Chapter Forty-Five
Lady Phoebe
As I sit on the edge of my bathtub, wrapped in my towel, I stare at myself in the mirror above my sink opposite me.
I don’t only see my face, though. I see the time Arthur put his fist through the glass and the time I caught him bent over my counters and the countless other times we took our clothes off and washed ourselves together. I wonder if we’ll do that again.
I tried for so long to erase him but he was everywhere. He’s all over this house, all over my room, and my bed and my walls and my furniture. I still have his clothes from secondary school tucked away in my chest of drawers.
As I start to get dressed, I think about the look Cynthia gave me when she came over earlier to give me my presents.
The same one she gave me the day I started my period, before I had told anyone.
The first time she saw me after losing my virginity even though no one knew.
It isn’t a dramatic look or anything. She just stares at me, unblinking, but her eyes talk.
They say everything I haven’t yet. Which is terrifying and also maybe comforting because for as long as she’s alive, I’ll never carry a burden on my own.
I stare at my reflection, trying and failing to flatten my dress over my hips. It isn’t sitting right. My hair doesn’t look good either and I noticed a new spot on my chin this morning.
“Mum!” I shout at the top of the stairs.
She walks around from the living room, tilts her head at me. Removes her glasses off her face. “Different colour, maybe?”
“No, it’s the hips, I think—”
“There’s nothing wrong with your hips,” she shakes her head. Comes marching up the stairs, goes past me and into her bedroom.
I follow her into her wardrobe where she studies some new designs she’s been brainstorming on mannequins. “No,” she mutters to herself. “What are you feeling?” She turns to me.
I huff. “I don’t know.”
“Tell me what you’re feeling and then we can go from there.”
“I don’t know what I’m feeling!”
“Bloated, perhaps?” Cynthia chimes in at the doorway. “Been eating a lot of pasta lately?”
I turn around to face her. “You have Ozempic face, Cynthia. I wouldn’t be talking if I were you.” I brush past her, back into my bedroom.
Mum flounces in, Cynthia behind her. “What about black? Black dress, Manolo Mary Jane’s?”
“It’s my birthday, not a funeral!”
“Calm down,” she rolls her eyes at me before disappearing inside my wardrobe.
Cynthia stands at my door, staring at me again.
“Stop doing that you freak.”
“I’m not doing anything,” she smiles. “You’re the one who’s been doing the do.”
“You’re senile, you know that? Mum should put you in a home.”
“How’s your sister?”
I swallow. “Why don’t you use your fucking magic and teleport over there and find out?”
She scoffs, crosses her arms over her chest. Mum comes out of my wardrobe with some more dress options and eventually, I find something. A basic black mini dress, the Mary Jane’s and my 2002 Christian Dior trench. It’s fine. It works.
“Thank you,” I smile at my mum before I leave.
She brings me in, kisses the top of my head. Cynthia joins in, too. I let her because she’s old and we’re her only family which is sad but also I’m kind of grateful because if she had a family of her own, then we wouldn’t be her family.
I kept my birthday simple this year. Intimate. Hired out Le Pont de la Tour by Tower Bridge. I invited everyone you expected me to plus a few extras because Mum felt bad.
When I get out of the car, the paparazzi are rife so I push my sunglasses over my face, head down and beeline it into the restaurant. Everyone’s so happy and so excited for me and there’s a table in the corner stacked high with presents and gift bags. I’m happy too, I think.
There’s something different about my birthday this year, though. Maybe it was this morning or maybe it’s this past year. Maybe I feel like I’m running out of time but I felt like that when I was sixteen and seventeen and eighteen and nineteen so I don’t think you ever stop feeling like that.
Actually, what I think it is, is when I find Arthur through the crowds of people wishing me a happy birthday.
His eyes lock on mine and he raises his glass of water over at me.
And isn’t this just so typical for us? A room full of people but we still manage to find one another.
I think even if we were on opposite ends of the world, we’d still find each other.
It’s more than love, what we have. It’s an all consuming, soul crushing way of life.
It’s my bedroom after school and the Tiffany ring and Paris and parties and arguing and commitment and trying and failing and stopping and starting and weekends in the country.
It’s death and grieving people who are still alive and losing and gaining and fucking up and apologising.
It’s falling and falling and falling and wondering if or when we’ll ever reach the bottom.
“Hi.” Athena slides up next to me. “Happy birthday, chick.”
“What is it?” I frown.
“Nothing,” she shrugs, smiling.
“Please just tell me.”
“Okay, fine,” she relents. “Someone snuck in without an invitation.”
“Who?” I spin around, trying to find someone who I don’t recognise.
She slaps my arm. “Not a creep. Come with me.”
Athena drags me through the restaurant, over to a table and my heart stops for a second in my chest because even though she does that I can’t have kids, I think she might’ve forgotten for a moment. So when I see Lottie Hanbury’s toddler climbing the seats, I think I black out for a second.
“I’m really sorry.” Lottie stands up, kisses my cheek. “I know it’s your birthday but Athena said you really wanted to meet her and I couldn’t get childcare.”
“I offered to get a nanny,” Charlie tells me.
She cuts him a look. “I don’t need someone else doing my job.”
He smiles, touches her arm. “Don’t worry, no one can swipe my card like you.” And then he nods his chin at me. “Happy birthday, girl. Your present is in the pile.”
I nod, lean over the table to kiss his cheek.
Lottie gives him a dirty look, turns back to me. “I really hope you don’t mind. She’s well restaurant trained—but if you don’t want her to be here, it’s literally fine, I get it.”
“No, no,” I shake my head, staring at the little blonde girl. “She’s okay—more the merrier!”
“Margot!” Lottie whips round, grabbing her child from tumbling over the back of the seats.
“She’s quite darling, isn’t she?” I reach over, my hand stills for a second. What do I do? Pet her like a fucking dog? I doubt her council estate drug dealer turned footballer hotshot father would appreciate that. I ruffle her hair. She smiles, giggles, claps.
“She does talk,” Lottie laughs nervously. “She just gets shy.”
“I don’t doubt that you haven’t done a good job, Lottie. You had a kid when you were still a kid yourself. Not many women can do that.”
Her chin wobbles, she smiles up at me, thankful because I don’t think that many people have said that to her before.
“She’s getting fat,” George butts in, walking over.
“She ain’t getting fucking fat!” Charlie gives him a look. “You’re getting fucking fat, you fat fucking pig.”
“Pipe down,” Lottie tentatively touches his arm—casts me a quick look—“We’re not in the slums of East London now, darling.”
I clear my throat. “Is Daisy around here?”
“Nah,” Charlie shakes his head, takes a sip of his drink. “She didn’t want to come.”
“Oh, right,” I mutter, nod.
He waves his hand through the air with a frown. “Not like, anything personal, yeah? She just don’t like coming to things like this. Don’t do well with big groups.”
His cockney accent is so strong I struggle to understand him. I nod anyway. “Shame. I haven’t had the chance to catch up with her since she visited the store.”
He angles his tumbler my way. “She appreciated that big time, by the way. Done me a solid with that, Phoebs. I owe you one, mate.”
I cast a sly look over to George who covers his smile behind his hand. George nods his head over at me so I excuse myself and go over to him.
“Digby’s here,” he tells me.
I frown. “Sorry? I thought you said Digby was here?”
“Yeah,” he nods. “That is what I said.”
“Why?” I throw my arms up. “Why is he here? I told you I didn’t want him here!”
“I ain’t the fucking owner of London, Phoebs. He had an invite so he came? What did you want me to do?”
“I don’t know—maybe—you could’ve…I don’t know!”
I walk off, stressed out, hot and nauseous.
I stand by the bar, order a Diet Coke because I’m a bit put off champagne now.
“Saw you with Lottie’s kid.”
I turn around, Arthur stands behind me.
“Yeah,” I nod. “She’s cute.”
He frowns when the bartender hands me my drink. “I bought you a bottle of Cristal.”
“Oh,” I scrunch my face up. “I over indulged. Not much of a fan at the minute.”
“You gone off champagne? Never thought I’d hear the words.”
“Thank you, though.”
We lean back against the bar, surveying the people around us.
“Remeber your seventeenth?” He nudges my elbow. “We watched the sunset and spat champagne out everywhere.”
“I remember that.”
Back of the loft. Still there. Tucked away.
“And then fucking Benidict popped his clogs.”
“Oh my god,” I face him. “I totally forgot! Is that bad? No one’s really posted anything or even mentioned it. I’m still kinda pissed he died on my birthday, though.”
He laughs. “No one gives a fuck about him, Phoebs. Why would they? He was a disease. In a better place now, I’m sure.”
“Could’ve been you,” I mutter.
He nods, licks his lips, still not looking at me. He blinks slowly. “Yeah, I know. That whole thing—that whole time of our lives—was so fucked.” He then turns to face me, leans in a bit closer. “You do know I’d never do that again, though? Don’t you? You know that, yeah?”
“Of course I know that, Arthur.”
He sighs, laughs to himself. “When I was away, on your birthday—all three that I missed—I made a cake and lit it, wished you the happiest of birthdays wherever you were, whoever you were with.”