Ten Years On (11 page)

I tell Joe he was on his motorbike. ‘He was taking a short cut, thought he could overtake …’ I breathe deeply, remembering how I’d been waiting for him to return, but knowing something was wrong the moment I heard the loud knock on the door.

I press a hand to my forehead. ‘What hurts is it was so avoidable.’

‘We’re all guilty of taking stupid risks,’ claims Joe. ‘Doing a quick overtake or going through a red light because we’re in a hurry. We never think it’s going to happen to us.’

I nod.

‘And then you discovered you were pregnant?’

‘Yes.’

Joe looks awkward, unsure how to comfort me. ‘I wish I’d seen him,’ he says. ‘I tried to call, some time ago now. I tracked you down, left messages. I never heard back from you so I assumed you still didn’t want anything to do with me.’

‘We’ve all done things we regret,’ I say, ‘me included.’

I cycle home. ‘What did you want to talk to me about that day, Olly?’ I’d promised myself not to go over and over the same question, promised Kitty not to torture myself, but talking to Joe has brought it all back. ‘You were quiet over breakfast. What was worrying you? Why were you so distracted?’

‘He called?’ Olly says. ‘When? Why didn’t you tell me, Becca?’

I pedal faster; under the arch by the print shop, past the Wykeham Arms pub. ‘You haven’t answered my question, Olly. I need to know.’

‘You haven’t answered mine. Why did you hate Joe? What happened between you two?’

12

Bristol University, Ten Years Ago

Alone in my bedroom I tear open the letter. It’s from the director of the art academy in Florence.

I read it and reread it, just to make sure. ‘We are pleased to inform you …’

I do a little dance before rushing downstairs to phone Kitty. After she’s congratulated me, she brings me back down to earth with a bump. ‘You’ll have to tell your parents now.’

I twist the telephone cord with one hand.

‘Olly will miss you too.’ There’s a pause. ‘You have told him, haven’t you?’

‘Give me a chance. I’ve only just found out.’

‘Yeah, but he knows you applied, right?’

Kitty understands the meaning of my silence.

*

Olly will be happy for me, I tell myself, dread in my heart, as I head for the library, hoping to find him revising. Summer exams are looming. He’ll understand this is an incredible opportunity. I want to follow my dream and be an artist.

I look back to that day when my father showed me some old sketchbooks belonging to his Aunt Cecily. ‘That’s your great-aunt, Becca,’ he’d said, carefully lifting some leather books out of a box. We were alone in his study on a Sunday afternoon because Mum had taken Pippa to a six-hour tennis-coaching session in Slough. The books were worn at the edges and inside the paper was fragile, but they smelled of adventure. Underneath each work of art she had written neatly in pencil the scene and date. That afternoon, Great-Aunt Cecily took me to cafes in Barcelona, beaches in Cornwall, fields of cows in Somerset, deserts in Egypt, and I remember being mesmerized by her pictures of African wildlife. ‘Cecily loved architecture,’ Dad told me, showing me exquisite ink drawings of Corinthian columns, Norman archways and church doors; there was even a sketch of the west side of Winchester Cathedral. Dad explained that that was how he’d first known about Winchester, because this is where she had lived too. I loved the Winchester paintings because they
were familiar. My favourite, however, was a picture of the hilltop basilica of San Miniato al Monte in Florence. Dad told me it was a magnificent Romanesque church, with an adjoining Olivetan monastery. When he pointed to the mosaic of Christ enthroned between the Virgin Mary and St Minias I said, ‘Wowee, Dad!’ thinking it looked so splendid in gold. I can remember my relief after seeing Great-Aunt Cecily’s work. Old aunts can often be associated with mothballs, but Cecily was an explorer. ‘She would have been twenty-eight then,’ Dad told me when we saw she’d visited Florence in 1917. I vowed to myself that when I was grown-up, I would go to Italy and see it for myself, with my own sketchbook.

I pass the library cafe, head for the stairs …

Students are working in enclosed cubicles, but there’s no sign of Olly. There’s only one other place he might be.

‘You’re very lucky, Becca, that you enjoy painting so much too,’ Dad had said, ‘It’s a wonderful hobby.’

‘Hobby?’ Olly had commented later, when were lying in bed, my head resting under the crook of his arm, listening to ‘Supergrass’. We were nineteen, going on twenty, and had been dating for nearly six months. I’d invited him down to Winchester for the weekend. ‘That’s patronizing, isn’t it?’

I went on to tell him how Pippa’s tennis wasn’t a hobby; my parents, especially Mum, had great dreams that she’d play at Wimbledon. My art, on the other hand, was fun, but no one makes a living out of painting. ‘Look at Andy Warhol,’ Olly protested.

‘He’s dead.’

‘Yeah, but he made a fortune. How about David Hockney? He’s laughing all the way to the bank!’

He stroked my long thick hair, curled it round in his fingers. ‘I’ve never seen your paintings, Becca. Can I?’

I reached for my black portfolio folder on top of the wardrobe.

Carefully he leafed through my work. I pointed out my favourite painting, a stylized cafe scene which had won first prize at college. ‘What’s this one?’ he asked, hooking one foot over mine. ‘Oh my God,’ I said, memories flooding back. ‘There was this competition, for five-to nine-year-olds …’ Olly was distracting me, rubbing his foot against mine, his touch tickling, ‘and we had to draw a natural disaster.’ Before us was a picture of a red house, the bricks crumbling, and in the background were mountains and bubbling lava, but it was the figure in the foreground that made Olly and me smile because his legs looked so odd. I’d wanted the man to be running furiously, away from the disaster,
but I couldn’t get his leg action right. He looked as though he was doing the splits. From the top of the house, I’d screamed with frustration. ‘Oh, is that all,’ Mum had said, when she rushed in to see what all the drama was about. She didn’t even look at my painting. I told Olly, ‘I was so angry that I scrunched it up and threw it in the bin. That’s why it’s so creased now.’

‘Do you miss painting?’

I nodded. ‘But they’re right. It’s a hard way to make a living.’

As I gathered my drawings together Olly gripped my wrist. ‘Becca, I want to be a writer, and no one is going to tell me I can’t do it. They can fuck off. Don’t listen to your parents!’ He put the folder on the floor and kicked the bedroom door shut. ‘You’ve got to do what makes you happy. It’s your life. Come here.’

Soon we were kissing. I raised my arms; Olly pulled off my T-shirt. Next his hand was expertly unhooking my bra; he’d had a lot of practice by this time.

‘You’re amazing and talented,’ he murmured, as I pulled off his jumper, my hand now reaching for the buckle on his belt.

‘Rebecca, supper!’ Mum called up to us.

We paused for a second, our mouths pressed against each other, but next we were stripping off. ‘Have you
got something?’ I murmured. ‘We’ve got to be quick …’

‘I can do quick.’ Olly jumped off the bed and grabbed his wallet from the back pocket of his jeans.

I run down the corridor, the sound of music filling the air.

Where is he? He must be here …

Olly is in the last room. Quietly I open the door and stand in one corner. He has his back to me. His body moves with the music, his head tilts from side to side, his fingers ripple over the keys, gaining speed as the piece becomes livelier.

Tears fill my eyes when I realize how much I love him. Am I prepared to give that up, to go away?

When the piece comes to an end he stands up and bows, as if he were in the Royal Albert Hall.

I clap and wolf-whistle, call out, ‘Encore!’

He turns to me, cheeks glowing with embarrassment. ‘Becca! How long have you been standing there?’

‘Long enough to know you are quite brilliant.’ I perch on the end of the stool. ‘That was beautiful, Ol. What was it?’

He sits down next to me. ‘Schubert.’ He starts to play another piece, enjoying the audience now.

I glance at the music sheet. It’s Schubert’s Impromptu in G-flat major.

‘Who do you imagine you’re playing to?’

‘Cameron Diaz.’

‘Hey!’ I nudge him before striking a key.

‘Naked,’ he finishes.

‘I always know something’s wrong when you bite your nails,’ Olly says, as we walk back home together.

‘What do you think about me going to art college?’

‘What do you mean? When?’

‘I’ve been accepted on to this course.’

‘What course?’

‘It looks amazing, Olly. It’s a foundation in drawing, painting and sculpture, and the teacher sounds so inspiring. Many of his students have gone on to become professionals and—’

‘Becca, slow down! I think it’s a great idea, but …’

‘This autumn.’

Olly stops. He lets go of my hand. ‘You’d leave Bristol?’ We cross the road.

‘Um.’

‘Right. Can’t you finish your degree and then do it?’

‘My heart’s not in it, Olly. If it weren’t for you … Anyway, if I applied next year, I might not get on.’

‘Where is it, this course?’

This is the part I’ve been dreading. ‘Florence.’

Don’t look at me like that.

‘How long would you be away?’

‘A year … but you could visit all the time.’

His pace picks up. He digs his hand into his pocket, finds his house keys. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘I didn’t think I’d be accepted. I thought if I told everyone—’

‘I’m hardly everyone, Becca. I’m your boyfriend.’

‘I thought if I told you, it would curse my luck,’ I say, catching up with him. ‘It’s like when I took my driving test. I didn’t tell anyone, so that I wouldn’t have to explain if I failed, which I did – on my emergency stop. Pressed down hard on the accelerator instead.’

He doesn’t find me funny this time. ‘Have you spoken to our tutors?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Parents?’ Olly opens the front door, dumps his books on to the side table, next to an army of empty wine bottles that we’ve collected in the last few days. ‘My marks haven’t been great,’ I say, justifying my reasons to give up my course here. ‘I can’t get away with drawing pictures down the margins any more.’ When I was at school, to make up for my average essays, I’d accompany
them with sketches of Vikings in their warrior hats.

‘Do you have to go abroad?’ he interrupts me in the middle of my warrior hat story. ‘Aren’t there colleges over here? There’s even one in Winchester, isn’t there?’

‘Yes, but this is my one chance to do something different,’ I say, following him into the kitchen. ‘I want to work all summer, save up and …’

Olly turns to me. ‘I can’t believe this, Becca. You’re always having a go at me about how
I
do what the hell I want half the time without asking you, but here you are telling me you’re about to move to another country! You could have at least have told me you’d applied.’

He leaves the room. I shut my eyes when I hear the front door slam.

‘What’s wrong?’ Joe asks. I don’t know how long I’d been sitting at the kitchen table, thinking about what Olly had said. It must have been a long time, since it was now dark outside.

‘I’m leaving Bristol, Joe.’

He heads to the sink, pours himself a glass of water. I tell him about the course. I mention that I’d kept it quiet until I knew I’d been accepted.

‘I see. And Olly’s mad?’ Joe pulls up a chair, sits down next to me.

‘Furious. Maybe I should try and find him, tell him I’m sorry. I should have told him, Joe.’

He touches my shoulder. ‘He won’t be mad for long, Becca. Talk to him when he’s calmed down.’

There’s a long silence, which I break finally. ‘And you, Joe? What do you think? Am I doing the right thing?’

‘Only you can answer that.’

I wish I could read Joe’s mind. Since that moment when I thought he was about to kiss me, we haven’t spent much time together alone, just the two of us. Subconsciously, perhaps, I have been avoiding him.

‘Maybe I shouldn’t go.’

‘This course … is it what you really want?’

I nod, slowly.

‘Well then,’ he shrugs. ‘I mean, if you were sitting here telling me you wanted to quit Bristol to become a pig farmer in New Zealand, I’d say your relationship was over but … If you and Olly are meant to be, you’ll work it out.’

I take his hand. ‘Thank you.’ His support warms my heart. ‘I needed to hear that.’

‘Right.’ Joe withdraws his hand and stands up. ‘I need to get ready. I’m going out with Liz.’

Liz is the current girlfriend.

‘Have a good time.’

‘Olly will come round. He’s only cross because he loves you and he’ll miss you.’

‘I know.’

‘Oh, and Becca—’

I look up to Joe, now standing at the door.

‘Your Mum called. They’ve bought a puppy, a miniature dachshund or something, and your father wants to call her Audrey.’

I smile, telling him my father has always loved Audrey Hepburn.

‘I can see you living in a studio in Italy,’ Joe says finally, ‘painting the cypresses, sunlight streaming in through the windows.’

‘I’m sorry,’ says Olly, late that night when he returns.

‘I’m sorry too,’ I say tearfully.

We rush to hug.

‘You’re the one that inspired me, Ol, said I should follow my heart.’

‘Bollocks. I wish I hadn’t opened my big mouth.’ He strokes my hair, tucks a strand behind my ear. ‘Oh, Becca, if it were anyone else … but it’s not.’ He holds
me in his arms again. ‘You’re right. Of course you should go. It’s a great opportunity …’

There’s a ‘but’ in his tone.

‘But where does that leave us?’

13

‘She’s been at home for a month now,’ Mum whispers in the kitchen, ‘and just locks herself in her bedroom.’ I’m standing outside, listening.

‘What? Speak up,’ Dad says. I can hear coffee being poured, toast popping up and the sound of my father turning the pages of his newspaper.