Chapter 28
Elaine’s heart clenched and she closed her eyes against the sting of his words. Then she stopped once more and turned, nailing on a mask of polite good cheer. “Congratulations. And who’s the lucky lady? Is it Lorna? Or Alex?”
He shook his head. “Her name is Elle.”
She nodded, and her breathing felt ragged, as if something had broken inside. She felt powerfully the vast waste of her life. It had become a garden of momentary pleasures, the flowers blooming and withering in minutes while the soil they sprang from slowly turned barren. Meanwhile, ordinary, decent folk like Dan and Elle were planting for the future.
Her mouth twisted with scorn as an amusing bit of wordplay occurred to her. “From Kay to Elle,” she said. “And if Elle doesn’t work out, you can move on to Em.” She saw the hurt this induced and enjoyed it like the sharp sound of a slapped cheek, but then she just felt stupidly cruel. “I’m sorry. I wish you every happiness, Dan. Really. I’m glad you’ve moved on. I hope she’s a good person. You deserve good people in your life. ”
“There’s something I’ve got to say to you before I get married,” he said.
The day had grown darker around them. The wind blew, ruffling the feathers of the geese by the canal, and carrying with it spatterings of rain that felt like a warning. He looked, she thought, like a man in torment. He didn’t seem to want to be here any more than she did, and she couldn’t understand why he was. It bothered her, and she knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight for thinking about it.
They sat on the bench, closer than they might have on a warmer day, huddled against the wind and the gusts of drizzle. She asked after Jeremy, and for the first time that afternoon Dan sounded genuinely happy as he brought her up to date: “He’s deeply in love with your old colleague Sondra.”
“You’re kidding! And does she feel the same way?”
“Oh yes. I’ve never seen a better-matched couple.”
Elaine experienced a lumpy mixture of elation and jealousy at this news. Would she ever again be capable of pure happiness at the news of someone else’s good fortune, or would it always have this acid aftertaste? She pictured her bossy, principled, lonely former friend and could see instantly how, of course, she’d take Jeremy under her wing.
“She’s been the making of him,” said Dan. “He’s not nearly as emotionally fragile these days. In fact, he’s full of confidence. We still meet up for a pint once a week, but it no longer feels like a therapy session – or if it does, I’m now the patient.”
“Why would you need therapy?” Elaine asked. “You’re about to marry the love of your life.”
“That’s true.” The way they were sitting, side by side, she couldn’t easily see his face, but she could hear the chuckle in his voice, and thought it sounded hollow.
“She is the love of your life, isn’t she?”
“Oh yes. Elle’s a wonderful woman. A doctor, actually.”
“A doctor? You’ve done well for yourself.”
“She’s also tremendously practical. She can mend a fuse and unblock a drain. And she has phenomenal energy. Loves going out. Fills our calendar with bookings for the theatre or outings to National Trust properties. I’ve never felt so busy or organised in my life.”
Elaine absorbed all this with an inner scowl. “She sounds perfect,” she said. “I’ll bet she bakes a mean brownie, too.”
“She’s not a bad cook,” was all he said.
The wind blew, and she tugged her quilted coat more tightly around her. “I’m very happy for you. All your needs seem to have been met. So why exactly are we here? Why did you go to all this trouble to track me down? And did you really flirt with Alex?”
“Maybe a little. Though I assure you, I did not have sexual relations with that woman. ”
She couldn’t help a smile. “Enough with the Bill Clinton quotes. What did you want to say to me?”
He gazed in the direction of the canal, but seemed oblivious to it. Faint glimmers of sunlight the colour of dull chrome lit his eyes. The lines of his face were hard and tense.
When he failed to respond, she started to gather her things. “I’d better go,” she said.
“I’ve not had a single happy day since you left,” he said.
She sat back down. “I’m sorry,” she said with some venom. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. How many times do you want me to say it? I did a horrible thing and I regret it. I lied to you and I hurt both you and Jeremy. You have every reason to hate me.” She was flushed and angry, but she forced herself to calm down. “You’ve got to move on, Dan. You can’t keep all that hate locked up in your heart. It’s not good for you. You’ve found someone you can love and that’s good. Focus on that. Forget about me.”
“I can’t!” he almost shouted. “I can’t forget about you, that’s the truth. And it’s not because I hate you. I’m not saying I didn’t, at first. For a while you were the biggest, meanest shark in my lake. I wanted to take out my boat and harpoon you, metaphorically speaking. But that pure form of hatred didn’t last more than a month. After that, I started remembering things. I remembered you telling me about you and your dad going to the Hill Garden and Pergola, looking for fairies. I remembered how you looked at me as you tugged at your hair just before we kissed that first time. And then there were the odd little things Sondra came out with when the three of us were together, how you once told her she was your good angel perched on your shoulder. I really liked that. I remembered that beautiful photograph you took of the woman on the subway steps. I remembered the way you hugged me that last time, after football practice. What I’m saying is, I started to realise you weren’t this cold-hearted she-monster I’d turned you into. Not entirely anyway. There was some good in you…”
“Golly gee thanks!” said Elaine. “I can’t tell you how much it fills my heart with joy to hear I’m not entirely a cold-hearted she-monster.”
“What I’m trying to tell you,” he said, “is the… the way my thinking developed over time. I wasn’t ready to forgive you at that point. I was still hurting, still hating you but not quite so much. And like you said, that hatred wasn’t doing me any good. I needed something positive in my life. After Lorna and then you, I wanted to find a love that didn’t feel toxic. So I joined serendipity.com, just to see what would happen. I met some great women and had a lot of fun. They restored my faith in humanity. One of them was Elle. We clicked at once, and started seeing each other, casually at first, but it quickly became more serious. Before I knew it we were picking out furniture, setting up home. Getting engaged didn’t seem like that bi g a deal, just another step in an inevitable process towards a life together. The only fly in the ointment was you."
"What do you mean?"
"Over the past few months, you’ve come back into my thoughts. You’re like this soft, golden, laughing presence who hovers in the background whenever I’m with her. You’re burning brownies and falling off my beanbag and… and telling me that sweaty men get you hot. You’re like a memory of sunlight on my skin and when it’s gone everything feels chillier and gloomier than it would have if the sun had never been there. It’s not that I don’t enjoy my life with Elle, but it will always be in the shadow of you.”
Elaine shook her head, not understanding. “But I’m the she-monster, you just said so.”
“No, you’re not. I just called you that because that’s what I do to anyone who challenges my own self-image or hurts my pride. I monstify them. I turn them into a shark. You called yourself Elaine, pretended you were an actor. So what? You never lied to me about anything important. When I put you on the spot that day in the park, you could have said you loved me. That’s what a true liar would have done – they’d tell you what you wanted to hear. Instead, you told me something infinitely better, which was the truth.
“The truth is, I like Elle. I may even love her in some sense of that word. If I’d never met you, I’d probably have been very happy with her. But when I’m with her, even in our best, most intimate moments, I never feel as alive as I did when I was with you. Not even close.”
Elaine could no longer feel the wind or the coldness on her legs. She felt numb and soft, like clay, ready be moulded by forces she didn’t understand. He was sitting very close to her, his mouth just inches from her ear, his voice soft and rhythmic like the sea crashing on her reef, like something inside her. She could almost sense his thoughts as they shaped themselves into words.
“There is goodness in you, Elaine. A lot of goodness. More than you know. And when it shines through, there’s no one like you, no one on Earth. That’s what I wanted to say. I could sit here and paint you a happy picture of my life. I could make you believe it, and almost make myself believe it. But the truth is my life is empty. I could spend six decades with Elle or any other woman, and it wouldn’t give me an ounce of what I feel just sitting next to you now. I can’t explain it. There’s probably no sense in even trying. I should hate you for what you did. Instead I’m just madly in love with you... But that’s the human heart, right? It is what it is. There’s no explaining it.”
“This is stupid,” said Elaine, still numb, but forcing the words out because she was starting to feel affronted and scared. “You’re about to get married. You shouldn’t be here saying these things to me. This is just last-minute nerves. You can’t possibly mean these things. Go back to your b- bride.”
Dan nodded. “I will, don’t worry. I’m going to go home now and tomorrow afternoon at two o’clock I’ll be there at Enfield Register Office and I’ll marry Elle. But I couldn’t do it without talking to you first and telling you how I feel.”
“And what am I supposed to do with that now?” she cried, shaking with anger. “What am I? A dumping ground for other people’s excess emotions? This is self-indulgent crap! You can go away now, having got all that off your chest, and get on with your life while I just sit here and stew on everything you said. It’s s-so unfair.” She could feel the sobs starting in her chest and pressed hard at her eyes with the back of her hand, trying to force back the tide.
“No!” he shouted with a ferocity equalling hers. “This is not self-indulgent crap. This is completely serious. I’m making you an offer.”
“What are you talking about?” she groaned, lowering her hand so she could see him.
“I’m telling you that you only have to say the word. Just tell me you’re willing to give things another try, and I’ll call off the wedding.”
“That’s stupid!” she said. “You can’t do that.”
“Why not? Don’t you feel anything for me?”
“It’s not that.” Her heart was beating dangerously fast, like a runaway train hurtling towards disaster. She needed time, time to think, to understand what he was saying. “Even if I wanted to say yes, I couldn’t be responsible for breaking another person’s heart.”
“And if Elle was out of the picture? If there was no Elle? What would your answer be then?”
“But she isn’t,” she sighed. “Oh God, this is all so sudden. I can’t think…”
“Then have a think. Take your time.”
He leaned back on the bench, giving her space. The wind had softened, and the clouds had thinned to the west. Dull silver glimmered on his wet cheeks. His face had a harsh, chiselled beauty.
“I don’t trust myself Dan. I’ll hurt you, and I’ll hurt myself. I’m not reliable. At some point, I’ll start lying again.”
“You lied because of that mess with Jeremy. You liked me, and you wanted me to keep on liking you, so you lied. But if we’re honest with each other from the start, why would you ever need to lie?”
“Because lying is my superpower. It’s what I am. Why do you think I do this job? My job is to lie and to fake love and excitement and joy with strangers.”
Dan said nothing for a moment. He blinked and squinted as if trying to see through the dampness in his eyes. “What you do is similar to acting, right? You tell people what they want to hear, but you don’t mean it.”
She wished with all her heart she could have said yes to this, but it wasn’t that simple. It was, as Garfield once described it, that she offered something extremely close to the truth, and that required lying of the very highest order – lying that was so good it didn’t feel like lying any more, it felt like the truth, at least at the time she said it. That was why she was so good at this job.
“Sometimes I do mean it,” she admitted. “Sometimes I’ll fall for a client. Not often, but occasionally. And even when I don’t, I’ll feel something for them, something adjacent to love. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be convincing. I can’t do this job and be with you. It would be wrong.”
Dan swallowed and winced as if he’d eaten something rotten. “And this is what you want to do? This job? This is what makes you happy?”
“This is me.”
He nodded, then abruptly rose to his feet. “Thank you, Elaine, for hearing me out, and for being honest. If you change your mind, my offer still stands.” His face, tilted towards her, was mostly in shadow and she could no longer see his eyes, but she noticed the tremor in his hands and the quiet crack in his voice as he said: “I wish you every happiness.”
And then he was gone, striding quickly away into the cold, late afternoon mist.