Welcome to My World (45 page)

It was as if the floor beneath Harri’s feet was giving way. She slumped back into a chair as the whole room began to fill with noise and movement.

Viv wrenched the microphone from Stella’s hands. ‘That’s quite enough interfering from you, young lady!’

Stella folded her arms coolly, unfazed by the murderous look in Viv’s eyes. ‘Interfering, eh? Well, from
you
I take that as a compliment.’

‘I
beg
your pardon?’

‘It was your idea to nominate Alex for that magazine column that started all of this, wasn’t it? It was because you thought he was so pathetic at dating that he needed a helping hand. But you need to learn to complete each task you undertake, Viv. I mean, getting Harri to do all the work of going through those letters without ever helping was a bit tough, wasn’t it?’

Viv opened her mouth to speak, but shut it when she saw her son’s expression. ‘Darling, I . . . I only had your best interests at heart . . .’

‘So why didn’t you help Harri?’ Alex demanded. ‘Yes, Viv, why didn’t you? Maybe then Harri wouldn’t have been tempted to set Alex up on the
worst possible date
.’ Stella looked pointedly at Chelsea, who was being comforted – perhaps ill-advisedly – by Jack.

‘What do you mean?’ Alex looked from Stella to Harri, who had begun to shake uncontrollably. ‘Harri?’

‘Chelsea was meant to be revenge,’ Stella said, ‘for what you said to Jack.’

‘How
dare
you?’ Chelsea screamed like a banshee. ‘I’m
not
the worst possible date. I’m the best he’s ever likely to get! If it wasn’t for me, he’d be
nothing
– still stuck in his crummy coffee shop with no ambition, no dress sense . . .
I
made him what he is, I mean, look at him!’

Obediently, all eyes in the hall swung to Alex, who was fuming dangerously. ‘Is that what you think of me, Chelsea?’

Defiantly, Chelsea wrapped her arm around a startled Jack. ‘Yes, actually. She’s right: I
am
more interested in Jack than I ever was in you. Jack takes me to nice, expensive places. Jack spends serious cash on making me happy. He doesn’t have a lousy business to “save his money” for.’

‘You should have chosen Harri when you had the chance!’ Stella shouted, as Viv swung for her. ‘She’s always loved you!’

At that moment, all hell broke loose. Alex lunged at Jack and hit him with a hefty right hook, sending him careering backwards into the bar, glasses and onlookers scattering in all directions. Chelsea jumped onto his back, kicking and screaming like a madwoman, and Alex yelped in pain, shrugging her off onto the buffet table. Rising to his feet, Jack punched Alex in the stomach, bending him double and Viv, incensed by this, ran over to Jack and laid him out cold with one seriously scary uppercut. Women screamed and men shouted as smaller disputes began breaking out all over the hall, vol-au-vents and sandwiches grabbed as ammunition and thrown at offending opposers.

In the middle of it all, Alex staggered, bloodied, through the wrecked remains of his engagement party towards Harri. His dark eyes – which earlier had been so happy to see her – now filled her with fear . . . because this time the look he gave her was
real
pity.

Hurt, scared and angry, Harri chose the only sensible thing left to do. She fled out of the hall, down the corridor, pushed open the grey-green door to the ladies’ loo and locked herself in the middle cubicle, sitting on the wobbly plastic seat with her head in her hands, sobbing uncontrollably.

It’s time.

Rising to her feet, Harri takes her bag off the hook and reaches for the lock. It slides open with a loud click. Swinging the door open, she walks out into the washroom area. It’s colder in here than she realised and she is glad of Viv’s pashmina still wrapped around her shoulders. Stepping over to the wash basins, she catches sight of herself in the mirror. Blimey, she looks rough. Glancing at the pale stripe across her left wrist, she remembers that she left her watch at home tonight. Even so, she can tell it’s late.

She leans against the ladies’ loo door, listening carefully for any signs of life. But all is silent: the commotion that drove her in here is now audible only in her memory. Confident that she is alone, she pulls the door open and steps out into the corridor.

The light is still on and Harri wonders if someone has stayed behind to wait for her. The heels of her too-expensive shoes click-clack loudly down the parquet floor of the corridor until she reaches the main hall. Far from the scene of carnage she left, most of the debris has now been tidied away, leaving an empty space behind. Nobody is here, either. Secretly, Harri had entertained a hope that Alex might be waiting for her – even if it was just to have the last say before walking away forever – but the emptiness of the hall confirms her worst fears: she has lost him, for good this time.

Just as she is about to leave, a flicker of movement out of the corner of her eye catches her attention, spinning her back round. A figure is standing by the entrance to the kitchen. Squinting, she tries to make out their features, her heart in her mouth.

‘Hello?’

‘You the last of ’em, are you?’ A short, wiry-limbed man steps forward.

Harri’s hope plummets. ‘Oh, hi, Ned. Yes, I think I am.’

‘Proper bostin’ punch-up it was in ’ere tonight,’ he observes drily. ‘I ’aven’t seen one that good since the Silver Jubilee.’

Harri smiles politely and makes her escape into the cold night.

It’s too late for a taxi now – and she doesn’t have the number of a local rank, anyway. The only way to get back to her cottage is to walk. In reality, it isn’t far – only a mile and a half – a journey she has made countless times before on pleasant summer evenings. But tonight it seems to take an eternity. Her feet feel leaden, dragging her downwards, making every step an immense effort . . .

As she walks, she remembers the harbourside in Fiskardo at night: the warm breeze swirling around her arms as she passed row upon row of tables and chairs in the waterfront restaurants; the lights of the town reflecting in the indigo-black waters of the harbour; above her, the full moon she had watched rise quickly from the sea like Venus in an old master painting. Now it feels almost as if she dreamed Kefalonia – the cold breeze numbing her fingers as she draws the ends of Viv’s pashmina ever closer.

If only she hadn’t confided in Stella. She should have known that information like that wouldn’t have stayed hidden for long once Stella was in possession of it. Yet at the time the thought of her friend thousands of miles away and unlikely to return gave her reassurance to divulge it. How wrong she had been . . .

As she opens the gate from the field and walks out onto Waterfall Lane, her thoughts inevitably shift to Alex and her heart contracts with a long, dull ache. She had come so close to regaining her friendship with him – how had it all been taken away from her again so easily?

‘Do you love him, Harri?’ Blanche had asked one night as they ate a dessert of Greek yoghurt with walnuts and thick honey under the vines at
To Kardiva
.

‘I honestly hope not,’ Harri had answered truthfully. But inside, she knew the answer to the question; and so, she suspected, did Blanche.

Not that any of that matters now, of course. Alex is gone and she needs to move on, like Blanche said:
Just keep looking out for the next great love of your life . . .

At least – she muses as she walks – with the complications of her heart removed, she can set about creating the kind of life
she
wants to live. She will definitely take more holidays abroad: Blanche has invited her to New Jersey later in the year, ‘when my break from looking for Number Six is over . . .’ and Harri plans to combine it with a trip to New York, visiting her cousin Rosie and seeing the sights. Before she left for Kefalonia, Emily had asked her to help with the art and craft holidays at Greenwell Hill Farm too – a prospect Harri still likes immensely. Getting through the past few months and taking her first steps into the big wide world that she has always wanted to experience has brought about a vital change within her: the fear of the unknown has gone.

She walks the final stretch of Waterfall Lane, passing her neighbours’ houses as she nears her own. Reaching the gate at the bottom of her garden, she lifts the latch – and stops dead . . .

Someone is waiting for her. He is leaning against the front door, shoulders hunched against the cool night.

‘Alex?’

Slowly, she walks up the garden path towards him. He says nothing, eyes scrutinising her, cold and emotionless. He has come for the last word.

Harri has had enough drama and tension tonight to last her for several lifetimes. Wearily, she stops in front of him. ‘Do you want to come in?’

Nothing. No response, not even a flicker. ‘OK, well, if you don’t mind, I’ve had a horrible day and I want to go to bed.’ She waits for him to move, but he remains stoically in the porchway. It is too much. ‘Al,’ she pleads, emotion constricting her words, ‘just say what you came here to say and then let me get on with my life. There’s nothing you can say that I haven’t already beaten myself over the head with.’

He breathes out, his breath a cloud of warm steam rising in the cool atmosphere that surrounds them. ‘Is it true?’

‘Is what true?’

‘What Stella said tonight. Do you love me?’

‘Why on earth does it matter?’

His eyes sear into hers. ‘Because I want the truth.’

She stares back at him. ‘I would have thought you’d had more than enough “truth” tonight.’

‘I want to know, Harri. Do you love me?’

Perhaps the quickest way to get him to leave her alone is to be honest, Harri reasons. ‘Yes, I do. And I really wish I didn’t, but there it is. Now can I get into my house, please?’

‘See, the thing is, Harri, I can’t believe you told Stella all this stuff. She humiliated me – she humiliated all of us – for what purpose? I’m sure we could have survived blissfully unaware of all of that for the rest of our lives. I mean, why rake it all up now?’

Harri rubs her eyes. ‘You know what, Al? I don’t need this. I’ve just spent I don’t know how many hours trying to get my head round it all and I’ve failed miserably. You just need to deal with it too, and move on. And I’m sorry I had to inconvenience you so much by falling in love with you. Believe me, I didn’t plan it. But you needn’t worry: I won’t inconvenience you any longer. Thanks for being my friend, but I think you’ll agree it’s run its course. So just go home and let me get on with my life.’

Alex shakes his head. ‘Ah, but I don’t want to.’

With a cry of frustration, Harri steps forward. ‘OK, what do you want from me, Alex?’

He reaches inside his jacket pocket and pulls out a long, white envelope. ‘I want you to have this.’

Surprise sweeps aside her anger. ‘What is it?’

‘This is what I was going to give Chelsea tonight, only I really don’t think there’s much point doing that now, is there? Seeing as she’s having an affair with my best friend. She probably wouldn’t have appreciated it anyway.’

‘I am sorry about that, Al,’ Harri replies softly. ‘I know what it feels like.’

‘Yeah, I’m sorry to hear about Rob. You didn’t deserve that. Go on, open it.’

Harri carefully unseals the envelope and takes out a plane ticket. Twisting it round, her eyes read the destination. Her heart leaps – then tumbles. Carefully, she replaces the ticket in the envelope and calmly hands it back. ‘I can’t. Sorry.’

His frow furrows. ‘You can, it’s yours.’

She pushes it back towards him. ‘No, I can’t.’

‘But it’s
Venice
,’ he protests, refusing to accept it from her.

‘And that’s why I
can’t
. Not on my own.’

There is a long silence. Harri’s eyes brim with tears and the pain forces her eyes away from the ticket in her hand.

Then, Alex speaks, his voice unsteady. ‘I know. That’s why I have one too.’

Looking up, Harri searches his face. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Come to Venice with me.’

‘I don’t understand . . . I . . .’

‘See, I’ve tried to put you out of my mind, Harri. I moved things on with Chelsea, proposed and started planning the wedding. I even bought tickets to the one place you love the most, thinking it would put you out of my head for good if I saw it with Chelsea. But nothing worked. All I can think about is the way we kissed that night. It changed everything. Don’t look so shocked, H; you can’t be totally surprised by this?’

‘Forgive me, but I am. What you said then – the way you looked at me – you were horrified. I saw it in your eyes again this evening. How can that be love?’

‘You saw
fear
, Harri! This whole thing scares the life out of me because you’re my friend and I depend on you – and I don’t want to risk losing you. That night I was an idiot and I ran away because I couldn’t cope with how I felt.’ He takes a step closer, his hands closing around hers as she grips the Venice ticket. ‘You blew me away when you kissed me. I’ve never felt like that with anyone before – not even Chelsea, who I was convinced was the One. And it shook everything up.’

Questions are building like skyscrapers inside her – layer upon layer of issues, fears and disbelief cementing themselves together, blocking the way forward from view. At a loss for how to respond, Harri shrugs. ‘So where do we go from here?’

Warmth ignites Alex’s expression, a fire she has never seen before burning in his eyes. ‘Venice. Me and you. I know we don’t have the answers yet, but I’m willing to work it out if you’ll help me?’

Heart beating wildly, Harri bows her head and whispers: ‘So take me to Venice . . .’

Then his hands are stroking her face, his eyes are melting into hers and, when their lips meet, it’s like a billion shooting stars colliding, filling every atom of darkness with shimmering light . . .

Venice:
La Serenissima
– the serene city where love and dreams walk its streets, hand in hand. On a stone bench overlooking the Grand Canal, two lovers kiss, each embrace answering another question in their hearts.