CHAPTER NINETEEN
‘I’m here,’ Mallory said on the phone to Emmy.
Emmy had only just woken. She had slept intermittently in any case, after an excited night following an evening in which Matthew had told her that he thought he was in love with her. He had kissed her – kissed her a lot, in fact – but declined to come home with her.
‘Plenty of time for that,’ he’d said, ‘when you decide what you feel about me.’
‘Where?’ Emmy said dazedly into her phone.
‘At Heathrow,’ Mallory said. ‘I came on the red-eye. I’m coming to yours. As you would say.’
Emmy sat up a little more. ‘But I’m going to work. It’s Friday.’
‘Not for more than an hour,’ Mallory said. ‘I’ll be there before then.’
‘Mal,’ Emmy said, ‘what are you doing?’
‘I couldn’t stay,’ Mallory said. ‘It was as simple as that. I didn’t fit any more and I couldn’t stay. I couldn’t think about anything but you guys and it was driving me nuts.’
Emmy began to get out of bed.
‘Have you told your father?’
‘Not yet.’
‘So he doesn’t know you’re here?’
‘Nobody knows but you – now,’ Mallory said. ‘I didn’t tell anyone. It was just that when I thought of coming, I kinda had to. So I have.’
Emmy looked round her. The sofa where Mallory would expect to sleep was scattered with the rapturously discarded clothing of the night before. She remembered high-kicking her shoes off and now she could only see one of them.
‘Mal,’ Emmy said, ‘if you can get here by eight, I’ll be here. Otherwise, you’ll have to sit in a coffee shop all morning.’
Mallory laughed.
‘And ring your father,’ Emmy added.
Mallory stopped laughing.
‘I mean it,’ Emmy said. ‘Being back means accepting what we can’t change. Even if we don’t want to.’
There was a small silence and then Mallory said, ‘Dickhead. Why d’you think I’ve come back then?’ and rang off.
*
Something had happened to the routine of William’s weekly phone calls to his children. He was extremely indignant about this as he regarded his own even-handed regularity as a manifestation of fairness and generosity on his part, but in turn, every one of his three children had texted him to say that the Sunday-morning call wasn’t going to work this weekend, sorry Dad, hope to be able to speak soon. And then they had been difficult, or impossible, to get hold of, and the reliable routine of the past appeared to count for nothing. William sent a – to his mind, only mildly – chiding email to all three of them, to which there was no response whatsoever. He tried telephoning and was met by three voicemail messages. As a last resort – he told himself that he had been left with no other options – he rang Rose.
She was very startled.
‘William!’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, it’s me. I am trying to ring the children – it would be Laura’s turn this weekend, as a matter of fact – but I can’t get hold of them. I haven’t, actually, been able to speak to any of them for over two weeks.’
Rose said, sympathetically, ‘Oh dear.’
‘Can you explain it? I mean, what is going on?’
Rose looked at the carpet. ‘Nothing, William.’
‘What do you mean, nothing? Of course there’s something! You set the cat among the pigeons with this whole marriage insistence—’
‘Please stop,’ Rose said. ‘Don’t waste a long-distance phone call going over old ground. There’s no point, and anyway, whatever I do or don’t do is actually none of your business any more. Was there something you wanted to say to the children, something you’d like me to tell them?’
William sounded slightly mollified. ‘Well, yes, actually. There is.’
Rose waited. She had a picture in her mind of the spacious bungalow where William lived in Melbourne, with Gillian Greenhalgh, to which she had mentally added a huge tropical garden full of avocado trees and squawking macaws.
William cleared his throat. ‘I have something to announce, Rose. Something you should know about as well as the children.’
‘You aren’t ill, are you?’
‘Ill?’ William said. ‘No, of course I’m not ill. In fact, this announcement is the reverse of my being ill. I’m – getting married.’
‘Heavens,’ Rose said. ‘No need to ask to whom.’
‘No.’
‘I thought you didn’t believe in second marriages. I thought you thought marrying a second time was idiotically impractical and unnecessary.’
‘Hm,’ William said.
‘I see,’ Rose said, ‘I get it. You would be quite happy never marrying again, but she wants to be Mrs Woodrowe. That’s it, isn’t it?’
William said, in a stately tone, ‘I would like my children to be present.’
‘In Australia?’ Rose said. ‘You expect them to come to Australia to watch you marry Gillian Greenhalgh? And you think I’ll pass that message on?’
William said crossly, ‘I imagine you expect them to come to your wedding.’
‘My life,’ Rose said, ‘is no concern of yours. In any case, whatever I do or don’t do will be of my own free will.’
‘Meaning?’
‘You know perfectly well what I mean.’
‘None of this changes my wish,’ William said, ‘to have my children at my wedding.’
‘In Australia?’
‘Naturally. In Australia.’
‘And how are they going to get there? Who is going to pay for their flights to Australia? Six tickets, if you count Laura’s boys?’
‘I shall make arrangements.’
‘William,’ Rose said. ‘Stop being so pompous. Just think.’
‘What I’m thinking,’ William said with sudden energy, ‘is that I don’t know what’s got into you. You were so docile once, so easy and sweet and now – well, now the word virago comes to mind.’
‘Yes,’ Rose said.
‘For God’s sake, you sound as if you’re smiling!’
‘I am.’
‘All I can say,’ William said furiously from Sunday evening in Australia, ‘is God help the poor bugger you’re marrying. God help him.’
*
Rose went down the stairs to the kitchen, where Tyler had laid out their Sunday morning breakfast ritual of croissants. He had already been to Marylebone High Street both to collect the croissants and to fetch a stack of Sunday newspapers, which lay neatly on the coffee table in the sitting room. He was making coffee when she came in. She said, ‘That was William on the phone.’
He turned, his hand still on the plunger of the filter jug.
‘Oh?’
‘He’s getting married.’
‘Ah.’
Rose settled herself on a stool. ‘It seems she wants it. Wants to be Mrs William Woodrowe.’
‘Well, if she hasn’t been Mrs anything, ever . . .’
‘Yes.’
He carried the coffee pot across to the central island where breakfast was laid out. He said, ‘Shall I get the papers or would you rather talk?’
She didn’t look at him. She said, her hands in her lap, ‘I meant to ask you something yesterday.’
‘Fire away.’
‘Tyler,’ Rose said, ‘what is this secret plan you have that you know I’ll love?’
He grinned sheepishly. ‘I didn’t want you to know till almost the very day.’
‘What very day?’
‘Before we fly.’
Rose raised her head. ‘Fly?’
He sat on the stool next to her and folded his arms. ‘To San Francisco.’
‘Oh.’
He leaned forward. He said warmly, ‘I wanted you just to have to pack a case and then we’d be off to the airport. I wanted it to be a complete surprise. But everything’s planned, everything’s in order: meeting Seth and Yuhui, staying with friends, the hotel at the end, all sorted. I c
an show you all my places, for once, where I lived my life for thirty years.’ He stopped and looked at her. Then he unfolded his arms. ‘Rose?’
Very slowly and sadly, she shook her head.
‘What?’ he said. ‘What? Don’t you want to? Don’t you want to meet Seth?’
She said in a whisper, ‘It’s got nothing to do with meeting Seth.’
‘What hasn’t? What?’
‘Tyler. I’m so sorry. But I don’t want to go to San Francisco.’
He looked down at his lap and bit his lip. ‘But I’ve bought the tickets.’
‘I’m sorry about that, too. I’m – I’m sorry about all of it.’
He glanced up again at her. ‘All of it?’
She nodded. ‘All of it.’
It was his turn to whisper. He said, ‘What are you saying?’
‘I think,’ Rose said quietly, ‘that you know what I’m saying.’
He put a hand up to his eyes. Then he said in a low voice, ‘Don’t you love me?’
She leaned forward and put her own hand on his. ‘Yes, I love you. But I can’t marry you.’
He brushed her hand aside and got off his stool. Then he went across the room and stood with his back to her. After what seemed like an eternity, he said, ‘I knew this was coming.’
‘Did you?’
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I knew it.’ He turned round. He looked suddenly much smaller, as if something within him had shrunk and pulled his exterior self inwards. ‘There’s been something in the air, something not quite right, for ages. Weeks. Long before the party. And then . . .’ He stopped.
‘What?’
‘I rang the solicitor. Just after you did. He told me that you’d withdrawn the offer on the cottage.’
‘Yes. I was going to tell you.’
‘Were you?’
She nodded again. ‘Of course I was.’
He said unhappily, ‘It wasn’t the cottage really, was it? And it wasn’t when I told you about Cindy’s money. It was before that. Wasn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘Is it . . .’ he said, and trailed off.
‘Is it what?’
‘Is it – oh God, I can’t even say the word, it’s so debasing, so unworthy, unromantic. But – but, is it money?’
Yet again, she nodded. He gave a groan and turned away.
She said steadily, ‘It isn’t just money, Tyler. I mean, money isn’t just something sordid and base.’
‘Isn’t it?’
‘No. And certainly not at our age. At our age, it’s dignity and choice. It is terrible, at our age, to have the humiliation of no choice or power.’
He said, ‘You think so.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘In fact, I know so.’
He looked at her. ‘But, Rosie, you have money.’
‘Yes.’
‘So what does it matter if I don’t?’
‘In time,’ she said sadly, ‘I wouldn’t love you enough to overcome the resentment I’d have that you were living off me, that we didn’t share the same attitude to money.’
‘But you didn’t make the money that bought this house.’
‘No,’ Rose said, ‘but I earned it. I earned this house when William ended the marriage and I’ve earned the possibility of living here.’
‘But you’re selling it! You’re selling it to the Gaffneys!’
‘I am.’
‘How can you be so calm?’ Tyler shouted. ‘How can you sit there in the ruin of all our hopes and plans and seem so – Jesus, almost indifferent?’
‘I’m not indifferent. I’m far from indifferent.’ She held her hands out. ‘Look how they’re shaking.’
He seized them. ‘Rosie, sweetheart, please don’t do this, please think again. We don’t need the cottage, we don’t need to disappoint the Gaffneys, we can think of some other plan, I’ll bin those tickets to San Francisco, nothing matters, nothing except we are together. I can’t bear it. I literally cannot bear to lose you.’
Very gradually, she withdrew her hands. She said, not looking at him, ‘I didn’t say I didn’t love you.’
‘But if you won’t marry me! If you don’t want to meet Seth . . .’
‘I told you. Meeting Seth has nothing to do with it.’
He leaned against the island. He said, ‘I can’t believe this is happening.’
‘But you said you knew.’
‘I feared it,’ Tyler said. ‘I was walking on eggshells. I was telling myself that it would all be fine, sort of to keep my spirits up, but there was a storm brewing. I knew it. I could feel it.’ He looked wildly at Rose. ‘What the hell am I supposed to do now?’
She looked back at him in silence.
‘Tell me, will you?’ he demanded. ‘Tell me. You bring my world crashing down about my ears, so you can’t just walk away. You can’t.’
Rose stood up slowly from her stool.
She said, ‘I think you use that ticket and go back to San Francisco. And sort yourself out. Sort your pension. See Seth.’
He gazed at her. He was almost gaping. ‘And you?’
‘I’ll miss you.’
‘How dare you say that!’
‘It’s true,’ Rose said.
He sighed and shook his head. ‘I don’t get you.’
‘No.’
Clumsily, she pulled the aquamarine ring off her engagement finger and held it out. Her hand was far from steady.
‘I think – I suppose – that you had better have this.’
He looked at the ring, then he looked at her face, and then back at the ring. Slowly, he stretched out his right hand, took the ring from her and dropped it in his trouser pocket as if it were no more than a handful of loose change. Then he moved towards the door. Rose watched him. She said hoarsely, ‘Where are you going?’
He halted but he didn’t look back at her. ‘To pack,’ he said.
‘To – to pack?’
He glanced briefly at her. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It’s what you want, isn’t it?’
*
It was something, Emmy considered, that she thought she would never see; Nat and Mallory side by side on the sofa where Mallory slept, sharing a white chocolate and raspberry muffin on the paper bag Nat had brought it in. Nat had arrived bearing the muffin, and three coffees in a recycled cardboard holder, looking so woebegone that Emmy had done what she hadn’t done for months, and enfolded him, coffees and paper bag and all, in an awkward but heartfelt embrace and he’d said, ‘Don’t Em, don’t, or I’ll just blub again. I’ve already made an idiot of myself all over Tim.’
Mallory had been up, but not dressed. Her hair, now dark again but with cobalt-blue tips once more, was tangled, and she was wearing flannel pyjama trousers and a faded T-shirt which said ‘Look but do not touch’ on the front in dark-green letters. Emmy had been getting ready for brunch with Matthew and had texted him, when Nat arrived, to say that she would be late. His message had come back at once.
Let’s make it lunch then. Or tea. Or dinner.
As long as I can see you today.
Emmy put her phone in the back pocket of her jeans. It seemed more than tactless to have a happy romantic prospect when, clearly, Nat’s own romantic plans had been so cruelly dashed.
Mallory offered him the last piece of muffin. He waved it away.
‘You have it.’
She went on holding out the paper bag as if it were a plate. ‘No, Nat. You have it. You need it.’
‘Being dumped,’ he said, taking it, ‘isn’t cured by muffin.’
‘Nor by vodka,’ Mallory said. ‘But it helps.’
Emmy came to sit on the arm of the sofa. ‘Did – she just go?’
He sighed. He took a mouthful of coffee then said, ‘No. She told me. She was all gussied up to go out somewhere, somewhere not with me, and she just said it was – over. She said – oh, she said all kinds of meant-to-be-nice things, but the bottom line was that she was going. And then she went. Cleared everything while I was at work, and went.
’
‘Do you know where she’s gone?’
‘I’m not asking,’ Nat said. ‘I don’t want to know.’
Emmy and Mallory exchanged glances. ‘Of course not,’ said Emmy.
‘She warned me,’ Nat said. ‘She told me we wouldn’t last, that I was just for now, but I didn’t think she was planning to go so soon. I never thought she meant kind of now.’ He sniffed. ‘I made an utter fool of myself around Tim.’
‘Tim’ll forgive you,’ Emmy said.
‘I wish I could,’ Nat said. ‘I wish I could forgive myself. I’ve got a broken heart and bruised pride and I don’t know what to do about either.’
Mallory tipped the crumbs off the paper bag into her cupped palm. Then she put her head back and tossed the contents of her hand into her mouth.
‘Just wait,’ she said indistinctly.
Emmy nodded. ‘Exactly. Just wait.’ She looked fondly down at him. ‘You’ve got me, after all. And her.’
He sighed again. ‘Yes.’
Emmy nudged him with her nearest foot. ‘You’ve missed me, Natty.’
He glanced up at her, briefly. ‘I have.’
She bent towards him. ‘That’s a beginning, then. Tim’s staying, so you can afford the flat. That’s good.’
Nat stared at the floor. ‘There’s just this wedding, now.’
Mallory nudged him. ‘Cheer up, big boy. We’ll be brother and sister.’
He managed a weak smile. Mallory’s phone, buried in her discarded duvet, began to ring. She found it, pulled it out and looked at the screen without enthusiasm.
‘It’s my father.’
‘Answer it,’ Emmy commanded.
‘He can wait.’
‘Answer it!’ Nat and Emmy said in chorus.
Mallory shook her hair free of her right ear and held her phone against it.
‘Dad?’
The others watched her, with a shared air of mild self-congratulation. She was listening and then abruptly, her body stiffened and she stood up. Nat looked up at her and Emmy straightened.
An Unsuitable Match Page 26