, turn to him.

  ‘Would you like to come up for a drink…a nightcap?’

  I know my voice wobbles and he hears it too, gives me a questioning look. ‘A nightcap?’ he asks, a slight frown creasing his features.

  I nod. ‘You know…brandy or something. I’m sure there’s something like that in the suite…’

  We look at each other. I know what he’s thinking. He’s wondering if I mean just a drink. So am I. But this doesn’t feel like one of those tingly moments, hot and heady, the sort where a girl gets carried away. I just feel…desperate. I look at him, begging him to understand. He must know how this feels. I’ve seen it in his eyes. He knows the loneliness, knows that someone would do anything to escape it, just for a moment.

  He steps forward, reaches up to touch my cheek so gently. ‘Yes, Sophie. I will come for a nightcap. I will keep you company, if that is what you want.’

  I hold back a sniff and nod vigorously. How does this man, whom I’ve known for less than twenty-four hours, who is so different from me and my safe Sussex village lifestyle, read me better than Gareth did after six years? It must be a dream, something I’ve conjured up in my sleep from too much wishful thinking. I’ll wake in a moment, drenched in sweat, heart pounding, distant sirens wailing through the quiet London streets.

  He reaches down for my hand and we head for the lifts. I feel the warmth of his fingers between mine as we travel up to my floor and I let out a sigh. I’m safe. For the moment.

  When we get to the suite it is empty, just as Mel and Vikki said it would be. They must be really serious about this wild, sexy fling idea. I almost laugh but then I realise that I’m actually bringing a man, a stranger—although he doesn’t feel that way—back to my hotel room. Reality lurches again. This can’t be real, can it? Cristian can’t be real.

  But his body feels warm behind mine as I fumble with the key card in the lock more than once. His hands are solid and real as he gently takes it from me and then the little green light flashes and we are walking into the suite. I’m quite relieved it’s got a living room, I discover, that we’re not just walking in and seeing a great big empty bed taunting us.

  I go to the little bar across the room without looking back at him over my shoulder. I find a bottle of something amber-coloured and reach for it and two large tumblers. With shaky fingers I pour a little too much into each glass and then I turn and walk over to him, hand it to him. For some reason I feel the need to smile at him brightly, but it feels papery and thin on my features. He gives me a What are you doing? look.

  I can’t tell him, because I don’t know. I just know I don’t know how to do this. Whatever it is.

  If this were a book or a film, I’d have that fling. Right now on the expensive Persian rug beneath our feet. The perfect rude gesture to Gareth for his cowardice, for his bloody awful timing. For that stupid little ‘x’ at the end of his text.

  If this were a story, I’d wake up tomorrow morning and feel liberated and free, as if everything Gareth has done to me has been washed away, and I’d step out into my bright, shining future. Only, as I stare at the man standing a few feet away, his eyes dark and full of unspoken emotion, I realise that real life is far more complicated than that.

  I breathe out. My chest deflates and suddenly I feel very tired.

  I walk over to Cristian. I take the glass from his hand and put it on the coffee table, and then I place my hands on his chest, I look into his eyes and then I lay my head on his shoulder. For a moment he is deathly still, but then his arms fold round me, he breathes out a word in Spanish that I don’t understand and I feel his face on my neck as he pulls me closer.

  It’s as if we’re dancing again, but this time there are no lights, no music, not even any movement. Just this wonderful stillness that soothes something deep down inside of me. Slowly I begin to relax, feeling the slight roughness of his suit jacket against the skin of my face, the seams and folds of a pocket under the fingers of my right hand, the smell of him—warm and sharp and hypnotising. I lose all track of time, all awareness of anything but these immediate sensations. I could be anywhere. It could be any time of day. I don’t care, because I am holding onto him and he is holding onto me and that is all that matters.

  For the first time in ages, I feel as if I am properly breathing. I do it again and again, relishing the feel of cool, fresh air in my lungs. How long have I been holding all this tension? For a week?

  No, longer, I realise. Much longer.

  Cristian’s hands move on my back, bringing me sharply back to the present. At once I am aware of the carpet beneath my feet, the ornate Art Deco clock ticking on the mantelpiece, the hum of the air-conditioning unit. I peel my face away from his shoulder and look at him.

  ‘Sophie—’ he begins to say, but I cut him off by reaching up and brushing my lips against his. There is a moment or two, pulse beats, while everything is still again, but then his arms squeeze around me and his lips find mine.

  The kiss that follows is exquisite. It is soft, yet teasing. Passionate, yet gentle. I feel as if I am something utterly precious in his hands, something never to be let go of. For a woman whose other half wimped out on the ‘to have and to hold’ part of our marriage contract, it is seductive. Maybe even a little addictive. I don’t want it to stop. Ever.

  But it does, and when we pull away from each other and open our eyes, Cristian is looking a little shaken for the first time in our acquaintance. For some reason I find this funny and I start to smile.

  ‘I did not mean to do that,’ he says in a husky voice.

  ‘Neither did I,’ I reply, ‘but I refuse to regret it.’

  His lips twitch and his eyes warm. ‘Nor I.’

  I shake my head and then lay my forehead against his. ‘What are we doing?’ I say on a sigh. ‘This is crazy.’

  I feel him inhale, hold it and breathe out again. ‘I know.’

  ‘You’re going home to tomorrow…’ I hear the hint of despair in my voice. I look up to see if the shutters have come down, the way they did in Gareth’s eyes when I dared to be too honest emotionally, but what I find there isn’t awkwardness, a vague look of fear, but matching longing, matching frustration.

  ‘This is stupid,’ I say, shaking my head, attempting to back away. ‘We don’t even know each other.’

  Cristian holds me firmly, stopping my retreat. He waits until I meet his gaze again. ‘Don’t we?’

  My heart starts hiccupping inside my chest.

  I close my eyes. I want so badly for all of this to be true, for this to be the key that releases
me from the prison I’ve been trapped in. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if I really could just take Cristian into my bed and make everything else disappear? I know it would be amazing.

  I also know all we can have is this one night.

  But will that make it better, or worse? Suddenly I am second-guessing myself again, poisoning the atmosphere of promise clinging around us with my doubts. I step back and this time he doesn’t stop me. I start walking and realise I am heading for the bathroom. I wave a hand. ‘I just need to…you know…’

  And then I bolt, running through the bedroom until I am back in my porcelain mausoleum, the door shut firmly behind me.

  Chapter Eight

  I stare in the mirror. I don’t recognise the woman staring back at me. She isn’t grey and weighed down. She’s flushed and her breath is coming in short pants. She looks alive. I know I can’t walk back into the other room and grab this chance with both hands, but she looks as if she could. She looks like a woman who knows how to take a leap of faith.

  I try to smile at her, to ask her what she’s going to do, but the image shifts and flickers. She’s still there, but now there is someone else there too, like a ghostly shadow.

  It’s the woman with the hollow eyes. Her face gets clearer the more I look, swallowing up the other me, absorbing her. I want to shout out to call her back, but I know my voice will carry to the living room.

  Now Hollow Eyes is all that is left. She looks back at me sadly. Knowingly.

  I brace my hands on the sink and drop my head. I can’t bear to look at her any more. Her work is done, anyway. She’s woken me up from this temporary insanity. Truth has come rushing back into my evening like a cold draught.

  I could sleep with Cristian tonight, but it wouldn’t change anything. It wouldn’t make me free. The ghosts are still here to haunt me. My friend in the mirror is proof of that. Tomorrow I would feel cheap and dirty. Instead of remembering this wonderful short time together, I would want to pretend it had never happened.

  And Cristian is not a faceless man fit only for a meaningless fling. He’s right—I do know him. In a way I can’t articulate and don’t understand. How can I use him like that after all he’s given me? It would make me no better than Gareth.