Enemies to Lovers

Chapter 19

19

The opposite of anxiety isn’t calm, it’s trust. That’s what Jamie said to me. Well, I certainly don’t trust him. I have woken up so, so angry. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. This has all exploded in my face. But now I’ve had time to think about it, I’m furious. How dare Jamie yell at me that way? He thinks I’ve used him ? What about him? I can’t help feeling that the seeds for tonight were all sown last Christmas, and it would have been better to leave it well alone. Nobody cares about me and Jamie, except for Laurie. But like Alex says, why does he get a say? It’s all so toxic.

Hope

You okay, pal?

Me

I guess

I just … well, it’s embarrassing

I feel embarrassed

Hope

What have you got to be embarrassed by?

Me

I don’t know – having this stupid ‘exposure therapy’ plan in the first place? Look where it got me! There’s a burnt-down building and Jamie isn’t speaking to me

Hope

The fire wasn’t your fault, and the arsehole didn’t talk to you to begin with

You’ve not lost anything

Me

So why do I feel so shitty?

Jamie wasn’t at breakfast

The mood in the family is an unreadable one: Mum, Dad and Alex are being extra-bright and chatty, as if compensating for the dourness of Laurie, who is doing a very dramatic sulk whilst professing ‘everything is fine’ …

And Kate and Laurie have obviously fallen out, but aren’t declaring that out loud, and so we’re all ignoring it until they get it together

Hope

I think you’ll be fine by this afternoon!

Kate drags me off to the market. I’ve got an anxious tummy, which is quite the kick-me-whilst-I’m-down move from my body. Like it isn’t enough to have my brain going haywire, but I could also poop my pants if I don’t stay close to a toilet. I’ve had way more than my fair share of bad days in my life, but this is a first for me, to feel so sad and untethered that even my tummy is upset. Even during my breakdown I didn’t get freaking diarrhoea .

‘Thanks for sharing,’ observes Kate when I tell her what’s going on. We’re climbing off the bus for the market stop, but I had to say something. She surveys the shopping kingdom laid out before her, and with a happy glint in her eye slips on her sunglasses. I didn’t have a choice about coming this morning – Kate has been threatening it for ten days, since she first discovered the market with Laurie; but also, after the very awkward breakfast with all these unsaid things floating in the ether, she all but kidnapped me. She’ll be wanting the gossip of course, the full story of me and Jamie. And do you know what? When it comes up, I’m going to tell her. I slept like a log last night, which surprised me when I woke up. It was a thick and dreamless sleep, and in a weird way I think the relief of everything being out in the open worked in my favour. Jamie was nowhere to be seen though – he didn’t come to the room, his bed didn’t look slept in.

‘Right,’ Kate says, with a snap of her fingers. ‘The market is basically over three streets, and we found a really nice bakery with good coffee and an outdoor courtyard, which will be great for a break later. I don’t know which hormone means I get tired now after twenty minutes’ walking, but it has kicked in and the only way not to be mad about it is pastries.’

‘Duly noted,’ I say. ‘They’ll have a toilet, too, so that makes both of us happy.’

‘God, how glamorous we are!’ jokes Kate, linking her arm through mine. ‘I used to be all dancing-all-night and working-all-day, thinking I’d sleep when I was dead! And now I need rest breaks scheduled in, and regular snacks to stop my blood sugar getting too low.’

‘To be fair, I’ve always needed to know where my next meal is coming from.’

‘Ah,’ says Kate, getting my point. ‘You’re a Greenberg. Of course you have.’

‘Glad you understand,’ I quip, and she laughs.

‘God, when I first started seeing Laurie, I’d never known somebody so committed to not only knowing where their next meal was coming from, but also knowing what they were going to eat for the entire day.’

I shrug – like, what can you do? ‘We were raised around the dinner table,’ I say, not sounding one bit sorry. ‘It’s how we measure time.’

Kate laughs again, the sound of somebody hearing something they know to be absolutely true. Then she gestures for me to walk ahead of her, towards the hustle and bustle of people.

The streets are wide and cobbled, with huge ornate buildings towering on either side and a faded old-school vibe, like they’re past their best, but challenging you to find anything more majestic in your home town. The shops underneath them are cavernous and dark, filled to the brim with whatever wares they specialise in – although a few shops have guitars next to pots and pans, next to braided bracelets, next to cat food, so I suppose their speciality is everything .

The fruit-and-veg shops are glorious: mounds of bright-yellow lemons the size of fists spilling out onto the pavement, bunches of green beans and bags of wild garlic. There’s a dried-food store, too, with piles of spices and herbs, buckets of olives in twenty different shades, sizes and flavours: spiced, spicier, pitted, stuffed with cheese, stuffed with peppers, stuffed with garlic … And then linens. Shops filled with starched white tablecloths with blue embellishments, and baby clothes, too – which Kate makes a beeline for.

‘I know they stay in these for about ten minutes,’ she admires, picking up a tiny cotton onesie. ‘But I want to spend every penny I have on all of them. I thought I’d be a practical, sensible mum … but oh, dear Lord, these things!’

It hits me all over again that I’m going to be an aunt. Kate is an only child, so I will be the only aunt. That’s huge .

‘I always thought I’d be the cool, fun aunt,’ I say, running a hand over a wicker basket full of napkins and making the woman behind the counter tut. I pull my hand away quickly and give her a sheepish smile. ‘But I think I’ll take it all very seriously, you know. Buying her books on feminism and gender theory, and making sure she’s got a good knowledge of the classics, but an appetite for contemporary stories, too …’

‘I think we’ll be relying on you and Alex,’ she smiles. ‘Imagine being born to two lawyers? Boring dot-com. You and Alex will have to show her the arts, broaden her horizons. Well, I expect you will. Alex can be the silly uncle, giving her sweets and fizzy pop and offering to babysit, but then forgetting to show up.’

I smile at her. This is a whole other side to Kate: she’s gone all soft!

‘And Jamie, of course,’ she says, but her back is to me, already leaving the shop and meandering to the next one. I follow, wordlessly. ‘If Laurie gets his act together and grovels an apology,’ she adds. ‘I don’t know what came over him last night …’

I look at the imaginary watch on my wrist. ‘Right on time,’ I say, and Kate turns back to give me a butter-wouldn’t-melt look. ‘That’s ten minutes you’ve waited to bring him up.’

‘We can change the subject if you want,’ she offers, but she knows perfectly well I won’t.

‘Is it time for that coffee break yet?’ I ask.

‘Of course it is,’ she replies, checking her own imaginary watch. ‘I couldn’t care less about the shopping. Tell me everything , Flo. I’ve been desperate to find out the facts.’

‘Now why doesn’t that surprise me?’ I say, although I can already feel the relief coursing through me that I finally get to tell somebody the beginning, the middle and the end. I’d like to try to make sense of it all myself.

At a pretty place on the corner with a small courtyard and lots of shaded seating, we order drinks and water and pastries, and take turns to use the loo. By the time we’re settled, I’m breathing more deeply than I have all morning. I think one of my favourite things in the world is being somewhere new, at a café, people-watching. It feels like anything could happen, like everything is a possibility. How funny that I am happiest this way, but spend my time doing the same old thing, day in and day out, never going anywhere. Maybe my big lesson from this trip is that I need to get out more, take more chances. I don’t think there’s a single person in my life who would disagree. Take the plastic off. I heard that on the radio once. They were talking about their Italian grandparents, who always kept a plastic cover over their furniture so it didn’t get ruined. But that made the furniture uncomfortable. The radio guest said it’s a metaphor for life: take the plastic off – things are designed to get messy. I remember siding with the Italian grandparents in my head, when I heard it. I’m starting to get it now, though.

‘So,’ Kate begins, ripping a croissant apart. ‘Start at the beginning.’

I nod. ‘I think the beginning might be before this holiday started,’ I say, and Kate waves a hand and rolls her eyes.

‘You think?’ she teases. I take a breath. There’s no hiding from Kate.

‘You know most of it. It’s hard to say what had changed last December. My studying was going really well, and I’d turned a corner after the breakdown. I always think of it as having been ill for a year, and now I’ve been recovering for a year. Soon it will be a longer amount of time I’ve been well again than I was ever bad, you know? But I suppose it was only six months at that point. I knew I was different, stronger, more capable—’ I say, and Kate interjects.

‘But the rest of us were too scared to believe it?’ she supplies.

‘Exactly,’ I reply. ‘And last Christmas … I don’t know. I’ve had so much therapy, and done so much “inner work”.’ I put quotation marks around this with my fingers, embarrassed to be using such a phrase.

‘Don’t worry,’ says Kate, sensing my mortification. ‘This is a safe space.’

I shake my head, but it’s a shake of appreciation, not annoyance.

‘I came home and Jamie was there and it hit me, almost for the first time, that he’s handsome, and easy to talk to.’

Kate laughs. ‘If you go in for that muscly, thoughtful, chiselled-jaw and heart-of-gold thing,’ she says. ‘Sure. I guess he’s okay …’

‘Exactly,’ I giggle. ‘Like what was I ever doing, thinking I could deny that?’

‘No idea,’ Kate chuckles. ‘You were busy struggling to get through the day. That probably helped.’

‘Well, yes,’ I say. ‘There is that. I know I was bad, because I don’t even remember his parents dying. Like, I was so in the throes of my own stuff that I have fuzzy recollections of just … now there’s more of us at home at Easter, or August bank holiday, or birthdays, or whatever.’

‘But Christmas was a turning point?’

‘I’d thought it was. We seemed to gravitate towards each other a lot, and I felt like Jamie saw me, in a way the rest of you didn’t. Well, maybe you did. But you and Laurie are a unit, if that makes sense.’

Kate nods. ‘It does,’ she says. ‘Getting married will do that to ya.’

‘But the thing is … Jamie and I almost kissed one night. And then the night after that he was supposed to come and meet me in my room, but as you know he bailed on me. Left a note that said he’d led me on, and then the next morning he told Laurie he’d got a month-long gig on a boat. He took the job and I didn’t see him again until now.’

‘He’s the reason you skipped your dad’s birthday, and Easter?’

‘And Mum’s birthday,’ I say. ‘I couldn’t take the fact that Jamie had rejected me, but my family still accepted him as if nothing had happened. I mean, not that they knew, because I couldn’t tell anybody …’

‘Oh, mate – I thought your excuses were a bit paper-thin.’

I shrug. ‘I didn’t even know Jamie was going to be here. I don’t think I would have come, you know. Is that why nobody told me? Did they all know more than I thought they did?’

‘Ah, the email,’ Kate says. ‘I checked the family email thread. You’re definitely on it. So I think you need to check your spam filters, darling. Alex has the word ass in his personal email address, so I think the filters try to block it.’

‘Oh,’ I reply. ‘Thanks. Still. I regret coming. I love my family, but being around Jamie is so … loaded. But then he doesn’t have anybody else. So maybe this is my problem?’

Kate sits back in her chair, chewing over what I’ve told her.

‘Why do you think, honestly and truly, Jamie did that? Left you a note saying he’d led you on?’

‘Just, like, cold feet or whatever. Couldn’t do it to His Lordship King Laurie.’

‘And you still haven’t asked Jamie about it?’ she presses. ‘Even though you’ve been sleeping together? How did it not come up?’

‘The note?’ I ask.

Kate flags down the waiter again. ‘Hi,’ she says, with a big smile. ‘Could we get another croissant, please? In fact two more? Thanks.’ She turns her attention back to me. ‘Okay, so you didn’t know he would be here because Alex’s stupid email address means you didn’t see the family thread …’ I shrug, assuming this sounds reasonable. ‘So Jamie gets here, with his tan and his abs and his heart of gold, and you’re mad at him for doing a runner.’

‘Exactly,’ I respond. ‘But he seemed mad at me, which makes me even more mad. Like so what: you flirt with me all Christmas, you say you want me to stay up and to come and see me one night, and then … you pie me off with a note under the door? And you’re mad at me ? No. No, no, no.’

‘I knew it was weird between you,’ Kate says, eyes alight with confirmation. ‘You wouldn’t even look at Jamie. But, babe, I don’t think he was mad at you – he kept staring at you, watching you, I even overheard him trying to make conversation with you …’

‘I think it was for appearance’s sake,’ I counter. ‘Invited here by Mum and Dad, their surrogate son, and all that – he was an arse to me, but fair play: he’s got manners.’

‘Hmmm,’ Kate says, mulling over my point.

‘So, okay, long story short.’

‘This is definitely long story long,’ Kate laughs, ‘but I am here for it.’

‘Long story long,’ I correct myself. ‘I’m mad, he’s mad, there’s all this unsaid stuff between us, all this tension, and then things change … I don’t know. Like, we weren’t very good at hating each other.’

‘That morning you said all those horrible things about him,’ Kate says. ‘And he heard …’

‘Yeah,’ I nod. ‘I meant them, but I didn’t mean them. He was really under my skin. So I had this idea.’

Kate cocks an eyebrow, an invitation to go on.

‘I read this poem about how if you get to know a man, you cease to be bothered by him.’

‘Okay …’

‘So I thought: Okay, I’ll be friendly, I can move past this. He might be gorgeous to look at, but he’s an arse .’

‘Okay …’

‘And that became this notion of, like, exposure therapy . That if we did it – got to know each other properly – it could cure us of this janky energy; we could get it out of our systems, and then we could all live happily ever after.’ I screw up my face when I’ve said this, because out loud it doesn’t sound as sophisticated as it had in my head. ‘And as I’m saying all this, it probably sounds immature, but it made sense. At the time. We really did try not to do it … but it just happened.’

Kate shakes her head, knits her eyebrows together. ‘I can’t get over this note he left you,’ she says. ‘It doesn’t seem like Jamie at all. And if he did that, why come on this trip when you’d be here?’

I shrug. ‘Like I say, I didn’t ask.’

‘I’ve always thought he’s in love with you,’ she presses on. ‘I can’t comprehend this leading-you-on nonsense. I’m so good at reading people! But this …’

‘Well,’ I say, with finality, ‘it’s over now. Laurie needs to forgive him, and we all need to forget it,’ I say. ‘It was incredible sex, but that’s all it was. Until it wasn’t.’

Kate lowers her sunglasses and fixes me with a stare. ‘That’s all it was for you?’ she clarifies. ‘Sex?’

I nod, slowly. ‘Yes …’ I reply, because I feel like the question is a trick. She doesn’t say anything, just pushes her glasses back up her nose and sighs, deeply.

‘What?’ I ask.

‘One last thing,’ she says. ‘Last night, it didn’t all end because we found out – you said it had ended before we found out?’

‘We had an argument,’ I say. ‘I … called Jamie a “holiday fling” and it really hurt him. So he stormed out.’

That’s enough to make Kate take her sunglasses off properly and lean forward in her chair.

‘Flo,’ she says, and it’s not mean, but it is firm, ‘if you ask me, one way or another you’ve known Jamie is in love with you, and whether you can admit you love him too, you willingly slept with him, knowing it wouldn’t ever be enough. You’re kidding yourself if you thought it would be.’

‘No,’ I shake my head. ‘It was just sex. And he hit on me first, for the record …’

‘Not the actions of a man who leaves notes and runs away,’ she points out.

‘Well, he did,’ I counter. ‘He left a note, ran away and then hit on me again. And instead of letting my heart get broken once more, I let him in, by drawing very firm boundaries that I thought you – of all people – would appreciate. It was just sex. I have done nothing wrong,’ I say. I’m shouting, and people are looking, but I can’t stand what she’s insinuating. ‘He’s a big boy. Nobody had a gun to his head.’

Kate sighs. We sit there, words exchanged, angry, and neither one of us wanting to speak first. Finally Kate says, ‘You’re right. Nobody had a gun to Jamie’s head that made him sleep with you. But if you think he could be in love with you like he is – as he has been for years – and could turn down the chance to be with you, even for only a few days, you’re delusional. That’s not how love works. You knew he loved you, and you took advantage of it,’ she goes on, and I feel like I’ve been punched in the gut, her words are landing with such force.

I shake my head, willing the tears away. He doesn’t love me. No way.

‘Babe,’ she says, reaching out a hand to my arm. ‘The good news is, you can fix this. You need to find him and tell him how you really feel.’

I look at her, and when I blink, it forces a tear to roll down my face. I push it away, devastated that I’ve behaved this way.

‘I don’t know what to do …’ I tell her, my voice breaking.

‘You do,’ she reassures me. ‘I promise you. You do.’

Kate and I leave the market in silence, barely speaking a word as we navigate the bus system to get down to the harbour, where we’re meeting my family for lunch. I don’t feel like eating or being social, because Kate’s accusations are rattling around my head like loose change.

Do I like Jamie? Want-to-make-it-work LIKE Jamie?

My head is swimming.

All I know for sure is that I will pull Jamie away from the group before we eat and apologise, straight up, like a grown-up. I’ll start there. Clear the air. I will own my responsibility and say I will smooth things over with everyone, even though it’s only Laurie who really cares. I’ll promise Jamie he still has us.

‘Oh,’ I say as we approach, because it is immediately apparent Jamie isn’t there. It’s a beautiful white wooden building over the marina, built on stilts, so it looks like our table is hanging out over the water. Kate must know what I mean because she touches my arm and tells me, ‘He’ll be giving Laurie his space, that’s all. I’ll make sure they sort it out.’

I think the reason I’ve been so quiet is because I know Kate sees things clearly. So she’s held up a mirror to my own actions; but also, when she says she’ll help Laurie and Jamie, I know she means it, and I know she’ll be successful. That makes me breathe at least a little bit deeper.

‘Thank you,’ I reply with a grateful smile. ‘And thanks for giving me the hard truths, too.’

She knocks her shoulder into mine. ‘Sure thing,’ she says, ‘Auntie Flo.’

As soon as she calls me that, we both turn and stare at each other in horror. ‘Aunt Flo!’ I squeal. ‘No! That can’t be my name. I can’t be synonymous with having your period.’

Kate shakes her head. ‘It’s hilarious we didn’t think of that. Oh my gosh! We’ll have to drop the “Aunt” bit, or else call you “Auntie Florence”?’

‘That makes me sound ninety years old,’ I say, as we weave through the other diners to our table right at the far edge. ‘We’ll need to workshop it.’

‘Workshop what, darling?’ Mum asks, craning her neck to signal she’d like a kiss on the cheek. I oblige, and then give one to Dad for good measure.

Kate kisses Laurie and takes a seat next to him, leaving me to sit opposite, where I clock the edges of a bruise spilling out from under his sunglasses. I hadn’t realised Jamie had landed a punch. It serves Laurie right. Alex watches me assess Laurie, who studiously avoids my gaze. If he’s embarrassed, then I am pleased. I want an apology from him for acting like the viscount from Bridgerton , as if my marital prospects are his concern, and his concern alone. But god, if I have to explain to him why I want an apology, I’ll scream. If he doesn’t get that by now, he’s more of an idiot than I thought.

Luckily for Laurie, he seems contrite, so I shall bide my time and let him come to me. Though if anyone gets through this lunch without bringing Jamie up, I’ll eat my napkin in shock. He’s the elephant in the room. If he’s skipped lunch to give us space, his absence actually means we feel his lack of presence even more.

We order lunch, because that’s what the Greenbergs do best, going back and forth with if Alex gets this, then I’ll get that , and if we order extra for the table, we can always take it home . All the guys order beer, and Mum and I split a bottle of wine, with Kate taking a small splash in the bottom of her glass, just to be sociable. The wine goes down effortlessly, and quickly, doing exactly what I need it to: un-know the tension in my jaw and melt away the incessant chatter of my brain that otherwise would go JamieJamieJamieJamieJamie.

‘I’m so pleased we did this,’ Mum says, raising a glass to toast. She looks around the table at each of us, giving a nod of appreciation. ‘I’m so pleased you all came. I love you all, so very much.’ Uncharacteristically, her voice swells with emotion, and I can see her eyes threaten to overrun with tears.

‘Mum!’ Alex exclaims, sounding as unnerved as I feel. ‘It’s a happy thing we’re all together. Don’t cry. Christ!’

She waves a hand, then uses the corner of her starched white napkin to dab at her eyes.

‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘I don’t know why I feel like this. I’ve been a bit wobbly the whole time we’ve been here, to be honest. It’s just nice, isn’t it? I never want to take it for granted.’

Dad puts an arm around her. ‘It is lovely,’ he tells her. ‘You’re absolutely right.’

Nobody really knows what to say after that: yes, it’s been a lovely holiday; yes, one of us is missing; no, nobody is going to bring up the fire or the big reveal or the fist-fight or the delicate feelings of the morning-after-the-night-before. So instead Kate says how delicious the wine is; and I say I don’t normally go in for something so fruity, but I quite like this; and Alex says, ‘Oh, go on then, let me try some’ and sloshes a bit into his water glass before agreeing that yes, it’s unusual, but it’s the perfect pairing with the seafood. We cheers again, to family and good health, and on it goes – everyone except Laurie being peppy and chatty and a-little-too-bright.

‘You’re not saying much,’ I finally accuse him, halfway through our main courses. He doesn’t look up, but freezes, his knife and fork held aloft. He was obviously hoping to fly under the radar all afternoon.

‘I think,’ Dad offers, ‘that we’re all feeling a bit tender today, aren’t we?’

‘ All of us?’ I clarify, and Dad shrugs, like he doesn’t make the rules and so I shouldn’t shoot the messenger.

‘Nobody knows what to say, Florence,’ Mum says. ‘It’s very strange not to have Jamie here with us, and of course we all know why . But we don’t want you upset, darling. We don’t want to upset any of the family.’

‘I’m a big girl,’ I reply, in the exact opposite way someone who is a big girl would say it. Grown-ups don’t need to assert that they are, indeed, grown up. ‘We can talk about Jamie. Of course we can. We can talk about everything !’

‘Why? What else is there?’ Alex says, wrinkling his brow in confusion.

I exhale dramatically. ‘I suppose,’ I say, because it’s been brewing inside me all holiday – all year; for many years, in fact – ‘what I have been wanting to talk about for ages is my breakdown. Because a lot of how I feel about the whole Jamie-thing actually stems back to that.’

‘Okay …’ says Mum carefully, and I can hear the ‘dot-dot-dot’ in her voice, like she’s worried where this might go and is bracing for impact.

‘I am very sorry I had a breakdown, you know.’

I pause after saying that. Dad has a fork halfway to his mouth and pauses like I’ve cast a spell. I wasn’t intending to bring any of this up, but apparently I’ve decided this is the right time, when Mum is teary and Laurie is actually quiet for once.

‘And I’m very sorry that it made you all scared for me. But I am not still broken. In fact I am very much mended. And so if everyone could go back to how they treated me before, instead of me being like a delicate doll …’

I’m rambling, and I know that sometimes the less said, the better, but on this occasion there’s so much to get out of my system.

‘It was scary, Flo, when you weren’t very well,’ Alex offers in a small voice. ‘We thought … you know. That we might lose you.’

His honesty steals the breath from my throat.

‘Lose me?’ I say. ‘No, I would never—’

Dad coughs and says, ‘We know that, darling. It is just our worst fear that anything could ever happen to you. You can’t be mad at us for that.’

I nod, picking apart what he’s told me. I knew they’d been worried, but not that worried. ‘No,’ I say slowly, ‘I’m not. But I’m better, and all the stronger for what happened. I’m okay. Okay? And, you know, maybe I started to spend more time with Jamie because he’s the only person who seems to know that about me.’

At the sound of Jamie’s name, Laurie looks up. Is this the thing that will finally make him contribute? He looks down again. Apparently not.

‘Well,’ says Mum, ‘I, for one, wish the opposite. I wish that instead of thinking I’m so strong and capable and ready for anything, sometimes everyone knew that I’m scared and vulnerable, and that I worry so much that sometimes I think I gave you all my anxiety – especially you, Flo.’

Dad grabs her hand from where it lies by her wine glass. I suddenly realise that none of us have finished the food on our plates – with varying degrees of leftovers, we’ve all ceased to feel hungry.

‘I’m as petrified of the next thirty years of my life as the rest of you, you know. If we’re going to play the truth game, that’s mine. You want us to give you more credit, Flo, but maybe I get too much. Maybe I want to be worried about just as much as we’ve worried about you. I know I’m the parent and I’m supposed to be strong, but I think you’re all adult enough now to understand that there’s really no such thing as figuring it all out. Anyone who says they’ve figured it out is imbecilic and not to be trusted. Anyone who isn’t scared is a fool, too. Life is terrifying! At least sometimes.’

Nobody speaks. I steal a look at Alex, whose facial expression tells me he had no idea Mum felt this way. I feel a pang of guilt that I didn’t follow up with her, after Dad basically told me all this.

‘Mum,’ I say, ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t …’ I falter at the lie. I did know. ‘I should have thought to ask you how you’re doing. Any transition, at any age, must be scary.’

‘Correct,’ she says, sitting up straighter now she’s said her piece. ‘Everyone has something they’re afraid of. So I’ll accept you’re less afraid than ever, Florence, if everyone can accept that I’m … well, shitting myself about the future, quite frankly.’

‘I’m shitting myself about this baby,’ quips Kate, and we giggle, because it’s funny to hear Mum swear and it feels like Kate is acknowledging that – but Kate doesn’t laugh along with us. She means it. From everything she’s said about the pregnancy, I thought she was thrilled. She was so bubbly and funny about it all back at the market, looking at baby clothes. God, if even Kate puts on a bit of a front, that must mean everybody does. She’s normally the most truthful person I know.

‘You’ll be a wonderful mother, Kate,’ Dad tells her.

And Kate looks to the sky and says, ‘And yet you saying that doesn’t help me at all.’

A tear falls down her cheek, and Laurie reaches out an arm around her and pulls her in. He kisses her temple.

‘I’m scared, too,’ he says quietly, mostly to her, but we all hear it. The waiters must think we’ve gone mad – this massive family who over-ordered on the lunchtime booze and is now in varying degrees of distress, crying on each other and giving impassioned speeches, as if we’ve just found out one of us is dying. They do not come to clear our plates, even though the distraction might be nice. We are left alone, with our wine and our monologues.

‘Well,’ Alex declares, smacking a hand lightly on the table, ‘I’m bloody terrified that I will only ever be a good shag for somebody and never actually fall in love. Because that’s all I want. True love. And it’s a lot harder to get than the fairy tales would have you believe. Since everyone else has shared, that’s my dirty little secret. I work sixty-hour weeks and sleep for all of my days off, and then go and find a man at a gay bar on the one night a month I actually go out. I love my work, but I need more.’

‘Everyone needs more than just their work,’ Kate says. ‘Of course they do!’

‘Any man would be lucky to have you,’ I whisper to him, touched that he’d share that. Alex isn’t that way inclined: he’ll joke, but he’s slippery with his feelings. It’s about the truest thing he’s ever said to us as an adult. He scrunches up his nose at me. I scrunch mine up in return, a silent I love you .

‘And I am afraid,’ Dad says, so that we complete the impromptu circle of trust, ‘that I’ve let you all down somehow, because I can tell all my kids are scared in different ways, and I wondered if I could have taught you differently than that.’

‘No,’ Kate says quickly. ‘If I raise my kids to be even half as remarkable as yours, Michael …’

Dad gives her a smile. ‘You’re kind to say that,’ he tells her. ‘And yet, you saying that doesn’t help me at all.’

Kate chews on her lip and holds up her hands. ‘Touché,’ she laughs. ‘Touché.’

‘Look what you started, Flo,’ Alex chuckles. ‘Jesus! Pass the bloomin’ tissues.’

‘Sorry,’ I say, pulling a face. ‘Except also, not sorry.’

Mum takes a big sip of water and says, ‘See, this is what getting together as a family is like. It’s why it is important. When else would we have talked like this? It’s always so quick, grabbing birthday meals at a weekend before you all go back to your lives; or there’s always so much going on at the house when we’re all there, scattered everywhere.’

‘We do a good job, though, Mum,’ I say. ‘Or rather, you and Dad do. Kate is right – you’ve raised a very good family indeed. I never would have managed these past few years without you. So, thank you. I don’t think I’ve said that, so it’s overdue. Thank you.’

I raise a glass, and everyone follows suit.

‘To the pain-in-the-arse Greenbergs,’ I say, and everyone giggles.

‘To the pain-in-the-arse Greenbergs!’ they reply.

At the sound of our laughter, the waiter comes to finally clear our dishes. We make a collective display of helping him, putting stray cutlery on plates and telling him how fantastic the food was – though from what we’ve left, you couldn’t fault him for not believing us. I feel like this is the second time this holiday that I’ve had a reminder that it isn’t only me who hurts. First Jamie, and now this, with my whole family. It’s obviously awful if anyone feels wobbly, but it’s reassuring that if even these gobshites have their ‘thing’, I’m doing okay after all. The atmosphere is emotional now, but full of catharsis. We’re self-conscious with it, getting back to the business of pudding menus and coffees and teas, but once the waiter takes our order, silence falls.

‘I don’t know what I’m going to do about Jamie,’ I say, because I figure, Sod it. Be the one to say his name . ‘If anyone is wondering.’

‘We are,’ Mum says with a laugh. ‘He’s a good boy, darling. I hope you don’t think you can’t be with him because of us. I’ve always thought he’s a lovely boy. Well, man, I suppose. And I can see what you mean about him seeing you. He certainly looks at you like he’s got a lot of love for you …’

‘That’s sweet of you to say,’ I tell her. ‘But it wasn’t ever supposed to become this big thing. It’s definitely not love . I do need to apologise to him, though.’ I look pointedly at Kate. ‘I’ve been counselled accordingly,’ I say, and she winks at me.

‘We won’t ask what you did,’ says Dad. ‘Since, if you’re going to say sorry, it’s none of our business.’

‘Ha!’ I hoot. ‘You lot saying something isn’t your business? Alert the press! Note the date and time.’

Dad puts a hand to his chest, feigning shock.

Laurie issues a little cough. ‘You’ll need to get a move on,’ he says, and because it’s directly to me – his first face-to-face missive to me all day – everyone else is startled into sudden noiselessness.

‘Sorry?’ I say. ‘What do you mean?’ I look around the table. Mum, Dad, Alex and Kate all seem as curious as I do. Why would there be a time limit on apologising, when we’ve got three and a half more days of holiday? I actually thought giving Jamie time to cool off wasn’t a bad thing.

Laurie takes off his sunglasses and rubs at the bridge of his nose, wincing as he does so: the bruise is apparently very sore. He looks like absolute shit: bloodshot eyes, purple-and-yellow bruising, stubbled and unslept.

‘Laurie?’ I press. ‘Did you … you didn’t ask Jamie to leave, did you?’ I say.

He ruffles his hair and stares at his lap. ‘I saw him after breakfast and Jamie said he thinks it’s best to give you your space – to give us all our space. He feels he’s let everyone down, so he’s going early, I think.’

‘You think or you know?’ I try to clarify, catching Kate’s eye. She gives me a look as if to say fair question, babe. Why do I get the feeling Laurie told him to go?

‘Know,’ Laurie says. ‘It was Jamie’s idea, but I didn’t stop him.’

‘Laurie!’ I shout, louder than I mean to. ‘Jesus Christ! Why wouldn’t you stop him? You can’t hate him that much? This is a massive overreaction.’ I feel shaky and panicked – there’s a pounding in my ears, and my throat feels tight. The person I really want to yell at is Jamie, because he’s doing a runner … again ? I swear to god, I hate confrontation, but that man consistently disappears instead of facing the music, and it’s not bloody fair. Because as much as I owe him an apology, Kate is right: I need to get to the bottom of what happened at Christmas. I should have asked before, but it’s also true that Jamie should have offered an explanation, too. Did Laurie say something to him? Why wouldn’t Jamie tell me that at the time? And what changed for him between then and now? I’ve quashed all these questions as best as I can, but now there’s nowhere for them to go except out into the open.

If Jamie goes before I have the chance to talk to him, he might stay away from the whole family for longer than he needs to. If he goes, is his plan to miss every meet-up we have, every bank holiday … and what about next Christmas? He doesn’t have anybody else! Somebody needs to make sure he’s there. I want him there.

No.

Shit.

It’s more than that.

I need him there. The way that I feel, this isn’t just about making sure he knows he is welcome in our family, for ever and always. It is that I want him to be my family, for ever and always.

‘Oh my god,’ I say, hand flying to my mouth. I can’t believe this. I can’t believe I didn’t know this before now.

‘What?’ says Alex, looking worried. ‘What’s happened?’

‘I … I like Jamie,’ I say. It’s as simple and easy as that.

I.

Like.

Him.

Laurie’s eyes fly up to me, and I blink back tears. ‘Exposure therapy was never going to be enough,’ I mutter, as much to myself as to them. I’m reasoning out loud, trying to figure out when this happened. ‘I wanted to break down his walls,’ I say, and Kate nods. I think I’m finally catching up with her. ‘I called it “exposure therapy”. I thought we could be friends. But I fell for him. I think I fell for him at Christmas actually, and have kidded myself that I got over what he did – whilst being desperate to know why he turned his back on me.’

‘Christmas?’ asks Dad. ‘Oh yeah. I remember seeing you kiss his cheek, when we were doing the jigsaw. I thought something might be happening …’

‘It was,’ Mum says. ‘You were so kind with him, when he was outside with me. Do you remember? He was upset about his parents.’

I nod. ‘I remember,’ I say. ‘Bless him.’

‘So it was a lovers’ tiff – why he left so quickly?’ Mum clarifies. ‘The day after Boxing Day?’

I shake my head. ‘No. Not exactly. I feel like something happened, that I’m missing a vital piece of the puzzle. I’m sure he fell for me, too, at Christmas. I can’t have made that feeling up. I can’t have! We spent all Christmas getting closer and closer, and right before he suddenly left, he wrote me a note saying he’d led me on.’

‘You what?’ says Dad, and he looks at Mum, who is similarly troubled by this revelation. ‘Jamie?’ he clarifies. ‘What a bloody idiot.’

‘I’ve spent months feeling like I made it all up, that it was some one-sided infatuation that I could only handle if I decided to hate him. But it wasn’t, I’m sure of it. It wasn’t a one-sided infatuation.’

‘It wasn’t,’ Laurie says then.

‘What?’ I ask.

‘I need to tell you what I did, Flo,’ Laurie says. ‘But before I do, I want you to know that I am really, really sorry.’