Before I Met You

by Lisa Jewell

  He laughed. ‘You weirdo,’ he said.

  ‘I am not a weirdo.’

  ‘You are, Betty Dean. I mean, look at you. Just look at you. How can you even begin to think you’re overweight? If anything ...’ he stopped.

  ‘What?’

  ‘If anything you were too thin, when I first saw you, in that stupid coat. Like a little shrimp, all bug-eyed and skinny. Now you’re ...’

  ‘What?’ she said again, narrowing her eyes.

  ‘Well, you’re just about perfect.’

  She stared at him.

  ‘Just about, I said, just about. Don’t go getting any ideas about yourself.’

  ‘Oh, it’s too late for that, John Brightly, way too late for that.’

  He smiled at her and waved the box under her nose again. ‘Go on,’ he said, ‘you know you want one.’

  ‘No,’ she laughed, pushing the box away, ‘I don’t!’

  ‘Go on, get stuck in.’ As he said it, she saw a little flash of unadulterated mischief pass across his face. Before she could lever herself from her deck chair he’d picked a cream puff from the box and pushed it into her face.

  She looked at him in stunned silence, unsure whether she was amused or deeply offended. She decided she was both, and after wiping most of a cream bun from her face with her fingers and then licking it off, she smiled at John sweetly, lifted another cake out of the box and rubbed it into his cheeks.

  ‘Oh, right. Oh, right!’ he said, rubbing his hands together, his eyes shining with delight, before picking out another bun and chasing Betty around a tree with it. He caught her after a moment and held onto her breathlessly, the bun in one hand, her shoulder in the other. She caught her breath and stared at him, imploringly. He stared back at her, triumphantly. And then he lowered the bun and his look turned to something else, something she could not quite interpret.

  She wiped some cream from his face and he caught her hand in mid-air. ‘Betty ...’ he began.

  ‘What?’ she said.

  He stared at her, slightly helplessly.

  Betty caught her breath.

  Then he dropped her hand and lowered his gaze and said, ‘Nothing. Just ... you’ve got cream in your ear.’ He pointed at her right ear and she put a finger in it and wiggled it around.

  ‘Has it gone?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, with a strange sadness. ‘It’s gone.’

  She looked at him tenderly. ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said, naughty John gone from sight, laconic John back in his place. ‘I’m fine. Here.’ He offered her the bun. ‘Eat this. For me.’

  Betty took the bun from his outstretched hand. She smiled at him. ‘Thank you, John,’ she said. ‘Thank you for the picnic. Thank you for the champagne. And thank you for the music ...’

  ‘The songs I’m singing.’

  ‘Thanks for all the joy they’re bringing.’

  ‘Who could live without it?’

  ‘I ask, in all honesty.’

  ‘What would life be?’

  ‘Without a song, or a dance, what are we?’

  John smiled. ‘Indeed.’

  The moment drew away from them. And then it passed. Something had nearly happened here today, in the park, with John Brightly. Something that Betty wasn’t quite ready for. And neither, she suspected, was John.

  ‘Come on,’ said Betty, ‘let’s go home.’

  There was a note in the mail catcher when they got back to Berwick Street half an hour later: ‘Betty, come over. I’m in till six.’

  Betty glanced at her watch. It was just past five. She saw John looking at her. She had no idea what to say. ‘Erm ...’

  He read the note and shrugged. ‘See you later,’ he said coldly.

  ‘It’s –’

  ‘Don’t worry about it. He’s your boss. Off you run.’

  ‘Yes, but ...’

  John forced a small smile. ‘Go,’ he said. ‘I’ll be fine. I’ll see you later.’

  Betty sighed. This was not what she wanted. But she’d promised Dom she’d hear what he had to say. And it was only for an hour.

  ‘I’ll be back at six,’ she said. ‘Will you be in?’

  He shrugged. ‘Not sure.’

  ‘Right. OK. Well, I might see you later.’

  ‘Yeah.’ He shrugged again. ‘You might.’

  ‘Thank you again, John,’ she said. ‘It’s been a perfect day.’

  ‘Yeah,’ he agreed. ‘A perfect day. I’m glad I spent it with you.’

  She stood on the pavement outside her flat for a moment after John went inside. Then she breathed in deeply, smoothed her hair and turned the corner into Peter Street.

  Dom was wearing a football strip when he answered the door to her a minute later.

  His face lit up when he saw her and he said, ‘Thank God, I thought I was going to miss you.’

  She eyed the football strip. ‘What the fuck are you wearing?’

  Dom glanced down at himself and said, ‘Charity five-a-side thing.’

  ‘Who won?’

  ‘My team, of course. Thrashed them. Where’ve you been? Amy said you left hers at twelve thirty.’ The question was slightly accusatory in tone.

  ‘I’ve been to the park,’ she said.

  He nodded, appraising her gently through his velvety lashes.

  ‘How was the party?’ he asked, leading her through to the kitchen.

  ‘It was all right,’ she said. ‘Not quite the sex-and-drugs-crazed wife-swapper I’d been led to expect.’

  ‘Yeah, well, that’s because Amy binned all our mates when I moved out and got a whole new set. Ones who like going to bed at ten o’clock. With a mug of green tea ...’

  He opened the fridge and pulled out two cold beers. He offered one to Betty and then passed her a bottle opener.

  ‘So nothing to report then?’ he asked, pulling a chair out from under the kitchen table and sitting astride it, as though it were a motorbike.

  ‘No,’ she said, wondering why she was here when she could have been in her flat with John. ‘I went to bed at eleven o’clock. It all seemed very civilised.’

  ‘Good,’ he said, staring at the table top. ‘Good. Listen. Betty,’ he looked up at her, suddenly and dramatically, ‘I don’t know how to say this, so I’m just going to come straight out and say it. I’ve been thinking a lot about you lately. An awful lot. I think ...’

  He paused and scratched at the label of his beer bottle. ‘I think you’re totally brilliant. Totally. I think you’re beautiful. And bright. And sexy, I mean, fuck, you’re sexy.’

  Betty picked at some dry skin on her fingernails and waited for it, the moment of truth, the moment he told her that he didn’t want to be her boyfriend. And she was ready for it. Because she didn’t want to be his girlfriend either. Too much baggage. Too much bullshit. And he looked silly in his football strip. What had happened here that night had been a one-off, just a moment of craziness. She was prepared to accept that and she was ready now for him to draw a line underneath it all.

  ‘And I’ve been thinking,’ he continued, ‘about what we were talking about here the other night. About other destinies. You know. About how maybe just because things seem like they have to be a certain way, it doesn’t mean that you can’t change it. If that’s what you want. And so when I was down in the country, with the band, I spent a couple of hours out with an estate agent. He showed me some fucking amazing gaffs. I mean, places that made the house in Primrose Hill look like a shed, you know. And listen,’ he leaned towards her suddenly and covered her hand over with his. ‘I want to do it. You and me. A big house in the country. Pigs. Ducks. The kids to stay in the holidays. Farmhouse breakfast. The works.’

  His hand gripped hers and his soft brown eyes bored into hers, and for a moment Betty was rendered completely speechless.

  ‘Remember I said I wished I’d met you first? Well, maybe I met you last. Do you see what I mean? I met you last.’

  She nodded and tried to form a respo
nse.

  ‘And that’s the one, isn’t it?’ he continued. ‘The one you meet last.’

  He was evangelised, energised.

  ‘Shit,’ said Betty, ‘I mean ... Seriously, I really do not know what to say. At all.’

  Dom just smiled at her dreamily. ‘It could be so great,’ he said. ‘Just think about it.’

  She stared at him mutely. ‘But what about me?’ she said. ‘What would I do?’

  He looked at her strangely. ‘What do you mean, what would you do?’

  ‘All day? While you were on tour? When you were away recording?’

  He smiled and rubbed his hand up and down her arm. ‘Well, that’s the beautiful thing, Betty. You could do whatever you wanted. Whatever you bloody well wanted. You could paint. You could write. You could come on tour with me. You could have a baby. You could do whatever the fucking hell you fucking well wanted to do!’ He beamed at her slightly maniacally.

  She smiled and nodded. ‘And what about Amy?’

  ‘What about Amy?’

  ‘Well, she might be a bit ...’

  He dismissed her half-formed concerns with a wave of his beer bottle. ‘Amy will be fine. At least she’ll know, when the kids come to stay, that they’ll be in good hands. At least she knows you, she trusts you.’

  ‘She offered me the job.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Last night. Amy came into my room and told me I was amazing and offered me the job. I think she really likes me, Dom. I think she really needs me. I’m not sure I can just up and leave her.’

  He laughed. ‘Oh, yeah, right. Amy always makes out that the nanny is like the centre of the universe. It’s her MO. Make them feel indispensable and then push them to their limits.’

  ‘I honestly don’t think it’s like that,’ Betty said. ‘Really.’

  He laughed again and Betty grimaced. She thought about the flat round the corner, John Brightly on the sofa, then she thought about the country pile, the farmhouse kitchen, a room full of easels, a bank account she didn’t need to worry about and Dom Jones’s beautiful brown eyes staring at her passionately every morning when she woke up.

  ‘I know,’ said Dom, leaning away again, ‘I know this all seems like I’m rushing things. I’ve only known you a few weeks. But there’s something about you, Betty. I felt it the first time I saw you, in your Wendy’s uniform. Something pure. Something good. And I wish I had the time to wine you and dine you and really get to know you. But my life’s not like that, my life is, you know, crazy. All these years I’ve let that craziness rule everything, but now, with you, I feel like I’ve found the calm, gentle centre of everything. You are, like, my pacemaker ...’

  ‘Your pacemaker?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said, staring at her deeply. ‘Tick, tick, tick. A metronome.’

  A pacemaker? A metronome?

  He gazed at her blindly for a moment before it hit him. ‘No!’ he said. ‘No. You’re more than that. Of course you are, Betty. Listen, Betty, the bottom line is: I’m crazy about you. OK?’

  OK? Was he asking her or telling her?

  She shrugged, feeling strangely unmoved by a megastar telling her that he was crazy about her. ‘Dom,’ she began, ‘I don’t know. It’s just ...’ she paused, ran her fingertip around the rim of her beer bottle, ‘... I’ve got so much going on here right now. I finally found my grandmother’s beneficiary. And Amy, she needs me. I can’t let her down.’

  He leaned back towards her and grabbed her hands again. ‘I’m going to Berlin tonight,’ he said. ‘I’ll be back on Wednesday. Think about it, Betty. That’s all I ask of you. Please, just think about it.’ He picked up both her hands then, and kissed the hillocks of her knuckles. ‘Will you do that?’ he said, his brown eyes staring into hers pleadingly.

  Betty felt her stomach swish and billow at the touch of his lips against her skin. She nodded. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Of course I will.’

  ‘Honestly, Betty,’ he said, resting her hands back on the table. ‘I swear, this feels like the first grown-up thing I have ever done in my life. Ever.’

  He smiled at her and let her go.

  *

  John didn’t ask where Betty had been or what she’d been doing when she came back to the flat just before six. He merely moved along the sofa and said, ‘True romance?’

  ‘Sorry?’ said Betty.

  ‘True Romance,’ he said again, waving a mug of half-drunk tea at the TV. ‘Have you seen it?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘It never made it to the Mallard on Guernsey. I was gutted.’

  She took the seat next to him and collapsed heavily into the cushions, her entire being reeling from the events of the last hour, desperately grateful to John for just sitting here being so perfectly normal.

  ‘Well, now’s your chance. I bought it yesterday, some Chinese guy selling stuff off the pavement.’

  ‘How far in are you?’

  ‘I’ll start it again.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Course I am.’ He stopped the film and pressed rewind. While they sat and watched the film replay itself backwards he turned to her and said, ‘I meant to ask you something?’

  She looked at him questioningly.

  ‘What was the deal with Clara’s dad? I mean, we’ve found her now and clearly she was brought up by somebody else. What happened to her father? What happened to Godfrey Pickle?’

  Betty smiled sadly. ‘Didn’t I tell you?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘You didn’t.’

  ‘Your sister told me. It’s really sad.’

  John paused the picture on the DVD player and turned to face her.

  ‘Go on,’ he said.

  Betty took a deep breath.

  55

  1921

  ARLETTE STEPPED FROM the carriage and looked up at the imposing apartment block. It stood ten storeys high, facing directly across Hyde Park. A smartly liveried porter helped her across the threshold with her bag and directed her to a lift to take her to the third floor.

  It was blissful to be back in London. Blissful and also poignant. She would only be here for three nights: she had a job now on the island, at a dress shop in St Peter Port, and they couldn’t give her any more time than that. But three nights were better than no nights at all, and she was just happy she’d been able to come across for Lilian’s party.

  Lilian greeted her at the door of the apartment and threw herself so hard into Arlette’s arms that she almost knocked her off her feet.

  ‘Darling, darling Arlette! Look at you! So beautiful. And wearing such a fine coat.’ She admired it at arm’s length. ‘It’s just yummy. Where did it come from?’

  ‘From the dress shop where I work.’

  ‘Ah, so style has finally reached the distant shores of Guernsey?’

  ‘With a little help from me, yes,’ Arlette laughed.

  ‘Oh, I’ve missed you so much. Come in. Come in. Come and see our beautiful apartment.’

  Lilian showed Arlette the rooms, all high-ceilinged and bathed in the white-gold sunlight that streamed clear across the park and straight through the tall windows.

  ‘And you’re in here, with me,’ she said finally, showing Arlette into the last of the many bedrooms. ‘Because, I’m rather afraid, we have Henry at home now. And Arthur is back on exeat. But it will be cosy, and it will give us a chance to share all our secrets under cover of night!’

  Arlette smiled tightly. She did not want to share secrets. She just wanted to celebrate Lilian’s happiness and then go home.

  Lilian sat her down in the parlour and sent for tea and biscuits. ‘So,’ she began, ‘the schedule of events is this: on Sunday night we are having a family meal here, at the apartment. Tomorrow night, of course, is the party. So tonight, I thought we could go to a club, maybe. With Minu?’

  Arlette glanced at Lilian nervously. ‘A club?’

  ‘Yes. If you like. I thought maybe the Blue Butterfly. But never fear. Godfrey is not in London. Right now he is in Scotland. Wit
h the orchestra.’

  ‘Oh,’ Arlette felt some kind of unspoken anxiety she had been carrying around inside herself since she’d first planned this trip to London ebb out of her at these words. Godfrey was in Scotland. She would not be seeing him. She felt both relieved and deflated. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘that’s probably good.’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Lilian, ‘it is.’

  ‘And what of the girl?’ she asked. ‘Any news of her?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Lilian conspiratorially. ‘Minu had a letter from Godfrey a few days ago; her parents have thrown her from their home.’

  Arlette clasped a hand across her mouth. ‘Poor girl,’ she whispered.

  ‘Poor girl indeed.’

  ‘And where is she now?’

  ‘Godfrey told Minu that she is staying in Soho, while he is away, at a home for unwed mothers.’

  ‘Oh, how sad.’

  ‘Yes. But he’ll be returning in early November, in time for the birth. He said he will find them rooms, that he will marry her.’

  Arlette felt an agonising stab of sorrow pierce her heart at these words. She’d known it would happen. It was why she’d left London. But to hear the words, to know as fact that someone else would be spending the rest of their life with the man she loved, that someone else would live in the small house with the friendly neighbours, would take the coffee-skinned toddlers back to St Lucia on a majestic cruise ship. She held back a guttural sob and forced a tiny smile. ‘Good,’ she said. ‘That’s good.’

  A clattering emanated from the hallway and Leticia and the three boys hurtled into the room. All of them were ruddy-cheeked and smiling, even Leticia, who had more colour in her face than Arlette had ever seen her carrying before.

  ‘Glorious Arlette!’ cried Leticia at the sight of her. ‘What a splendid, splendid treat! Welcome! Boys,’ she called out behind her, ‘look who’s here. It’s Arlette!’

  The three boys peered at Arlette disinterestedly, apart from Henry, who threw her a very strange look indeed and said, ‘Well, well, well, I thought we’d seen the last of you.’