Between You and Me (8 page)

‘I’m sorry, Sal. I’m sorry for loving you so much and I’m sorry that you make me do these things. I would die if you left me. I mean it, Sal; if you leave I’ll kill myself. You know I mean it.’ I nod slowly and look into your eyes, trying surreptitiously to manoeuvre my hand to freedom.

‘OK, Charlie. It’s all right. I’m not leaving. I’m sorry – it won’t happen again, OK? Please, just help strap my fingers up.’ I’m tired and I don’t want to fight. I hold my hand out to you and you immediately turn away and busy yourself finding the end of the fabric strapping.

‘Hold still.’ You grab my hand, stuffing the cotton wadding between my fingers and pulling the tape tightly around, squeezing slightly to make sure the end is stuck. I hiss between my teeth as you squeeze and you look up.

‘Sorry, is it painful? I think you’ve learnt your lesson now, haven’t you, Sal? And I’m assuming that this now means we won’t have any more lying, or disrespecting my things. Just to make sure, I’m confiscating the car keys. You can have them back when you’ve earned them. It’s for your own good, OK?’

You are still gripping my fingers and I have no choice but to nod miserably. For all your talk of how much you love me and how you would die if I left you, it all just boils down to how you can manipulate me into doing what you want. It’s all just another stage in the cycle – I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to realise it. It feels like I’m finally waking up to the fact that it doesn’t matter how many good moments, how many perfect afternoons we have together, the cycle is never going to end. You’re never going to change – and it’s up to me to decide what I’m going to do about it.

‘I’m sorry, Charlie. I’ve said it won’t happen again, and it won’t.’

‘Good. That’s what I want to hear. Now, I’m going up to bed, I’ve got an early start in the morning – just make sure it’s all cleared up outside before you come up, all right? I don’t want Maggie seeing the mess you’ve made out there.’

I look after you in disbelief – once again you’ve turned things around to make them my fault, fear making me keep my mouth shut and accept it.

I decide I’m too tired to eat, and the pain in my fingers is making me feel slightly sick, so I swallow down some painkillers and start to tidy up the dishes you’ve left in the sink while I was clearing up the destruction in the garden. I think about what you said, about how things started to go wrong from when I first took you home to meet my parents, and I realise that you are probably right.

I am excited that I am finally going to be able to take you to meet my family. I have stayed in London with you throughout the summer break from uni and it feels strange, not having seen them for so many weeks. Now it is October, the weather is turning and we have been seeing each other for five months and living together for two. I still haven’t managed to tell my family that we have moved in together, so I am hoping to kill two birds with one stone today. I had suggested going back in the summer, when it was my sister Anna’s birthday party, but you had fallen ill with a stomach bug so we had had to cancel. Then I thought we could go for a visit at the end of the summer, for August Bank Holiday, a time when traditionally my whole family would get together and celebrate the summer, all of us being together, and my mum would cook up an amazing meal for us all. But at the last minute you had tripped on the way home from your job at a pub round the corner from our house, spraining your ankle, which meant you didn’t really want to travel too far, not with your crutches and everything.

So at long last, after weeks of planning and me making sure you don’t fall or eat anything dodgy for the whole week before our trip is scheduled, we make it to my parents’ house and I am delighted when Mama throws open the door, gives me one of her huge hugs and tells me that Julia, Paola and Anna are also here to meet you. Mama swoops in for a big bear hug and turns towards you to envelop you in her huge arms, but you already have your hand out in front of you for my mum to shake. Mama pauses for a second, a little unsure. No one shakes hands in our family. We hug, squeeze, kiss both cheeks and go in for another hug, but very rarely do we ever shake hands. I understand, though, why you behave like this. You explained to me in the very beginning that your family are not very tactile – that you don’t remember ever seeing your mother and father kiss or hug each other, and that they very rarely showed you any affection growing up. This is something I try my hardest to get my head around, especially when you push me away and tell me to leave you alone.

We head through into the lounge and I’m delighted to see all my sisters are here. I’ve missed seeing everybody over the summer, and although we’ve all grown up and moved out, as the youngest I’m still the baby and my sisters love to make a huge fuss of me. Julia, the eldest at twenty-eight, introduces herself to you. Although she’s the eldest of us all, she’s also the tiniest so makes a huge deal about how she is actually the oldest and therefore in charge of us all, to anyone who will listen. I introduce you to Anna, Julia and Paola and you seem a little quiet, although I understand that being the centre of my huge family’s attention is probably quite overwhelming. I squeeze your hand and smile as we head through to the dining room. My mum has done herself proud and has produced a huge tableful of pasta, salad, homemade garlic bread and antipasti. I know how you love Italian food – you always say you can’t beat an authentic Italian restaurant – and I’m pleased to be able to show off what Mama can do in the kitchen. You’re seated between my mum and Julia, which just goes to show how excited Mama is to meet you. That seat is normally reserved for me, but tonight I sit next to Papa who whispers in my ear as I sit down.

‘Hey, Sal, that’s a fine one you have there.’ He nods his head towards you.

‘Thanks, Papa. I hope so. I should tell you something, though … we’re kind of living together. I haven’t told Mama or Julia yet; I don’t want there to be any drama, OK? You know what they’re like; they’ll have something to say about it and Charlie’s a little bit sensitive about stuff. I don’t want them upsetting Charlie.’

My dad smiles, his eyes crinkling at the corners. ‘It’s OK, Sal. You want me to tell your mother when you’ve gone? I can tell her then, then you can field the phone calls until you’re ready to speak to her, but remember it’s only because she loves you, right?’ My dad always knows the right thing to say.

‘I know, Papa.’ I smile and squeeze his hand. A giant of a man whose life has been dominated by the whirlwind that is my mother since she waltzed into his life thirty years previously, I wouldn’t mind at all if I ended up with a marriage like the one he and my mother share. Turning my attention back to the table, I hear my sisters bombarding you with questions, which you bravely try to answer as my mother shovels spoonfuls of pasta onto your plate. Smiling to myself, I am so pleased we made it here tonight, and so happy that you seem to be fitting perfectly into my loud, crazy family. Julia jumps up from the table and says, ‘Come on, Sal, you can help me do the dishes while the others finish quizzing Charlie. You’ve got out of it all summer.’ I pick up on the dig she’s making and glance over at you, hoping you didn’t pick up on it, too. You’re talking to Paola, picking at one last piece of homemade garlic bread, and once again I think how well you fit, how you look like you’ve always been part of our family. Julia reaches over, pulls me up and drags me towards the kitchen.

Once safely closeted in the kitchen she turns to me. ‘So. Don’t think I didn’t hear what you were saying to Dad.’

‘About what?’

‘Come on, Sal, you
know
what. You’re seriously living with Charlie? After, what, a few months?’

I roll my eyes. ‘Oh, please, Jules, cut it out. You’re living with Luca so what’s the big deal?’

‘Firstly, I am five years older than you, I’ve finished uni, I have a proper job and Luca and I had been together for a year before we even considered living together. How well do you even know Charlie? Have you met the family?’ Julia glares at me, her dark eyes flashing, hands on her hips.

‘No, I haven’t met Charlie’s family yet – but there’s a reason for that. They’re not like us, Jules. They’re not close. I think there was some stuff that went on there when Charlie was growing up.’ I pick at the threads on the tea towel I’m holding, while avoiding Julia’s eyes, because I kind of know she has a point.

‘That’s my point, though, Sal – what stuff? You need to find shit like this out before you go moving in together, and what next? Getting married? You haven’t even finished uni!’

‘No, but Charlie has – Charlie’s going to get a job while I finish my degree. I knew you wouldn’t understand, Jules; that’s why I didn’t want to tell you, you or Mama, because you’re both as bad as each other!’ Julia sighs and runs her hand through her already wild curls.

‘Sal. We love you. That’s why we nag you about stuff. If you’re happy with Charlie, that’s fine, we’ll accept it; but I just want you to be sure before you commit to serious stuff, like living together, OK? And Charlie doesn’t seem like the type I can see you settling down with, that’s all.’

I squeeze my big sister hard. ‘Thanks, Jules. Thanks for caring, and interfering and poking your nose in; believe me when I say I really do love you for it, but please … Just let me be a grown-up – just this once. I really do think I love Charlie and I really do think this could be ‘The One’. OK? And if it all fucks up you can totally pick up the pieces and say “I told you so”.’

Julia laughs and flicks the tea towel at me. ‘I’d never say that, you idiot. As long as you’re sure. Remember you can call me any time, for anything.’

‘I know. Now shut up. Mama’s coming and Dad already said he’s going to tell her after we’ve left so we don’t get the Spanish Inquisition.’

Later that evening, on the drive home, I turn to you to rave about how well the evening has gone and how I’m so pleased you’ve fitted so well into my family, but you cut me dead. As you rant at me about how I’m spoilt, how I shouldn’t think I’m great just because my family do and how, pretty much, you don’t think a lot of my family at all, I feel like you’ve punched me in the guts. It’s almost as though we attended completely separate evenings – and my version of the evening went far better than yours.

For the first time in our relationship I think that maybe Julia is right. Maybe I have made a mistake in moving in with you so quickly, when in actual fact I don’t really know you at all. But then, after that night, you never mention how you feel again, not until after we are married anyway. The next evening we go ice skating, falling over each other and laughing till we cry. Another night full of perfect moments, with the promise of more for the rest of our lives. We go back to our little shared house, falling into bed after a beautiful evening together, and I think maybe I have just imagined the venom in your voice when you spoke about my family. Maybe I have got it wrong.

Chapter Sixteen

CHARLIE

Anita’s voice crackles through the intercom, ‘Mr Pavlenco is here for your ten o’clock meeting, Charlie.’

‘Thanks, Anita. Get him a coffee and put him in the boardroom. I’ll be through in a moment – oh, and can you let Geoff know he’s here? He’s supposed to be in on this meeting as well.’

‘Geoff’s not in today, Charlie. He left a message earlier to say he’s ill and won’t be able to make it in for the meeting today.’ And there’s the reason why Geoff will never make partner, never amount to anything more than what he is already – and he’s only achieved that thanks to his father being an old school friend of Mr Crisp. The guy has no ambition and I’m not even one hundred per cent sure why he bothered to train as a lawyer in the first place, when he can’t be bothered to put the hours in. Possibly just to keep his rich old dad happy. I grit my teeth in annoyance before speaking into the intercom again, remembering to smile at the last minute. Apparently you can hear a smile in someone’s voice.

‘That’s not a problem, Anita. I have all the paperwork here and ready. Please make Mr Pavlenco comfortable and I’ll be with him shortly.’ I lean back in my chair, scrunching my fingers through my hair, and use the ten minutes’ grace I’ve just earned myself to collect my thoughts. Lucian Pavlenco, a Romanian Mr Big and the head of Otex, has arrived early for our meeting this morning, to finalise the last few arrangements before we pitch our buy-out offer to the communications company that’s up for grabs. Pavlenco has made a name for himself as a big entrepreneur, headed in the footsteps of the likes of Richard Branson. He just appeared from nowhere one day, it seems, and has spent the last five years buying up small companies, adding them to his existing portfolio and then making a shit load of money out of them. Which is the reason why I’m feeling a little nervous about dealing with him on my own – this is a big deal, and if all goes to plan I’m in with a chance of making partner at Hunter, Crisp and Wilson.
No, not if – I will make damn sure it all goes to plan so that I make partner, even if it means making Geoff look bad.
When I make partner, everything will be perfect. I will be able to keep Sal at home, taking care of the house, and the extra money will make everything a little easier. I won’t need to worry any more about Sal making noises about going back to work when Maggie goes to school – if I can earn enough money there’ll be no need. Satisfied that I am completely prepared, I grab the files from my desk, smooth down my shirt and hurry down the corridor to the boardroom.

‘Mr Pavlenco, good to see you.’ I extend my hand and let him grip it in a vice-like handshake.

‘Lucian, please. May I call you Charlie?’ He smiles a wolfish grin, and gestures towards the chair opposite him. ‘Please, sit.’

I sit down, and signal to Anita for more coffee. ‘Of course, Lucian. Please do call me Charlie. I apologise that Mr Parker –
Geoff
– can’t be here today, but I assure you that I can deal with everything for you in his absence. I have negotiated the draft agreements with the communications company and I have them here for you to look over.’ I hand him a slim file containing the agreements. ‘You understand, of course, from previous dealings, that the majority of the shareholders must agree.’