Jemima clapped her hands in glee and Chelsea waited for Kit to say that it wasn’t possible, that they were travelling around Italy before they had to go home, but instead he simply said, ‘That would be wonderful.’
Chelsea felt her stomach drop, and said nothing until the woman and her wedding planner wandered off to tick off their checklists. Chelsea felt a dark stillness in her stomach and Mollie’s words echoed in her head, rationalising that a broken promise this far in didn’t bode well for their marriage. Goodbye Rome, she thought sadly, goodbye Milan or Pisa or Tuscany, I really would have liked to meet you.
***
The bike was sitting outside the flat, almost sparkling in the sunlight. Chelsea fell upon it, hugging the metal frame against her, her chubby fingers curling around the handlebars. It was pink, with Disney Princess stickers on it, and pink and purple ribbons hanging from the handlebars. Even the bell had a picture of Minnie Mouse on. She flicked her finger against it hesitantly, the ‘ding’ strong and loud.
She turned to her father in awe. ‘Thank you, Daddy, thank you!’
She barely noticed that the stickers were old and peeling, that the ringer on the bell had lost its colour, thumbed so many times.
‘You should have painted it,’ Carly said irritably, dragging on a cigarette as Kieran cuddled his little girl. ‘It’s too memorable. What if people see it?’
‘It looks like any other kid’s bike,’ Kieran shrugged, turning to Chelsea. ‘We’ll go out later and teach you how ride it, right?’
‘You promise?’
‘I promise, my angel, I never break a promise, do I?’
She couldn’t remember, she’d never heard him make one before.
She definitely couldn’t remember being so pleased about anything, ever. She had a beautiful bike and her dad was going to take her out, spend time with her, just them two. Most of the time it was like he never even saw her, and suddenly she had this lovely gift.
She spent the afternoon polishing it up, cleaning it in the front garden, until her mum said roughly to bring the damn thing inside, that it was too obvious in the front garden. Chelsea ignored her, stubbornly polishing with her jaw set, until her mum came and dragged her inside, telling her to do her homework.
Later, her dad disappeared to the pub, promising he’d be back in time to take her out and teach her to ride her bike. She fell asleep before he came back that night.
The next morning, the bike was gone. On her way to school she saw posters on all the lampposts, with a picture of her bike, listed as ‘Missing’ and promising a reward. Her dad came home that night and bought them all a takeaway, telling her another little girl needed that bike more than her, and not to be selfish.
He broke a promise, and she never made the mistake of trusting his word again. It was easier that way, to never let yourself be disappointed.
Chapter Nine
‘We were meant to be going to Rome, Kit! Remember Rome? You promised me it would be a couple of days here, and then we would spend the rest of our time travelling around Italy! To celebrate us!’ Chelsea fumed, desperately going through the clothes she had left in her case and hanging them in the wardrobe, giving up the final hope that she could leave them, ready to be repacked as they moved on. She wasn’t going anywhere.
‘We’ve still got time to do that…’ Kit ran a hand through his hair, clearly frustrated.
‘Really, because now, after spending an afternoon in an Italian hospital in order to get antibiotics because my face is infected, I’ve now been strong-armed into attending a hen do! For your ex-fiancée! And we now have to go to her wedding. With your mother consistently talking about how she was a much better option as your wife and how I’m no good for you!’
‘She hasn’t actually said –’
‘I don’t fucking care! I don’t want to be here!’ Chelsea felt like stamping her feet. ‘I don’t subject you to my family, so why should I have to put up with this shit? I’ve now got your mother’s barmy wedding planner following me around incorrectly using words until my ears start bleeding!’
Kit stood up, his back ramrod straight. ‘You’re being hysterical.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry, don’t you mean I’m being deviated or presidential? That woman is insane.’
‘Fine, but you’re not exactly being your best self. When we have to do this with your family, I’m sure I’ll bear it with a lot more grace!’ Kit’s voice was tinny as he yelled back.
‘That’s the point!’ she roared, ‘you never have to meet my family! That’s the deal! We’ve been just us for years and we’ve been fine! We’re here a week and we’re messed up!’
‘How are we messed up?’
‘We’re arguing!’ Chelsea roared at him. ‘We never argue!’
‘Well, maybe we need to argue!’ he yelled back, standing on the other side of the bed. ‘People need to argue! They argue when they know enough about each other to disagree!’
‘Or they argue when they’re put in shitty positions and made to feel worthless!’
‘Well, I’m sorry you feel uncomfortable that my family’s rich! It didn’t seem to be a problem when I paid for this holiday or put that ring on your finger!’ Kit’s eyes were bulging and his cheeks were red. He wasn’t good at arguing, or rather, he wasn’t good at being upset. He was excellent at arguing rationally and calmly, not taking things personally. That was his job.
But all that went out the window the minute he talked about his money.
‘You know what, Christopher? Fuck you.’ She walked from the room, grabbing her purse and slamming the door behind her, making it through the house and down to the street before she even thought about which way she needed to go.
She followed the route the taxi had taken them before, and marched on as the cool of the evening surrounded her. After a few moments, she noticed a sign that led down to the town, and she trundled down the stairs, pushed on by fury. It had taken ten minutes and she was in the centre, cobbles beneath her feet, the people around her walking to a leisurely drink or dinner. Why on earth did they constantly get driven to town? These people, they blew her mind. How pointless! The cool breeze of the evening kissed her skin, calming her slightly, and she slowed her pace down to an amble, enjoying being able to actually explore and take it all in, beyond just eating in expensive restaurants. She enjoyed the click of the cobblestones and let her legs lead her down winding roads. She brought a postcard for the girls, a bog-standard picture of the lake, but didn’t really know what to write on it any more. Having a lovely time? No. I am so happy? No. Wish you were here? Possibly. Wish you were here and that we were in Rome eating four-euro slices of pizza and looking at the Trevi fountain whilst I cry my eyes out over my wedding doubts? Pretty close. Maybe that’s what she should be doing, just jumping a plane and leaving, she thought as she looked out over the water, the boats bobbing in the harbour. Maybe she needed to be strong, in a way she hadn’t since Kit walked into her life.
There were a number of bars that overlooked the water, tables set out with people sitting and chatting, having their after-dinner drinks. The lights from the cafes reflected in the water, and they looked bright and warm. She sat and ordered a white wine, the waiter nodding at her with a smile. But that may have been her eyebrows. The wine was crisp and chilled, a balm for the evening, and for a few moments, it was nice to just be. To sit looking out at the water and get lost in your thoughts. To truly acknowledge those doubts. The idea that maybe this was wrong, maybe this had all been wrong circled over and over, no answer in sight. You can’t marry someone when you don’t know who they are, don’t know who their people are. People don’t change who they really are.
Kit would always be that kid who went to private school abroad, who had never thought that things weren’t straightforward, who had never even considered how to survive on minimum wage or why people wouldn’t pay off their credit cards. Someone who had never thought that people wouldn’t have a holiday every year, or may never rise above their stan
ding.
But then, if people couldn’t change, if they couldn’t become more than their families, then what had she been working on for all this time? Would she always be the girl who winced when spending too much on a bottle of wine, who squared up when she saw youths walking down the road, or got drawn into a fight when it was about honour or justice?
If Kit was always the posh rich kid, then she was always going to be Chelsea from the estate.
‘Chelsea!’
A voice called her from across the square, but it wasn’t Kit. Instead, she searched amongst the bodies for a wave, and saw Alfie, Tegan and Matteo, walking towards her. She smiled, a little woozy from the wine, and surprised by how relieved she felt.
‘Hi, guys! What are you doing here? Night off?’
‘Not exactly,’ Alfie grinned, pulling up a chair. ‘Jemima Paddlefaff asked if I’d like to work tonight to run a dinner party for a group of her pointless friends, but said that it wouldn’t be at our usual rate. She wanted a freebie.’
Here he lit up a cigarette and Tegan rolled her eyes at Chelsea, raising an eyebrow.
‘And I said, I would rather the two of us engaged in heated, hateful coitus until we stabbed each other through the heart, ending all the pointlessness in our sweet, eternal embrace.’
‘He said “no thanks”,’ Tegan added.
‘Politely,’ Matteo laughed.
‘Insubordination! Isn’t anyone afraid of chefs any more?’ Alfie grumbled lightly around his cigarette, giving a thumbs up to the barman, who seemed to know their usual orders.
‘You’re a lot less threatening when you’re not surrounded by meat cleavers,’ Tegan laughed, her eyes sparkling beautifully as she turned to Chelsea, the grin turning to a smile of concern. ‘You okay? We heard you went to hospital?’
Chelsea simply pointed at her forehead. ‘Allergic reaction, we think. And then it’s infected.’
Tegan winced, and Matteo looked at her glass.
‘Should you be drinking?’
‘It’s only one type of antibiotic you can’t drink on,’ she defended, ‘not that I know which one it is, but I’ll take my chances. Can’t get any worse, can it?’
‘Never good to bet on that, love,’ Alfie frowned, nodding as the bartender delivered three beers. ‘Life has a way of kicking you in the peanuts when it thinks you’re getting cocky.’
‘I am definitely not cocky,’ Chelsea said, shaking her head, ‘I just don’t belong here.’
She sighed, taking a breath, looking around her. ‘Actually, I belong here, in this beautiful place, talking to people who work and deal with rich, stuck-up tossers, laughing about things and not being judged. I don’t belong in that house. Not as a member of the family.’
‘Well, thank fuck for that, they’re all doolally.’ Alfie held up his drink to clink his glass against hers.
‘But…I’m meant to marry Kit.’
‘So…do that.’
Chelsea shook her head. ‘But…I didn’t know he was…all this. I mean, I guessed, but, look at it! They have staff! They’ve hired you guys and paid your restaurant off! They get what they want and nothing limits them.’
Matteo frowned, leaning forward, his typical Italian good looks merged with the gawkiness of a man just leaving teenagerdom. ‘But you love him, yes?’
‘Yes, but –’
‘No,’ he shook his head, ‘that’s it.’
‘That’s cute, son,’ Alfie snorted. ‘Tell me that in a few years, when your balls have dropped and you’ve dated more than the girl next door.’
‘I’m never dating anyone but the girl next door.’ Matteo shook his head solemnly. ‘I believe that love is love, and that is it.’
‘And so love that fails isn’t real?’
‘It is what you make it,’ the young man shrugged. ‘I love Florentina, even though her father is a drunk, and her mother is sick, and she is poor. She loves me even though my mother is good, and my father works hard and I will have more money than she does. These are not real things, they are…obstacles to forgive.’
‘Yeah, lad, I get you, it’s all very noble, but Miss Chelsea here, she’s meant to forgive Jemima? I mean, there’s baggage and then there’s those forklifts that carry dead weight.’ Alfie snorted into his beer and even Tegan bit her lip to stop herself giggling.
‘It’s just history,’ Matteo shrugged sitting back with a proud silence.
They sat in silence, and Chelsea thought that, overall, she agreed.
‘So how did you hear about the hospital?’ Chelsea said suddenly, realising there was an extra advantage to her new friends, other than their normality.
‘We suddenly getting the upstairs-downstairs of our friendship there, love?’
‘You overhear a lot of stuff,’ Chelsea nodded.
‘Usually nothing but pointless waffle that I’d rather not hear,’ Alfie shook his head, ‘but the likelihood is, they’re not going to ease up on you. Jemima wants you gone. Word is, old Bartie Monroe wants to get into politics. Not surprising, considering his connections. I guess they don’t want anything that could be used to smear him later on.’
‘Like a working class girl done good on their son’s arm?’ Chelsea snorted. ‘Am I really that embarrassing? I’m an executive, I work in London, I went to Oxford. I may not be a six-foot supermodel –’ she looked at Matteo pointedly ‘– but I can’t be that bad, on paper?’
‘It’s not that,’ Tegan shook her head, ‘it’s that they feel justified prying and finding out whatever they want. We all had background checks when they hired us. We were going to bring along another staff member, but because he had a conviction when he was a kid, Jemima wouldn’t hire him. If you have skeletons in your closet, they’ll find them.’
‘Like a future daughter-in-law’s jailbird daddy,’ Chelsea said simply, ‘her friendship with a rock star who died mysteriously a few months ago. And the issues she had with a court case when she was seventeen.’
Her stomach was a rock, throbbing dully. And yet she wasn’t surprised that it had come to this, that everything she had wanted to lock behind the door was threatening her happiness. That everything she’d refused to accept about her past, would still determine how she was judged in the end.
‘Well, aren’t you a surprise, young Chelsea?’ Alfie sat back, waiting for a story. And she told them, she told them everything.
***
‘So you’ll do it,’ Ruby said firmly, her eyes holding Chelsea’s, ‘you’ll testify.’
‘I will, on one condition.’
They were sitting on the swings, their trainers scuffing the sand in the playground as they moved back and forth gently. It was getting dark and they’d found the twilight of the park – too late to be told off for not being kids, too early to be approached by the teenage lads who liked to intimidate, finding somewhere to smoke and drink their beers.
‘I want to know what’s in it for you,’ Chelsea said simply, arms crossed. ‘You didn’t want me to, and now you do. And I don’t think it’s about some girl you barely know, no matter how nice she is.’
Ruby rolled her eyes, picking a packet of Rolos out of her pocket and tearing the paper carefully, the gold foil glinting.
‘What do you want, Chels? Some big sad story about how I was attacked? Maybe I’m just fucked off that stuff like this happens and the truth isn’t enough to stop it.’
‘Or maybe you’re a victim too.’
Ruby turned slowly, so that her body was facing her friend’s, her eyes piercing and almost aflame. ‘Look at me, Chels, take a good look. No one ever has, or ever will call me a victim. I’m just not built that way.’
Chelsea didn’t know what that meant, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to any more. Ruby was so often above emotions, more interested in other people’s than her own. She’d built herself a tower, even then, out of bone and muscle and angry eyes and a smart mouth. One that no one could break but herself.
‘You’ll do it though, you’ll tell the police and the
lawyers what happened?’
‘Yes, but if this interferes with getting into uni, Ruby, I’m out. You know how hard I’ve worked, how much everything’s changed.’
‘That was your way of not letting him win,’ Ruby smiled, reaching around Chelsea’s neck and pulling her close, the smell of strawberry body cream and Rolos somehow comforting. ‘Let’s make sure Kate gets the same chance.’
***
The next morning, Kit had decided that a kiss on her sleepy shoulder and a ‘sorry’ whispered into her neck the night before meant that they were best friends again. She was too tired to argue. Too scared to ask him whether they were okay. If he said ‘yes’ he didn’t see the problems and if he said ‘no’, it was a big conversation. There were no winners, and it was best to say quiet.
He’d decided they would finally walk around the castle and explore Malcesine. This, at least, was something she could get behind. An apology for their wasted days, and those places they wouldn’t see, Rome and Pisa and Milan. It didn’t quite make up for it, but it was a start. And arguing with Kit left a funny feeling in her stomach. So it was easier to pretend.
‘Look at this, Chels!’ His voice was enthusiastic but uneasy, and Chelsea felt herself like stone, still as anything behind her sunglasses, a shade against the man who had let her down in some strangely ordinary way. Somehow, Kit had fallen off his pedestal, and Chelsea was more annoyed that she’d put him up there to begin with, or that he’d put himself there. Still, she needed to be grateful, to take in all that Malcesine offered, because she sure as hell was not coming back to his family holiday home again. At least, not whilst his family were there.
They got the cable car up through the mountains, standing side by side but not touching as the town became smaller and smaller in the distance. The mountains surrounded them and the tiny houses looked like models down below, edging the fiercely blue water that seemed to span for miles, much larger than she had thought when they went out before. The sky was a perfect blue, heralding a wonderful day, but her stomach hurt with the tension. They were the only ones in the car, perhaps because it was so early, or because the sun was shining fiercely and the small windows offered very little air. At least, Chelsea thought with a sigh, it became cooler the higher they went up.
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