Ashleigh Brett and Remy Hughes 2022 Aged 60 #3
‘You were lucky to have had them both until you were fifty-five.’ He spoke with clarity and there was a brief moment of confusion, before she remembered she’d shaved five years off her age when they met, just because.
‘Yes.’ Glancing at her reflection in the tinted window, she liked what she saw.
Her blonde, straight bob was timeless, her wrinkles kept at bay by regular appointments with her aesthetician.
Her lips ever so slightly plumped to replace the pout that would by now have undoubtedly thinned.
A routine of facials, collagen supplements, turmeric shots, vitamin drips, skinny jabs, yoga and clean eating ensured she could get away with fifty-five for a while yet. ‘Are both of your parents alive?’
‘Yes.’ He nodded, eyes on the road.
They were at this stage, her and Victor, where they were sleeping together rather successfully.
She knew he had grown up in Sri Lanka, was divorced, had a penchant for Jo Malone candles in his fabulous Mayfair penthouse, as one sat next to a framed photo of him with Charles and Camilla, all mid-laugh.
She was aware he didn’t approve of public displays of affection, knew he wore handmade shoes and shirts, that his favoured food was a hearty full English served in a good old-fashioned café, and he liked to listen to Coldplay on repeat.
But the more detailed stuff, how he had made his money, did he play an instrument, had he ever been to jail, been very sick, made terrible mistakes, his plans for the future . . . it was all out there to be learned.
This thought reminded her of a conversation a long time ago with Remy, who had wanted to know all about Archie, and she had answered in the misguided belief that she knew him.
That was a time when she and her sister were still close, still speaking.
When Remy was one of her pillars, someone she could call in an emergency or because the world felt too big.
It hadn’t been that way for a while. They had drifted, were estranged almost. A situation that had arrived on the coattails of that disastrous weekend.
She thought about Remy, of course she did, not least when she was having to verbally dance around conversations with her parents, who had constantly pushed for some kind of reconciliation. If only it were that straightforward.
Her sister’s upset at the fallout, once she’d come clean about the exam, proved to Ashleigh that they’d been right to tell the world.
If it had been the small thing Remy had always professed, no big deal, then there wouldn’t have been any fallout in the first place; people would have laughed it off, had another drink, scarcely given it a second thought!
But it was not like that. The irony wasn’t lost on her that her sister was now, when it came to their parents, having to deal with the weight of the deceit, that feeling of being a fraud, of disappointing the people close to her, exposing her lie .
. . all the things Ashleigh had had to live with since she was a little girl.
That and the fact she had drunkenly slept with Jamie, which in all honesty she couldn’t believe Remy was so freaked out about, given that she’d been drunk!
Very drunk. It wasn’t as if she’d planned on making a habit out of it.
She could, in fact, almost guarantee that recalling it was far worse for her than it was for her sister. Jamie Aller – urgh!
She clenched her jaw, wondering how their reunion was going to go down and hoping that the solemnity of the occasion might be enough to keep high emotions at bay.
Victor was handsome, accomplished, funny, and she felt quite optimistic for what might come next.
She had given up entirely on finding love, but whatever this was, with this successful man, was nice.
The last few years of solitude and reflection had helped her understand that post her divorce from Archie, she had entered a period of mourning, that, with hindsight, had taken her decades to recover from.
Although that wasn’t strictly true: she wasn’t fully recovered.
It had damaged her, changed her, and she knew without doubt that she’d never again experience a love like theirs.
Never again be so willing to commit, to dive in filled to the brim with enthusiasm for whatever might come.
It had been special, easy, comforting, passionate and true, rooted in the heavy excitement of their youth.
The only shame being it wasn’t reciprocated.
And her biggest regret, a nagging thought that maybe if she’d tried harder, worked less, cooked more, been more involved with Evie, he might not have stopped loving her.
‘When did you stop loving me?’
‘I’m not sure, but a while ago.’
His words, there for perfect recall whenever she needed them, venom that she rolled along her tongue, feeling its sting, and knowing that to swallow it would only cause her infinite harm.
She had trusted him, adored him, Archie, that fabulous boy who had chosen her and made her feel like she had won the world!
And no matter how much time passed, it still irked her that he now lived with Leni in the house Ashleigh had designed; every room they had christened with sex and champagne.
She wondered if Leni knew that? Not that it was her fault; it wasn’t.
It was his. Leni had merely entered the play when they were halfway through the first act, unaware of the promises Archie had made and how she had believed them entirely.
Besides, Leni and Archie had now been married for far longer than she and Archie had.
It was an achievement that rankled, along with the fact that in every snap she saw of them with their two teenage boys, they all looked so goddamn happy! Evie included.
Evie, who lived in Canada with her wife, Kat.
Far away from her. They liked the outdoors, hockey, skiing and watching cartoons.
Ashleigh did her best to keep in contact, they swapped texts, birthday cards and met for lunch whenever Evie and Kat were in London, which they were at least twice a year, trips paid for by Archie, when they slept in Evie’s old room in Clarendon Road.
Ashleigh did her best not to picture the family dinners around the table of the fancy house, the one with the Crittall windows and the turnaround gravel driveway and the grandest of hallways.
It was odd and bothered her enormously that Evie was yet to bring Kat to Ashleigh’s flat.
It was her greatest sadness; the lack of closeness between her and her only child.
She had tried, tried hard, but it was as if that lack of closeness in those early foundation years was not something she could catch up, not ever, and no matter the emotional pain this caused her, she understood.
Evie, as a little girl, had sought out the arms of Archie and Marguerite, safe harbour in that busy, slightly fraught world she had inadvertently helped to create.
‘Would you like a mint?’ Victor reached into a cubby and shook a little green tin of Marks and Sparks mints at her.
‘Why not?’ She helped herself.
She tried not to imagine Evie and Kat in that spacious kitchen, sharing food, laughing as they caught up with Leni hosting and Archie drinking, music playing, her own private torture.
‘How often do you come back to visit?’ His enquiry casual, she tried to answer in kind and not give a hint of the boulder of destruction that had been lobbed into her life here, her childhood home.
‘I had sex with Jamie!’
‘My Jamie?’
‘He’s not your Jamie anymore, but that Jamie, yes. Sophie’s dad, Jamie!’
The memory made her cringe.
Home . . . it hadn’t felt like home for quite a while.
‘Not too often. We’re all – all busy. You know how it is.’
‘I do indeed.’ He spoke with the suggestion of laughter, indicating he got it; a busy man, no doubt. ‘So you used to work for Gallow and Fitch?’ he asked with an impressed tone.
There were very few who lived in the capital who were unaware of the successful chain of luxury estate agents.
She’d spy their classy logo everywhere and did so with a gripping feeling of hurt in her gut.
She had, over the last couple of years, slowed down, working a bit less and socialising a bit more.
It was all about that work–life balance.
‘I . . . I used to be a partner, actually. One of the founding partners. The Fitch bit, my . . . my married name.’
Damn! There it was again, that desire to cry, the shame, the loss, the grief, the rejection, just as acute at times when the topic caught her unawares, as if it had happened yesterday.
‘Oh? What happened?’
‘It’s rather complicated.’ She swallowed her distress, and smiled, doing her best to change the course of the conversation. ‘It’s very good of you to drive me all this way, Victor. Thank you.’
‘My pleasure. This beast likes nothing more than a good run.’ He patted the steering wheel. ‘And I shall visit the cathedral, have a gander at the Magna Carta and find a café that knows how to fry an egg and make a decent mug of tea.’
‘Sounds like bliss.’
‘They’re weird things, aren’t they, funerals?’ he mused.
‘Uh-huh.’ And just the mention of it, the imagining of her dad in a coffin and recalling his final words, spoken down the phone when she had called without any idea that this chat would be their very last: ‘Night night, darling. Sweet dreams . . .’
Enough for her to feel a pull of tears far stronger than her ability to keep them at bay.