Still Thinking of You (34 page)

‘I didn’t really have any particular expectations beyond having a few jars, gassing with my mates, catching up.’

‘Pulling some easy totty,’ added Mia sarcastically – she just couldn’t help herself.

‘Exactly. Don’t worry about me, honey. I’m delirious, always am. Now, shouldn’t we just put all this worrying behind us and just try to have a good day skiing? Let’s make the most of this gorgeous snow.’

Mia nodded. She didn’t want to drop the conversation, but she knew he did. She wanted to ask Scaley if he ever got bored with waking up with another face without a name. She tried not to resent that he hadn’t done the polite thing and asked her if she was happy, as she’d half hoped he would. It was perhaps better he hadn’t asked.

She wouldn’t have known what to say.

55. In the Library

Tash found Lloyd in the hotel library, but Rich was nowhere to be seen.

‘Have you seen Rich?’

‘No, I’m afraid I haven’t.’

Tash sighed, frustrated. She wanted to find Rich, to kiss him. She wanted to reassure him that their silly spat the night before was pointless and groundless. She wanted to tell him she loved him, and that was all that mattered.

‘Not skiing today?’ she asked Lloyd, who was dressed in warm casuals, but not in a salapex.

‘Maybe later.’

They both looked out the window. It was another beautiful day. They’d been so lucky with the weather. It had snowed just about every night, but been clear all day. The sky was cloudless. The mountains, slapped on to the backdrop of pure blue, looked magnificent, powerful and important. In comparison the library looked almost gloomy, whereas in fact it was an almost impossible mix of stylish and cosy.

‘Are you thinking about Kate and Ted?’ Tash asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Poor things.’

‘Lucky bastards.’

‘What?’ Tash didn’t understand.

‘Oh yes, the money thing, very disappointing. It’s a mess, I agree, but I can’t help thinking that they are lucky bastards.’

‘You mean because they are pulling together?’

‘Quite.’

Tash nodded. The same thought had crossed her mind that day. She had been amazed at Kate’s capacity to forgive, almost instantly. Her love had immediately transformed Ted from a grieving, self-loathing wreck into a man with purpose, with hope. Ted was remarkable, too. This awful event had occurred because he was trying to do a good deed, but had he railed against the injustice of it all? No, he had not. His only concern was his family. His only care was how he’d let his wife down. He hadn’t become in the least hung up with misplaced macho pride or stifled by a sense of life’s unfairness. All they needed was one another. They completed each other. Made one another whole. It was exquisite.

‘Their love for one another seemed to be fortified, not diminished, by the episode, wouldn’t you agree?’ asked Lloyd. Tash thought of Kate’s calm courage and Ted’s renewed hope, and nodded. ‘I know it’s more drama than you’d ideally hope for on the run-up to your wedding, but they are a fine example for marriage, aren’t they? They’ve made their mistakes, but they’ve forgiven one another. They’ve got through it. It makes you think, doesn’t it?’ Tash nodded again. Lloyd continued, ‘I envy you, too, you and Rich, at the beginning of your journey, starting out fresh, hopeful, optimistic, expectant. It’s a lovely place to be.’

It was obvious to Tash that Lloyd was not so much talking about what she had, more about what he had lost. She tried to rally.

‘You’re in the same position. You and Greta are just starting out.’

Lloyd sighed, and shook his head a fraction. ‘It’s a little different second time around. It’s not the same. I wish it was. I have lost my belief in for ever. I would do anything to find that again.’

Tash’s head ached with the intensity of his confession. She wanted to be with Rich. They needed to be on the mountains together. Where was he?

‘I’d better go and find Rich,’ she said, as she eased herself out of her seat and away from Lloyd.

Lloyd barely noticed her leave as he muttered, ‘It makes you think.’

56. Rich and the Barman

Fuck, fuck, fuck. It couldn’t be worse. It couldn’t be more horrible. Or rather
he
couldn’t be worse.
He
couldn’t be more horrible. Rich was drenched in regret and self-loathing.

Had he been in the least bit sympathetic towards Ted? He wasn’t sure. He’d tried to listen to what Ted had been saying, but it was hard to take in, and Rich had problems of his own. He hoped he’d said the right things. He thought Ted appreciated the hug and back slapping, and he did seem interested when Rich had suggested a career change. Rich couldn’t believe that Ted
hadn’t
considered management consultancy, for instance. A bit of fraud was a positive attribute in that field, given the right spin. Rich thought that maybe he had been of some practical help. He hoped so, but he wasn’t certain. It was at moments like that when Rich wished he were a woman. He tried to imagine what Tash would say. Women generally, and Tash in particular, always knew how to comfort. What to say. What to do and how much touching was acceptable. Still, that was the only moment he’d ever swap places. The childbirth thing, the hostage-to-hormones bit and the lower salaries didn’t attract in the slightest.

Ted would be all right. Surely.

This morning had been excruciating. Tash had woken up feeling fretful and frisky by turn. Normally he’d welcome the opportunity to exploit fully the frisky feeling, but today he’d leapt out of bed as though it were a pit of venomous spiders. He dashed into the bathroom and slammed the door behind him, but he couldn’t bring himself to shave because he didn’t want to look in the mirror. Rich had hung about in the shower until his skin resembled that white stuff girls ate. What was it? Cottage cheese. Eventually Tash had taken the hint and gone down to breakfast alone. He’d only emerged when he heard Ted hammering at the door. He’d rather never eat again than face breakfast with Tash (who knew nothing) and Jase (who knew something) and, oh, hell on earth, Jayne herself… who knew everything.

What in God’s name had he been thinking of? The answer, of course, was not much. Jayne was there, Jayne was clearly willing and Jayne was hot. Tash – in that moment – was none of those things.

Jayne was there. That was the thing. She was there, grinding her tiny, little body next to his and edging her arse into his crotch as she did a provocative rendition of Nelly’s ‘It’s getting hot in here’. She was ready and present, and Tash was in bed in their hotel room, sulking.

Jayne was willing. He knew that. She always had been. In his experience, plain or fat girls were often way better at sex than stunners. They were grateful and wanted to pull back the disadvantage, so to speak. Good-looking girls always thought they were doing you a favour by simply lying back and thinking of England. Lots of good-looking girls didn’t like to work up a sweat, as it ruined their hair and anything involving a bit of bending ran the risk of breaking a nail. Jayne was no longer plain Jane, she was a beauty now, but as she didn’t believe it in her heart she still offered it up with enthusiasm. Even changing the spelling of her name from ‘Jane’ to ‘Jayne’ had done nothing to help, nothing at all, except infuriate her parents. It was almost too good to be true, a cutie with an ugly-girl mentality. He remembered that she slipped, flipped, slid around, under, over, in front and behind him. She was game for anything, any time and anywhere. It had always been easy.

Almost too much so.

But he couldn’t wriggle out of it by saying Tash was unwilling or that she was the type of girl that lay back and thought of England. Under normal circumstances she was very keen and very accomplished. They’d had a great sex life back home and on this holiday, too. Some of their best. He wasn’t saying that Tash was losing her edge or her eagerness. Tash was hot, scalding, but last night, for a brief and fatal moment in time, she’d grown distinctly tepid. Instead of whipping her tongue over his cock, she whipped him with her grievances over Mia. It was no fun.

And…

And Jayne was hot. She was indefinably dirty. There was something about her. Something base and animal and overpowering that compelled him to go back and back and back over the years. She roused him, almost goaded him into doing things that he knew would be better left undone.

Like the kiss.

It wasn’t the same as the night in the cinema foyer. She hadn’t kissed him and caught him unaware.
He’d
lurched at
her
. The responsibility, the initiative and the blame all rested squarely with him. He’d wanted to kiss her lips – hard. He’d wanted to bite them, to have them, to have her. He’d tasted blood and wanted more. She’d immediately put her hand on his crotch and, of course, he was erect. Of course, for fuck’s sake, he was only flesh and blood. She’d grinned, that crazy, sexy, wild grin, and kissed him back. The kissing was vigorous, intense, almost frightening. Fucking horny. They fell against the corridor wall and she brought her leg up and around him, hooking him like a fish. His hands moved swiftly from cupping her face to cupping her tits, and then to her firm little arse. His fingers had stretched under her. At that point she’d broken away and panted an invite for him to join her in her room.

Her timing was out of kilter. It was just her poor timing that saved him. He hadn’t drunk quite enough. He wasn’t absolutely devoid of his senses. He wasn’t entirely immersed in careless lust. One more drink, a few more moments grabbing her arse, and he’d have been hers.

He hated that.

He’d backed away from her and staggered along the corridor. He hadn’t dared look back. She’d called his name, and he’d made a gesture which was supposed to indicate that she should shut up, go to bed, go away.

Ideally, disappear altogether.

What had he done? He had opened Pandora’s box. Prior to that kiss, it had been just possible that he could have got away without this situation blowing up in his face. He could have faced Tash with his not-quite-white conscience and said, ‘OK, I hold my hands up, there’s history.’ He could have, given the right opportunity, explained to her that that was all Jayne was, history. Only now she wasn’t. Now she was very present.

He didn’t want her. Not in the cold light of day. Not when sober. She was a mistake.

But was she an irreparable one?

Rich thought through his options. Option one, he could hunt out Tash and come clean. He could explain everything, lay it all out for her and throw himself at her feet, begging for mercy, understanding and forgiveness. The problem was that he couldn’t visualize the scenario. When he tried to, he kept seeing visions of Tash kneeing him in the bollocks and bringing him down to her feet before he got a chance to willingly prostrate himself there.

Option two, he could track down Jayne and explain to her, firmly and fairly, that last night was a drunken mistake. He wouldn’t have to tell her that he was beginning to think that every episode with her had been a mistake – he didn’t need to be unnecessarily cruel. He could ask for her mercy, understanding and silence. He could brush the whole incident under the carpet. Again, it was hard to sincerely believe in this scenario. He was plagued with memories of Jayne’s whispered innuendos and threats. Her perpetual insistence that she would not allow him to marry Tash.

As far as he could see it, his final option was to find a quiet bar and hide there until Friday. He wouldn’t see or speak to anyone between now and then. Not even Tash. He’d just be unavailable. And he wouldn’t enter into any discussion as to why he was unavailable, not with anybody. Then on their wedding day he’d dash up a slope with Tash and marry her quickly. Whatever happened after that, it was too late; she was stuck with him.

Scarily, option three seemed the most viable and appealing.

Rich pulled on his clothes, boots and jacket, and went in search of a bar that was open this early in the morning. He found one as far away from the hotel as he could manage, up a slope and just past the tourist office. It took an exceptional bar to make an impact early in the morning, and this was not an exceptional bar. The bar wasn’t particularly trendy, or swish. It was full of chairs, with wooden legs that needed a varnish and plastic seats that were ripped but had been botch-mended with sticky tape. At night time, the twinkling lights around the window and collection of snow globes above the optics may have appeared cute; in the harsh daylight they simply looked tired. Rich didn’t care. As a hide-out, it suited.

The guy staffing the joint was just taking the stools down off the bar top. They’d been put up there so that the floor could be washed. Rich arrived just as the cigarette butts from the night before were being swept into a dustpan and the floor was being swilled with disinfectant in an effort to erase all traces of spilt beer and an unfortunate circle of vomit. Rich wished he could be swilled in disinfectant, too. The tall, lanky French guy seemed disinterested in Rich’s early morning visit. He carried on with his cleaning. Not that he was fanatical about that either. His approach was languid and did not seem to require him to take his cigarette out of his mouth, despite the fact that he scattered more ash as soon as the floor was clean. Rich watched for a while and wondered if the cigarette was actually a surgical addition.

‘I’d like a coffee, please. Black and strong.’ He ordered in English, too fatigued to rustle up his charming French accent.

‘Non, you non want coffee.’ The guy tutted and proceeded to pour a Bloody Mary. ‘The bollocks of a dog, as you English say,’ said the bartender as he banged the glass on to the bar.

‘The hair of the dog,’ corrected Rich. He then tasted the Bloody Mary, which was very fine. ‘Or the dog’s bollocks,’ he conceded.

The bartender shrugged, clearly not bothered whether his English idioms were correct or not. He was a goodlooking guy and needed very few words to seduce the English women, who were pleasantly loose. Rich wondered if anything bothered this man. He doubted it. He couldn’t imagine the elegant, slightly stooping French guy of indeterminate age ever becoming concerned about anything, let alone creating a God-awful mess. Rich wished they could swap places. Rich suddenly didn’t want his big flat in Islington, his plasma TV or even his DVD collection, unsurpassable as it was. He would have traded it all in to be this careless French guy who came to Avoriaz for the season, shagged indiscriminately, then disappeared again, leaving neither regrets nor recriminations in his wake.

Rich sighed. It was not possible. Swapping his life with this stranger was an attractive fantasy, but he was wasting his time dreaming about the scenario. He should be concentrating on the issue at hand and trying to find a solution. That was Rich’s forte, that’s what he was paid a lot of money to do, ‘solution management’. Besides, while he would happily walk away from all his worldly possessions – right now, if he had to, or if it would help – he could not walk away from Tash.

The thought surprised and horrified him in equal parts.

He did not want to lose her. He wanted to marry Tash, to have children with Tash, to grow old with Tash. It wasn’t quite so horrific to contemplate saggy flesh, commodes and arthritic limbs if Tash was by his side. This was a remarkable admission, as Rich had been one of the few men of his acquaintance who had become seriously depressed about his mortality when he turned thirty. He had refused to throw a party or join the gang go-kart racing, as they’d arranged. Instead he had ignored the whole event and carried on as though it was any other day. Ageing was his biggest fear. Or it had been.

Now his biggest fear was losing Tash.

And this thing that he’d had with Jayne, while lasting more than a decade, was nothing in comparison to all that he felt for Tash. And the incident last night was less than nothing. It was a drunken, meaningless, pointless kiss.

But it could be the most important kiss of his life if he couldn’t find a way to contain the mistake.

Rich drained his Bloody Mary and, as if by magic, but in fact as a result of the experience of the bartender, a dark, treacle-like coffee appeared from nowhere. He sipped it gratefully and considered that Avoriaz village wasn’t a big place to hide. He feared he could be found if anyone really wanted to find him. He was hoping, in vain, that no one would.