Love, and Other Things to Live For

by Louise Leverett

  ‘Well, what am I supposed to think?’

  ‘Jess, I love you.’ He loosened his tie and undid his top button. ‘But you’re right, there is something. I just didn’t want to tell you sitting here, on a wall, in a car park.’

  I looked at him as he gathered his thoughts as I fought the lump in the back of my throat. It was only then that I knew. I didn’t want to lose him.

  ‘Well, you know, Giles and Morgan were in trouble at the start of last year, don’t you?’

  I nodded, my eyes still fixed on him.

  ‘And how they gave me the opportunity to get the company back on track. By the end, I’d reduced their plummeting figures quite dramatically.’

  ‘Charlie,’ I said, calmly, ‘this is all work talk, what does it have to do with us? Wasn’t that over a year ago now?’

  ‘Around the time we split up,’ he said.

  ‘I see.’ I could see the timeline of events falling into place in my mind. The reason for our break-up wasn’t his unhappiness, as I had predicted. It was a far more complicated reason than that.

  ‘I sold off half of the shares at a premium rate and then bought them back cheaply once our stock price had plummeted. It was the only way to get the job done.’

  ‘Isn’t that illegal?’ I said.

  ‘It’s not illegal, Jess. It’s unethical… at most.’

  It might have taken twelve months but there on a wall in a car park, the past was starting to make sense.

  ‘So what now?’ I said, confused.

  ‘They want me to do the same in New York.’

  I could slowly feel my heart begin to pound inside my tight dress. ‘You’re moving to New York?’

  ‘The office were putting pressure on me to make a decision but I was just waiting for the right time…’

  ‘But you have made the decision, haven’t you?’ I said.

  He nodded.

  ‘And when were you going to tell me?’

  ‘Well, I didn’t want to tell you like this… standing out here…’

  ‘When were you going to tell me, Charlie?’ I could feel my voice rise.

  ‘You’ve got it wrong, Jess.’

  ‘You lied to me, Charlie. You told me that you wanted to be here with me.’ I could feel my breath getting tighter by the second.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

  ‘So why did you bring me here and make me go through all this if you knew that you were leaving?’

  ‘Jess, can you let me speak, please…’

  ‘What more do you want from me, Charlie?’

  He took hold of my hand and I looked into his eyes that were wide and expectant. ‘I want you to come with me, Jess,’ he said, still holding my hand. ‘I want you to come with me.’

  I’d hung onto every word that had been fed to me through fantasy, recalling the countless stories I’d been told as a five-year-old girl. In folklore where unicorns grazed and dragons hid in caves, I imagined a perfect world, a house made of gingerbread and a handsome prince to catch me should I fall. I’d been fed the concept for as long as I could remember, giving up all logic and reason for the dangerous thrill of believing. But in a different tale, depicting the realities of real life, in usually a very complex situation, it seemed there was now a new story: the little girl who had an invitation to the financiers’ ball, who had an inkling she was being lied to but was left with a question of earth-shattering proportions: a choice between love and financial independence. They hadn’t made that into a children’s tale yet; perhaps it would prevent young girls from believing.

  Chapter Twenty-Two – Pushing Through Purgatory

  Things in life that are sent to test you:

  Slow walkers on a crowded pavement.

  Noisy eaters in a quiet restaurant.

  Not enough time to sleep.

  Not enough money to eat.

  Broken minds.

  Broken hearts.

  When a jury is asked to come to a verdict, there are usually twelve of them, and they have a spread of evidence laid out before them to guide them towards a final decision. I, on the other hand, had no one to deliberate with. I was on my own. Scared to tell others for fear that their reaction might cloud my judgment, I’d borne the burden of the news alone over the days that followed and I was still no clearer in reaching a decision.

  As I heard the familiar chatter coming from the kitchen, I smiled safe in the knowledge that certain things, for now, remained exactly the same. It was barely light and my limbs lay heavy under the warmth of the duvet as I rolled over into the sheets that had grown too comfortable. I’d spent a large portion of the night wide-awake, trying to conceive of a way in which things could work. But each potential decision spelled out an ending: a resignation from my job, my relationship or the concept of home that I had only just been introduced to. Instead I would start the day as usual. Eat Breakfast. Get dressed. Go for a run. Maybe. Not think.

  The smell of scrambled eggs, fresh coffee and petty arguments hit me as I walked into the kitchen. Amber was sitting in her dressing gown, flicking through a magazine as Charlie stood over the cooker wafting the smoke from a pan of eggs.

  ‘Morning, beautiful,’ he said as I sat down across from Amber.

  ‘Jess, please tell him that the pan is mine and if he burns it, he can buy me a new one.’

  ‘Charlie, if you burn the pan, again, then this time you need to buy her a new one,’ I said, trying to stay impartial. She shook her head dismissively.

  ‘So, what’s the plan for today, Amber?’ I could see her itching for an argument with Charlie, so I tried my best to keep her distracted.

  ‘I’m going to meet with a man about running some traffic through my new website,’ she said, ‘and then off to the bank for a meeting. Why, what are you doing?’

  ‘Work,’ I said, putting my phone in my bag. ‘And if we don’t get a move on, we’ll both be late. Charlie!’ I shouted as he rinsed the pan in the sink, a hiss of steam coming from it.

  Amber rolled her eyes before going back to her magazine.

  ‘What?’ I asked, defensively.

  ‘It’s like you’re married.’

  Charlie had wanted me to tell her yesterday, and the day before that, but it was a conversation that could only begin once I knew how to finish it.

  ‘Amber, I was thinking, and feel free to say no if you want to…’

  ‘I don’t like the sound of this already,’ she said into her coffee cup.

  ‘Maybe the three of us could have dinner with Mitch? I want to get to know him more before…’

  ‘. . . you move to the other side of the world,’ Charlie said, finishing my sentence to Amber’s confusion. Luckily the comment was brushed off.

  ‘Okay, I’ll see what he says,’ she said. ‘I know what you’re like when you get a bee in your bonnet. What about tonight?’

  ‘Works for me,’ I said eagerly, as Charlie pretended he couldn’t hear us. ‘Works for him too – you’re free tonight, aren’t you? To meet Mitch?’

  ‘My excitement is at fever pitch,’ he said, deadpan.

  ‘Just don’t make it into a big thing,’ Amber said. ‘Just a casual dinner… very low maintenance…’

  ‘Low maintenance?’ Charlie laughed. ‘Involving Jess?’

  ‘Why don’t we go to that new clean-eating place?’ I said, ‘the one with the blue lampshades off Wardour Street?’

  ‘Fine by me,’ Amber said.

  ‘Clean-eating?’ Charlie mouthed, before seeing that I was not amused. ‘Fine, I’ll have a steak or something before I meet you. Come on Jess, we’d better go, it’s almost 7.30.’

  I kissed Amber on the top of her head. ‘See you later!’ I said as I left.

  Outside on the concrete steps, things were definitely getting a lot warmer. I took a big breath of fresh air and exhaled it slowly. It was a clear sign that spring was here.

  ‘So have you given it any more thought?’ Charlie said, landing on a question I had so far been avoiding.

 
I hesitated, knowing I needed to be slightly diplomatic with my words. ‘It’s just a difficult situation at the moment,’ I said. ‘What with Marlowe and everything, I can’t exactly leave her without knowing she’ll be okay.’

  ‘I know it’s a difficult situation, Jess, but I’m not asking you to move to the moon. It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity for us.’

  ‘And it’s also a massive decision that you’re asking of me. I just need a bit longer to think about it, that’s all.’

  ‘Well, time’s passing,’ he said, as we reached the point where we went our separate ways.

  ‘I know it is,’ I said, kissing him goodbye.

  I arrived at my desk at 8.05 a.m. I was retouching the latest shoot when Vin arrived: it was a beauty piece on face creams for which Vin had taken pictures of models with their faces being hit with white liquid. I counted them out in my head slowly as I heard the sound of Vin approach the office.

  ‘Morning,’ I said, as he burst through the door with four rolls of paper.

  ‘What time did you get here?’ he said.

  ‘Around eight. I did something to the shots from the face cream launch. It’s a bit different but I hope you like it.’

  He leaned over my shoulder to get a closer look.

  ‘And I saved a copy of the originals just in case you hate it…’ I said, double-clicking each one to enlarge it on the screen.

  I tried to gauge some sort of reaction but he continued to stand there in silence. As what would usually happen in this instance, I filled the void by talking.

  ‘I thought they would look more effective in black and white and by increasing the exposure with the spotlight from above hitting the cream, it makes it glossier, cleaner…’ I trailed off, still waiting for his verdict.

  ‘Good job, Jess,’ he said, breaking into a smile. For the first time, I caught a glimpse of his teeth, which were tobacco-stained and crooked. ‘Run a print off and I’ll take them to Rebecca and see what she thinks.’

  I stared cautiously at the work in front of me. Rebecca was the editor of the magazine and someone who I had only ever stared at from afar in the lift. I pressed ‘print’ and quickly made my way to the machine outside to wait for the copies.

  ‘Just so you know,’ Vin said, as I made my way out of the door, ‘we’re having the people upstairs look into getting you a space of your own somewhere. We’re really impressed with the work you did on the pictures from the last issue.’

  ‘My own office?’ I said, surprised.

  ‘Not really, Jess,’ he said, bringing me quickly back down to earth. ‘Might be more like converting the paper cupboard into a little space for you next door. What are you doing for lunch? Fancy grabbing me a sandwich?’

  ‘Sure,’ I said, nervously twiddling three small memory cards in my hands. I wondered if my face showed any of the questions going through my mind. ‘I’ll nip out at twelve.’

  *

  For the remainder of the morning I waited for the ruling. The jury had been out for the past two hours and I hadn’t seen Vin since he left to have a meeting with the magazine’s editor. As I looked over at his large wooden desk surrounded by piles of reference books, I couldn’t help but picture what it would be like to be in his shoes; for people to have enough trust in your vision to let you call the shots.

  Before I knew it I was clutching an egg mayonnaise sandwich sitting neatly on a cold bench in the public square at the end of the road. A paper bag containing a beef and mustard baguette and a packet of cheese and onion crisps for Vin sat at my feet. Somehow, buried beneath the will to forget about it all, I had to weigh up the decision. And it wasn’t just about work. It was about my life. For the past year I had built up some semblance of a home, a group of friends, a career. It was everything I knew: it was me.

  And then I thought about him, or rather, life without him. It was the first time I’d allowed myself to think about it. For the past few weeks I had been hiding behind Marlowe, behind humour, behind anything that would give me more time to arrive at a decision.

  Without him, what would any of this mean? He was the person I rang when something went right, or wrong, the one who would put himself forwards to bravely sample my cooking or laugh at a joke that wasn’t very funny. He was on my team. But either way, whichever choice I made, I was going to lose either my job or my relationship. A new job was nothing in the scheme of things, when you compared it to something like falling in love. But if that was the case, then why did it feel like everything?

  *

  That afternoon, I distracted myself by re-organising the drawers in the left hand side of Vin’s desk. I pulled out old highlighters, paper clips, a cereal bar that had gone out of date six months ago and a shatterproof plastic ruler that had shattered. I delved my hand towards the back of the bottom drawer as the end of a drawing pin slipped under my fingernail, piercing the skin.

  ‘Damn it!’ I shouted, sucking the droplet of blood before it could seep any further.

  ‘Everything all right?’ Vin said, popping his head around the door. He was still clutching half of the beef sandwich that I’d bought for him over an hour ago.

  ‘You know, you really should keep on top of these drawers,’ I said, ‘it’s an Aladdin’s cave of crap in there. I just cut myself.’

  ‘Righto, boss,’ he said, smiling. ‘Well, if you’re done giving me a bollocking, I’ve got something to show you.’

  I followed him into the small room next door that was once used as a darkroom for film development. A cobweb hung from the exposed light bulb that swung from the ceiling in the centre of the room. The exposed pipework had gathered dust and the small patch of grey carpet I stood hesitantly upon felt loose beneath my feet.

  ‘Since things went digital,’ he said, ‘they’ve used this for storage but… welcome home.’ He pulled on the dangling light cord that still turned on a red light bulb outside. ‘I know it needs a lick of paint but there’s a small window behind those filing cabinets, and once we get those moved and a desk brought in I think it will be grand.’

  ‘Is this for me?’ I said, looking around.

  ‘Well, we’ve got a lot on later this year. I need you to have a decent space to work in. When I showed your images to Rebecca, she loved them. We both think you deserve something of your own.’

  ‘Vin…’ I said, hesitantly.

  ‘Yeah…’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, ‘window or no window – it’s perfect.’

  I stood there doing all that I could not to slump to the floor. With my insides crumbling, I watched as he closed the door behind him, leaving me under the buzzing of a flickering fire exit light. I looked out of the small window partially covered by the filling cabinet and rested my head against the silver steel doors. Right there, listening to the sounds of the city below, I was caught between matters of the heart and the head; making the decision between a relationship or a career, love or a promotion, a living or a life.

  I arrived at the restaurant to see Amber and Mitch talking intimately across the table. He said something under his breath which made her roar with laughter, before hitting him sharply, and I almost didn’t want to disturb them.

  ‘Jess!’ Amber shouted as she saw me.

  I waved and shimmied my way through the tightly packed tables.

  ‘What do you think about Ko Lipe?’ Amber said, expecting me to know what she meant.

  ‘Where?’ I said, sitting down.

  ‘Ko Lipe,’ Mitch said, as if saying it twice would make a difference.

  ‘It’s an island in Thailand,’ Amber explained, still scrolling through a holiday website on her phone. ‘Mitch was just saying how we should get away for a few days before the summer rush hits.’

  He leaned over her shoulder to get closer to the screen.

  ‘They turn the electricity off at midnight,’ he said, proudly.

  ‘And that’s a good thing?’ I asked, tearing into a piece of bread.

  ‘I think so,’ he replied. ‘Are you an
d Charlie thinking of going away? Actually, why don’t you come with us?’

  ‘Yeah, why not!’ Amber said, eagerly.

  ‘I think Charlie would probably need electricity. Sorry,’ I said, with one eye on the door of the restaurant.

  ‘Speaking of which, where is he?’ Amber asked, ‘I’m starving.’

  I looked down at my watch and could see that he was over half an hour late. I checked my phone: no messages.

  ‘Let’s order some starters,’ I said. ‘I’m starving too.’

  It was typical Charlie. The odds were that he had forgotten where we were meeting and was probably in the back of a cab trying to decipher from a string of texts exactly where he was supposed to be. As a phone signal was completely absent in the restaurant, I made my way outside to give him a quick courtesy call. I shivered standing in the pavement and put my phone to my ear trying to get past the short rings.

  ‘Hi,’ I said, as he answered, ‘just so you know we have a table at the back and there’s no phone signal so perhaps ring the restaurant itself if you get lost, saves me spending half the night out here on the pavement.’ I laughed.

  ‘What? Where are you?’ he said from the end of the phone.

  ‘I’m at the restaurant with Amber and Mitch. I texted you about it this afternoon?’

  There was silence on the end of the phone.

  ‘Let me guess, you forgot,’ I said, rolling my eyes. ‘Well, get over here now and you’ll probably make it in time for mains. I mean, I can wait if you won’t take too long only, well, everybody’s starving.’

  ‘Jess…’ he said. ‘I’m not going to be able to make it.’

  This time, I was the one who was silent.

  ‘Why not?’ I said, quietly.

  ‘I’m sorry, Jess. I’ll make it up to you. I promise.’

  Through the window I saw Amber and Mitch sitting before two untouched starters.

  ‘Okay,’ I said, ‘not to worry, I’ll see you later tonight maybe.’

  ‘I miss you,’ he said as I hung up the phone.

  Although his withdrawal wasn’t exactly a bolt from the blue, and despite the fact that it would have been a regular occurrence less than a year ago, I had grown to believe that things had changed. But as I heard the sound of my heels clicking against the hard wood floor as I made the slow walk back to the table, I realised the actuality of the situation. It was all so unsurprising. After all, it wasn’t Charlie’s behaviour that had changed, but rather the way I was reacting to it. Gone were the needy text messages seeking constant reassurance, gone were the million phone calls, the anger followed by disappointment. They had all been replaced by acceptance. It seemed that without me providing the wall at which he threw his excuses, he was unable to do just that: he was unable to let me down again. The only behaviour to have changed that night was mine.