A Hundred Pieces of Me (18 page)

He was apologising. He was sorry.
He loved her.

Naomi had been right. Her heart banged in her chest, up into her temples, as a rush of joy swept across her.

Gina often played this moment in her head, when Stuart realised what a huge mistake he’d made. She thought she’d be triumphant, and cool, or that she’d realise she didn’t want him back after all, but now that it was here, those words in black fact, she was filled with a scrabbling desire to make it all right again. For things to go back to where they had been.

Her hands shook as she tried to compose a text in reply. But what should she say? ‘Me too. I’m sorry’?

She drew a breath. What were the right words? Her mind was blank. Gina didn’t want to get this vital message wrong, but she also didn’t want to leave too long a gap, which could be interpreted as a snub, or worse.

The phone vibrated again, another text folding over the top of the screen like a note passed in class. It was another from Stuart.

Sorry sorry sorry. Ignore previous text. Meant for Bryony.

The rushing in Gina’s ears stopped, and everything went silent. Shock squeezed her so hard she couldn’t breathe, as a scarlet pain in her chest bloomed and spread like a slow-motion bomb, rising up around her in a cloud, spreading through her body.

She sank onto a stone wall, her legs weak beneath her, feeling nauseous. She knew this was disproportionate, but her reaction was out of her control. It was bigger than she was, an emotion she couldn’t contain in her head. A distant voice told her to get out of sight of the main house, in case Nick or Lorcan spotted her.

She stumbled on the mossy stone flags, and scrambled around to the other side of the house where walled fruit beds ran alongside the bridleway that led to the village. Tears were already seeping out of her, running down her face as her chest heaved. Gina tucked herself behind an ash tree and leaned her head against the bark, hating herself for the waves of misery that washed through her, knowing there was nothing she could do but let them come.

Gina wasn’t sad for now: she was grief-stricken for the times Stuart had told her he loved her and meant it. She was grieving for the younger Gina who had been wasting her time, and she couldn’t warn her; for the part of her that was lonely enough to want to go back, like an unwanted dog, even though she knew in her heart Stuart no longer loved her.

She heard Nick Rowntree before she saw him. It wasn’t hard: his voice was sharp with annoyance and he clearly wasn’t expecting to be overheard on the deserted footpath.

‘No.’ Long pause. ‘No. Listen, I mean, no, will you just listen to what I’m saying? You said it was going to be two weeks at the start of the month. You know I’ve got this work to do for Charlie, and I need to . . . Amanda, I’m not saying that.’

Gina leaned against the tree, trying to mould herself into it. Please jog past, she thought, her chest shaking with sobs.

‘So when are you coming back? . . . What? . . . Seriously? . . . Amanda, you know that’s not the deal . . . Well, what am I— . . .
Amanda
. What am I— . . . Oh, don’t start that . . .’

The voice was coming nearer. Gina heard the gate squeak and his feet on the gravel. Nick had detoured into the back garden: he didn’t want to bump into Lorcan either.

Shit.

I should move, she thought. There was no way she could pretend she hadn’t just heard what she’d heard.

‘So what exactly
is
the point of this, then?’ Nick’s voice was stripped of the humour she’d heard before. He sounded defensive. ‘Am I just some kind of project manager now? I thought that’s what you’d hired Gina for. Or am I just there to manage the manager? You don’t have to assume everyone’s out to rip you off, Amanda. The whole world doesn’t operate like lawyers . . .’

Gina panicked, not sure whether she could pass off lurking in the garden as some sort of buildings research. The sobs wouldn’t stop: they were still gripping her lungs, even though her brain was now racing. There was only one way out – via the path Nick was crunching down.

‘She’s not provincial! And even if she is provincial, so what? In case you hadn’t noticed, we’ve bought a house in the middle of nowhere . . . Hang on, there’s someone in the garden. Hey! What are . . .? Oh. Hello.’

Gina stepped out from behind the tree. Nick was standing about three feet away from her, in his running shorts and an old T-shirt, his eyes fixed on her in surprise while Amanda carried on yelling into his ear. Gina could make out her voice. Furious. Barely stopping to breathe. Sweat had dampened Nick’s hair, sticking a few dark curls to his forehead, and his face was flushed, from the run or the argument, Gina couldn’t tell.

She held up her camera, hoping it would look like an explanation, but she could feel mascara clumping on her lower eyelashes, and she knew it was smeared. Her pulse was still hammering and every few moments a sob threatened to burst from her throat, the sort of annoying, hiccuping sob that she couldn’t control, even if she tried.

‘No. It’s Gina. She’s . . .’ He smiled, looked as if he was about to make a joke, then realised she was crying and stopped. ‘I’ll call you back,’ he said, and turned off his phone.

They stood staring at each other for a few seconds, unsure who should be most embarrassed, until Nick eventually spoke.

‘Awkward,’ he said.

Chapter Eight

ITEM
: four glass Murano bowls, various colours, made in Venice in the official Murano factory

Venice, 2006

Gina pauses by a quartet of glass bowls, each studded with hundreds of tiny beads like multi-coloured floral gems. Every shop in Venice seems to be selling Murano glass but these are particularly intricate: the colours glow with peculiar intensity – crimson, emerald, gold, midnight blue.

She loves the contradiction of them. Liquid, but solid; delicate, but weighty. The skill of moulding the molten strands of glass passed down from father to son to grandson, on and on. Holding the bowl is like touching their fingers across the centuries.

‘Aren’t these gorgeous?’ she murmurs.

Stuart’s not even looking. ‘They’re OK.’

Gina presses her lips together, biting down the irritation that’s been rising since the walking tour of the hidden churches this morning. You really find out what people are like on holiday, she thinks. They’ve been together a year, and she’d had absolutely no idea that Stuart moves his lips while he reads. Gina noticed that on the plane on the way out. Now she can’t stop noticing.

Don’t be a hormonal cow, she tells herself. That’s just PMT talking.

Because the rest of this minibreak
is
living up to expectations: Venice is everything Gina dreamed it would be from her History of Art A level. The hotel is tucked away and romantic, the sheets are about a million thread count, and Stuart’s anniversary present to her came in a tissue-filled Agent Provocateur box. Dusk is falling over the squares she’s longed to explore since she was a teenager, although she’s unable to enjoy the glittering lights on the water because Stuart keeps reminding her that the place is full of pickpockets who’ll steal her bag, given half a chance.

Gina realises that he’s probably hoping they will, both to prove him right and to give him something to do.

She focuses on the pretty bowls, even prettier under the spotlight in the cabinet. They’re the most beautiful things she’s seen in ages and, better than that, they represent something. A tradition, a skill.

‘Wouldn’t they be a lovely memento of our first proper holiday?’ Gina offers one to Stuart so he can feel its weight.

He holds it as if it were a cricket ball. ‘What would you do with them?’

‘Display them. Just have them in the house. They’re beautiful. Beautiful things don’t need to
do
anything.’

‘Apart from collect dust.’

His stubborn refusal to see the beauty or the skill involved makes Gina snappish. He was just the same about the Basilica San Marco. That wasn’t PMT. He’s got no excuse for that.

‘Can you stop being so dismissive?’ she hisses, aware of the owner hovering proudly behind the counter.

‘I’m not being dismissive!’ Stuart’s face is creased with affront.

‘You are. You’ve been really critical of everything.’

‘I have no idea what you’re on about.’

Gina watches him fiddling with a dish, as if determined to find a flaw in it. Normally, Stuart’s very easy-going. But when he’s grumpy, it’s never about the thing he’s outwardly grumpy about. His moods just escape through the path of least resistance, like volcanic lava, but without the heat and force. Stuart is more of a sulker. The Mount Etna of sulkers.

‘What. Is. The. Matter?’ she demands under her breath.

She doesn’t even need to prod him. ‘It’s thirty-two degrees in Sharm, and Jason’s just seen half the England cricket team on the golf course,’ he informs her.

Oh, so that’s what it is. The text from Jason earlier. He’d rather be in Sharm el-Sheikh with Jason and Naomi, out on an artificial golf course with the England cricket team.

Gina bites her lip. Sometimes it’s easy being with Stuart: he makes her feel sexy and secure, and he says what he’s thinking, eventually. But at other times, especially recently, Gina’s found herself baffled by how little he understands her. Trying to explain
why
certain churches make her heart sing takes all the wonder out of it. Discussing them with Kit – or even Naomi who didn’t do History of Art but is a part-time Catholic – only unpacked more magic.

Gina pushes that thought out of her head. It’s not fair. ‘Shall we go back to the hotel?’ she says, keeping her voice even. She knows she should try harder to defuse this.

‘Are you sure there aren’t any more
museums
open? There might be one we haven’t trailed round yet.’

She turns away. For that, she is having the bowls. She fishes her guidebook out of her bag and approaches the desk.

‘
Scusi
,’ she says to the shopkeeper carefully. ‘
Quanto sono queste ciotole
?’

‘For you, five hundred euros,’ he says, with a flourish.

Whoa. Gina had guessed they’d be a hundred and fifty at most. That’s all her spending money for the holiday, and she’s still got to get her mum and Naomi something.

‘
Grazie
,’ she says. ‘A bit too much.’ She turns to Stuart. ‘Come on, let’s go.’

‘No,’ he says stubbornly, and marches back to the counter. ‘Bongiorno? How much for the bowls?’

The shopkeeper smiles and points to the price. ‘Five hundred euros.’

‘No, really, mate,’ says Stuart, with an answering smile. ‘How much?’

Gina feels awkward. She knows you’re meant to haggle in markets but there’s a way of doing it. A way of making it a respectful ritual, not a dismissive stand-off.

‘I don’t think you’re meant to haggle in a
shop
, Stuart,’ she mutters.

‘You are,’ he hisses back. ‘I read it in one of your guidebooks. They expect it.’ He turns back to the shopkeeper. ‘A hundred for the four.’

The shopkeeper looks stunned, then amused. He spreads his palm and says, slowly, ‘Five. Five hundred euros.’

Gina tugs his sleeve. This feels wrong. It’s spoiling the bowls. ‘Stuart, please. I don’t want them that much. Let’s get some supper.’

He gestures to her. ‘See? She’s leaving.’

‘OK. Four hundred,’ says the shopkeeper at once.

Stuart gives her a quick, triumphant smile, and Gina feels foolish. ‘A hundred and twenty.’

The shopkeeper laughs, but he’s less confident now. There’s something terrier-like about Stuart. She’s seen it on the pitch: he never stops till he’s got the ball, working harder than most players of his height and position would bother to.

‘I do three fifty and that is my final offer,’ says the shopkeeper.

‘A hundred and twenty,’ Stuart repeats. ‘Come on. We’ve got the cash here.’

Gina can’t watch. The fact that Stuart can’t speak Italian and is making no effort to do so doesn’t seem to matter to the shopkeeper, although for some reason it does to her. She hates looking like a crass tourist when this city makes her feel like a masked princess. Or it did. For a bit.

Why? she asks herself. Why does it matter? Stuart’s getting her the bowls, like she wants.

He’s not listening to her, that’s the problem. He’s doing what he thinks she wants, but he hasn’t actually listened to
why
she wants it.

Stuart wasn’t listening on the Murano glass-factory trip because he’d already decided it was just an extended sales pitch designed to part them from their cash. Which, Gina concedes, it partly was, but there was also something mesmerising about the ancient skill, the liquid glass, the colours. The idea of something fragile also being heavy and strong. Like love, she wanted to tell him, but she’s getting the sinking feeling that it might be a metaphor too far.