Chapter 52.
Six months later
Eight weeks after Lara’s death, I fly to California, to stay with Felix. His place already feels oddly familiar to me, since Lara and I FaceTimed daily after she left Norfolk in December.
She passed away four months later, with Felix by her side, just as she’d wanted. And though I know some people questioned her choice to be on the other side of the world, it’s clear to me as soon as I set eyes on the last view she ever saw – Felix’s lavish green lawn with its fringe of cypress trees and decking overlooking a vast blue wilderness of ocean – that she made the right call. How could it not have been? She spent her final days on earth bathed in sunshine, with the man she loved, and all the care and attention she could ever need. Which was just so perfectly Lara. She did everything her way, right up till the end.
But after her living funeral, the actual funeral hit hard. Because although people tried to smile and be upbeat, and had dressed as she’d requested in bright colours, the day was bleak and sombre in the only way it ever could be at a crematorium, with Lara’s coffin in front of us. But it was a warm spring morning, and the sun shone for the speeches at the wake. And the closure, ultimately, felt comforting. Like the gentle turning of a page. The start of a new chapter.
Felix takes me on a tour of his house, which seems to be full of people – family members, a gardener, a maid, and a couple of guys from his company who are working from one of the many office spaces.
The whole place is, by any measure, spectacular. There are bay views from the windows, and a stunning garden and infinity pool, the house itself a breathtaking fusion of concrete, glass and steel.
Felix tells me he sometimes rents it out to film and TV crews.
‘For what kind of thing?’
‘Well, no horror films,’ he says. ‘Only ever... feel-good stuff.’
I don’t know if he’s joking, but I like the sentiment.
It was always the sunrises here that Lara loved the most. When she was still able, she and Felix would head out onto the deck with a pile of blankets while the world was still dark, and hold hands as the horizon began to roar with colour. It was a daily comfort, she told me – witnessing the beauty of another dawn. She used to say it made her feel braver. That little bit more invincible.
When we reach the room where Lara spent her final few weeks and eventually passed away, Felix pauses.
I recognise every inch of it. The walnut floor and expansive windows. The vast sofa that was folded out as a bed. Coffee-coloured linen, though when she was using it, it was always smothered in a cloud of cushions and quilts.
‘Would you like some time alone?’ Felix asks me, kindly.
Gratefully, I nod, because I’ve been wondering privately if I might be able to get a sense of her in here, somehow.
He leaves me and I go inside, shut the door, then take a tentative seat. The room is quiet and still. It smells faintly of frangipani flowers.
I run a hand over the surface of the sofa, hoping to alight on a patch where her palm was once, too. Instinctively, I scan the room for the water bottle she was always sipping from, and for the fan that was constantly on, despite the air-conditioning. For her silk pyjamas, her hairbrush, her lip balm.
The last thing she ever said to me was a whispered, ‘Love you, Neve,’ two nights before she died. And I knew, somehow, that she was close to the end. That she was ready to go. I took some time off work as I waited for news, wide awake each night with grief. I kept my curtains open. For some reason, I didn’t want to take my eyes off the sky.
At one point, I felt the atmosphere shift slightly, a loss of pressure, like I was feeling her leave. Then, several minutes later, my phone rang. Felix. She was gone.
‘We had time together,’ I whisper to her now, letting a few tears fall, thinking back to what she said about Billy. ‘And you were right, Lar. That’s all that matters, in the end.’
Her childhood teddy bear is propped sweetly up in a corner of the sofa. I bend forward and pick him up, stroking his fur, which is silky now from years of repeated touch. He is just a bear, but he reminds me of her, somehow. He has kind, bright eyes. The softest heart.
As I prepare to leave the room, I hold his paw in my hand, momentarily unable to let go.
Evening approaches. There are still people milling around the house. I think that’s how it is, when you’re rich. You never have to be alone. I don’t blame Felix for that. Back at home, I’ve been working late and going on midnight walks and keeping up with a constant carousel of friends, just so I never have to feel my own solitude.
Felix opens a bottle of champagne, for us to toast Lara. We take it outside to the lounge chairs on the decking. The sunset tonight is pure cinema, the air fresh with salt and night-blooming jasmine. Beyond the garden, the sea is deep and dark as a reservoir. It shifts slightly with the tide, its surface clotted with seaweed. I get the urge to shed my clothes, run down to it and jump in, to feel myself caught in the cold squeeze of its fist.
I imagine swimming out to a point where Lara is treading water, waiting for me. I picture her waving, the smile on her face.
Felix proposes a toast. Together, we raise cold glasses in the warm air, and drink to her.
We spend two restorative weeks together, hiking and sunbathing, eating well and drinking great wine. Felix becomes a firm friend. I feel healthier, revitalised. We play tennis most days. I try yoga, which I’ve always assumed I would never have the patience for, and am surprised to discover I enjoy it. I regularly sleep in till ten. Felix introduces me to his friends and family. I get to see his offices in Silicon Valley. There are drinks and barbecues at the house nearly every night. The mood, if not upbeat, is determined, at least. To honour Lara’s passion for living. To pay tribute to the kind of life she would – should – have been enjoying now.
I enjoy the novelty of time off work. I haven’t had two weeks’ annual leave since I started at Kelley Lane eight years ago. Felix points out that taking holiday is essential for maintaining perspective and a clear head, and I have to say, I am starting to agree. True, I have checked my email occasionally, but Parveen is doing a fantastic job of holding the fort, and I am beginning to enjoy the feeling of opening my eyes in the morning and my first thoughts not being about my meeting schedule, or the problems on my to-do list that need solving, or Mrs Ogilvy’s bespoke library shelving.
One night, Patrick, a friend of Felix’s from San Francisco, finds me standing alone at the very end of the garden, looking out over the cove.
He touches my arm, making me jump.
‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘Didn’t mean to startle you.’
We’ve been out a couple of times, along with Felix and his wider circle, for drinks and dinner. He is handsome in a way that’s hard to ignore, and he’s charming, and athletic, and is very good at making me laugh.
‘Not at all,’ I say. ‘I was in my own little world there.’
We stare out at the water together for a few moments. Its surface is spangled with moonlight. It reminds me of the view at night from Ash’s apartment. But right now, Norwich feels a world away.
‘I wanted to ask,’ Patrick says quietly, eventually, ‘if you’d be open to having dinner, just the two of us, before you leave?’
I look over at him and smile.
‘Just something relaxed,’ he says. ‘I’d love to get to know you better.’
I wonder what Ash is doing right now. If he’s thinking of me. Or if he’s in a bar with a girl somewhere. It’s been six months since we last spoke. How could I blame him, if he’d moved on in that time? If there’s one thing I’ve learnt from Lara’s death it’s that life is short. You have to live it while you can.
But I’m not ready to move on yet. I still have so much I need to say to him.
I look kindly at Patrick, who is very sweet, with wholesome energy. ‘I’m sorry. It wouldn’t be right. I have some... unfinished business with someone, back at home.’
‘No problem. Just... thought I’d ask.’ Then he smiles, half raising both hands in a gentle gesture of acceptance, before walking slowly away in the darkness, back towards the house.
On my last morning, I get up at dawn, making my way outside and to the water’s edge via the narrow steps leading down from Felix’s garden. The sky is patched with lilac clouds, the blue sea unpleated by wind. I taste salt in the air, the sweet tang of morning. Above my head, a few gulls caw and soar, riding invisible breezes. The sight of their freedom comforts me. Because I am sure that freedom is where Lara lives now.
Lara. The other love of my life. I’ve begun to believe her spirit still lingers somewhere here – that maybe, right now, she is watching me and smiling, willing me to do this.
Long time coming, you idiot , I’m sure she’d say.
I finger the paper bag that’s filled with the remains of everything I kept related to Jamie. I tipped it all into Felix’s firepit last night. Tickets from Mamma Mia! Birthday and anniversary cards. Champagne corks. The insert from a London Grammar CD. Beer mats from pubs we’d been to. Cinema ticket stubs from before we were even officially dating. Answer sheets from quizzes, busy with Jamie’s handwriting. Even crumpled parking tickets, from days spent at the beach.
I crouch down now and upturn the ashes into the water, watch the dusty residue of my former life get swallowed up by the sea.
The last remnants of a love for someone I thought I knew, but never actually did.
I wanted to do it here, because I know she would approve. I know she would be proud of me. I know she’d want to look on as I finally say goodbye.