Chapter 20
DOMINIC
It’s the evening after Vinny’s birthday drinks, and I’m sitting in the village pub waiting for him. There are a lot of things I’d rather be doing right now, like having pins stuck under my fingernails or walking barefoot across broken glass.
The fact is that Vinny told me in his New Year’s text to leave his sister alone (fair enough given my reputation).
Then last night Flavia basically implied extremely heavily that the two of us did at one point sleep together.
She also implied that she is very upset.
And then Vinny texted me at two thirty this morning saying it would be great to have an early evening drink today at six thirty.
Clearly, all those things are linked. And clearly, I am not going to enjoy this drink.
It’s six twenty-five and I’ve already been here for five minutes. No point pissing your friend off further by being late on top of the whole ‘yes I did sleep with your sister and yes you were right to warn me off, as yes she is apparently now very upset’ thing.
I sit and stare at the jugs and tankards on the mantelpiece above the fire.
They’ve been there as long as I remember and they’re weird.
They’re animal shapes. Fox, cow, fish, parrot, frog, you name it.
Who wants to drink out of a cow’s backside?
And how many times have Vinny and I sat here and enjoyed a pint together?
If I weren’t too miserable about Flavia to care, I’d be pretty sad at the prospect of losing his friendship too.
The door opens and Vinny walks in.
‘Pint?’ he asks as he approaches. He looks serious but not actually angry right now. Surprising.
‘Already got us both one.’ I indicate the table. I know what he drinks; he’s a man of habit when it comes to his beer.
He’s barely in his seat before he says, ‘Mate, you’ve upset my sister.’
I wince. ‘Yeah. Apparently. I am so sorry.’
Vinny doesn’t reply, he just indicates with his head, a raised eyebrow and narrowed eyes that I should really elaborate.
Obviously, on the one hand, I do not owe him any explanation. Flavia and I are both independent adults. This is nothing to do with him.
However, firstly he is a very good friend and there’s obviously the whole ‘you do not mess with your friend’s sister’ code, secondly I love that he cares so much about Flavia, and thirdly and most importantly I feel terrible that I’ve upset someone, especially a woman who I care very, very much about.
She’s a wonderful, kind, amazing woman, who would never knowingly upset someone herself.
But also… I did the right thing. I know I did.
And suddenly I really want to point that out.
And I think I want Vinny to tell Flavia how much I care about her and how if I were a better person who could offer commitment I would always, always want to be with her, assuming she were single and wanted to be with me.
So I say again, ‘I’m so sorry,’ and then I continue, ‘Upsetting Flavia is the exact opposite of what I wanted to do. Which is why we’re in the situation we’re currently in. I’ve been trying hard not to upset her.’
‘Right.’ Vinny takes a drink. ‘Feel like you’ve failed, though?’
‘Well, yes and no.’
‘From where I’m standing, just yes?’
I shake my head. ‘Short-term yes, long-term no.’
Vinny shakes his head. ‘I’m not getting that.’
I sigh internally. I feel like I’ve said enough but apparently I’m going to have to elaborate. I can see that Vinny isn’t going anywhere until he deems this conversation finished, and that is clearly not going to happen without him having a lot more details.
‘I wreck relationships,’ I say. ‘As do the rest of my family. We all know that’s true; it’s why you texted me at New Year.
I have a lot of exes and quite a few of them still haven’t forgiven me even though I always do my best to make it very clear that I’m not available for long-term commitment.
And I care very deeply about Flavia. A lot.
I don’t want to hurt her. I don’t want to make her upset.
So this is better. She might be a little bit upset now, but it’s clearly way worse to finish a relationship several months or years down the line.
It’s obviously better never to begin it properly. ’
‘So at New Year you obviously got quite close?’
I wince again. This is not something I want to be discussing with anyone except Flavia, and especially not with her brother. I think I do have to answer him. I’m really not prepared to share any details, though.
So I say, ‘Yes.’
Vinny raises an eyebrow and I nod once, and then we both take a long drink.
And then neither of us says anything for a while.
Vinny’s looking thoughtful. I’m looking at the weird jugs again, hoping that we can finish this drink very soon, and also wondering if there’s any way I can ask him if Flavia is back with Jed.
I feel like the answer is surely no given what she said last night.
On balance, I’m thinking it really wouldn’t help right now if I asked, though.
I’ll find out another time, maybe at Judith and Mike’s wedding.
He takes another sip and then asks, ‘You happy now?’
‘I mean…’ What? What kind of a question is that? It’s a big one, too big. It’s a stupid question. ‘Sort of.’
‘Are you happy not being with Flavia?’ he continues. ‘Are you missing her? Do you love her?’
I blink. That is… not the kind of question anyone really asks you, especially the brother of the woman you’re talking about. Even though I think I do want Flavia to know that, yes, of course I care about her, and Vinny is probably the only person who can tell her on my behalf.
Vinny just sips his pint and waits.
And I… squirm. Which is not a thing I usually do.
‘I do… love her,’ I say eventually. Because, when I ask myself the question whether or not I do, that is the only answer I come up with. Of course I do. She’s, well, she’s incredibly, infinitely loveable.
‘How much do you love her? Like, what would you do for her?’
‘I’d do anything for her. I’d lay down my life for her.
’ I’m stating the obvious. Of course I would.
‘Including not making her miserable. And that is why, even though, yes, I love her and, yes, I’m missing her and, yes, I’d like to be with her every hour of every day if I could, I am not with her. That is what I’m doing for her.’
‘You know you’re an idiot?’ Vinny stands up. ‘Going to get us both another pint.’
I don’t want another pint. I want to leave the pub and go back to London this evening and bury myself in un-emotive work.
When he sits back down a couple of minutes later, he says, ‘So Flavia was obviously very drunk last night – in a way that she normally is not – and I was worried about her. And the fact that she was talking about you like that obviously made me think that something had happened between you. So I asked her. And she told me what happened. She was so miserable that she couldn’t even be bothered to pretend anything other than the truth to me.
She is doing a great acting job with Mum, who I don’t think suspects a thing.
Thank God she was in the loos when Flavia made her big speech. ’
‘Yeah,’ I agree. Small mercies.
‘So.’ Vinny seems to have entered dog-with-a-bone territory. ‘Summarising: Flavia is miserable because you are not together. And you are miserable because you’re not together.’
I nod. ‘Yep. That is true. But my point is that we are miserable now. We will not be miserable in the future. I am saving us – well, Flavia – future misery.’
‘Because in the future you will both be with other people who you love more?’
‘No.’ I’m very certain of this point. ‘I cannot imagine meeting anyone I love more. I mean, I’m thirty-six and she’s the only woman I’ve ever felt like this about.
So, no. But I’m sure Flavia will be much happier with someone else.
’ I’m surprised at how deeply I hate that idea.
I shouldn’t; I should be pleased to think that she will one day be happy.
‘I thought she was going to get back with Jed but I’m guessing she didn’t. ’
‘What? No. Blatantly not.’
‘He texted her,’ I say. ‘He said he wanted them to get back together and have kids. That’s part of the reason I walked away.’
‘Well, they didn’t.’ Vinny waves a hand, like he’s banishing the idea of Jed, unaware that the confirmation that Flavia is not back with him is big news to me.
‘You know how you went to a fancy uni and you have a high-flying job?’ His change of subject surprises me a little.
‘You’re actually really stupid, no offence.
’ Oh, okay. This was not a change of subject.
‘You cannot imagine meeting anyone you love more than Flavia because you’ve never felt like this with anyone else? ’
I nod. There is nothing stupid about that, actually.
‘You know I had a lot of girlfriends in my teens and twenties.’ Yeah. He really did.
‘And then I met Amelie,’ he continues. ‘Every relationship I had before her ended, pretty quickly. Because they were the wrong relationship with the wrong person. Then I met her and fell in love and it turned out that I was not a serial relationship-ender, I was just with the wrong person, over and over again.’
‘But you aren’t a relationship wrecker,’ I say. ‘You aren’t from a family of relationship wreckers.’
‘I mean, I was a relationship wrecker. And I would argue that you aren’t from a family of relationship wreckers, you’re actually just from a family of people who serially get married too soon.
And before you raise your dad—’ we’ve spoken in the past about my dad not being the most devoted of parents ‘—so what? You aren’t him and your mum’s great, isn’t she?
And they seem to be fairly happily married, don’t they? ’
Weirdly, what he’s saying is making sense. It also tallies very much with something Flavia said. Which in hindsight I think also makes sense. I nod.
‘Yeah.’ Vinny raises his glass in my direction. ‘I see that you’re thinking about it. Because I am right.’
‘This is not what you said on New Year’s Day,’ I point out.
‘And that is because I was also stupid and I did not realise you could ever be like this. You’re in love, mate. Properly. For the first time in your life. With my sister. Who is in love with you. You need to think hard about that.’
I nod, slowly. I’m not sure whether he’s right, but I do think that maybe I do need to have a think.