My Map of You

by Isabelle Broom

  ‘There’s something in my pud—’ she began, but then stopped short as she turned to where Rupert was now kneeling beside her.

  ‘Oh my God!’ she gasped, her hands flying up to her mouth.

  ‘Fish it out then.’ Rupert’s voice was shaking slightly.

  Very carefully, Holly used her spoon to ease what she could now see was a diamond ring out from the depths of chocolate goo. Even covered in sauce, it glittered beautifully in the candlelight.

  ‘Holly Wright …’ Rupert began. He’d taken her hand now and people were peering discreetly at them from neighbouring tables. The waiter, who was standing off to one side, looked as though he might start cartwheeling across the carpet with joy. Holly stared into the remains of her fondant and concentrated very hard on not throwing up her oysters, skate wings and gallons of booze.

  ‘Please look at me.’ Rupert had leaned forward until his chest was pressed against her leg. She could feel his hand turning clammy in her own and sniffed loudly to stop the tears from falling.

  ‘Please sit down,’ she pleaded quietly. ‘We can’t do this here.’

  ‘Holly, for God’s sake, I’m trying to propose to you.’ He said it through gritted teeth, but several people turned to look at them again. If ever there was a time for the floor to open up and swallow her, Holly thought, now was it. Rupert clearly wasn’t going to get up off his knee, and now he was reaching across with a napkin to pick up the ring.

  ‘Please stop,’ she whispered. The tears that she’d been trying so hard to hold back were starting to fall, taking her carefully applied mascara with them. The waiter let out a small, uncomfortable cough and backed away, while a large middle-aged woman two tables away actually shook her head in dismay.

  ‘Holly, I know you’re scared. But I really love you and I think you really love me. I want to make you happy for the rest of your life.’

  This should be the happiest moment of my life, Holly thought, at the same time wondering seriously if she could make a dash for the front door and flag down a taxi in the time it took Rupert to get up off the carpet and chase after her.

  ‘You’re the most amazing person I know,’ he went on. ‘I want you to be my wife.’

  He’d dipped the corner of his napkin into his water glass and cleaned the ring, which he was now holding up right under her nose. The diamond was obscenely large and Holly saw that he’d had today’s date engraved on the inside of the gold band. Her heart should be bursting with joy, but instead she could feel it shattering into pieces.

  ‘You’re being silly,’ she tried instead, shaking her head to stop the tears.

  ‘I’m not being silly, Hols. I’ve never felt less silly in my life,’ he said, pulling a slightly sheepish expression. He was on his knees on the floor of The Ivy, after all, and still seemed absolutely in denial about the fact that she was stalling.

  ‘I think we should talk about this later,’ she whispered. ‘This isn’t the right place to have this conversation.’

  Rupert’s loving gaze dropped a fraction as he took this in, and Holly was sure she felt her heart actually break. There was a time when she used to imagine this moment happening, and in the fantasy she would always be thrilled. She would fall into his arms and they would live happily ever after. But a fantasy was exactly what it had always been. She had been trying to love him for so long, she hadn’t even noticed that she never did.

  ‘We don’t need to have a conversation,’ he told her now. ‘All you have to say is yes. We can sort out all the details later, when we’re alone, but right now I just really want you to say yes, Holly. I need you to say yes so I can get up off the floor and kiss you.’

  ‘Please,’ she started to cry again. She didn’t want to have to tell him the truth here, when he was in such a vulnerable position. Not with all these people staring at them, willing her to put the poor man out of his misery.

  ‘Holly, come on now.’ Rupert was starting to get irritated. The apples of his cheeks had turned an angry pink and there was a hardness in his eyes that hadn’t been there before. ‘You can’t leave me down here all night. I know you love me. You do love me, right?’

  Holly swallowed.

  ‘Answer me, Holly.’

  She shook her head and tried to reach for his hand to pull him up, but he jerked backwards.

  ‘There’s something you’re not telling me,’ he guessed, all traces of affection now gone from his face.

  She nodded her head. ‘I do have something to tell you,’ she said in a small voice. ‘But I really think we should go home first.’

  ‘I really think you should just tell me right here, right now,’ he demanded. His face was a mixture of anger and fear, and Holly shut her eyes again to block it all out. She thought of Aidan, of how he had run his big hands into her hair, pulled her face towards his own and kissed her with a ferocity that made her chest burn.

  ‘Holly, I mean it. You bloody well tell me right now!’

  For a few seconds, they just stared at one another, Rupert challenging and Holly defeated, and then she gave in.

  ‘I cheated on you.’

  The ring quivered in his hand.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I slept with someone else.’

  Rupert finally stopped leaning towards her and sat back on his heels. The ring was still in his hand, but he let it fall slowly into his lap. He looked utterly deflated and Holly felt self-loathing flood over her.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Please can we just talk about this at home?’

  ‘WHO?’ His shout caused several diners to jump in their seats. The waiter scuttled towards them looking concerned, but Rupert held up a hand to stop him.

  ‘This really isn’t the place,’ she persisted again. ‘Let’s just go hom—’

  ‘No. I want you to tell me the bastard’s name right NOW.’

  How can he not know? Holly thought, remembering how awkward she’d been that day in the garden, when Aidan and Clara had appeared and invited them out to lunch.

  ‘It was Aidan.’ She said it as quietly as she dared, and Rupert snapped his head towards her irritably.

  ‘Who? Stop whispering and speak up, will you? I’m sure everyone here is just dying to know.’

  ‘Stop it.’ Holly was properly crying now. Everyone in the restaurant must be disgusted with her, but none of them could hate her as much as she hated herself.

  ‘Aidan,’ she said again. ‘Aidan from Zakynthos. My neighbour.’

  There was an awful silence as Rupert glared at her. She knew he was picturing Aidan in his mind, picturing the two of them together, and slotting all the pieces into place.

  ‘So, that’s why you were so cold towards me when I arrived in Greece?’ he said slowly, a look of horrible realisation crossing his face. ‘It was because you’d been shagging your neighbour the whole time.’

  ‘It wasn’t the whole time,’ she said at once, realising a fraction too late that it was definitely not the right thing to say.

  ‘Oh, well, that makes it all right then.’ Rupert laughed, but it was a nasty, hard sound.

  ‘Of course it doesn’t.’ Holly dared herself to look at him. ‘I’m sorry I never told you, but I was scared and—’

  ‘You were scared?’ he scoffed, and took an aggressive swig of her wine. ‘You were so scared that you rolled over on to your back as soon as my back was turned. Yeah, that sounds exactly right.’

  There was barely a sound in the dining room now. A few less scrupulous guests had even turned their chairs so that they could enjoy a proper view. Holly hated all of them, but she hated herself more.

  ‘It didn’t mean anything,’ she lied. ‘It was just a moment of madness. I’d been drinking and there was a storm and—’

  ‘Wow,’ Rupert interrupted, staring at her as though she was a total stranger. ‘You really are your mother’s daughter, aren’t you? Didn’t she cheat with her own twin sister’s boyfriend?’

  Holly felt like she’d been slapped, but what could she s
ay? He was absolutely right – she had done exactly what her mum had done. She was no better than Jenny Wright had been at her very worst. She was a lost cause, an evil person and a waste of everyone’s time.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. Rupert was too angry with her to be upset yet, but she knew he would give in to the tears later. She couldn’t bear to think of him being in pain. You should have thought about that before, she scolded herself. It was no good being sorry for it now, all these weeks later.

  ‘I’m sorry too.’ He finally sat back down in his chair. ‘I’m sorry that I ever met you in the first place. I’m sorry that I believed you were special, and I’m sorry that I ever fell in love with you. I’m sorry that I planned this night and bought you that ring. I’m sorry that I called my parents today and told them that I was going to propose to the woman of my dreams.’ At this, his voice cracked. The woman two tables away sobbed loudly into her napkin and there was an assorted chorus of tuts from every corner of the room. Even Jonathan Ross hated her.

  ‘Aidan means nothing to me,’ she continued, wincing internally at the lie. ‘I was going mad over there. All that stuff about my auntie and my mum, and inheriting that house – it just made me crazy. I know it’s not an excuse, but I want you to know that I never set out to hurt or deceive you.’

  It seemed bizarre to Holly now that she’d even entertained the idea that she was falling in love with Aidan. There had been moments, of course, when the intensity between them had reached a peak and she’d thought what she was feeling was real, but then he’d betrayed her with his lies and all she’d felt was angry and ridiculous. Her dear, sweet Rupert was so much better than Aidan in so many ways, and here she was, throwing him away. What was the matter with her?

  ‘I would never cheat on you, Holly,’ he said. ‘You said you loved me, but how could you do this to a person you love? To me?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ She shook her head and rubbed the tears off her cheeks. ‘But I can’t lie to you any more. I don’t want to be like my mother – what she did caused so many people so much pain, I can’t make the same mistakes.’

  ‘You already did,’ Rupert reminded her, but he’d stopped shouting. Holly wasn’t sure this defeated and broken version of him was any better than the angry one. This Rupert scared her.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered, hating the emptiness in her voice. She heard the nearby woman let out a disbelieving snort.

  ‘You know what?’ Rupert raised weary eyes to her. ‘I could probably try to forgive you for cheating on me with that weird Irish bloke, but only if I believed for a second that you actually loved me.’

  She wanted to fall at his feet and tell him that she did love him, that the whole thing had been a mistake and that it was him she wanted to grow old with, but it just wasn’t the truth.

  ‘You really don’t love me at all, do you? For the first year we were together, you weren’t even being yourself around me. I trusted you all that time, but you never trusted me – not even enough to be honest about your past or anything. It’s like you told yourself not to fall for me, so you didn’t.’

  He’d got it so spot on that for a moment Holly was rendered speechless.

  ‘I didn’t tell myself,’ she whispered. ‘I just didn’t know that I could love you. It sounds mad, I know, but it’s the truth.’

  ‘How can I believe anything you say now?’ He sounded almost regretful. Holly could feel him slipping away from her and she felt the panic mounting in her chest. ‘Please don’t do this,’ she begged, no longer caring that everyone in The Ivy was staring at them. ‘I can’t bear for it to end like this. I can change.’

  Rupert sighed and sat back in his chair. ‘That’s just it, Holly. I don’t want you to change – I’ve never wanted that. All I wanted was the real you. Why do you think you have to become someone else?’

  ‘I didn’t. I don’t,’ she lied, stumbling over her words.

  Rupert just stared at her, shaking his head. The sadness in his eyes was unbearable, and Holly started furiously twisting the napkin that was still lying in her lap.

  She heard him stand up and watched, helplessly, as he pushed the chair back under the table. For a few seconds they just looked at each other, then he turned to go.

  ‘Do you have somewhere you can stay tonight?’ he asked, almost as an afterthought. Holly simply nodded, then watched in silence as he weaved his way around the tables, through the curtain into the cloakroom, and out of her life.

  30

  ‘The hottest summer since records began!’ screamed the tabloids.

  ‘Half-price offers on all barbecues!’ yelled the voiceover man on the Argos TV adverts.

  London was sweltering. When a balmy June eased rainlessly into a humid July, the initial joy of the capital’s inhabitants descended rapidly into a mild panic. It was too hot now, everyone moaned. Commuters were passing out on the underground and the Camden drunks were peaking earlier every day, having been woken by the relentless heat and then been tempted by the thirst-quenching qualities of a cold can of cider. Down on Lockside, Holly and Ivy perched soundlessly in the shade of their stall, any conversation they may have had bulldozed out of them by the rocketing temperatures. Holly could only think how much nicer it would be if she was back in Zakynthos, where this sort of weather was catered for far more efficiently. She had yet to hear anything about a potential buyer for Sandra’s house.

  ‘I’m going to get some more water,’ she croaked at Ivy, who merely fanned her face in reply. While the weather certainly brought the crowds to the market, nobody seemed to be spending money on anything other than hats, ice lollies and sun lotion. It had been a very slow day.

  Holly took her drink to her favourite spot up on the bridge. The sky was the colour of a blue Slush Puppie and there was a clump of clouds nestled fatly in the west.

  She took out her phone and scrolled again to the last message she’d received from Rupert. It was nothing groundbreaking, just a thank you for leaving the keys at the reception of his work followed by a ‘take care’. Holly kept waiting to fall apart, for the realisation to sink in and drag her under, but it had never come. After that first awful night, when Rupert had walked out and left her in The Ivy and Holly had wandered around Soho in a daze, tears all over her face, until she plucked up enough courage to call Ivy and beg for a bed for the night, she hadn’t felt anything other than a kind of numbness and – something she hadn’t admitted to anyone – a small amount of relief. She wasn’t sure whether it was finally letting go of her secret about what had happened in Zakynthos or if it was being released from a relationship that she knew in her heart wasn’t right, but she did feel lighter somehow, as if she could spread metaphorical wings and take off in flight to anywhere she liked.

  She hadn’t, though – she’d stayed put. It would have been easy to pack up and run away, but she didn’t want to abandon her business, or Ivy. And where would she go, anyway? There was only one place her head ever took her, and she didn’t feel ready to face what was waiting for her there yet. She sensed that her journey, as she loathed describing it – even to herself – had led her to where she was now for a reason. She was beginning to think of fate in a similar way to Hope the fairy, or her nasty little Insomnia Troll, as a tricky, mischievous little creature throwing obstacles in her path wherever she went. She couldn’t really be angry with it, though, or even afraid. There was no battling the inevitable.

  Her phone started ringing in her hand, startling her so much that she almost dropped it into the canal below.

  ‘We still on for tonight?’ Aliana always got straight to the point.

  ‘Yes,’ Holly forced herself to sound more enthusiastic than she felt.

  ‘I’ll come and get you from the stall,’ she was informed. ‘And I’m broke, so the first two rounds are on you, right?’

  ‘I guess so,’ Holly replied. ‘You know I can never say no to you.’

  ‘Too right,’ Aliana chirped, and Holly had to laugh.

  �
��Do you think I should get an epilator?’

  Aliana had stretched her bare legs out across the bench seat and was picking at an ingrown hair in disgust. They had pitched up in the Pembroke pub, not far from Primrose Hill, and the beer garden was full to overflowing with rowdy groups of mildly inebriated locals.

  Holly reached across and picked a stray eyelash off Aliana’s cheek, blowing it swiftly into the air. ‘There,’ she said. ‘I’ve made a wish that you’ll never grow hair on your legs again.’

  ‘If you say it out loud, it’ll never come true,’ Aliana shrieked, but she was laughing.

  Holly stared into the bottom of her glass. She had something to tell her friend, but she needed to wait for the right moment. If she knew Aliana, the reaction was going to be a very loud one.

  ‘Aren’t you going to ask me?’ Aliana said suddenly, nudging Holly under the table with her sandalled foot.

  ‘Ask you what?’ Holly was genuinely at a loss.

  ‘I saw Rupert last night.’

  ‘How would I have known that?’ she asked. ‘Is he well? That’s all I want to know.’

  ‘Why do you even care?’ Aliana was aghast. ‘He walked out and left you alone in the bloody Ivy. I’d say that’s unforgivable!’

  ‘I deserved it.’ Holly reached for another of the triple-cooked chips they’d ordered. They were greasy and going cold, but she swallowed it anyway before continuing. ‘He still paid the bill before he left, even though I’d just gone and broken his heart. I’d say that makes him probably the most decent man alive.’

  Aliana pulled a face. ‘I’m glad you feel that way,’ she said.

  ‘What is it?’ Holly pressed, noticing her friend’s slightly sheepish expression.

  ‘He’s started seeing someone.’

  She’d expected to feel a stab of pain at the news when it inevitably came, but now that it had happened Holly realised that she felt fine. In fact, she almost felt happy – now she could finally let go of some of the suffocating guilt that she’d been lugging around with her like a bag of wet cement.