Greatest Love Story of All Time (5 page)

‘Fine. Whatever. It’s a shit car anyway,’ I said, flouncing out theatrically.
He had a dog called Trumpet! And another called Alan! He was actually perfect!
I slammed the door behind me and walked away from the car towards the precipice, my heart pounding now like a nineties warehouse rave.
Keep it together,
I begged myself. I stood looking down at the city, shaking violently although, in spite of the sub-zero temperatures, I wasn’t cold.

Eventually I turned round. Michael was walking towards me. He didn’t say a thing. When he reached
me, a small smile crossed his lips. I had never wanted to kiss anyone as badly as I wanted to kiss Michael Slater right at that moment. I was gone. Powerless.

Had it been a beautiful sunset over the Tuscan hills, me in a flimsy sundress and him in a linen suit, it might have felt like a film. But we were standing by an abandoned building site overlooking a dangerous city in Kosovo on a ball-crunchingly freezing night and it felt more like a scene from a very low-budget Eastern European soap.

I didn’t know Michael’s age or how he liked his tea, I was wearing a terrible coat and I was drunk as a stoat – but this moment felt like
it.
The one I’d been waiting patiently for since I was a girl. I’d worked so hard, for so long, at being OK with being single, but all of the things I’d told myself about independence were disappearing rapidly into the cold night. Right now, Michael felt like the only person who mattered in the whole world.

‘Now, look here, Fran. I think we have a bit of a situation on our hands. Am I right?’ he said.

‘Ah. Erm, well, maybe. In fact probably. Yes. A situation,’ I said, through chattering teeth. I shivered hard. Michael took off his hat and put it on me. He left his hands round the side of my head, over my ears, and looked at me, smiling. ‘You’re a bit mad, Fran. But you’re so … You make me feel alive again,’ he said, looking suddenly helpless. ‘I’ve been so confused out here, so out of sorts and you just – made
me remember who I was. I have to see you again. Please tell me you feel the same.’

I should have lunged in and snogged him. Or at least
said
something. But for once I found myself out of words. I didn’t really believe this was happening: men like Michael simply did not say such things to me. I gazed up at him and wrinkled my nose, unable even to smile. Was this really happening? Was I having a romantic moment with this perfect man?

Michael laughed softly. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘I thought so.’

Then he slid his hands under my hair and kissed me. Softly, tentatively, at first, but then he pulled me close to him and kissed me deeply. This lovely, exciting, beautiful man. As his warm breath moved down my neck and he kissed me just above the top of my terrible ski jacket I was pretty sure that this was the best moment of my life. I put my arms round his waist and swayed slightly with lust and excitement and Pejes beer.

A few minutes later, we stopped kissing and pulled apart, giggling shyly. ‘Damn you!’ I said, through an uncontrollable smile. ‘How could you make me wait all day?’

‘Damn you too,’ he said. ‘How dare you just explode into my life and break my chair and ruin my job here? You with your alternative hairstyles and questionable coats.’

I punched his arm, like a stupid teenager, and he grabbed me again, hugging me so tightly that I
couldn’t breathe. We stood there for ages, Michael stroking my Barry Manilow hair and me smiling manically into the armpit of his coat. I don’t think I’d ever felt so excited and happy and … well, relieved. Here he was! Here
he
was! Cue violins! Cue chubby cherubs with bows and arrows! This was it!

We got back into the car. Michael turned the jeep’s ancient heater to full blast and Radio Blue Sky back on, telling me how he’d been strip-searched for drugs when he’d driven over the border from Albania. ‘Did they even look in your bum?’ I asked, wide-eyed.

Michael got a blanket out of the back and pulled me on to his lap. ‘Yes. Right up it. Lights and everything. No, you weird woman, they did not look in my bum.’ He kissed me again.

We talked all night. Strangely, having spent much of the day imagining him naked and texting Leonie predictions about the size of his truncheon, I didn’t think once about sex. There was too much to say; too much to think about; too much to laugh about.

We must have dozed off at some point because I woke up to the sound of a blasting horn. Michael, too, was awake, his hair sticking up in tufts, his arms round me and his eyes smiling. ‘Fran, your arse is pressing the horn.’ He yawned, pulling me close to him. We kissed again, falling asleep soon after.

When it became light we woke up properly and neither of us moved. I was freezing cold, aching all over, starving – and definitely the happiest I’d ever
felt in my life. ‘Michael,’ I began, ‘I’m flying home this afternoon. I have to get back. I …’ I trailed off, having no idea what to do.

‘I kind of feel it would be futile for me to suggest that you come and live in Mitrovica with me and Ejona,’ he asked, watching my face nervously. His nose was slightly bent after my assault on it yesterday. I was quite sure I was in love with him.

‘Oh. I … probably not … Duke Ellington isn’t very keen on flying,’ I said.

He kissed me again. ‘Damn that cat. I hate him already. Look, Fran, I’m contracted to stay out here until June. Will you wait for me? Please? I have to know what will happen between us. I feel like you’re … I dunno … like you’re the answer to everything. I know it’s a lot to ask for you to wait, but to hell with it, I’m asking.’

‘Yes, of course,’ I heard myself reply. And then I laughed, because I’d have waited ten years if I had to. I liked the sound of being the answer to everything. I liked it very much.

As the plane banked down into Gatwick, I felt as if I’d just returned from five years on the moon, not five days in Kosovo. Dave had given me a fierce bollocking about health and safety, then followed it up with a big hairy bear hug because it was quite clear that I was in a state of total barminess. ‘I’m sorry, Dave, but I had to do it,’ I said lamely.

He smiled, his brilliant blue eyes creasing up. ‘Aye, Franny, I know. It’s no bother. Just don’t ever tell anyone I let you go, OK?’

I kissed his cheek and gave him my British Airways cheese and onion sandwich. He passed it back. ‘The missus’ll be waiting. I can’t eat that stinky shite,’ he said. ‘And you’ll have to learn not to do things like that if you’re going to get together with Mr Fancy Pants.’

I felt quite insane with excitement at this thought and was relieved when the fasten-seatbelt sign lit up. I was so high that I was liable to jump out of the emergency exit at any moment.

Freya was waiting for Dave at the arrivals barrier, even more disgustingly beautiful than normal. She was breathtaking and exotic in a fiery orange smock top with a long silk scarf, red tights and beautiful leather boots. As always, when I saw Freya, I looked down at myself and made an instant appraisal: munter. But this time, I didn’t feel inferior and jealous. Michael wanted me! Freya could be as beautiful as she liked!

Dave had been carrying my bag but as soon as he saw Freya he dropped it and forgot about me, running over to her with surprise and pleasure written all over his face. It was clear that he hadn’t been expecting her. I watched Freya’s face as Dave approached her: it was full of love and worry and almost … well,
almost
fear
. Why the fear? I picked up my bags as Dave fell on her like a ravenous child. I supposed that after his time in Iraq she must have grown to hate him going away. They hugged tightly. Soon after, they left with barely a glance in my direction.

Slumped in a taxi, slightly deflated, I considered calling ITN to talk about the week ahead. Instead I called Leonie. ‘Fran. You total bastard. WHAT HAPPENED TO MY UPDATE? You are a terrible friend,’ she yelled.

I could hear a harp in the background. ‘Where the hell
are
you?’ I asked, as Westminster slid past the windows of my cab.

‘Oh, I’m at Claridges with a charity client.’ Her voice sounded fruity, which meant that a new rich man was trying to have sex with her. ‘It’s lovely. Anyway, what the hell is going on? Did you have sex with him? Are you bullet-ridden? Are you about to become ITN’s Kosovo correspondent?’

‘Actually, I think I’m in love,’ I said, hugging myself. As we swung into the Mall, I held the phone away from my face as her screams poured out of it.

January 2010

I lay staring at the ceiling, trying to remember how it had felt to be that happy. Not a great deal came to me. I tried to recall the wild excitement I’d felt whenever Michael’s name appeared in my inbox when he was still in Kosovo; how ecstatic I’d been when he had terminated his contract to come back three months earlier than planned.

A tear ran down my cheek. My life back then – nearly two years ago now – felt worlds apart from the rotten, painful pit it was now. I couldn’t bear the grief. The loss. The sense of being so completely alone in the world. I wiped off the tear with a crusty pyjama sleeve.

You never deserved him, Fran, you knob-end!
Of course this was going to happen!

The aching expanse of sadness strapped itself a little tighter across my chest. Of course I hadn’t. I’d always known, deep down, that I was punching above my weight with Michael. Why would someone like him want some scruffy girl who talked to cats and got the answer to ‘Who painted the
Mona Lisa
?’ wrong in the pub quiz?

It had been ten days now. Ten days since Michael had picked me up from work on my thirtieth birthday, all smiles and kisses and with a ring-box-shaped bulge in his pocket. Ten days since he’d helped me out of a taxi in front of the Ritz, only to veer off into Green Park, take my face in his hands, look me deep in the eyes and tell me he wanted to break off all contact with me for three months.

Ten days since I’d stopped caring about anything, other than making sure I was still breathing.

I rolled over on to my side and bunched myself up. ‘I don’t know how to do this,’ I whispered to Duke Ellington, who was asleep next to one of Stefania’s tofu wraps. I really
didn’t
know how to do this. How to tolerate another minute of the pain. All I wanted was for someone to take me to the vet and have me put to sleep. I was quite sure that the rest of my life would be miserable.

I looked at the space on the wall where a childhood picture of Michael with Trumpet the dog should have hung and started to howl again.

When I came to a few hours later, Leonie was sitting by my bed rolling a joint. Since I’d commenced my badger-like existence, she’d visited regularly to check I was alive and not eating cat food. My reading lamp had been switched on and some sort of green gunky stew was steaming frighteningly in a rustic pot on the bedside table. ‘Hello,’ she said briskly. ‘Happy new year!’

I looked at her, then at the stew and closed my eyes again. Why was everyone so intent on keeping me alive?

Hang on. ‘Happy new year?’ I asked croakily, dragging myself up into a semi-sitting position.

Leonie tapped the joint against her knee and started the next one. ‘Yes. I suggest you begin the year by taking a shower, Franny. You’re a bit ferret-like now.’

I gazed blankly at her. I was beginning to see the world divided into two groups of people, Those Who’d Had Their Hearts Broken, and Those Who Hadn’t. Leonie was definitely of the latter category.

‘Didn’t your mum call you to wish you happy new year?’ she asked, sprinkling green skunk liberally into the Rizla.

I reached over, took the joint she’d just made and lit it, coughing. ‘She did, actually,’ I replied after a long toke. ‘She just said I was going to become a mad old woman who smelt of urine.’ After a brief silence, we laughed.

‘Excellent.’ Leonie was still laughing. ‘Oh, God, poor Eve. What a mess. When you’re feeling better, Franny, I really think you need to try to sort her out.’

I didn’t say anything. Opening the Mum box in my head was beyond my capacity at present. It was just too painful. I’d failed with my own life and the idea of failing her, too, was frankly intolerable.

‘She should be here, looking after you,’ Leonie
added pointedly. Leonie had kept me in Lucozade and joints for ten days now; a practice she could ill-afford with her job as a charity street mugger. But if it were a choice between Leonie and Mum, there was no contest. I couldn’t cope with Mum’s gin breath and a lecture on how this break-up was my fault.

Leonie handed me some Lucozade (‘No, Fran, you need to
drink
it, please’) and reached for my hand. ‘You can do this, Franny,’ she said kindly. ‘You really will get through it, I promise, my love. It’s only three months. Ninety days!’

‘But – but how do I
know
he’ll take me back after three months? Why would he suggest a separation unless the relationship was dead?’ I sank back into bed again. ‘I just don’t understand. I thought he was going to ask me to marry him.’

Leonie squeezed my hand. ‘We all did, Franny. Perhaps he just had a freak-out about the commitment. Don’t forget, men are complete knobs when it comes to stuff like that.’ I tried to stem the flow of tears with my grubby duvet cover and she handed me a tissue. ‘But stay strong. Don’t contact him for three months and then, hopefully, you guys can start again once he’s sorted his head out. OK?’

I cried even harder.

March 2008

Sent
: Mon, 01 March 2008 14:02:56 +0200

From
: Slater, Michael [[email protected]]

To
: O’Callaghan, Frances [[email protected]]

Subject
: CONFIRMED!

Franny! It’s all sorted! I’m coming home! I wind up things for ITN over the next two weeks and then I’m back on the 28th! I start at the
Independent
on the 30th. They wanted me sooner but no can do.

Better run. Some wannabe journalist wants to take me out for lunch so he can beg me to help his career. Yawn. Can’t wait to see you.

Michael X