Things I Want My Daughters to Know (45 page)

He probably ought to be angrier with Nathan than he was. The night it had happened, he could have wrung his neck with his bare hands. Might have, if he’d seen him. But what was the point now? The kid had probably been punished enough.

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May

Lisa

It was the kind of evening when she and Andy might ordinarily have met up after work, gone for a drink that turned into a few drinks and supper.

Somewhere outside. With friends or on their own. The kind of evening she’d loved. It was warm—the temperature had reached the mid-60s and stayed there—and the sun was still shining as Lisa came out of her office building, even though it was 5:45.

It was not the kind of evening for flat hunting. Lisa had two appointments, but she was tempted to cancel them both. She’d seen a couple of places earlier in the week, and they’d depressed the hell out of her. It wasn’t that they were horrid. Okay, one was horrid. She should have known that somewhere that cheap would have been dodgy. It actually had one of the last avocado bathroom suites in the city. More fool her for hoping to get away with paying that much. The agent had said that avocado bathroom suites were having a renaissance. Lisa had almost snorted her lungs out through her nostrils. The second place was fine; Lisa knew that the agent was right when she said that it probably represented the best she could hope for within her price range. Lisa had hated the agent. Some impossibly young girl called Felicity with perfect teeth and hair, who wore four-inch heels and a one-inch cushion-cut Tiffany diamond engagement ring. Everything about her expression when she’d looked at Lisa
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screamed, “I know your story. You’ve blown it with a bloke, and you’re on your own again, and you’re climbing back down the property ladder and it’s killing you.” At least that’s how it felt. Paranoia was a new and desperately unattractive habit, she knew. She could have lived there, in the second place. It had a newish bathroom—which was white, meaning that the current owners had let their subscription to
25 Beautiful Homes
lapse and clearly had not heard about the avocado renaissance—and an okay kitchen, as long as you weren’t into swinging small domestic pets, and built-in shelves, and it wasn’t painted in a palate of ever more hideous colors, like the first place, which progressed from a navy blue dining room, through a forest green living room into a dark red bedroom that said agent managed to describe as “womblike” without any hint of irony.

The second place was beige. “Slipper satin,” according to Felicity, but then she was a wanker. And it was so . . . empty. So much a house and not a home. Not easily fixed with a sectional sofa and a few framed can-vases from Ikea. She missed the mess of Andy. And Cee Cee. Even Mark and Hannah’s was too tidy for her, and this place had made their place look like Pete Doherty’s hotel room. She wanted DVDs strewn around with no hope of being reunited with their boxes, and red wine stains on rugs: muddy footprints in the hallway and grubby fingerprints on the door frames. Anyway—and she knew this was churlish—she hadn’t wanted to be a part of engaged girl’s success story. She didn’t want her to get a bonus for meeting sales targets that she’d use buying lingerie from Janet Reger for her honeymoon at the Ritz in Paris. Oh no. She’d said no.

It was too far from the tube. She’d said she’d look again at the budget, which was a joke only she got and not even she found amusing. She was already at her maximum, and probably a little bit beyond it.

She didn’t want to go out there again. She wanted a huge gin and tonic in a pub garden and a good laugh.

Andy was waiting for her this time. It felt like ages since she’d seen him. Her heart lurched. He looked so absurdly handsome, 334 e l i z a b e t h

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and the thought surprised her, because she wasn’t used to thinking of him as being absurdly handsome. He was, though, tonight. He’d cut his hair different, and his glasses looked new. They’d only been apart a couple of months. Maybe he’d washed her right out of his hair, and developed twenty-twenty vision so he could see her clearly. She hoped not.

Making herself walk slowly, refusing to let herself get excited, she went over to him. His expression betrayed nothing of his motives. He might just have come over to ask for her share of the council tax. Or to return the Georg Jensen silver earring she was pretty sure she’d left on the bedside table.

Again a bench. This was all getting very Forrest Gump. Except that if life was a box of chocolates right now, she thought she
did
know what she was going to get. The marzipan one no one else ever wanted.

Maybe it was more CIA classic movie. They were both wearing rain-coats. He didn’t look at her as he spoke.

“Your sister came to see me.”

“Which one?”

“Jennifer.”

She would have guessed Amanda, or Hannah. Jennifer surprised her a little.

“I’m sorry. She shouldn’t have interfered.”

“She was trying to help. It was pretty nice of her.”

“I know. But you made yourself abundantly clear, and I’d told her that. She shouldn’t have come. She’s got things back on track with Stephen and she’s gone all evangelical about love all of a sudden.”

“Is there something wrong with that?”

“No. But we’re different, aren’t we?”

Andy didn’t say anything. Lisa couldn’t bear it.

“What did she say?”

“She showed me something your mum wrote before she died. Something in her journal. Pretty powerful tactic.”

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“I’m sorry.” She wasn’t quite sure why she was apologizing for Jennifer’s actions. She’d kill her later.

“Don’t be. I always liked your mum.”

“And she liked you.” Lisa remembered Barbara’s letter—
Ask Andy
sometime . . .

“And she was right.”

“About what?”

“About what a waste of time it is, holding on to the bad stuff. I suppose when you know your time is limited, you find it easier to cut through the crap.”

“I suppose.”

“So . . . the point is this . . . I’m letting go of the bad stuff, Lisa.”

“Am I the bad stuff in this scenario?” She couldn’t tell from his voice, and he still wasn’t looking at her.

“No. What happened is the bad stuff.”

This was all too cryptic. She wished he would get on and say why he was here. She felt like she could barely breathe.

“I don’t understand what you’re saying to me, Andy.”

He turned so quickly that she jumped. Now he was looking right at her. She met his gaze and waited, like the accused waits for the foreman of the jury to speak.

“I’m saying I want to forget all about the last couple of months. I’m saying it’s not worth ruining everything for. It really isn’t. I believe you, after all, and I believe that. I’m saying I want you back.”

“Just like that?”

Andy whistled and shook his head. For a moment she thought she’d made him angry.

“Nothing ‘just like that’ about it. I wanted to take you back that first night, after you’d told me. At the bottom of it all. I never wanted you to leave. Not really. I was angry and I was hurt. Really hurt. But I never didn’t love you. I was just really afraid that you didn’t love me. That you couldn’t love me and do that.”

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“Andy . . . I said all along . . .”

He put up one hand to stop her. “I know. I know. I get it. I think.

You’re a bloody complicated woman, Lisa. I still don’t think I really understand why it happened. I don’t need to, as long as it never happens again.” She shook her head with vehemence. “Like I say, you’re a bloody complicated woman. But you’re my bloody complicated woman.”

“I’m so sorry, Andy. . . .”

He gripped her shoulders tightly and brought his face close to hers.

“No more apologies. No more explanations. If I’m going to let it go, forever, then you have to, too. It has to just go away.”

“And you can do that?”

“If it means I can have you, then yes. I can. I have. I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t. I’m fed up with playing games, Lisa. If you come back, I have to have all of you come back. You have to mean it. Forever. Till death do us part. All of that stuff. No more bollocks.”

“Does that mean the proposal still stands?”

“Of course it does, you daft cow. Don’t you get it? What’s the point in coming back if I’m not coming back for all of it. I love you. You’re not getting the down-on-one-knee stuff this time, mind you. The moonlight and roses. You had that—it didn’t work, did it?” He was almost laughing now, and she felt that same laughter bubbling within her chest. Relief, delight, gratitude, joy. All at once. “This is the no-frills version.”

“Don’t I get the diamond back?”

“As a tenth-wedding-anniversary present—maybe!”

She put her arms around his neck and pulled him close, taking in his familiar smell, her hands in his hair, her lips on his neck. “I might be nuts, Lisa. But marry me.” She couldn’t see his face, but she could hear the tears in his voice.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you. I will. I love you so much.”

They stayed that way, on the bench, until it got uncomfortable and chilly. No more talking. They just hugged, and kissed. In a
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funny way, Lisa felt almost like nothing had ever happened. He really was an amazing man. She felt like she’d gotten herself back, as well as him.

Later, they wandered, hand in hand, in search of that gin and tonic.

“How’s Cee Cee?”

“She wants her ears pierced, and she wants her bedtime changed. She misses you.”

“What did you tell her?”

“Never told her anything. Didn’t need to. You know Cee Cee. She has the attention span of a squid. Told her you were working, or shopping, or away with a friend. She was back to
Charlie and Lola
without a second thought. Kids are like goldfish. Th next weekend, same routine.

She won’t turn a hair when you’re there, the next time she comes over from Karen’s.”

“I’m glad you didn’t tell her.”

“I suppose it meant something—the fact that I didn’t. I never let go, I suppose.”

“Thank God you didn’t.” She stopped him and pulled his face down to kiss him hungrily, months of frustrated longing poured into the one gesture.

“Lisa?” He murmured in her ear, familiarly sexy.

“Mmm?”

“Do you really want that drink?”

“What did you have in mind?”

“I want to take you home. . . .”

“Get a cab.”

Maybe she’d been afraid that, if they were ever to reunite, there’d be the ghost of a third person in the room, in the bed with them. If Andy felt it, he covered it well. It was as good and close and honest as it had ever been between them—better, because it had been so long, and because she had begun to believe it might never happen again.

Andy kissed her all over, reclaiming every inch of her, and then watched 338 e l i z a b e t h

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her as she came, straddling him, the heels of her hands digging into his shoulders, and she watched him, eyes wide with love and pleasure, as he climaxed inside her, and then brought her head down to his chest. A few long-forgotten words of poetry formed in her mind, and she spoke them quietly, almost to herself as she lay there.

For no other reason than I love him wholly I am here
For this one night at least the world has shrunk to a boyish breast
On which my head, brilliant and exhausted, rests
And can know of nothing more complete.

I am as far beyond doubt as the sun

I am as far beyond doubt as is possible.

“Come again, Lise?”

She smiled. He knew exactly what she meant. She was home. She pulled his chest hair, gently.

“Yes, please, but give me a minute. . . .”

And it was as simple as that, after all. It was over. The worst had happened, and the storm had come, and Oz had stunk, and she was bloody glad to be back in Kansas. Maybe Jennifer was right. Lisa called her, a couple of days later.

“Andy told me you went to see him.”

“Are you going to call me an interfering old something?”

“No. I’m going to say thank you. It worked.”

“You’re welcome. I thought it might. He didn’t need much persuading. For some bizarre reason, sis, you’re it, as far as he’s concerned.”

“And aren’t I glad. You know how much Mum used to hate us fighting?”

“Yeah?”

“She’d have loved this.”

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Mark

The Post-it with Jane’s telephone number written on it was still on the noticeboard in the kitchen, between the number of Betty, who had come to take the ironing away every Wednesday morning for as long as Mark could remember, and a flyer for a new curry house and its 50 percent off grand opening announcement.

Mark took it down, went to the phone, changed his mind, put the number in his shirt pocket. Took the recycling out to the garage, came back and stood by the phone for a while, read about the curry house’s specials, and then metaphorically slapped himself around the face, and picked up the receiver. Vince was right, damn it.

She answered on the seventh ring, just after he’d exhaled, and begun composing his ansaphone message. “Jane?”

“Hello?” For a moment, when there was no recognition in her voice, Mark almost hung up.

“It’s me, Mark.” Should he say his surname?

“Oh. Hi.” Did she sound offhand, or just wary?

“Sorry—sorry it’s taken me so long to get back to you . . . about the T-shirt . . .”

“That’s okay.” It didn’t really sound like it was.

“Have you given it away to Oxfam yet?”

“No. It’s still here.” She didn’t laugh, though, and it had been a joke.

“I wondered if I might come and get it.”

“Okay.”

So she wasn’t going to make this easy for him. Fair enough. He probably deserved it.