CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
February
‘You are now an interior designer with a Distinction certificate and all sorts of brilliant skills,’ Scarlet declares in an excited ramble, as we sit on the sofas and she pops the cork open on the bottle of champagne she and Rory brought round to celebrate. It feels too cold outside to drink champagne. It’s one degree and is threatening to snow.
‘I know!’ I squeal. I’d been told my predicted grade was going to be good, and I’d worked so hard, but a Distinction still surprised me. This is the first time Scarlet and I have found a free evening together when we can celebrate. ‘Thank God it’s a Friday. No early starts for work for any of us,’ I say.
‘Hello-o-o,’ Rory says, raising a hand. ‘ I have to be at work tomorrow.’
‘Poor you,’ Scarlet replies and makes a sad face that Rory doesn’t buy into. ‘Scything in a garden while hungover? Like some sort of brooding, shirtless Scottish Poldark?’
Rory raises an eyebrow. ‘Shirtless? In this weather. And … a scythe?’ he questions. ‘A lawnmower more like.’
‘Lawnmowers aren’t sexy,’ I tell him. ‘Could you just play along about the scythe … for Scarlet.’
He laughs, takes the glass of fizz that I offer him. ‘Christ, you two are a nightmare together,’ he mutters. ‘Congratulations again.’
‘Thank you,’ I tell him, as Rory automatically rests an arm over the back of the sofa and pulls Scarlet into him, where she nestles comfortably. The movement sends a jolt of happiness through me for my friend. But it also reminds me how I have no one to do that to me. I breathe in, breathe out. I’m strangely OK with this. I have so much going on, such a good life now. I’m happy.
Alongside celebrating my new educational milestone and promotion, I am also commiserating about failing my driving test. It was too soon to take it, given the infrequent lessons I’d been having, but a space came up and I thought I’d try and wing it. I’d been doing so well in general recently that it has been grounding to fail in something.
‘Reversing round a corner is the most unnecessary driving skill ever,’ Scarlet says knowingly as we commiserate together.
‘I also clipped a kerb,’ I confess.
‘Kerbs are overrated too,’ Rory declares in solidarity.
‘Apparently the car could have bounced all over the place and maybe have mounted the kerb and then hit a few pedestrians,’ I say.
‘Fuck off,’ Scarlet says, scoffing. ‘That would literally never happen.’
‘Bit late to argue it now, and I’m not sure I’m supposed to. Got to roll with the punches,’ I tell her.
‘Here’s to next time,’ Rory says.
‘Not sure I can go through with that again.’ I shudder.
‘That’s what people say about childbirth,’ Scarlet declares. ‘But those babies keep being born. A driving test is pain-free. Suck it up. Book another test. And maybe a lesson or two to brush up, before you go in.’
‘Just in case next time I flip the car over on the kerb and take out an entire town?’
She nods. ‘You can’t have everything at once, so perhaps we could focus on the good news of the day and how much money you’ll be earning, now you’re qualified, with a promotion.’
‘A couple of thousand more,’ I say, ‘essentially to do near enough the same job I’ve been doing, with more freedom over the design process. Although Max has trusted me since the start not to mess it up. It’s nice to be rewarded while doing something I love – having a voice that’s listened to, while still technically having my learner plates on.’
‘Not for long, though,’ Rory chimes in. ‘ All those learner plates will be off soon enough.’
Although today was a bit of a fail in one department, it came on the back of success in another. I now have a bit of paper that proves I know what I’m talking about when it comes to interior design.
I’ll get there in the end on that driving test. It’s not like I need to pass. Now I’m living in a city again, I drive precisely nowhere, and I don’t own a car. I can’t see myself buying one when I pass, either. But I’m determined to do it. I’ll book a few more lessons and take it from there.
After they go home I close the front door and tidy up the shoes scattered around the packing boxes, which have by now gathered a lot of dust. They’ve been here for months. Scarlet glances at the boxes pointedly every time she comes round, but I haven’t opened them yet. I like to joke they’re a permanent design feature, but in the end I had to confess and tell her my secret fear was that all those photos Josh and I took in our two years together, then spent time diligently choosing frames for, would be in those boxes.
‘It’s not just my things,’ I told her. ‘It’s our things.’ I wasn’t ready to be confronted with Josh’s face smiling out at me from a photo frame, reminding me of a time when I thought I was happy. I also didn’t want to be confronted with my possessions; items I owned and wore when Josh and I were together. Each one would remind me of our shared memories. It wouldn’t have been so bad if everything in these boxes hadn’t been at his house, if I had never have moved in. Now they contain the relics of my two years of being happy, coupled and loved, or so I thought.
For ages I wondered if it might hurt, seeing the way Josh packed up our photos with my things and sent them away, deleting me from his shiny new life with Tamara. I half wondered for a while if I might be better off taking all the boxes to the charity shop and letting them enjoy the fruits of my failed relationship. But I couldn’t bring myself to do that, either. So the boxes remained.
But six months is a long time to have left all my stuff piled up. I’ve been in relationships that have lasted less time than these boxes have been here. I go to the kitchen, fill my glass with leftover wine and return to the hall. Only this time I’ve brought a pair of scissors, because I think I’m going to do it. I’m finally going to slice open the packing tape holding the boxes closed. I’m ready. I’m over it. I’m over Josh. My life has moved on, for the better, in so many ways. I’m happily single and I’ve not felt that way in for ever. Is it right to do this on a Friday night, after drinks with friends and a failed driving test behind me?
I psyche myself up. ‘Let’s do this,’ I whisper to no one, then cut open the packing tape on the first box.
I pull out clothes, wellies and all the outdoor gear I’d purchased, including a Schoffel gilet, hiking boots and a Barbour waxed jacket. I remember my old life at Josh’s, my old clothes. A few issues of Country Life , bought when I imagined this was the life I’d have, are bundled into another box, along with the entire contents of a Superdrug store. I forgot how much make-up I owned and left behind when I fled – or escaped, depending on how you look at it.
Literally anything I took into that house is now in this flat, 400 miles away from Josh. I stand back and assess the damage, spread all over the hall floor. Then I start carrying books towards shelves, and putting shoes I’d forgotten about into the spaces that were occupied by the now-empty boxes.
‘My silver ankle boots are here!’ I say to myself excitedly. I forgot about those. The last time I wore them was to the hotel opening. Which was also the last time I saw Chris.
And then I see something else as I pick up the empty boxes. At the bottom of one of them is a sealed envelope with the word Lexie written on it, in Josh’s handwriting.
My heart stills, my breath slows. I wonder if it’s a bill for the courier. I wonder if it’s an apology, a further explanation of everything he and Tamara did and why he thought it was OK. I open it carefully and pull out the letter: two sheets of A4 lined paper in Josh’s neat handwriting. I take a deep breath, start reading and only get halfway through before I’m floored by the contents. I can’t bring myself to finish it. I stare into the middle distance. ‘Oh. My. God.’