Chapter 43
Ivy
We spend our last day clinging to each other with a toxic mix of false cheer and premature wistfulness and teeth-gritting determination to make it count.
Skating alongside the top of all that is a healthy dash of Venice porn—enough to send a girl over the edge all on its own—and a weird friction under my skin that I can only describe as hyperactivity meets hysteria.
I feel like I’m on the fucking brink. As if I can’t believe that this is it, that we’re so close to the end, and yet I’m giddy with the knowledge that that’s this evening’s problem.
Tomorrow’s problem. Today I’m here with him! In Venice! And he’s holding my hand!
Yeah, I feel as unhinged as I sound.
We take the vaporetto across from St Mark’s to the tiny island of San Giorgio Maggiore, where a beautiful white-fronted Palladian church stands. I’ve been eyeing it all weekend, dying for a close-up. The view of the city from its campanile doesn’t disappoint, and Xav and I take a million selfies.
As we’re waiting for the vaporetto back across the mouth of the Grand Canal, our frankly outrageous good weather fortune runs out, and it starts raining.
Like, pissing it down. By the time we circle back to Piazza San Marco, they’re laying out the elevated walkways: big slabs of wood on metal frames that I’ve noticed lying around the square in stacks this weekend.
I wondered what they were and assumed they were spare benches.
But no. Turns out, when it rains in Venice, the six or so inches of margin between sea level and the flat edges of the pathways become a major fucking problem, and quickly.
Anyone not in a boat has to choose between getting out their waders or navigating the slippery makeshift walkways in the main areas while the smaller pathways skirting the canals become impassable.
Not only would Old Dawn have enjoyed the pathetic fallacy at play as I prepare to part ways with Xav for good, but she might secretly have thought that the Queen of the Adriatic was the perfect analogy for our relationship.
Enchanting beyond belief.
Structurally unsound.
And sinking fast.
What remaining light there is in the sky has been totally obliterated by the huge black storm clouds as we speed back across the lagoon to the airport, shut up inside the long, low cab of our private taxi transfer.
It’s so fucking miserable that I almost laugh.
Leaving a place as uniquely captivating as Venice would have been devastating even if Xav and I were returning to a bright future.
Leaving Venice and saying goodbye to Xav on the same day now strikes me as masochistic self-sabotage of the most epic proportions.
We’re quiet on the plane home. He holds my hand the whole way, and we both read our books one-handed. We break for dinner, but when it comes to sipping our wine, neither of us pulls our hand away. Instead, we put our books face-down on our laps as we drink.
The flight attendant looking after us is a sweet lady, probably in her fifties.
‘I hope you don’t mind my saying,’ she says as she refills our glasses, ‘but you really do make the most beautiful couple.’
I plaster on a smile as I thank her, but as soon as she’s moved past our row, I bury my face in Xav’s neck.
I cannot bear this.
When I finally pull away and look at him, his face is white and pinched.
Heathrow is an offensive blare of artificial lights and people who most definitely aren’t as devastated as we are, but, sadly, no queues.
Our luggage comes through far too quickly—the downside of having big Club Europe labels stuck to them—and, before I know it, Xav and I are standing in the arrivals hall, looking decidedly less ecstatic than all the people who are having their Love Actually moments.
His driver, Charlie, is already here, waiting at a respectful distance to whisk me back to the Harrow Road. Xav will grab his car from the car park and drive himself back to Belvedere.
And that will be that.
Xav has put his fancy overnight bag on the ground so he can cup my face. I stare up at him. I’ve threaded my hands inside of his coat in order to feel his body heat through his soft cashmere jumper.
His face is so dear to me.
Every tiny detail of him is so dear to me.
How can this possibly be happening? And how can the end of a relationship that never was, not really, hurt so fucking much?
He screws up his face as if in pain as he strokes my cheeks with his thumbs. His touch is so soft. So gentle. So caring.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says.
I shake my head within the cradle of his hands. ‘Don’t be. You’ve made me so happy.’
‘I wish things were different.’
I laugh, but I’ve never been less amused. ‘Yeah. Me too.’
We continue to gaze at each other. He strokes some hair off my face, and I lift a hand and place it on his cheek. I need to hold still for a few seconds and commit the feeling of his skin, his stubble, to memory.
The woman he’s marrying doesn’t even want him.
She doesn’t appreciate him.
The pain is so bad, I think I might die, and I haven’t even left him yet. It’s the coldest, darkest time of the year, and I won’t survive without his light.
‘I want you to know,’ I whisper, ‘I really do hope you find happiness. I mean it. You’re too special to be unhappily married.’
His hand moves in my hair. ‘You too. I hope you know how special you are. You’ll light someone’s life up—I just wish it could be mine.’
There’s nothing we can say that will make it better, so we don’t try. Instead, he steps forward and captures my hands before he kisses me. Slowly. Perfectly. I yield for him as his tongue coaxes its way into my mouth, and time stands still.
This is the very last time his tongue will be in my mouth.
Eventually, the kiss ends, just as we know it has to.
‘I will always, always love you,’ he says.
Just like always, he gives my hands a reassuring squeeze before he pulls his away.
And then he’s gone: a dark, dashing figure weaving his way through other people’s effusive reunions and leaving me to my private grief.
It may be the depths of winter, but the song that feels most appropriate for this moment, in the back of Xavier’s family’s swanky Land Rover, is ‘August’. I’m the other woman, the heady, ill-advised fling. The one who didn’t get the guy in the end.
I’m the cheap bottle of wine that went down beautifully (pun definitely intended).
And all he’ll be left with is a stinking hangover.
I listen to it over and over as I scroll through the beautiful, vibrant photos from the weekend. Sure, Venice is gorgeous, but not even she can compete with the sheer happiness in our smiles.
As the Harrow Road draws near and the prospect of this coming Friday’s move goes from nightmare to reality, I pull up my messages with Xavier.
One more for the road. I start to type.
I’ll always love you too
Thank you for the memories xx
I pause a moment until the two little ticks appear next to them, and then I pull up Xav’s contact information.
With a trembling finger, I hit the Block button.