by Isabel Wolff
‘Oh, no…’ I lied.
‘Really?’
‘Well, okay…Yes. They did. But mainly because I had to be Felicity’s bridesmaid the week after…’
‘I remember.’
‘And I was in a total state.’
‘Oh dear.’
‘I wept all the way through the service.’ I paused while the waiter put our dim sum on the table. ‘My mother had to tell everyone that it was the emotion of the occasion.’
‘I see.’
‘And when Fliss chucked the bouquet at me I threw it back.’
‘Crikey.’
‘I was in a bad way.’
‘So it seems. Look—’ he parted his jacket. ‘See this?’ He fingered his shirt. ‘Pure horsehair.’
I rolled my eyes, then smiled. ‘Pure horseshit, don’t you mean!’
‘And I’ve brought a small whip with me for the purposes of self-flagellation—or you can do the honours if you like. But seriously, Laura…’ he lowered his voice ‘…can we get this all out of the way right now—so that we can have a nice evening? Can I just say I’m really sorry I did what I did? I know it was a long time ago, and I was a very young, silly man; but just in case you still bear me any vestige of a grudge—which I see you do—I’d like to apologize from the bottom of my heart. I was a bastard to you in June 1993. You didn’t deserve it. I’m sorry. Now—will that do?’ Any lingering frigidity I’d felt evaporated in a puff of steam, as though I’d just been pan-seared.
I smiled. ‘Yes. Thanks. That’ll do. Nicely.’ I snapped open my chopsticks.
‘Mind you, I paid a very high price. You just packed your things and left. You ignored my calls. You returned all my letters. Your determination to cut me out of your life was…impressive.’
‘I couldn’t cope. Seeing you—with her. Like that.’ Into my mind flashed the unpalatable image of Luke, lying in the bath of the house we shared, up to his chest in bubbles, with Jennifer Clarke standing, naked, at the sink. I will never forget the frozen horror on Jennifer’s face as she looked into the mirror and saw me…
I’d gone home the previous day for a final dress fitting for the wedding. I hadn’t been due back until the late afternoon. But I’d returned early because Luke and I had rowed before I left and I’d wanted to make up with him again, and surprise him. But the person who was most surprised was me. Jennifer, who, to be fair to her, was good looking—with a sheet of long, smooth hair of the kind I’ve always coveted—had been a fellow team-mate in the Universally Challenged inter-college pub quiz competition we’d narrowly won the week before.
‘I’m really sorry,’ Luke repeated. ‘It’s actually the one and only time I’ve ever done that. It was an awful mistake—I just wish I hadn’t made it with you.’
‘And why did you, do you think? Now that we’re on the subject.’
He narrowed his eyes as he considered the question.
‘It was because I was young I suppose, and very immature, and because we’d just taken finals and it was a release—and because I was in a panic about graduating and havingto find my way in the big wide world. And we’d been arguing a lot, if you remember, and then you were away and Jennifer was…keen. Plus I’d been faithful to you for two years and maybe I wanted to be let off the leash. But it didn’t mean I didn’t love you—I did.’
‘It’s okay, Luke.’ I’d learned all too well since then that the people who love us, can still hurt us. ‘But I didn’t think Jennifer Clarke was a great choice.’
Luke grimaced. ‘You’re right. She wasn’t much cop. I don’t like to be indelicate—’ he leaned forward as he prepared to be indiscreet—‘but she didn’t even know that the capital of Cuba is Havana.’
‘Or that La Dolce Vita was directed by Fellini. Remember that?’
‘Or that the Hermitage is in St Petersburg. She thought it was in Paris!’
‘Pathetic. I don’t know how she got on the team. It must have been because you fancied her.’
He chewed his lower lip. ‘Maybe—her general knowledge was crap. Thanks to her we almost lost. Do you remember how close it was?’
‘I do. I mean, she didn’t even know that the largest organ in the body is the liver.’
‘Or that the best selling novel of all time is The Valley of the Dolls.’
‘Is it? More than The Da Vinci Code?’
‘Yes, it’s sold thirty million copies.’
‘Really? Thanks—we’ll use that on Whadda Ya Know?!!‘
He reached for my hand. ‘Do you forgive me, Laura?’
‘Yes.’ I smiled. ‘Of course I forgive you—now—but I couldn’t have forgiven you then. You’d hurt me too much, Luke—it was like a physical pain. Here—right here—’ I tapped my sternum—‘as though someone had taken a bite out of my heart. I was happy with you, Luke. Happier than I’ve ever been. Maybe I’ll never see you again, so I don’t mind you knowing that.’ I felt a pang of guilt about Nick, but dismissed it. What he had done to me was far worse.
‘We were happy,’ said Luke. ‘We were very young, but it meant something.’
‘It did.’ I remembered how alive Luke had made me feel. His exuberance and vitality had ignited me, when I’d been so quiet and bookish before. He’d made me confident, where I’d been introverted. He’d made me feel beautiful, when I’d thought myself plain. I’d had a passion for him that I’d felt for no other man. He’d been…yes…the love of my life. If I’d known that then I might have forgiven him, as he’d begged me to. Instead, I’d left him, without a word or a glance and had gone down a different path.
By now the air between us was so clear it was positively Alpine.
‘So,’ I said. ‘What happened to you after that? You got into Christies, then?’
‘I did. I was there for eight years. I started as a porter, and ended up as director of the Modern British department. On the personal front I had one or two unsatisfactory flings. Then, in the summer of ‘96 I met Magda.’
‘Was it love at first sight?’
He considered the question. ‘No. But I was very…attracted to her.’ I felt a stab of jealousy. ‘I found her fascinating, and slightly intense. She’s Hungarian—although she’d lived here for twelve years by then—and she had this captivating, arty sort of air. She wore vintage clothes and she had these big blue eyes, and this long blonde hair that she’d pile on top of her head.’
‘How did you meet?’
‘At…life drawing classes.’
‘So she’s artistic too.’
He sipped his wine. ‘We saw each other for a few months and I’d started to feel under pressure because she was five years older and was keen to settle down; but I’d begun to think it wasn’t right.’
‘Why?’
‘Well, although she could be delightful, she had these…dark moods. So I was just steeling myself to break it off when she told me she was pregnant.’ He shrugged. ‘I was worried because we’d only been together four months and hadn’t discussed living together, let alone having kids. But I was also excited at the idea of being a father—so I felt I should do the right thing.’
‘And tell me about Jessica.’
He smiled, then shook his head, as if in wonderment. ‘Jessica? What can I say? I just…adore her. She’s the reason I put on my clothes in the morning. She’s the reason I go to work. She’s the most cherished thing in my life—she means everything to me, Laura, she really does—she’s the best thing, she really is…she’s just…the best, best thing…’ I was shocked to see his mouth quiver; his eyes were shimmering with sudden tears.
‘Luke,’ I whispered. I put my hand on his. He looked away, ashamed, then lowered his head.
‘Sorry,’ he croaked. ‘I get upset because Jess doesn’t live with me any more and I miss her. I miss her lovely little presence. I miss hearing her talk and sing, and play. I can’t bear seeing her empty room. Sometimes I just sit on her bed and cry.’
‘But you see her?’
He nodded. ‘Every Saturday. A
nd I often collect her from school.’
‘So it’s not too bad then.’
He shrugged. ‘It could be worse—but I wanted to live with my child. Magda and I weren’t happy, but I would never have left her, because of Jessica.’
‘So why did you split up?’
He heaved a weary sigh. ‘Because having been charmingly eccentric to begin with she began behaving in a seriously bizarre way…’
‘Doing what?’
‘Picking fights the whole time. Hiding my things, or even destroying them. I once took the car when she wanted it, and I’d just started the engine, when she threw a pair of crystal decanters that had belonged to my grandmother out of the window.’ He shuddered. ‘I can still remember the sound as they hit the path. She flushed her engagement ring down the loo. She was outrageously rude to my friends.’ He winced. ‘She’d walk out of dinner parties mid-course if someone said something she didn’t like.’
‘How embarrassing.’
‘It was. She even did it when we were at my boss’s house once—I was worried it could affect my career. She’d make these…awful scenes. I took her to the Dorchester for her birthday and she asked me to order for her while she went to the loo. So I ordered chicken, which I knew she liked, but when she saw it she started crying, really loudly—everyone was staring. So I whispered, “What’s the matter, Magda?” and she shouted, “But I wanted duck!!!”‘
‘Wow. Erm…why do you think she did things like that?’
‘She loved the drama—and the attention, of course. And she seemed to find normal married life boring, so she’d engineer these break-ups so that we could have wonderful makeups. But I just found it wearing.’
‘And didn’t you want more children?’
‘I did; she didn’t—perhaps because she’s an only child herself—but in any case by then it wasn’t looking good. I felt that she was trying to provoke a separation, which I didn’t want, because of Jess, so I did my best to keep calm. But then—and this is what really drove us apart—she began keeping goats.’
‘Goats?‘ He nodded. Ah.
‘Pygmy goats. Her grandmother had kept them, apparently, in the Carpathians and they brought back happy memories. Anyway, I came home one day, and there was this tiny goat in the garden happily chomping on my dahlias. “Meet Heidi,” Magda said, with an air of triumph. So I thought to myself, fine, I can cope with a miniature goat—and I thought it might have a calming influence on Magda. But then, without telling me, she had Heidi mated, and she had twins—Sweetie and Ophelia. Then, a few months later, Heidi had two more—Phoebe and Yogi. And when I said I found it unreasonable to have so many, she laughed and said I’d wanted more kids, and now I’d got them. So there we were in fashionable Notting Hill with livestock in the back garden. Everyone was sniggering.’
‘So that’s why you laughed when I asked what “caprine” meant.’
He nodded. ‘There’s not much I don’t know about them. They were sweet actually. I was rather fond of them.’
‘Don’t they smell?’
‘Not the females and the castrated males. But of course they’d get out, and I’d have to go and look for them, or they’d wander into the house and I’d find them on top of the wardrobe; and they have to have this special alfalfa hay and these mineral salts which it was now my job, apparently, to procure. Anyway, at weekends Magda would take off to these agricultural shows with them—she’d got this little trailer. And I’d find a note on the kitchen table saying that she’d be away all weekend at some county jamboree or other and could I look after Jess. We had flaming rows about it. The next thing I knew she was packing her bags.
‘I tried to stop her, because of Jess—I was distraught. I wondered about applying for a residence order, given Magda’s eccentric behaviour, but a legal fight would have been too destructive—not to say expensive—plus I was worried that it would upset Jess.’
‘So have you started proceedings?’
‘Not yet—there’s been no particular reason to—and it would distress Jessica. The terrible thing is that she thinks it’s her fault. She’s got this idea that if she’d been “better”, then her mum and I would never have split up.’
‘Poor little thing.’
‘I know. I keep telling her it’s not true—that she’s a good little girl, and that these things just happen.’ He shook his head. ‘But she can’t work it out. Sometimes, when she’s with me, and it’s her bedtime, she says her prayers. And she always ends by praying that her mum and dad will live together again.’ He looked away. ‘It breaks my heart.’
‘So…where do she and your ex live now?’
‘In Chiswick, in the house Magda owned before she met me—it had been let. The garden’s bigger than mine so the goats are happy, and it’s not too far away. I pay the mortgage on it and all the bills, and Jessica’s school fees…’
‘Doesn’t Magda work?’
‘No. She used to be an interpreter—she was well-paid—but she won’t do it any more.’
‘That’s tough for you.’
‘I know. Luckily the gallery’s been doing okay. I just managed to hang on to Lonsdale Road with extra borrowing but money’s been tight. I’ve really had to duck and dive.’
I dipped a prawn dumpling into the soy sauce. ‘Which is why you wanted to get on the quiz?’
‘Partly—because, as I told you, I’ve got this place at the Slade. But I also did it because…well, I wanted to see you, Laura. I’d never ever forgotten you.’ He stroked the back of my hand. ‘I thought of you so often—particularly since hearing what had happened—and I’d like to believe that you thought of me too.’
‘I didn’t let myself,’ I said quietly. ‘I’d push you away. But you’d come back to me in my dreams.’
He smiled. ‘I knew you’d have dinner with me.’
‘Really? How could you be so sure?’
He nodded at my hands, clasped under my chin. ‘Because I saw that you were wearing my watch.’
I glanced at my left wrist. On it was the slim gold watch Luke had given me for my 21st. It had cost him the whole of that term’s grant.
‘Well,’ I shrugged. ‘I…like it…and…it would be silly to…waste it, wouldn’t it?’
Suddenly his mobile phone rang. He glanced at the screen, then winced. ‘Sorry, Laura. I’ll be right back.’ He went outside and, through the large plate glass window, I saw him standing on the damp pavement, beneath the street lamp, then slowly pacing back and forth. Once or twice he ran his left hand through his hair in an intense, frustrated way. Then I saw him snap shut his phone.
‘Childcare arrangements,’ he said, as he came back to the table, purse-lipped. ‘Magda was trying to suggest that her bloody boyfriend drop Jessica off tomorrow morning. She was only saying that to hurt me—silly cow. I told her I’d collect my daughter myself!’
‘And what’s the boyfriend like?’
‘He’s called Steve—he’s late thirties, an accountant—divorced with three teenagers. How he feels about goats I have no idea, but Magda misses no opportunity to tell me what a paragon he is and what a “marvellous stepfather,” he’d make,’ he added bitterly.
‘And have you been out with anyone else?’
‘No. I’ve been too upset—I’ve lived like a monk; plus I’d been through enough pain with her and I didn’t want to risk any more with someone new.’ He stared at me. ‘But what about your life, Laura? Your marriage?’
My heart sank. I hate talking about Nick, but I wanted Luke to know exactly what had happened.
‘How did you meet?’ he asked.
‘At Radio 4.’ I had a large sip of water. ‘I’d set up an interview with him about the Sudan, and I politely chatted to him while he was waiting to go on air, and afterwards, to my surprise, he asked me out.’
‘When was this?’
‘Eleven years ago now. In the spring of ‘94.’
‘Not that long after we split up then.’
I pushed a piece of tempura rou
nd my plate. ‘That’s right.’
‘And were you in love with him?’
‘That’s a very direct question.’
‘I’m sorry. But I want to know. Were you?’
‘I think so. I mean—yes. Of course I was.’ I stared at the flickering tea-light in its glass holder.
‘You sound like Prince Charles with Diana.’
‘Look Luke, Nick was honourable and kind, and he was doing something worthwhile. Plus he was very keen on me, so, yes, I guess that…helped. Okay, he wasn’t exciting, like you were. But he was very interesting, and he was a good person. And I didn’t think that he’d hurt me.’ I gave him a bleak smile. ‘That seems rather ironic now.’
‘And didn’t you want kids?’ I shifted on my chair. ‘I know that’s a very direct question too—but I feel no barriers with you, Laura, just talking to you like this again.’ He gently took my left hand in both his and stroked the tips of my fingers. It made me feel almost faint with desire. ‘So…?’ He looked at me expectantly. ‘Didn’t you want a family? I’ve always imagined you with children.’
‘We never…got round to it.’ I withdrew my hand, then fiddled with my napkin. ‘We were both forging our careers. And then, well…you heard what happened. So that was that,’ I added bitterly.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said again. ‘When exactly was it?’
‘On the first of January, 2002.’
‘So he did it on New Year’s Day? Just to add to your grief, I suppose.’
‘It was wonderful timing—you’re right. And of course it’s ruined every New Year’s Day since. A permanent reminder.’
‘I suppose what he did—’ he lowered his chopsticks—‘is just about the worst thing anyone can do to their partner.’ I nodded. ‘The pain that it leaves behind. And the questions I suppose. The unanswered questions…’
‘Oh yes,’ I said bitterly.
‘But you’re getting over it now?’
I thought of Nick’s stuff, buried in boxes.
‘I have laid his memory to rest.’
A silence descended. I glanced out of the window. People were scurrying by with umbrellas. Collars were upturned. I could hear the swish of wet tyres on the road.