Happy Endings (9 page)

‘Sure,’ I said and we headed to the hostel pool bar, but I was left wondering what it was he didn’t tell me. Trying to imagine what small piece of his jigsaw he wasn’t prepared to give away just yet.

We hired scooters on the fifth day and drove up to a bar Jez knew called Amsterdam. Riding the scooter was quite an experience. The little Thai man who rented it asked me if I’d done it before and, of course, I nodded confidently and said yes, sure, no problem. This was apparently the only comfort he needed to make sure I would return in one piece.

It was incredibly exciting as we rode around the island on our little scooters, albeit almost crashing a few times. Bar Amsterdam was at the top of a huge hill and from there you could see over the rainforest to the ocean. It was an incredible place for a drink. It wasn’t too busy when we got there so we settled in and had a few beers. It gradually filled up as the afternoon wore on, but it gave me the chance to ask Jez something that had been on my mind since we’d met in Bangkok.

‘So, Jez, is there anyone waiting for you back home?’

Somehow, and despite spending the last few weeks practically living together, I hadn’t broached the topic of his love life. I think because in my head I didn’t want to sound like I had ulterior motives. I didn’t want him to think I was interested in his availability. I was being typical me. Over-analysing, overthinking and making a nothing into a something. In a way, it was worse than not asking him before because in Bangkok we weren’t sharing a tiny bed in just our underwear. Two weeks before, we barely knew each other and still had a distance between us. Two weeks before, he was just Jez, the bloke who rescued me from Bangkok airport in my hour of need, but now he was Jez, the sexy young bloke I was travelling with and basically dating, but without the complication of sex.

‘You mean apart from my parents and a Labrador named Rusty?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Not really. I was sort of seeing someone before I left but I doubt she’s waiting for me.’

‘Why do you doubt it?’

‘Because I said, “Claire, please don’t wait for me,” ’ said Jez, causing us both to giggle.

‘And why didn’t you want her to wait for you? So you could sow your wild oats? Travel the world and shag lots of foreign girls in exotic locations?’

‘Hardly,’ said Jez quietly. I suddenly felt a tension between us I hadn’t felt before. He was looking directly at me, holding eye contact and looking as if he was about to tell me something really important. ‘The reason I came travelling, Kate, wasn’t to sow my wild oats or to avoid work, extend university or drink myself into oblivion. I came away because my brother died.’

My heart sank and I wanted to hug him with everything I had.

‘Richard was at university in Durham,’ Jez started and his face changed. A deep sadness seemed to lay itself over him, shrouding his smooth skin and bright blue eyes with a vulnerability. ‘Even though he was younger than me, I always looked up to him, you know. He was funny, clever, brilliant really. I probably should have hated him. He was always everyone’s favourite, including my parents, but I never could.’ Jez took a long gulp of his beer and lit a cigarette. ‘He was driving down to see me for the weekend. It was late and wet and he probably should have taken a break, but he didn’t. A lorry jack-knifed in front of him and he was killed instantly, or so the police said.’ Jez stopped and I could see pools of tears beginning to form in his eyes. He wiped them away quickly and gave me a smile. ‘We’d always planned on travelling together when he graduated, so when he died I took off. I didn’t even wait around for the funeral. I couldn’t sit in a church or watch him being buried and so this is my tribute to him. One year to remember him, do everything we should have done together, before I go home and start over.’

‘Oh God, Jez, I don’t know what to say. Is this what you were going to tell me the other day at the beach?’ I reached over and held his hand.

‘I just didn’t know how to come out with it. It’s still pretty raw.’

‘Of course and if you don’t want to talk about it that’s fine, but I’m here for you,’ I gabbled. I didn’t know what to say. I’d had emotional upheaval in my own life, but nothing like this. I looked at Jez and he suddenly looked so young, so fragile.

‘It’s actually good to have someone to talk to about it who didn’t know him. Everyone back home is too close. That probably sounds crazy.’

‘No, not at all, it’s understandable.’

‘Is it though? Is it OK to just leave? Not say goodbye to him? Not go to the funeral?’

‘It’s death, Jez, there are no rules.’

‘I wish my parents felt that way.’

‘They will.’

‘They’re pretty pissed off. I left Mum in tears and Dad wouldn’t speak to me at all on the drive to the airport. They don’t understand.’

‘Give them time.’

Jez looked across at me and smiled, a tear suddenly falling down his cheek.

‘Thanks, Kate,’ he said, wiping away the tear, but it was quickly replaced by another and then another.

‘Let’s have a drink,’ I said with a thin smile, raising my glass. ‘To Richard.’

‘To Richard,’ said Jez and we both downed what we had left of our drinks.

Ed

The drinks with Georgie started on her first day. We went to a pub near work and it snowballed from there. We had a good time together. Despite being absolutely gorgeous she was fun and didn’t act like a twenty-two-year-old. We got on so naturally, as if we’d been friends our whole lives instead of for only a few hours. I think because she was completely out of my league and I had Kate it made it easier because it stifled any remote suggestion of something sexual happening.

Of course, our post-work drinks led to the normal office rumours, which began to circulate like wildfire. Ed Hornsby, the dirty old dog, was conducting an illicit affair with the beautiful and much-younger Georgie Hays, while his girlfriend was away travelling. Georgie and I tried to laugh it off, but I was soon standing in front of Hugh, hands nervously in my pockets, explaining myself like a naughty schoolboy.

‘What did I say, Hornsby, eh? Hands off. No funny business. I thought you of all people would know better. Tremendously disappointing to say the least.’

Hugh was sitting behind his enormous wooden desk, looking annoyed and agitated, his bulbous face getting redder and redder. Hugh didn’t like anything that detracted from his sole purpose: work. I’d seen other people in his office brought to tears for far less. I’d committed the worst possible sin in his eyes. I’d taken his mind off work and onto something far less honourable.

‘Hugh, honestly, it’s nothing. Just mindless office gossip. You know I’d never do anything to betray you or the company.’

‘So you haven’t been having cosy drinks with her after hours then, eh?’

‘We’ve had drinks, yes, but purely social and completely friendly. Nothing funny going on at all. She needed a friend . . .’

‘Listen, Hornsby, because I’m only going to tell you this once. Men and women don’t just go for friendly social drinks. You can call it that until the cows come home, but it doesn’t happen. No such thing. Either you want to bang her or she wants to bang you. Stop it now.’

Somehow his use of the word bang seemed to make the whole thing so unsavoury. I imagined Hugh at home demanding that Mrs Whitman stop watching the bloody
Antiques Roadshow
and bang him right away.

‘Yes, sir,’ I said and walked out of his office, hoping the entire floor wasn’t looking at me. Luckily they weren’t, but one pair of eyes was.

We’d already agreed on lunch, but I decided it was best to stop things right away. My plan in Kate’s absence had been to get ahead and definitely not find myself in Hugh’s bad books. Hugh didn’t give people the benefit of the doubt and he wouldn’t give me a second chance. I emailed Georgie as soon as I got back to my desk.

To: Georgina Hays

From: Edward Hornsby

Subject: Extra-curricular drinks

Had words with Hugh. We need to stop the after-work drinks. It was fun.

Ed

To: Edward Hornsby

From: Georgina Hays

Subject: Re: Extra-curricular drinks

Why???

G x

To: Georgina Hays

From: Edward Hornsby

Subject: Re: Extra-curricular drinks

Apparently it looks bad and can only lead to a life of debauchery and vice.

E x

To: Edward Hornsby

From: Georgina Hays

Subject: Re: Extra-curricular drinks

But it’s been fun and nothing’s going on. Just friends, right?

G xx

To: Georgina Hays

From: Edward Hornsby

Subject: Re: Extra-curricular drinks

Best to knock it on the head. Don’t want to upset Hugh and get you in trouble.

E xx

To: Edward Hornsby

From: Georgina Hays

Subject: Re: Extra-curricular drinks

I’m sad. One last drink? Friday night, somewhere different where no one will see us?

G xxx

I should probably have said no. It would have been the sensible thing to do, but it was just one last drink. Two friends having a couple of pints. It was nothing.

To: Georgina Hays

From: Edward Hornsby

Subject: Re: Extra-curricular drinks

Sure. One last drink sounds good.

E xxx

So it was I found myself sitting in a Clapham Common pub on a Friday night with my boss’s niece. Before, our drinks had been a couple of pints at one of the pubs near work, but this felt different. We were out of our comfort zone – and underground zone too for that matter. We’d specifically gone somewhere to have a drink and I knew it was wrong. We were sneaking around like lovers.

Once we were at the pub it became clear something had definitely shifted in our relationship. It was easy to discard a casual drink after work because we didn’t have to alter the course of our lives to do it, but this was something else. This was deceitful. This wouldn’t end well.

‘Can you believe what Hugh said?’

‘It’s ridiculous. We’re adults and yet he’s treating us like his children,’ said Georgie.

‘I think to him we sort of are.’

‘That’s so yucky,’ she said and we laughed. We were sitting across from each other at a table. We’d already had a couple of drinks and had kept clear of anything too personal so far. I hadn’t asked about boyfriends and she hadn’t mentioned Kate. Everything was going to be fine.

‘So what happened to your girlfriend?’

I spluttered. ‘Kate?’

‘I remember you briefly mentioned she was away but didn’t elaborate. If it’s too weird . . .’

‘No, it’s fine. She’s off travelling for six months.’

‘And you didn’t go because—?’

‘I couldn’t leave work. This was something she wanted to do. It was her dream, not mine.’

‘And she left without you for six whole months?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Were you angry?’

‘I suppose I was, but when she left I think I was more disappointed than angry. I couldn’t believe she’d gone through with it.’

‘I don’t think I could do that to someone.’

‘Leave them?’

‘It’s just not right,’ said Georgie, looking more beautiful the longer we sat there. I’d already seen other men looking over and checking her out. All probably wondering what she was doing with me and I understood. I didn’t know why she was with me either. I was older than her, not anywhere near as attractive and I had a girlfriend. What could she possibly gain from hanging around with me? But despite all notions to the contrary, here she was. Georgie Hays and I were friends.

‘She had her reasons,’ I said, trying my best to defend Kate.

‘I’m sure, but she still left you.’

‘I suppose.’

‘I’d be livid if a man left me like that.’

‘And what would you do about it?’

‘Probably sleep with someone else to get my revenge,’ she said, and suddenly the air around me became a million times heavier. Had she really just said that? Was I taking it the wrong way or the right way? I didn’t know, but suddenly I was getting redder and goosebumps spread up my arms and down the back of my neck.

Was she flirting with me?

Did she want to have sex with me?

Did I want to have sex with her?

The alcohol was starting to pickle my brain from its usual state of logicality into a place where anything was possible. I looked at her and instead of looking sheepish or embarrassed by such a brazen statement, she looked deadly serious.

‘You, umm, think that’s what I should do?’