Chapter 56
FIFTY-SIX
‘Liv?’ Emily called across the landing, her voice reaching me over the opening chords of ‘You’re Beautiful’ blaring out of the speakers downstairs. ‘Can I borrow your Russian Red lippie?’
‘Only if you zip up my dress.’
‘Deal.’
Her heels clattered over the floor and she burst into my room in a cloud of L’Eau d’Issey and hairspray. ‘Love the dress. Foxy. Is it new?’
‘Mango sale,’ I confirmed. ‘But the zip’s fiddly as fuck. Here.’
I turned my back to her and felt her cool fingers on the skin of my back as she fumbled with the zip pull. For a moment, I was transported back to the basement at Damask Square.
But I wasn’t at Damask Square any more, although the Schiaparelli dress was. I’d left it, shrouded in a polythene bag from a specialist dry cleaner, hanging over the door of what had been my bedroom, pinning a note to the front.
I can’t take this with me – it’s too special. Thank you for letting me wear it, and for everything else. All my love, Livvie.
That had been two weeks ago. Since then, I’d moved into the free room in Emily’s house share, spent a dutiful Christmas with my parents in Nottingham, and returned with relief to London in time for the New Year’s Eve party Emily and her other housemates, Vanessa and Josh, were throwing.
Only two weeks, but already Damask Square seemed distant, almost like all the months I’d spent there had been a dream. Already, I’d grown used to being woken by the roar of the Westway in the mornings, rather than the song of blackbirds in the square. I’d become accustomed to the smell of Josh’s shower gel in the mornings, not Luke’s. I barely noticed that when I walked into the kitchen, it was Vanessa I saw chopping vegetables for a stir-fry, not Orla preparing dinner for the four of us.
If I came into my bedroom to find someone sitting on my bed wanting a chat, it was Emily and not Beatrice.
This all felt normal – it felt like real life. I’d return to work in a couple of days, face a new year filled with what my manager was fond of calling Challenges and Opportunities. I’d travel east on my journey to work instead of west. Emily had suggested I go along to the pub quiz on Tuesday nights with some of her other friends, promising that my knowledge of English literature, added to theirs of politics, sport and popular culture, would make us unbeatable.
In my heart, there was still an ache where my feelings for Luke had been, a space as empty as the side of my bed where I’d grown used to him sleeping.
‘Friends?’ he’d said the last time we saw each other, drawing me into his familiar embrace.
‘Friends,’ I’d agreed, knowing that meant only the liminal space between ‘enemies’ and ‘lovers’, and not the true friendship I had with Emily.
I’d probably never see him again, and I was okay with that – there was really no alternative.
Saying goodbye to Orla had been harder. When I’d gone into the kitchen for the last time, she’d been there as I’d expected, temporarily distracted from the pile of bills she was sitting over, chequebook by her side, by Maud settling down, purring, on top of her paperwork.
But Beatrice had been there too, pouring water from the kettle into the teapot.
‘You heading off, Liv?’ she’d asked, the morning sun from the window falling on her face as she’d smiled at me. ‘Take care. We’ll miss you.’
‘I’ll see you out.’ Orla had stood up and walked with me to the front door. She’d opened it, a blast of cold air enveloping me before she pulled me close into her warm arms, whispering, ‘You could stay, you know.’
‘I couldn’t,’ I’d said into her shoulder. ‘I have to go. But I’ll stay in touch.’
‘I hope so.’ There had been a sadness in her voice. We both knew I would, but that it would be faithfully at first, then intermittently, then probably not at all.
The relationship I had with her – not like a mother and daughter and not like friends, but something else, something special and unique – would never be replaced in my life. But in Orla’s, it had to. By something not like a mother and daughter and not like friends, but something special and unique. Only with Beatrice, not with me.
As for Beatrice herself, when I’d told her I was moving out she had nodded calmly, like I was confirming something she already knew.
‘I’m sorry,’ she’d said. ‘I wish you could stay.’
‘I know.’ It would have been more honest if I had said, I know you don’t.
‘You must visit. Come and see the house when it’s finished, ready for the students to come and stay.’
I imagined the upstairs rooms that had been silent and empty filling with laughter, trainers clomping on the stairs, voices in the kitchen enthusing over Pre-Raphaelite art. I imagined walking in and faces turning to look at me – Who’s she? – and not knowing. And Beatrice, the daughter of the house, central to it all.
‘Maybe it would be better if we met for a drink somewhere else,’ I’d said.
‘Maybe it would,’ Beatrice had admitted, smiling her smile that was like Orla’s, yet not Orla’s.
‘You’re all good,’ Emily said now. ‘Come on, hand over that lippie. Not that it’ll last, the amount I plan on drinking tonight.’
‘It’s New Year’s Eve.’ I watched as she carefully coloured in her full lips. ‘If you can’t get shitfaced tonight, when can you?’
‘Exactly. Vanessa’s promised a fry-up and Bloody Marys in the morning, so let’s do it.’
‘Let’s do it.’
With a final swish of our hair, we headed downstairs. Guests had already begun to arrive, spilling from the kitchen into the front room, plastic glasses of cava in their hands, chatting and laughing and slotting CDs into the stereo. I fetched myself a drink and poured a packet of crisps into a salad bowl, handing them round as an excuse to introduce myself to people.
By midnight, the flat was heaving. I’d danced with Vanessa’s brother and had an incoherent conversation about politics with a group of Josh’s friends. I’d jokingly reprised my long-running argument with Emily about whether pineapple on pizza was sacrilege or the food of the gods. I’d kicked off my shoes to join the pile of other discarded heels people kept tripping over on their way to the toilet. I’d laughed until my face hurt.
Now, I found myself face to face with a man I’d never met before. He was blond and stocky, taller than me but not as tall as Luke, his hair standing up at random angles as if it had been carefully combed into place earlier in the evening but disarranged by his fingers running through it. His eyes were green and smiling.
‘Who are you?’ he asked. ‘And where have you been all night?’
‘I’ve been here,’ I said. ‘I live here.’
‘That would explain it.’ His voice was soft, his accent noticeably posh. ‘Since I’ve only just arrived. I’m Tom. I work with Emily.’
‘I’m Livvie,’ I echoed. ‘I share the house with Emily.’
‘Then we’ve got something in common already. And soon we’ll have something else.’
‘What’s that?’ I couldn’t help returning his smile – his confidence was infectious.
‘We’ll have seen the New Year in together. Hello 2006, adieu 2005. A turning point in our lives.’
‘Which way are you thinking your life’s going to turn?’ I asked.
‘Oh, upwards. Always upwards. And onwards, obviously.’
‘Okay,’ I said slowly. ‘That sounds good to me, Tom.’
He leaned in towards me to say something else and I caught the scent of his cologne, smooth and expensive like his leather jacket. But whatever he was about to say was drowned out by the voices around us beginning the countdown and the chimes of Big Ben coming from the television.
Around us, voices erupted into shouts of, ‘Happy New Year!’ and several champagne corks exploded at once.
Tom smiled at me and I smiled back. The rims of our plastic glasses touched each other and then, with what didn’t feel like any conscious decision on either of our parts, our lips met too in a kiss that was something less than passionate but definitely more than friendly.
‘Happy New Year, Livvie.’ He laughed down at me once the kiss had ended.
‘Happy New Year, Tom.’
And in that moment, I truly believed it would be.