The Last Time I Saw You (33 page)

“Don’t bother.” The very sight of him sends a tidal wave of grief and anger flooding through my body.

“I cannot apologize enough.”

“That’s right, you can’t. So don’t . . .” My voice breaks, a sob hiccupping out of me. “Don’t even bother.”

“Livvy, get out and talk to him,” implores Jules.

“Olivia . . .”

That feels like the last straw, the final insult. I step out of the car.

“It’s Livvy. We have slept together, in case you hadn’t noticed. What was it, a shoulder to cry on that went a bit too far?”

“Of course not.”

“That’s how it feels.” I look at his helpless face, more etched with pain than ever—what did I really expect? “It’s my own stupid fault,” I say, “I shouldn’t have—” I stop, not wanting to humiliate myself any more than I already have.

“Shouldn’t have what?” he says. His hand almost moves toward me, but then he pins it back down by his side, his gaze unconsciously pulling toward the pub.

“I shouldn’t have had feelings for you,” I say, enunciating carefully, the words as dry as sawdust in my mouth.

“Please don’t think I don’t have feelings for you too.”

Feelings, feelings, jolly old feelings. It’s how you make those feelings flesh that matters; if they’re no more than a cerebral concept then they’re no good to anyone: they’re as magnificent and dead as Madeline’s dinosaurs.

“I’m not sure I believe you.” I should turn on my heels and go, but my legs won’t quite obey—once I’ve left then it will be truly over, this whole interlude nothing but a memory—and yet I know that life will refuse to return to normal. Normal no longer exists in any meaningful sense. “If you did, then you would have stuck up for me in there.”

“I’m so sorry to have failed you so spectacularly,” he says, his whole body slumping under the weight of it. “What you’ve done for me, for us, these last few months. I can’t put into words how much having you there has helped.”

“Thanks, but I don’t want to be your aspirin. I never did.”

“Aspirin?”

“Just some
thing
that makes you feel better. What you said about Mary, it’s the same thing. I’m worth more than that.”

“Of course you are! If you were to give me a little more time . . .”

I think about what he’s asking; the long road stretching forward, me tiptoeing down it as quiet as a mouse, trying to win his heart by stealth and patience. The very thought of it makes my guts contract, like they’re already preparing to make themselves smaller to suppress their messages. I think of the ropes around his heart, the way Sally can still twist them and tighten them at will, and how powerless I am to untangle the knots. There’s more there too, I know
it, and when and if the unexploded bomb goes off, I don’t want to be its first casualty.

“I don’t have more time,” I say, lightly touching his fingers.

All these years I’ve spent pining for a perfect version of love, the love that will make all the missed opportunities feel like no more than lucky escapes; it’s only now I can see that it’s a version of love that only exists inside the covers of my dusty hardbacks. It’s time to stop pining, fruitlessly and safely, for the men I can’t have, and find the messy reality of one that I can.

“If that’s what you feel then of course I’ll respect it.”

I look at him, those even features so perfectly arranged, and start feeling infuriated all over again. I hate it when he sounds like a press release.

“That thing you said about Sally, that sometimes it felt like she wanted to be married to you and sometimes it felt like she really didn’t. That’s how I’ve felt with you.”

“Oh, Livvy.” He looks utterly devastated, his carapace well and truly punctured, and for a second I feel like I’ve been too cruel. And yet I was right to tell him: the worst thing is to walk away from a relationship not knowing what the other person’s truth really was. He steps forward, enfolds me in his arms, and I let him. His words disappear into my hair like they did that day in Kensington, the first time I thought I was saying a final goodbye. “I wish with all my heart that it was different. I
do
know your worth, sometimes I’ve thought I know it more than you, and if I’ve made you feel otherwise then I’m desperately sorry. If anyone’s worthless it’s me. I’m no more than a husk.”

“Don’t say that! You’re not a husk. You’re a proper person, dealing with the absolute worst thing I can think of, with
more courage than I could ever have.” He grips me more tightly now, the solid thrumming of his heart reverberating through every last corner of me. I’m fighting to store this feeling, the imprint of his body squashed up against mine, for the long skein of time that expands ahead.

“Is there nothing I can say?”

“No. I don’t think there is. We both know, don’t we? That it’s over?”

I wish that I could tell you that I love you. I wish that that one simple truth was allowed, not just the harsh ones.

“You’re lovely, in the truest sense of the word, and I will miss you infinitely more than you realize.”

I’m crying in earnest now, holding on to the bulk of him. He’s a rock, a rock from which my fingers are sliding.

“I’ll be thinking of you, William. I’ll hold you in my heart.”

It takes all my strength to pull away, to admit to myself that we’ve reached the end, but eventually I do. I look up at him, his eyes swimming with tears. It’s now, in this moment, that I can see in his face what I’ve hoped to find, but there’s too much against us. “Goodbye,” I whisper, and then I summon up all the strength I’ve got left, turn on my heel and walk back to the car.

PART THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

“Can I get you more tissues, honey?”

This time it’s the blond stewardess who approaches, her kind, motherly face full of concern. We’re an hour away from landing, which means I’ve been crying for approximately six hours and thirteen minutes.

“Thank you,” I say, smiling gratefully and grabbing the wad of serviettes she holds out to me.

Trust me, this is not how I imagined my first trip to New York. I spent the entire weekend sobbing, my wretched grief coming from a place so deep that it started to frighten me, its pull so strong I felt like I was being pulled into some kind of underworld. I thought of what William said, of feeling like a husk, and I understood, finally, in my bones, why he had to push me away. And yet somehow the knowing didn’t make my heart ache any less, the loss coming in savage waves that left me breathless.

And then on Monday, my face defiantly red raw, my Mary-pleasing mask thrown in the bin where it belonged, I found myself summoned to her office. Charlotte had rung to tell her that she needed to skip the trip for “personal reasons,” a phrase she spat out like she had a cockroach lodged in her mouth, and I was now back in the Flynn Gerrard hot seat, due to fly to New York a week later. I thought about throwing it back in her face, drawing an angry line in the sand, but something stopped me. Something told me that I should simply follow the path that was opening up, accept the fact that the final whistle was yet to blow. “I’ll make my arrangements,” I said, smiling sweetly. She started with the crocodile concern, her fingers snapping at my wrist like a bony handcuff, but I snatched it away, dismissing my blotchy face as no more than a reaction to a rogue moisturizer.

William doesn’t even know I’m here. I look at my watch, still set to London time. It must be nine or so: I picture him at that brand-new kitchen table,
The Times
laid out before him as he forks his ready-made dinner into his mouth, the fourth glass of wine of the night never more than a few inches from his ready hand. Has he shut down from me already, preserved his strength by cutting out any unnecessary drains on his resources? He hasn’t contacted me once, not so much as a text, and I wonder if the relief of no longer having to try trumps whatever pain he feels at losing me. The thought stings too much, and I push it away.

The cab swoops over the Brooklyn Bridge, the New York skyline spreading out before me for the very first time, and a starburst of excitement goes off inside me, despite everything. But then, the backwash of sadness. I think of Sally, her arms flung wide, “Manhattan!” I always thought it
would be her I’d lose my New York virginity with—I remember talking her out of an insane plan to spend our entire student loans on a couple of plane tickets, sure there’d be plenty of time to do it when we were grown-up enough to have salaries to use. I take out the tag and put it in the center of my palm, thinking of it sitting in hers. Now, suddenly, the most obvious thought occurs.

“Capricorn holding company,” says a bored-sounding woman.

I take a breath, the words sticking in my throat.

“Hi, my name’s Sally Atkins. I just wanted to find out if my storage unit is still active.”

“Can I please put you on hold?”

It’s so obvious. If there were times when she didn’t want to be married to him, then why wouldn’t she have taken it to its logical conclusion?

“Ma’am, you’re in arrears. You won’t be permitted to access anything without clearing your debt.”

A surge of triumph hits me, until I remember what it is that I’m actually doing: walking another mile in Sally’s high-heeled shoes, my gait unsteady, destination unknown.

“Of course. How much is it that I actually owe?”

“Three hundred and sixty-six dollars. To be settled in cash.”

I want to go there right now, but they’re only an hour from closing, reopening at eight a.m. tomorrow.

Flynn is yet to share his schedule, but all I can hope is that his pathological flakiness will win me a few precious hours.

My hotel is in what I think must be midtown, a nondescript concrete shell, indistinguishable from business hotels the world over. The gray-haired concierge—a warm, friendly
New Yorker who can’t believe it’s my first time—directs me across the sidewalk to a bustling Italian trattoria, where I eat my supper with a copy of
Grazia
propped open, trying and failing not to think about William. I will see him again, I know that—neither he nor I will let the fact that I’m Madeline’s godmother become an unkept promise—but the thought of having to make polite conversation on the doorstep, while a woman who knows less than I do about how scarred his heart truly is bustles around in the background, makes my own heart feel like it’s breaking.

Still, the next morning when my phone rings three times while I’m stuck in the tiny shower, I can’t help but give in to the plea-bargaining: “if I leave my conditioner in until I count to sixty it will be him”; “if I soap between my toes it will be him.” Of course it isn’t him, he’d never be so rude as to call three times in succession, it’s Flynn.

“So you’ve landed?” he says, petulantly. “I didn’t know.”

“I did try and call last night, there was no answer.”

I’m sure he’s horrified that Mary’s fobbed him off with the girl from the subs bench.

“Well I’ve found you now. We’ll be meeting our first girl at Pastis at midday. Reckon you can manage that?”

“Yes, of course,” I say, with absolutely no idea what or where Pastis might be. I say my goodbyes and yank on my clothes. It gives me three hours—the sane thing to do would be to wait until afterward, but sanity doesn’t really come into it.

William was right about New York being overwhelming. It’s boggling my mind; the long avenues, the tall buildings, the ancient, fur-swaddled old ladies in huge sunglasses tottering along with their tiny dogs. Part of me wishes I could savor it, but savoring it alone seems like such cold comfort.

It takes forty minutes in a smelly cab to get to the huge, brick mausoleum of a building, buried deep within an industrial estate. I stand there looking at it, my legs shaking, my heart thumping in my chest, and then lean on the heavy door. The sight of the stern, gray-haired man behind the desk makes me realize how ill prepared I am. Whatever Lola might have said, I hate lying. I mustn’t blush and stammer like I usually do, mustn’t arouse any suspicions that I’m a fraud. I hope he never saw her. You wouldn’t mistake the two of us, not for a second.

“I’m Sally Atkins,” I say, sticking out a confident hand. I do have more confidence now, there’s no denying it, and some of that is thanks to William. “I’ve been in England, and I stupidly got myself into arrears. Let me find you some cash.”

“Should ask you for ID, but I’m a sucker for an English accent,” he says, grinning.

“Really?” I say, counting out the money as fast as I can before he has time to change his mind. “That should be all of it. And here,” I say, adding a ten dollar bill, “take this.”

“Very kind of you, ma’am,” he says, his meaty paw landing on the notes. “Will you be closing it up?”

“Yes. Yes I will.”

“Lucky you remembered. Your goods nearly ended up on a garbage truck.”

I climb up three flights of stairs, anxiety and breathlessness competing for possession of me, then walk the length of a long, dark corridor until I finally reach the door.

I don’t know what I expected—perhaps that I would be like Alice, falling down her rabbit hole and entering a parallel universe full of clues—but all I find is stacks of cardboard boxes, far flimsier and cheaper than the professional
packing boxes that filled the barn. It’s more like the haphazard chaos of our student moves, with clothes erupting all over the floor. The lack of time is probably a godsend, as I don’t have the luxury of melancholy. The clothes seem like a mixture of well-worn favorites and brand-new pieces, the tags still attached. It feels like her clothes are endless, a taunting trail of nothingness that speaks only of how much she loved to shop. I carry on, frenzied, determined to sort my way through every box. The last stack is shoved into the corner against the tiny window. As I lift the top one up, its flaps messily taped shut, the bottom gives way and a cascade of papers spills out, a haphazard shadow of the paperwork that William neatly stacked. A cloud of dust chokes me, covers me in its grayish fog. There’s an official-looking document in a reinforced document wallet, a Post-it note stuck to the front—
For You x
it says, in Sally’s scrawly, impatient handwriting. I trace it with my fingers, tears springing to my eyes, remembering all the notes and cards she gave me in that curly-wurly script of hers. It’s yet another piece of her imprint, her unique way of being in the world, that’s been lost forever. The shrill ring of my phone shakes me back to the present. It’s Flynn.

“I’m here, twiddling my thumbs,” he growls, restaurant noise loud in the background.

I look at my watch. Eleven forty-five. Shit.

“I thought we were meeting at twelve?” I say, scrambling to my feet.

“The meeting’s at twelve. I would have thought it would be obvious to any idiot we’d need time to agree on our questions.”

“I’m so sorry, I’ll be there as soon as I can,” I say, pulling the papers from the folder.

“Where exactly are you now?”

“Closer than you think,” I lie, slamming the door of the unit shut.

I open the folder as I’m running down the stairs, and a set of keys comes tumbling out. I chase after them, then frantically scan the paperwork. It seems to be a lease—
12 months
,
Sally Atkins
,
Montana Avenue, New Jersey
. I shove it all in my handbag, stopping briefly by the security guard.

“I’m not quite ready, I’m afraid. I’ll be back this afternoon.”

“No problem,” he says. “I’ve had a look at the system anyhow. You can’t close it on your own. You’ll need your husband to countersign.”