You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me (66 page)

‘Between the Wars: Reclaiming the Feminist Novel,’ Neve answered in a small, tight voice because William should have
remembered
the title of her MA dissertation, considering she’d written him enough letters about it. ‘Sorry, William, forgive me if I’m being dense, but what made you think that I wanted to start working on a doctorate thesis?’

William looked at Neve as if she wasn’t just being dense, but wilfully and deliberately dense. ‘Well, you can’t be my research assistant unless you’re a PhD student,’ he explained impatiently. ‘I know you wanted a couple of years off, but every day you spend in that library is a day that your intellectual muscles are atrophying.’

‘It’s not a library, it’s a
literary archive,
’ Neve snapped. ‘I like working there and I flex my intellectual muscles every day, thank you very much.’

‘Of course you do,’ William said appeasingly. ‘Or you think you do, but that’s only because you’ve gone so long without the vigour of daily academic debate.’

They had vigorous daily debates at the Archive, but they were mostly about which cardigan Our Lady of the Blessed Hankie would be wearing when she turned up five minutes after they opened or guessing the origins of the new stains on Mr Freemont’s tie.

‘I like working there,’ Neve repeated firmly. ‘I like the people who work there and I get to do different things every day. I’m even going on an advanced book repair course in the autumn and I’m wri—’

‘But I’m planning to write a book,’ William interrupted, taking the words right out of her mouth.

‘Oh …’

‘Ah, I thought that might persuade you where all else failed,’ William said. ‘I think I might like to write a couple of volumes on the correlation between Romanticism and the Modern Age.’

‘But Romanticism isn’t my speciality.’

‘Yes, but you wouldn’t be writing it, I would,’ William reminded her. ‘Though of course, I couldn’t do it without your help.’

‘William …’

‘I thought we’d work on a synopsis and the first three chapters, then start shopping it to agents and—’

‘William!’ Neve had to say his name very sharply so they could talk about her. ‘I’m already writing a book. Well, I’ve started anyway.’

‘
You’re
writing a book?’ There was no need for him to sound quite so incredulous, or look faintly amused. ‘A novel?’

‘No, it’s a biography of Lucy Keener and I’m editing her poems and short stories, though my agent thinks that we might publish them separately, after he’s got a deal for her novel,’ Neve said, and she’d wanted to impart her news with pride but William had a furrowed brow and he didn’t look particularly ecstatic, so she kept it down to an apologetic mumble.

‘You have an agent?’ William asked, with a faint edge to his voice.

‘Yeah … well, Jacob Morrison. He worked at the Archive when he came down from Cambridge and now he’s on the Board of Trustees.’ Neve shrugged. ‘It might not come to anything, but—’

‘No, it’s wonderful. I’m very happy for you; it just took me rather by surprise,’ William said. He swallowed hard as if he was gulping down on his own disappointment and pique, but then he gave her one of those smiles that she’d lived for when she was at Oxford. ‘Well done, you.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Neve said, and now it was her turn to cover his hand and squeeze his fingers. ‘I didn’t mean to suddenly hit you with it. I was going to write and tell you but I’ve not been such a good correspondent over the last few months, have I?’

‘Well, it sounds as if you’ve had a lot going on,’ William said. He entwined his fingers with hers and the only thing that Neve felt was sadness that she’d wasted so much time loving a William who existed only in her head. ‘You’re not really going to make me forage for myself in the wilds of Warwickshire?’

They went back and forth for nearly an hour, William extolling the virtues of the University of Warwickshire’s English Department, the beautiful countryside, the thriving arts scene and how he absolutely couldn’t manage without her, none of which were the selling points they should have been.

Neve was still trying to process the shocking information that she wasn’t madly and passionately in love with William, but even if she still was, ‘I’m a London girl, born and bred,’ she insisted. ‘Warwickshire’s the country and the country’s full of big lumbering animals that smell awful and I don’t do wellies.’

William smiled again, though by now it was lacking its usual wattage. ‘I wouldn’t mind if you wanted to tinker with your book in your own time.’

Hadn’t he heard a single word she’d said? Neve narrowed her eyes and was all ready to snap out another, much more explicit refusal, when she saw William’s eyes flit appreciatively over her again. Was this his way of saying that he wanted to be with her in a mutually supportive literary relationship like Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning, or Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald? Though that hadn’t worked out well for poor old Lizzie or Zelda. ‘I’m afraid I must regretfully decline your kind offer,’ Neve joked feebly, as William frowned.

‘This doesn’t have anything to do with your, er,
transformation?
’ He waved a vague hand in the direction of her size twelve body. ‘I’m trying to understand, so forgive me if I don’t put this very elegantly, but now that you look the way you do, do you feel as if you don’t need to try so hard on the intellectual front?’

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Neve could tell that he regretted them. Though that might have had something to do with the way she was glaring at him.
‘Excuse me?’
she spat, and as Dougie and Celia always pointed out, it didn’t matter that Neve never swore because she could make ‘Excuse me?’ sound like ‘Go fuck yourself.’ ‘You think I did all
this
so I could give my over-taxed brain a rest? Is that what you really think?’

William’s hands fluttered ineffectually. ‘Neve … I’m sorry. That came out all wrong, I was rather scared that it might.’ He brushed his hair back from his forehead. ‘So, coming to Warwick with me is a categorical no?’

She nodded, still so angry with him that she didn’t trust herself to speak.

‘You’re full of surprises this evening,’ William said, reaching up to fiddle with his collar because her fury and her glaring had left him discomfited. ‘It’s not just the way you look – you’ve changed since I’ve been away.’

‘It’s been three years,’ Neve said, and she made a conscious decision to let her anger go. It wasn’t worth it and William wasn’t to blame for failing to live up to her expectations of him. There wasn’t a man alive, not even the Dalai Lama, who could be
that
perfect. She didn’t measure too highly on the perfect scale either. ‘I don’t think all the changes I’ve made have necessarily been for the better.’

‘I think that’s called getting older.’

‘Well, whatever it is, it sucks.’

They sat there for a while, neither of them saying anything. Neve began to wonder how long she had to sit there, before an appropriate length of time had passed and she could make her excuses and leave. Meeting up with William had been nothing but one agony after another and she needed to be on her own to lick her metaphorical wounds, pack away all those silly adolescent dreams and come to terms with the knowledge that if William wasn’t her golden ticket, then all she had to look forward to was a life that didn’t have Max in it. A miserable, lonely little life.

Neve lifted her head to tell William that, or at least mutter something about a subsequent appointment, but William wasn’t even looking at her. He was gazing across the room. Then he suddenly smiled.

Neve thought she’d memorised all his smiles, but she’d never seen this one before. William looked incandescent as he lifted his hand and waved frantically at someone.

Neve peered over her shoulder to see a girl coming towards their table, her own smile just as luminous as William’s.

William stood up, in time for the girl to throw her arms around him. ‘Baby,’ she said in an American accent. ‘I missed you.’

‘I missed you too,’ William said, and even his voice sounded different: softer, lighter, happier. ‘The afternoon seemed to last an eternity.’

The girl giggled, then giggled some more as William tickled her waist as he let her go. The only person who wasn’t smiling or giggling or doing anything but sitting there with a frozen look on her face was Neve.

William went off to find another chair and Neve tried to smile but it felt more like a grimace as the girl gave her a friendly but slightly blank look, as if she hadn’t expected to find Neve sitting there.

She was beautiful. Maybe the most beautiful girl that Neve had ever seen in real life. She was tall and slim, not just slim, but lithe and toned with long, naturally wavy caramel-coloured hair that she pushed back with a nervous hand so Neve could get a better look at her face, which was perfectly symmetrical, free from make-up and gorgeous. Neve marvelled that they could both have eyes, nose and mouth, but while hers were wholly unremarkable, this girl’s features looked as if they’d been sculpted by some divine hand.

And, of course, she was wearing faded blue jeans, a white T-shirt and flip-flops with an easy elegance that made them look like haute couture, while Neve was sitting there in a borrowed dress and bra, a pair of Spanx, sandals that were cutting into her feet, hair that was getting lanker and limper by the second and a natural look that had taken two people an hour to achieve.

‘There you are, baby,’ William announced proudly, placing a leather chair in front of the girl, as if he’d personally gone all the way to the Conran Shop and carried it back on his shoulders. ‘What would you like to drink?’

The vision wanted a glass of Chardonnay, William was ordering another bottle of lager and Neve knew that she couldn’t get up and go, not for at least another half-hour, but she couldn’t sit there sober.

‘I’ll have a glass of Sauvignon Blanc,’ she told the waiter. ‘A large glass.’

‘So, Amy, this is Neve, who made my last three years at Oxford bearable,’ William said, as Amy proffered a hand for Neve to shake. ‘Neve, this is the other surprise I wanted to tell you about. I’d like you to meet Amy, my very dear friend from LA who’s, well … somehow I’ve managed to convince her to …’ William took a deep breath. ‘I’ll try that one again. Neve, I’d like you to meet Amy, my fiancée.’ Neve’s hands were sweaty but Amy didn’t flinch as they shook hands, only smiled uncertainly. ‘Oh! Neve! But you’re
so
pretty,’ she said, then giggled nervously. ‘I mean, William’s told me so much about you.’

That’s funny, Neve thought. He’s told me absolutely nothing about you.

‘You never said …’ she began accusingly, because there had been all those letters and not once had William thought to mention that he was head over heels in love with another woman and planning to plight his troth, but then she stopped. There had been some oblique references to a close friend and something about frozen yogurt. Amy looked like the kind of girl who’d be evangelical about … what was it?
The refreshing delights of frozen yogurt
. Neve willed her hectoring, spiteful inner voice to shut the hell up. At least, William had implied, whereas there were many, many things she hadn’t felt the need to enlighten him about with even a vague hint.

The waiter arrived with their drinks and Neve practically snatched her glass off his tray and took a swift gulp. She could feel the alcohol sizzling all the way down to her empty stomach.

They were both looking at her nervously as if their future happiness depended on her reaction to their nuptials. There was no point in sitting there feeling bitter and jealous when she’d already relinquished any claim on William.

Neve raised her glass so her wine was transformed into liquid gold as it was backlit by the spectacular sunset outside. ‘Congratulations,’ she said. ‘I hope you have a very long, very happy marriage.’

Amy giggled again and William let out a breath. He had every right to be nervous – in all the time that he was giving her the hard sell on upping sticks and leaving her job to follow him to the Midlands, he hadn’t thought to tell her that she was going to play third wheel.

‘I wanted it to be a surprise,’ William explained weakly.

‘Well, mission accomplished,’ Neve said, because just one good gulp of wine was enough to make her light-headed and loose-tongued. She turned to Amy. ‘Anyway, it’s a
lovely
surprise. So, how did you two meet?’

They’d met in a coffee shop where Amy was waiting tables. Not even because she was taking acting lessons and had grand ambitions to get spotted by a talent scout or an agent but because, ‘I figured I could either wait tables in Des Moines, Iowa, or I could wait tables in Hollywood.’ Amy had mucked up William’s order of a chai latte and a bran muffin, and it had been love at first sight. Then during their roadtrip, because, of course, he’d taken Amy on his literary odyssey, William had realised that he couldn’t bear to leave Amy on the wrong side of the Atlantic and had gone down on one knee in the hallway of Rowan Oak, William Faulkner’s former home in Oxford, Mississippi.

Neve wanted Amy to be a bitch so she could hate her, just a little, but she wasn’t. She was sweet and disarming, as if she didn’t know she was so beautiful she could get away with being neither. The only downside to Amy was her giggle, which was starting to grate on Neve’s tattered nerves, and her serious lack of book smarts or street smarts or any other kind of smarts.