I left Charlie to get a taxi at Paddington and took the Tube to Liverpool Street.
At the end of a day that had begun in a Burgundian village and included a return trip to Paris, a long taxi ride, an international flight, and the 10:30 P.M. train to Norwich, a black cab deposited me outside the place I had called home until a week ago.
I had texted Claire, asking if I could stay the night, and she had responded with an unadorned OK.
She opened the door in jeans and a jumper. She’d had her hair done but, I reminded myself, she had been on a date the previous night. Elvis appeared at her feet, saw me, and fled. Perhaps it had been a long week for him, too.
“How was she?” said Claire.
“Can I come in first?”
She let me in and we stood in the kitchen. Her expression was not giving anything away.
“I told you, I stayed with a couple of Australian friends in France,” I said. “Middle-aged married couple with teenage kids.”
“And was the woman’s name by any chance Kylie?”
Aha. I now knew the source of her information. Kylie was the name I had used with my mother.
“No,” I said. “It was Angelina. Charlie and Angelina. They’re both lawyers. She’s an equal opportunity commissioner in Melbourne. They’ve got three teenagers.”
Claire was clearly wrong-footed.
“Nice people,” I said. “They work incredibly hard on their marriage. After a major screw-up on his part.”
I fished her present out of my bag. I had wrapped it myself, that service not being on offer at the souvenir shop at Lyon airport.
She sat on a stool at the counter to unwrap it, then did her best to smile at the eight-euro coffee mug that was supposed to rekindle our relationship.
“You got the right spelling,” she said.
“That’s the advantage of buying in France. They know how to spell Claire. We should go there more often. Pay for it by upping my hours. There’s a card.”
She opened the envelope. On the card, I had written, I will make coffee for you every morning for the rest of our lives.
I had considered adding if you’ll marry me, or even if you don’t marry me, but it had not sat right. There was still a lot of work to be done, but I wanted to do it with Claire.
She shook her head. “I’m really sorry, and it’s my fault too, but it’s all a bit late. The sale’s probably going through, and if it does I’ll go to the U.S.”
“We should talk anyway,” I said. “You first. Whatever you want to say about me. Or us. It’s probably not going to be a surprise.”
“Actually, it may be,” said Claire. “You want to know something funny? Way back, when you went to Holland, your mum took it upon herself to fill me in on Kylie. You know how she is: ‘I shouldn’t be telling you this, but you need to know—it’s affected him.’”
I laughed at the accuracy of Claire’s impression and my mother’s observation.
Claire managed a smile in return. “It wasn’t much more than what you’d told me. Just a bit about who she was, which I really didn’t need to know. But Kylie, an actress in an Australian soapie, and a singer. I couldn’t remember you telling me her name, and then I thought maybe you might not have because that would give it away.”
It took me a few moments to twig.
“You thought I’d been dating Kylie Minogue.”
“Very briefly.”
And I thought I’d been out of my league with Angelina. “Why didn’t you tell me? It’s hilarious.”
“I didn’t want you to think I was an idiot. Or betray your mum.”
The unreality of it struck me, and I began laughing, and Claire joined me until we were both laughing uncontrollably at the idea that I had had an affair with an international pop star. I really did love Claire. She deserved better than what I had given her. Even in the last ten minutes.
I took a deep breath.
Remember Lenny Bruce. Remember Randall. Remember Charlie. Do not ever confess.
“Her name wasn’t actually Kylie. You were right about France. She was the one I told you I reconnected with.”
“Angelina?”
“’Fraid so.”
“Was her husband there, then?”
“All true. The kids, the working hard on the marriage. The Château Margaux and the guinea fowl with foie gras.”
“And how was reality compared with fantasy?”
“She was older.”
“That’s not what I was asking.”
“I think we both worked out that we had made the right decisions.”
“So you’re over her?”
I could have protested at the ludicrousness of the question, but I was doing my best to be honest.
“I’m through it. I’m not going back.”
Claire walked to the fridge, opened it, closed it without taking anything out, and sat down again.
“Adam, I don’t want to make the same mistake again. When we got together, I could see you were still bruised, but I should have given you a chance to talk. Your mum was right.”
“No surprise there.”
“You know me. I’m not the one to start the touchy-feely discussions. You’re the emotional one.” She laughed. “Relatively speaking. Given we’re IT people.”
“Not soapie stars. Or Californians.”
“We’re still human beings. Mandy was telling me about this four-dimensional—”
“Physical, intellectual—”
“I thought we were doing pretty well on practical, which is my domain, but you’ve been letting the team down on emotional. I need you to keep us human. Music used to be our safe place for that, and you’ve been keeping it to yourself.”
“I should have gone back to Australia about fifteen years ago and done what I’ve done this week.”
The outcome would likely have been the same, possibly without the three-way sex.
“While we’re being honest,” said Claire, “there’s something I should tell you. You may want to take your mug back.”
“You slept with Ray?”
“Ray? God no. What makes you think … Have you been looking at my e-mails?”
I’m sure my expression made a reply unnecessary.
“Serves you right. I saw him to talk about the deal. He was quite useful. Knew all about BATNAs. I think he wants to be mine. Do you want to open a bottle of wine?”
It was late, but it seemed that she needed a drink to convey whatever bad news was in store for me. Perhaps she thought I would need the drink.
I found a bottle of Argentinean malbec, opened it, and filled two glasses. It had probably cost a tenth of what Charlie had paid for the stuff he had been serving in France and tasted just as good. Better. It was nice to be home, if I could forget that it might be a short-lived state of affairs.
“I did something I’m pretty ashamed of,” she said. “And, if you’re going to make a new life for yourself, you should know.”
Christ. What was the worst case? As soon as I asked the question, the answer flashed into my head. Randall. She’d slept with Randall. Claire was the other woman who had destroyed Randall and Mandy’s marriage.
I was right: it was the worst case. And there was no way in the wide world it was true. I laughed out loud at the ridiculousness of it.
“What are you laughing at?”
“I imagined you’d slept with Randall.”
“Before or after he was with Mandy?”
“After. What are you saying?”
“Neither. But he did try. Before I met you. I introduced him to Mandy instead. He never mentioned it to you?”
How many secrets were out there? How many of our friends had had one-night stands, affairs, lost loves that they never confessed?
“Whatever it is, you really don’t need to tell me,” I said. “Unless you want to get it off your chest or it’s somehow relevant now.”
“Both,” she said. “I had a fertility test. Back when I was trying to get pregnant. I just wanted to know. And it was me. My tubes were blocked. They could have tried to do something about it, but it would have been difficult and I just didn’t want to do it. I didn’t want to tell you that, in the end, I was the one choosing not to have children. Maybe you’d have left me to have children with someone else. And now … you need to know it wasn’t you, in case … I’m so sorry.”
She was crying, crying over something that had happened maybe fifteen years ago, over the whole screw-up that was us and children: getting over my own fears, persuading her to try, failing and never properly finding our way back to a vision of a relationship for the two of us.
I stood and put my arms around her as she sat on the stool, and she put hers around me.
“You should have told me ages ago,” I said. “We’d agreed we weren’t going to do IVF or anything, anyway. I wasn’t going to leave you, and I don’t want to now.”
“Adam, I can’t—”
“I knew. I did it, too. Got tested. Same reason. Just wanted to know. If it had been me, maybe we could have done something straightforward to sort it.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“So you wouldn’t feel the way you did.”
Claire let go and I stepped back, making space. “God, we were idiots,” she said. “It’s taken this to get us to say what we should have said…”
“So where does that leave us?”
She got a tissue from the bench and wiped her face. There was no anger or malice in her expression, just sadness.
“I think it leaves us with a better understanding of what happened. I’m sorry to put it like this, but nothing’s changed from what we said a week ago. It’s not about anyone else, it’s about me moving. About that being more important to both of us than our relationship.”
“I said I’d make you coffee every morning. I suppose if you’re in the States I’ll have to go there to do it.”
She stared at me. She did know me, and she had not expected this.
I picked up the coffee mug. “Get the best deal you can and I’ll fit in. If you want me to.”
“You hate America.”
“I love you.”
She looked and looked and looked. It wasn’t the I love you. It was the willingness to move, which in the last few hours had changed in my mind from a deal-breaker to no big deal. If we were going to undo the deadlock, one of us had to step up—simple logic that would have changed my life twenty-two years earlier.
“You want to go back to what we had?” said Claire.
“It suited both of us, didn’t it?”
“Must have. Why would two smart people like us have set it up any way except the way we wanted? Maybe we both thought there were more important things than our relationship.”
“I may have changed,” I said.
I was conscious that my desire to reboot our relationship arose only partly from reaching a resolution about Angelina. I wanted us to have some of what Angelina and Charlie had, despite the fact that what they had was codependent, perhaps pathological, and, until a few hours ago, terminal. It seemed worth it for the good bits.
“I have to say, the coffee in bed is a persuasive argument,” said Claire.
“Dinner out together once a week,” I said. “I’ll cook all the time. And work most of the time. And we should go to France. Before we go to America.”
I was starting to paint a picture that I liked. We could skip the foie gras.
“All right,” she said. “But two more things.”
“Two?”
“Two.” She stood up and I followed her to the sitting room, bringing the bottle with me. She waited until I had topped up both glasses and taken a seat on the sofa opposite her.
“If you’re not really over … Angelina, I need to know. And we’ll work it through to whatever the ending is. Like we should have done last time.”
“I got over it last time. It was just nostalgia until we got in touch again. And for a little while I thought I could turn back time.”
“It must have been a big week. I don’t know what happened, or how much you’re planning to tell me, but if you need to, let’s do it now. I don’t want it drip-fed to me over the next twenty years.”
“If I need to? What about you?”
“You know something: I used to believe that couples should share everything, no secrets, but you get older. When I look at Mandy and what she’s gone through, I wish Randall hadn’t been such a coward and had just lived with it. Or maybe confided in you or a counselor or someone who’d never tell Mandy. If he hadn’t dumped it on her…”
“You don’t want to know?”
“Not for me. I don’t need any more detail. Stories about people I’ve never met that I’m sure they’d rather I didn’t know. But if it’s important for you to share it…”
“If I need to, I’ll pay for a therapist. Not Randall’s.”
“If it makes you feel any better, I’m assuming you slept with her. I’m not going to base the rest of my life on it.” She looked away for a few moments, then looked back. “Or anything you might have said to her. I’m not Mandy. Second thing, then.”
She walked to the piano and lifted the lid.
“You can sing for your supper. Every night. Keep your promise to your dad.”
Easy. No. This was a big deal. In fact, it was a huge deal. I had avoided playing with Claire in the house. The emotional nexus between me, music, and a woman had, for at least the last few years, belonged to the Angelina relationship. Claire must have guessed this. Or maybe she just wanted me to deliver on my emotional sidekick responsibilities.
I had begun to think of how to overcome my resistance, when I realized it wasn’t there. I wanted to play. Maybe that would be the legacy of the last few months.
I walked to the piano and, as I had done a day ago and a world away, I let my unconscious mind choose the song, just as you start walking without thinking about putting one foot in front of the other.
I played a chord, an F sharp, three fingers across the black keys, and the opening line of a Tom Waits song filled my head.
I played it: “San Diego Serenade,” a simple melody, a three-verse litany of loss, about not knowing what you have until it’s gone. Just my middle-aged voice and my dad’s piano. I wasn’t playing the song for Claire or for Angelina; I wasn’t directing the words at anyone. I was just playing music that allowed me to be an emotional being and let Claire join me in that place.
It was nearly two in the morning.
“Thank God I don’t need to get to London till tomorrow afternoon,” Claire said.
Ah. Charlie had a two P.M. flight to Milan. I explained about his offer and she texted her partners.
“We’d better go to bed, then,” she said. “In our room. That’s a third thing. You’re never sleeping in Alison’s room again. America or not, we’re selling the house.”
Then she kissed me and, despite being forty-nine and half-drunk and having made love to another woman all week, I felt a distinct reaction.
“We missed Friday,” I said.
“Don’t even think about it,” said Claire.
It was an unexceptional way to end the most tumultuous week of my life.
* * *
Charlie would stay on until the Tuesday and guide Claire’s team to a deal far beyond their expectations, giving himself another story to tell. Her commitment to move to San Jose for three years would be backed by a similar commitment to her software baby and a salary that I would not be able to match if I worked eight days a week.
Claire would return from London singing Charlie’s praises as both a negotiator and a charmer who had flirted outrageously with her. And with some questions about a futures trading debacle she had never heard of. She would tell me that Charlie had canceled his visit to Milan because his daughter did not want to see him.
In California, I would meet up again with Randall, who would find me a job, after I’d given him a bollocking for hitting on Claire a quarter of a century earlier.
I would play piano in a bar, three nights a week, and find myself working hard to expand my repertoire to include songs from the last thirty years. There would be no space in my life for regular trivia nights, and no time or reason to sit in a room with a playlist of heartache. At the piano, I would be too busy getting a new song down to let the lyrics pull me into nostalgia.
One night, a guy who looked a lot like Jackson Browne would walk into the bar and take a seat in the back corner. I would play “The Pretender” and he would applaud enthusiastically and walk toward the piano. I would decide that if he wanted to play I would let him. He would continue past me to the bathroom, but I would be pretty sure it was him.
I would finally and clumsily thank my mother for doing the hard yards while I idolized my absent father.
Claire and I would agree to a regular date night, and talk about what was happening in our busy lives and sometimes what was going on in our heads. Afterward, I would play piano and we would share a connection that neither of us felt comfortable putting into words. Without fuss, but to mark a commitment to growing old together, we would get married.
Four years after moving to San Jose I would receive an e-mail from Samantha Acheson, beginning with the words I understand you knew my mother, who passed away, and there would be tears running down my face before I realized she was referring to Jacinta. She was collecting memories from people who had known her, and I duly wrote an affectionate and nostalgic two pages of reminiscences. Samantha added that her parents were well and still drinking too much.
I would never see Angelina again. I would remember her—not the twenty-three-year-old, but the woman I spent a week with in France—when I heard a song of lost love, and it would be all the more poignant because at the Mâcon railway station I was only a semiquaver away from asking her to come with me.
For those times, I had another Jackson Browne song of love revisited, with a line about laughing in pleasure’s ruins. I would play it in my head or on my phone, and remember the night that our rekindled passion left a bedside cabinet on its side and Charlie’s iPod looking up at us. But it was the sentiment of the closing lines that would carry me through my sixth decade: Was it the past or the future calling?
And, as far as anyone can say for sure in a world where a one-word e-mail or a slip of the tongue in a French farmhouse or a cosmic ghost flipping the record over can change everything in an instant, it was going to be all right.