Chapter twenty-eight #3
Once Eric had left, I retrieved my phone, turned it back on, and checked Fraser’s messages.
They were all, as I’d suspected, panicky questions about ‘what Mum wants to talk about’, asking me if I could ‘test the waters’.
He thought she’d found out about Iwona, not that she was trying to involve him in her new project, and I found myself thinking, God, how old is this man?
I told Martine that I thought Fraser had been trying to get in touch with her and left it at that.
Lewis reappeared from his office, covered in dog hair. Tomsk hadn’t even been called upon to do his PAT thing, so he’d spent the morning on Lewis’s sofa instead. ‘How did it go?’
‘I think it went well?’ I lifted my crossed fingers, then thought, no, own it. ‘Actually, no. It went great.’
Lewis grinned. ‘Come outside, I want to talk to you about something.’
We walked out into the gardens, admiring the last flush of roses Lewis had coaxed out of the neglected beds, deep orange shading up through apricot to pale champagne.
(I asked him what his secret was. ‘Chicken manure,’ Lewis explained. ‘And lots of it.’)
When we got to the bench, dedicated to Hugh Lloyd ‘and all who sail with him’, he sat down, and patted the space next to him.
I sat down. Lewis seemed too serious. Was he going to tell me he’d been offered a job somewhere else, and couldn’t stay? I felt woozy with dread. This project wouldn’t work without Lewis. I tried to keep my voice light. ‘So what is it? Is there something you didn’t tell me about that meeting?’
‘Beth, I wasn’t completely honest with you when we did that first Story of my Life session.’
‘No?’ I braced myself. What was he going to admit?
‘You asked me what the most significant moment of my life was, and I said passing my Cycling Proficiency Test.’ He glanced downwards. ‘That wasn’t strictly accurate.’
‘I can’t say I’m not relieved to hear that, Lewis.’
‘I should have been honest: it was Mum dying. It changed everything. For me, for Dad, for everyone. I used to wonder what my life would have been like if she hadn’t died, whether I’d have been happier, or different, whether I’d have found relationships easier . . .’ He shrugged. ‘Who knows.’
‘Me too,’ I said. ‘What if my mum had married someone she loved, what if she’d been allergic to vodka instead of addicted to it? What if she’d left Dad sooner? But then I wouldn’t be the person I am now. Being me is my job, not someone else’s.’
‘True.’
‘And you know, broadly speaking, I’m happy with the person I am now.’ I’d said it to make Lewis feel better, but as the words left my mouth, I realised I meant it. I was happy with this Beth. Wobbly stomach, wobbly self-esteem, wobbly plans – but the sun was starting to rise again.
‘Me too. I mean, I’m happy with me.’ He looked flustered. ‘And you. No, stop, you’re putting me off. I had this rehearsed.’
‘Sorry.’
Lewis reset, with a frown. ‘I didn’t want the first thing you knew about me to be something so sad. You’d have felt sorry for me, and that wasn’t what I wanted.’
I sensed this was Lewis’s attempt to sheepdog the conversation somewhere specific, and tried to help. ‘What did you want?’
Lewis met my gaze, honest and open. ‘I wanted you to like me. As much as I liked you.’
I smiled, he smiled back, and I had to look down now, to break the huge grin that threatened to swallow my face. I didn’t want Lewis to think I was laughing at him. I just couldn’t help smiling. My whole body wanted to smile.
‘I wasn’t quite truthful either,’ I said, to my feet. If Lewis could make himself vulnerable like this, I could open my heart to meet his. ‘When I said my accountancy exams were more significant than my mug cake recipe.’
‘No?’
‘No, I was being a snob. Anyone can cram for exams.’ I tilted my face back up to squint at him against the summer sun.
‘My mug cakes are perfect. And when I make them, I feel as if my mum’s with me.
The best version of my mum, the mum who looked after me as best she could.
And when I give them to people who need a hug . . .’
‘. . . you’re looking after them too.’ He nodded slowly. ‘I know.’
‘Plus, I wanted you to be impressed with my job, and not just think I was some fat woman obsessed with cakes.’
Lewis frowned. ‘Why would I think that?’
‘Because—’ I started, but Lewis interrupted.
‘Because you are the most beautiful woman I have ever met,’ he said, slowly and clearly. ‘That is just a fact.’
We sat for a moment, in that warm glow of anticipation, just savouring each tiny baby step towards what the spiralling butterflies in my stomach told me was coming.
My hand inched along the bench, and found Lewis’s hand inching towards mine.
Silently, our fingers touched and interlinked.
My breath quickened in my throat. I’d never felt quite so excited by someone touching my hand.
The 1950s teens up there in Rosemount knew what I was feeling now, my whole body alive and tingling. All of it. Even the bits I didn’t like.
‘I think what I’m trying to get round to saying,’ said Lewis, turning towards me on the bench, ‘is that if you were going to ask me a similar question again, at a future date, Tell me about a significant moment in your life, I would have to say: When a hospital transport rota was accidentally messed up.’
‘And why’s that?’ I knew the answer, I just wanted him to say it.
‘Because that’s when you walked into my office and I understood every cheesy pop song that’s ever been written.’
Lewis’s eyes locked with mine and I felt myself melting into the intensity of his gaze.
A faint smile played at the edges of his mouth, as if he couldn’t quite believe this was happening, then slowly, very slowly, he leaned forward, and I leaned forward, until our mouths were only a breath apart, and then, finally and gently – and then surprisingly passionately – he kissed me.
I was so lost in the moment I didn’t even really notice his moustache, which was much softer than I expected.
This was where our story started, I thought, as Lewis’s arm pulled me closer, and my fingers sank into the thick hair at the nape of his neck.
It didn’t matter what the previous chapters had been, beyond bringing us to this point, or how many there’d been.
From now on this was us. And I had never felt happier about not knowing how it would turn out.
We sat there for a long while, kissing. I could hear the birds singing, and I could feel Lewis’s heart beating, and I could feel my own soul lifting as his fingers slowly traced the line of my jaw. I could have stayed there forever.
‘There’s one more thing I want to do, while it’s still light.’ He got up and reached for my hand to pull me to my feet.
‘What? Lewis, what?’
He kept hold of my hand as he led me to the garden sheds where, I realised, he’d parked his tandem.
‘Ah, no . . .’ This wasn’t the time. I was wearing my good interview trousers and he was in a suit.
But Lewis was unlocking the door with a smile on his face, humming happily, and unexpectedly I felt that gaudy lava lamp bubbling away inside me again. My heart started to beat faster and my pulse quickened, and I needed to let out this surge of joyful energy and fly.
‘Lewis,’ I said, as he wheeled the tandem out, ‘I’d like to go in front. I want to be the driver.’
‘Go for it.’ I saw complete confidence and trust in his face. I don’t know if I’d ever seen it directed at me before, not like that. I felt as if Lewis was seeing a whole new Beth. ‘I’m right behind you. Literally.’
I looked at the tarmac drive in front of us; there was soft grass on each side.
If the worst came to the worst, we could crash-land somewhere soft.
But we weren’t going to crash, I told myself.
I was going to steer this thing. I gripped the handlebars, as Lewis steadied it for me, then felt him swing his leg over.
‘One, two, three, go,’ I shouted, and we were off.
Momentum carried us down the slope of the drive, then we were flying, legs pumping in unison, perfectly balanced. I felt my heart beating faster and faster but my body had never seemed more my own, more connected to my heart and my brain and my soul.
I heard a noise behind me: it was Lewis laughing.
And then he pointed, up towards the windows of Rosemount which seemed full of fluttering doves.
The windows were full of people waving white handkerchiefs, paper napkins, face flannels.
Old people who were still young people inside, who remembered falling in love, or who were in love.
People who had broken hearts, or had theirs broken, but had got up and tried again.
People whose life stories were delivering surprises, right up until the final page.
I raised my hand to wave back, and then I blew them all a kiss.