‘But you chose Leo Frost as an example, Valentina. And that was purely because of your past with him. Admit it!’
Valentina goes quiet on the other end of the phone.
‘Fine . . . ’ she sighs eventually. ‘I may have let my personal feelings about him cloud my judgement a little.’
‘You definitely did,’ I grumble. ‘And now we’re all paying the price.’
Valentina’s voice wobbles, less confident than I’ve ever heard it. ‘I . . . I really liked him, Jess,’ she says softly. ‘And, well, I’m afraid I’m not used to not getting exactly what I want. I don’t understand why he didn’t want to be with me. I’m super. A successful, strong and attractive woman with everything going for her . . . You’re right, he did apologize to me, but that didn’t change the fact that I was humiliated. Everyone in London knew we were dating, and everyone in London knew that he was screwing other women.’
‘And you wanted him to be taken down a peg or two. You used me to flaming do it! I was your Patsy!’
‘I didn’t think it would turn out like this,’ Valentina protests. ‘And you’re not exactly innocent! After your initial misgivings, you went along with fooling Leo very easily.’
I object to that statement, but she’s right. I was so quick to believe that Leo Frost deserved to be tricked. It all fitted in nicely with every theory Mum had about men and relationships. I was just as ignorant when Mum told me that my dad was nothing more than a lousy charlatan – I didn’t ever question that there was any more to it than that.
‘I am sorry, Jess,’ Valentina says eventually, her tone sincere. ‘I truly am. I think you’ve got a bucketload of talent, and I truly hope that somehow we’ll get to work together in the future.’
I sigh a heavy, sad sigh. ‘Please will you tell Matilda about the injunction? I . . . I can’t face her right now.’
‘Of course. It’s the least I can do.’
‘Thanks.’ I swallow hard. ‘Bye then, Valentina.’
I end the call quickly and immediately burst into tears once more.
I cry into the pillow for another twenty minutes before I get the energy to go downstairs and find Jamie. He’s sitting at the big kitchen table, sipping coffee and poring over a notebook. I glance at the clock on the wall and notice it’s eleven a.m.
‘Are you not supposed to be in work today?’ I ask.
He shrugs. ‘I pulled a sickie.’
I pour myself some coffee and join him at the table.
‘You didn’t have to do that.’
‘Ah, any excuse I can get.’ He smiles. ‘How you feeling?’
‘Rotten,’ I answer, telling him all about the phone call I just had with Valentina.
‘Is there anything I can do to help?’ His face is sympathetic. ‘Anything at all?’
Instantly, a thought occurs to me.
‘There is something, yes,’ I say, draining the rest of my coffee.
‘Whatever you want.’
‘Will you drive me to Manchester?’
Half an hour later we’re zooming up the motorway. Due to the fact that I don’t have any of my clothes, I’m wearing my pyjama bottoms and one of Jamie’s T-shirts. Jamie is trying his best to cheer me up with a selection of horror stories from his course at medical school, and by singing me Led Zeppelin songs because his car radio is broken. I try my best to lighten up. I hate not being light. But I can’t do it. All I can do is cry, and when I’m not crying, I think about how shit my life is, then I eat crisps, then I cry again.
When my phone rings, my heart leaps as, for a split second, I think that it might be Leo returning one of my many missed calls. ‘Hello?’ I say, my voice squeaking.
‘Jess, where are you? Are you all right?’
It’s Peach. Her voice is all croaky. She sounds as rough as toast.
‘Yeah, I’m all right,’ I say. ‘I’m just sorting out some stuff. Are you OK?’
‘I’m so sorry about last night. I feel like such a jackass. I only woke up about an hour ago. I’m never drinking tequila again. And now Matilda is crying. She won’t stop crying. What the heck is going on?’
I give Peach the highlights of the events that have played out over the last twelve hours: about Leo and Mum’s diaries and Valentina. When I’m finished, she starts crying too.
‘Lord, I’m sorry, Jess. I could have helped you last night. Instead I was passed out in bed like a damn fool. I am a terrible friend.’
Ordinarily I would take the piss out of her for getting so wasted, for drooling all over Gavin. But I just haven’t got it in me today.
‘We’ve all been there,’ I say instead. ‘Is . . . is Matilda all right?’
‘I don’t know. She’s locked herself in her room. I can hear her crying in there and listening to old doo-wop songs. I don’t know what to do. You need to come back!’
My neck itches. ‘I can’t, Peach. Not right now. Will . . . will you look after her for me?’
‘Of course.’
I swallow.
‘And Mr Belding too.’
‘Sure. He’s right here on the bed with me, snug as a bug.’
‘I’ll be in touch soon, OK. You go and get some Berocca. And some Monster Munch.’
‘All right.’
She sounds sad.
‘And Peach.’
‘Yeah?’
‘You’re not a terrible friend . . . you’re, well, you’re my best friend.’
And the realization that that’s the truth, that, out of all this, I have met Peach, is enough to stop me from crying. For fifteen minutes, anyway.
When, around three hours later, we pull up at our destination, Jamie turns off the engine and unlocks his seat belt as if to get out of the car with me.
‘I need to do this on my own,’ I tell him with a small smile.
He nods, opens up his glove compartment and pulls out a textbook called Cardiac Imaging. He holds it up. ‘I’ll be right here.’
My whole body vibrating with nerves, I open the car door and climb out. I walk through the huge cast-iron gates and down a path bordered with trees and neatly tended shrubbery. I’ve only been to this place once in my life – ten years ago – but many times in my head. I walk the route as easily as if I’d been here just yesterday.
When I arrive at Mum’s headstone, my chest squeezes. My neck and scalp start to itch so much that it burns, and my heart seems to slow right down.
I plop down on the grass and reach forward to touch the smooth marble of the stone. It’s warm from the afternoon sun.
I take a breath.
‘Hey, Mum,’ I say, placing my hands back in my lap. ‘Sorry I’ve not been for so long. Or ever, really. It’s been . . . well, everything’s been a bit fucked-up, to be honest.’
I pause. The silence is deafening.
‘I’ve been staying with Grandma Beam. I know now that you didn’t want me to, and after reading your diaries last night, I understand why you never talked about her or Granddad Jack. But I found something out and I thought you should know . . . ’
The tears start to fall again, and this time I don’t try to stop them – I’m getting pretty used to them now.
‘Grandma told me that Thomas – my dad – came back for you. He didn’t take that money. Four days after you left, he returned and tried to give it back. Granddad Jack sent him away and told him you were living with his family in America. Otherwise I’m pretty sure he would have found you. And then, who knows how things would have turned out.
‘I’m not sure yet, but I thought that maybe, at some point in the future, I might try to find him. Would you mind that? I mean, it seems that he’s not exactly the shithead we thought he was, and, well, I feel like maybe he should know that I exist. I don’t know . . .
‘Mum, you always told me that love ruins you. That relationships are dangerous, that I mustn’t open myself up to hurt. And I’ve carried that with me for my whole life. I’ve been so frightened of ending up like you that I’ve always tried not to care abou
t anything or anyone. But then I moved in with Grandma, and I know she’s crazy, but I started to care about her. And Peach, her assistant, who’s also a bit nuts, well, I care about her too.
‘And then I met a man. Someone that makes me feel the way I’m guessing Thomas made you feel. Like there was something to look forward to. Someone who I really, really just wanted to know. I fought against it, I told myself it wasn’t possible, because I didn’t want to end up like you. But it all went wrong and I feel properly like crap anyway. But I also feel something else too. I feel alive. Not because of booze, or parties, or sex, which – don’t get me wrong – are still on the top of my list of favourite things, but because I allowed myself to feel so many good things about another person. And he, even if just for a little while, felt that way about me too.
‘So anyway, I just wanted to come here to tell you that Thomas loved you. I think if you’d known that, things might have been different. And I hope that wherever you are now, you feel better.
‘I love you, Mum. And I miss you. I miss you fucking loads. But it’s time for me to live by my own rules. Love might end up breaking me. But I need the chance to find that out for myself, in my own way.
‘Well, that’s it, I guess. It was . . . It was really nice to talk to you, Mum. I won’t leave it so long the next time.’
I touch the pale grey marble one more time, rubbing the tips of my fingers against the indentation of Mum’s name carved into the stone. Then the sky rumbles and I jump slightly as it starts to piss it down for the first time since this summer heatwave began. As the heavy raindrops soak through my T-shirt and pyjamas, my breathing starts to calm, and then, all at once, I feel something inside me slot back into place.
I think it might be my heart.
On the way home, I gaze out of the window at the other cars driving alongside us and feel calmer, lighter than I have done in a very long time. The ring of Jamie’s phone brings me out of my dozy trance. He flips a switch so that the phone call goes through to his headphones.
‘Hello,’ I hear him say. His eyes flick to me for a moment. Then he says, ‘Oh, nothing . . . just going for a drive . . . no one . . . I don’t know when. Um . . . yeah, maybe. I’ll call you soon. Bye.’
He ends the call. The tops of his ears have turned pink.
‘Who was that?’ I ask.
‘Oh, just, um, Kiko,’ he shrugs casually.
Kiko? He just totally palmed her off.
‘I can’t wait to meet her,’ I say lightly.
He gives me a look. ‘Really?’
I nod. ‘Really. I . . . I want you and me to be friends.’
He chews his lip for a moment. ‘Friends . . . with benefits?’
I smile, despite myself. ‘No. I meant what I said the other week. And . . . well, I kind of have feelings for someone else. Not that anything’s going to come of that, but . . . I want to be honest with you, and the truth is, I really like hanging out with you. And I’d really like it if we can be friends. Proper friends.’
He sighs long and low. And then he coughs: ‘Does that mean we’re going to have to brush each other’s hair and talk about, um, Jared Leto and stuff?’
‘Yes. If it were 1998 . . . ’
‘Well, that’s fine by me, Jess,’ Jamie says, pulling into the inside lane and speeding up. ‘To be honest, I never really fancied you anyway.’
I can’t help but laugh.
‘Thanks, Jamie.’ I grin, putting my hand on top of his and giving it a squeeze.
And then, when he starts up with a rousing chorus of Metallica’s ‘Enter Sandman’, I join in.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Forgiveness is living proof of true love.
Matilda Beam’s Good Woman Guide, 1959
I stay on Jamie’s couch for the next couple of weeks because the mere thought of even seeing, let alone talking to Grandma makes me feel irate and sad all at the same time. Peach drops my stuff off in Bayswater and calls me with regular updates about Mr Belding (as happy as ever) and Grandma, who’s apparently pretending to be all right in the day, showing round potential buyers for her house, but then spends the nights crying. Which makes me feel kind of terrible.
I meet Kiko once or twice when she comes to see Jamie. At first she’s a little wary of my friendship with him and the fact that I’m sleeping on his sofa, but I soon warm her up with my sunny disposition, and I really think there’s a chance that, at some point, we’ll become actual mates. Kiko even helps me to pick out an age-appropriate present (a bubble-making machine) for the first birthday party of Betty’s son Henry, which I travel up to Manchester for. Don’t get me wrong – the whole thing was super boring – but the fact that I turned up and endured two hours of screaming kids made Betty so surprised and pleased that it was totally worth the pain, and she’s since sent me a Facebook invite for a house party she’s planning on having in September.
Speaking of Facebook, Summer is on there more than she’s ever been. Now that she’s back with Anderson, she’s forever posting selfies and statuses about their ‘amazing love’ and how she’s #superblessed to #haveitall. I try to be Zen about the whole thing, but the truth is that what she did at the ball was so needlessly mean that seeing her smug face all over the Internet just winds me up. So I unfriend her. And then, on the day she’s set to announce the cast of her new TV show (which, annoyingly, Stylist magazine are calling the most hotly anticipated show for 2015) exclusively on Summer in the City, I log into the site using my password and send every page link on the site to a YouTube video of Rick Astley’s ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ in a sort of mass Rick Roll. I do it every day for a week until she finally pegs on that it’s me and changes the passwords. But by that time her reputation as a tastemaker has already been sufficiently dented and there’s a headline in BuzzFeed that says ‘Summer Spencer’s Bizarre New Obsession with Rick Astley’, which makes me howl with laughter.
I attempt, a lot, to get in touch with Leo so that I can apologize properly. I ring him a gazillion times, but it goes straight to voicemail. I email him, but apart from my regular newsletters and one lovely offer of ‘great and joyous wealth’ from a Nigerian prince, my inbox remains woefully empty. I even turn up at Leo’s apartment one night, hold my iPhone above my head (I couldn’t locate a boom box) and blast out Peter Gabriel’s ‘In Your Eyes’ like John Cusack does in one of Leo’s favourite 80s films. But Leo doesn’t appear to be at home, and an exhausted-looking woman on the next floor up leans out of her window and tells me to stop being so selfish and shut the fuck up, else she’ll call the police. To which I profusely apologize and shuffle away sadly.
I try to accept being frozen out by Leo. He’s well within his rights to never want to speak to me again – after all, I massively lied to him. I even pretend to myself that I don’t care that much, that it doesn’t really matter, that I’ll get over it soon enough. But I’m not sure that’s true. I think constantly about his usually dancing green eyes full of betrayal, his gorgeous confident mouth downturned. Then I think about what he’s doing right at that moment, if he’s thinking of me, who he’s hanging out with, and if they’re laughing together. These inconvenient thoughts keep me awake almost every night. Eventually, when I can no longer bear the notion that he might never really know how sorry I am, I wake up one Friday morning and catch the Tube to the Strand. I blast open the doors to Woolf Frost and march determinedly up to the receptionist.
‘I need to see Leo Frost immediately,’ I say firmly.
The receptionist glances up from her computer, a bored expression on her young face. We met last time I was here, but she doesn’t recognize me in my normal clothes and glasses, my hair scraped back into a messy bun.
‘He’s not here.’
‘Where is he? I need to see him. It’s urgent,’ I say, urgently.
She shrugs idly, grabs a packet of Maltesers from under her desk and opens them really slowly.
‘Hello?’ I prompt.
She tuts. ‘He left the company. Resign
ed a week ago now.’ She munches delicately on a little sphere of chocolate.
‘What? He resigned? Why?’
Her eyes scan the reception area and she lowers her voice. ‘Are you a client?’
‘No. I just need to talk to him. Where is he?’
‘OK, well, you didn’t hear it from me, but there’s this rumour that Leo Frost left the company to become an artist. Silly sod. Old Rufus is fuming! I hear Leo’s gone to France for a couple of weeks. Wants to paint the sea there, or something.’ She giggles to herself and rolls her eyes as if she thinks the whole thing is clearly the action of a wuss. And a month ago I might have thought exactly the same thing. But I think about the paintbrush I gave to Leo at the ball, and though my heart aches at the fact that he’s not even in the country, a warm, light feeling sparkles in my chest and I can’t help but smile to myself.
Leo Frost: Artist.
Leaving Woolf Frost, I wander down to Little Joe’s Java. The place is much less busy than when I was here for the poetry night, and some lively samba-style music plays over the low din of late-morning customers. I order a cappuccino with extra whipped cream and ask the barista if he can lend me some paper and a pen. He cheerfully hands over a letterheaded notepad and a blue Bic, and I take a seat on one of the squishy sofas. I start to write.
Dear Leo,
So I’ve been trying to get in touch via all the usual ways, but obviously you haven’t wanted to hear from me – totally understandable, but I hope that when you get back from France you’ll read this and know how truly sorry I am.
I was in a bit of a weird place when I agreed to take part in this project – I’d just lost my job and my home and was in search of a fast buck, plus my grandma really, really needed my help. I was under the impression that you were some kind of sexist, womanizing shithead, and although that’s not exactly an excuse for fooling you, it made the decision to do it so much easier. To be honest, our altercation at The Beekeeper launch didn’t help; I genuinely thought you were a massive prick.
The Vintage Guide to Love and Romance Page 30