by Fiona Harper
And how exactly does that work, by the way? I feel like me, if you know what I mean? The me that jumps from time to time. Is there another me that inhabits the spaces, the gaps? And, if there is, what happens to her when I arrive? Does she just disappear? And if she doesn’t exist, if it’s just me, why can’t I remember things? It’s all very confusing.
I’m mulling this all over when I feel an arm snake around my waist and feel a warm pair of lips against the back of my neck. My ears start tingling. I smile as I look at the beautiful scene laid before us.
‘Are you OK?’ Jude whispers.
‘Why do you ask?’
He holds me tighter, just a little. ‘You’ve just been really quiet today.’
I twist to look at him. ‘Have I?’
He nods. ‘I was starting to get worried about you.’
The urge to tell him everything balloons up within me but I swallow it down again. ‘I’m OK,’ I say, looking into his eyes. ‘But if anyone had told me a couple of months ago that I’d be here with you, now, I’d have told them they were crazy.’ I don’t have to lie, because this is all true, just not in the way he understands it to be.
‘I know,’ he says softly and teases my lips with his before kissing me properly. ‘I feel the same way too. It was a moment of madness on my part when I asked you to dump Dan for me. I really hadn’t been intending to say all that.’
His words make my stomach wobble a little. ‘Do you regret it?’ I ask.
He laughs at me, but this time it is soft and warm and I don’t feel the sting of humiliation. ‘God, no, Meg! It may have been the sanest thing I ever did. It scares me to think we might have missed out on this, that we might just have gone our separate ways after Oaklands and never seen each other again.’
I hug him tighter, mainly because I know how awful it was to actually experience that. Even though we’ve only been together again a short time, I can’t imagine my life without him.
Jude turns me so I’m facing him and looks into my eyes. ‘What I’m trying to say – very badly, as it happens – is that I’m glad I have you, that I …’ He hesitates for a moment and the force field of confidence that usually surrounds him shimmers and becomes patchy, just for a second. He swallows, as if his mouth is dry. ‘That I love you,’ he finishes. A piece of dark hair flops over his forehead, making him look all Hugh Grant in Four Weddings, and totally adorable.
The wobbling in my stomach stops and I look him back in the eyes without wavering. ‘Good,’ I say firmly. ‘Because I love you too. In fact, I may not have ever stopped.’
He pulls me to him roughly and hugs me to him maybe a little too tightly but I don’t mind. I can feel him shaking a little while I remain rocksteady and firm, even without my grip on the mast. ‘I was such a fool not to do everything I could to keep you the first time,’ he whispers, ‘and I’m so sorry for it. I promise, I won’t ever do that again.’
I close my eyes and feel the warm, slightly salty breeze on my face, and then I smile, because that is all I have ever wanted him to say to me. That’s all I’ve ever wanted anyone to say to me. I kiss him softly on the lips then playfully push him away.
‘Sure about that?’ I ask, laughing, as I start running towards the cockpit where I’ve left my bikini. ‘Because last one in the water is a loser!’
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
We swim in the clear waters of Lake Garda as the noonday sun beats down on the tops of our heads, and then, because the other boat has motored away and there’s nobody here to see us, we row ashore in the inflatable dinghy and lie on the beach that’s been unfurled by the lake’s receding tide. We bring a picnic over and drink more beers and eat more rolls with speck and rubbery cheese slices and eat juicy cherry tomatoes and plump, fat olives.
And when a short irate man appears at the edge of the woodland that borders the strip of sand and starts yelling at us in a tidal wave of Italian, we squeal and rush around collecting up our belongings, throwing them into the dinghy. In their haste to get away, Cam and Issie just start rowing and Jude and I have to dive in and swim to catch up to them. I’m laughing so hard I swallow at least a gallon of lake water before I haul myself over the edge of the dinghy, but I really don’t care.
This is it, I think. This is the life I’ve always wanted, and it’s mine now. In my hands.
Back on the boat I sneak a glance at Jude, who’s deep in conversation with Cam about which is the best town to moor at tonight and an ache – not horrible, but pleasant and warm – begins to pulse in my chest.
I can’t spoil this, I say in my head, praying to no one in particular but praying all the same. I can’t mess it up a second time. Once was just careless. Twice and I’d deserve the dull life I’ve managed to escape.
I want to believe I can do it, but I realise I still don’t exactly know how I’d ended up so miserable, because miserable I was. I can see that now. What if I just make the same mistakes all over again? What if I’m fated be boring old Maggie, no matter what I do?
I take a deep breath and calm myself. I can’t think like that. I’m just going to have to do what everyone else does: the best they can. At least I’ve had this chance, this wake-up call, to help me.
We end up motoring to the nearest cluster of buildings on the shore, which turns out to be the small town of Salo. It lies just south of the headland which marks the end to the really steep parts to the lake’s shore, where the mountains seem to plunge downwards into the water and tiny villages cling so fiercely to the cliffs above I often expect to see one lose its grip and start sliding down into the water. In comparison, the lakeside area of Salo is flatter and the hills roll gently upward behind it.
It’s siesta time and a lot of the shops are closed, so we wander through the cobbled streets, window shopping, spying out a decent restaurant for dinner later that evening. Our collective cooking skills extend to shoving things in rolls and frying things, so it makes sense to eat out in the evenings. We don’t go to the classy restaurants in the hotels but tend to stick to little family-run places, to get the authentic feel of Italy, Cam says, and that’s fine by me. Even the shabbiest-looking place with plastic garden tables and paper tablecloths serves amazing food.
I stop outside a tourist shop and gaze through the window at the rack of postcards inside: over-bright pictures of the lake and mountains, the little fishing boats almost painful in their painted-on neon colours. It seems ridiculous that someone has done that. Why would anyone need to try and add beauty to a scene that’s already perfect?
‘Thinking about writing home?’ Jude asks, coming up beside me.
‘I really ought to,’ I say, realising that my parents might not even know I’m in Italy.
There are no Internet cafes yet, as far as I know, and bricklike mobile phones aren’t the sort of thing an unemployed, just-graduated student like me can afford. I look at Jude’s reflection in the window as I say my next words, ‘I probably ought to send one to Becca, too.’
The face he pulls while he thinks I can’t see him tells me all I need to know. I turn round and look at him. ‘Are you OK with that?’
He shrugs. ‘You know she thinks I’m the devil incarnate …’
‘She doesn’t! She just was really invested in me marrying Dan – I think she thought it was this wonderful fairy tale, and it gave her hope she could have a happy ever after of her own too. She’ll come round, you’ll see … you just have to give her a chance to get to know you.’
‘After what she screamed at me that last night, do you really think that’s going to happen?’
Ah. So things hadn’t gone well before I’d left for Europe with Jude. Good to know. I still needed to try to piece the rest of the last month or two together in my head. I was finding recent history much easier to uncover, as it was more likely to be part of the conversation on board Vita Perfetta. Jude hasn’t said much about what happened between us getting together and leaving England and it’s hard to introduce it into the conversation naturally.
> ‘She’s my best friend,’ I say quietly. ‘I have to at least try to mend fences.’
Jude kisses me on the forehead. ‘Whatever you want, lovely Meg. Whatever makes you happy.’
I lean against him and feel his warmth, sure again for the thousandth time today that I’ve made the right choice. Jude is so understanding and caring, much more so than I’d given him credit for all that time I’d hated him, and when I look into his eyes I believe what he told me earlier on today: that he loves me the way I love him. I couldn’t be any happier.
‘We’ll see,’ I say as I turn away from the shop. ‘I can’t buy one now anyway. Maybe later, after dinner.’
We wander back to the boat and I end up falling asleep in our cabin. The sun and the fresh lake air seems to have that effect on me. When I wake up the sun is much lower in the sky and the rest of them are bustling around getting ready for our evening onshore.
I wander into the main cabin in my T-shirt and shorts. My fringe has decided to launch a rebellion and one side is sticking up no matter how many times I try to run my fingers through it. My sleep-fuzzy eyes come into focus and I notice that the boys have linen trousers and nice shirts on and Issie has swapped her wardrobe of various cut-off denim shorts for a dress. I stop and stare at them. ‘What’s the occasion?’ I ask as I rub my face, still feeling like a large truck has reversed over me.
‘Bumped into one of my father’s business associates when we were exploring the town earlier,’ Cam explains.
I rub my face again. ‘Does he live here?’
‘She,’ Cam replies, correcting me, ‘and, no, but I think my father’s love of Lago di Garda can be infectious. He’s always preaching about it to his friends, telling them to visit. He even recommended the villa they’ve rented.’
I look the three of them up and down. While this is all very nice, I don’t understand what it has to do with getting all dressed up.
‘She’s invited us to eat with her there,’ Jude explains.
I attempt to flatten my fringe once more. ‘I suppose I’d better get changed then.’ And I slink back into the cabin, pull every piece of clothing I’ve brought with me out of my bag and out of the cupboard and lay it on the bed and stare at it. I’ve only got two dresses with me. One is made of jersey and is more suitable for throwing on over the top of a bikini than anything else and the other …
Well, I thought it looked like one Julia Roberts wore in The Pelican Brief when I bought it, with its tiny white flowers on a dark background and A-line maxi skirt that buttons to just below my knees, but now I take another look at it, it doesn’t look flowy and classy to me at all, just very … High Street.
There’s a knock on the cabin door and Jude sticks his head in. ‘Ready? We need to shuffle off in about ten minutes.’
I look down at the dress on the bed. ‘Do you think this will be OK?’
Jude frowns. ‘Is it all you’ve got?’
‘Well, apart from the cherry-red one that only just about covers my bum.’
He grins. ‘Well, you know I like that one … but maybe stick with this one for now.’
He disappears back into the main cabin and I hear him and the others talking. I hope it isn’t about me, about my lack of suitable wardrobe.
Cam’s dad’s business associate is called Priscilla and her villa has a terrace that sweeps down to the lake’s edge, where a pair of wrought-iron gates give access to a private dock. The gardens are all sculpted box hedges and geometric shapes, but, somehow, given the wildness of the backdrop, they are charming rather than overly formal, as if the two things balance each other out.
The house itself is huge. Just the entrance hall is the size of my mum and dad’s Victorian terrace. I keep expecting hotel staff to pop out from somewhere but they never do. If Cam and Issie and Jude think the same, they don’t show it. In fact, they lounge as effortlessly on the cream sofas on the terrace – Cream? Think of the dirt! my mum would say – as they do on rickety wooden chairs in a lakeside bar. They sip Prosecco and eat the caviar canapés without staring suspiciously at them.
I look down at the shiny black roe on the blini in between my fingers. I’m not much of a fish eater, really, but I don’t want to appear rude.
Looks like slimy shotgun pellets to me …
I hear Dan’s voice in my head and it makes me smile. And then, almost as quickly, I frown. I shouldn’t be thinking of what Dan had said the first time he was offered it his cousin’s wedding. I’ve left that life behind.
But as the conversation drifts on around me – about people and places I don’t know – I can’t help thinking about my husband. Or the man who would have been my husband. I wonder what he’s doing now.
In our old life we’d have been knee-deep in wedding plans. Neither of us had wanted a long engagement, so we’d tied the knot three months after leaving university. Is he happy? I wonder. Moving on? I hope so.
I don’t say much as the dinner progresses, but I start to feel more comfortable. These are nice people, Priscilla and her husband, Bruce. They might have different tastes and budgets to my family but they want the same things out of life that my parents do: security, and success. Happiness for their children.
Later, we amble back down through the town on our way to the marina, not quite ready for the evening to end yet. Jude and I stop to kiss every ten paces. I can still taste the limoncello that was served after dinner on his lips.
Coming up for air from one of these little intervals, I realise that we are standing outside the tourist shop we’d stared through the window of earlier in the afternoon.
‘Do you want to go in?’
I look at the rack of postcards for a few moments and then shake my head.
‘But I thought you wanted to send a postcard to Becca?’
‘I do. It’s just …’ It’s just I’m still not sure how things stand between me and Becca, and despite his suggestion to the contrary, I could tell Jude would rather I didn’t. I shake my head. ‘I think maybe what needs to be said should be said face to face. I’ll talk to her when we get back to London.’
He smiles at me softly. ‘Whatever you want, Meg.’
Whatever I want.
And what I want now – more than patching things up with Becca, because I know she’ll come round – is to make this future work with Jude.
I turn and walk away, back in the direction of the marina, leaving my good wishes and love from the Italian lakes unwritten and unsaid.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
I’m on the train from Waterloo to Wimbledon early on a Thursday evening. It’s September and I’m back in London, with Jude. Our carefree summer came to a sudden end when he phoned home and discovered his father had had a heart attack. He’s OK, but the doctor said he needs to take it easy, cut back on work. That’s where Jude comes in, apparently.
Jude says the reason he went to uni is because he didn’t want to join the family firm, but now he feels he can’t say no. He feels trapped and miserable, facing a future of leaky roofs and plastic conservatories. Having been stuck in a life I hated, I sympathise completely. But what else can he do?
So we’re renting a flat in Lewisham, to be near his parents in Hither Green, and I’m looking for design work. Freelance or with a big firm, I don’t care. I just need a job. However, while I still have some free time, there’s something I need to do …
I stare at a small shell bracelet I’m holding between my fingers, then put it in my pocket as the train pulls into the station and I get off. It’s high time I gave Becca her present from Italy. I’ve heard from mutual friends she’s working at the bar in Wimbledon Theatre. I haven’t called ahead. I’m telling myself it’s because I want it to be a surprise, but really I’m scared that she wouldn’t speak to me if she knew I was coming.
Two and a half weeks. I really should have summed up the nerve before now. But I know exactly what went down that last night I saw her. Jude tells me she got hysterical, shouting at the pair of us, telling me I’d gone in
sane, throwing all sorts of wild accusations about, although I haven’t been able to discover exactly what those were. I’d been in tears, trying to explain, but eventually he’d pulled me away and taken me home, scared she’d go for him. Or me. That had just made Becca even angrier.
My hand moves to my pocket and I move the bracelet round between my thumb and forefinger a shell at a time, feeling each one’s knobbly perfection. I haven’t ‘jumped’ again since that morning I woke up on the boat in Lake Garda. I remember everything, have lived every second, both exciting and tedious, and I’ve enjoyed every one of them. Hopefully, it was just a hiccup. An aftershock.
The theatre bar is virtually empty when I arrive there. The performance has already started and there’s at least forty-five minutes until the interval. I’m praying that’ll be long enough for Becca and I to catch up before it gets busy.
A lone man with a stomach that overhangs his jeans by quite a bit is on a bar stool, sipping his beer with reverence. Guess he’s not into musicals, then, as the overture from Annie drifts in from the adjacent auditorium. Probably just came in for a quiet pint while everyone else is watching the show.
I choose an empty stool and look for movement through the double doors behind the bar. I can hear someone bustling around back there. Seconds later Becca emerges carrying a plastic crate full of mixers.
‘I’ll be with you in just a – oh.’
‘Hi,’ I say. My voice sounds weak and insipid.
She puts the crate down and stares at me, hands on hips. ‘So, you’re back, then?’
I nod. The only thing I can hear in the silence is the big-bellied man slurping at his beer. ‘It’s good to see you.’
Becca makes a noise that is half sniff, half snort. ‘Is it?’ she says, turning to stack the bottles of bitter lemon and ginger ale onto a shelf under the counter. ‘’Cos I thought you’d forgotten all about us.’