‘Did you ever ask why?’
‘Oh no, I always understood. They wanted the best for me and were convinced I’d settle in eventually, like my brothers. But I was never going to do well there. Apart from anything else, I’m no good at being told what to do.’ He laughs.
After shunning a university place, he spent several years unable to find his vocation, trying one career, then another.
‘Office work sucked the life out of me,’ he says. ‘It became a means to an end, to save money so I could travel. I’d stay in a job long enough to make a bit of cash, then hop on a plane to South America or Asia.’
He discovered yoga in Cambodia and ended up working on a retreat for nine months with his then girlfriend. The relationship ended, but his passion for the disciplines and practices he’d learnt didn’t. When he returned to the UK, instead of looking for another short-term contract with an insurance company, he knocked on the door of a wellbeing studio. This led to a very different career path from that of his older siblings, one of whom is a Tory backbencher, the other a cardiac surgeon.
‘In my father’s eyes, this still makes me a virtual dropout. He’s never actually said he considers me a waste of space, but he might as well have. Being fulfilled doesn’t count for much unless you’re on your way to having a second home in Tuscany and a strong investment portfolio.’
‘What about your mum?’
‘Oh, she’s terrific. We’re very close. The youngest child can do no wrong as far as a mother is concerned, don’t you think?’ He grins.
‘Hmm, not in our household.’ I shrug. ‘I’m the eldest by a decade but Mum always treated Lucy and me the same.’
‘Then you’re lucky,’ he says, and I couldn’t agree more.
* * *
He gets to meet my parents as he’s arriving for our third date. Dad is still buzzing from his Rolling Stones gig three days earlier and drops the subject into conversation before I’ve even completed the introductions. I’m fairly certain that Guy’s musical tastes diverge wildly from my father’s, but he is charm personified. Dad is won over instantly and I think Mum likes him too, though I get a sense that she is reserving full judgement until she knows more about him than can be gleaned in a ten-minute conversation. But I already know he has all the right ingredients. She likes people who’ve done a lot of living, and Guy certainly has.
He is open about every element of his past. He doesn’t need to spell out the names of every woman he’s known for me to work out that he has a fair amount of experience under his belt. But this merely feels like one part of the rich tapestry of his life and it’s all spoken about in the past tense. The only name in the present is mine and the sound of it on his lips electrifies me.
There’s just one topic that feels slightly tricky and that’s his three-year-old son, Elijah. The little boy lives with his mother and was the result of a toxic on-off relationship that ended badly a couple of years ago. Guy is troubled by the situation, that all his efforts to remain amicable with Stella, his ex, have so far been fruitless.
Every conversation – whether in person or online – leaves me in a state of ongoing, heightened desire. This is possibly to be expected given how little contact I’ve had with a human male for so long, and isn’t helped by him telling me about a random dream he had, in which we were lying in my garden on a hot day while he massaged sun cream into my arms and across my shoulders.
After this, the thought of him undressing me looms almost as large as the ongoing management of the setting for our dates. By the time the prospect of a fourth is discussed, he is insistent that we go out for a drink and, although I know this is going to reach a critical point soon, I get around the issue by mumbling something about house-sitting for my parents while they are away – which they are, as it happens: Dad is at a stag party for his friend Gary, who is getting married for the first time, aged seventy-one, while Mum flew off this morning for her trip for the Observer.
Guy is the most pleasant distraction from this. When he arrives for our date, he brings champagne and we eat outside, devouring ribbons of tagliatelle with one of Mum’s sauces from the freezer, followed by a sorbet made from rhubarb from the garden. A hot, sultry night descends upon us and light from a swollen summer moon shines overhead. Clouds of melodramatic scent rise from the ruffles of the sweet peas as he recalls a trip he took to Koh Phangan a few years ago and tells me about Leela Beach, where the sand is so white that it glitters.
‘Where do you think your love of travel originally came from?’ I ask, topping up his glass.
He looks at me and considers the question. ‘You know, I’m not sure. I went to Kenya as a child to visit my Uncle Richard and have fond memories of that. Generally, though, I was always one of those kids who needed to escape. I was always running away from school.’ He laughs. ‘I don’t know about you but I’ve always found it hard to relate to someone who doesn’t feel the need to see the world. People who haven’t travelled have no perspective, don’t you think? Total tunnel vision.’ He shrugs. ‘Perhaps I’m being unfair, but I could never be on the same wavelength as someone like that.’
I lower my eyes, but quickly realise that he’s expecting me to add to this discussion. ‘I know but… travelling the world is a uniquely modern phenomenon, isn’t it?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, a couple of centuries ago, the idea that someone had to experience new cultures or leap on a plane to lie on a beach in Dubai to better themselves never occurred to anyone.’ The stupidity of this statement hits me like a ton of bricks, but once it’s out there all I can do is continue with a theory that I am making up as I go along. ‘For all humans have spread their wings, are we actually better off? Mental illness is on the rise. Societies are fragmented. How can we say our twenty-first-century obsession with personal enrichment and global travel – with ticking this and that off our bucket list – has improved our lives?’
His eyebrows pucker. ‘So… we should all stay at home? Never go beyond the supermarket or the pub?’ The bemusement in his tone makes me worried.
‘Oh God no, of course not,’ I say, backpedalling. ‘I mean, I agree with you. I’m just saying that there’s another perspective that… I don’t know what I’m saying. Forget it.’ I shake my head.
He laughs gently and reaches out to touch my hair, allowing a strand to drift between his fingers. I notice his eyes dipping lazily over the curve of my shoulder.
‘You know, Ellie, I’ve told everything there is to know about me, but sometimes I feel as though I hardly know a thing about you.’ I realise I should be flattered by this, warmed by the idea that he wants to know me. But panic jolts me.
‘Um… surely that’s not true,’ I mumble.
‘It’s not a criticism,’ he says quickly. ‘I can’t decide if it’s because you’re mysterious or I’ve just been talking way too much about myself again.’
I feel a shot of heat behind my ears. ‘It’s neither. Talk all you want – I’m interested.’ I grin. ‘But I’m not mysterious, I promise. That makes me sound far more exciting than I am.’
My mouth suddenly feels dry. It occurs to me that if I was going to discuss some of the more unpalatable realities of my life with anyone, then logically it should be him. But the thought of it so early in a potential relationship is abhorrent. Way too soon. Though any time probably would be.
‘What is it you want to know?’ I say these words without fully accepting responsibility for them and the questions that might come next.
‘Well, let me think,’ he begins, pausing for a beat. ‘You’ve told me how you won all these followers, but why don’t you tell me about going self-employed? It must have been such a great moment to leave a job knowing that you were never going to have to answer to a boss again. You’re living the dream!’
The relief that sweeps through me at this innocuous question is tempered by the knowledge that I am going to have to be economical with the truth even when answering this. I wish I was a more ac
complished liar, comfortable with the idea of… not exactly being dishonest, but certainly not correcting his assumptions. I try my best to give him an accurate version – of something at least.
‘Leaving my job was definitely a big step. Though… I didn’t hate what I did beforehand or anything.’
‘You worked for a marketing agency didn’t you?’
I nod. ‘Not a big one, but it was expanding rapidly and everyone was really nice so I was by no means desperate to leave. And I can’t claim that being self-employed is all a bed of roses.’
When I look up, I realise that he looks perplexed by this description, wondering where it’s going. ‘But, yes, overall, it’s incredibly rewarding.’
What I can’t tell him is that I didn’t leave my job in a blaze of glory, with a successful Instagram career established and waiting for me. I left after being signed off with ‘stress’, after I’d already spent weeks cowering at home in my childhood bedroom, drowning in self-loathing every time I thought about the colleagues who were picking up my slack.
‘I’m stunned, Ellie,’ my boss James had said on the phone at the time. ‘I never expected this from someone like you.’ I think he meant it as a compliment.
James Cavendish was ambitious, energetic and as alpha male as they come. He considered me to be his right-hand woman, someone he’d promoted young, who was always the first to arrive in the morning and last to leave at night. Clients said I had a quick, creative brain, I was prepared to roll up my sleeves and get stuck in to anything. Less than a year before that conversation, James had asked me to consider buying shares in the company. He wanted me to become a director.
I liked James. Other people found him pompous and fond of the sound of his own voice, which was probably true though they’re hardly the worst traits in a boss. I admired his self-belief, his unshakeable certainty that, with the right team, it didn’t matter what storm the company faced, we were all in it together.
So when my breakdown happened – though I hate that word – I didn’t need to imagine what he must have been thinking about me slinking off work, communicating only via email to let him know intermittently what was going on. I eventually agreed to a phone call, which I took from my bed with the curtains shut.
‘I never even realised you got stress,’ he’d continued. His tone suggested I now belonged in the same category as he’d put malingerers with hormone problems or obscure food intolerances, the sort who announced they were pregnant three weeks after returning from maternity leave. This was a category that solid, hard-working people like him – and until now me – wouldn’t ever find themselves in.
I look up at Guy now, as his gaze settles on my mouth and I feel my pulse quicken. I wonder if he’s going to ask me any more questions, but he simply smiles and says, ‘Well, I think it might be time for me to phone for a taxi.’
Disappointment needles me in the side at what feels like an abrupt end to the date. ‘Are you sure you don’t want to stay for another one?’ I ask, hopeful that I don’t sound as needy as I feel.
He reaches out and touches the knuckles on my left hand then slowly begins to slide his fingertips up my arm, inch by inch. I watch them at first, listening to the sound of my own breath, until he is at the nape of my neck, resting at the warm spot beneath my hair.
He leans in and kisses me, slow and assured. But it doesn’t take long before we tumble into something altogether more urgent. My desire is like a hot wind rushing in, sweeping us from the garden into the house and then into bed, with barely an awareness of the changing environment. We undress amidst the feathers of my duvet and it’s there that his hands stray from my neck to my belly, my waist to my hip, my shoulder to my breast.
When they reach the inside of my thigh he hooks his fingers around my knickers and slides them deftly down my thighs. He kisses my neck, then my lips, before climbing on top of me. Suddenly, every anxious thought I’ve ever had is engulfed by the exquisite novelty of another human being’s skin pressing against mine.
Chapter 17
The next few days ought to be bliss, but my sweet, pornographic flashbacks are tempered by the realities of this situation. It does not take a genius to work out that Guy would never understand why I can’t leave this place. Even if he did, it would be an instant turn-off. All of which means that, on what must be the most beautiful afternoon of the summer so far, I’m feeling agitated. It’s not helped by the fact that I am desperate for a cigarette and, though I’m resisting, I’d forgotten how hard it was to give up smoking, even with patches.
The sun has cast a soft, peachy light on the garden and the nostalgic smell of freshly cut lawn fills the air. I close my eyes and drop my spade, before walking to the bench and sitting down. Gertie appears at my feet, then jumps up and climbs onto my knee. I let my eyes drift over the garden.
This isn’t just the place where the wild thrashing of my heart ceases. It’s a source of endless, ever-changing interest, where colours are blousy and flirtatious in the summer, muted and subtle in autumn. Nothing is static in this space. Not the texture of the soil, nor the patterns in the walls, from which daisies sprout in spring and frost gathers in winter. I love my slice of paradise, while also starting to recognise that my passion may not be wholly a force for good. Love and happiness are not the same things, I suppose. And it strikes me every bulb I’ve planted and climbing rose I’ve coaxed up the bricks will mean little if I manage to blow this glorious intense thing with Guy before it’s even close to full realisation.
I press my lips onto Gertie’s little head, before putting her on the ground and standing to walk to the gate. I click the lock. Push it open wide. I look out.
Blond fields stretch in front of me and my heart begins tripping over itself. I close my eyes and recall some of the techniques Colette introduced me to, casting my mind back to the first day I met her. I was nineteen. Still technically enrolled at university on the course at which I’d been desperate to win a place and now hadn’t attended for months. We were in her office. She’d insisted that I had to go and see her, not the other way around, explaining that her policy is not to visit the client’s home.
‘Travelling to see me is part of the treatment,’ she’d said. ‘If we held our sessions in your home that would reinforce “safety behaviour”. It stops patients from growing. Is that okay by you?’
It was far from okay by me. The single, short journey to see her had been difficult beyond words. But then I thought of my poor parents, now onto their second machine coffee in the waiting room, and I nodded.
I was on the chair adjacent to hers – she had a desk, but didn’t sit behind it – while I filled out a basic questionnaire, with a fountain pen she’d taken out of her handbag to let me borrow. It was heavy and expensive-looking; and it felt oddly inappropriate to be writing with this, not merely an office biro. Afterwards she scanned the form in silence, before removing her glasses and folding one hand over the other. ‘Okay, Ellie. Let’s start with what has been happening lately. Tell me what brought you here.’
I described the panic attacks, palpitations, hyperventilation and occasional vertigo. I explained how it began with a general feeling that something bad was going to happen and intensified to the point that I thought I was having a heart attack. I told her that it was smothering, crippling, that no matter how many times I tried to reassure myself that it was illogical, it didn’t seem to matter.
‘Are you embarrassed when these things happen?’ she asked.
I shrugged. ‘Having a meltdown in front of everyone certainly sucks. I’ve never actually lost control of my bodily functions, but I’m sure I’ve come close a few times.’
‘A lot of people with agoraphobia fear public scrutiny or embarrassment.’
‘Except, this doesn’t only occur in busy places, when I’m surrounded by people. It’s happened when I’ve been out on a walk with Mum and nobody else is around.’
‘That’s because you’ve learnt from experience what a panic attack feels like an
d you’re afraid of it.’
‘So I’m afraid of being afraid?’ I said tonelessly.
She said that the reasons why people have anxiety attacks and agoraphobia are many and varied. For some, there’s a genetic link. For others, it’s a life event, such as a bereavement or trauma. But many studies show that agoraphobia is learnt; if a person has a panic attack out of the blue when they are outside their home, they then associate that anxiety with every time they go out.
‘Have you talked to anyone about this, Ellie?’ she asked.
‘My parents,’ I said. What I didn’t say was that I didn’t think they could truly comprehend some of the things that went through my head. This applied to Mum in particular. That’s not to say she didn’t want to understand, because I’m sure she did. People think of my mother as ambitious – and she did love her work. But our family became her biggest priority; she made enough sacrifices for me to believe that being a good mother was at the top of her list of aspirations.
Nevertheless, I could never shake the feeling that her unwavering reassurances about my panic attacks – her insistence that they aren’t silly at all, I mustn’t ever think that – were as much to convince herself as me. How could the woman in those photos, the one with the bulletproof vest and superhuman level-headedness, ever truly understand something like this?
We had a row once when I said as much. She was shocked, I think, because I’d been such an unrebellious teenager. There had been the odd minor conflagration involving the half-hearted slamming of a door, though I was never as good at it as Lucy. But, after she’d found out I’d written to the university telling them I wouldn’t be coming back, we had a stonker of an argument.
‘I realise I’m a disappointment to you,’ I’d shrieked, with the breathless fury of a toddler on the verge of a tantrum.
‘What? How could you ever think that, Ellie?’ she asked, as if there were no greater insult I could hurl at her.
‘Don’t deny it,’ I shot back. ‘You’ve got balls of steel. You’ve spent your life dodging bullets. Evading kidnap. Yet somehow you’ve ended up with me, who can’t even get on the Tube without wanting to piss my pants. You’re ashamed of me.’
The World at My Feet Page 8