The Sunshine And Biscotti Club (18 page)

Jessica’s arm ached. She had never rollered a wall before. Her skin was speckled with paint, all different colours like a rainbow of freckles. The shower water was almost black with dust and dirt when she scrubbed her skin. She found the renovations quite invigorating. She’d loved that it brought them together on the same everyday level that living together had. She liked it when their different iPhones were plugged into the speakers and she heard songs she hadn’t heard for years, so clearly aligned with the playlist owner. She liked the way the tea and coffee tasted familiarly different depending on which one of them made it—Jimmy always adding too much milk, Miles never enough. She liked that after ravenously scooping up spaghetti and parmesan at lunch Dex would try and squeeze in a small snooze while Libby would have them straight back to it. The only problem through it all was Jessica’s brain—her thoughts, unoccupied by emails and work, in moments of silence could tunnel into a Miles and Flo spiral or drift into anxiety about Bruno,
trying to interpret his nonchalance, trying to align it with her own, but also wanting his to be equally uncertain. She’d be happily reminiscing about him kissing her in the boathouse when someone would say, ‘More paint, Jessica?’ and she’d have to remember that they lived countries apart, annoyed with herself for giving it any thought at all.

When Libby mentioned that there was live music that night at Bruno’s bar and everyone decided to stroll down after dinner, Jessica refused to acknowledge the butterflies in her stomach. When they arrived and she heard the sound of Bruno’s laugh, and looked over to the bar to see him chatting with a couple of women, she swallowed down a surge of proprietorial jealousy. But as they walked under the fairy lit trees, past busy tables and kids running to jump in the lake, the sun setting behind them, she found herself wondering what was so funny, what he’d said to make them laugh so much. Annoyingly, as they reached their table, she glanced back over her shoulder for another look and he caught her, his eyes meeting hers with amused confidence. Jessica of course immediately looked away.

‘The place is packed,’ Jimmy said as he sat down. ‘I didn’t know this many people lived here.’

Libby pointed over to the makeshift stage on the jetty where a group of five old men were playing gypsy jazz wearing white suits and fedora hats as the last of the sun gilded the gently lapping waves behind them. ‘It’s
this lot,’ she said. ‘They’ve been going since I was little. It’s an institution.’

‘Wow,’ said Eve, standing up in her seat to get a better view. ‘And look, there’s people dancing.’

As they were all craning their necks for a view of the band and the bopping locals, Bruno strolled over, stopping with his hand resting on the back of Jessica’s chair. ‘Everyone all right? You have a drink?’

They shook their heads. Jessica didn’t turn round.

‘My staff are useless,’ Bruno said with a shake of his head. ‘What can I get you?’

When he’d taken their order he nodded towards the band and said, ‘Anyone can join in, feel free.’

Dex bashed Miles on the arm and said, ‘Now’s your chance, buddy.’

Miles rolled his eyes. ‘Unlikely, Dex,’ he said.

‘Why not, you should.’ Eve leant forward, smiling.

Miles turned round to look at the band. A woman in her seventies was just taking the microphone from the main singer who stood back and counted them in with his fingers clicking for the start of her song. Miles looked back, vaguely intrigued, but said, ‘There’s no way I’m going on stage.’

‘You should,’ Eve urged. ‘You don’t have to sing. Just to play.’

One of the hipsters brought a tray of beers over and handed them out with a sullen frown like he was doing them a favour.

‘Thanks,’ said Dex; the guy ignored him.

Miles took a swig of beer. ‘I’d maybe play. But it’s been years. And I’d have to be pretty drunk.’

‘Well then,’ said Jimmy, lifting his beer in a toast. ‘Let’s get pretty drunk.’

They got pretty drunk. The alcohol flowed in rivers. There were trays of shots handed round, more beers; Negronis. Even a bottle of champagne at one point that Dex decided to order.

When Dex then dragged Libby up to dance and Eve asked Miles, presumably to prevent any awkwardness with Jimmy who sloped off to the bar on his own, Jessica found herself suddenly alone at the table, a sea of glasses and little candles in front of her.

‘Everything all right?’ she heard Bruno say as he pulled out the chair next to her.

‘Yes, fine,’ she said, all her sense suddenly alert.

Bruno nodded, leant back in his seat, his hands behind his head, and looked over at the band. ‘They are good, no?’

‘Yeah, they’re great.’

‘You not having fun?’

‘No, I am.’

‘Why don’t you dance?’

‘I don’t have anyone to dance with.’

Bruno immediately started to stand up. ‘I’ll dance with you.’

‘No, no, no.’ Jessica shook her head. ‘I didn’t mean I wanted to dance.’

Bruno looked confused and sat back down again. ‘Why don’t you dance?’

‘I don’t really like dancing.’

‘Why not?’

She shrugged.

Bruno narrowed his eyes as he studied her. ‘You think people are looking at you?’

‘No!’ Jessica shook her head. But that was exactly what she thought.

Bruno didn’t say anything for a second. Then he sat forward, his elbows on his knees, his fingers steepled under his chin, and said, ‘You know no one is looking at you, don’t you?’

‘Thanks a lot,’ said Jessica with a half-laugh.

Bruno sighed. ‘I don’t mean it like that. I mean they are looking at themselves.’

Out on the lake a couple of kids dive-bombed into the water, upsetting a group of white ducks that quacked and flapped then resettled further out.

‘You see that duck?’ Bruno said, pointing to the group.

‘Which one?’ Jessica asked.

Bruno laughed. ‘Exactly. To him he is the centre of the world. To you he’s a duck. And you don’t even know which one.’

Jessica looked at the white ducks. All indistinguishable in the evening light.

‘But let’s say people do watch you.’ Bruno bit down on a smile as he sat back. ‘So they see you dance. So what? It is just one more thing that has happened in their lives.’

Jessica turned to look at him, leaning back in his chair with languid confidence, ankle crossed over his knee, while his bar buzzed with people wanting drinks, food, service. ‘Does nothing faze you?’

‘Faze?’ He frowned, not understanding.

‘Worry. You know? Get anxious.’

‘No.’ He shook his head, blank as to why it should. ‘What’s the point? It’s easy, no? This worry. Safe.’ He watched her for a moment. ‘Like a blanket for the babies,’ he said. ‘You come and find me if you want to dance,’ he said, then winked and strolled away, someone calling his name from another table, waving him over for a drink.

Jessica stared after him, slightly affronted. Unsure that she was happy to have her years of worry belittled.

It occurred to her then that all her panic over what had happened that evening in New York with Flo had centred on herself. On it having the reaction she had wanted it to have. Of it leaving Flo hurt and upset and ruining their wedding eve. When actually, it was
quite possible that it was just—how had Bruno put it?
One more thing that happened in her life
. Massive to Jessica. Inconsequential to Flo.

She wondered suddenly what the rest of them had done when Dex had come looking for her. Flo probably hadn’t cried, she’d probably more likely made a face. Been shocked momentarily. Maybe there’d been a moment of silence when they’d all cringed and when Miles had apologised; rather than needing comfort Flo had probably said something like, ‘So she’s in love with you, we all know that.’

Jessica had always thought of it as a terrible upsetting moment but possibly it had been more one of pity. For her.

She raised a hand to her forehead and shut her eyes for a second, suddenly mortified. They’d probably all bundled into a cab and gone for Chinese food. Flo loved Chinese food. Miles with his arm tight around her. They’d probably got a bit more pissed than previously intended and laughed over fortune cookies, Jessica inadvertently making the night before their wedding more memorable, more fun, more close than the wedding itself. And the next day when Jessica had been walking the streets of New York by herself, staring vacantly into shop windows and wishing she had someone to talk to, they had probably all just been having an amazing time. Libby or Dex maybe giving
her half a second’s thought, but otherwise it would have been all champagne and laughter. If she’d just apologised at the time it all would have been over years ago. But she hadn’t because she couldn’t. Because it had been her life and in her head it had been huge.

Eve broke off her dance with Miles when her phone rang. She looked at her screen to see Peter’s email address asking if she wanted to FaceTime. Excusing herself from Miles she jogged to the entrance of the bar and, checking her watch to see that it was nine in the UK, too late for the kids to call, she answered it with a flush of excitement that it was Peter calling.

‘Hi, Mummy!’ Maisey and Noah shouted.

Eve immediately sobered up. ‘What are you doing up?’ she asked, surreptitiously trying to check her hair and make-up in the little FaceTime picture in the corner of the screen to make sure she didn’t look drunk.

‘You look pretty, Mummy,’ Maisey said. ‘All dotty.’

The compliment momentarily distracted her and she looked at herself properly for the first time since she’d arrived in Italy. Saw the freckles and the caramel skin, hair blonder from the sun, cheeks flushed with alcohol and dancing. At a push, she thought she could possibly be described as pretty, especially by a five-year-old
who regularly told passers-by that her mother was a princess.

Noah nudged Maisey out of the way and, flicking the ring pull of a can of Coke, said, ‘Daddy’s been very grumpy.’

‘Really?’ Eve asked surprised, frowning at the Coke. ‘Where is Daddy?’

‘Out,’ said Maisey. ‘Granny’s here.’

Eve saw her mother-in-law in the background, who explained that Peter apparently had some function at the school, while shaking oven chips out of a packet.

‘You’re eating very late,’ Eve said.

‘I think he’s forgotten how to laugh,’ Noah said.

The mother-in-law paused with the chips.

‘I don’t think he’s forgotten, honey bunch,’ Eve said, trying her hardest not to say anything about the saturated fat in oven chips. ‘He’s just maybe not finding anything really funny at the moment. Maybe you’ll have to dress up as Shrek. He always finds that funny. You can use my pillow for the padding.’

Noah’s eyes lit up. ‘OK, Mummy,’ he said, then added, ‘Guess what?’

‘What?’ Eve wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

‘I’m having Coca-Cola with my tea, Mummy,’ said Noah, holding the can to the screen. ‘And Maisey’s having bubblegum flavoured lemonade.’

Emily gleefully lifted a luminous blue drink to the camera.

‘We were allowed to choose whatever we wanted, Mummy, it was great. And we’re having Angel Delight for pudding.’

Before Eve could say anything she was cut off by the mother-in-law taking the iPad and saying a quick goodbye before switching her off.

Angel Delight!

She never let the kids have Angel Delight. Let alone Coke or lemonade with their tea.

She paused for a moment, struck by the memory of how much she used to love Angel Delight.

Her dad would make it and add a dash of rum to the mix. They’d snuggle up under blankets on the sofa on trips in the campervan. It was always cold, condensation dripping down the inside of the windows, and it smelt of damp, but they’d listen to the radio and he’d smoke and laugh and she’d feel the rumble of his chest under her head. It was always the getting there that Eve loved. The journey. Once they arrived, that was when the trouble always began.

‘Hey, you all right?’ Eve turned to see Libby had come out to find her. ‘I saw you run off with your phone. Just,’ Libby shrugged, ‘thought I’d check you were OK.’

Eve nodded. ‘Yeah fine. It was just the kids, FaceTiming.’

‘They OK?’

‘High on sugar.’

Libby laughed.

They stayed where they were for a second or two, Libby tapping her finger on the old beer barrel that propped the door open. ‘Are you OK?’ she said, tentative.

Eve nodded.

‘Not too upset about the sugar?’

Eve laughed. ‘Livid. But no.’ She pushed her hair back off her face and tied it back with a band on her wrist. ‘I was thinking about my dad, actually, and Angel Delight.’

Libby grimaced. ‘I hated Angel Delight. We always had the pink one.’

Eve shook her head. ‘No, we always had the chocolate. That was the good one.’ She laughed, then stopped and took a breath in, glancing at the gravel on the floor, rolling it with the toe of her flip-flop. ‘I suppose the thing is, I’ve never realised how similar my dad was to Jimmy.’

Libby leant her elbows on the beer barrel and rested her chin in her hands. ‘You think?’ she said, uncertain.

‘Yeah.’ Eve looked up and nodded. ‘Just always out of reach. And you think it’s because there’s something deep there under the surface, some great philosophical thinking about life and the world and then one day you realise there’s not that at all. They just don’t like answering questions.’ She rested her back against the white brick wall and shrugged. ‘They don’t like
admitting that they’re part of the organised world. Can’t handle the fact that however much they try to believe they aren’t conforming, really they are. They just pretend to themselves that they’re not. All those festivals, all the drugs, it was just doing what thousands of other people did. Same with Jimmy on his boat. He’s living it up on someone else’s money. He’s hardly a nomad is he?’

Libby sniggered.

Bruno came out to get something from his car and laughed when he saw them both. ‘You are hiding from my band?’ he said.

‘Not at all,’ Libby said. ‘Just having a little pause.’

He nodded his head in understanding and, when he came back from his car, said, ‘You need a drink?’

Libby and Eve looked at each other; both knew they’d probably already had enough but the moon was shining and the air was warm and a drink seemed like something that would prolong their pause nicely.

Eve said, ‘A beer would be good.’

‘Two beers,’ said Bruno, and disappeared into the bar.

Libby swatted away a mosquito and then, fanning her face from the heat, sighed and tied her hair up in a knot on top of her head. ‘How can it still be so hot?’ she said.

Eve closed her eyes. ‘I love it.’

Bruno came back out with the beers. ‘Ladies. Enjoy,’ he said putting them down on the beer barrel.

When Eve came over to pick hers up Libby said, ‘And what about Peter. Is he like that?’

Eve took a long sip of the beer, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and said, ‘Not at all. I think that’s what got me so hooked. He appeared and he made money and he worked hard and he got things done. He wasn’t embarrassed or narcissistic or petty. He made all the others look like children.’ She took another sip of beer. ‘He just existed, you know? Confident in his own skin. And if he met Jimmy properly, I know he’d think he was a waster—which he probably is. But I think I have a soft spot for him because he’s so like my dad. And really, I just think he doesn’t want to grow up. He’s holding on to this time that made him so happy—youth was his thing. It suited him.’

Libby had leant back against the door, her arms crossed in front of her, listening.

Libby was a good listener, Eve thought as she toyed with the label on her beer bottle. Always had been; always knew when to stay still, as though she knew the other person hadn’t finished even if they thought they had. It worked because Eve went on to say, ‘I mean, Peter, he could be more emotional, granted. But then where would that get us? He’s solid, I’m emotional. Surely that’s why it works, don’t you think?’

‘I don’t know, Eve,’ said Libby, taking a sip of her beer. ‘They say opposites attract. Who knows what works in other people’s relationships?’

Eve looked at her. ‘That’s what Jimmy said. He said people pick what they’re looking for, that’s
why you should never get involved in other people’s relationships.’

‘When did he say that?’

Eve winced. ‘When he was talking about you and Jake.’

Libby snorted. ‘What an idiot.’

‘Jimmy or Jake?’

‘Both.’

They laughed. Both drank from their beer bottles. Above them the bats swooped in the sky and the stars glittered like rain.

‘I suppose,’ said Eve. ‘The thing is, did I pick Peter because he wasn’t like my dad or because I loved him?’

Libby frowned. ‘Can’t it be both?’

‘I don’t know, that’s what I’m asking.’

Libby picked at the corner of her beer label and peeled a strip away. ‘Why didn’t you kiss Jimmy?’ she asked.

Eve thought about it. ‘Because he didn’t laugh when he got stung just as we might have kissed. Peter would have laughed,’ she said, paused, then added, ‘My dad would have got annoyed.’

‘What would you have done?’ Libby asked.

‘Panicked that it was some flesh eating spider that was going to kill me.’

Libby laughed.

Eve laughed.

Libby put her bottle down on the table. ‘When you shut your eyes who do you see? Peter or Jimmy?’

‘Oh Peter, definitely.’

‘And you love him?’

Eve nodded. ‘But something’s happened, Libby. Something’s happened to make us both almost unfaithful. I think we’ve ruined it. I mean, isn’t that what you’re meant to split up over?’

Libby shrugged. ‘I think the thing you have to decide is whether the infidelity is the symptom or the cause.’ She paused and thought about it for a second before carrying on. ‘Say with Jake and me, it’s the symptom. Our relationship is not working—it hasn’t been working. I’m not even sure he loves me any more.’

‘Do you love him?’ Eve asked.

‘I don’t think my ego will let me say I love him,’ Libby replied with a laugh, then she picked up her beer and took a swig before adding, ‘maybe.’

Eve stared down at her feet.

‘I’ve sort of lost my train of thought now,’ said Libby. ‘Oh yes. I think you’ve both lost your way a bit—and that’s the cause—that’s why he looked at the …?’

‘Supply teacher.’

‘The supply teacher. And why you looked at Jimmy,’ Libby added. ‘You needed resetting. To see what you had. Have. I bet it wasn’t so clearly Peter when you closed your eyes before all this stuff with Jimmy.’

Eve swallowed. It occurred to her that maybe her problem was still that she was always waiting to arrive. Always waiting for trouble. The food, the picturesque country life, the bloody chickens, all of it just tying her tighter in knots as she waited and waited, failing to realise that she had arrived. Some time ago. And the trouble had come only as a result of her reluctance to accept the fact. To relax into her happiness. To accept that it was hers to enjoy.

Libby finished her beer, put the bottle down and said, ‘I think you needed to understand each other’s value. The proposed infidelity is a result of that. Oh god, maybe that makes it a symptom? And maybe Jake’s was the cause?’

Eve laughed, playing with the label of her bottle, tearing little patterns into it.

‘Whatever. Bollocks. Either way, it’s not the same,’ Libby carried on. ‘Mine’s shit because he actually sought out an affair. Yours is a hiccup.’ She shrugged as if it were all that simple. ‘Peter is a man. Jake thinks he’s a man but really he’s an eighteen-year-old on a permanent gap year.’ She paused for a couple of seconds, sighed, and added, ‘I would really like to have children.’

Eve’s head shot up to look at her. ‘Don’t take him back because of that.’

Libby shook her head, her eyes sad.

Eve watched her shoulders rise and fall as she tried to steady her breathing. ‘Libby, you will meet someone else. But just say you don’t, Christ, you can adopt, you can go it alone, have mine on loan if you want—I can’t believe I snubbed your offer before. I was being defensive, sorry.’

Libby’s eyes widened a fraction at the apology and suddenly it was like they saw each other properly for the first time that holiday. Like they were finally speaking direct to each other rather than just saying words that skated over the surface like ice.

Eve reached over and touched Libby’s hand where it rested on the barrel. ‘Libby, don’t make a decision based on something that isn’t fundamentally about the two of you, that isn’t about you being cherished. Because believe me, if there are cracks now, children will turn them into bloody great ravines.’

Libby took a deep breath and nodded. The church bell chimed. The music from the bar lulled as the band took a break.

‘We should probably go back in,’ Libby said, collecting up the two empty beer bottles, then putting them down so she could redo her hair and rub her cheeks. ‘God, I must look a state,’ she said, running her fingers under her eyes to sort her mascara.

Eve looked her up and down. ‘I think you look nice like that.’

Libby scoffed.

‘I’m serious, you do.’

‘I bet I look dreadful. Drunk and emotional.’

Eve laughed. ‘You look natural,’ she said. Then after a pause added, ‘You look like you.’

Libby raised her eyebrows suspecting Eve had a subtext.

Eve knew it would be safer not to say any more but instead said, ‘You should do it on your blog, too, you know? Show a bit more of the natural you.’

Libby shook her head. ‘I knew it was a mistake letting you watch,’ she said with a half-laugh.

‘I thought you looked amazing, Libby. I just don’t feel like it’s a hundred per cent you, that’s all. More like, I don’t know, who you think you should be.’ She picked up the empty beer bottles. ‘But then, what do I know about blogging?’

She looked at Libby, standing there with barely any make-up left after an evening drinking and dancing, hair messily tied in a knot on top of her head, eyes soft and a little sad, skin—like all of theirs—still speckled with paint, and thought of her made up like a china doll for the camera. Then she thought of Jake emailing the women on the website—strangers glammed up for profile shots, nothing real, no need to make a lifelong impression, just a quick, engineered affair. All gloss, all fake, all built on lies.

She wondered if Libby had ever thought the same thing and knew that she had. That was always their
problem in the past—they knew too well what the other was thinking. There was no hiding.

That was probably why the friendship had fizzled out, because it made lying to oneself far too difficult.

‘I’ll think about it,’ Libby said as she started to walk back inside. Eve knew she wouldn’t.

And, as they walked back into the bar, side by side, in silence, it was hard to tell if they were a step closer or one step further apart.