Summer at Tiffany's (27 page)

She watched a few boats tracking up and down the now-narrow passage of the estuary, their Cornish-red sails (which were actually brown) filling with wind and bellying out as they tacked and jibbed in neat, rhythmic zigzags. The heavy-bowed clinker boats were a world away from the ocean-going, state-of-the-art craft Henry was in at this very moment, his sky falling dark as hers brightened, another day done for him as she woke to another to endure.

She thought of the list she wouldn't get to complete, and she wondered what he had been hoping to achieve from it this time. How was eating a pasty on the sand or racing a boat going to have pushed her past the almost visceral fear that stopped her from wanting to commit again? How was jumping into a lagoon going to have saved them? Because he had made it clear that unless she jumped into marriage again, they had no future.

The wind blew her hair in front of her face and she rested her elbows on her knees, her hands like barrettes, keeping her hair pinned back. Even just the thought of splitting up seemed wholly unreal and impossible to her. Yes, they were floundering on the same rock, over and over, but they were crazy about each other, made for each other; there was simply no way she could conceive that they could ever be without each other. If she still continued to say, ‘No,' would he
really
go through with it?

Up till now she had thought time was the answer – delaying, fudging, filling their diaries with trips and holidays and work dos and events so that there was simply no space to pencil in a wedding. Everything was so much fun, so perfect. But time was running out, or so everyone kept telling her anyway. She was thirty now; it was time to start thinking not just about ‘settling down' but about the
next
phase, the
next
chapter. Those were the questions that were beginning to come thick and fast now – from her mother in Hong Kong every time they spoke on the phone, from Hattie, their friends. Had they talked about starting a family? How many did Henry want? A boy first, or a girl? Couldn't she just imagine a mini-Henry? What a tearaway he'd be – and so handsome too!

No one realized these questions elicited the same panic in her as ‘Have you set a date?' They didn't seem to understand that Gil's greatest betrayal hadn't been his infidelity with Wiz; it had been his love for Rory, their secret child, her godson. Cassie had loved him herself, treasuring him and delighting in him as if he had been her own, and to find out that he so
nearly
was had been the killer blow . . . nearly wasn't enough. Just like that day in the hospital, she was locked out. She had so badly wanted a family of her own – it had been Gil's promise that they would begin trying for a baby after the anniversary – but there was no room for her in that one. Blood trumps law. Son trumps wife. It was the little boy who had truly broken her heart, far more than Gil had managed. Was it any wonder that the idea of family felt so tainted to her now?

But she was falling behind life's curve, the proverbial hare: the girl who'd been first off the starting blocks and married at twenty-one, had fallen asleep by the road, while everyone else was already passing over the finishing line. They had gone on without her: Suzy, Kelly . . . Would Henry too?

She watched as the gulls followed a fishing boat down the estuary, wheeling in the sky before diving for mackerel in the wake, screaming noisily and drowning out the black choughs cawing in the treetops. This, then, was the soundtrack to the place Henry had told her about so often.

He knew and loved this place well; he'd grown up to the summers here. This view had been his as a child, his long, bare brown legs running down the bald footpath as Hattie and Ed, his late father, struggled after with towels and bags, his love of the sea nurtured, no doubt, on this very stretch of water.

She sat there until the chill began to set in, watching the wind running over the long grasses like a child playing Duck, Duck, Goose, fat clouds scudding towards the horizon like skimming stones. She rose, knowing she ought to get back. She hadn't left a note explaining where she was and there was every chance Velvet would decide to be her alarm clock, making a bolt for freedom when Suzy took her out of her cot and bursting through the doors to see Auntie Kiss-Kiss and negotiate a story in bed together. If they found she wasn't there . . .

She walked through the churchyard with slow steps. Some white and purple flowers from a recent wedding still clung to the church door, scraps of confetti marbling the damp blades of grass. It was a wildly beautiful spot to be married, the deep hedge providing an effective windbreak from the sea winds, and her hand trailed lightly over the moss-fringed headstones, their engravings in-filled with yellow and white lichen. She stopped as her eyes fell to a pair that were visibly newer than the rest: ‘
Here lie Phillip and Emily Warrender, beloved parents of Gemma, taken too soon. October 2006.
'

A fire, Suzy had said. She hadn't said that they'd been buried here. Was it so surprising that Gem would want to spend more time here then? Cassie bit her lip, feeling a rush of sympathy for the child left behind, even now – nine years later – looking for love, roots and stability. Looking for home.

She stepped through the deep lychgate, onto the path, and was immediately sent flying as something jabbed her hard in the side. She fell onto the grassy bank with a cry.

‘Oh shit!'

She looked up in confusion as much as pain, to find Luke staring down at her in horror, the sharp nose of a surfboard pointed in her direction under his arm.

‘Cass, I didn't see you until . . . Are you OK?'

She rubbed her ribs – the board had scored a direct hit – but she couldn't check for a bruise without lifting her T-shirt and clearly
that
wasn't going to happen. ‘I'm fine.'

He offered her his hand and helped her back to standing, although she made a point of snatching her hand away. He flinched at the gesture, a pause opening up. ‘What are you doing out here at this time, anyway? It's not exactly your favourite time of day.'

Her eyes flickered irritably to his. Even just a throwaway line like that was privileged information, a personal detail he had no business using anymore – precisely the kind of thing that would trip them up in front of the others.

‘You're not jet-lagged too, are you?' he smiled, even though he must have known it was highly unlikely
she
would have left the country since seeing him at the party last week. Unlike him. He'd probably flown to Haiti and Tokyo since then.

‘Just enjoying the view,' she said in a surly voice, refusing to smile back.

Gently, he set his board down on the path. She looked back at him, taking in properly the sight of a wetsuit rolled down to his hips, his sand-coloured T-shirt wet at the hem. ‘Since when did you learn to surf? You're a New Yorker,' she said with as much scorn as she could muster.

‘Pirelli calendar,' he said, almost apologetically. ‘There's so much damned waiting around on these tiny tropical islands.'

‘Huh, bummer,' she muttered, with a sarcasm that he didn't miss.

His head tipped to the side as he scrutinized her, his eyes tracing her ridiculous tan lines, which were now on glaring display – she had left her sunglasses in the bedroom – and which had only faded overnight by a few degrees to Schiaparelli pink. ‘Look, Cass, about last night—'

‘Oh yes, congratulations, by the way.'

‘What?'

‘You and Amber. She's beautiful.'

He looked stumped by the comment, baffled by her wide-eyed insincerity. ‘Thanks.'

‘How long have you been together?' She was guessing two weeks.

‘Since November.'

Eight months? She couldn't keep the surprise from her face. ‘Oh.' That was far longer than any of his other relationships. Longer than they'd lasted, anyway. ‘She must be special.'

‘Yeah, she is.' He looked down at the ground, clearing his throat lightly. ‘Look, Cass—'

‘Well, you'd better watch out. One week – no, one day with Gem as Bridezilla and she'll—'

‘Cass!' His tone stopped her in her tracks. ‘I'm
really
sorry.'

She paused, too weary to keep up her exhausting patter of sardonic comments that fooled neither of them.

‘I'm sorry for what I did in Paris – it was a shitty thing to do, exhibiting the pictures in the show like that—'

‘Selling them was even worse! You
profited
from my humiliation.'

‘Actually, I gave the money to charity . . . It didn't feel right.' He had the grace to look sheepish. ‘I'm sorry for turning up here. I had no idea you'd be here.'

‘Oh, come on!' she scoffed. ‘You don't expect me to believe that?'

‘Look, I admit I barely know Gem and Laird. I'd never even met them before last week, but I got on well enough with him at the party, and Amber . . . well, she doesn't have many friends, not proper ones anyway – you know what the fashion world's like – so when she said she wanted to come . . .' He sighed. ‘She needs to put down roots. We both do. We're trying to build a new life for ourselves.'

Cassie blinked at him. This wasn't the Luke she knew. Repeated apologies? Donating money to charity? Long-term relationship? Putting down roots? Surfing before breakfast?

He nodded, as if reading her mind. ‘I've changed, Cass. I'm not the man I used to be.'

She continued staring. He certainly looked the same – better, if anything, his year-round tan particularly burnished at the moment so that his hazel eyes seemed to glow brighter in contrast, his dark brown hair a little longer and wilder than it used to be, and he'd put on more muscle since her time with him. ‘A nation rejoices,' she said defiantly.

He looked stung by the words – yet another slap-down – and she saw the expression change in his eyes from earnest, placid and benign to something darker and more familiar to her – a flicker of anger, of patience being worn thin, passions lurking just below the surface; but she wasn't going to let him off the hook that easily. She still stood by what she'd said to him at the party – his betrayal had been unforgivable. It wasn't good enough to turn up two years later with a surfboard and a hippy haircut and tell her he'd changed. What remained unchanged was the fact that his actions meant bastards like Beau Cooper could buy her naked image and hang it on a wall; call it art and throw cocktail parties where everyone could see it; hang it in the bedroom and stare into her eyes while he banged his girlfriends; meet her in the flesh and strip her bare with a knowledge and possession and intimacy that told her he owned her.

‘What does Amber say about it all? Does she know what you did?'

He hesitated before replying. ‘Actually, she doesn't know about us.'

Cassie blinked in surprise. She'd been so certain he would have had to come clean behind closed doors. ‘Well if you being here is all so innocent, why would you lie to her about it?'

‘I'm not
lying
about it, but where's the good in telling her about you? It would only make her feel insecure, and she's beginning to have a really good time down here. She thinks you're great, and she says Suzy and Archie are like some kind of double act. Obviously if I'd known we were going to be seeing you, I'd have warned her.' He stopped. ‘Actually, no, that's not true. We just wouldn't have come.'

The admission was unexpectedly painful for her to hear.

‘But as it was, I thought we both handled the situation well last night.' He gave a light shrug. ‘No one would ever have guessed we made such a mess of things—'

‘
We
made a mess of things?' But the momentary flicker of irritation she'd seen before had gone. The eyes looking back at her were as open and clear as a child's.

‘What difference would it make anyhow? It's water under the bridge, right? You're engaged. We're happy.' He shrugged again.

Cassie stared back at him, her instincts and suspicions tempered by this continued chivalry, this persistent politeness that betrayed a new apathy about her. A little over two years ago he had offered her everything he had in New York, and when she had rejected him, his subsequent revenge in Paris had been as blinding as his passion. But now, here . . . even with the two of them alone, when there was no more need for play-acting in front of strangers, he was behaving as neutrally towards her as a stranger giving directions. The heat between them, the fire that had once made her so convinced they could never see each other again, it had gone out.

He raked a hand through his hair, his eyes watching the uncertainty in her features as she absorbed this new, passive dynamic. ‘Cassie, please, let's not hate each other.'

She continued staring at him, searching for the trick, the sleight of hand that would reveal his ruse, but there was nothing that she could see or read in him that alarmed her.

Slowly, she turned, stepping back onto the path and making a point of waiting for him as he picked up his surfboard again. It was if not a peace treaty, at least a cease in hostilities.

They walked a short way in silence.

‘So, how did you and Amber meet?' she asked quietly, glancing over. ‘Or do I even need to ask?'

No. She didn't need to ask. He raised an eyebrow, giving her the answer without words. ‘She's different, though. She's the one who's got me back on the straight and narrow . . .' He stopped himself and she wondered what he had been going to say. Back on the straight and narrow from what? Her? Or was she inflating her ego to think that her departure had been quite that devastating? ‘But she's sweet and kind, which is really saying something for NYC. And we make each other laugh. I can talk to her. It's the simple stuff.'

‘Oh.' Cassie couldn't imagine him embracing the simpler life. When she'd been with him, everything had been very designed and stylized, international and top tier.