The Love of My Life (26 page)

‘It won’t take them long to work out where we are,’ I said. Ours were the only tyre tracks in the snow. From the passenger window, I could look over my shoulder and trace our journey back to the end of the road.

‘Let’s hope they don’t come looking,’ said Luca. He switched on the radio and fiddled with the dial until he found music. Then he fished under his seat and produced a bottle of wine.

‘It’s for the wedding,’ he said by way of explanation.

‘Won’t Angela notice it’s missing?’

‘Nope. Pop’s been at it for weeks.’

He tore off the plastic top with his teeth. ‘Shit, we haven’t got a corkscrew.’

It took some time, but eventually, with the help of a screwdriver we found under the seat, the cork went into the bottle and we took it in turns to drink. I spilled wine all down my chin and the front of my pyjamas. We giggled like infants.

‘We’re like an old married couple,’ said Luca.

‘What? Drinking wine in a stolen van in a snowstorm?’

‘No, coming to the seafront and sitting in our car looking out to sea. It’s what they all do.’

There was a packet of Marlboro on the dashboard. Inside was one cigarette. Luca shook it out of the box and lit it from the van’s lighter. The cabin filled with smoke. He passed it to me, and in between we kissed. Tracy Chapman sang on the radio. I melted.

‘I don’t think you should marry Nathalie,’ I whispered. ‘It’s not your destiny.’

‘I know.’

‘How are you going to get out of it?’

Luca blew out a stream of smoke. ‘We need to get out of here.’

‘Out of Portiston?’

‘Yep.’

‘We?’

‘You and me. They’ll blame you, Liv, when I don’t marry Nathalie. I’ve thought about it a lot. We can’t stay here.’

‘We could just keep on seeing each other in secret.’

‘No.’ Luca took a deep drag on the cigarette. ‘Why should we have to act like criminals? We’ll go somewhere where we belong, together.’

‘So what do you mean exactly? That we elope?’

The word had a magical, spell-like quality. It was a
Romeo and Juliet
word. I don’t think I’d ever used it before. It didn’t sound like the sort of word I’d ever need.

‘We can elope if you want. Or we could just run away.’

The snow was coming down more heavily now. Already the car-park wall was covered, and the beach itself was starting to disappear. The wipers were being blocked from doing their job by a build-up of snow on the screen, which was making the inside of the cab feel even darker and more private.

‘I can’t marry Nathalie,’ said Luca. ‘I can’t. She’s a lovely girl and all that, and she’s brilliant at Marinella’s and she’s one of the family and Mama and Pop love her but . . .’

‘What?’

‘We just don’t have any fun. Not like I have with you.’

Luca’s profile was dark and handsome beside me. His eyelashes rested on his cheeks as he flicked ash into the footwell. I drank in the curve of his chin and the line of his nose, the outline of his lips backlit by the dashboard lights. I didn’t want to be without him, I knew it then.

‘When are we going to run away, Luca?’

‘Tomorrow?’

‘OK.’

‘OK?’

‘I don’t have anything else planned.’

I’d forgotten about the party. I’d forgotten my date with Marc.

forty-seven

The professor had spent the morning trying to catch my eye. It was getting on my nerves. I was completely immersed in the story of Marian Rutherford. I didn’t want any distractions when I was working. I had moved through the looking glass into the professor’s world. During office hours, I now existed in his modus operandi. I never, ever bothered him while he was at his desk so it was irritating that he was distracting me.

I was finding it difficult to concentrate with the professor hovering continually on the outskirts of my vision. In the end I leaned back from the keyboard and folded my arms across my chest and asked, perhaps a little rudely, ‘What?’

The professor, who was standing by the bookshelves, wiped his palms on the legs of his trousers.

‘I want to ask you something,’ he said. ‘But please don’t feel under the slightest obligation to say yes. I won’t be the least offended if you decline and either way my intention is for us to carry on exactly as we have been doing.’

‘OK . . .’

The professor took off his glasses and wiped the lenses with a corner of his shirt which he’d pulled out of his waistband.

‘It’s the faculty dinner next week. I usually go on my own. I wondered if you’d like to come with me.’

‘Oh, I . . .’

‘It’ll be a nice evening. Up at the Grove House Hotel. Three-course meal, wine, dancing, you name it . . .’

‘It sounds lovely,’ I said.

‘So you’ll come?’

‘It would be my pleasure.’

‘Good,’ said the professor. ‘Very good.’

He went back to his desk and sat down behind it. Normal service had been resumed.

forty-eight

I looked at my bedroom like I’d never looked at it before. This was the last night I’d ever spend there; I knew in my bones I’d never come back. The bulb in the lamp wasn’t strong enough to illuminate the corners of the room. It was narrow and high-ceilinged with mustard-coloured Anaglypta hiding the deformities in the plaster. I tried to muster up some nostalgia, or even affection, for the room but couldn’t find any. Hardly anything good had happened to me there. There were spiders under the bed and the carpet was hard and threadbare. I’d done my best to counter Mum’s penchant for plainness by covering the heavy-wood dressing table with cosmetics and scent bottles and pretty little knick-knacks, and my collection of china ponies stood on the window-ledge, some of them grazing, some of them gazing out of the window, one of them rearing with his ears flat against his mane. Pictures of pop stars and photographs were Blu-tacked to the Anaglypta, but they only reached two-thirds of the way up those ugly walls.

I was terribly cold, but there was nothing warm or inviting about my bed with its old-fashioned, slippery eiderdown and its scratchy blankets. Instead, I crept across the landing to Lynnette’s room.

Last time she’d been back, she had slept in her little single bed, Sean had slept in my bed, and I’d been in a sleeping bag on the floor in Lynnette’s room (Mum’s way of ensuring no funny business took place). I had offered to swap with Sean when Mum was asleep but Lynnette said it wasn’t worth the hassle and anyway it was nice for the two of us to share a room. It
was
nice. We whispered into the early hours. Lynnette reached down from her bed and touched my cheek with her fingers and we held hands for a while. We talked about our father and how we had both, separately, decided not to seek him out. Not yet, anyway. Lynnette told me that she and Sean were going to get married and that I could come and live with them in London if I liked. I remembered all this as I parted the sheets and climbed into her bed.

It was cold, but it was comforting to smell my sister’s shampoo on the pillowcase. I hugged the old bear that lay on top of the bed, and felt a shiver of excitement at the prospect of tomorrow. There were things we’d need to do: letters, goodbyes, packing and suchlike. I started to make a list in my head, but before I’d finished it was morning and Mum was calling me to get up and go to work.

I got dressed as normal in my Wasbrook’s uniform, the navy skirt and white blouse and dark tights and sensible, flat shoes.

In the kitchen, Mum was eating All Bran. I could tell from the line of her shoulders that she was angry. She knew I had gone out the previous night. I didn’t know how to apologize for that, or for what I was about to do.

Through the window I could see the garden, everything hidden by the most beautiful white snow. It sparkled in the sunshine. I felt so moved by the significance of the new beauty of the world that my eyes grew hot. I supported myself on the back of a chair and watched as a robin hopped across the back of the bench.

‘You need to remember to put some food out for the birds,’ I said.

‘They’ll survive,’ said Mum. ‘God will provide.’

She looked up at me. ‘You look pale. Don’t expect any sympathy from me if you’ve caught a chill.’

‘I won’t. I don’t.’

I felt the kettle with the heel of my hand. It was still warm. I made myself a cup of tea. Mum said she didn’t want one, in a tone of voice that implied she wouldn’t accept anything from me.

‘Why did you tell us Dad was dead?’ I asked.

‘Not now, Olivia.’

‘Please, Mum.’

‘It was better that way.’

‘Better for who?’

‘Whom. All of us. There’s nothing worse, Olivia, than public humiliation. And that’s what would have happened if people knew what your father had done to us.’

I sipped my tea. I was feeling slightly shivery, but I couldn’t tell if there was a virus in my bloodstream or if I was just frightened.

‘I’m sorry, Mum,’ I said.

‘So you should be.’

‘No, I mean I’m sorry for any humiliation that’s my fault.’

‘I think people know that what happened with Mr Parker was down to you and nothing to do with me. But it reflected on me, on the way I’d brought you up.’

I nodded. ‘But you didn’t have to tell Mrs Parker about the diary. You could have kept it quiet. Nobody needed to know at all.’

‘That wouldn’t have been right.’

‘It would have saved a lot of bother.’

‘No. The truth will always out. Sooner or later it would have come to light. It was best to get it out in the open straight away.’

‘Oh,’ I said.

‘You’d better get a move on,’ said Mum. ‘You’ll miss your bus.’

I fetched my coat from its hook in the hallway and put it on.

‘Are you going up to the church?’

‘It’s Friday. It’s Women’s Institute. Of course I’m going.’

‘Good,’ I said. I buttoned my coat and pulled a woollen hat down over my ears. I checked my face in the hall mirror. My eyes were pink and watery and there were two red spots in the middle of my cheeks.

‘I think I’ve got a cold,’ I said.

‘That’s what you get for sneaking out in the night like a common thief,’ said Mum.

I crossed over to her, put my hands on her shoulders and kissed her temple. She smelled of dust and bacon. She pushed my hands away from her.

‘What have you done?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Why did you do that then?’

‘I just felt like kissing you.’

Mum snorted and stood up, making dismissive gestures with her hand. ‘Get out of here,’ she said. ‘I’ve never heard anything so stupid.’

Which was a shame because those were the last words she ever said to me.

forty-nine

I stopped off at the café on the way home. It was a balmy evening, and this leafy part of the city was noisy with traffic and birdsong. Music and voices spilled out of the open windows of cars and taxis and vans, and in the flats above the shops people opened their sash windows wide and leaned out to water the plants in their windowboxes and watch the commuters below.

Chris had set a couple of tables and chairs out on the pavement. I went inside to order a glass of sparkling water, but the smell of tomato and basil was so evocative that I ordered the pasta as well. I went to sit outside with my drink and a copy of the
Watersford Evening Echo
. Shortly, Chris brought my pasta to the table, along with a bowl of freshly shaved Parmesan and a huge wooden pepper pot.

‘Mind if I sit down for a quick smoke while I watch you eat?’

‘Excuse me, are you flirting with me?’

‘I have been for ages, you just haven’t noticed before.’

‘Sorry. I’ve had a lot on my mind.’

‘I know.’

‘This is delicious.’

‘Good.’

‘It tastes just like Luca used to make it.’

‘Who’s Luca?’

‘My husband. The one who died.’

‘Oh, sorry. I’ve done it again.’

‘No, don’t be sorry! I never thought I’d taste pasta like this again. It’s lovely.’

Chris smiled and looked down at his big red hands. The cigarette smoke wisped up from between his fingers. He was, I realized, nice-looking in a shaven-haired, big-muscled sort of way.

‘Maybe,’ he said, ‘one day I could cook a meal just for you. Just the two of us.’

I licked the sauce from my lips and looked up at his face.

‘I ought to warn you that I’m a bit of a mess,’ I said.

‘I’m good at tidying up.’

We beamed at one another.

Chris dropped the end of his cigarette on to the paving stones and crushed it with the heel of his boot.

‘One day soon then, eh?’ he said, standing up.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Definitely.’

fifty

I didn’t get the bus to work. I walked to the bus stop, my footprints merging in the snow with those of all the commuters who’d already made the journey, and when I got there I made a little pantomime of pretending to have forgotten my purse, for the benefit of the other people waiting for the bus, and turned round and headed back home again. I lurked in the newsagent’s shop at the end of the road until Mum went past, wrapped in her long brown coat and headscarf, her feet in flat brown boots with fake sheepskin at the rim. I watched her as she walked away from me towards the church, treading carefully, afraid of slipping on the compacted snow on the pavement. I felt a pang of sadness, but only for a second. When she turned the corner and disappeared from view I skated along the snow back to the house. Inside I put the kettle on, for by now I had a terrible sore throat, and ran upstairs to pack my suitcase.

I couldn’t decide what to take. I packed the obvious things – underwear, jumpers, jeans, toiletries – and by then the suitcase was near enough full with the bulky winter items, but I thought I ought to take some summer clothes too. I had an idea that it was much warmer in London and I’d need some nice stuff for when we went out. And then there were my other belongings: my records and books and painting things, my posters, my school photographs, my vast collection of cheap jewellery.