1983 – aged 28
Lilly had hardly slept.
She felt guilty, seeing Rex staring at her as she left him standing on the pavement.
He’d taken a step forward, as if his body was still processing her words and he expected to come with her, planning no doubt to walk her back to the flat or persuade her to come back to his place, normal stuff after eighteen months of dating.
He’d smiled at her, too, that crooked smile that she found irresistible, as if disbelieving her or expecting her to run back and shout, Just kidding!
She hadn’t run or looked back and certainly wasn’t kidding. It was only in her imagination that she saw him looking after her as she hailed a cab along the street and jumped in. His expression one she could easily conjure and which had kept her awake until the early hours.
There had, in the decade since Wilkie, been dates, sex, liaisons, thrills, moments, weekends away, and lovely, lovely Rex, who had lasted a whole eighteen months.
Rex, who had broken through her barrier, smashed her shield and encouraged her to take a chance.
The first since Wilkie who had managed such a thing, and he’d done so by disarming her with his honesty, his humour and his kindness.
They’d met at a bus stop in Vauxhall, he trying to get back to the City, where he worked in finance, and she off to work at the gallery.
In his suit, shirt and tie, he was struggling to make sense of the timetable.
‘I’ve left my glasses at home!’ he explained, and she liked his klutziness, the fact that he needed glasses to see and had forgotten them – who did that? It was endearing.
The bus was late.
They swapped numbers, and the rest, as they say, was history.
Rex was funny, smart, kind – all the things that made for excellent boyfriend material, not that Lilly had been looking for a boyfriend, still a little broken and more than a little wary.
A month after meeting and for their third date, he’d secured tickets for them to see Japan at the Hammersmith Odeon – they had sung along loudly to ‘Life in Tokyo’, drunk warm lager and danced until their feet ached.
She had felt the stirrings of deep, deep affection for the man.
Not love, not that, something she felt almost incapable of, damaged as she was, but it had, nonetheless, been lovely, easy, predictable and a gorgeous diversion from her settled life.
Rex met her dad, who gave a wide-eyed nod of approval, and she had been invited to Sunday lunch at his parents’ house in Oxshott.
His father had carved a large slab of roast beef in the dining room of their faux-Tudor dwelling, and his mum had told her funny anecdotes about Rex’s childhood that had made Lilly feel uneasy, knowing the story about her own mother doing a runner to shack up with her beau was the least funny story of all and yet the one that had shaped her the most. Not that she had shared the details with Rex, something that even now felt almost impossible to do, too personal, too hard.
But spending time with him had been lovely, all of it, each interaction edged with possibilities that she had flirted with, wondering if she might be ready to jump, to take the leap of faith, to trust again . . . until last night.
It was as they left Kensington Roof Gardens with the sound of Bowie in their ears and white-wine spritzer sloshing in her veins that he’d turned to her and uttered the words that ruined it all.
A whip crack of a suggestion that had echoed in the air around them like gunshot and made her want to run.
‘I’m just going to say it, Lilly! I want to make babies with you! I want to see a dozen little Lillys running all over the place! I want this for ever! I want to marry you! I want you, every day for all time, I want you!’
‘Stop mucking about!’ She had at first tried to defuse the situation with humour.
‘I’m not mucking about. I mean it.’ His expression, eyes glazed with emotion, confirmed this. ‘I want you to marry me. Marry me, Lilly!’ he almost shouted.
It had come out of nowhere, and left her cold, how quickly he had spoiled everything. Instantly sobering up, she gripped the lapels of his oversized blazer and looked him in the eye.
‘I’m not the marrying kind . . .’ Damaged . . . I’m damaged . . . a little broken . . . hurt . . . rejected . . . ‘and no babies, not for me, not ever.’
‘What do you mean, not the marrying kind?’ He gave a wry laugh. ‘No one is the marrying kind until they meet the person they want to marry! And you might say that now about babies, but . . .’ Why wasn’t he listening to her?
‘No, Rex, not now, not ever.’
The flash of distress over his face told her that it was something he wanted; of course he did!
He only knew what it was like to come from a family who drank wine with their Sunday dinner and where his mum’s biggest concern was, had she remembered to put the hand towel in the guest bathroom?
It was never going to work, she could see that now.
They were cut from very different cloth, from different places, different worlds, and not only was she certain that she could never fully commit to anyone, never trust a man with her heart, even someone as lovely as Rex, but worse, she knew that to pull him into her world might just damage him in the process.
She was a woman like her mum, no good, slack morals and all.
She heard Georgina Jones’s voice on the phone – ‘. . . with two little ones under five, I think I could do with a rest!’ – and her limbs shuddered at the memory.
‘I’m sorry, Rex.’ She was sorry, truly sorry, knowing this was the kind of admission, revelation and moment that there was no coming back from.
He’d been lost for words, and she’d been lost for a reason to see him again.
What was the point? She understood in that moment they were like tankers setting off on different courses and what might feel like a small difference at the start, something almost inconsequential at the beginning, would only widen the further they travelled.
Best to end it now.
And so she had.
‘So what do you think, Lilly?’ Her dad’s voice pulled her from her thoughts of last night.
‘What do I think about what?’ She glanced at the clock above the cooker, knowing she didn’t have time for a protracted conversation with her dad this morning.
There was a delivery coming to the gallery and she needed to be there to open up.
Bertie worked less and less now, letting her have free rein of the day-to-day running of B’Art, and she loved it!
In fact she had hardly seen him for weeks and weeks – and was desperate to catch up, loving nothing more than hearing about his exploits and fabulous, colourful social life.
Thank goodness one of them was out having a great time.
She might live in the middle of this fantastic city, but in the last eighteen months, when not being wined and dined by Rex, she was far more likely to be found at home with her dad playing Risk or canasta, going to the cinema with Glenda, babysitting for her two little boys, Bradley and Andrew, or painting on the towpath, still trying to capture that river.
‘My role in the Brink’s-Mat robbery. Not sure what we should do with all that gold I’ve got stashed under the bed.
I knew you weren’t listening! I was talking about buying the flat!
’ He tutted, frustrated that she hadn’t been listening.
‘This Right to Buy malarkey, I got a letter about it, and it seems like a good deal.’
‘I guess the two questions are can we afford it and why would you want to own it? I mean, right now, if something goes wrong or needs replacing, the council take care of it, and we pay rent. If we owned it that would all be down to us.’
‘It’s security, Lilly. I’m not getting any younger.’
‘Oh, don’t start with all that.’ She smiled at her dad, teasing him in the way she did. ‘You’re only sixty! Plenty of life in the old dog yet.’
‘You know what I mean – security for you. It’s not like you have a husband and kids who will look after you in your old age. Although that Rex seems keen!’
‘Well, actually, Dad, Rex and I broke up, so . . . And who says I need someone to look after me? I’m perfectly capable of looking after myself.
’ She shook her head as she sipped her tea, knowing she had to get going, doing her best to smother the memory of Rex’s face.
And the feeling of utter desolation that not only had she hurt this lovely man, but also that they had ended, finished, as up until the moment he had ambushed her with his surprise proposal, they had been having a really lovely time.
No matter how much it hurt, she knew it was the right thing to do, freeing him to go and find a girl who wanted to waltz up the aisle and have babies.
A girl without her shame, without her legacy, without her responsibilities.
Her dad was her priority, had to be, as he was no one else’s, and that was just the way it was.
‘That’s a shame. I thought he was nice.’
‘He is nice, he’s just not for me.’ She clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth, trying to remain a little cool, a little aloof, as screaming to the heavens about all that ailed her would help no one.
‘I just worry, that’s all.’ Her dad lit a cigarette. ‘I would like to see you settled before I go.’
‘Go where? For the love of God, Dad, is there something you’re not telling me?’ She rolled her eyes.
‘No, I just think we should go for it, buy the flat. It can be your pension, as I say, security.’
‘Well, it’s up to you, and I will support you whatever you decide.’
She grabbed her handbag and slung it over her shoulder; far easier to ride her bike when unencumbered. ‘I’ll see you later. Might be a bit late, but there’s lasagne in the fridge.’
‘Thanks, love, and who knows? I mean, it didn’t work out with Rex, but you’re still only a spring chicken, you might meet someone, fall in love . . . waltz up the aisle . . . I live in hope!’