by Sandie Jones
I didn’t know which way to go. I thought of calling Seb to see if he was still in town, but just as I tapped his name on my phone, I was hit by a sudden urge to get home to see Adam. I needed to know that he didn’t suspect. Selfish on my part, but I couldn’t stop my stomach turning over at the thought of him knowing. What would he make of this? Of knowing that I’d come here to meet his brother, with the merest hint of intention. Wasn’t the intention almost as bad as going through with it?
I tried to pretend to myself that the tears streaming down my face were caused by the wind I was battling against, and not the shame of what I might have done. But the brain’s not stupid, and by the time I’d reached Charing Cross, I was having trouble convincing myself that I hadn’t gone through with it. My head felt as if it had been screwed, even though my body knew it hadn’t.
I squeezed onto the 19.42. The Tube strike had clearly held commuters up as they made their way across town, as it was more like the 18.02, and everyone was packed in like sardines. I was held upright by the overweight bald man behind me, his breath so close to my ear that he could have licked it, and the young twenty-something woman in front of me who had had the foresight to get her phone out and in texting position before she got on the train. Now, stuck as I was, my upper limbs pinned to my sides, I had no chance of letting Adam know I was on my way.
Pinpricks of sweat jumped to the surface of my back, the rush to get the train catching up with me. I imagined a thin streak of dampness, the length of my spine, seeping through the silk of my emerald-green blouse, compounded by the heat of other bodies pressed up against me. Those nearest to the windows, the people who had had the luxury of sitting in their seats for the past ten minutes, waiting for the train to depart, were reaching up to close them as we crossed the river. They sank their faces further into their woollen scarves whilst I battled the oppressive heat that was engulfing me.
I shifted a little, angling my body away from the man behind me, his rotund stomach filling the concave of my back, and he grunted. I wondered if he could smell the deceit on me.
Adam was in the kitchen. A waft of frying onions and garlic hit me as I let myself in and hung my coat on the hook behind the door.
‘Hey, is that you?’
I could tell from the tone of his voice that all was well, and the heaviness in my chest began to lift. I didn’t know if I was going to be honest with him, but I wanted to be.
‘Who else were you expecting?’ I laughed.
‘You made good time,’ he said, kissing me, wooden spoon in hand. ‘It was murder a couple of hours ago.’
‘Thought it might be. That’s why I decided to wait a bit. Get some work done.’ So once again, without even thinking about it, I’d made the decision to lie.
‘Grab some cutlery and pour us some wine. It’ll be ready in ten minutes.’
‘Will do,’ I replied, ‘let me just get out of these clothes.’
I walked into the bathroom, unbuttoning my blouse and wriggling out of my skirt. I needed a shower, to wash the dirt, both real and imaginary, from my body. The water ran hotter than felt comfortable, but it numbed the nerve endings, stopped them from jangling. Eyes still closed, I reached for the towel on the hook, but a hand caught mine, making me jump.
‘Jesus Christ!’ I yelped, my heart thumping.
Adam laughed. ‘Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you. Thought you might like this whilst you’re in here.’ He handed me a towel with one hand and a glass of red with the other. I smiled and sipped it gratefully, feeling its warmth as it ran into my chest.
He sat on the side of the bath as he watched me dry myself, his eyes roaming my naked body.
Suddenly self-conscious, I wrapped myself in a towel. ‘You really are quite something,’ he said, standing up and walking towards me. ‘Take it off. Let me look at you.’
I smiled and slowly held the towel open.
He took a sip of my wine before dipping his finger in the glass and offering it up to my mouth. He traced my lips and my taste buds sprang into life as I sucked the wine from his finger. I could feel a pulsing in my groin as he watched me, his eyes never leaving mine.
We shared the remains of the glass, and, as Adam passed it between us, some of it spilled, dripping down my chin and onto my breasts. He bent his head down to slowly lick them. My back arched as he came up to meet my mouth, his fingers running down my spine, sending goose bumps to my skin. I shivered involuntarily.
He picked me up, and I wrapped my legs tightly around him as he carried me into the bedroom and laid me down on the bed.
‘God, I love you,’ he said.
I cried as he entered me, hot tears of relief and wanting, but most of all guilt. How could I have risked losing this?
20
‘Tell me about Rebecca,’ I asked afterwards, buoyed by our renewed closeness.
‘What do you want to know?’
‘I want to know who she was, how you felt about her, and what happened between you.’
He pulled himself up against the headboard, his brow furrowed and eyes narrow.
‘It was a long time ago, Em.’
‘I know, but she was important to you – like Tom was to me.’
He raised his eyebrows and looked at me questioningly.
‘Oh, come on, we’re grown-ups here.’ I laughed. ‘Don’t go getting all jealous.’
‘Do you still think about him?’ he asked.
‘Occasionally, yes, but not because I wish I was still with him. Just in a “I wonder what he’s up to” way. Is he still with Charlotte? Was their deceit worth it? Do either of them ever think of me?’
He nodded, but his face was solemn. ‘I met Rebecca when I was twenty. We knew friends of friends and were introduced at a party.’
‘Down in Sevenoaks?’ I asked.
‘Yes, but she was from a little village just outside called Brasted. Anyway, we just clicked. Neither of us had been in a serious relationship before, so it was special. We were young, thought we were in love, and everything and everyone else just took a back seat.’
‘So, where did it go wrong?’ I asked, failing to understand how such an intense relationship could wither away and die.
He sighed. ‘We were properly into each other. Rightly or wrongly, we dropped our mates, and even our families when they said we were spending too much time together. We wouldn’t hear of it. We honestly thought we were going to be together forever, and everyone else would just have to take us as we were or not at all. There was no alternative as far as we were concerned.’
‘I don’t understand then. What changed?’
‘We’d been together for five years. I was doing well at the bank, and she’d finished her teaching degree and had got a job in an infant school, close to where she lived. We’d found a place to rent in Westerham, our first home together, and were about to move in.’ His voice cracked.
‘Tell me,’ I coaxed gently. ‘What happened?’
‘She was so excited, and had taken a couple of days off from school to get the place set up. I was on my way there after work, when Mum called to say something had happened.’
‘What? What had happened?’ I pressed.
‘It didn’t make sense, because I’d called just before I left the office to tell her I was on my way, and she sounded so happy. She said she’d made a chilli and to hurry on up.’
His eyes filled up. I’d not seen Adam cry before and I didn’t know whether to feel sad or resentful that someone other than me had caused it.
‘I ran all the way from the station, but by the time I got there, it was too late. The ambulance was already there, but there was nothing the paramedics could do to bring her back.’
I gasped as my hand flew to my mouth.
‘She was gone.’ He was sobbing now, hard, gut-wrenching sobs from the pit of his stomach, and I moved up to hold him.
I didn’t know whether to push him any further, but it would have felt odd not to know how or why.
‘What happened?’ I asked.
‘So why didn’t she use her inhaler?’
He laughed sarcastically, but I knew it wasn’t aimed at me. ‘That was the million-dollar question. She never went anywhere without it, but in all the excitement of moving, we think she just forgot.’
‘We?’
‘Me and her parents. She’d left one at theirs, but she always had a few dotted around, just so there was one at hand if she needed it. I found one in the kitchen drawer but it had run out. So she must have just forgotten, or lost sight of where they were, and which ones needed refilling.’
‘I am so, so sorry,’ I whispered. ‘Why haven’t you told me this before? I could have been helping you all this time. So that you didn’t feel alone.’
‘I’m okay.’ He sniffed. ‘Mum has always been there for me. She found her and called 999. It was hard for her because she adored Becky as much as I did.’
I felt a small stab in my chest at that. Suddenly it was ‘Becky’, and between her, Adam and Pammie, they had a bond that I could never be a part of, and which could never be broken. It felt like a competition that I just couldn’t begin to take part in. I berated myself for being so selfish.
I should be looking at it as a way forward, to help find answers in the complicated dichotomy that is the Banks family. It certainly went a long way to explaining why Pammie behaved the way she did towards me, and I softened at the thought that it was more to do with grief for Rebecca than a hatred towards me. I could begin to understand that: it gave me something to work with, something to use in her defence.
Adam shifted from beneath me, and pulled himself up to sit on the side of the bed. He sniffed and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.
It wasn’t important, but I couldn’t resist. ‘Would you still be with her now, if that hadn’t happened?’
He snorted, shook his head, and stood up. ‘You’re unbelievable,’ he said, before picking up a t-shirt and shorts from the end of the bed.
‘I’m just asking.’
‘What do you want me to say to that?’ he said, his voice rising. ‘That yes, if she hadn’t died so tragically, we’d still be together? Would that make you feel better? Would it make you feel good to know that?’
I shook my head, suddenly embarrassed.
‘Well then, don’t ask stupid questions if you don’t want to know the answers.’
I hadn’t meant anything by it, but I could understand how it might have come across. I thought that now we’d finally been able to make love, Adam would feel happier and less stressed, but it still felt as if he had an anger just bubbling under the surface. All the time – directed at me.
‘I’ll go and finish dinner,’ he said.
21
I don’t know how Mum had become involved in the organization of my hen do. I’d officially handed the baton to my chief and only bridesmaid, Pippa, but then Seb had put his ha’penny in, and Mum a ha’penny more, and suddenly we all found ourselves tiptoeing through a minefield.
Pippa was bitching about Seb’s need for control, Mum was moaning that Pippa was keeping things from her, and I was just a pawn in the middle, not knowing whether I was coming or going.
The only stipulations I’d given them were no strippers, no matching hen t-shirts, and definitely no blow-up dolls. ‘Less is more,’ I’d gently encouraged, hoping for a slightly classier occasion than my brother’s wife Laura had had. She was taken to Blackpool for the weekend, had all of the above, but thankfully had no recollection of it. Still, there were at least six of us at the wedding who’d not consumed quite enough alcohol to erase the memory of her sliding up and down a pole and being given a lap dance.
Of course, the four-day bender that Stuart and twelve of his mates had had in Magaluf went by without incident, it seemed. For them, it was, apparently, rounds of golf, early dinners and quiet nights in. That’s the fundamental difference between them and us: men do what they do, not a word is whispered, and they carry on as if nothing happened. ‘What goes on tour, stays on tour,’ is the mantra we’re all supposed to live by, and us women could, if we didn’t come over all nostalgic two bottles of prosecco in and decide to video it all, for posterity, and to show our kids how wild we used to be.
‘I really don’t mind,’ I said to Mum when she called up to ask if I’d like it to be abroad or somewhere in the UK. ‘I think you’ll find Pippa’s already on it.’
‘Well, she is,’ she said, ‘but she’s not making it very easy for people who don’t have the money to be swanning about all over the world. She’s suggesting a yoga thingy in Iceland, or Las Vegas even. Some people just don’t have that kind of money, Emily.’ And nor would Pippa, usually; her dad was treating her.
‘I know, Mum. I don’t want anything too extravagant either, and besides, Adam and his mates are going to Vegas, so that rules that one out.’ I laughed, but she just tutted. ‘Look, Pippa knows what she’s doing and I’m sure she’ll take everyone into account.’
‘Well, Pammie wants to go to the Lake District,’ said Mum indignantly. A bolt shot across my chest.
‘Pammie? What’s she got to do with anything?’ I asked. I’d hoped that by giving the job to Pippa, I’d be exonerated of all responsibility as to who was invited and who wasn’t. That way, if Tess, my rather dreary work colleague, didn’t make the cut, it wouldn’t be my fault – and I couldn’t imagine Pammie being on the list.
‘She called yesterday to ask what the plans were,’ said Mum. ‘She wanted to arrange a little something for you, if nothing else was being organized.’
So, Pippa hadn’t invited her, it was my mother who had put her foot in it. I groaned inwardly.
‘What did you say to her?’ I said, keeping my voice chirpy. I hadn’t told Mum about my run-ins with Pammie because I didn’t want to worry her. I also didn’t want to create any unnecessary tension between them. I’d be stressed enough for everybody on our wedding day. I just wanted my family, especially Mum, to enjoy herself, without having to worry about what was going on behind the scenes. Pammie was my problem, and I’d deal with it.
‘Well, I told her that your friend was making enquiries,’ she answered defensively. ‘Was I not supposed to say that? See, I don’t know what I’m allowed to say to whom. It’s all getting a bit much.’
‘No, that’s fine, Mum. You can say whatever you like. Probably the only person you shouldn’t say too much to is me, because it’s meant to be a surprise.’
‘Yes, I know that dear. I’ll just keep it between me, Pippa, Seb and Pammie.’
I put the phone down and thought about calling Pippa or Seb, just to check how things were going, but I fought the control-freak in me down and left them to it.
There were still whisperings of discord right up until the day I embarked on my mystery tour. I’d tried to ignore them, but the pettiness was beginning to get to me. ‘Your mum says I shouldn’t invite someone I want to invite,’ moaned Pippa. ‘I think your cousin Shelley should be coming, but Seb says Pippa doesn’t think you’d want her there,’ said Mum, sounding exasperated. By the time I went to bed the night before the 6 a.m. start, I was ruing the day I ever agreed to a bloody hen do.
‘Wakey, wakey, sleepy head,’ whispered Adam as he kissed me. ‘The day for us to make our last mistakes before we get married is here.’
I gave him a sleepy punch. ‘You’d better not,’ I threatened, before turning over and pulling the duvet up around my ears.
‘Come on.’ He laughed. ‘You’re being picked up in an hour.’
‘Can’t we just spend the next four days in bed?’ I asked.
‘You’ll be fine once you get going. I, for one, am actually looking forward to my last hurrah,’ he teased.
/> ‘That’s because you’re flying to Las Vegas!’ I exclaimed. ‘I, no doubt, am headed to Bognor. But don’t you worry about me. You go have the time of your life, gambling, haggling and shagging your way around Nevada.’
‘Hey, less of the gambling and haggling,’ he called out from the bathroom. ‘I won’t be doing any of that there.’
We both laughed, but there was a part of me that felt unsettled, not just about Adam and what he might get up to, but at the thought of where I might be heading and with whom.
Fifty minutes later, after saying goodbye to Adam – who looked smartly casual as he walked across the road in his chinos and polo shirt, with a weathered, brown leather weekend bag in his hand – I found myself being propelled into the back of a car, blindfolded.
‘Is this really necessary, Seb?’ I laughed. ‘Are you sure you don’t want to handcuff me as well?’
‘That’s not really my thing,’ he said.
‘Is there anyone else here? Hello? Hello?’ I called.
‘We’re on our own, you bloody fool.’ He laughed. ‘Any idea where we might be going?’
‘I’m hoping for a hedonistic paradise in Ibiza, but knowing you lot, I’ll probably end up on a pottery course in the Shetland Islands.’
He untied the blindfold once we were on the M25 and, as soon as I worked out we were heading west, I knew that Gatwick airport was a possible destination. And by the time we veered left onto the M23 slip road, it was either that or Brighton.
I envisaged the inside of my suitcase, its contents looking like I was heading to a festival in an unpredictable British summer. Boots, sarong, a mac, and denim shorts were the last thing I threw in as I panic-packed, not knowing whether I was going skiing, sunbathing or somewhere in between.
‘What if I haven’t brought the right stuff?’ I implored Seb, turning to him.
‘Don’t worry, it’s all been taken care of,’ he said mysteriously. It had all been taken care of by whom? If it were left to Pippa, she’d have ferreted in the depths of my wardrobe and found the items that I vowed to get back into some day, those jeans from when I was nineteen, which I refused to believe had seen their last wear. The fact that they were two sizes too small and hideously old-fashioned, with their boot-cut bottoms and fly buttons, seemed lost on my ever-optimistic pride. If, God forbid, Mum had had a secret root through, she’d have picked the floral playsuit and the wrap-over cardigan, which had been bought in a fit of pique in the end-of-summer sales. Both had the tags still on, because both made me look like a twelve-year-old.