Chapter 30
‘Ava?’ A voice breaks through the stagnant air of the apartment. Apart from the radio and occasional Instagram reel, I have not heard another voice since I started my self-imposed confinement, two days ago.
‘Ava,’ the voice calls again. For a moment I imagine it’s Florian.
I had spent all of Wednesday night and most of yesterday thinking, hoping, praying that he would just launch himself into my apartment and shout at me some more just to tell me that it didn’t matter.
That we were worth more than this. I gave up on that dream when midnight hit and my eleventh call and twelfth text remained unanswered.
Deciding instead to smoke the last of my cigarettes and drink the rest of the whisky from the other night as a kind of pathetic tribute to what we could have been.
‘Ava?’ the voice calls again and then the bedroom door opens, The American peers around the corner cautiously as if she isn’t quite sure what she might find.
‘Oh, thank God, you’re not dead.’ She sighs, surveys the state of the room and then the state of me.
Her face immediately switches from relief to sheer pity.
‘How did you get in?’ I groan, the sleep still sitting heavily on my bones.
‘I have the keys, remember.’ She waves something silver and shiny in front of my face.
‘Doesn’t that break some sort of rental law?’
‘Probably.’ She collapses onto the end of my bed and I move my feet to the side to accommodate her. ‘But I think it is also called a welfare check and that tends to be looked on more kindly in a court of law.’
I pull myself up to a sitting position and push some hair behind my ears. ‘I’m fine.’
‘Clearly.’
‘Okay, I’ve been better but I’m not dead. I just need to exist here for another forty-eight hours and then I can be on the next flight home.’
‘Without saying goodbye?’ Elderly people really know how to stick the knife in, I think their puppy-dog faces could beat any four-year-old’s.
‘I…’ The truth of the matter is that I hadn’t really given anyone else a second thought. Perhaps, naively, I just assumed that everything would sort itself out. ‘Florian and I got into a fight.’ I offer up my reason for the abandonment as my excuse.
‘I guessed.’
‘You were entirely right, I should have told him about the book.’
‘I know.’
‘And I would just like to sit here and wallow for a bit longer if that’s okay.’
She sighs, gets to her feet and then pats some imaginary dust off of her skirt as if the messiness was contagious. ‘A week ago, you’d told him that you weren’t sure you wanted to be with him and now you’re acting like some lovesick seventeen-year-old.’
‘Urgh,’ is all I can manage.
‘Right, get up.’
‘What?’
‘Come on, up you get.’ With surprising dexterity, she pulls the covers off me and the bed.
‘Give them back.’ I pathetically reach for them, but she bats me away.
‘You are going to get into that shower whilst I make you something that doesn’t have an alcohol content and then we can talk.’
I lie there staring at the ceiling for a few seconds until I relent. I snatch up my dressing grown from the floordrobe and head towards the shower.
‘Better?’ The American glances in my general direction as I emerge from the bathroom. She is standing in my kitchen, washing up some mugs that I’m guessing needed some elbow grease to clean.
‘A bit,’ I shrug, not wanting to admit quite how much better I do feel after soaking myself for about twenty minutes in water that was close to boiling.
‘Right, sit down.’ She gestures to the dining room chair where she has laid up a place for me.
‘I assumed you might not be feeding yourself so I took the liberty of picking up some provisions.’ She struggles over with a tray that she places in front of me, full of bread, croissants and a pot of coffee.
‘Thank you, that’s very kind.’
‘Don’t worry about it. I quite enjoy looking after people in need.’
‘I’m not in need,’ I scoff and it is met by an incredulous eyebrow. ‘I just needed to lie low for a bit, that’s all. I’ll survive, but I do appreciate the food.’ I hold up the corner of the croissant.
‘I should let you know that I did run into Florian.’
‘You did?’
‘So, your state isn’t much of a surprise.’
‘What did he tell you?’
‘Not much. He didn’t need to.’ I look up from my croissant, appealing for a little more information. ‘He looked awful, better than you, but still awful. I asked where you were and he told me you were probably here, packing up your stuff and looking forward to going back.’
‘So, when you say he looked awful…’ I start, ‘I mean, was that a physical assessment or more of a mental—’
‘He was a bit dead behind the eyes. Looked away when I said your name. There was a particular malice when he said you were probably packing for your return. I don’t know any details yet.
He said that you would probably fill me in anyway, but I should let you know,’ she adds, pointing her finger in my direction, ‘I tend to play the role of Switzerland in these situations.’
‘His mother’s a scheming witch, nothing new there. Told Florian about my blog. She stole my notebook, read him some passages that weren’t exactly flattering. He told me to leave.’
‘Oh…’
‘Yes “oh”. So that’s what I did. I left. You know, an hour before he was asking me to stay, asking me to bloody live with him and now… well now there’s this.’
‘So, he didn’t take the book news well?’
‘No.’ I take another bite of the croissant. ‘It’s fair to say that went down like a lead balloon, which is pretty ironic really.’
‘Why?’
‘I’m going to pull it. I’ve got a meeting in London next Thursday with Sam to tell her.’
The American’s coffee cup crashes against her plate when she sets it down a little too quickly. ‘What! Why?’
‘How can I publish something that has already caused so much drama? His family don’t want Ettie immortalised in that way, for me to profit from losing him. I mean, aren’t they right?’
‘But all your work?’
I shake my head. ‘I simply don’t care any more. I just wish I never came here, never got to know him again, I was making progress and now I’m back at square one all over again.’
‘Ava.’ She reaches for me but I snatch my hand away. I can’t deal with niceness, with platitudes or care at the moment. It just makes me want to cry. ‘I think that is the opposite of the truth.’
‘I guess I just thought that the next time I got on my flight back home I would feel like I had achieved something, had some greater purpose, that losing Ettie would mean something, but I don’t feel like that and losing him just means that he’s gone.’
The American dabs her mouth with a tissue, ignoring my self-pity. ‘I’ve been thinking.’ She reaches into her bag and pulls out a small piece of white paper, embossed in gold lettering with multicoloured balloons tracing the borders. She pushes it across the table towards me.
‘Your birthday party?’ I ask sceptically.
‘Yes.’
‘But it’s this weekend, my flight’s on Sunday.’
‘I’m very aware of the clash. That’s why I also went to the liberty of purchasing this.’ She pushes over a boarding pass with next Tuesday’s date on it.
‘What did you do that for?’
‘Well I thought it might give you one less excuse to use. I want you there,’ she says simply.
‘I don’t think I can stay here another day… I…’
‘This will do you good, Ava. Treat it like a holiday before you go back, an opportunity to really relax. It’s not here. It’s a house a few miles away, I’ve rented it for the weekend every year since I got here. It’s wonderful, all paid for and there’s a room with your name on it.’
The holiday away from here sounds tempting, a way to delay the inevitable I guess, but it wouldn’t erase what has happened; if anything, being surrounded by a bunch of happy people, inevitably couples, could be sheer torture.
‘Ava…’ She can see me weighing it up, the slight splintering of my resolve. ‘I am eighty-two years old, eighty-three on Sunday. Come to the damned birthday party. I don’t have that many more to go.’
‘Are you really guilt tripping me?’
‘Well. Can’t blame me,’ she pouts.
I take her in, how there really isn’t anything lower than rock bottom, so where would the harm really be?
‘Alright,’ I sigh.
‘You’ll come?’ Her face illuminates.
‘For you. For everything. Yes.’