Missing You (18 page)

Sean raises an eyebrow.

‘No, really, they were awful: great ugly, clumpy things,’ says Lina. ‘The whole uniform was designed to make us look ugly. It was the school’s version of a burkha only nowhere near as glamorous.’

‘It didn’t seem to do either of you much harm,’ says Freddie.

‘Huh,’ says Lina meaningfully. ‘You don’t know the half of it.’

‘So you’ve always been friends?’ asks Sean.

‘We lost touch,’ says Lina, and she hiccups and giggles, then picks up a plastic bottle of lemonade and takes a good swig. ‘After school finished. We hadn’t seen one another for years and years. Then we met at the hospital . . .’

‘The Royal United?’

‘Mmm. I’d broken my wrist and had gone in to have the cast taken off and Fen here was massively up the duff.’

‘Lina!’ says Fen.

‘Well, you were. Like a barrage balloon. And it turned out she needed somewhere to live and Lilyvale needed a tenant.’

Fen picks up some sandwich papers, screws them into balls and puts them into a carrier bag.

‘It was like we were destined to meet, wasn’t it, Fen?’

‘Yes,’ says Fen. ‘You were very kind to me.’

Lina hiccups again and takes another drink. ‘Shit,’ she says, ‘I hate having hiccups. People will think I’ve had too much wine.’

‘As if!’ says Freddie.

Fen brushes down her skirt. ‘I ought to go and see if Connor’s OK.’

‘He’ll be fine,’ says Lina. ‘They’ll look after him.’

‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ Fen calls and she sets off trotting down the hill in her bare feet.

‘God, she’s such a worrier, ’ says Lina.

‘She manages very well,’ Sean says quickly. ‘She’s amazing.’

‘Oooh,’ says Lina, ‘you leaped to her defence there! Is there anything we should know?’

‘A ctually—’ he says and at exactly the same instant Fen, halfway down the hill, stops, hops and then sits down on the grass and holds her foot.

‘She’s trodden on something,’ he says to Lina.

Lina slaps his thigh gently. ‘Well, you’d better go and sort her out, then.’

She passes him his trainers and he puts them on, then jogs down to where Fen is sitting, pale-faced, with her foot cradled in her skirt. A shard of glass is stuck in the meaty part of her sole.

‘Let me have a look,’ says Sean.

Gingerly Fen extends her leg, and he takes the foot between his hands, cradling it at the heel and taking its weight on his knee. The displaced flesh is pressed close around the glass, holding it tight. He glances at Fen. She is staring at her foot.

‘Look at that!’ he cries, pointing over her left shoulder, and as Fen turns her head to follow his finger, he grasps the shard and tugs hard and, although it resists, it comes out.

‘Ow,’ says Fen and then she laughs and relaxes. She lies back on the grass and covers her face with her forearms. ‘Thank you,’ she says. ‘Is there much blood?’

‘You’ll live,’ says Sean, dabbing at the wound with the hem of his T-shirt. ‘Did you see the size of it!’

Fen props herself on her elbows and admires the shard. It is diamond-shaped, more than a centimetre long.

‘All that was inside me?’ she asks, then she colours a little and adds, ‘As the actress said . . .’

Sean laughs. He spits on a clean patch of his T-shirt and cleans around the cut. Fen’s foot is grass-stained from the rounders earlier. He puts it gently down, back on the grass.

‘Do you want to keep this,’ he asks Fen, offering her the shard, ‘as a souvenir?’

She shakes her head. Her hair is tangled. She pushes it back behind her ears. The sunglasses have gone.

‘I’m sorry,’ he says, ‘sorry if it’s been a bit awkward today.’

‘It’s not just you.’ Fen smiles. ‘We don’t have to make an announcement,’ she says. ‘People will realize, won’t they? They’ll realize gradually.’

Sean leans forward and kisses her very gently on the lips.

‘Of course they will,’ he says.

twenty-five

Fen gets to the pub first and she buys a bottle of rosé and picks up two glasses. She takes them outside and finds a bench in the shade of the trellis, which is hung with clematis. She picks at a packet of salted cashews until Lina arrives, clip-clopping across the paving stones in a slim, sleeveless black dress and gladiator sandals.

‘You always make me feel scruffy,’ Fen complains, standing to kiss Lina’s cheek.

Lina sits down and artfully crosses her legs. The hoops in her ears catch the sunlight. Her hair is pulled back into a tight ponytail.

‘And how come you’re so tanned? It hasn’t been that sunny.’

‘It’s fake,’ says Lina. ‘What’s this?’ She picks up the bottle. ‘Wine at lunchtime? What are we celebrating?’

‘Nothing. I thought you might like it.’

‘Oh, come on,’ says Lina. ‘I might have been a little tiddly at the barbecue but I wasn’t blind. There’s something going on between you and Sean, isn’t there?’

Fen pours the wine. ‘Sort of . . .’

‘I knew it!’

Fen feels the blush rising from her neck.

‘Sean’s been a lot . . . chirpier these last weeks. I thought either Belle was being nicer to him, or he’d met someone. So have you actually—’

‘Lina!’

‘Everything?’

‘That’s none of your business.’

‘I see. And how long has this been going on?’

‘A while.’

Lina swirls the wine around in her glass. ‘Go on,’ she says, ‘tell me. All the gory details.’

Fen looks up and smiles. She does not know where to begin but the relief of being able to talk, at last, about Sean overwhelms her.

She starts to speak and the words come quickly, they fall over themselves in the rush to explain how she feels, how wonderful Sean is, how happy he has made her. ‘It started a couple of months ago. It just sort of . . . happened. And God, Lina, it’s like he’s taken over my world and changed it and everything is so much better now and he’s so amazing and . . .’

Something in Lina’s eyes stops her.

‘What?’ she asks. ‘What is it?’

‘Nothing,’ says Lina, chasing an ant off the table with her fingernail. She pats Fen’s hand. ‘So you have feelings for him . . . you like him a lot?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s not just a little fling? Not just a way for you to get back in the saddle?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Sorry. I didn’t mean it to come out that crudely but . . .’

A sort of ache is forming in Fen’s belly. It’s a kind of dread. ‘Aren’t you pleased for me, Lina?’

‘Of course I am.’

‘What then? Is there something about Sean that you haven’t told me?’

Lina sips her wine. ‘I’m guessing you haven’t talked much about your future.’

‘It’s a little early for that.’ Fen laughs nervously. ‘And it’s not important. All that matters is now.’

Lina nods. She helps herself to a nut.

‘Why are you being like this, Lina?’ asks Fen. ‘Why are you being so negative?’

‘I don’t think I’ve said anything negative.’

‘You’ve been telling me for ages to find a man and now I have and you . . .’

Lina looks Fen straight in the eyes and squeezes her hand. She says: ‘I don’t want you to get hurt, Fen, that’s all. You’ve been through too much already.’

‘I won’t. Sean wouldn’t hurt me.’

‘No, I know he wouldn’t. Not deliberately. But maybe he’s approaching this relationship from a different perspective to you.’

‘What do you mean?’

Lina sighs. ‘I don’t know if I should say anything. I could be completely wrong.’

‘A bout what?’

They are interrupted by the barman. He says: ‘Excuse me, ladies,’ and places two ploughman’s lunches on the table in front of them.

‘Lina . . . ?’

‘Look, I’m going to tell you what he said to me after Christmas. It might be absolutely nothing but . . .’

‘What did he say?’

Lina unfolds her paper napkin very slowly. She smoothes out the creases with the palm of her hand. She places it on her lap. ‘He said he was going to have a nice, uncomplicated little affair to make Belle jealous.’

‘Oh.’

Fen lays her fork back down on the table. She exhales.

‘He said,’ says Lina, with the resigned air of somebody who thinks they might as well be hanged for a sheep, as for a lamb, ‘he’d talked about it with his sister, and she’d said it would be good for him, because it would build up his confidence and it was the most likely route to making Belle see him in a new light. She told him to find a sweet woman who would treat him well but who wasn’t in quite the same league as Belle. Of course, he might feel differently now.’

The words are like a physical pain in Fen’s belly. But she trusts Sean. She thinks he would not be capable of such a manipulative act.

‘He might have said that but that’s not how it is with me and him. And anyway he wouldn’t. He’s too honest.’

‘Has he told you he loves you?’ Lina asks.

‘He hasn’t actually said those words, but he’s not good at talking about emotional stuff.’

Lina shrugs.

‘He doesn’t need to say it,’ says Fen, ‘because I know.’

She is aware that she sounds naive, gauche, but what else can she say? She and Sean, they are not complicated. If you know somebody loves you, if it’s perfectly obvious, then why should they have to tell you? Maybe it’s difficult for Lina to understand, but it is clear to Fen.

‘What did he say at the beginning? When you first got together?’

‘It was me who started it,’ Fen says quietly, ‘not him.’

‘Oh,’ says Lina. ‘We ll.’

‘Lina, please, it’s not like that.’

‘He’s a lovely man,’ says Lina. ‘I’m sure he’d never . . . you know, use you or anything. But if it was in his mind to have an affair, and then you let him know you were interested, well, you have to admit, it’s convenient.’

‘No.’ Fen shakes her head. ‘Please stop talking like this, Lina, I know you mean well but you’re wrong. Really you are.’

It is hateful for Fen to hear anybody doubting what she and Sean have. They are connected, she knows they are; they are together and they fit together as closely and perfectly as the teeth in a zip. Fen knows she’s not experienced in love but she cannot imagine feeling this connected to any other person. She would know if Sean didn’t feel the same. She would be able to sense it. How could she feel so attuned to him, how could his happiness be so important to her, if he were keeping anything from her? He is the most open person she’s ever known. In the night he holds on to her like a drowning man clings to a lifebelt. He makes her feel happy, and their being together is so right, it’s natural; their whole is greater than the sum of their parts.

She knew that they should have kept their love to themselves. They should have kept it hidden. She feared that as soon as they let the world in, it would no longer be safe, and she was right. Together they are perfect, and she cannot bear for this perfection to be doubted, or tarnished, or seen in the wrong light.

‘You’re wrong, Lina,’ she says again.

‘I’m sure I am,’ says Lina cheerfully and briskly as if talking to a child. ‘All I’m saying, Fen, is be careful with that heart of yours. OK?’

The barman brings a little china pot of mayonnaise. Lina thanks him, spears a cherry tomato with her fork, and dips it in the pot.

Fen stares into her plate. If she says anything else, Lina will think she’s protesting too much, but she can’t bear for Lina not to believe in Sean’s love for her. Her lack of conviction has somehow cast a shadow over everything.

twenty-six

Sean’s parents, Lola and Boo come to Bath for his birthday. They book into a bed and breakfast just outside Cold Ashton because Sean’s father wants to walk some of the Cotswold Way while they’re here. Sean says he’ll meet them in town for lunch.

He asked Fen to go with him. He told her he’d like his family to meet her. He said they’d love her, especially Lola. Fen said no. She said she thought it would be better if he went alone. When he asked why she didn’t want to come, she said she just wasn’t ready to meet his family yet. She wasn’t being straight with him. He knew she wasn’t but she wouldn’t elaborate; she said she’d already promised to take Connor to the beach and that’s what she’s going to do.

Amy is with him for the weekend. Half an hour before they’re due to meet the family, he stands in the kitchen looking at his daughter. She looks odd. It’s her hair. Sean still hasn’t mastered the art of bunches. Amy’s parting zigzags one way and then the other, a good deal of hair is still loose and sticking up and there is a disproportionate amount of dark hair in the left bunch.

Sean looks out of the open back door. Fen is in the garden with Connor. She stands with one arm across her waist, the hand supporting the opposite elbow. She is covering her mouth with her fingers so that Connor won’t see her smile. He is swinging a little plastic golf club and has not hit the luminous green ball once, despite a dozen attempts and his deep concentration. Fen keeps offering encouragement.

She glances up, catches Sean’s eye and immediately looks away.

She has done this a lot, lately. Sean has caught her watching him through windows or across the room, a spacey look in her eyes, and when he’s asked her what she’s thinking she’s always said: ‘Nothing.’ Now, his gaze pressing on her, she glances up again and smiles with her lips, but not her eyes, then looks away.

He goes to the door and leans out.

‘You couldn’t give me a hand, could you?’ he calls. ‘With Amy’s hair?’

‘Sure,’ says Fen. She leans down and whispers something into Connor’s ear, and then trots up the back steps. She laughs when she sees Amy’s hair, but covers up the laugh so as not to offend the child.

‘Hmm,’ she says, ‘that’s an interesting look.’

‘It’s supposed to be Hannah Montana but ended up – I don’t know, St Trinian’s meets plucked chicken,’ says Sean. Fen laughs again. The laugh is a little artificial.

Fen indicates for Amy to climb onto a kitchen stool so that her head is at a workable height, and she unravels the elastic bands that hold the bunches, taking care not to pull, rolls them up onto her wrist and smoothes out the child’s soft hair.