Chapter Twenty-Six
Twenty-six
For a while I can’t even move. I stand there, dazed, with the breeze blowing on my face, and stare at the point at the end of the road where Jack’s car disappeared. I can still hear his voice in my mind. I can still see his face. The way he looked at me as though he didn’t know me after all.
A spasm of pain runs through my body and I close my eyes, almost unable to bear it. If I could just turn back time…if I’d been more forceful…if I’d marched Jemima and her friend off the premises…if I’d spoken up more quickly when Jack appeared…
But I didn’t. And it’s too late.
A group of party guests comes out of the courtyard onto the pavement, laughing and discussing taxis.
“Are you all right?” says one to me.
“Er, yes,” I say. “Thanks.” I look one more time at where Jack’s car disappeared, then force myself to turn around and make my way back up to the party.
I find Lissy and Jemima still in the little office, Jemima cowering in terror as Lissy lays into her.
“…selfish, immature little bitch! You make me sick, you know that?”
Lissy is in full Rottweiler barrister mode. As I watch her striding up and down, her eyes blazing in fury, I’m actually pretty scared myself.
“Emma, make her stop!” pleads Jemima. “Make her stop shouting at me!”
“So…what happened?” Lissy looks at me, her face alight with hope. Mutely, I shake my head.
“Is he—”
“He’s gone.” I swallow. “I don’t really want to talk about it.”
“Oh, Emma.” She bites her lip.
“Don’t,” I say in a wobbly voice. “I’ll cry.” I lean against the wall and take a couple of deep breaths, trying to get back to normal. “Where’s her friend?” I say at last, and jerk my thumb at Jemima.
“He got thrown out,” says Lissy with satisfaction. “He was trying to take a picture of a Linklaters partner in his tights, and a bunch of lawyers surrounded him and bundled him out.”
“Jemima, listen to me.” I force myself to meet her unrepentant blue gaze. “You cannot let him find out any more. You cannot.”
“It’s OK,” she says, sulking. “I’ve already spoken to him. Lissy made me. He won’t pursue it.”
“How do you know?”
“He won’t do anything that would piss Mummy off. He has a pretty lucrative arrangement with her.”
I shoot Lissy a “can we trust her?” look, and she gives a doubtful little shrug.
“Jemima, this is a warning.” I walk to the door, then turn around, trying to summon all my strength. “If anything of this gets out. Anything at all…I will make it public that you snore.”
“I don’t snore!” says Jemima.
“Yes, you do,” says Lissy. “When you’ve had too much to drink, you snore really loudly. And we’ll tell everyone you got your Donna Karan coat from a discount warehouse shop.”
Jemima gasps. “I didn’t!” she says, color suffusing her cheeks.
“You did! I saw the carrier bag,” I chime in. “And we’ll make it public that your pearls are cultured, not real…”
Jemima claps a hand over her mouth.
“…and you never really cook the food at your dinner parties…”
“…and that photo of you meeting Prince William is faked…”
“…and we’ll tell every single man you ever date from now on that all you’re after is a rock on your finger!” Lissy finishes. I shoot a grateful glance at her.
“OK!” says Jemima, practically in tears. “OK! I promise I’ll forget all about it. I promise! Just please don’t mention the discount warehouse shop. Please. Can I go now?”
“Yes, you can go,” says Lissy with a contemptuous nod, and Jemima scuttles out of the room.
As the door closes, I catch Lissy’s eye. “Is that photo of Jemima and Prince William really faked?”
“Yes! Didn’t I tell you? I once did some stuff for her on her computer, and I opened the file by mistake…and there it was. She just pasted her head onto some other girl’s body!”
“That girl is unbelievable!”
I sink down into a chair, feeling suddenly weak, and for a while there’s silence in the room. In the distance there’s a roar of laughter from the party, and somebody walks past the door of the office, talking about the trouble with the judiciary system as it stands.
“Wouldn’t he even listen?” says Lissy at last.
“No. He just left.”
“Isn’t that a bit extreme? I mean, he gave away all your secrets. You only gave away one of his—”
“You don’t understand.” I study the drab brown office carpet.
“What Jack told me…it’s not just anything.
It’s something really precious to him. He came all the way here to tell me.
To show me that he trusted me with it.” I swallow hard.
“And the next moment he thinks I’m spilling it to a journalist.”
“But you weren’t!” says Lissy loyally. “Emma, this wasn’t your fault!”
“It was!” Tears are welling up in my eyes. “If I’d just kept my mouth closed, if I’d never told Jemima anything in the first place…”
“She would have got him anyway,” says Lissy. “He’d be suing you for a scraped car instead. Or damaged genitals.”
I can’t help but laugh, albeit weakly.
The door bursts open, and the feathered guy I saw backstage looks in. “Lissy! There you are. They’re serving food. It looks rather good, actually.”
“OK!” she says. “Thanks, Colin. I’ll be along in a minute.”
He disappears again, and Lissy turns to me. “Do you want something to eat?”
“I’m not really hungry. But you go,” I add quickly. “You must be starving after your performance.”
“I am rather ravenous,” she admits. Then she gives me an anxious look. “But what will you do?”
“I’ll…just go home,” I say, and try to smile as cheerfully as I can. “Don’t worry, Lissy. I’ll be fine.”
And I am planning to go home. But when I get outside, I suddenly find I can’t bring myself to. I’m wound up with tension like a metal coil. I can’t face going into the party and having to make small talk…but I can’t face the four silent walls of my bedroom, either. Not quite yet.
Instead, I find myself heading across the gravel, toward the empty auditorium. The door is unlocked, and I walk straight in. I make my way through the darkness to a seat in the middle row and wearily sit down on the cushiony purple plush.
Two fat tears slowly trickle down my face. I cannot believe I’ve fucked up so monumentally. I can’t believe Jack really thinks I…that he thinks I would…
I keep seeing the shock on his face. I keep reliving that trapped powerlessness, that desperation to speak, to explain myself.
If I could just replay it…
Suddenly there’s a creaking sound. The door is opening.
I peer through the gloom as a figure comes into the auditorium and stops.
In spite of myself, my chest constricts with unbearable hope.
It’s Jack. It has to be Jack. He’s come to find me.
There’s a long, agonizing silence. Why won’t he say anything? Why won’t he speak? Is he punishing me? Is he expecting me to apologize again? Oh, God, this is torture. Just say something, I plead silently. Just say something….
“Oh, Francesca…”
“Connor…”
What? I peer again and feel a crash of disappointment. I am such a stupid moron. It’s not Jack. It’s not one figure; it’s two. It’s Connor and what must be his new girlfriend—and they’re kissing.
Miserably, I shrink down in my seat, trying to block my ears. But it’s no good; I can hear everything.
“Do you like this?” I hear Connor murmuring.
“Mmm…”
“Do you really like it?”
“Of course I do! Stop quizzing me!”
“Sorry,” says Connor, and there’s silence.
“Do you like this?” his voice suddenly comes again.
“I already told you I did!”
“Francesca, be honest, OK?” Connor’s voice rises in agitation. “Because if that means no, then—”
“It doesn’t mean no! Connor, what’s your problem?”
“My problem is, I don’t believe you!”
“You don’t believe me?” She sounds absolutely furious. “Why the hell don’t you believe me?”
I’m filled with remorse. This is all my fault. Not only have I wrecked my own relationship; now I’ve wrecked theirs, too. I have to do something.
I clear my throat. “Er, excuse me?”
“Who’s that?” says Francesca in a sharp voice. “Is someone there?”
“It’s me. Emma. Connor’s ex-girlfriend.”
A row of lights goes on, and I see a girl with red hair and a belligerent face, her hand on the light switch.
“What the hell are you doing? Spying on us?”
“No!” I say. “Look, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to…I couldn’t help overhearing….” I swallow. “The thing is, Connor isn’t being difficult. He just wants you to be honest. He wants to know what you want.” I summon up my most understanding, womanly expression. “Francesca…tell him what you want.”
Francesca gives me an incredulous look, then turns to Connor. “I want her to piss off.” She points at me.
“Oh,” I say, taken aback. “Er, OK. Sorry.”
“And switch the lights off when you go,” adds Francesca.
In haste I pick up my bag and hurry along the row of seats toward the exit of the auditorium. I push my way through the double doors into the foyer, flicking the light switch as I pass, then step out of the exit into the courtyard. I close the door behind me, and look up.
I don’t believe it. It’s Jack.
It’s Jack, coming toward me, striding fast across the courtyard, determination on his face. I haven’t got time to think, or prepare…
And now my heart really is racing. I want to speak or cry or…do something, but I can’t.
He reaches me with a crunch of gravel and takes me by the shoulders. “I’m afraid of the dark.”
“What?”
“I’m afraid of the dark. Always have been. I keep a baseball bat under the bed, just in case.”
He what? I’m totally confused. “Jack—”
“I’ve never liked caviar.” He casts around. “I…I’m embarrassed by my French accent.”
“Jack, what are you—”
“I got the scar on my wrist by cracking open a bottle of beer when I was fourteen. When I was a kid, I used to stick gum under my aunt Francine’s dining table. I lost my virginity to a girl named Lisa Greenwood in her uncle’s barn, and afterward I asked if I could keep her bra to show my friends.”
I can’t help a gurgle of laughter, but Jack carries on regardless.
“I’ve never worn any of the ties my mother has given me for Christmas.
I’ve always wanted to be an inch or two taller than I am.
I…I don’t know what ‘codependent’ means.
I…I have a recurring dream in which I’m Superman falling from the sky.
I sometimes sit in board meetings and look around and think, Who the hell are these guys? ”
He draws breath and gazes at me, his eyes so dark they’re almost black. “I met a girl on a plane. And…my whole life changed as a result.”
Something hot is welling up inside me, and my throat is tight. He came back. He came back to tell me all this.
“Jack, I didn’t…I really didn’t—”
“I know.” He cuts me off with a nod. “I know you didn’t.” “I would never—”
“I know you wouldn’t,” he says gently. “I know you wouldn’t.”
And now I can’t help it. Tears of sheer relief start flooding out of my eyes. He knows. It’s all right.
“So…” I wipe my face, trying to gain control of myself. “So, does this…does this mean…that we…” I can’t quite bring myself to say the words.
There’s a long, unbearable silence. If he says no…I don’t know what I’ll do.
“Well…you might want to hold back on your decision,” says Jack at last, with a deadpan look. “Because I have a lot more to tell you. And it isn’t all pretty.”
“You don’t have to tell me anything—”
“Oh, I do,” says Jack firmly. “I think I do. Shall we walk?” He gestures to the courtyard. “Because this could take some time.”
“OK,” I say, my voice still wobbling a bit. Jack holds out an arm, and after a pause I take it.
“So…where was I?” he says as we step down into the courtyard. “Oh, OK. Now, this you really can’t tell anybody.” He leans close and lowers his voice. “I don’t actually like Panther Cola. I prefer Pepsi.”
“No!” I say, shocked.
“In fact, sometimes I decant Pepsi into a Panther can—”
“No!”
“It’s true. I told you it wasn’t pretty…”
Slowly we start to walk around the edge of the dark, empty courtyard together. The only sounds are the crunching of our feet on the gravel and the breeze in the trees and Jack’s voice. Telling me everything.