Chapter 21
THEN
It was the seventh week of Trinity term, and I was sitting with Alex on a rooftop. We were swigging champagne – well, incredibly cheap, soapy-tasting cava – from a bottle as we watched the sun still blazing over the dreaming spires.
That morning, Alex had got the call, the one he’d been working towards for the last three years.
He now had a post-doc all lined up. All the long hours in the lab, the endless papers read, the epic thesis written – they’d all paid off.
I felt proud, but also devastated and forlorn.
In a week’s time, Alex was moving to London. I was moving home.
I turned to Alex to see if he looked satisfied, but his expression gave nothing away.
‘Are you okay?’ I asked.
‘Yeah, of course,’ he said, then attempted a smile.
‘It’s just you look so sad... and you’re on a roof.’
His smile widened. ‘I’m celebrating,’ he said.
‘Are you still flat about America?’ I asked. He hadn’t said anything when he’d been knocked back by Harvard, but I suspected the rejection had hurt more than he’d let on.
‘I’m flat because... I don’t want you to go,’ he said. ‘I love you.’
I stared at him. ‘But... you said we were going to do it differently. We were going to be together for just the summer. We promised that it wouldn’t get...’ I flapped my hands around as if there was a universal hand signal for falling head over heels in love with someone.
I loved Alex. Of course I did. I’d loved him for weeks, practically since I’d met him.
We’d spent nearly every minute of the summer together and it still hadn’t felt like enough.
We’d been to a million lectures on random subjects.
We’d debated everything. We’d talked endlessly about his mum, the lack of a dad in his life and my family.
We had a favourite table at a pub (the one in front of the Bob Hawke sign at the Turf Tavern).
We’d spent countless afternoons lying in the sun reading.
We’d spent even more time in both of our single beds.
I knew every part of his brain and body – the way he methodically could work through any problem, the small burn from a campfire on his inner left wrist, the promise he’d made to his mum before she died, the rough of the golden stubble on his jaw.
But the agreement we’d made – that we wouldn’t lose our heads – had felt like a protective case between my heart and reality. If we never acknowledged our feelings, then we’d be able to walk away from each other and resume our real lives unscathed.
I stood up.
‘Stay,’ he said, and reached towards me.
‘I’m getting cold up here,’ I said, rubbing my bare arms as if to prove my point.
‘No, I don’t mean up here. I mean stay in England. Move to London with me.’
The next day I sat with Lily on a punt. She wore a white shirt with a wilted red carnation in her lapel, a rumpled black skirt and her hair was covered in confetti. She’d just finished her final exam.
‘It’s the end of Oxford. The end of the road that’s not going to be taken,’ she said as she lay on her back, staring up at the bright blue sky. Neither of us really knew how to steer a punt, so we’d stopped trying.
‘Your parents will get their heads around what you’re doing. They’ll just need time,’ I said.
‘They can’t believe I’m turning down a stable career when it’s almost impossible to even get a bar job at the moment,’ she said.
‘Recessions don’t last forever,’ I said, reaching for the confidence of someone who almost had an economics degree. But I knew what she meant – the bubble wrap of our student days was about to be ripped off, and we both knew that the world wasn’t in great shape to be starting a career.
‘I’m going to prove them wrong!’ she said, somehow managing to look fierce while covered in confetti. ‘I’m going to pull it off, Becs. I’m going to do what I love and I’m going to make it work.’
‘Maybe avoid the being fuelled by a need for vindication?’ I suggested. I went to take another sip of my Pimm’s and realised that I’d already finished it.
‘Alex asked me to stay,’ I blurted out.
‘Here?’ Lily asked, confused.
‘In London, to live with him while he’s at UCL,’ I said. ‘America was always going to be impossible with visas. But I can get a working one and stay here. He asked if I’d try to transfer my grad job.’
‘Can you do that?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said.
‘Do you want to live in London?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know,’ I said. I barely knew the city. I didn’t know anyone there.
‘Can you leave him?’
I don’t know . I didn’t say this out loud, but it hung between us.
‘It just feels nonsensical to be even thinking about changing everything in my life because... I met a guy seven weeks ago.’
Lily nodded but I could tell she didn’t agree with me, that she thought that the 180-degree pivots were the stuff that life was made of.
‘What do you normally do when you need to make a decision?’ Lily asked. It was rhetorical question – she’d known me long enough.
It took me three days before I worked up the courage to make an international call to the HR department of my soon-to-be employer and ask if there was any chance that they could transfer my grad position to their London office.
I was so nervous that I’d written a script for my side of the conversation.
The response I got was professional but frosty. Underlying the conversation was the sentiment: Don’t you know what’s happening in the world? Don’t you know how lucky you are to be allowed onto our consulting rocket ship?
I took the Oxford Tube bus to London alone. I’d visited the city a few times over the last year but through the lens of a tourist, not as a potential Londoner. The city was huge and bustling and ancient. Could I thrive here or would I be swallowed up and spat out?
I sat in a Caffè Nero and wrote a list of pros and cons.
Cons:
· Expensive
· Takes ages to get anywhere
· Don’t know anyone
· Bad coffee
Pros:
· Alex
I stared at the piece of paper until my acidic long black got cold. For the first time in years, a list wasn’t helping me.
In any event, it was a wasted trip. When I got back to my college room there was an email – the transfer wasn’t possible.
Neither was the deferment of my place. The tone was officious and the implication was clear, that I was replaceable and would be shooting myself in the foot if I gave up my golden ticket.
Well that was that. I’d tried and it wasn’t possible. I told Alex that night as we lay in his bed.
We slipped into silence. I knew that we were both playing out all the possible moves.
Except it was checkmate. A long-distance relationship between London and Melbourne for years would be impossible.
Especially when I’d have next to no time off for holidays and Alex would barely earn enough to survive in London.
In less than a week, we were going to say goodbye to each other.
I looked up and saw that there were tears falling down Alex’s face and his chest was jerkily moving up and down. I felt a jolt of surprise. Once again, he’d done the thing I’d least expected from him. He was crying.
He swiped at his eyes, almost as if he was trying to push the tears back in. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, his voice thick. ‘God, I haven’t cried since Mum... I just... I’m sorry.’
I wrapped myself around him. If I held him tightly enough, could I squeeze the sadness out of him? Out of me?
I was in my room staring at the popcorn ceiling when my computer began to ring.
I checked my watch – somehow three hours had passed since I’d last noticed.
I did a quick calculation – it was late evening in Australia, so it was probably Mum.
I moved slowly to my computer, hoping it might ring out, then sped up as I read the caller’s name on my screen. It was Nick.
My heart began to race as the video connected. Was something wrong? Had something happened to Dad or Mum?
His face flashed up and I could tell that it wasn’t bad news. His normally serious face was grinning.
‘Becs!’
‘Hey,’ I said. I realised how terrible I looked when I saw myself in my camera.
Alex had gone to London for a night to meet his new team.
I’d decided the night apart would be a practice run for when I left.
Except it was a test I was epically failing.
Instead of starting to pack up my room, I’d just lain on my bed, feeling miserable.
‘I’ve got good news,’ Nick said.
‘What?’ I asked, his excitement penetrating my gloom.
‘I got into the training program!’
‘Seriously? Congratulations!’ I squealed.
‘On your first try? That’s insane!’ Nick had just finished his general training and wanted to be a surgeon like Dad, except one specialising in obstetrics.
But we both knew that the specialist colleges were tightly guarded and admitted very few new doctors into their hallowed, lucrative spaces – particularly on the first try.
‘And I’m moving to Cairns for my first placement,’ he said.
‘Wow!’ I absorbed the news. Nick had gone to med school in Sydney, so I’d been used to him being away, but the top point of the country was seriously away.
And I couldn’t really imagine him in a tropical shirt with a tan.
Though that probably wasn’t a likely scenario because he’d be working all hours.
‘And Stella’s moving with me,’ he said. ‘Because... we got married today!’
Stella’s face burst onto the screen just in time for me to attempt to morph my face from dumbfounded to thrilled.
‘Oh my god! You’re married?’ I said, as a finger with a gold band on it popped up next to Stella’s face.
‘We eloped. It was very last minute, very romantic,’ Stella said.
‘We’re sorry you weren’t there,’ Nick said. ‘It was just, if we were married, Stella would be able to transfer hospitals with me, and doing a ceremony with just the two of us was...’
‘Less drama,’ I finished. ‘I get it.’ I didn’t blame them for sneaking off. The idea of Mum and Dad getting through a whole wedding day without emotional fireworks seemed improbable at worst and emotionally exhausting at best. But they’d got married – one of my best friends and my brother.
‘Tell me everything! I want to hear all about the day,’ I said.
They turned to look at each other. I noticed that Nick was in a dark suit with a small rose in the lapel and Stella was in a chic cream cap-sleeved dress with the same type of rose tucked behind her ear.
They looked giddy and madly in love. They were in technicolour, and I realised, as I caught my own reflection on the screen again, that I was sepia – mourning the end of something that hadn’t even ended yet.
I’d been so sure that following your heart only led to implosions.
But had I got it wrong? There was a reason Nick was going to be trusted with life and death situations – he was smart, disciplined, focused.
And Stella lived deliberately too, just in a quieter way.
They were both the opposite of thoughtless – but still, they’d jumped.
And Nick had also seen the foundations of our family crumble. But maybe he’d learned the smarter lesson: to still try, but do it better, love harder.
When Lily had first told me that Nick and Stella were together, I’d felt a familiar pang of bitterness – I felt like I’d been blindsided again. As I watched them both, luminous with happiness, I realised that I didn’t feel bitter, I felt jealous.
‘Jealousy is an important emotion if you use it the right way,’ Grandma Evelyn used to say. ‘It tells you what you really want, deep down.’
I wasn’t jealous of their love but rather that they’d moved towards that love, that they’d let themselves be together and happy. I was afraid and miserable and bracing for a broken heart.
After I’d asked them every possible question about their wedding day and said congratulations over and over, I used the dregs of my almost empty savings account to send Nick and Stella an enormous bunch of flowers.
I showered, got dressed, ate then sat on the roof outside Lily’s bedroom until the sun set, much later than it had at the start of the term.
I tapped out a long phone number, listened to the melodic international dial tone and took a deep breath.
‘I’m moving to London with you,’ I said. Alex had returned from London late the following day and had come straight to my room.
‘They let you transfer?’ he asked. I shook my head and saw his eyes narrow with confusion.
‘No, apparently they barely made any grad offers in London this year,’ I said as steadily as I could. ‘I gave it up.’
‘You gave it up?’ he repeated.
I nodded. ‘I’m eligible for a two-year Youth Mobility Scheme visa that will let me work. I’ll apply for jobs here,’ I said, trying to sound confident. ‘Until I get one, I can try to find something casual in a cafe or a bar. Maybe do some tutoring.’
‘You’ve already quit?’ he asked. For the first time since I’d met him, he was acting like his brain didn’t work at supersonic speed.
‘Yep, I called them last night. It’s done,’ I said. ‘You’re happy, right?’
‘Yeah, of course,’ he said. I couldn’t read his face. ‘You’re not leaving me.’ He wrapped his enormous arms around me.
‘You know, the first time you saw me,’ I said when we finally pulled apart, ‘you thought I was going to leap.’
He nodded at the memory with a smile that lit up his aquamarine eyes.
‘I did want to,’ I said. ‘I mean, not off a roof. But just... in life. To finally do something that I really wanted to, even if it didn’t make any sense.
I wrote a list of whether I should stay or go.
And the only logical thing to do was go back home.
Except... I’m going to try to live without lists for a while, I think. ’
He stared at me for a moment. ‘Rebecca...’ His eyes darted away from me. It was the first time I’d seen him lost for words. ‘Thank you,’ he said finally.
I tried to shut down my whirring brain. Maybe he’d been less thrilled by my news than I’d expected because he was just as aware as I was of all the difficulty that came with this decision.
Alex had access to sparse uni accommodation – would it still be romantic in the dead of winter?
How would we go living together when we didn’t have college cleaners, or dining halls that served us food?
How would life look when it wasn’t just one big expanse of time to fill, when both of us were busy working?
But no, I was going to try to live without risk governing every move, without lists and rules.
I was going to try to be happy. To just be.
‘I’m not naive. I know we’ve been living in a bubble. But I want to try real,’ I said. ‘And anyway, we still have two more salad days here.’
Alex smiled again and I melted into his arms.