Chapter Twenty
‘Couldn’t you have called me?’ I said. ‘Not that evening. But later, once the shock had worn off?’
‘I just … my trust was shattered,’ he explained.
‘I hated my parents in that moment. The people I loved most in the world had lied to me for over thirty years. And if they were capable of that, then so must everyone else be. And I was falling for you and it scared me. I felt completely paranoid, started convincing myself that what we had wasn’t real, that you were probably hiding something from me, too, that you weren’t who you said you were.
It took some time to get over all that and to feel like myself again. ’
I didn’t know what to think. On one hand I could empathise.
Sometimes, when I was a child, I used to fantasise that I was adopted and that one day my real, attentive, loving parents would swoop in and save me from my imposter mum and dad, who, although I loved, I wasn’t sure wholeheartedly loved me.
Not in the way I’d always dreamed of being loved.
But, of course, that wasn’t what I really wanted.
And it must have been devastating for Aidan who had been so close to his parents.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Aidan. ‘Although I know that doesn’t cut it. Not at all.’
I kept an eye out, looking for the statue of Donatello, where Daisy had promised she would be waiting.
Aidan looked at me. ‘And for what it’s worth, I haven’t had a relationship since.’
‘But you were all about relationships!’ I said, shocked. ‘I was the one who was scared to throw myself into them. You were fearless. You went in head-first and you didn’t look back, that’s what you said.’
‘That was before.’
I thought about the fallout from the end of our relationship; how it had affected me.
Aidan had felt like a good thing in my life, a special thing, that I couldn’t wait to tell everyone about.
And when it all went wrong and I’d had to explain that actually I’d made a mistake, that I hadn’t found the love of my life after all, it had been overwhelming.
Utterly humiliating. And I think that in some ways it was why I’d thrown myself back into dating so soon.
I’d been trying to convince myself that it didn’t mean I was going to be alone forever, that there was somebody out there for me, there had to be.
Whether or not they were the right person didn’t matter in that moment because my goal was to not be alone. And then I’d met Nick.
‘I came to your work, you know,’ said Aidan.
I looked at him, shocked. ‘What? When?’
‘Once things had calmed down and my head was straight. A few weeks after I found out about my parents. I waited for you outside your office. I knew you finished at about five, so I got there early, sat on a bench in that square opposite your building.’
‘And what, you didn’t see me?’
‘I did see you.’
I shook my head, not believing it. He was there, at my office! It could all have turned out so differently.
‘Why didn’t you come over? Say something?’ I asked.
‘Because you were with Nick.’
I thought back, trawling my memories for a time when Nick had met me at work.
He didn’t usually because he worked in the city, nowhere near my office.
And then it dawned on me. Our second date.
The huge bunch of white roses he’d had delivered to my office with a note, asking me on a second date. Dinner at The Ivy.
‘It was only the second time we’d met,’ I said.
‘I wasn’t even going to see him again, because I wasn’t ready to properly date.
And I was still thinking about you all the time and didn’t feel I was in the right headspace for it.
But then he’d sent flowers to my work, asking me out for dinner that night.
I’d had a shit day, Tim had been awful. I’d thought: why not? It’s just dinner.’
‘It felt like you’d moved on pretty quickly,’ he said, looking away, down at the cobbles. ‘And part of me didn’t blame you because I knew I’d messed up by not calling you. I’d shut down, I’d had to, to protect myself.’
‘But the other part of you …?’
‘Thought I’d had a lucky escape. Because, stupidly, I’d imagined that you’d be waiting for me.
I’d pictured it all, how I’d come to your work and explain what had happened and how you’d listen and understand and just hold me, like you used to.
But then I saw you with him. And this massive bunch of flowers.
And it hadn’t even been three weeks. I even wondered whether you’d been seeing Nick the entire time you’d been seeing me. ’
‘I hadn’t. It’s just what I do – I pretend I don’t care that the person I was relying on most has completely let me down. It’s not like I even wanted to be with someone else, I just had to prove to myself that I could be if I wanted to be.’
Aidan nodded.
‘I assumed I’d pushed you away somehow,’ I continued. ‘And I came to the stupid conclusion that falling for someone that hard is dangerous and that there’s a different kind of love, like what I had with Nick eventually. Slower, gentler. And that maybe that would be easier.’
‘More within your control,’ said Aidan.
I nodded. ‘Yes. Exactly that.’
Somewhere down the street the opening bars of ‘O Mio Babbino Caro’ struck up. A busker on the violin. The two of us came to a stop next to the Donatello statue. It was past eleven thirty now. Where was Daisy?
‘I’m sure she’ll be here any minute,’ said Aidan, reading my mind.
I checked my phone. Nick had not got back to me. Odd. He was only hanging around the hotel, he’d said. He was planning to have a coffee up on the roof with his mum. Maybe he’d left his phone in the room.
‘It’s well past eleven thirty,’ I said, fanning myself with my hand. ‘Why wouldn’t she be here?’
She promised she’d be here on time. What if something terrible had happened?
‘She’s a teenager,’ reasoned Aidan, ‘they lose track of time, don’t they? Isn’t that what happened when they were late for the wine-tasting tour?’
‘Don’t get me started on that. Daisy may be an adolescent, but Nick isn’t. He was supposed to be there so that I didn’t look stupid in front of his family.’
‘Why do you care so much about what they think?’ asked Aidan.
‘I just don’t think they can get their head round the fact that Nick wants to marry someone like me.’
‘And here I am trying to get my head around the fact that you want to marry someone like him.’
I looked at him. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Did I just say that out loud?’ he said, trying to laugh it off.
‘Yes you did. So now you’re going to have to elaborate.’
Aidan sighed. ‘He seems like a nice enough guy …’
‘But …?’
‘But, when I see the two of you together, you seem different. More guarded, maybe. Like you’re trying to be a different version of yourself.’
‘That’s only because his family are here. It’s not like that usually.’
Or was it? Things were better when it was just the two of us, sure, but I still kept part of myself back, I thought.
I didn’t think he’d want to see pure, unadulterated ‘me’ with all my baggage and my anxieties and my need to please people all the time.
And Nick, in comparison, seemed very ‘normal’ and together, if a little emotionally unavailable, so I didn’t get the feeling he’d understand.
If we could exist in some sort of parallel universe where it was just the two of us, maybe it could work, but when you threw families into the mix, it got complicated.
Nick loved his family, they were important to him.
Of course he was going to listen to what they had to say and I, in turn, was going to have to accept that they’d potentially be part of my life forever.
‘I’m going to have to try Nick again. Maybe she went back to the hotel,’ I said, dialling his number.
‘Maybe. Although wouldn’t he have told you?’ said Aidan.
I wondered how I was going to word this: have you seen your daughter? You know, the one I was supposed to have been looking after for the last three hours?
It went straight to voicemail again. I held the phone in my hand, willing him to call straight back.
I paced up and down, into the courtyard and back under the arches, looking for Daisy, who could be coming from myriad different directions. Had she walked through the Piazza della Signoria, or would she come in from the other side, by the Arno?
‘Why don’t I stay here and you check back at the hotel, see if she’s made her way there?’ suggested Aidan.
‘Are you sure you wouldn’t mind?’
I’d probably feel better once I was actually doing something active, and she couldn’t have gone far. The street outside our hotel was teeming with shops, so it would make sense that she’d headed back in that direction.
‘I’ll hang around for another half an hour or so,’ said Aidan. ‘I’m sure she’ll turn up.’
I nodded gratefully. ‘OK. If you’re sure.’
Setting off in the direction of the hotel, I picked up my pace as I headed diagonally across the square.
‘Maddie!’ called Aidan.
I stopped and spun around. For some reason, it felt like a moment that had the capacity to change everything.
‘If you want to talk more,’ he said, ‘you know where I am.’