It’s a starlit night and the moon hangs between the dip in the downs as Maddy drives south, her possessions loaded haphazardly in cardboard boxes in the back. She feels utterly wrung out. Leaving the house for the very last time was much more of a wrench than she’d expected, especially as Trent refused to say goodbye to her or see her off.
It felt frightening driving away from her home for the last time. Not least of all because if Jamie were to go back there, strangers would be living in it. It feels as if she’s done yet another thing to hurt him, even though it wasn’t her fault. Wherever he is, Jamie truly is homeless now.
She parks outside the flat on the road and goes inside and up the stairs with one of the cardboard boxes from the boot, balancing two of the houseplants. She gave the big ones to Rey, the cleaner, who turned up to help do the final clean. It had been awful saying goodbye to her too.
‘Hey,’ Matteo says, coming out of his flat. He rushes over and takes the box before it falls. ‘It’s heavy. Did you carry it up the stairs?’
‘I’ve been lugging boxes like that all week. I’ve got loads more like that in the back of the car.’
‘I was worried you weren’t going to come back.’
She remembers now the text she’d sent him after the house had sold. Trent had opened champagne, but she couldn’t drink it. She’s only been able to think about Matteo and how he’d given her cava at New Year.
Has he really been worried? She wishes she could tell him how lovely it is to see his friendly face.
‘Where else have I got to go? Besides, I’ve got to find Jamie. Because if he were to go home … it wouldn’t be there any more. I know it’s silly, but that’s the bit that gets me the most.’
Her voice breaks then and, despite wanting to be strong, she starts crying, more from exhaustion than anything else.
‘Hey,’ Matteo says, and he puts down the box. He pulls her into a much-needed hug. And now, it all comes out – all the sadness, and pent-up fury as she sobs against his soft cashmere jumper.
‘It’s going to be all right,’ he tells her, over and over again, rubbing her back.
Finally, she manages to pull herself together and steps away. She apologises for falling apart and for making a mess of his jumper. It’s covered in mascara and she tells him she’ll pay to get it dry cleaned, but he waves her suggestion away with a gentle smile.
‘I’m sorry, Maddy. It sounds like you’ve had the week from hell.’
‘That’s an understatement,’ she says.
He helps her move the boxes from the car into the flat and she parks in the car park. The flat is a mess and Matteo helps her stack the boxes up against the wall. He leaves the heaviest one with some of her ceramics pieces in it until last and almost drops it. They push it to a safe position amidst the teetering pile of boxes.
They are standing side by side and they are both out of breath. She instinctively puts her hand over his.
She turns to him. ‘Thank you,’ she says.
‘You’re welcome.’ He doesn’t move his hand. Then she sees a question in his eyes and, before giving herself time to think, she kisses him.
He responds, pulling her towards him, and all the sexual tension between them bursts out into the open, as he holds her hair, kissing her hard.
It’s as if a firework has gone off inside her. He lifts her up, kissing her as if his life depends on it and she doesn’t care, there’s no control left. She’s only vaguely aware that he’s carrying her to the sofa and then he’s on top of her and she looks into his deep brown eyes.
‘I have wanted you for so long, Maddy,’ he says. He strokes her hair away from her face. ‘Do you want this too?’
‘Oh yes,’ she breathes, feeling his hardness against her jeans and how she’s already melting. ‘Yes, yes. Oh God, yes.’
Maddy wakes up in her bed, a smile on her lips. There’s a weak morning light coming through the shutters. She stretches, feeling the novelty of her nakedness between the sheets. She feels centred in a way that she hasn’t done for a very, very long time.
As if sensing that she’s awake, Matteo stirs next to her. He opens his eyes and smiles.
‘Buenos dias,’ she says, remembering how she drunkenly practised her Spanish on him last night.
She must look a complete state. She didn’t ever get round to taking off her tear-streaked make-up from yesterday, but he’s seen her at her most raw and she realises she doesn’t care. The sex had been amazing – far too frantic and fast the first time, but then they’d had a bottle of wine and he’d made her lie on her bed and insisted on massaging her, his hands stroking away the stress and the heartbreak. It had been amazing. Then they’d had deep, slow sex, kissing and talking and exploring.
‘Impossible, but you’re even prettier in the morning,’ he says.
She feels a girlish thrill at his compliment. Nobody has called her pretty for a long time. Stylish maybe, and before she came to Brighton and before lockdown when her standards were much, much higher, certainly ‘put together’. But this compliment feels more natural. Like he’s describing her in her raw state. Not her make-up, or her hairstyle or her clothes. None of the things that she normally throws money and time at. And it’s this – this acknowledgement of how she is right now – that feels almost more intimate than the sex they’ve shared.
She feels him stirring against her and a wave of desire comes over her as she leans in to kiss him. How had she forgotten how wonderful kissing is? How spectacular sex makes her feel? It’s like she didn’t realise she was thirsty until she had a drink and now she feels insatiable.
Suddenly, there’s a yapping and Luna jumps on the bed, surprising them both.
‘Oh! Luna. Hey you.’
Luna nuzzles in, breaking them apart. ‘OK, OK,’ Matteo says, stretching. ‘This is my cue to get up. I should go and shower before my meeting.’
She watches him admiring his olive skin and pert bum. He’s in good shape and she likes the dark curly hair on his legs and chest. He’s manly in a way that Trent never really was with all his preening and waxing.
‘But this is to be continued. I will see you later,’ he says.
When he’s gone, Maddy contemplates the cardboard boxes. She’s spent her entire life rushing to re-cycle all the cardboard boxes that things arrive in, but now she has a wall of the bloody things. There’s no way she can even start to unload all her stuff when there’s nowhere to put anything.
She hears the buzz of her phone on the coffee table and opens up the screen. Her heart leaps when she sees there’s a new message. It’s from Neil Watson. He’s the guy she’s hired to find Jamie. Does he have news?
She sinks down on the sofa to read his message.
‘I’ve looked everywhere. I’m sorry. I don’t think there’s any more that I can do. Usually there’s a lead, but I haven’t been able to find one. Perhaps we should start searching internationally.’ Internationally? Surely Jamie couldn’t have gone abroad? No one has been travelling in Covid, have they? But then she remembers how resourceful Jamie can be. What if he’d found a way to go back to Thailand? Is he locked down abroad? Is that why she can’t find him?
It’s been hard enough looking for him in Brighton, but how will she find him anywhere else in the world?
She closes the email and then opens her Instagram account, but she can’t really focus on the jolly colourful posts from the people she’s following. Sighing, she clicks on her messages. There are dozens that she can’t find the energy to deal with. Mostly they are from people wanting follow-up information about some of the suppliers she’s recommended, some wanting her to like links and pages, but she leaves those and opens one from a girl she did a course with a while ago.
Everything OK? You haven’t posted anything new for a while?
Her followers have noticed her re-hashed posts, then. She’s about to respond, give an excuse, when she stops herself.
She can’t post anything about her life at home when it doesn’t exist any more. Those chairs and sofas belong to the Melania Trump lookalike. Having not told the truth about the house being sold, she feels more of a fraud than ever.
And she thinks of Helga and, all of a sudden, she knows she’s going to do it. She’s going to take the plunge. Before she gives herself time to chicken out, or has even looked in the mirror, she presses the Live button and starts talking.
‘So … this is me,’ she says to the recording phone screen. ‘Raw and, as you can see, pretty much unfiltered.’ She can’t believe she’s actually doing this. ‘As one of my followers, Hayley, pointed out, I haven’t posted anything fresh for a while. But that’s because there’s been a lot of change going on for me. Changes that I didn’t think would happen to me at my age. But you see, it seems that I’ve unexpectedly found myself homeless. This is what’s left.’ She scans round to the wall of cardboard boxes.
‘I know I always said that I didn’t want to move again, having made my dream home, but I had no choice in the matter. So here I am. And I feel like I’m at a crossroads in my life and, well’ – she pauses – ‘and I think I need to talk about how my home became un-made.’
She feels butterflies in her stomach. It’s so utterly new being this real … this honest … that it makes her feel shaky.
‘I have been so driven in my quest for perfection, but the truth is … my perfect life wasn’t perfect. Far from it. I was living a lie. But now that my home has gone and I’m on my own and I’m starting all over again, I want to be honest. Because I can’t pretend that I live this glossy life when I really don’t. Because the reality is that my marriage has broken down and I’ve lost my son. And when I say lost, I mean lost. He’s really gone.’
She feels tears coming now and she tries to swallow them down.
‘And I … just … if there’s any way this gets shared and Jamie sees this, by some kind of miracle, I want him to know, I’ve tried to put it right. I’ve tried to find him, but maybe he just doesn’t want to be found. And I’ve realised that I have to accept that. That sometimes you have to accept other people and situations as they are. Even if you don’t like it.’
She squeezes her lips together and smiles. ‘So, if you’re in your home with your husband or partner, or your kids or your cat or dog, and you’re coming to my feed for inspiration, then I have to tell you this: life doesn’t have to be perfect. Making something look gorgeous doesn’t make it gorgeous. Life – real life – is messy and disordered and unfiltered and often a bit shit, but also magnificent and joyous. It can’t be snapped or defined. So, forget about striving for perfection. Do something instead. Do something that makes you happy. And on that note, I’m signing off, because I’m going for a swim in the sea.’