‘We’ll have coffee, please, Gavin,’ she said to the young man. ‘And please bring us a slice each of the orange and rosemary cake. Fabio made it, Olivia, it’s delicious. Let’s sit here, by the radiator.’
In the face of Angela’s exquisite neatness, I felt somewhat unkempt. I’d simply fastened my hair back with an elastic band that morning. I was wearing jeans and old brown boots, and a long woolly coat which had seen better days over one of Luca’s fleece jumpers. As I hadn’t washed anything of Luca’s because there were still vestigial traces of his scent in the folds of the clothes, it is a fair assumption that my outfit was grubby. I wished I’d thought to make an effort and put on something special – or at least something clean.
‘Well,’ Angela said, tapping her spectacles on the table.
I smiled at her, nervously. I realized I should not have come. Angela didn’t really care where I was or what I was doing, she just wanted me to stay away from her family.
‘So I assume this visit means you’re back up in Watersford?’ she asked after a painful pause.
‘Yes. Yes I am.’
‘Oh.’
‘I just wanted to let you know, that’s why I …’
‘Yes of course.’
Thankfully the young man came over to the table. Like all Marinella’s staff he had been expertly trained. He laid out linen napkins, silver cake forks, coasters, three different kinds of sugar and porcelain jars of cream and milk on the table. Then he placed tiny cups of coffee in front of us. He returned a minute later with the cake, the slices lying helpfully on their sides in the centre of the fine white plates.
‘This looks lovely,’ I said.
‘Do eat,’ said Angela, pouring cream into my coffee, just the way I liked it.
‘So how is everyone?’ I asked, my mouth dry and sticky with cake.
‘Well, you know,’ said Angela. ‘No, you wouldn’t know. But it’s not easy. Maurizio’s not been good. Not good at all. Nathalie’s been marvellous, of course. She and Marc have taken him out to look at patio heaters. Nathalie says it’ll be good for Maurizio to go through some of the familiar motions.’
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘That’s nice.’
‘That girl has been an angel,’ said Angela.
‘And Marc?’ I asked, moving a piece of cake around my plate with my fork. ‘How is he?’
Angela glanced at me. She didn’t want to give me anything. Not a crumb of the truth.
‘He’s fine,’ she said. ‘He’s coping very well really.’
I was shrinking beneath her gaze, becoming less of a person, taking up less space. If Luca had been with me, I would have been all right. Without him, I felt I might disappear altogether. Sensing her advantage, Angela continued along the same lines.
‘Nathalie’s been an absolute rock to us all,’ she said. ‘I really don’t know how any of us would have managed without her.’
I nodded and spooned crystallized sugar into my coffee.
‘She’s the best thing that could have happened to this family,’ Angela said, just in case I hadn’t got the point.
I was trying to be strong, but I knew I couldn’t hold out much longer. The effort of holding back the humiliation was already exhausting me.
‘So tell me,’ said Angela. ‘When are you planning on going back to London?’
I stirred my coffee. ‘I haven’t any plans at the moment.’
Angela opened her mouth to respond but fortunately was interrupted by a commotion behind us, and a cold draught. Maurizio, Marc, Nathalie and their three little children, their cheeks and noses pink with cold, came into Marinella’s.
The two older children ran to their grandmother, shedding scarves, hats and mittens en route. Maurizio, who had aged a decade in the two months since the funeral, smiled when he saw me and hobbled over to pat my shoulder. His eyes were rheumy, and had almost disappeared into the hollows beneath his bushy brows. Nathalie, who had the baby in her arms, didn’t even bother to pin a smile on her face. Marc was expressionless, although I swear there was a softening of his features when he saw me.
‘What are you doing here?’ asked Nathalie. Behind her back Marc caught my eye and held it for a moment, and I relaxed.
‘I’ve moved to Watersford,’ I said, standing up to kiss the baby’s cold little cheek. Two parallel strings of snot ran from his nostrils to his mouth. I wiped them with my napkin.
‘Why?’
I hesitated. ‘Well, to be near Luca.’
‘And is it doing any good, you being up here?’
‘I’m not sure, I …’
‘Because really, Liv, I’m sure you’d be better off in London.’
‘I’ve told her the same thing,’ said Angela.
‘It’s not like there’s anything for you here, is it? You haven’t got any friends.’
‘Nat, leave it,’ said Marc.
‘Nobody wants you. Nobody likes you.’
Nathalie’s voice was rising. The other customers were watching us, sensing the possibility of some drama; maybe, if they were lucky, even some violence. The two waiting staff were pretending not to be engrossed, but their ears were clearly pricked too.
Angela couldn’t risk a scene. ‘Nathalie, would you like a slice of Fabio’s cake?’
Nathalie looked at her husband, then at the cake. Her face was white and hard.
‘Go on, carina, you’ve been working hard this afternoon, have some cake,’ urged Maurizio.
Nathalie glanced back at me.
‘I’m not hungry. Besides, Ben needs a bath.’
‘No bath. Cake,’ said the baby hopefully.
‘I’d like some,’ said Marc, pulling up a chair and sitting down between Angela and me.
‘It’s your turn to bath Ben.’
‘OK. When I’ve had something to eat,’ said Marc.
‘He’s cold, Marc.’
‘He’s fine.’
‘Marc …’ said Maurizio.
‘Right,’ said Nathalie briskly. ‘OK. Come on, kids.’
‘Let them stay,’ said Marc. ‘They can have an ice cream.’
‘It’ll ruin their appetites for tea.’
‘It won’t hurt for once.’
‘Oh please, Mum,’ cried the kids in unison.
‘Marc …’ said Maurizio again.
‘Suit yourself,’ said Nathalie. ‘Don’t blame me if they turn out obese.’
Taking the baby, she walked through the café to the door behind the counter and headed off up the stairs to the flat above. Angela immediately scraped back her chair and followed her, not before shooting me a ‘See what you’ve done’ glance.
‘Dio mio,’ said Maurizio, unwinding his scarf from his neck and hooking it over a chair. He sat down awkwardly and began tidying the table. ‘It’s not good,’ he said. ‘Not good at all. Marc, you should respect your wife.’
‘Not now, Pop, please.’
I lifted my little niece on to my knee. She snuggled into my chest, sucking her thumb and rubbing her nose with the silk edge of the scrap of blanket that went everywhere with her. I kissed her forehead. She tasted salty and animal.
Maurizio went to fetch ice cream for the children. Marc helped himself to something from one of the optics at the bar. He came back to the table and placed a glass of Cointreau in front of me and as he did so rested his fingertips on the back of my neck, under my hair where nobody could see them, for the briefest of moments. I could feel each individual fingerprint, each whorl and crescent embedded in my skin. Every nerve ending was concentrated on that few inches of skin from the knobble of my spine to the line of my hair.
‘I need to see you,’ he whispered. ‘I’ll come soon.’ I know what I should have done. I know now and I knew then. No harm had been done yet. But I needed to see him too. I needed to be held and touched and loved and reminded of Luca. I needed to be healed.
I stayed another half an hour. I drank some more Cointreau. I played I Spy with my little niece and nephew. When I walked back to my car, in th
e dusk, I glanced over my shoulder and saw somebody watching me from one of the upstairs windows. In my slightly inebriated state, I couldn’t be sure if it was Marc, or Nathalie.
ten
I waited for him. I waited and he didn’t come.
The longer I waited, the more time I spent without him, the more difficult it became to think of anything else.
Days later, when I could bear my own company no longer and was desperate for distraction, I set out for a friendly-looking café I’d noticed a few streets away. But I didn’t check as I crossed the road and stepped out almost straight into the path of a car. The driver wound down the window and called me a stupid fucking ignorant bitch and made an obscene gesture. That encounter made me feel so hollow and shaky that all I could do was turn round and get back into the flat as fast as I could.
I switched on the TV, fetched the duvet off the bed and lay down on the settee. If Luca had been there, the accident wouldn’t nearly have happened. He would have checked the road for me. He used to look after me as if I were something precious, made of porcelain or glass. I’d grown careless of looking out for my own safety because I was so used to my husband taking care of me and keeping danger at bay.
There was a quiz on TV, a terrible, boring quiz. I’d watched it so many times over the past weeks that I knew the patter of the blonde presenter. I said the words with her like a mantra, and after a while I fell asleep, which was a relief because the angry driver was out of my head. I don’t know how long I slept but I was woken by my phone. When I picked it up the caller ID showed that it was Marc.
‘I’m outside,’ he said.
I stood up, the duvet wrapped around me, and crossed to the front window. When I pulled back the net curtain I could see him on the pavement, looking up at me and smoking. Even from this distance it was clear that he was edgy. I opened the window and threw down the keys. A few seconds later there were footsteps on the stairs and the door opened.
‘Christ,’ said Marc, ‘it wouldn’t hurt to tidy up in here occasionally, would it?’
‘Nice to see you too,’ I said, hunkered back down on the settee beneath the duvet, like a convalescent. The relief I was feeling was so overwhelming that I was afraid to let him see my face. I didn’t want him to know how much I wanted him. I recognized his mood: Luca used to be the same if he’d had a bad, stressful time. He’d be fractious, he’d try to pick a fight and I knew to be patient and quiet until he had worked it out of his system.
‘It’s a complete mess.’ Marc pulled a face as he picked a coffee mug, which I knew was cultivating mould, off the windowledge, sniffed it and put it back.
‘I’ll tidy up tomorrow,’ I said.
Marc continued to prowl bad-temperedly, sifting through my stuff. It didn’t matter. I had no secrets from him.
He grumbled and nit-picked and carried out some cursory housekeeping of his own. I stayed on the settee, in my duvet, and waited.
After a while, Marc crossed the small room, bent down and smoothed the hair out of my eyes, tucking it behind my ear. I looked into his eyes and felt his mood soften. My breath quickened and my skin grew warm. The ache had become purely physical; it was concentrated in my belly. It was focused on the nearness of his dear face.
‘God, you’re lovely,’ he whispered.
And it happened again, of course it did. We made love, and it was love, it was pure and sweet and gentle and urgent and afterwards we were better, both of us. We were better than we were the first time, we were a little more healed, a little more healthy.
Afterwards he looked at me for a long time, going over the shape of my face with his fingers, like he wanted to make a memory. Then he went out and fetched us some wine from the off-licence and some Thai food. I knew he would come back. For once I didn’t mind being left on my own.
Sometimes, when I was with Luca, I was so content (not blisteringly happy or dizzy with emotion or madly in love: just content) that I used to feel that if I were to die at that very moment, I would have no regrets. These thoughts would drift into my head when we were in the car together, driving back from the supermarket, say, or when he was watching football on TV and I was reading Heat magazine, little fragments of ordinary, mundane life that were insignificant really, but where everything was all right and I felt perfectly safe. The longer we were together, the more content I became. I was a very lucky woman.
Then Luca was gone, and it wasn’t the occasional moonlit beach I missed, or the screaming thrill of the terraces, or the birthday jewellery or the rare extravagant gestures and guilty, private pleasures. It was those moments of mundanity and perfect calm.
That evening Marc and I sat together and ate red curry out of tin-foil boxes, drank wine and watched TV. Gradually the room darkened.
Luca was gone, but I was not standing on that precipice dizzily looking down into a vertiginous ravine of fear as I did most evenings. I felt safe.
That was the first time we went to bed and spent the whole night together. I don’t know where Nathalie was, I never asked. I was just grateful for the warmth and bulk of Marc’s body on the other side of the bed. I delighted in the weight of his arm around my waist, the tickling of his body hair against my buttock, the warm bones of his knees knuckling into the cavities of my legs. He fell asleep like his brother, holding his breath and then releasing it in a series of snores before drifting into baby-like heavy breathing. I knew I wasn’t falling asleep with Luca, but I fell asleep feeling almost content.
eleven
Not long after the clocks went forward there was a brief respite from the winter. The air warmed, it was possible to walk without being hunched against the cold, you could hear music drifting into the streets through windows left slightly ajar and washing appeared hung out to dry in the gardens of the houses of Watersford. The birds and insects came out of their shelters, and so did I.
I knew I had to find some way to occupy the times in between seeing Marc. I never have been the kind of person who enjoys her own company. The past weeks had been the only time in my whole life that I had lived by myself, and I had had enough of it. The black dog of misery was getting on my nerves. Besides, my mind needed something to do with itself. Daytime TV was fine up to a point, but you can have enough of Paul O’Grady and Cash in the Attic. My skin was bad from being inside too much, my muscles were wasting away, my hair was central-heating dry, my eyes were heavy and dull, and I was finding it difficult to concentrate. I was turning into the sort of person I didn’t want to be.
So when the sun came out it felt like a good omen. I bathed and washed my hair, and then walked the half-mile to the café.
Once inside, I behaved like a normal person. I sat down at a table by the window, which already bore the debris of breakfasts eaten, and ordered scrambled eggs and grilled tomatoes on toast from a friendly, bodybuilder-shaped man with a cigarette tucked behind his ear and a greasy apron. Light was streaming through the glass roof, and ‘Brimful of Asha’ was playing on the radio.
I picked up a copy of the Watersford Evening Echo from a rack by the door and flicked through to the Situations Vacant while I waited for my breakfast. There was nothing in my area of expertise, but then, I reminded myself, I was completely sick and tired of public relations anyway. There were a couple of secretarial jobs which I circled, and a vacancy for a research assistant with good typing skills in the history department of the local university.
By the time I’d copied the contact numbers into my phone my breakfast was ready. The man brought me a mug of tea and food that tasted so good it resurrected an appetite I’d forgotten I had. The eggs were creamy and peppery, the tomatoes sweet and hot. I felt so normal that I even managed a very brief, banal, but good-natured banter with a young woman with a baby who was waiting for her friend at the table next to mine.
I paid and thanked the man, who said he hoped I wouldn’t be a stranger, and then I walked out of the café into the warm morning. It seemed a shame to waste my new-found sense of purpose, so on a whim I
turned back towards the city centre and followed my feet along the pavements of Watersford’s rather grand and leafy suburbs. I wasn’t up to a bus just yet.
Watersford’s is not a campus university. Instead the different departments are scattered throughout the city, with the majority being clustered in a small area close to the cathedral. It’s one of those universities which prides itself on being favoured by the kind of students who have the ability, but not the desire, to go to Oxford or Cambridge. It’s the kind of university whose professors are always being quoted in the Guardian and whose students quite often turn into peace activists, rock stars or TV ecologists.
I followed the roads uphill towards the city and then, once I cleared the suburbs, it was a matter of heading in the direction of the cathedral spire. Even the walking felt good. Stretching my legs, having somewhere to actually go besides the off-licence and the cemetery, was a pleasant sensation. Soon I was so warm that I took off my fleece and tied it around my waist, baring my arms to the elements for the first time in well over six months. My mind flicked to Luca, walking in front of me along the canal path close to home last summer, sweat darkening the back of his grey T-shirt like a bruise in between the shoulderblades. He stopped at the lock which fed into the River Thames, and stood there, gazing out over the water, his hands on his hips. I caught up with him and he took my hand and our two bare arms touched up to the elbows.
He pointed to the black ribs of an old barge sticking up through the water of the shallows of the river where bits of rubbish and sticks rippled and when I looked in the direction of his finger he leaned down and kissed me. It was the day after we’d had the bad news at the fertility clinic. The doctor had been gentle but brisk. He told us that my body was not doing its job, that I would never be able to conceive a child and that there was nothing he or anybody else could do about it. He gave us some leaflets and told us to go away and consider the options that remained. In the past I had wondered how I would feel if it came to this. I had expected emotional carnage. In the event I felt empty and dry and, strangely, unsentimental. On the way out of the hospital we passed a couple with their arms full of babies and flowers and I felt nothing. No envy, nothing. I had wanted our babies, mine and Luca’s, nobody else’s. We paused at the electric doors which opened out into the hospital car park.
The Love of My Life Page 5