The Unfinished Symphony of You and Me (28 page)

‘So …’ I began, not knowing where to start. ‘So how did she get on at the – what did you call it? Programme? Meetings?’

‘Narcotics Anonymous.’

I sat back, even more shocked. ‘Oh.’

Julian watched me taking this in.

‘Fi went to Narcotics Anonymous? Seriously?’

‘She did. We went to five meetings. The final one was the day of the party. I walked her there.’

I remembered seeing him and Fiona in SoHo, and cursed myself. This whole mess might have been a lot easier had I not jumped to the worst possible conclusion about everything. ‘I genuinely had no idea,’ I mumbled.

‘Of course you didn’t,’ he reassured me. ‘And you weren’t meant to either. I deliberately didn’t tell you.’

‘Why?’

He sighed. ‘Those programmes are anonymous. Fiona knew she could do or say literally
anything
to me and she’d still be safe.’

‘But … but she was safe talking to me,’ I said. I knew I sounded selfish but I was hurt. Why had she trusted a complete stranger and not me?

‘Addicts only ever open up to other addicts,’ Julian explained. ‘They struggle to talk to normal people about their stuff.’

‘But you’re not an addict. Oh, God, are you?’

‘No! But I was really connected to that world. I knew from my own shitty experience with Catherine how it all works. What you can and can’t do with addicts. What might help them, what might push them over the edge. I guess she just knew she could trust me.’

‘Right. Sorry. I didn’t mean to sound selfish.’

‘You were utterly unselfish with Fiona,’ Julian said gently. ‘You did everything you could for her. You put her before everyone else, for your whole life by the sound of it. There was only one thing you didn’t have that might have got you closer to her, and that was an addiction.’

I watched Julian’s face, took in his soft silly hair, smelt his Julian smell and knew I was beginning to believe him. It was terrifying, trying out a new version of the past, but I was ready to give it a go.

Julian sat opposite me, waiting for me to speak, and I felt a deep sense of gratitude to him. He’d done more for Fiona than I ever could have done, and for what?

For me.

I took a deep breath. ‘So how did she get on at, um, Narcotics Anonymous?’

‘She hated it at first,’ Julian said, smiling sadly. ‘Refused to acknowledge that she was in the same boat as everyone else. But the more meetings she went to, the more she identified with what everyone was saying. She –’

He paused. ‘This is hard, Sal.’

I felt tears pricking at my eyes. Fiona. My Freckle. ‘Go on,’ I said shakily.

‘That last meeting. She – she basically
got it
that day. Got the programme. Started believing she could get clean. She told me she’d join NA and she meant it, Sally. She really did.’

‘Are you serious?’

He nodded.

My heart ached as I imagined how brave she’d been, smashing through all that denial and admitting she had a problem. It would have taken courage I hadn’t known she had.

And at the thought of that little shred of courage I put my head into my hands and cried. Cried for that fragile little Freckle, almost but not quite beaten. Finally believing she could get better and then falling to her death a few hours later.

Julian slid his foot on to mine as I sobbed. ‘It’s OK,’ he whispered. ‘It’s OK.’

‘It’s not! How could she go from that to – to
dying
the same day? I can’t stand it …’

‘Well, I guess the only person who can really explain that is Fiona,’ he said. He rubbed my foot with his and my
heart ached. ‘But I think it’s quite common. People decide to get clean from drugs and then the fear sets in so they have a drink instead. And
that
turns into an almighty bender, during which they get so wasted they stop caring and pick up the drugs again. I imagine that seeing Raúl at the party made things worse, although it certainly wasn’t his fault.’

He looked unbearably sad. ‘The awful thing is, they sometimes say, “Let them have a final bender. That’s when they’ll hit rock bottom. That’s when they’ll really become willing.” But they don’t mention what to do if the person in question falls off a fucking roof.’ Julian’s eyes swelled with tears. ‘They didn’t tell me that could happen.’

For a moment we sat in silence, indulging the
what-ifs
and
might-have-beens
that we both knew to be pointless. ‘It wasn’t your fault, Julian,’ I said. ‘You said it yourself. She couldn’t even get through a party without those filthy bloody drugs.’

‘No,’ Julian agreed sadly. ‘But the real tragedy in all of this is that she wasn’t even that fucked. She never lost it completely. She was manageable, still just about getting on with her life. She could still have made it as a principal ballerina.’

‘Really? She seemed pretty messed up to me.’

Julian nodded. ‘Trust me, it can get so much worse. If she’d really lost it she’d have been stealing, off her face most of the time, lying all day long, and she’d have got into more serious stuff than coke. Make no mistake, she was in a bad way, but she wasn’t a dead loss. Far from it.’ Then he laughed. ‘Actually, it’s not at all funny, but she did steal my phone.’

‘She
what
?’

‘Yeah! The night we met – remember I thought I’d left it in the taxi? Turns out Fiona had nicked it. Raúl texted me and my phone went off in her handbag, and he was like,
what the fuck?
’

‘Are you serious? She stole your phone?’

He laughed again. ‘She did, and she had no idea what to do with it. I had to laugh when I found out. Although Raúl didn’t find it funny at all.’

‘Is that why he dumped her?’

Julian hugged his knees. In spite of myself I caught sight of the monkey T-shirt and smiled.

‘Yeah. Raúl was right there with me throughout the whole thing with Catherine and I guess he just got super-sensitive. He cut his losses and ran before he fell for her.’

Once again I was knifed by sadness. Fiona could have found real love. She could have got clean. She could have –

I looked at my lap. I was bowled over by what Julian had told me. By his generosity, by his courage, by his understanding of Fiona’s fragile state of mind. But there were still unanswered questions. Why that wrap of coke had been passing between them. Why she had said he’d been selling drugs to her. And – above all – why he’d done a runner when she fell off the roof.

‘So, there’s a few grey areas,’ I said guardedly.

‘There are. First, I’m a tosser. Bea accused me of selling the drugs. And Fiona agreed with her. And I … Ah, shit, it was so dumb of me. I just went along with it, because I thought it’d be the final straw for Fiona if I called her a liar in front of everyone. Catherine used to lie
all the time, and when I challenged her, she’d go completely mental. I was going to tell you the truth as soon as we were alone.’

‘But why did you put the coke in your pocket?’

‘Because I’d finally persuaded her to hand it over. But then she picked a fight with you and wanted it back.’ In spite of the agony of talking about that night, I felt a growing warmth inside. It hadn’t been Julian. He hadn’t dealt her drugs. He hadn’t killed her.
Of course he hadn’t! He was the love of my life!

‘So … who sold her the drugs? Where was she getting it all from?’

Julian looked at his hands. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said, ‘but, well, it was Bea.’

Everything swayed, including me.

‘Breathe, Sally!’ Julian said, half frightened. ‘Are you OK?’ He peered into my face. ‘I’m sorry to just break it to you … Ah, shit, how else was I going to tell you? It was Bea.’

‘
Bea?
’

‘Sally? Sally?’ Julian had shuffled forward and grabbed my shoulders.

Momentarily I allowed myself to loll sideways on to his arm. I felt his lovely warmth spread into me and smelt his lovely Julian smell and felt so lost I could hardly bear it. With a dizzying effort, I pulled myself upright.

‘I’m OK,’ I whispered. ‘Just … Bea?’

‘’Fraid so. She was nothing like Fiona, obviously. She just took coke for fun. But apparently she’d been selling it to Fiona for years.’

Of course
, I thought weakly.
Of course
. Bea had all but disappeared from our lives; she’d run off to Glyndebourne
and neither Barry nor I had managed to get a peep out of her in months.

‘The traitorous bitch,’ I said. ‘She didn’t need to sell drugs to Fiona, she was stinking rich! Fuck! How
could
she?’

Julian laughed, slightly to my surprise. ‘Ahem. Sorry. I’ve just never heard you say “fuck” before.’

‘I – I’ll
kill her
,’ I whispered furiously. ‘She’s loaded! She knew how worried I was! She – oh, my
God
!’ I gazed at him, appalled.

‘From what I gather Bea just sold Fiona some grams here and there. But by the time Fiona died she would have been getting it from all over the shop, certainly not just Bea.’

‘But she blamed you,’ I said. ‘Bea told me she was suspicious about you having nice clothes and money and – and an apartment on Mulberry.’

Julian smiled wistfully. ‘Yeah. That was quite clever of her, really. I think she’d begun to realize she had a minor role in it all and was panicking.’

‘Why are you defending her?’ I was incredulous. ‘I blamed you for Fiona’s death! I treated you like absolute shit! I cut off all contact! I – oh, my God. When it was her fault!’

Julian watched me. ‘No, it wasn’t,’ he said.

And, like he always had done, he took the wind out of my sails.

He moved back to his side of the wardrobe, putting both of his warm socked feet on top of my cold bare ones. ‘It wasn’t her fault,’ he repeated.

There was a long silence.

‘I suppose not,’ I said eventually. ‘Fi would’ve got it from somewhere. But … but I’ve spent all this time
thinking you were the devil when you were actually a saint. I can’t stand it. I could have … We could have …’

‘Sssh. We couldn’t have stayed together. You were insane with grief. And so was I. We needed to be apart.’

‘But not with me hating and blaming you! Why didn’t you insist on telling me?’

‘Because I wanted to protect you,’ he said softly. ‘I didn’t think you’d be able to cope with the truth. Bea was one of your best buddies, wasn’t she?’

I nodded mutely as my brain turned over the events of that awful night, trying out this new information. ‘You didn’t do a runner, did you?’ I said.

Julian shook his head. The light from my bedside lamp spilled warmly on to the side of his face and for a second I could see each little hair on his cheek; each precious little –

STOP IT
.

I looked at his eyes again. ‘You’d gone looking for me.’

He nodded. ‘I had to find you,’ he said simply. ‘I couldn’t let you come back and find her there in the road. I was running around Brooklyn like a psycho, crying and yelling your name. It was stupid. I was just desperate. I wanted to keep you from the pain, because I know how it feels. I wanted to protect you –’ He broke off, crying.

After a while he spoke. ‘Sally, I will regret for the rest of my life that you got back to the hotel and found out the way you did.’

I leaned forward and took his hand. ‘Hey,’ I said quietly, ‘you have nothing to feel bad about.
Nothing
. Do you understand?’ It felt desperately important that he got this, that he realized what a kind, good man he was. That it should have been me begging him for forgiveness.

‘Bleugh.’ A tear fell down his cheek on to the monkey T-shirt.

‘No. Not bleugh. You’ve been so good to me and I’ve treated you like you were a monster. I’ll never be able to put into words how grateful I am for what you did.’ I stroked his hair for a second, then drew my hand away. It wasn’t safe.

I handed him Carrot instead. ‘Have a hug with Carrot. He’s good for moments like these.’

Julian took him, a smile emerging. ‘Hello, Carrot,’ he said, balancing my ancient teddy on his knees. ‘It’s good to meet you at last.’

‘Try a hug,’ I urged. ‘He’s fantastic for that kind of stuff.’

‘I’d rather have a hug from you,’ Julian said.

Momentarily, I paused, weighing up the danger. There were a lot of feelings in me just then. I ignored them and shuffled forward to hug him.

But while the wardrobe was a good space for one, it didn’t have room to accommodate hugs between two full-sized adults. Realizing I was at risk of sprawling on to him, Julian took my hand and guided me round so I had my back to him. He sat me between his legs, slid his arms round my tummy and held me tightly, his face buried in my hair.

‘Did you ever really, honestly believe it was my fault?’

‘No,’ I admitted. ‘Although I didn’t know that until today.’

I felt him nod, and melt deeper into my hair.

It felt so good to be wrapped up in him that I hardly dared breathe.
What are you doing?
my head shouted.
You have a boyfriend! GET THE HELL OUT OF THERE!
I closed my eyes and shut the voice out, enjoying Julian’s size and shape. That perfect tessellation of bodies I’d missed so much.

After what felt like nowhere near enough time, Julian shifted. ‘I think we should probably get out of the wardrobe,’ he said softly.

I clamped my hands over his arms as they prepared to release me. ‘No. I want to stay here.’

Julian laughed quietly. ‘I know you do. But I’ve got to get home cos my mom’s just about to land at Heathrow.’

‘Oh! Stevie! Wow!’

I felt Julian smile behind me. A big, lazy, lovely smile. ‘Yep. Mrs Bell is in da house.’

There was a silence as we both thought about Julian’s brilliant mother.

‘How are you feeling after Stourbridge?’ Julian asked tentatively. ‘Have you been thinking about your own folks?’

‘Constantly.’

‘And?’

I bit my lip. A thousand thoughts were dancing around in my mind. ‘And I don’t know. I need more time to think.’

Julian said nothing.

‘It’s all very well for Mum to say, “Oh, no, of course we don’t blame you!” when there’s guests there,’ I continued. ‘But they hadn’t called me, Julian. Not in a year. I nearly died of grief and they … Nothing. Always nothing. Since I was tiny.’