Chapter 10
JUNO
He doesn’t come back that night, or the next morning.
But when I tentatively push open his bedroom door his bed is conspicuously empty.
My heart plummets with sadness.
I don’t even want to think about where he went last night.
Images of that sex club we visited on our first night here flash through my head and I try to push them away.
He wouldn’t do that to me, would he – go straight out and find someone new?
Or is he, at this very moment, curled up in some other woman’s bed, his powerful body pressed up against her, or inside her… ?
I shake my head fiercely, trying to dislodge the horrible image I’ve conjured. I burn with jealousy. But it’s tinged with anger. The thing is, I have absolutely no idea what he’s capable of, because the Sandro I thought I knew doesn’t actually exist.
After the torment of being rejected by every single man I’ve ever had a connection with – even my bloody father – I thought I’d finally found someone who genuinely liked me for me. Not because of my family name, but for me.
But I was wrong.
So I guess it’s time to go home and try to pick up the pieces of my life. At least I have my work to plough my energy into, though I suspect I’m going to have trouble concentrating on it when it feels as if my chest’s been split in two.
I give him one more hour, tidying the apartment and stripping my bed, even though I know the cleaner will come in soon to do it. But I need something to do, to take my mind off the waiting and the horrible, sinking feeling of dread in my stomach.
When the alarm on my phone goes off, signalling that the hour’s up, I pack my case, leaving out anything I’ve bought while I’ve been here.
I don’t want any reminders of my time here once I’ve gone.
It will hurt too much to look at them. To feel that connection to Sandro that I know now I never really had.
The taxi I’ve called is waiting outside for me when I walk out of the apartment block for the last time and I shield my aching eyes from the sun as I make my way towards the car in a sort of dream-like trance, allowing the driver to take my bags and put them in the boot for me.
I’m functioning completely on autopilot now to get me through this.
The trip to the airport takes longer than I remember it being on the way here. But then everything seems to move at a much faster pace when Sandro’s around.
An insistent bubble of grief rises to the surface as I think about him, but I push it firmly back down again.
I’m not going to fall apart until I’m safely back in my apartment where I can wallow for a while before putting myself back together, piece by piece.
I have a terrible feeling it’s going to take a very long time to do that, though – if I ever manage it.
How am I meant to forget him, and what we shared? It doesn’t even seem possible right now. I suspect he’ll always have a piece of my heart forever.
Finally, we reach the airport, but it seems the gods really aren’t smiling on me at the moment because there’s a baggage handlers’ strike and all flights back to London have been cancelled.
I’m too drained to try and organise another means of transport home right now, though, so I book into the airport hotel and get straight into bed there, pulling the covers up to my chin and staring at programme after programme on the television, barely taking any of it in, but desperately trying to stop myself from thinking about him.
I must have fallen into a deep sleep at some point in the early hours of the morning because I wake with a start to find the sun has risen on a new day.
The reason I woke so suddenly, it turns out, is because my phone is ringing. I reach over to pluck it from the nightstand to see who’s calling me.
Half of me aches for it to be Sandro, calling to apologise and tell me he loves me and can’t live without me. That he doesn’t want me to leave. Telling me to come home. But the new, more worldly half of me knows that that’s not likely to happen.
That side is right, of course. Even so, cold disappointment slides through me when I see it’s not Sandro who’s calling me, it’s my sister April.
I almost don’t pick up, not sure I can keep it together enough not to alert her to my destroyed state of mind. I’m scared that if she asks me how I am I’m not going to be able to lie and I’ll start to cry, and I’m pretty damn sure that once I start, I’m not going to be able to stop.
But I’m not a little girl any more who doesn’t face things that frighten her. So I press the button to accept the call and my world crashes in a little further when my sister tells me that our father’s been in a bad car accident and might not live out the day.
* * *
Sandro
I stagger back into the apartment around mid-morning, the day after our fight, feeling like shit.
I spent the whole night walking around the city, too ashamed of myself to come back and face her, finally only giving in to the drag of sleep at dawn and taking a nap on a bench in the Parco delle Cascine.
I know I have no right to expect to find Juno still here waiting for me to get back, but even so as I go from room to room… I hope.
My gut twists painfully as I open her wardrobe to find that it’s empty, apart from the couple of things she bought while she was here. Her case has gone, as has her wash bag from the bathroom.
She’s left me.
I slump against the wall next to the sink and slide down to the floor, putting my head in my hands, feeling totally wrecked. A hollow shell of myself.
How could I have let this happen?
I am such a fucking idiot.
A shallow fucking idiot.
I was so proud of myself when she told me that out of all the men she’d researched I’d come out at the top of her list. My sexual reputation had been everything to me at that point.
In my mind it made up for my lack of academic prowess, business acumen or any kind of serious drive or ambition, but I know now that it doesn’t.
Not for Juno. She needs more than that. She deserves more.
My insides clench with disgust at myself.
I’ve allowed myself to be my father’s puppet all my life, but I’m fed up with putting on a show for people now – just being a pretty face, an arm for women to hang off.
I don’t want to be that person any more.
I want to be someone who’s respected for more than their family name and looks, even if it means going out on my own.
But I don’t want to make a success of my art just for me; I want to do it for her too.
I want to feel worthy of being with someone as smart and accomplished as Juno.
I want her to be proud of me.
So I’m going to change. For her. I’m going to do all the things I’ve been too scared to do for fear of failing, and even if I do fail, over and over again, at least I’ll be moving forward.
And maybe she’ll recognise that as a strength and a good reason to give me another chance – at being a proper partner to her this time.
Jesus, I hope so. Because I don’t know how I’m going to live without her.
Finally, I allow myself to put a name to the way I feel about her.
It’s love.
I love her.
I’ve known it for a while, of course, I just haven’t wanted to admit it to myself.
But I have now. And I know what I need to do to let her know it too: I have to swallow my pride and allow myself to be vulnerable. Just like she did.
It takes me a couple of days to put everything into motion and then there’s nothing left but to go back to London, find her and ask her to forgive me. To beg her for another chance, even though I probably don’t deserve one after the shitty way I behaved.
Once back on English soil, I call the friend of a friend who originally gave me Juno’s number, but he doesn’t have her address; and it seems the rest of the people I know from London’s social scene don’t know her well enough to have it either, because she rarely makes an appearance at the events and parties they go to.
But now I’ve made up my mind to do this I know I have to see her right away.
I rack my brain, trying to remember the name of the university where she works, pacing the floor until I manage to break through the fog in my head and access a memory. I remember now that it was named after one of the saints – fitting, really.
I use the internet browser on my phone to look through the possibilities and when ‘St George’ comes up my brain sparks.
That’s it. St George’s University. In a department that has something to do with heart attacks in young athletes.
Another search finally leads me to the department I need and its address in London.
With adrenaline rushing through my veins I leave my apartment and go outside to hail a cab.
* * *
Juno
After a horrendous day of worry about my father’s condition, where I’d paced around Peretola airport waiting to get on a flight back home, I’d finally heard from Maya that he was out of surgery, out of danger and already demanding to be discharged from hospital.
It seemed even life-threatening injuries couldn’t keep my autocratic father down for long.
Joking aside, though, I was hugely relieved to hear he was all right and as soon as I got the good news, I finally allowed myself to cry out all the tension I’d been carrying around with me like a ten-ton weight.
It took me another few hours to secure a seat on a plane back to London then two hours in the air and two more till I was finally back at my apartment in Notting Hill, where I’d crawled straight into bed.
The next day was spent visiting my father in hospital and supporting my sisters, so by Thursday I was totally shattered when I finally dragged myself into work.