Chapter 5
5
5.30 a.m.
I have slept for maybe ten minutes the whole night, because Jamie’s mere presence in my room has been enough to keep me awake. I cannot believe this turn of events. I cannot believe that not only has Jamie Kramer invaded my summer holiday, but now he’s invaded my bedroom. And he’s slept soundly, too, barely moving, his breath shallow and as if none of this is unusual or unfair at all. The moon came through the curtains to illuminate his face: the slope of his cupid’s bow, his stubbled chin, long eyelashes on carved-from-marble cheeks. He almost looks sweet when he’s asleep. Of course I know better.
I tossed and turned and got madder and madder, all night, and now I need to get out of here.
I slip out from between my sheets and grab my running gear. At least it’s cool enough this early to get one in, considering that I missed yesterday’s. A run always sorts me out. I’ve been running in one way or another since Year 7, when I started cross-country. I love that feeling of one foot in front of the other – that you don’t need to know anything other than that. You simply keep going, and after the first two or three minutes it’s like meditation. I never listen to music or podcasts, it’s always just me and my footsteps. I’ve always done it because I love it, but it turns out I’m good at it, too. I’ve won competitions – even nationally. It’s been years since I’ve competed, but me and a dirt track, or a nature trail, or at a push a long path beside a quiet road, and I’m happy. Much happier than when I don’t run, anyway.
I pull on my trainers by the front door and automatically follow the path down into town, the one we took last night. But I don’t slip into a meditative state easily. Instead I think about the near-argument last night. I didn’t mean to call Jamie a farthead per se – I was merely embarrassed that I’d acknowledged his kindness and he pied me off. That’s what I get for having four glasses of wine: my judgement slipped. I’ll have to get back on it today: a dignified detachment and keeping out of his way. I’ll sleep on the sofa tonight, even if Mum thinks it’s not possible. Jamie can take my room, unjust as that feels.
I run up past the town square to the other side of the village where life peters out again, and by lucky chance make a right up a winding path that I sense could lead back to the house in a big loop. It’s longer than I’d assumed, but I don’t mind. The sun is climbing in the sky by the time the villa is back in view. Honestly, running really is the best way to see a place. I clock the odd farmer in his field, the animals grazing before it gets too hot. It’s nice to wake up alongside Mother Nature. Soothing. I do love to be outside, especially near the sea. Funny how I spend so much time chained to a desk indoors, then.
I slink around the back of the house, thinking I’ll stretch in the shade of the veranda, and am surprised to see Kate up already, laying the table for breakfast.
‘How do,’ she says, at the sound of my approach. ‘Couldn’t sleep?’
‘Not really,’ I say, panting. I put my hands behind my head to force my posture upright and to get air into my lungs.
She nods. ‘Me neither.’ She notes my breathing. ‘Water? I’ll get some ice.’
‘I love you,’ I say, regulating my inhales and exhales. ‘I don’t tell you that enough.’
She laughs lightly. ‘You only want me for my cold beverages.’
‘Doesn’t take away from the depth of my feeling,’ I shrug, and I drop down into a runner’s lunge and then flop over into pigeon pose, letting my muscles cool down and my breath get back to normal.
‘So,’ Kate says, pouring me a drink then leaning her hands against one of the patio chairs. ‘Last night.’ I knew she was going to ask before the words left her mouth. Of course she wants the juicy details. ‘Were you and Jamie arguing on the way home?’ She emphasises the word arguing as if the notion of a cross word is somehow salacious. I mean, it is , but that’s beside the point. I don’t want to tell her too much – she already knows enough.
I don’t say anything as I get up from my position on the paved ground.
Kate senses my hesitance and further offers, ‘You were yelling at each other …’
‘Interesting,’ I muse. ‘You asked if we were arguing, when it seems that you know we were and what you actually want to know is what about ,’ I say, arching an eyebrow.
She smirks. ‘I was warming up the witness, Your Honour.’
‘Badly, I might add.’
She motions with a hand for me to get on with it.
I open my mouth to speak, but sigh instead. I know the best thing to do is brush it under the carpet, put it down to a few merry drinks too many, and let sleeping dogs lie. I will myself for it to be bygone. Today is a new day. Honestly, it shouldn’t be this hard to get Jamie out of my system and yet. And yet.
‘Was it foreplay or …?’
‘Foreplay?’ I bat back. ‘Yeah. Sure. We’re basically on the cusp of running off into the sunset together as lovers.’
‘I’m serious,’ she insists, giggling.
‘Kate,’ I say, draining my glass and pouring another, to leave a dramatic pause for emphasis. ‘Jamie … well, I don’t know if he hates me, but after Christmas he definitely doesn’t like me. We’re at the opposite end of the spectrum to lovers .’
‘So you’re enemies?’
‘I didn’t say that ,’ I counter, overwhelmingly aware that when you’re talking to a lawyer, everything you say will be taken as evidence.
‘It’s a thin line between love and hate,’ Kate says. ‘Enemies to lovers and all that …’
‘Kate,’ I warn.
She chews on her bottom lip and goes on, ‘I’m just saying, you know. I feel like there’s something there. What happened at Christmas doesn’t add up to me …’
The mention of last Christmas forces colour to my cheeks and heat to my heart. Will it ever not bother me?
‘Kate,’ I say, ‘Jamie is a pretentious drifter, who I tolerate because I feel sorry for him. All these women he uses and discards? It’s pathetic, not to mention gross. What kind of a hole must he have in his heart to womanise the way he does?’ The words pour out, surprising me, slick as oil. I can’t stop them. I don’t know what comes over me. It’s like I’m practising, rehearsing lines, seeing how it feels to really let rip. It’s like all the anger I’ve had churning inside me finally gets to come out. ‘I tolerate him because I feel sorry for him really, but honestly, if he wasn’t Laurie’s friend, if he wasn’t basically a surrogate son to Mum and Dad, if he was a bloke on the street who chatted me up at a bar, I’d run the other way. He’s got no ambition, thinks abs are a personality trait, and has the chat of a deflated basketball with a face drawn on it. To be honest, I don’t even know why you and Laurie are friends with him.’
Kate has been stunned into silence. I don’t know where all that came from, either – I’ve never spoken like that about anyone in my life, ever. I can tell I’ve gone too far because the colour has drained from Kate’s face and her eyes have gone saucer-like and black. I’m about to take it all back when a voice from behind me says, ‘Morning, all.’
Oh, crap. I turn, confirming who it belongs to. Jamie. He’s obviously heard every last word of what I said.
‘Morning,’ says Kate, coming back from screensaver mode and suddenly becoming the hostess with the absolute mostest. She fetches cereals and milk, bread and some cheese, over-compensating for being the person I was saying such horrid things to, by being bright and chatty and effusive. Between the clattering of cutlery and unfurling of napkins, there’s no room for small talk. I know in the very corners of my mind that I should apologise, but I cannot physically bring myself to do that. Jamie would probably just pie me off again. But what haunts me, as breakfast unfurls, is that he doesn’t speak either, not even to Kate. After a while of pensive juice-drinking he peels off his T-shirt, his low-slung swim shorts letting us all know that V is his favourite letter of the alphabet, and slips into the pool to do his laps, leaving me to feel like absolute crap.
That was the most awkward fifteen minutes of my life. If Kate is going to point out that I should absolutely feel this way, she doesn’t – but I suspect that’s only because one by one everybody else files down to the breakfast table and so we don’t get a private audience. Jamie continues to swim. I continue to try and mentally rationalise how maybe he didn’t hear me – and fail. I know he did. I might not like him, but even I don’t want to be the person responsible for making him feel crap. His ego can probably withstand it, but it isn’t right. That’s not who I am, saying those things.
‘Here,’ says Alex as he arrives at the table, throwing a book down in front of me and narrowly missing my plate. ‘I think you’ll like this. It was on the shelf by the board games.’
I glance down, jam toast halfway to my mouth. As I chew, I turn it over in my hand. Poems I Think You’ll Like , the title says. ‘Ha ha,’ I reply, swallowing.
‘Legit!’ Alex claims. ‘They’re funny. Is “irreverent” the word? Anyway. You read a shit-ton, don’t you? Enjoy.’
He crinkles up his nose. I crinkle mine back.
It’s loosely agreed that we’ll spend the day at the villa today, by the pool, with potentially a little late-afternoon walk down to the beach to stretch our legs. Alex and Dad load up the water pistols and Kate assumes a position on a giant inflatable swan, with Laurie clearing the table and Mum making a shopping list for whoever goes to the supermarket later. Jamie is still swimming. It’s been for ever. I think he’s mad at me. I’m getting a feeling. If he is, I think it will be the first time in history I’ve got a reaction from him. Unfortunately, though, I’m so ashamed of myself that I can’t enjoy it. I pick up my book of poems and slink off inside.
In the living room it is cool and quiet. I curl up on one of the tiny two-seater sofas and sip my third coffee of the morning, flicking through the book.
One poem by Wendy Cope catches my eye. It basically says if you don’t want to get riled up by a man you should avoid him, or get to know him better. It makes me smile. My love life isn’t exactly extensive, but I will say that the cure for almost every crush I’ve ever had has been getting to know the guy. It’s like, the more you learn the less there is to make up in your head about them. I take a photo of the page and send it to Hope.
Me
Saw this and thought of you
Hope
Because now you know me, you’re over your crush on me?
Me
My crush on you will never be over
Hope
I feel exactly the same, gorgeous
How’s it going over there? With J***e?
Me
It’s … going. We avoid each other mostly.
I reread the poem. In the first year of my undergrad degree there was a girl in halls who was really weird with me, and then one night a few weeks in she got really drunk and I found her in the toilets crying. I gave her a tissue, helped her get home and after that we became friends. She told me later that she’d judged me harshly, that she’d thought I was a stuck-up geek who only cared about impressing the teachers. I told her that was kind of true, but we were close enough by this point that she could see the other stuff about me, too: why I cared so much, where it came from. We’ve drifted since then – I’ve drifted from everyone since the breakdown – but if Rachel and I figured out a way to coexist by getting to know each other, then maybe this Wendy Cope is right. If I flip the Jamie script on its head, it could be a sort of exposure therapy. Huh. Exposure therapy. I had that thought the other night as well – that him being here is one hell of a way to confront what happened.
Me
EXPOSURE THERAPY?!
Do I need to spend MORE time with Jamie, and so release his hold on me?
Hope
Yes! Exactly! Exposure therapy!!!
Cure yourself of any and all emotion towards him by getting to know him, so he can disappoint you as a man and cease to be of any interest at all. It’s foolproof! Yay, Wendy Cope.
I smile, sending back a GIF of Bluey doing a happy dance.
‘Funny text?’
I look up. Kate. She’s leaning against the door frame and looks uncharacteristically serious.
‘Yeah, actually,’ I say. ‘My friend Hope has given me an idea for something.’
She nods, not wanting to engage with anything other than what she’s come in here to talk to me about. I can guess what it is, too.
‘Babe,’ she starts, coming to rest on the arm of the sofa. ‘You need to fix what happened this morning. You can feel that way about Jamie all you want – and god knows, I get why – but he heard, and nobody else might be able to tell he’s upset, but I can tell. And he’s my friend as well as Laurie’s. You overstepped. I hate to say it, but you did. Even in spite of everything.’
I nod. ‘I know,’ I say. ‘I feel shitty about it.’
‘Good,’ she replies. ‘Because you should.’
Bang-bang – she’s not messing about. Shots have been fired. Kate’s not letting me off the hook. Not that I deserve to be, but … I don’t know. Maybe I hoped she’d tell me I’m not the monster I acted like, and that Jamie is infuriating enough to justify it? Anyway. No such luck.
‘I’ll take it into consideration,’ I say, ‘After a shower.’
Kate nods, slowly. ‘Okay.’
‘Okay.’
She cocks her head at me. ‘I can’t make you feel better about this unless you apologise, you know.’
‘I know!’ I say, rolling my eyes dramatically. There’s a feeling in the pit of my stomach, letting me know that she’s right and I have let myself down. But apologise? To Jamie? That turns my stomach even more. ‘I will, I promise.’
She leaves to go back outside and I walk upstairs, heading to our room. I still can’t believe all his stuff is here, like we cohabit peacefully. Jamie has made his bed with hospital-precision corners, the sheet and blanket tight over his mattress. He’s folded some clothes and arranged a few bits on his bedside table: a book, some lip balm, a coiled-up phone charger. It’s like he’s being overly tidy to prove the point that I’m not. I can’t help but notice the corner of something sticking out under his pillow, too: a brown leather notebook. I’ll bet it’s a log of the women he’s slept with, all over the world. Jamie Kramer – he who prides himself on breaking hearts.
I hop in the shower and, as I’m soaping my hair and washing my body, I turn over in my mind the idea of getting to know Jamie better . He did a horrid thing, but that only keeps hurting me if I let it, doesn’t it? I can’t quite imagine becoming best buddies, but something cordial could possibly be achieved. I think. Holding on to all this anger surely isn’t good for me. And he’s only a heartbreaker if he wins – if I act nonplussed, like properly and actually, I’ll bet that will annoy him even more.
By the sink Jamie has got a neat leather toiletry bag, with toothpaste for sensitive teeth, roll-on deodorant (not spray) and interdental brushes for extra dental hygiene. All these little hints, I think, drying myself off, as to who he really is. If I did want some exposure therapy, this would be a good place to start. Like, oh, he’s just a man. A man who gets body odour and needs to look after his teeth like the rest of us. There’s nothing special about him …
Already I feel a bit differently. I mean, it’s easier when he’s not actually in front of me, of course. But in theory, yeah – I can see how learning more about Jamie could actually make him less of a threat to me, less able to annoy me. After all, I know everything there is to know about my family and I’m able to be annoyed by them without it being all-consuming – Alex has no filter when it comes to his bodily omissions, but I still think he’s the kindest man I know; and Laurie is a pedant with a stick up his arse sometimes, but he’s the one to call when somebody has been rude and you want another person on your side. Jamie needs to be in the same category as my brothers. I text Hope.
Me
Honestly, been thinking this over and the theory tracks. Getting to know him better? I think it will work!
I pad out of the en-suite in my towel, right as Jamie rounds the corner to the room. He’s still wet from the pool, a beach towel slung low around his hips like he’s simply too cool to dress properly. The man needs a Ken doll, complete with Ken wardrobe, so he can practise what a fully dressed man looks like. We’re in the narrow corridor where the entrance to the room breaks off into the bathroom and a built-in cupboard, so unless he backs up and out, I’m hemmed in by Jamie and his show of abs.
He doesn’t move.
I shift the cotton of my towel. I’m suddenly aware that underneath this simple slip of fabric I am very, very naked. I hold it in place tightly, just in case. Seeing my boobs during a volleyball match is one thing, but a full strip-show at the bathroom door would be quite another. Plus, as if he deserves to see my boobs again.
I wait for him to leave immediately, get what he needs and then leave or ask to use the bathroom, so I can leave.
He does none of those things.
Okay. This is awkward.
I feel his eyes trailing across my collarbones and up my neck, judging me, as he does. His gaze thick and unrelenting, like he’s determined to intimidate me.
Exposure therapy , I think to myself. Exposure therapy!
I dare to make eye-contact and smile. I am met with a blank stare, as per usual. I suppose he must be waiting for his apology. Fair enough.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘About before. I didn’t mean what I said to Kate.’
Jamie narrows his eyes, and I feel about two inches tall.
‘So why did you say it?’ he asks. It’s a simple enough question, but hell, is it loaded.
‘I don’t know.’
My voice is small, like a school kid getting reprimanded by the head teacher. I look down at my toes, ashamed. Jamie closes the gap between us by stepping forward – just a couple of low-key enemies in towels. This is definitely an invasion of my personal space.
‘Flo,’ he says, in his low growl. My lips part. I don’t know why, but I seem to be struggling to get air into my lungs.
‘Yes?’ I respond. My voice comes out as less than a whisper, my mouth as dry as it has ever been. I guess I’m not used to waiting for forgiveness. I glance up, waiting to see if it will come.
Jamie looks at my lips. If it was anybody else, that look would be enough to make a thousand butterflies take flight in the very lowest part of my pelvis. But this is Jamie, so that doesn’t happen. I simply feel confused. This dude is intense .
‘Like I said the other morning,’ he murmurs, still looking at my mouth. I think he’s trying to one-up me. ‘I feel very lucky to have been invited here. I’m sorry you don’t like me. I assumed, for me to get the invite in the first place, you must have given your blessing. If I somehow got that wrong … well, there’s not much I can do. But I really am sorry if my being here has ruined your holiday.’
I open my mouth to object and he actually has the audacity to hold up a finger to my lips.
‘I’m allergic to bullshit,’ he tells me. ‘So don’t. I came up here to tell you that I’ll stay out of your way. I’ll hang out with Laurie and catch up with him, and I’ll leave you alone. I appreciate that’s what you want.’
I nod and he moves his finger away slowly.
‘You came to find me in the shower, to tell me you’re going to stay out of my way?’ I ask, eyes narrowed.
His pupils dilate as he searches my face for something. We’re so close I can see the smattering of freckles across his nose. All this time I thought he had blue eyes, but they’re not blue, they’re grey. A very, very light grey.
‘Anyway,’ he says, shaking me out of my thoughts, ‘you don’t like me, either. You called me a farthead. So.’
‘Well,’ I say. ‘That I’m not sorry about …’
‘It’s a very retro insult,’ he presses on. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever been called a farthead before.’
‘I’ve called you that behind your back for years,’ I bat back, but before he can reply, a voice speaks.
‘Oh!’
Jamie steps back and clears his throat like we’ve been caught. But caught doing what – talking? Tentatively finding less inflammatory ground? It’s Dad, and he fills the doorway and looks between us like he’s on the verge of asking if he’s interrupting, before deciding against it.
‘I didn’t realise you weren’t dressed,’ Dad says, but whether he means me or the half-naked Jamie opposite me, I can’t tell.
‘I didn’t realise she was using the shower,’ Jamie says. ‘Sorry, Flo.’
He motions to Dad that he needs to slip by. Dad moves, but keeps addressing us both.
‘Two birds with one stone, actually,’ he says. ‘Kate has booked us all surprise massages! There are two masseurs downstairs, who are going to pummel everyone in the family into heavenly oblivion. Isn’t that fun? And the plumbers have arrived, to make sure we don’t get any more leaks.’
Jamie has his back to me, his hands on the banister that runs in a horseshoe shape to make a balcony over the stairs. He half turns to Dad and says, ‘Oh, great. I’ll be right there.’
‘Flo, you too,’ says Dad. ‘You’re up first, I think.’
Jamie still lingers, even after Dad heads back downstairs, and so I say to his back, once we’re out of earshot, ‘Was there anything else you wanted?’
‘No,’ Jamie replies, barely looking back. He drops his chin to his chest and takes a massive breath, his girthy shoulders rising dramatically and then falling, like he’s releasing anything further he might say into the ether, instead of allowing it to form words. ‘That was all.’