Chapter 11
11
CALLUM
Emma looks up at me, a smile tugging at her lips, and I put my arm around her shoulders to pull her in for a brief hug; it feels as though we need to mark the moment somehow, and a hug seems natural.
At first it’s just a quick, friendly, ‘wow we had a big conversation that was long overdue’ type hug. I think.
Then I can’t help myself tightening my arms around her because it feels so good to be holding her again and it feels as though some mutual comfort’s in order, and then she tightens her arms round me too, and then we just stand there, clinging to each other, for who knows how long. I know that there’s more to say but at the moment I don’t have the words. Or maybe I’m just too cowardly.
Emma’s the first one to move slightly, and when she does I immediately loosen my arms, and then we kind of back away from each other.
We’re standing facing each other now, smiling somewhat foolishly.
When I see that Emma’s eyes are moist again, I reach my hands straight back out to her. I always hated seeing her sad, and I still hate it.
‘Hey.’ I’m not at my most articulate right now.
Emma sniffs as I take her hands in mine, trying not to notice how much I like the feel of them there, as though they belong. She shakes her head.
‘Happy tears,’ she says. ‘Or maybe not happy, but not miserable. Maybe just emotional. That talk was a good thing to do.’ She sniffs again and then, as I’m wondering whether I should say more, she says, ‘Come on. Let’s go and be tourists. I really want to see the Ponte Vecchio.’
‘Let’s go,’ I agree, ignoring the voice in my head telling me that I should have told Emma everything immediately. In my defence, I did keep trying, and she kept stopping me. No, being honest, that’s a rubbish defence. She clearly did not suspect what I had to say; she just thought I was going to apologise some more and wanted to stop me doing that.
Oh God.
Okay. I do have to tell her, well, I think I do, but I think it would be better to wait until tomorrow. Or perhaps just as we arrive back in London. I don’t know. Maybe I shouldn’t in fact tell her at all. Maybe the way she kept interrupting was fate intervening, telling me that since we won’t be staying in touch she really doesn’t have to know.
There’s certainly no point spoiling this walk.
‘Oh, wow, it’s lovely.’
Emma is – unsurprisingly – captivated by the bridge and its quaint higgledy-piggledy buildings.
I’m captivated by her. I love watching the different emotions play across her face; I love the way that when she smiles the world (especially me) smiles with her; I love… her. I love her.
I wish I could turn back time. I wish I could be a different person. We can’t get back together, though. I think I’d just hurt her again. And then we’d split up and it would be even worse than last time if that were possible, and it would take a very long time to recover. I hate the thought of Emma being hurt, and I don’t want to get hurt either.
This walk, though, this evening, this journey , I can enjoy this.
And then we’ll say goodbye. And maybe I won’t tell her. Maybe it would just hurt her for no upside whatsoever.
When you’re young you really don’t know everything. I think that both Emma and I are naturally very honest people, but age and life have taught me that sometimes, despite an inclination to get things off your chest so that you feel that you’ve done the right thing morally, keeping facts from someone is the kindest thing to do.
‘There are some beautiful buildings to see on the other side, I think,’ I say. ‘What’s your plan for tomorrow? Were you thinking of spending the morning here sightseeing? We could make a decision now about what to go and see?’
‘I’d love to visit the Uffizi Gallery in the morning if we can get tickets. And then when we leave, we can drive to the Cinque Terre villages and have a look round and maybe go to the beach the morning after. If you’re okay with all of that?’
I don’t think the Cinque Terre villages can be that far away. Maybe a three-hour drive. If we keep stopping like this it’s clearly going to at least double the length of time it takes us to get back to London.
Yesterday I’d have been very WTAF about that.
Now I’m thinking… that sounds nice. I can catch up on some work on my phone while we’re driving. Or maybe I can’t. And maybe it doesn’t really matter that much.
Apparently I’m on an impromptu holiday.
I can’t remember the last time I took one of those.
‘Sounds perfect.’ I grin at her and I think my heart skips a beat as she smiles back and then keeps on looking at me, her smile turning into something more… serious.
We’ve come to a halt at the end of the bridge. We’re standing close to each other, just… looking.
I can see the rise and fall of her chest, the curve of her cheek. I know how good we were together. I want to…
I am not going to do that, even if Emma would like to.
It would be a terrible idea.
I drag my gaze away from where it can’t help resting on her mouth and try to stop myself thinking about how when she moistened her lips just now I got just a glimpse of her teeth, and imagined her biting her lip. I force myself to think instead about the architecture surrounding us.
‘That’s a very gothic-looking building.’ I point.
Emma doesn’t hear me immediately; she was definitely thinking about something else.
‘Building?’ she echoes.
‘Building,’ I say, extremely firmly. ‘And I read earlier that there’s a legendary bronze fountain of a boar near here.’
Emma nods, still facing me. ‘That is… fascinating.’
She tilts her head to one side and I find myself mirroring her action.
I have to fight very hard with myself not to take a step towards her. I can just about manage to stay where I am, but I can’t move away. My legs won’t go in that direction.
I search for words. ‘Are you interested in Italian history?’ I ask. Wow. Boring question.
She does the lip-moistening thing again. ‘Very,’ she says.
‘Very?’ I croak. We must not kiss.
‘Soooo interested,’ she almost purrs. Oh. God.
‘Me too.’ I’m still croaking.
We both take a small step closer to each other. We’re almost touching now. But not.
I lift my right hand and very gently trace the shape of her cheek with my forefinger. I can’t not.
Emma breathes a deep sigh and puts her hands on my chest, as I bring my other hand up to cup her face.
‘Emma,’ I whisper.
‘Mmm,’ she says.
We’re looking into each other’s eyes, and I have no idea what else is happening in the vicinity, because it feels as though there’s nothing except us.
I can’t believe that after all this time we’re here like this together.
I open my mouth to say something – I don’t even know what – and oh, okay, that’s what’s in the vicinity: there’s a big crowd of English-speaking tourists and they barge into us. I realise that that’s the very definition of being saved by the bell. We would be insane to kiss now.
I mean, it’s going to be hard enough to get our heads round seeing each other again, definitely for me, and I’m guessing for Emma too, going by how she’s reacted to our conversation. There’s no point making it even harder.
And oh my God, what if she thinks that now we might get back together?
I don’t want to say explicitly that we aren’t going to, I really don’t, because that would not be a good conversation for either of us. I just need to demonstrate it via my actions. We’re old friends who’ve met again and been pleased to catch up with each other and when we finish our journey our paths will diverge again. And in the meantime we very clearly will not be kissing or anything else of that nature.
I manoeuvre so we’re more side to side than facing each other as I say with as much of a laugh as I can muster, ‘I think we’re in the way of a lot of people.’
‘I think we are,’ says Emma, and laughs too, thank God.
‘I think this is the Cattedrale dell’Immagine.’ I point at the cathedral ahead of us.
‘It’s beautiful.’ She isn’t really looking at it, because she’s looking up at me.
‘I feel like—’ I’m choosing my words carefully because I don’t want to upset her, ever , but I also want to get away from too much intimacy, which won’t help either of us afterwards ‘—given that we’re in Florence, we might regret not actually at least looking at the buildings. You know.’
Emma laughs and says, ‘You mean we should pay attention to the whole Florence-is-a-stunning-city thing,’ which hugely relieves me.
‘Exactly.’
‘Okay, yes, let’s do it. Let’s sightsee. What’s this building?’ She points and I grab my phone to check before doing my best impression of a tour guide as I yabber on about the piazzas we pass through.
We wander around the city for a good hour, until Emma, yawning, says, ‘I’m really tired and I’m going to make you very smug about your own rightness and tell you that I’m wondering what I was thinking wearing flip-flops this evening because clearly they aren’t the best sightseeing footwear.’
‘Back to the hotel?’ My watch tells me that it’s after midnight now.
Emma nods. She actually looks as though she’s going to fall asleep standing up; her eyes are closing every so often and then pinging wide open.
‘Want a piggyback?’ I suggest, barely joking.
‘Ha,’ she says. ‘A very tempting offer, but no thanks.’
She does, though, accept the arm that I can’t help myself holding out to her. And off we go.
Our rooms are on the same floor in the hotel, at diagonally opposite ends of a rectangular landing around a staircase.
I walk her to her door, because it would be weird not to, and then say, ‘You need to sleep. I can’t have my driver nodding off on the motorway.’
She nods – sleepily – and then smiles up at me.
And I – because I am apparently the most stupid man ever born – lose my mind and lean down towards her.
We stay like that for a few long moments, kind of hovering in front of each other, and then, with great care (and great stupidity), I cup her face in my hands again and lean further forwards and brush her lips with mine. It’s the lightest of touches and yet I immediately feel as though I’m drowning – in lust, in love , in something, I’m not quite sure what – and I kiss her again, a little more firmly this time.
She kisses me back and it’s the most wonderful – and stupid – kiss of my life. I’m aware, even as I keep on kissing her, pushing my fingers through her hair with one hand and hugging her body into me with the other, as she threads her arms around my neck, that it’s insane .
And then, thankfully – because I’m not sure whether I’d have summoned the strength of mind myself – she pulls back a little, and so I pull back too.
We just stare at each other. Her eyes are glazed and her mouth is slightly open, in an O shape, like she’s surprised. I imagine that my eyes are glazed too.
‘We should really both go to sleep,’ she whispers.
‘We should,’ I agree, and then finally I drag some common sense from somewhere deep inside me and say, ‘Goodnight,’ as definitively as I can.
I take a step back and watch her as she goes into her room and closes the door, with a final just-for-me beautiful little smile, and then I walk around the landing to my own room, wondering whether I should just smack my head hard on the wall next to me, because what was that?
My luxury bedroom does have a particularly luxurious bed, which I am deeply grateful for, and – as it turns out – it was very fortunate that I had such a poor night’s sleep the night before: when I wake in the morning I realise that I went to sleep a lot more easily than I would have expected given how much I had to think about.
The second I get into the shower I’m thinking again though.
I really, really can’t decide whether it’s for the best or not to tell Emma about Thea. And maybe Thea about Emma too. I’m beginning to think it isn’t. It would probably just upset Emma and confuse Thea. And if Emma and I aren’t going to see each other again, neither of them actually need to know about the other.
I fucking kissed Emma. Why, why, why?
Might she and I actually stay in touch? I don’t think so. I don’t think that would benefit either of us. I know that I couldn’t bear to see her in a relationship with someone else and I shouldn’t want to have a relationship with her myself so…
Yeah, I need to get out of the shower and stop thinking.
I message Emma when I’m dressed and we agree to meet in ten minutes’ time in the breakfast room.
I spend those ten minutes reading emails to avoid any more of the circular thought torture.
I’m already seated for breakfast when Emma arrives.
I obviously did know that she was coming and yet my heart does a little leap when she actually shows up, and I feel my lips spreading into a wide eager-puppy-style smile.
I stand up and we exchange ‘good mornings’.
I look at Emma’s feet, clad in well-worn Adidas Stan Smiths, and raise my eyebrows.
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Obviously I didn’t want to have to wear these today because clearly I don’t want to pander to your OTT don’t-wear-flip-flops-while-driving thing but at the same time they are better for sightseeing.’ She looks at my feet and does an exaggerated double take. ‘You’re wearing Birkenstock flip-flops .’
‘I have good reason. I’ve run out of socks. Also, I’m not driving. And these are nice and sturdy and hold your foot in place much better than plastic flip-flops.’
‘Hmm, would it also be anything to do with the fact that it’s quite hot today?’
‘Possibly,’ I admit.
She grins at me. ‘Hypocrite. So are we sock shopping this morning?’
I nod, not sure whether I love the idea of us clothes shopping together or am absolutely terrified; it’s so domestic and couply .
The B all of it shatters my heart, though. Because I love it, I love being with Emma. And after this trip, we won’t be together any more.
I shouldn’t have kissed her.
And I don’t think I’m going to tell her about Thea because I think it would just make her miserable.
I love her. And I wish I didn’t.
We can’t be together and I need to be clear about that with her. I need to make it very obvious that we won’t be kissing again. Not touch her, not be couply, just be friendly.
And I’m going to make the most of this time with her because it might be the last time I ever see her.
That’s where I’ve got to with my thoughts by the end of breakfast.
‘What time shall I book for the gallery?’ Emma’s swiping on her phone as we leave the breakfast room. ‘Gallery first, then clothes shopping, then lunch, then back on the road?’
‘Sounds like a plan,’ I say. She could actually suggest anything and I’d think it sounded good.
We put our cases into the van after breakfast, before we set off for the Uffizi, me trying hard not to touch any part of Emma by mistake, which is made more difficult by the fact that I don’t think she minds whether or not we bump hands or limbs.
God. I hope…
I really, really hope she doesn’t think that perhaps we’re going to get back together now.
It would be a huge mistake. You can’t go back in time and, even more importantly, I haven’t changed, have I? I’m still the same person who fucked up before. Why would things be different this time? Plus, there’s Thea.
‘Ready?’ Emma fishes a big straw hat off the top shelf in her van, and places it on her head with a flourish. ‘Sunstroke preventer.’
The hat immediately gets knocked off her head as the very wide brim catches on the doorway when she gets out.
I nod gravely. ‘Practical.’
‘Shut up.’ She grins at me. God, I am pathetic . Every single time she smiles at me my heart lurches.
‘So what’s your usual art gallery policy?’ Emma asks as we stroll along the Via de’ Guicciardini. ‘Ages absorbing one amazing picture and a few others by that artist or zip round the whole place saying “Lovely” a lot, or somewhere in between?’
‘Erm.’ I can’t really remember the last time I went to a gallery for pure pleasure. In my defence, I do have a very busy life. ‘I think… somewhere in between. However , if you’re keen to go for History-of-Art-degree-level knowledge I’m with you. And if you’d rather sprint round for a two-second nod at every single painting, I’m also with you.’
I’d be with her anywhere.
‘There’s one painting I’d really like to see, The Birth of Venus by Botticelli. And his other works. And then I’d like to zip. How’s that?’
‘Well, that sounds perfect.’
And we share another very soppy grin.
What. Am. I. Doing?
We do of course have a great time. Within twenty minutes of being in there, I’m immersed in the ‘I adore art’ feeling that you get in those places if you’re with someone whose company you enjoy and who’s also enjoying it, and am genuinely feeling culturally enriched.
We spend a long time in there, and it’s only when we finally leave, arguing about whether The Birth of Venus or Botticelli’s Primavera is better in our opinion, that I remember that this is eating into our travel time.
And I really don’t care about the time. I’m just enjoying myself.
‘You’re wrong,’ Emma concludes our argument.
‘Always,’ I say, rolling my eyes but smiling. ‘Wow.’ We’re both blinking. ‘That sun is bright. And hot.’
Emma slaps her hat on her head. ‘Should we go and find some department store aircon?’
She’s an excellent shopper. Very decisive and very opinionated. I come away with slightly more clothing than I had expected to buy and it’s all slightly more daring than I had expected it would be.
Crossing back over the Ponte Vecchio on our way to the restaurant Tripadvisor recommended to me for lunch (I persuaded Emma to let me take her somewhere nice on the grounds that dinner might well be at a service station), we pass a street vendor selling novelty socks.
‘Oh my goodness.’ Emma pulls me into the kiosk. ‘I love these ones.’ They are literally a picture of a bridge on a sock. The bridge is bright blue and the background is bright, bright pink. They are one of the most tasteless items of clothing I’ve ever seen. ‘Let me buy them for you. You can’t have too many socks. What if we get delayed again?’
‘Thank you. I think you’re right.’ They’re a complete eyesore; I already know that they’re going to be my favourite socks forever more.
‘Will you be wearing them to your next important work meeting?’ she checks.
‘Certainly.’
Lunch is of course perfect.
Driving from Florence with a stop at a service station that is definitely not the nicest I’ve ever visited is perfect.
Doing a whistle-stop early evening tour of a couple of the Cinque Terre villages is perfect.
Arriving at the campsite Emma’s booked for the night is perfect. And that’s saying a lot, because we have a static caravan each and they make the service station we stopped in for stale paninis and limp salad before using the very smelly toilets seem pretty upmarket by comparison.
And taking a moonlit stroll along the beach with Emma is… perfect.
We haven’t held hands all day. We’ve bumped arms more than we should have done as we’ve walked. We’ve brushed fingers as we’ve shared food. We’ve nudged shoulders when sitting next to each other bantering.
I’ve been rubbish if I’m honest. I’m supposed to be making it very clear that nothing else is going to happen between us.
But to be fair to me it’s all been quite under-the-radar-y and it could kind of pass for close friendship, plus it’s really hard to have that conversation with someone you’re going to be sitting in a van with for the next few days. And it’s very, very hard to resist the temptation of enjoying these stolen moments with Emma.
And now, walking barefoot on fine sand, with the sound of waves lapping against the shore, palm trees illuminated by the moon as though they’re ghost trees, everything feels other-worldly, and maybe because of that, I don’t know, but somehow our hands find each other.
We link fingers, and it feels so very right.