Chapter 36
THIRTY-SIX
Eight years may have passed but it seems that they’ve still not updated the carpet in Nick’s room.
It’s still a deep blue, a shade that resembles the colour of the deepest part of the sea.
I look down at it and my bare feet. Yes, they had to remove my shoes as three grown men from the Christmas party hoisted me out of a downstairs window.
I sit on the edge of Nick’s bed, waiting because I also tore my jumpsuit so to really compound all my embarrassment, I will likely have to leave here wearing his mother’s clothes.
The door opens and Nick returns with a pile of clothes in his hands.
‘So we have options,’ he tells me. ‘We have pyjamas, yoga pants, a tracksuit and a sweatshirt that I once bought her that has the Statue of Liberty on.’
Oh great, a souvenir from New York. I point to the sweatshirt quietly and he throws it in my direction. I put it over my shoulders and let the fleece lining hug my skin.
‘I also brought us some supplies,’ he says, pulling out some canapés and a half-full bottle of champagne from out of his underarm. He comes to sit down next to me and puts a hand on top of mine.
‘Was it my Uncle Phil? I know he’s handsy,’ he says.
I’m still bathing in the shame of my failed escape but the shock of what I heard upstairs still overwhelms. ‘It was actually your cousin, Sean.’
‘Was he lechy?’
‘Nick, he told me all about Neve. Maybe a bit too much about Neve,’ I say pretty directly.
The mirth drops from Nick’s face and he stares down into his inky-blue carpet, trying to find the words. ‘Oh… Kay, look…’
‘Why didn’t you say anything?’ I ask, less angry, more incredulous that he wouldn’t share news that monumental with me. ‘That’s a horrible thing to happen to anyone, Nick. When was the wedding?’
‘May,’ he whispers. ‘She didn’t show up. She sent her dad with a note. I didn’t even get an apology.’
‘Nick…’ I say quietly. ‘I can see why you thought she was up her own sphincter then.’ He doesn’t laugh. ‘That’s incredibly awful of her and I’m sorry that happened to you.’
He still can’t make eye contact with me and I can sense he feels guilty that he never told me about any of it, that in the last month or so, our relationship, which I thought felt safe and easy, lacked some truth.
‘I have a question,’ I say, trying to break the silence. ‘Was it her scrunchie?’
He nods. I hope he didn’t do strange things with the scrunchie as he was obsessing over her.
‘I have thrown that away now though.’
‘Good.’
‘And at the Natural History Museum, when you disappeared, was it something to do with her?’
He side-eyes me. The thing about me, Nick Coles, is that I’m not just a pretty face with a ridiculous head of hair.
I’m sometimes Jessica fucking Fletcher. ‘Possibly,’ he says sheepishly.
‘She saw me there with you and she got angry. I’m not sure why when she was the one who didn’t want me, but we had it out by the blue whale. ’
‘Sean filled me in about the ballet.’
He sits there in a place between shame and fear that I’m eventually going to kick off about all of this.
‘I didn’t know she was going to be there.
’ I pull a face. ‘Well, I had an inkling.’ He returns the same face to me, one of ick and sadness.
‘I enjoyed the ballet though with you. And the bar with all the plants. It was a nice evening.’
I stare at a point on the wall. It was a lovely memory until about two minutes ago.
‘We weren’t stalking her at ice skating? Harrods?’ I ask him tentatively, trying to work out if all of this was a huge charade to follow another woman around London.
He sits up immediately and looks at me. ‘Christ, no. I’m sad but not that sad.
Some of it was very genuine. I remembered you liked ice skating, Harrods felt like a big gesture for someone who I thought deserved it.
I mean, we also had excellent sex and I wasn’t pretending about any of that. I do like you, Kay. A lot.’
‘I like you too. It’s just not…’
‘Yeah.’
We don’t have to say the words because we know. This isn’t it. As much as we try and force and fold it into an ideal of what we think a relationship should look like, there’s no spark or at least we’re trying far too hard to make one appear out of nowhere when that star burnt out a while ago.
‘Wasn’t it fun though?’ I say, trying to make a joke out of all of this.
I see a glimmer of a smile. ‘Very fun. I’ve said this before but maybe you came into my life at just the right time.’
‘Really?’ I say, surprised.
‘To maybe remind me of what a good person should look like. How I could and should be with someone who’s kind and hilarious and warm. You asked me what I remembered about you, Kay Redman, and what I did remember was that you were far too good for me.’
My face freezes with emotion and I put my hand on top of his, squeezing it tightly.
‘I’ll be honest, a lot of what I’ve heard in the past hour hasn’t portrayed you in the greatest of lights but Nick Coles, you deserve someone good at least. Someone who dumps you at the altar after almost ten years of a relationship is not a good person. ’
He pauses for a moment. ‘We didn’t get together before New York, you know? It was about five years ago.’
I look at him suspiciously. ‘Hun, the maths is irrelevant.’ I almost laugh. ‘But I don’t think I’m angry, I think it all makes a bit more sense now.’ I think about how the sum of all those romantic dates wasn’t love. ‘You did lie about the pendant though,’ I say.
‘You guessed?’ he asks, surprised at my own levels of intuition.
‘I saw the gift card.’ I reach into my pocket and retrieve the box. I’m not sure why but as I left I thought I might steal it, save this man from himself. Helen’s birthday is in six weeks, she’d love it.
He looks down at the box. ‘A mutual friend was here tonight, I was going to see if she would pass it on.’
‘Nick…’
‘Yes?’
‘No.’
He looks at me, scowling at my abruptness. ‘But what if there’s a chance…?’
‘No.’
‘I love—’
I put a finger to his lips. ‘I don’t think that’s what love should look like, Nick. And what about having some self-respect, acceptance? I don’t know…’
A look of pain creeps across his face and I instantly feel bad.
I guess in the greater scheme of things, it’s been six months since it happened.
Perhaps it is still too fresh to move on, to understand anything with much clarity when your heart has been broken in that way.
‘Instead of acting lovelorn and desperate?’
‘Your words, not mine. Using me to make her jealous,’ I scoff. ‘Do you think it worked?’
He shrugs his shoulders. ‘She was pretty angry at the museum.’
‘Then I’m glad your plan almost worked,’ I say.
He sits there fiddling with his hands, unsure what to say. ‘I have to say, it wasn’t all a sham. It has been nice to see you again, to be in your company, to have you re-enter my orbit.’
‘That would imply you’re a planet.’
‘And maybe you’re a shooting star, a ray of light.’
I pause to hear the light comment. ‘Does that make Neve an asteroid?’ I ask. ‘Causing catastrophic damage?’ He sighs and nods at the comparison. ‘Just remember, planets recover from those though. But it will take time. Is this why your parents were a bit weird with me then?’
Now this is intuition. ‘Oh, we’ve had words, don’t worry.
Mum loved Neve like a daughter so it was always going to take a while for her to get over losing her.
I think my dad quite liked you though. He remembers you as the one with the hair.
I think he didn’t want you to get caught up in the aftermath.
I think he sensed I wasn’t over Neve. Which is fair… ’
‘And why I always liked your dad.’
He laughs. We sit there for a moment to absorb the silence.
Despite my eventful interruptions, the party continues to simmer, the faint jingle of Nat King Cole winds its way up the stairs.
I reach over and take a canapé. Why is it that I only eat canapés at weddings and Christmas?
I feel I need to turn little toasts with brie and cranberry and teeny tiny spring rolls into my everyday.
I offer him a spring roll and he bites it out of my hands.
‘Did we have sex in this room?’ Nick asks.
‘I think we did, you know.’
‘Do you remember it?’ I try and subdue my giggles because, frankly, no. ‘Way to kick a man when he’s down.’
‘I remember you got out your scout badge collection for me,’ I say.
He jumps up to his feet and goes to the top drawer of his dresser, getting out a shirt that’s still impeccably pressed, both arms covered in fabric badges. ‘Sexy.’
‘Always.’
We smile at each other. ‘I did get you a gift by the way,’ he says.
‘In case you thought I’d only got Neve something.
’ I hope he knows I will be going online to compare the prices of said gift.
He reaches under his bed and I see a book wrapped up.
Yeah, I know for a fact that pendant would have cost more.
I slide my hand under the paper and unwrap it.
Poetry for Lovers. I sigh to see the title, my fingers moving gently across the front cover.
‘I saw it and thought of you. Because you know… books are your thing.’
‘Thank you,’ I say, unable to control my emotion, a tear rolling down my face. He tries to read the emotion, wondering if this is a complete misstep. ‘Have you read any of them?’
‘Is it bad if I say no?’
I shake my head, flicking through the pages to find a poem that a man read out to me once.
‘I feel I need to be completely honest with you too. I’ve been spending time with another man since I’ve seen you.
Not sleeping with him or anything, just someone else who I think I possibly have feelings for.
’ I exhale deeply as I say it, waiting for his reaction.
‘I can’t really comment, can I?’ Nick says. ‘What’s he like?’
‘He’s OK.’
‘You deserve more than OK, young lady.’ That sounds genuine. I like how it harks back to what Davinia once told me, the day I met this Nick.
‘I also got you something. It’s a little stupid,’ I say.
‘I think we’re way past stupid now, right?’
I go into my handbag and get out a small box by comparison. He opens it and he at least laughs. ‘It’s a Ferrari, you asked Santa for a Ferrari.’
‘You are funny. Very funny.’
‘Thank you. That much we can agree on at least.’ We sit there for yet another silent moment. I reach over and take a swig from the bottle of champagne. ‘I don’t have to stay at this party, do I?’
‘God, no. Can I ask one thing though?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Can we be friends? Unless you think that’s a bloody cliché?’ he says mockingly, and I cackle. I really laugh because maybe we’ve both remembered the same thing, the day we broke up. A day I thought I’d never recover from at the time. And yet here we are.
‘Why not. Just not fun friends anymore… OK?’
‘Deal,’ he says. I go to shake his hand but he pulls me in for a hug.
And now I know how I feel, without doubt: I feel pure relief, kindness and compassion for someone I once loved.
I feel a sense of care towards you because there was a point when what I felt for you was love.
Maybe that never dies. Maybe it can be transformed into something else which keeps him in my life.
Maybe the coincidence of meeting wasn’t because we belonged together.
Maybe it was so I could help you heal. I grip my arms around him, around this person who just wanted to feel something else instead of intense heartbreak.
I hope you’ll be OK, Nick Coles. I really do.
‘If you want to leave though…’ he says, from over my shoulder.
‘Use a door?’ I suggest.
‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘And Kay. Thank you. Seriously. For everything.’
‘You’re welcome, St Nick.’