Except Tom. She realized as she sat in bed, in her vest and shorts, that he was the only person in London she’d miss. She counted on her fingers the things they’d done that summer. It was only a month or so, but it felt longer. They’d seen
The Royal Tenenbaums
and
The Godfather
. They’d had pizza, sushi, tapas, and Thai. They’d been to that awful bar on Wardour Street, the Ladbroke Arms, and the place with the margaritas on St. Anne’s Court. She’d been to the Richmond bookshop to pick him up a couple of times, too. And of course there was that evening at the Cross Keys when Caitlin had turned up halfway through, and Tom had tried to get rid of her, and then he’d turned to Elle afterwards and said, “I’m really sorry. I wanted to see you, not her.”
Remembering his usually hard voice softening, his gray eyes looking straight at her, his light touch on her arm, Elle smiled, and lay back in the darkness of the tiny, hot room. They were meeting up on Saturday. Yes. The thought warmed her. She wasn’t going to miss London, her family, or Bookprint, or anything else, but she’d miss him.
“WHAT DO YOU
want to do, then?”
Tom stretched his arms. “Nothing. I don’t have to go back to the shop. I asked Benji to stay on a few more hours.” He lay back down on the grass. “We can do what we like. What do you want to do?”
Elle looked around. They were sitting in Petersham Fields. The Thames flowed slowly in front of them, cluttered with the little ferryboats crossing the banks for 10 pence, and the pleasure cruises and yachts. It was a glorious Saturday, but again there was the feeling that the best of summer was over. Across the river, the trees in Marble Hill Park were pale, brittle green. There was no wind. Everything seemed still, poised on the brink of change.
“I’d like another drink, I think.” She looked down at her empty plastic glass. “We should get another bottle.”
Tom gave a murmur of assent and shielded his eyes from the sun with his arm. “I’m OK for the moment. Shall I get you a glass?”
“Oh. Yes, thanks.” Elle rolled over to get her purse. “So, is Caitlin not working today?” she said, changing the subject. “Is it all OK with you two then?”
Tom said, “I don’t know. She’s upset.”
“Right,” said Elle. “It’s strange, she was so off with you, and you were so keen on her to start with.” She knew he didn’t like talking about it, but she found Caitlin fascinating. “It’s like the roles reversed. We always thought she’d be the one to end it with you, didn’t we.”
We. We always thought
. She blushed.
Tom shook his head. “It was the other way round. Anyway, it’s fine. We’re fine. It’s over.” He stood up. “Let’s walk back towards Richmond, shall we?”
They set off along the towpath, past the boat sheds and the pier, and the hordes of people lying out on the river banks.
Elle cleared her throat. “So—I’ve got something to tell you. Some good news.”
“Hey? What?” Tom turned towards her.
“I’m going to New York.” She nodded. “They offered it to me and I accepted it. I’m going in October.” She wished she wasn’t nervous. “Spoke to Caryn in New York yesterday again, she seemed really nice.”
“Oh. I thought when I didn’t hear from you that you hadn’t got it.” Tom carried on walking again.
“I’m sorry, I wanted to tell you today—”
He interrupted. “That’s OK.” He looked at his watch. “I’ve had a pretty rough week anyway.”
“Oh no, what’s happened?”
Tom jangled his keys in his trouser pocket. “Oh—it’s probably nothing. It is nothing.” He looked at his watch again. “You’re really going to New York then. Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why are you going? I don’t understand, if I’m honest.”
Elle struggled to keep up with him, she didn’t understand why he was being like this. “Why wouldn’t I go?” She peered at his face, then nearly crashed into a bench. “It’s going to be amazing, and I’m really lucky. I need a change.”
“Oh, right,” said Tom, cryptically. He shrugged. “Won’t you be missing out on stuff here if you go?”
“It’s for four months!” Elle said, trying to give a natural-sounding laugh, though she felt as if she’d been winded. “I’m not moving to Siberia to live for the rest of my natural life. Wow! I thought—” She shook her head, surprised at how upset she was. “I thought you’d be pleased for me. You were pleased when we talked about it before.”
“It’s different now,” he said angrily. “I would be if I thought you were doing it for the right reasons, but I don’t think you are.” They were in the middle of the green field, on the narrow path. People pushed past them.
“Why the hell not?” she said. “Tom, what’s up with you? Is everything OK?”
Tom shrugged and cleared his throat, then he scratched his head. “Well, I’m—I don’t think you’ll get Rory and the rest of them out of your system by running away to some identikit company a bit further away.”
“This isn’t about Rory,” she said. “Seriously, it’s not.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m bloody sure. And I’m not running away!” Elle didn’t understand what he was talking about. “I’ve been practically in hiding for the last six months, it’s got to stop! It’s going to be much harder, starting somewhere new. I have to prove myself—they wanted Libby, they didn’t want me… I have to show them I’m good at what I do.”
He was silent. “You are good at what you do.”
“Well, you’re my friend,” Elle said, trying to sound patient. “You would say that.”
“I want you to stay here.”
“Why?”
Elle said. “Tom, why?”
“You really can’t see why I’d like you to stay?”
She knew what she wanted to think, but she couldn’t trust to that, not when she’d been so wrong so many times before. She stared at him. In the cool of the trees behind them, a child screamed happily. Oars splashed in the calm water.
Tom had his back to the sun and she peered into his face, squinting. He pulled her round a little, so her face was out of the sun’s glare. “Look,” he said. “Can I tell you something? I have to tell you, really. But I want to as well, I—”
“Tom! Tom! Hi! I’m here!” someone called.
He stared at Elle one last time. “I’m sorry. I said I’d be here. I should have told her.”
“What?” Elle said. She looked behind him. Caitlin was marching towards them, her shiny black hair ruffled in the breeze. She was in cargo pants, fastened low around her slim waist, and a tiny polka-dot chiffon blouse. She looked stunning. Elle ran her hands through her half-grown-out hair, and looked down at her sweaty jeans, and the roll of what she thought of as wine-fat.
“Caitlin,” Tom said, going over to her. “I said—”
Caitlin lifted a hand at Elle. “Hi,” she said. She was thinner, paler than before, but Elle had forgotten how lovely she was; her dark, expressive eyes, her heart-shaped face. She tried not to watch her. “Can I please, can I please just have a word with you?”
“Caitlin,” Tom said softly. “No. Now isn’t a good time. You must be able to—”
“Tom, please…” She tightened her grip on his flesh. “I have to speak to you.”
“Can I come round later?”
Caitlin took a deep breath. “It’s just—I—I want to speak to you.”
“No—” Tom said. “We’ll—” He turned around, pointing at Elle.
“I got it wrong. It’s yours.” Caitlin nodded. She gave a small smile of satisfaction, though she looked anything but happy.
Tom stepped back. “What?”
“The baby’s yours, not Jean-Claude’s.”
There was a silence, broken only by the sounds from the river and some children shouting, far behind them. Tom nodded, the color drained from his face. “Are you sure?”
“Wow, what a reaction,” Caitlin said, licking her thin lips nervously.
“Caitlin, you know it’s not like that.” He reached towards her, but she shook her head.
“What baby?” Elle asked. Though she knew the answer, but she thought she must be misunderstanding something.
“I’m pregnant,” Caitlin said. She pulled self-consciously at a lock of short hair. “Found out on Monday, but I thought—er, well, I thought it was Jean-Claude’s. I had the scan yesterday afternoon and I got the dates wrong. He was away—we weren’t… together then. So it’s Tom’s.” She sounded as if she were reeling off facts from a list; but her face was pale, and she bit her lip as she stared at him, watching for his reaction. “Yeah—um, it’s Tom’s. I told him I was pregnant on Monday but I wasn’t sure if it was his. So I’m telling him—I’m telling him now.”
Elle hadn’t really ever stopped to properly, honestly ask herself how she felt about Tom. It was only when he put his arm around Caitlin’s shoulders and said quietly, “No, that’s great. That’s really great,” that she knew. Caitlin rested against him, the tension in her taut body gone.
“Oh,” she said. “Thanks.”
Elle stepped back. “Congratulations,” she told Caitlin. “That
is
great. I need to phone my friend Karen about this evening. Why don’t you two talk.”
She walked away and sat on the grass, leaving the two of them behind. She held her phone up to her ear and pretended to be calling someone, and while she did she smiled, because she’d read somewhere that if you smiled things seemed better. Anyway, it was none of her business, it was between them now. She sat looking out at the water, until a light touch on her shoulder made her jump.
“Shall we carry on?” he said. “Caitlin’s gone home.”
They walked towards Richmond in silence, and as they got to the bridge, near the pub where they’d sat that first day
together, he said, “I can’t say all the things I want to. I hope you understand that. I have to make the best of this. And it’ll be great, I’m sure. It’s my mistake, I believed her when she said she was on the Pill. Now it doesn’t matter.”
“Tom, I’m—” She didn’t know what to say either. “Are you going to move in together? Be parents together?”
He gave a small twitch of irritation. “I don’t know—we haven’t discussed all that yet, Elle, it’s—I need to get used to it. But I want to do the right thing, for her and the baby.”
Baby
—only four letters, but it was such a big word. A baby. Tom was going to be a father, Tom and Caitlin would be parents. She’d got it wrong, whatever “it” was, again.
He’s not Rory,
a voice inside her head said.
He’s different
. And this wasn’t her business anymore.
“I’m sorry,” Elle said. “I was just—it’s big news, that’s all.”
“Yes. I know that, thanks a lot. Everything—everything’s going to change.” He hit the side of his forehead with the ball of his palm. “Jesus, Jesus Christ—” He looked around blankly, as though he didn’t know who she was, where he was, and for a second, she thought he might just walk away. “Anyway, you’re off then,” he said, after a pause. “That’s great for you.”
His tone was ugly. As though she were skipping off to pick some flowers in a field and leaving him behind to go down the mines. “Well, yeah. But I hope—do you think you’d come over, spend some time in New York?”
“I don’t think so,” Tom said. “Like I say, the summer’s over.”
She was bewildered. “I don’t understand.”
“You’re going, I can’t change that. And I shouldn’t.” He shrugged wearily. “Doesn’t matter what I think.”
Elle clenched her fists against her sides. “It’s four months. Tom, I know this must be weird, I can’t imagine what you’re
going through. But it’s two separate things, me going, you having a baby, you know?”
“I’m not trying to keep you here,” he said, his jaw tight. “Do what you like.”
“I want to go,” Elle said. “I have to go—everything’s—” She slumped her shoulders. “Can’t we get that drink? For God’s sake, Tom, you must need one more than me.”
“That’s the other thing, while we’re at it,” he said. “Might as well say it now. You drink way too much. Have you realized that?”
Elle scratched her arms, and then folded them. She shook her head, stuck her tongue in her mouth, and said, “Wow. You’re a real dick sometimes, you know that?”
“I know I am,” he said. “I’m vile. I’m a coward in every other way. But someone needs to tell you, before you go, and I suppose it’s going to be me. You drink more than anyone I know. Every time I see you you’ve had more than me and you always want more. Do you even notice? Last Monday you drank nearly a bottle of wine to yourself. I had half a glass of it. You didn’t even ask, you kept refilling your own glass. Do you always do that?”
Something slimy, evil, and mean was uncoiling itself within Elle. She could feel it, and it gave her strength. “Have you ever seen me drunk?” Elle spun round on her heel. “Have I ever made a big deal about getting a drink? No. I haven’t because I don’t—I
don’t
drink too much, and Tom, wow—you are really a dick. I know it must be a shock, Caitlin appearing like that, but you don’t have to go along with it, it’s not your problem if you really don’t want her to—”
“I don’t run away from my problems. Don’t try and deflect the issue,” he interrupted. His voice was cold, but he wouldn’t meet her eyes.