The Love of My Life (24 page)

‘What is it?’ she asked, trotting after me on her high heels. ‘Did Luca say something? Did something happen?’

‘No, nothing,’ I said. There was a queue outside the ladies’, sick-looking girls panda-eyed with mascara. The music was beginning to thrum in my head. I did a quick check to make sure no staff or bouncers were watching, and had a good swig of the vodka. Then another. The bottle was almost empty. The floor was sticky with spilled drink.

‘Something’s going on,’ said Anneli. ‘You’re not telling me something.’

I wiped my lips with the back of my adulterous hand. Oh, the smell of him. I shook my head.

‘Something’s different. You’re different.’

‘No, no, nothing’s changed.’

Anneli bit her lip. I stepped towards her but she stepped back, away from me.

‘You kissed him, didn’t you?’

‘Or he kissed me. Oh, it was nothing. He’s drunk.’

Anneli frowned.

‘Don’t look like that. It didn’t mean anything.’

‘You’re not going to do anything silly, are you?’

I gave a high little laugh. Even to me it sounded artificial.

‘No, of course not,’ I said.

‘He’s engaged, Liv. He’s getting married in eight weeks. You get in the way of that now and it’ll be a million times worse than what happened with Mr Parker.’

I took her hands in mine. My pornographic hands on her pure ones.

‘Anneli, I promise I won’t do anything wrong.’

Later, Luca and I slow-danced to ‘If You’re Looking for a Way Out’. His lips were in my hair, tasting my shampoo, his big, bony hands holding me close to him. Marc was dancing with Anneli. She kept her face determinedly turned away from us; Marc kept watching, watching.

At the end of the song, most of the other couples on the dance-floor started to kiss, those deep, wet, tongue kisses of drunk people who don’t know each other well. Luca and I, however, stepped decorously back away from one another. Anneli was pointing at her watch and to the door: our taxi would be outside.

I picked up my bag and waved my fingers at Luca.

‘Can I see you tomorrow?’ he mouthed. ‘Can you come to Marinella’s?’

I nodded. ‘I’ll come for coffee when I wake up.’

And I did. And that’s where it really started.

forty-three

The plane journey back to Watersford felt like a long, extended goodbye and the thought of what might happen once we got back filled me with unspeakable dread. I’d been horribly twitchy at Shannon Airport in case Mrs McGuire was returning on the same plane. She’d told Marc she was on holiday with her daughter for the whole of the following week, but that didn’t convince me that we were safe. She might, out of some dog-like sense of loyalty to Angela, come to the airport to spy on us.

‘And what if we bump into any of your friends from the stag night?’

‘We won’t! Most of them went back this morning and the rest have gone on to Dublin.’

‘But they might have missed their plane.’

‘Liv, stop it. You’re wearing me out.’

‘You’re not taking this seriously enough.’

‘Why are you suddenly going all paranoid on me now?’

‘Mrs McGuire saw us.’

‘She doesn’t know you. She doesn’t know there was anything untoward going on. And even if she suspected, what’s the worst that could happen?’

‘Oh, nothing much. Just the end of your world.’

Marc shrugged and scowled and turned away. He walked off towards the duty-free shop and I sank back on to a chair and covered my eyes with my hand.

Once on the plane, reassured that nobody we knew was on board, I tried to enjoy the view from the window, the ice crystals on the glass and the magical lightscape of the top surface of the clouds, but the wine felt like acid in my stomach and every little jolt and creak of the plane made my heart race and prickled my fingertips. Marc, I think, was feeling the same. He held my hand on the armrest that separated us and asked me far too many times if I was all right. I was dreading the parting at the airport, dreading having to linger at the baggage carousel while he walked out into the arms of Nathalie, or Maurizio.

‘We can’t do this any more,’ I whispered.

Marc squeezed my fingers.

‘I never meant to have an affair with you,’ I said.

‘Don’t say that.’

‘Well that’s what it is.’

‘No it’s not. Affairs are tacky and dirty.’

‘That’s what other people would say about us.’

‘Liv, please, there is no point worrying about things that haven’t happened yet. Forget Mrs McGuire. She only saw you for a moment. She didn’t recognize you. And even if she did, it would still be a big leap of imagination for her to work out that we were together.’

‘It wouldn’t be a big leap,’ I said. ‘It would be the only logical conclusion.’

Marc sighed, let go of my hand and put his head back on the headrest. My ears popped. In our safe, private, high-altitude dusk, we were starting the descent into Watersford.

‘Is that what you want, Liv? Do you really want us to stop seeing one another?’

‘No. I don’t know. I don’t want to be without you but . . .’

‘What?’

‘Stopping is the only possible ending to you and me.’

‘We don’t have to stop until we’re ready.’

‘We have to stop before anybody gets hurt. Nathalie, I mean.’

Marc shrugged. ‘I don’t know why you worry about her. She doesn’t care much for you.’

‘She has no reason to.’

As we came down through the cloud, the plane banked to the left and, through the window, we could see the lights of the traffic circling the roundabout to come into the airport. Nathalie was probably in one of those cars. She’d have timed the journey perfectly. She’d be listening to some classical music. Her hair would be shiny, her breath fresh, her clothes pressed. She’d be tapping her short fingernails on the steering wheel. She’d have left the children at home, in the flat above Marinella’s, being looked after by their grandparents. Baby Ben would be in his cot, in his blue bunny pyjamas, lying on his back, his arms thrown out at either side of his head, breathing milkily through rosebud lips. And the other two, probably, would be watching TV in the living room. Kirsty would be curled up on the sofa, her feet tucked beneath her, twirling a strand of dark hair round her perfect little fingers. Billy would be on his stomach, on the carpet, his chin in his hands, grubby socks falling off his fat little feet behind him, transfixed by the screen. My mind was made up.

‘I want to stop, Marc. I want to end this here.’ ‘Whatever you want,’ he said, but he didn’t sound convinced.

forty-four

Luca and Nathalie were due to be married on Christmas Eve. Luca and I started seeing one another at the end of October. By the beginning of November, we were lovers. By the end of November, Luca told me that what we had wasn’t just the final wild-oat-sowing of a soon-to-be-married man. A painfully cold autumn was gearing up for a record-breakingly icy winter. Privacy in Portiston was all but impossible for me and Luca. Despite Angela and Nathalie’s double-act of coldness and unfriendliness, I frequented Marinella’s with increasing regularity, simply to enjoy the reassuring feeling of being near Luca. At work, I daydreamed and idled. After a disastrous hour in the glassware department one Saturday morning, the supervisor said I was neither use nor ornament and sent me home, assuming I was sickening with the flu. In truth, I’d smuggled Luca into my bedroom the night before and we hadn’t slept for a moment, our delight at being naked together totally spoiled by the fear of discovery. Every creak of that prudish old house sounded like my mother’s footstep on the stair, every whisper of wind outside startled us.

Sooner or later, we knew we would be found out. Our desire was spurring us on to acts of increasing recklessness. One Sunday, we fucked standing up in the tiny courtyard at the back of Marinella’s, and then Luca went back inside to serve roast dinners to a coach party from Lytham St Anne’s. Another time, when Angela and Nathalie had gone to Watersford to sort out exactly what was required of the wedding photographer, Luca summoned me to the ferry ramp and we had ten minutes of extremely cold bliss in my old haunt. Luca was still wearing his Marinella’s uniform and when he left his trousers were streaked with oil and the green of seaweed. Occasionally he managed to come to Watersford on some errand or other, and would meet me at Wasbrook’s and then we could enjoy the privacy of his old car for half an hour. We never once discussed the future.

We never talked. We never had time. We had no mobile phones, we had no opportunity, we had no privacy, but nothing deterred us from being together as often as we could.

Afterwards, everyone assumed we had been plotting and planning, but that simply wasn’t true. I never considered the future. I was just greedy for the present because I thought that was all I was ever going to have.

December, of course, was Wasbrook’s busiest month. My supervisor kept asking me to stay on and work overtime and I always agreed because I needed the money for my escape fund and it took my mind off Luca’s wedding. Also, working meant I didn’t have to go home. Working was fun at Christmas, although the shoppers left the store in a dreadful state and the shoplifting that went on was unbelievable. Racks of merchandise disappeared into the shopping bags of the predominantly middle-class women who frequented the store. I grew sick of the piped Christmas music, the pa-rum-pum-pum-pum and the have-yourself-a-merry, but I enjoyed the bustle and the busyness as red-nosed shoppers, stressed and short of time and money, struggled to find the perfect presents. I liked coming out of the shop into the winter dark, the city garlanded with lights every way you looked. Sometimes the Salvation Army band would be playing carols on the podium in the centre of the shopping area, and once I saw Father Christmas on a motorized sleigh throwing sweets to the shoppers and waving a mittened hand like he was the Queen. His pixie told me they were collecting for the Firefighters’ Benevolent Fund.

I was on a permanent adrenalin high. I saw Luca’s face everywhere. I saw the slope of his shoulders, or the swing of his hair, or the way he stood with his feet apart and his thumbs in the pocket of his jeans, and I would cross the department floor time and time again to find it wasn’t Luca but somebody who bore a tiny physical resemblance.

This permanent state of sexual anxiety made my eyes bright and my cheeks pink and never in the whole of my life did I receive so much attention. Young men would come up to me in the store. Some of them were polite and courtly. They asked if they could take me for a coffee in my break. Others – the ones I preferred – were full of smiles and bravado. They flattered and teased and worked round to what they were trying to say which was usually did I fancy a drink after work. Older men tried to give me presents. The boys at work showered me with small acts of kindness. I told them all thank you but I had a boyfriend. Then, when it came to the staff Christmas party, I was stuck, because of course I didn’t. Not one who belonged to me, anyway.

The party was due to take place on 17 December, which was the Friday before Christmas Eve and Luca and Nathalie’s wedding day. It occurred to me that Luca might be prepared to drop me off at the party and then make an excuse for not staying. That would keep everyone happy and my position as spoken-for would not be compromised. I could see no harm in this plan. There was no risk to Luca.

When I stepped out of the dark winter evening and into the bright, welcoming warmth of Marinella’s to make the necessary arrangements, it was clear that the wedding preparations were well under way. Cardboard boxes of glasses and champagne were piled up behind the counter. A little stage had been erected at one end of the restaurant, perhaps for a band, and somebody had installed small spotlights on a runner on the ceiling. Big, high-standing vases were lined up at the other end of the room and the Christmas decorations, which were, as always, beautiful, were all green and purple and twined with the tiniest, prettiest fairy lights I’d ever seen. At the counter, Fabio was laboriously making tiny mauve roses out of icing paste. There was a smell of celebration in the air.

Angela, as usual, didn’t have a hair out of place, but she was so fraught that she forgot to even pretend to be polite to me as I stood at the counter.

‘What is it, Olivia?’ she asked without any preamble.

‘I’d like a coffee, please,’ I said.

‘You can’t just have coffee,’ said Angela. ‘We’re too busy. You have to have a meal too.’

Four American tourists were sitting at the table right beside me, drinking coffee. My eyes flickered to them, and then back to Angela, but she wasn’t even looking at me any more; she had turned to speak to one of the staff who was standing behind her drying her hands on a dishcloth.

Normally I would have turned and left at this point, but this was important.

I coughed. Angela turned her head. ‘Yes?’

‘Could I just have a quick word with Luca, please?’

‘No. He’s at the church having a dress rehearsal with Nathalie.’

‘Can I help?’

Marc had come into the restaurant behind his mother, his arms full of Christmas linen. He had a friendly smile on his face, and I had an idea.

‘Yes, sure.’

‘Do you want a coffee?’

Angela shot me a look of pure spite, but didn’t intervene, so I nodded and Marc fetched us both an espresso and we sat down at a table by the window. It was wet with condensation. There was no snow yet, but the feel of snow was in the air, like the promise of Christmas.

‘So how are you?’ asked Marc, sipping his coffee from a teaspoon.

‘I’m OK,’ I said. ‘Actually I was wondering if you were doing anything tomorrow evening?’

‘At a guess I would say I’ll be talking weddings.’ He grinned up at me, blowing steam off his spoon. ‘God, it’s boring, Liv.’

‘Well, would you like to come to a party with me instead?’

Marc sat back and opened and closed his mouth.

‘Oh look, don’t worry,’ I said, busying myself with a twist of sugar. ‘I’m sure you’ve got far too much to do and . . .’