Chapter 29.
Then
‘Where would you like to go most in the world?’ Jamie asked me one night, after getting off the phone to his dad. It was the January of our second year at uni. Chris had just booked a cruise, fourteen days in the Caribbean with Debra and her mother. He’d invited Jamie too, but Jamie had had to remind him it would be his final year of undergraduate study that winter, that he couldn’t possibly take two weeks off to lie on a pool deck and drink pi?a coladas in thirty-degree heat. It amused me, overhearing him making the trip of a lifetime sound frivolous, like something he couldn’t possibly spare the time to indulge. I knew his dad would have hated that.
I lay back against Jamie’s chest, enjoying feeling secure in his arms. We were in bed, listening to Ellie Goulding. His hair was damp from the shower, the linger of mint bodywash still on his skin.
I felt so loved, in that moment. Cared for. Safe.
‘I don’t know,’ I said, in answer to his question.
‘Well, where’s your favourite place you’ve been?’
‘I quite liked Devon.’
He nudged me playfully. ‘I meant abroad.’
‘I’ve never been abroad.’
Next to me, I felt him draw away. ‘Shut up.’
‘You know this. When have I ever been abroad?’
A couple of moments passed. ‘Oh,’ he said slowly. ‘Right. Okay.’
I shrugged. ‘Anyway, I don’t have a passport.’
‘You don’t have a passport,’ he repeated, like I’d just confessed I couldn’t read, or didn’t have a legal name.
‘Nope,’ I said, bristling defensively, trying not to think about what his father would say, if he knew. You need to be with a girl who’s well-travelled, Jamie. How can someone have a broad perspective on life if they’ve never even left England?
The more I’d come to know about Jamie’s dad, the more I wanted to avoid him. I’d started to have doubts about exactly the type of man he was. Was he, for example, one of those dads who delighted in doing slightly perverse, alarm-bell things like taking his son to strip clubs, or setting him up with the daughters of family friends? I imagined him grilling Jamie about me, probably in one of those pubs with stags’ heads all over the walls, demanding to know – again – why he’d insisted on committing so young.
I had no evidence for any of this, of course. But I distrusted him deeply, and found that hard to hide. So whenever Jamie mentioned him, I would change the subject. And every time he went to visit him – which he’d done a few times recently, spending several weekends in Putney in the four months or so since his internship had ended – I’d started to feel not disappointment, but relief, that we’d both begun to assume he would make each trip alone.
‘Don’t you want to?’ Jamie said now.
‘Don’t I want to what?’
‘Go abroad.’
‘I can’t afford it.’
‘Forget the money.’
‘Only people with money say, Forget the money .’
‘I mean, theoretically. If you had the money, would you go?’
On holiday with you? In a heartbeat . ‘Obviously.’
He broke into a smile. ‘Okay. Get a passport, and we’ll catch a plane somewhere for a long weekend.’
‘Just like that?’
‘Yeah. Just like that.’
I loved how easy he always made life sound. Nothing was ever a barrier, no suggestion too much trouble. Which largely came down to being rich, of course. After all, as Lara would say, optimism was easy when you could pay your way out of pretty much any problem.
From downstairs, the timer started to sound on the oven. The lasagne he’d made us was ready.
He got up, then leaned down to kiss me. ‘I’m serious. I love you. Let’s go somewhere.’
‘You just told your dad you couldn’t go on that cruise. He won’t be too impressed if you turn around and—’
He paused by the door. ‘For the last time. I don’t care what my dad thinks.’
But you do. You care a lot .
‘You’re serious, aren’t you?’
‘Yeah. I’d love it. Wouldn’t you?’
I’d mini-break to a war zone, I thought, if you were by my side.
A month or so later, I was working on a uni project, creating sketches for upholstery using Islamic pattern structure. I was fully absorbed, switching smoothly between compass and ruler, virtually meditating. It was probably the project I’d loved the most since starting my course.
Jamie walked into the living room. ‘Shut your eyes and hold out your hands.’
This wasn’t a good way to distract me from my sketchbook. My dad used to play this game, insisting the surprise would be good, and when I opened my eyes there would be a cold clump of soil in my palms, alive with wriggling worms, or a meaty tangle of last night’s spaghetti. I always fell for it, let him persuade me that this time, I could trust him.
That was one thing I didn’t miss about my father – the way he sometimes liked to toy with me. Press buttons I didn’t know I had.
‘This is a very intricate project, actually. I can’t shut my eyes.’
‘All right. Then just... look at me for a minute.’ So I did, and Jamie held up a piece of paper. ‘I booked it. A long weekend, this September.’
I discarded my sketchbook and got to my feet. ‘Are you serious? Where?’
‘Amsterdam.’ He was beaming. ‘We can fly from Norwich. Harry’s been, he says it’s ace. I know it’s a while off, but you get a better hotel if you book ahead.’
I put my arms around him, burying my face in his neck. Visions of canals and gabled buildings, of cobbled streets filled with bikes and flower stalls and pavement cafes were already reeling happily through my mind.
‘And... I got you this, too.’ He removed a book from the deep pocket of his woollen coat and handed it to me. The Lonely Planet guide to Amsterdam. ‘Better gen up,’ he said, catching my eye in a way that only he could, and I knew he got a kick out of making me feel special.
‘I love you.’ Every time I said it, it felt more true.
‘He’s going to propose.’
‘What?’ I laughed. Lara and I were in Frank’s Bar while Jamie played pool with friends. I liked Frank’s and its emporium feel, the cosy jumble of tables, the timber-beamed ceilings and offbeat lampshades, the intimate bohemian vibe. It was somewhere I always felt at home.
‘I’m telling you,’ Lara said, sipping her beer, leaving a thick print of bright pink lipstick on the neck of the bottle. ‘Why else would he suggest a holiday?’
‘To be romantic?’
‘Yeah, and what’s more romantic than a proposal? You’ve been together – what, nearly five years?’
‘Nearly,’ I said – but did all those years count? I did wonder, sometimes. We’d been kids for three of them. It wasn’t like we’d met when we were thirty.
Jamie and I constantly referenced our future, though, saying things like When we’re married , and When we have kids , and Once we’ve got our own place . I guess I kind of took it for granted that we were planning to spend our lives together. But a ring? A proposal? An actual wedding? I hadn’t expected any of those things to be imminent, at least not while we were still studying.
Then again, we’d always been the exception to the norm, hadn’t we? Most people our age hadn’t been in a relationship since they were fifteen. Most of them wouldn’t have wanted to be. That we might be arriving at convention ten years ahead of time felt... unconventional, somehow. So in that sense, really, it suited us.
‘You should think about what you’d say. If he got down on one knee.’
There wasn’t an ounce of hesitation inside me. ‘I’d say yes, obviously.’
‘Definitely?’
‘Definitely.’
‘I’d be happy for you.’
A beat passed. ‘But . . .?’ I prompted.
‘But . . . don’t forget what I said, okay?’
‘About what?’
‘Not making your . . . whole life about Jamie.’
I swallowed. ‘I haven’t forgotten.’
Her blue eyes found mine. ‘Marriage isn’t everything. It’s not... automatic security.’
‘Lara, stop. I know that. Don’t you think I know that better than anyone?’
‘You still need a career, your own money—’
‘I know. This isn’t the 1950s. Look at my mum. I know that .’
‘Good. Just as long as you do.’
I shook my head, changed the subject. ‘What about you and Sam?’ I sipped my pisco sour, enjoying its slightly savage tang. ‘Is it going anywhere, do you think?’ They’d been seeing each other on and off since the summer.
‘Nah. I’m going to let him down gently.’
‘What? Why?’
‘He told me last week he’s considering retraining to be a lawyer.’
‘Oh.’
‘He said a career in film and TV is too “unpredictable”.’ She shook her head. ‘Imagine jacking in your job because it’s not quite boring enough.’
At that, we both started laughing, and ordered in another round of drinks.
Lara and I went on holiday together once, when we were fourteen. Her aunt had gifted Corinne and Billy a week in a caravan in Devon, only the third chance they’d had to get away since Lara was born.
Jamie had already been on more holidays than I could count, to places like Florida, Switzerland, California. Chris had even bought a villa in Tuscany. There had recently been talk about sending Jamie to private school, too, but straight away Jamie had said he would refuse to go.
I was probably already in love with him by then, though we hadn’t yet kissed.
The sun blazed beautifully, untroubled by clouds, for the whole seven days we were in Devon. Being teenagers, Lara and I were in the mood for spending time together, alone, sunbathing and gossiping and not having our style cramped. Her rebellious phase was just kicking in, so we’d sneak cigarettes from Corinne’s handbag and little nips of wine from the bottle in the fridge.
One evening, Corinne sat down next to me outside the caravan while Lara was having a shower. It had been blisteringly hot for the past few days, and my pale skin was poached pink with sunburn. Corinne and Lara, on the other hand, had developed deep, beautiful tans.
Our caravan was next to a dense run of gorse bushes, and I’d been enjoying the coconutty scent of the yolk-yellow blossom, the freeing feeling of being out from under my mother’s feet. I was slightly dazzled by the peace and quiet, too. Life rarely felt calm back home, what with all Mum’s singing and crying and chucking stuff at hard surfaces. Here, there was only birdsong and the occasional crunch of car tyres against gravel, people chatting and laughing behind windbreaks.
Corinne sparked up a cigarette, passed it to me, and said, ‘You’re a good friend to Lar.’
‘She’s a good friend to me,’ I said, meekly taking the cigarette from Corinne like I hadn’t been nicking them from her bag all week.
She lit one for herself. I noticed her hair was greying around the sides and on the crown. Lara had told me she was in her late fifties – as old as my actual grandmother. Maybe that was why she was so kind. Because grandmothers were, weren’t they?
‘How are things with your mum?’ Corinne asked me.
‘Fine, thanks,’ I lied. It had been two years since Dad had left Mum for Bev. Mum was still prone to bursting into tears out of nowhere and prank-calling Bev after she’d had a few drinks. Last month, she’d turned up at parents’ evening with a hip flask.
Our mothers had only crossed paths a handful of times, since Mum was mortally averse to anything school-related like picnics or playdates or birthday parties. Maybe there was a mutual acknowledgement that they would have nothing in common. Or perhaps it was partly down to their age gap. Mum once said to me, ‘First baby after forty . You tell me what went wrong there.’
I remember thinking that wrong was an odd choice of word.
‘You know you can come to me about anything?’ Corinne said then. Her blue eyes were resting on me, crinkled at the corners. I wanted to squirm away and throw my arms around her all at once.
Maybe word had got round about the hip flask. ‘Okay,’ I said, stiffly.
‘You know, no parent is perfect, Neve.’
But I had never wanted a perfect parent. Just one who at least gave the impression she could be arsed, like Corinne.
I didn’t know Jamie’s mum very well at that point, but she too seemed loving and attentive and kind. There were always chocolate biscuits in her cupboard and cans of proper Coke in the fridge, and to my knowledge she’d never screamed at Jamie to do his own laundry, or been arrested, or propositioned his maths teacher.
‘Thank you,’ I told Corinne.
‘For what, sweetheart?’
‘Being there,’ was all I could think of to say, because it was true.
‘You’re lucky,’ I said to Lara later. ‘To have Corinne.’
We called her that sometimes, because Corinne had once told Lara she could if she wanted, even though Lara had scoffed at first. Like she’s a social worker.
‘Even though she’s ancient?’
I smiled. ‘Yeah.’
‘You know she makes sounds when she gets up now? Like, Oof . And her knees creak.’
I laughed softly. ‘Don’t be mean.’
‘And she’s all wrinkly, and so is Dad.’
‘Stop it.’
Lara lay back and sighed. ‘I am never getting old.’
‘I don’t actually think that’s your decision.’
‘Yeah, it is. First sign of a wrinkle, Botox me up. And we should probably stop smoking.’
I quite liked the idea of eternal youth. Life just seemed to get more complicated the older you got.
I held out my pinky. ‘We should make a pact, then. We’re never getting old. Swear?’
She took it and grinned. ‘Swear.’
It kind of became our refrain, after that. For years afterwards, right up until the day we stopped speaking altogether, we would periodically agree: we were never getting old.