“Did you learn that off by heart?”
“Of course.”
“So you could prompt Charlie if he lost his place?”
He smiled and shook his head. “Because I loved it.”
We’d each chosen a reading. Aidan’s was a poem by W. B. Yeats, “Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven,” with its beautiful final line,
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
I surprised myself with my choice. I’d heard it so many times before at friends’ weddings. One year, I’d heard it five times. I’d said to myself that if I ever got married, I wouldn’t have it. It was too commonplace. It was from the Bible and I wasn’t that religious. But as the day grew nearer, I kept returning to it. It seemed to say everything I hoped for the two of us.
I showed the reading to Charlie when he flew in the night before the wedding.
As he read it, I waited for him to say something about my choice being corny, overused. He looked up and smiled. “Great choice. Lucy and I had it at our wedding too.”
I’d forgotten. Their wedding had been twelve years earlier. That sealed it for me.
Charlie read it beautifully the next day. I was watching him, but as he came to the last line, I turned to look at Aidan. He was looking at me.
That night, in our bedroom, he recited it to me from memory.
It was on the page in front of me now. It wasn’t typed, like the rest of it had been. He had written it out by hand.
Love is always patient and kind; it is never jealous, love is never boastful or conceited; it is never rude or selfish; it does not take offense, and is not resentful. Love takes no pleasure in other people’s sins but delights in the truth; it is always ready to excuse, to trust, to hope and to endure whatever comes. Love does not come to an end.
I
didn’t cry. Not then. Not yet.
I put the manuscript back together neatly, securing the pages with the rubber bands again. I put it back in the envelope and the envelope into my bag. I left the hotel and I walked until I reached Hyde Park. I started running then. I ran until I was deep in the park, on my own, surrounded by nothing but trees. There was a bench, on its own.
I sat down. I held my bag against my body and I cried like I hadn’t cried since the day Felix died. I saw someone in the distance, saw walkers heading in my direction, but I couldn’t stop. I cried until I had no tears left.
Afterward, I was spent. I could have lain down and slept, there on the grass. I made myself sit still, as alone as it was possible to be in the middle of London. I made myself breathe properly. I made myself notice everything around me, the shafts of light through the trees, the sky with its shimmer of blue, the faint green haze of buds on the branches.
I made myself acknowledge what I had known in my heart for months.
I still loved Aidan.
I had never stopped loving him.
Felix was dead. Our beautiful Felix had gone. But Aidan and I were still here.
He’d written me a love letter. A one-hundred-page love letter. Not about the future. He’d shown me the past. The story of us. All that we had shared. The promises we’d made to each other. Not just on our wedding day but in different ways, every day we’d been together. To enjoy each other. To look out for each other. Make each other laugh. Understand each other. Make love to each other. Keep loving each other. Whatever happened.
Endure whatever comes. Love does not come to an end.
I sat there, thinking. I don’t know how much time passed. Perhaps an hour.
I came out of the park, onto Bayswater Road. If I turned left, I would be on my way to Lucas’s house. If I turned right, back to the hotel.
I turned right. I didn’t check my appearance. I walked into the foyer, straight across to the desk. There was no queue now.
I asked the young receptionist if I could speak to a guest, Mr. Aidan O’Hanlon.
There was a click of computer keys. “I’m sorry, ma’am,” she said. “He’s checked out.”
“Are you sure?”
Another click. “Yes, ma’am.”
“But I saw him here today. This morning.”
She looked at her screen again, clicked some more keys. “He checked out at eleven forty-five a.m. It was a group booking. They all checked out at the same time.”
Something must have happened. Something to make them leave early. My hands were trembling as I reached into my bag. I took out his letter. His dates were there in black and white. I showed the receptionist. “He was supposed to be here for three nights.”
“He was, ma’am.”
She showed me a newspaper with today’s date.
I hadn’t only lost track of the time; I’d lost track of the date. I’d been like this for months. I didn’t work in an office. I didn’t read the newspapers anymore. I never needed to know what date it was.
I apologized to the young woman, thanked her and went outside. I thought about going straight across to Paddington Station, getting immediately on the train to Heathrow. I began walking in that direction and then stopped. How could I find him there? His flight might have departed already, or he could have left from another airport.
I didn’t know what to do. I simply didn’t know.
Then I remembered. I had his American cell phone number. It was on the front of the manuscript. I took it out. I dialed the number. I’d wanted to see him face-to-face, to say what needed to be said in person, but it was my own fault. I’d left it too late to come to his hotel. He would have been told that I had collected the envelope. But then he’d heard nothing from me. He would think I either hadn’t read it or didn’t care.
His phone rang once, twice, a third time. It went to voice mail. I hung up. I couldn’t say what I wanted to say in a voice mail message. I did the only thing I could think of next. I went back to Lucas’s.
I didn’t know if Jess would be there, or if she had been and gone or if Charlie and Lucas would be with her in town. I couldn’t think about that. Not now. Not yet.
As I let myself in, Charlie was coming down the stairs.
“Ella, we’ve been worried. Did you see him?” He stopped and looked at me. “Are you okay?”
“He’s gone, Charlie. I missed him.”
“He’s gone?”
“He checked out today.” I told him what had happened. “I was too late.”
“He might still be in London. Maybe he’s not flying out until later.”
“I tried his phone. I just got his voice mail. Would you try him, Charlie? Please?”
Charlie took out his phone, scrolled through his contacts and pressed call. After a second he whispered to me. “Voice mail again. Do you want me to leave a message?”
“No. Yes. Yes.”
“Aidan, hi, it’s Charlie. Can you call me when you get this?” He hung up.
“He must be on a plane,” I said. “He must be on his way back to Washington.”
“Maybe he’s gone to Ireland to see his family. Maybe he’s in London for a few more days, staying somewhere else, and he’s in a meeting at the moment, not taking calls. Do you want me to find out?”
“How?”
“I’ll call his office in Washington. I’ve rung him there before. The receptionist is German. She might help me.”
It took him only a minute at his laptop to get the Washington number. He dialed. He gave me the thumbs-up as it was answered.
“Carla, wie geht’s? Ja, hier ist Charlie. Gut, danke. Und dir? Sehr gut!”
He switched to English. “Aidan and I were supposed to meet up in London today and I got held up. Is he still here or have I missed him? Thanks, yes, happy to hold.” Four minutes later he had the answer. “He’s left London. He was booked on the two thirty flight from Heathrow. He’s got another conference tomorrow morning in Washington.”
I must have been sitting in the foyer reading for hours. I must have been there reading when Aidan returned to the hotel and checked out. I hadn’t seen him. Had he seen me?
Lucas appeared. Charlie told him what had happened.
“You didn’t speak to him at all?” Lucas asked.
I shook my head.
“Do you want to?”
“Yes.”
“Go and get your passport, Ella,” he said. “Bring it down to Charlie and then start packing. Pack lots of warm clothes. It’s freezing there this time of year.”
“What do you mean?”
“Aidan’s gone to Washington, Ella, not Mars. You’re going to Washington too.”
An hour later, it was organized. Charlie had done it all online, from his laptop on Lucas’s kitchen table. Flight, train ticket, hotels, even a US travel authorization. That had given us the most concern.
“Keep your fingers crossed,” he said, as he filled out the details. “Sometimes you get it automatically; sometimes you have to wait a day or two.” We sat, staring at the screen. The message appeared. I’d been approved.
My journey had taken him some juggling. He couldn’t get me a direct flight to Washington. They were all full. He got me a seat on the last flight to New York instead. He booked me into an airport hotel at JFK, and reserved a train ticket from Penn Station in Manhattan to Washington DC, leaving at nine in the morning. I’d be in Washington by lunchtime.
I’d needed a return ticket to get my travel authorization. Charlie picked a date at random, a week away.
Lucas insisted on booking a taxi to take me to Heathrow. They both insisted on coming with me. We had just reached Marble Arch when I remembered.
“Charlie, did you see Jess?”
He nodded. “She came over to the house.”
“How is she?”
“She’ll be okay.”
“Did you see her flat?”
“She’s moved out. She’s back in her very nice Covent Garden hotel.”
My flight left in three hours. I had time. I told them what I wanted to do.
Lucas was concerned. “Ella, are you sure? Today?”
“Why don’t you wait until you get back?” Charlie said.
It felt important to see her now. Before I left. Before I saw Aidan.
It took us twenty minutes to get to Covent Garden. The taxi driver double-parked in front of the hotel. I went in on my own. Charlie knew her room number. I walked in past reception as if I were a guest. I took the stairs up to the fourth floor. The hotel was luxurious, with original paintings on the walls, thick carpet on the floor. I walked down a long corridor, counting down the numbers, until I was there, in front of her door.
I knocked.
I heard her voice. “Who is it?”
“It’s Ella,” I said.
D
ear Diary,
Hi, it’s Jess!
Something wonderful happened. Ella came to see me.
I was lying on the bed, and I’m not making this up, I was lying there thinking about Felix. And I felt so sad, the way I always do whenever I think about him, but then I also thought about this morning, when Charlie and Lucas and I had stood looking at the wall of photos and talking about him and remembering him. And I remembered that feeling I’d had, that warm, good feeling; even though our Felix wasn’t with us anymore, we could still think about him and remember how much we’d all loved him.
I got up then and went into the bathroom. I was wearing the hotel’s cotton robe and I stood in front of the mirror and moved the robe out of the way so I could see the tattoo of his name on the top of my leg and I held my hand beside it, remembering how tall he’d been. And then I got so sad because it made me wonder how tall he would have got. We’d all been waiting for him to turn two so we could measure him. Mum had heard that if you measure a little kid when they are two, they’re exactly half the height they’ll be when they are a fully grown adult. It’s been proven thousands of times apparently. Dr. Rob told her about it. But we didn’t get to find out.
I went and sat back on the bed and I was sitting there, not reading or watching TV or anything, just sitting there thinking about Felix, and there was a knock at the door and I hadn’t ordered anything, so I said, “Who is it?” and then a voice said, “It’s Ella.” I kind of panicked. I felt my heart start to race and I ran to the door and I looked through the security peephole and it was Ella. Ella with short hair. I’d never seen her with short hair. It really suited her. But I thought, she’s going to scream at me, I can’t bear it, I can’t let her in, but I looked again, only for a second, and she didn’t look angry, she just looked really sad. She looked like she had been crying, like she was really tired.
I opened the door and there was a few seconds when we just stood there looking at each other. We hadn’t seen each other in a very long time. Felix’s funeral didn’t count. I took a step back because she still hadn’t said anything, she was just staring at me, and then she did come in and she shut the door but she still hadn’t said anything.
So I said it. I said everything I had wanted to say to her since the day it happened. I didn’t cry. I wanted to, but I didn’t. I told her again how sorry I was, how I had loved Felix so much and that if I could do anything to fix it, to bring him back, to change what had happened that day, I would do it. And she spoke then. She said, “I know, Jess. We all would.”
And then she stepped closer to me, and she hugged me. She pulled me in close. She’s much taller than me, and she put her arms around me and she hugged me. And I don’t know if she’d ever hugged me before, I couldn’t remember, but she was hugging me now and it felt so good that I did start to cry then. She did too. We were both crying. I kept saying, “I’m so sorry,” and she kept saying, “I know.”
That’s all that happened. She didn’t stay any longer. She said she had to go, that Charlie and Lucas were waiting in a taxi downstairs, that she was going to Heathrow.
I said, “Are you going back to Australia?” and she said no, she was going to Washington to see Aidan. And I said, “You didn’t see him today at the hotel?” and then I saw the look she gave me and so I quickly told her that Charlie had told me just the basics. She shook her head and said no, there’d been a mix-up, so she was going to go and see him in Washington instead. And I said, “Safe travels,” and she said, “Thank you,” and we didn’t hug again and she didn’t say, “I’ll see you when I get back.” I don’t even know if she is coming back but it doesn’t matter. I saw her today. I said sorry and she hugged me.
I’m going to ring and tell Mum as soon as I can, as soon as the time is right. I’m going to think about it myself first. I want to think about Felix and Ella and I want to think about Ella meeting Aidan. They used to really love each other. I hope everything will be okay between them again.
I’ll write more later. After I’ve talked to Mum.
Love for now,
Jess xxxxoooo
P.S. I talked to Mum. I told her what had happened with Ella and she started crying, and that made me cry too, but the weird thing was we actually both felt happier afterward. Mum told me to hop into bed, and to order something delicious from room service and to watch the cheeriest film I could find on the in-house movies. And she told me how much she and Dad loved me and missed me and I told her how much I loved and missed her and Dad too. I’m really glad I’m going home soon.