After Isabella

by Rosie Fiore

  After she left Sally’s house, she knew they wouldn’t see each other again for a while. The enormity of the revelation was too great a weight for the fragile new closeness they had built. Was it broken? She didn’t know. She hoped not. While she recoiled at what Sally had confessed to, she had to admit to a strange, grudging respect. In the face of a desperate plea from one she loved, could she, would she, have done the same?

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Stephen’s wife Melissa was thirty weeks pregnant, and they were moving back to London. It was madness. Stephen was the first to admit this when he rang Esther to tell her.

  ‘Melissa stopped work early for her maternity leave. We’d got more than halfway through decorating the nursery, it was nearly good to go, and one day she sat down and just cried and cried. She said she didn’t think she wanted to go back to work after the baby was born, that she wants to be near her mum and dad, and she wants the baby to be close to its big sister.’

  ‘So what does that mean for you?’

  ‘The company’s always been happy for me to transfer back to the London office, and I still own my place in Islington. We’ll have to rent somewhere for a few months until our tenant’s lease runs out, but it’s doable. Insane, but doable.’

  ‘Gosh,’ said Esther. ‘Well, I’m sure Lucie will be thrilled.’ For her own part, she was slightly less delighted – she had been able to manage her feelings about her ex-husband with his wife and new baby quite easily when they were a few hundred miles away. Dropping Lucie off in Islington to play happy families might be a little more difficult.

  ‘We’ll be able to give you more of a break,’ said Stephen, doing his best to sound conciliatory. ‘More time to yourself and, you know, time to spend with your fella.’

  That didn’t necessarily make her feel better, but she saw it for what it was, both an acknowledgement of her relationship with Michael and an admission that Stephen himself hadn’t really put in the parenting hours he should have over the last couple of years. If he wanted to change that, that was good.

  Lucie took the news with a deadpan lack of concern. ‘Yeah, I knew that,’ she said, and turned to go to her room.

  ‘Were you planning to tell me?’ said Esther, and immediately chided herself. It was exactly the type of provocative question that made Lucie roll her eyes and shut down these days.

  Lucie duly looked at her with a mixture of pity and boredom. ‘Dad said he would,’ was all she could be bothered to say.

  ‘It’ll mean you can see the baby whenever you want to,’ said Esther, trying to appear enthusiastic.

  ‘Mum, you don’t have to try and sound like the textbook divorced parent. It’ll be fine. We’ll work it out, I’ll see them whenever.’ Then she paused for a good long moment and said, uncertainly, ‘It’ll be nice when Dad moves back into the Islington place. I liked my room there. Unless… they give it to the baby.’

  ‘Of course they won’t!’ Shocked, Esther made a note to email Stephen and make sure that was not his plan. ‘It’s your room! And it always will be. Besides, they’ll have the baby in with them for ages anyway. Maybe when it’s a bit older you can share,’ she teased. ‘You could get bunk-beds.’

  Lucie looked horrified for a moment, then saw Esther was joking and went stony-faced. ‘It’s not funny.’

  ‘Of course it isn’t. I was just being light-hearted. It’s a lovely thing having your dad back in London. And I’m sure we’ll all work out the details together and it’ll be fine.’ She wished she could reassure herself with as much conviction. But there was no point in fretting about it. One day at a time, she told herself. We’ll deal with it one day at a time.

  She’d been touched by Stephen’s thoughtful comment about Michael. Nearly six months into their relationship, she and Michael had reached a comfortable equilibrium. He was, as he had told her the night they got together, a serial monogamist. He had seemed to like the fireworks and non-stop sex at the beginning of their liaison, but he seemed even happier once things had settled into a predictable routine and they were fully integrated into each other’s social circles and universally acknowledged as a couple. He wasn’t a player, Michael. When he arrived one Friday and rather shamefacedly asked if he might leave a pair of slippers at her place to wear in the evenings, she knew they had reached a new level of comfortable closeness. She liked it, she supposed, and she valued his kind reliability immensely. But, a little selfishly, she sometimes thought that a bit more champagne, sexiness and danger might have been nice. They’d only been dating half a year after all. Where would they be after a year? Or two? Side by side in matching rocking chairs?

  It was with these slight misgivings in mind that she pushed for them to take the long-postponed trip to Venice in the autumn half-term. Stephen and Melissa had moved down to London by then and were staying in a pleasant enough two-bedroomed flat not far from Stephen’s place in Islington. There was a room for Lucie, and Esther knew Melissa was dying to drag Lucie off shopping for baby things. Lucie would still be just a Tube or bus ride away from all her friends and so was happy to go to her dad’s. Michael, after hesitating for a few days, which made Esther very uncomfortable, eventually agreed; he applied for the few days’ annual leave he would need and rebooked the trip. She didn’t need anyone to approve her leave application – she was, after all, the head of department, so she merely informed Regina and the principal’s office and rescheduled her appointments for those days.

  It all seemed to be going smoothly, when she got a message to ring the principal’s executive assistant. He was a studious, serious young man with thick-rimmed glasses, who spoke extremely slowly. She knew he had a brace of degrees from Russell Group universities and a cluster of qualifications in educational administration. Nevertheless, he had absolutely no people skills.

  ‘Professor Hart…’ he said when she identified herself. For a moment she thought the line had gone dead, but then she remembered he was the master of the long pause.

  ‘Yes?’ she said as encouragingly as she could. She had to give a seminar in twenty minutes and it was on the other side of campus. She had no idea how long it would take him to say what he needed to.

  ‘It has come to my attention…’ he said, and she resisted the urge to nudge him with another ‘Yes…?’ Instead she waited, drumming her fingers silently on her desk blotter.

  ‘…. that you have put in a request for annual leave.’

  ‘Not a request,’ she said. ‘As HOD, I’m merely required to inform the principal of my intentions, as long as it’s within my yearly allocation, which it is.’

  ‘Yes…’ he said, drawing the word out into several syllables. ‘But…’

  ‘But what?’ She couldn’t keep the impatience out of her voice. ‘Look, I have a class to get to, is this urgent?’

  ‘No, no, no… Merely a procedural question. You see, the principal is thinking of calling a meeting… Nothing is as yet formally confirmed, but a possibility has been tabled—’

  She couldn’t bear his turgid corporate speak for another moment. ‘I appreciate that the principal might call a meeting, but the point is I’ve postponed this trip once already. We’ve rebooked it now, and if I try to move it again, we’ll lose most of our deposit for a second time. I will only be away for three working days and a weekend. Surely the principal could take that into account when arranging his meetings?’

  This rapid-fire monologue seemed to flummox the slow-moving young man. ‘Ah. Well. Yes,’ he said. There seemed to be more full-stops in his speech than there had been previously. ‘Well,’ he said again. Then, finally, ‘I will let the principal know what you’ve said. And we will take it all into account. Under the circumstances.’

  Esther said goodbye and hung up, relieved. She dashed off to give her seminar and didn’t give the young man’s call another thought that day. It wasn’t until much later that she reflected that, his taste for jargon notwithstanding, there was something sinister about that last ‘under the circumstances’.
r />   Esther knew that summer in Venice could be disappointing – overcrowded, stiflingly hot and smelly – but in autumn the crumbling city had extraordinary beauty. She found herself grateful that their summer trip had never happened; it could never have competed with the entrancing experience of the city in this golden season. The weather was still sunny and warm, but not too hot, and the city was more or less empty of tourists, or at least of big tourist groups.

  For the first two days, Esther was still tense. She worried about work and about Lucie, and fretted about whether her house would be okay. On the afternoon of the second day, Michael gently took her phone out of her hand and switched off the data connection. ‘You’re on holiday,’ he said. ‘Your out-of-office is on your email. Work can wait.’

  ‘But…’ Esther protested. ‘It’s not just work. Lucie…’

  ‘I’ve texted my number to Lucie, and she has the number of the hotel, as does Stephen. This is supposed to be a break from normal life. And if it is a break, you need to relax your iron-fisted grip on the tiny details of life at home and live in the moment, in Venice, here, with me.’

  She protested a little more, but she could see the sense in what he said, and she resolved to go off-grid. They made few plans and had brought no guide books; they spent each day wandering the streets and alleyways hand in hand, crossing and re-crossing canal bridges, finding themselves in enchanting courtyards and exquisite corners. They ate extravagantly, drank too much and made love every afternoon before tumbling into long, dreamy naps. Then they would get up and meander under the twinkling lights, looking for new bars, hidden cafés and live-music venues. Somehow the few days they had seemed to stretch infinitely, packed with slow delights.

  On the second-last day, they went to the Guggenheim museum. She was pleased that Michael also liked to explore galleries alone. She had always disliked either having to wait for someone who moved slower than her, or being rushed through a space when she wanted to linger. He clearly felt the same, and so they split up pretty much as soon as they went in and moved through the rooms at their own pace. When they had both had their fill of culture, they met up and by silent mutual assent found a café overlooking a canal and ordered a bottle of wine. It was a glorious autumn day, warm and still, and the sky was a deep azure. Michael took her hand, and she sat stroking his fingers and looking out over the water. It was a moment of such perfect contentment, she wanted to bottle it. She heard Michael clear his throat, and she glanced over at him. He was looking particularly serious.

  ‘What?’ she said, alarmed. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘I’m very much all right,’ he said, smiling. ‘I’m having an utterly splendid time. I was very much enjoying looking at you. I just wish I was one of those cool, sexy chaps who could pay you a lovely compliment and make it sound sincere.’

  ‘You could try.’

  ‘I could, but I’m English and self-deprecating, so it’s sure to come out somewhere between sarcastic and lame. It’s just… you look happier and more relaxed than I’ve ever seen you, and your… really quite extraordinary beauty is revealed when you’re like this.’

  ‘So you’re saying I’m normally a dog?’

  ‘I knew it would come out all wrong. What I meant was…’

  She laughed and squeezed his hand. ‘I’m teasing! Thank you. It came out perfectly, and it may well be the nicest compliment anyone has ever paid me. I am happy and relaxed, you’re right, and it’s all thanks to you. I’ve had the most magical time.’

  ‘Ditto,’ he said, and his beautiful dark eyes were warm and, she thought, slightly wet. ‘Ditto.’

  They sat in happy silence for a few more minutes, but she could sense that he was thinking. He kept holding her hand and playing with her fingers, as if he couldn’t quite sit still.

  ‘We should…’ he began, then stopped.

  ‘We should…?’

  ‘Well, not we should… I mean, I would like to think we might…’

  ‘We might what?’

  ‘Bollocks. I’m rubbish at this, aren’t I?’

  ‘It’s hard for me to give an assessment, as I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.’

  ‘We should… talk about where we are,’ he said, finally.

  ‘I assume saying “Venice” would be counterproductive and unhelpful.’

  ‘I meant in life.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Happy, I would say,’ said Esther. ‘At least I am. You’ve enhanced my life extraordinarily. You’re kind and lovely and sexy and a delight, and everything is better when you’re there than when you’re not.’

  ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘And I would agree on all fronts. I was thinking more about… well… the future.’

  ‘The future?’

  ‘Well, I love the way things are, but I can’t help thinking that if we’re going to stay together, we need to think about… you know… uniting our households.’

  ‘Are we talking about…?’

  ‘Not marriage,’ he said quickly. ‘At least not yet, unless you want to…’

  ‘No,’ she said, equally quickly. ‘Thank you. I agree, not yet, and maybe not necessarily at all.’

  He looked a little surprised at this, but continued. ‘I was thinking more about moving in together. Because of Lucie, it makes more sense for us to live at yours than mine, but if you’d rather, we could sell both places and get somewhere new for all of us. When my boys finish uni, they’ll need bedrooms to come home to, even if just temporarily, and I suppose that would mean getting a bigger place…’

  ‘Whoa!’ she said, laughing nervously. ‘Hang on.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘In a handful of sentences, you’ve gone from our possibly moving in together to our pooling our resources and buying some kind of four- or five-bedroomed mansion for us and all our offspring. I just need a bit of time to catch up.’

  ‘Okay.’ He sat back in his chair, looking at her.

  She stared out across the canal. Why was she feeling so uncomfortable with this? Michael was a wonderful man. She loved him, and it made sense that if they stayed together, they should move in together. He was right, of course. She tried her best to come up with an honest, clear response.

  ‘You’re probably surprised that I’m responding like this,’ she said. ‘Any normal woman would be leaping at the chance to move in with you, to make a home and a future together.’ He looked suddenly stricken. ‘And I want to,’ she added quickly and as fervently as she could manage. ‘I really do. I just need some time to get my head around it.’

  He nodded, and then said, very quietly and with a little edge to his voice, ‘How much time?’

  And she realized that, after all these months of love and support, all the kindness and generosity, there was a possibility that Michael’s patience might be finite. This was, in some crucial way, a make-or-break conversation.

  She wasn’t good at change. She had always known this about herself. While ending her marriage to Stephen had been a relief, it had taken an enormous effort to build the life she had now, to make a home and a routine that worked for Lucie and herself. And with Stephen now back in London, there was another big change on the horizon. But if she put Michael off because of that, how long would he stick around? There would be another change in her circumstances, another upset. He was so relaxed and even-tempered, it was easy, she realized, to take him for granted. Now was the time to put him first.

  ‘Christmas,’ she said firmly. ‘I propose you move into my place at Christmas. In the short term, you might consider letting your place out. Let’s give it a year of living together and make sure we don’t want to kill each other, and then we can talk about selling up and getting a bigger place.’

  ‘All of this, naturally, is subject to Lucie’s approval,’ said Michael.

  ‘Naturally. I also know that I don’t have a room for the boys, but we can work something out – sofa beds in the living room?’

  ‘Or if you’d consi
der it, we could replace your shed with something a bit more substantial. Like a summer house. If we run power to it—’

  ‘We can’t make them sleep in the shed. They’re not dogs!’

  ‘You haven’t smelled them after a rough night out. Besides, they’re practically adults. They’d probably prefer the privacy.’

  ‘Well, let’s talk to them about it. And Lucie. We’ll find a solution that works for everyone.’

  Michael reached across the table and squeezed her hand. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘Not freaking out. I was pretty sure you’d panic and run screaming. I had visions of you swimming at great speed down the Grand Canal towards the sea.’

  She smiled at him. ‘Nope, not panicking. Lots of things to plan and work out, that’s for sure, but not panicking. All of this is good, my love. We’re moving into a wonderful new part of our lives.’

  Much later, they lay side by side in the big white bed in their hotel room. Michael had fallen into a light doze, lying on his side, his back to her. Over his shoulder, through the open French windows, she could see the sky, streaked with pink clouds. She reached out a hand and stroked the smooth skin of his ribs and waist. He murmured softly and leaned slightly against her hand, but she knew he wasn’t properly awake. This dear, kind man, a gift beyond price. How lucky she was. If she were to think through the minutiae of what they planned to do, she knew it would overwhelm her. But at the same time, she knew it was the right choice. Yes, they had three grown and growing children between them and not enough space for everyone. Yes, she had never lived with a man except Stephen, and she had no idea if they would want to kill each other if they shared a space. Yes, she would have to relinquish control of her precious little home and share it… Really share it. But all of these worries paled in comparison with the undeniable joy of a deeper, closer, more permanent relationship with Michael.