Chapter 16 Cheese
Ari got as far as the door to her room before she had to stop and take one long, shuddering deep breath. Her lungs felt tight and her stomach queasy, and she laid one hand against both, trying to ease the discomfort in vain. This , she thought to herself miserably, must be what dying feels like.
But she wasn’t dying. Her heart still beat steadily, and her lungs still drew air, despite having taken what felt like a mortal wound to her soul. Ari sank unhappily to the floor, clutching her knees to her chest and trying to hold back the tears that threatened to spill down her cheeks.
Childhood sweethearts. Meant to be. You can imagine what happened next.
The same words swirled around and around Ari’s fevered mind, hurting her horribly and conjuring up images she had never hoped to have. It was all too easy in that moment to imagine Sasha — pretty, delicate and confident Sasha — wrapped tenderly in Tom’s arms, the place she had belonged since their shared youth, the place she belonged now, and the place she would belong forever more. A place only briefly inhabited by Ari, during Tom’s long but ultimately temporary sojourn to Europe. He’d been lost when Ari had known him — she could see that now. Lost and aimless and searching, his eyes always soft and sad. She’d tried to help him, by loving him and making love to him and holding him together in any way she could. It had been a futile task though, and no wonder. He’d never wanted her love, Ari realised. Not when he had Sasha to come home to.
Ari swallowed hard. Thinking back to those halcyon days in Europe, she could see now — with an almost blinding clarity — that she had offered Tom everything she’d wanted for herself, loving and needing Tom in a way she so desperately wanted to be loved and needed. Perhaps that need had overwhelmed him. Perhaps her love hadn’t been enough. She’d fixed Tom just enough for him to return home to Sasha’s arms, and his true persona of Tom Somerset, and Ari had been left in the wake. Their love, their relationship... It had all been for nothing. He’d used her for a purpose, and once that purpose had been served, she’d been easily discarded and forgotten.
For a moment Ari sat, staring sadly into the distance. This house was so large and impersonal, with shining walls and cold stone floors. Tom had grown up here, she reflected. He’d been a boy in these rambling halls — become a man in these endless rooms. This was his home, his world, and she felt so out of place in it. There was nothing for her here other than the man who’d abandoned her and his waspish fiancée. Abruptly, she longed to be in London, back at home in her little house. It was nothing compared to this mansion, just a typical London two-up, two-down, but it was hers. She’d worked hard for the money for the deposit, sacrificing her youth and nights out and — most cuttingly of all — any and all hopes of achieving her artistic ambitions. She worked harder still to afford her monthly mortgage, giving up weekends and holidays and precious time with Reine. Luis and Sebastian were still indignant about it, she knew. When she’d first told them she was looking for a house, they’d been casual almost to the point of ambivalence.
* * *
“A house?” Luis asks, scratching his head. “Why would you want your own house?”
“Yes,” Sebastian adds, gesturing to the living room of the flat she rented from them, “you live here.”
“I can’t stay here forever,” Ari tells them. “We all knew this was a temporary measure. Just until Reine and I were on our feet. Well, we’re on them now and it’s time for us to have a home of our own.”
“But you live here,” Sebastian says again, looking puzzled. “This is a zone one flat that you rent for a pittance. There’s a Le Pain Quotidien down the street and a Majestic Wine Warehouse on the corner. Why on earth would you ever want to leave?”
Ari sighs, watching Reine pull herself up into Luis’s lap. She sees him smile as the small toddler snuggles into his arms, burrowing her chubby arms into his cashmere cardigan, and she feels a pang of guilt for Tom.
That should be him, she reminds herself. Tom should be the one getting Reine’s cuddles and kisses.
“Well, a garden for Reine, for one thing,” Ari says easily, brushing off her sadness and walking into the kitchen to make tea. “She needs fresh air.”
“So we’ll take her to the park more,” Luis protests.
“Or there’s that new brasserie at the top of the Fenchurch Building,” Sebastian adds. “That’s thirty-four floors up. Way above the pollution. The air’s plenty fresh up there, I bet, and I hear the pastries are to die for. We’ll let Reine wobble around while we do brunch.”
Ari stares at him as the kettle boils. “That’s not fresh air.”
“It’s fresher than you’re going to get anywhere else north of the river,” Sebastian sniffs.
“Exactly,” Ari replies quietly, and both Sebastian and Luis freeze.
“No,” breathes out Sebastian, while Luis holds up a hand.
“Ari, honey, we love you. We cannot — I repeat, we cannot — let you move south of the river.”
“That’s all I can afford,” Ari argues, pouring tea into three mugs. “And you’ll like South London, there are museums and parks and shops and—”
“And knife crime, lower life expectancy and a subpar transport infrastructure,” Sebastian finishes for her, his voice aghast. “How are we supposed to visit?” He shudders. “On the bus?”
“Yes,” Ari says simply. “Or the DLR. Or you could get the train.”
“You mean National Rail?” Luis asks, horror-struck.
“I’ve seen this place in Greenwich,” Ari continues, ignoring them both. “You’ll love it. It’s small, but it has a little garden and it’s near the DLR. And oh, my goodness, it’s a ten-minute walk to this cute little ice cream place, you’re going to love it—”
“We can get ice cream here, Ari,” Luis says.
“Selfridges deliver now,” Sebastian adds helpfully.
“You can’t go, Ari,” Luis insists. “You haven’t thought this through.”
“I have, I really have—”
“Well, what about Tom?” he cuts in.
Ari freezes at Tom’s name, midway through holding out a scalding cup of tea to Sebastian, who plucks it gently from her hand.
“What do you mean?” she finally asks, her voice quiet.
“I mean what about Tom?” Luis repeats. “Part of the reason you rented from us here was because you didn’t want to put down too many roots. You know, just in case Tom Miller drifted back into your life to waltz you and Reine off into the sunset. I don’t know about you, but buying a house sounds an awful lot like putting down roots to me, Ari.”
Ari pauses, chewing on a nail thoughtfully. “Reine needs a home,” she answers carefully. She looks at her little girl, now fast asleep in Luis’s arms. “Tom said he would come back for me, and he will, he really will... but he’s taking his time, and I...” She trails off helplessly. “I don’t want Reine being like me.”
“Why not?” asks Sebastian, indignant. “You’re okay. Well, I mean, you’re mousy and perpetually bedraggled and you have the confidence levels of an endangered sloth, but still, you’re okay.”
Ari swallows. “I want her to have roots. I want her to have stability.”
“We give her that,” Luis protests, hugging the little girl in his arms tightly. “She has stability here.”
Too much stability, Ari thinks. I’m doing this for Tom.
“You need to let me do this,” she tells them both. “You’ve taken such good care of me for so long now... it’s time to let me take care of myself and my daughter. I need to do this. I really do.”
Ari watches as Luis and Sebastian exchange a look.
“It would give me back this place for my dolls,” Luis mulls. “Mattel just released a new line of inspiring women Barbies, and it would be a shame to take Emmeline Pankhurst out of her box and put her straight into storage.”
“But Greenwich,” Sebastian intones, shaking his head.
“We could get the boat from the Embankment,” Luis offers, and Ari shoots him a grateful glance. “Stop off at the Southbank. Buy cheese at Borough Market. You like cheese. I like cheese. Ari likes cheese.”
“Ari likes anything with calories,” Sebastian replies with a roll of his eyes.
“This is good cheese though. Artisan cheese. Expensive cheese.”
Sebastian seems to consider Luis’s words. “Like that cheese we bought in France. You remember, on our first trip together, where you got steamingly pissed on Bergerac red wine.”
Luis instantly bristles. “I wasn’t drunk. I was pleasantly tipsy.”
“You fell into the Dordogne.”
“An evening swim. What of it?”
“Your arms were still full of the cheese we’d bought.”
Luis crosses his arms over his chest. “You told me that the water gave the cheese a salty expression.”
“I was being nice. I was trying to woo you, after all,” Sebastian replies with a shrug. “I wanted you, even after you ruined three hundred euros worth of Rocamadour.”
“Oh, you’re never going to let me live down that Rocamadour, are you?” Luis explodes. “We can always buy more cheese, Sebastian! Ari’s moving to Greenwich. We can get cheese every damn time we visit her by calling at the market!”
“Will you both please stop talking about cheese,” Ari seethes, gesturing to Reine, who startled awake at the rise in Luis’s voice.
Luis glances down, smiling at Reine warmly and brushing her hair away from her face. He plants a kiss on the girl’s head, before taking a deep breath. “We’ll all make this work,” he says, more forcefully now. “This move. We’ll make it work for Reine.”
* * *
They had made it work, Ari reflected. She’d bought the little house and filled it with things and found Reine a place at a good state school. And for all Luis and Sebastian’s initial complaints, she was certain they were happier with the new arrangement. They had busy lives of their own outside of work and her and Reine, and they were more attentive for the distance. She couldn’t stop them from making Reine a little bedroom of her own in their flat, however.
* * *
“It’s just common sense,” Luis says, as he hangs pink cotton bunting above a little white bed. “You work so much, Ari. She’ll need to stay here with me while you and Sebastian are off at weddings.”
Ari frowns, even though she hears the sense in his words. Her workload is always a cause of concern for her, and she frets about the hours it sucks away from her time with Reine. But what else can she do? She’s a single mother who has a mortgage and bills to pay and a child to raise. Her hands are tied. She has to work, to give Reine the childhood she deserves.
A childhood so different from her own.
* * *
Taking a deep breath, Ari stood, keeping her hand on her stomach to steady herself. She had to think of Reine. She had to cast aside the broken heart Tom had inflicted upon her, just as she had to cast aside the hurt from Sasha’s careless words. She had to be a grown-up, and put her child and career above the considerations of her heart.
Tom was just a man, she told herself, standing taller. There would be other men. There would be other relationships. It was time to admit defeat and move on. Ari took another deep breath, biting hard on her lip. She’d been on occasional dates in the past few years but hadn’t allowed anyone to get too close to her fractured heart. She’d always thought staying single was best for Reine, and she’d been so busy with her work. But now it was time to stop making excuses. The truth — the stark, unwavering truth — was that she’d stayed single out of loyalty and love for Tom. Tom, who’d proven himself undesiring of her affection and fidelity. Tom Miller, who was really Tom Somerset, who was about to marry Sasha.
She had to let go of him, and the memory of him. She’d been wrong, earlier, when she’d thought their relationship had been for nothing. It hadn’t been.
She had Reine.
With another deep breath, Ari moved quietly into her room, cutting through into the room where Reine slept. She’d left the window open to air out the smell of fresh paint, and the curtains ruffled in the breeze. Quietly, Ari tiptoed towards the bed, seeing the mound of blankets, thinking Reine must have moved in her sleep.
She stared at the empty bed, suddenly filled with horror.
Her heart hammered hard, and she inhaled sharply, flicking all the lights on and searching frantically around the room.
“Reine!” she called out. “Reine, where are you?”
But Reine was nowhere to be seen, and Ari, frightened beyond belief, tore out of the room and fled back down the stairs.
At the dining room table, Luis, Sebastian, Marnie and Sasha were still drinking wine. They looked up when Ari stumbled into the room, tears trickling down her cheeks.
“Reine,” she said frantically, “she’s gone. She’s gone.”
* * *
“Does your bunny have a name?” Tom asked as his daughter stared up at him, her eyes wide and bright.
They were sitting on a worn blanket on the floor of Doug’s old shed. There was a nip in the air, so Tom had draped his jacket over Reine’s shoulders. The garment swamped her, but she didn’t seem to mind, and it was keeping her warm. More than that, Tom couldn’t deny the flash of pleasure it gave him to see his child wearing his clothes. If he’d helped to raise her, he would have already draped her in his jackets and sweaters, his scarves and hats. Even Doug’s old vest, which Tom kept in a closet at home, would have been pulled over Reine’s head. Tom could picture it now, his daughter as a small toddler, stumbling around while Doug’s vest dragged on the ground, his mother taking endless photographs of Reine in Grandpa’s clothes. He and Ari would be laughing in the background, Ari’s arm wrapped around his waist and the sweet smell of her hair in his nose. Tom sighed, an ache suddenly building within him. He’d missed out on so much.
But there wasn’t time to think about the ifs and buts and onlys. Reine was here, and so was he, and he needed to make up for the years he had missed.
“Or is she just called Bunny?” he added gently, reaching out to pull on one of the pink rabbit’s ears.
“Margaret Thutcher,” Reine replied seriously, hugging her bunny close.
“Margaret Thutcher?” Tom asked, raising an eyebrow, and Reine nodded.
“Uncle Sebastian named her. He says girls need a role model to look up to.”
“So... Margaret Thutcher,” Tom repeated, still sceptical, and watched as his daughter nodded. He gave her a smile. “Okay. Margaret Thutcher. I like it.”
“Do you like bunnies?” Reine asked him, and he paused for a moment, pondering her question seriously.
“I don’t know,” he finally answered. “I’ve never had one. I like your bunny though. Margaret Thutcher.”
“I like ponies too,” Reine told him. “My Little Pony is my favourite.”
“I’ve heard of that,” Tom said. One of his colleagues at work once told him that he had a daughter who talked non-stop about My Little Pony. She was always asking for the newest toy or T-shirt. Tom made a mental note to ask his colleague where he could get the same. He’d buy Reine the entire range.
“I think I’ve seen them advertised.”
“I like Pinkie Pie the best,” Reine said. “Or maybe Fluttershy.”
“Okay,” Tom nodded, although he had no idea what she was talking about now. “What else do you like?”
“What do you mean?” Reine asked, wrinkling her nose in confusion. She looked so much like Ari for a moment that Tom had to stop and take a breath.
“I mean . . . what’s your favourite food?”
“Chocolate biscuits,” Reine answered, without missing a beat. “But my mummy doesn’t let me eat them. I’m not normally allowed treats. When she’s around, that is.”
Tom frowned. “What do you mean, when she’s around?”
For a moment Reine’s face clouded. “Mummy works a lot.”
Tom felt his stomach sink.
“She works?” he asked, keeping his voice light.
“All the time,” Reine complained. “She and Uncle Sebastian are always away at weddings, or away planning weddings. I have to stay with my Tío Luis then. I don’t mind, we have lots of fun and he takes care of me,” Reine added loyally, though her words made Tom hate Luis De León intensely at that moment, “I just wish Mummy was around more. I like it when there are no weddings, and she can be a normal mummy. Not working Mummy.”
Tom sat back, deflated. “I’m sorry your mom has to work, sweetheart.”
Reine looked up at him, her eyes suddenly brighter. “At least I’ll have you now as well,” she said. “That’s what daddies do, right? They help?”
Her words were a question that tore at Tom’s heart. All of a sudden, he felt an almost violent protective instinct roar through him.
“That’s right,” he told her, keeping his voice light. “I’ll be there from now on. I’m going to help.”
He meant every word. He would ask his work for a transfer to the London office. He would pick Reine up from school. He would spend time with her on weekends. He would financially contribute to lift the burden from Ari’s shoulders. Fuck Uncle Sebastian and Tío Luis, he thought angrily. He would be the father in Reine’s life from now on.
Reine nodded, sitting back and clutching Margaret Thutcher to her small body. “Good. Mummy will like that.”
Tom doubted it, but chose not to say anything. Reine didn’t need to know about his and Ari’s complicated relationship. She didn’t need to know that her father was a pitiful excuse for a parent and a partner, who had been absent from her life for too long.
“We should get you to the house,” he said, “you must be tired and it’s cold out and if your mom knew you were missing—”
“She knows,” said an icy voice, one that made Tom’s sphincter tighten and stomach clench. He turned towards it.
“Hello Stella,” he said coolly, nodding towards the immaculately put-together woman who stood languidly in the doorway.
She ignored him — her gaze settled on Reine. “Hello, Small,” she said, and her voice was missing the frostiness she usually inflicted on Tom. “Are you all right?”
Reine nodded. “Hi Stellie.”
Stellie, thought Tom in shock. His daughter called the great Stella Snow Stellie ? He was certain if he’d dared to address her as Stellie she would have his balls on a plate for supper. If she could find them, that was. Whenever Stella Snow was around, they retracted so far back into his pelvis a good surgeon would struggle to get to them.
“Your mother is frantic about you,” Stella carried on lightly. “It was very naughty of you to sneak out of bed like that.”
“I needed to talk with my father,” Reine replied sagely, and Tom watched as Stella nodded, seemingly completely unsurprised.
“Well, everyone is looking for you. Come on. I have a pack of chocolate Leibniz in my bag. You can have one on the way to the house.”
“How did you find her here?” Tom asked, and Stella glanced over at him, her face falling into a sneer.
“Well, I just followed the scent of gormless desperation and the tracks of a man whose structurally unsound face weighs him down,” she replied. “You should have brought her back to the house the second she turned up here. Her mother is a wreck.”
Guilt flooded through him. “I know. But I just... I’ve never had the chance to...” he trailed off miserably. He gave a long sigh. “I didn’t know, Stella. I really didn’t.”
“Well, Jawline, that much was evident,” Stella said with a shrug. “You’ve had five minutes of parenting though, and the woman who has had nearly eight years more is in a state because she thinks her daughter is missing. Take her back to the house,” she gave him a keener, more searching look. “Sort out your mess.”
“I will,” he promised, coming to a stand and pulling Reine up into his arms. “Come on, Reine. Your mom is missing you.”
Reine reached over to Stella, who was holding out a biscuit in her hand. “Don’t tell your mother,” Stella warned. “You know she’s not keen on you having chocolate.”
Reine grinned at her, crunching the chocolate-covered cookie into her mouth, and Tom looked at Stella with interest as they started to walk.
“How did you meet Reine?” he asked her. “You seem to know her well.”
“The small and I get along splendidly,” Stella replied bluntly. “Whenever Luis De León works on a wedding dress for a ceremony where I’m the photographer, the small is invariably with him. We have a lot in common, the small and I.”
“Like what?” Tom asked in disbelief, shifting Reine in his arms. How could his young, innocent daughter have anything in common with the icy Stella Snow?
“My mum was a single, working mother too,” Stella said with a shrug. “She was overworked, overtired and overwrought, just like Ari. I don’t like children as a general rule, but the small and I, well... I know just what she’s going through.”
Tom felt guilt hit him again. “I should’ve been there for Ari. I should’ve been there for both of them.”
“You’ll be there now,” Reine offered, and Tom felt his heart skip a beat.
His daughter was beautiful, clever and kind. She was the best of them both. He hugged her tightly to him.
“Yeah,” he said, “I’ll be there now. All the time.”
But on hearing his words, Stella turned to him sharply. “Don’t make promises you don’t intend to keep, Jawline.”
“I intend to though,” Tom argued.
Stella looked at him long and hard. “Maybe you feel that way now, but then maybe things will change. My own father was a malingering and steaming pile of garbage. He said things like that. Children remember when you break a promise. Don’t be that father, whatever you do.”
“I’m going to be there,” Tom said again, firmly. “I’m going to be there.”
“Fine.” Stella nodded. “But I’ll wait and see.”
“Speaking of being there, why are you here?” Tom asked, shifting Reine’s weight again as the house came into view.
“Oh, I have a sixth sense for when things are about to get interesting. I’m a connoisseur of human emotions, Somerset, and I know when something big is coming. Don’t worry, I’ve had Brandon pack my soft lenses. They’ll be kinder on your misshapen jawline.”
“Thanks,” Tom said roughly, opening the door to the house and depositing Reine down.
“Ari?” he called out, still marvelling at the sound of her name on his lips. “Ari, where are you?”
A thundering of footsteps came through the hall, and Tom watched as Ari, her face tear-stained and blotchy, snatched Reine into her arms.
“Thank God,” she whispered, holding their daughter close. “Thank God. Reine, where have you been? I was so worried.”
Another thundering of footsteps followed, and Tom watched as Sebastian, Luis and his mother tumbled into the room.
“I was about to call the police,” Marnie snapped when she saw Tom in the doorway. “I was about to call a private investigator. I was about to call Corentin ,” she added, and Tom winced.
“There’s no need for that,” he told his mother. “I found her — she’s safe.”
Sebastian and Luis had crowded around Ari, and Tom could see Sebastian checking Reine’s arms for marks or bruises.
“She’s fine, she’s fine,” Luis was saying, “and Margaret Thutcher is okay too. Sunshine, nos asustaste de muerte. No puedes salir corriendo así. Te queremos tanto... nos asustaste. Qué haríamos sin ti? ”
He ran his hand protectively over Reine’s head, and Tom felt a streak of anger. He was Reine’s father, not this man. He needed to talk to Ari. He needed to make right his wrongs.
“Ari,” Tom said, looking down at her. “Ari, we need to talk.”
She looked up at him, and there was betrayal written in her eyes. Tom winced once more, knowing he was the cause of her hurt.
“Please,” he begged her. “Please, talk to me.”
“I need to be with Reine right now,” she replied, and her voice was cold. “I thought I’d lost her.”
Tom felt his stomach sink and heart grow heavy. She would never forgive him, he realised. He would never earn back her trust.
Or her love.
“Ari—”
“I wasn’t lost,” a small voice broke in, and all the adults fell silent as Reine spoke.
“ Qué quieres decir , Reine?” Luis asked, running his hand over her hair again.
“I mean I wasn’t lost. I was talking with my father.”
Instantly, Ari looked up at Tom with sparks of anger in her eyes.
“You told her?” she asked him furiously. “You told her? You told her that—”
“Wait. She was talking with who ?” another voice asked, and Tom whirled around, coming face to face with Sasha.
“Oh, this is going to be good,” Tom heard Stella whisper over the thumping beat of his heart. “Brandon, get my Leica ready. The one with the soft lens,” she added, winking at Tom.
“Sasha—” he began, but his fiancée was staring at him, her arms crossed over her chest.
“ You’re that girl’s father?” she asked incredulously. “You?”
Tom swallowed heavily, turning back to Ari. He needed to talk to her. He needed to make things right. He needed to put her and their child first. He would deal with Sasha later.
He was a moment too late though, for the space beside him was empty. Ari had already gone, and she’d taken Reine with her.