Chapter 30.
Now
Over the next week or so, Ash fails to respond to my messages, or answer my calls. He hasn’t gone as far as to block me, but every time I ring him, I imagine he’s probably getting close. My brain bumper-cars between emotions – guilt, frustration, desperation. I drift off frequently at work, raking over what happened, wondering if we can come back from it, whether he’ll end it for good. If he hasn’t already. I fail to sleep, busying myself with chores into the early hours, because I know if I get into bed, all I’ll think about is the fact that he’s not in it with me.
I consider calling Lara for advice. But something stops me. The thought, perhaps, that I rejected her for nearly a decade, and wasn’t even there when her dad died. My feelings for her still lie somewhere in the baffling no-man’s land between guilt and resentment.
Eventually, Ash responds, telling me work’s been crazy and he just needs some time. Not long after that – a full fortnight on from when I last saw him – he arrives at the office for a meeting with Parveen. I know they’ve been due to review and check the lighting and electrical layouts for Millbrook, and I’ve been restless and fidgety for most of the day, waiting for the clock to hit three p.m.
Parveen knows something’s happened, but I’ve told her it’s complicated, that I’m not ready to talk about it – though I have made it clear the fault lies with me. So, other than bringing me endless cups of tea and telling me she’s here if I want to chat, she hasn’t pressed me on it. I’d love to confide in her – but I really respect Parveen, and have no immediate desire to confess something that might make her feel the opposite way about me.
When I finally see him, it feels as though someone’s hot-wired all my limbs. Forty agonising minutes later, I try to catch his eye as he walks out, but he keeps his gaze trained firmly towards the door, and because I’m on the phone to a client, I can’t run after him. As I watch him go, I hear my voice waver. Fortunately, my client only takes this to mean I’m getting highly emotional about her Venetian plaster walls.
Seeing him has confirmed what I already knew, deep down – that I’m not ready for this to end. I want to save this. I want to save us . Even though the situation seems so complicated. In the compass of my heart, I know he is true north.
I message him again.
I don’t want this to end I love you Please let me make this right
I am fully prepared for the double-tick of doom, made all the more torturous by a lack of response. But to my surprise, this time, the typing dots spring to life.
Don’t want it to either
My heart soars.
Just needed some time Sorry. Wasn’t trying to make you feel worse. Can I see you?
We meet after work in an underground bar. Outside, it’s a sultry evening, the air bloated with heat. Inside, it is packed. We order cocktails, find space to squeeze onto two stools in a shadowy corner. I wish more than anything I could turn back time to when we were last in here and Ash had his hand on my leg, his lips to my ear.
‘Talk to me,’ I whisper, as we sit, borrowing Lara’s favourite phrase. Even though I am nervous, the relief I feel to be finally given a chance to explain myself is immense.
But his usually warm eyes look cool and grave. His face is wearied in a way that suggests a run of sleepless nights, though whether that’s down to me or work pressures, I have no idea.
‘I feel like an idiot, Neve.’
‘It’s me who should be feeling that way, not you.’
‘Can I ask you something?’
‘Of course,’ I say.
‘Were you... thinking about him, when you were with me?’
I know he means in bed. Thankfully, this is easy to answer. ‘God, no .’
I can’t deny there were fleeting points when Jamie drifted into my mind in those moments. But they were only ever transient. Scraps of unbidden memory, half-seconds at most, by no means some kind of enduring fantasy.
Ash frowns, looking past me towards the cluster of people at the bar. But I can see only him: the brush of his collar against his neck, the splay of his legs on the bar stool, the turn of his wrist as he lifts his glass.
‘It’s been hard for me,’ he says. ‘To trust again. Since Tabitha.’
I wonder if perhaps Tabitha called Ash by the wrong name once, too. If that was his first clue to her affair. He says he stumbled across a thread of messages buried deep in her WhatsApp, but maybe she made the same mistake I did, and he felt too crushed to tell me.
The thought that I’m effectively putting him through that again makes me feel sick.
‘I promise,’ I say, ‘nothing like that will ever happen again.’
‘I mean, it can’t,’ he says, meeting my eye. ‘I’m sure you can understand that.’
‘Of course I do,’ I assure him, softly.
Ash sips his cocktail. It is something dark, rich with walnuts and rum. ‘I mean, ultimately, I want to be with you, Neve.’
Without warning, a few tears spill down my cheeks.
‘Hey,’ he says, softening, leaning forward to wipe my face with his thumb, the tenderness with which he does so making my stomach swim. ‘Don’t get upset. I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to be an arsehole. I don’t want to make you feel bad.’
I shake my head, because what I’m actually feeling is a mess of remorse and relief.
‘The stupid thing is, I get it, Neve. Weirdly enough, I do understand. And I want to move past this.’ He leans into me then, puts a hand to my face and kisses me, tentatively. ‘If that’s what you want. Which is why I need to ask you—’ He breaks off, punches out a breath, looks down at where our legs are now nudged tightly together.
I stare at him, unable to imagine what he might be about to say.
‘Before all this happened, I booked... a trip for us. It was going to be a surprise.’
‘A trip?’ I say softly.
‘Yeah. I asked Parveen to help arrange it all with Kelley. A long weekend in September. I thought... we could go to Amsterdam. I mean, you have the guidebook at home but you’ve never been, and you haven’t had a holiday in way too long either, so I thought... Well, I wanted to surprise you.’
A surge of conflicting emotions. Amsterdam. Amsterdam . ‘That’s . . . that’s . . .’
He stares down at his half-finished cocktail, lets out an uneasy laugh. ‘Anyway. Parveen asked me today if we were still planning on going, and... I knew straight away that I wanted to. That I do want to. That... actually I’d love to just get past what’s happened and put it behind us.’
Despite everything that Amsterdam means to me, my heart goes into orbit. ‘I’d love to,’ I say, kissing him back. ‘I’d love to go away with you.’
Our houses are pretty much equidistant from the bar, but without discussion, we find ourselves walking back to mine. Above our heads, the sky rumbles, and I realise a storm is coming.
I try not to think about rain. The way it always feels like it’s hammering on my heart.
Back at the house, we head wordlessly upstairs, turning to each other in the dark heat of the bedroom. Next to the fireplace, he drops to his knees, pushing my dress up and my underwear down, gripping me from behind. Beyond the window, the storm finally breaks, the rain hitting the glass as hard as hail. I try to let what we’re doing drown out the sound of it. I reach out for something to hold on to, swiping through empty air until my fingers find the top of the fire surround. I cling to cold metal as he draws me to a precipice, again and again. My eyes roll back. My limbs go weak. My blood becomes a rush of repeating pleasure. But the whole time, I am biting my lip, so I don’t say something I can’t take back.