‘What can I get you?’ he asks politely. I’ve been downgraded. Not only to ‘just another customer’ but to ‘annoying customer who I deal with politely’. If you spend a lot of time in Beached Heads, as I have, you notice how Tyler deals with people, how he categorises them. Loyal customers are treated like friends, he finds things to banter about, he remembers their orders, he assigns them their own special cups. Ordinary customers get the banter and recommendations on new coffees, are possibly assigned a cup if they’ve been more than once. Annoying customers get a polite greeting where he asks them what they want.
‘How about a big cushion to break my fall when I throw myself to my knees and apologise profusely?’
‘I don’t do cushions,’ he says. Politely.
‘OK, I’ll do it without the cushions, then …’ Nothing. No response, no hint that he wants me to continue or to leave. I lower my voice. ‘I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I can’t even begin to understand how you feel. That wasn’t meant to happen.’
He jerks his head indicating that I should come to the other end of the counter, to near the machine where he taught me to make coffee. It’s quieter there, more private.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I repeat, a little more confident now that he’s not going to sling me out or ignore me. He does want to hear what I’ve got to say. ‘It was such incredibly bad timing.’
‘I don’t mess with married women. It’s not my thing – never has been, never will be,’ he states.
‘I’m not married in that sense of the word.’
‘That guy wasn’t your husband?’
‘Yes, he is, but we’ve split up. I thought he’d got the message that we’d split up.’
‘He’s stalking you, then?’
‘No, not exactly. Or even at all. He came here because he wanted us to sort out splitting up.’
Tyler’s lips move upwards but they don’t manage to make one of those smiles that I have been feeding my crush on. ‘That makes no sense to me. Have you split up or not?’
‘Yes.’
‘But he doesn’t know.’
‘He does now. I thought he knew before, but there won’t be a scrap of doubt in his mind any longer. That’s why it’s taken me so long to come see you. We were sorting things out.’
‘When?’
‘This morning.’
‘No, I mean, when did you split up?’
‘Nearly two and a half months ago. Although I haven’t seen him in nine weeks.’
‘In other words, when you moved down here.’
‘Yes.’
‘Ahh, right. And when did you last speak to him?’
‘Apart from this morning?’ I ask, jokily, trying to inject some levity into this. He’s being altogether too polite for this to turn out well for me. And I hate Polite Tyler.
‘Yes, apart from this morning.’ Deadpan. He is not playing.
‘He’s been ringing me and texting, but I haven’t replied.’
‘Not really split up, then.’
‘We had. He didn’t want it to be true.’
‘Had you started divorce proceedings? Or even seen a solicitor?’
‘No.’
‘That’s not what being split up is. It’s fine, you do what you gotta do, but like I said, I don’t mess with married women.’
‘I’m only a married woman in name. And not even in name because we both kept our own names.’
My feeble attempt at humour is met with: ‘Where did he sleep last night?’
Ah, that question. He is so convinced that I am married more than in name, whatever I say now will be wrong. ‘We slept top to toe.’
‘No sofa in your house?’
‘I couldn’t ask him to sleep on the sofa after his long drive and there were other things. I told you that I had a full house, it would have been too complicated.’
I receive a cordial, disappointed smile. Tyler picks up the nearest cup, the pastel yellow cup with white daisies all over the bowl. Then he takes a matching saucer. The way he picks it up makes it feel like it is no longer my assigned cup, just something he’d give to a customer he could not care less if he saw again or not. ‘Coffee?’ he asks. ‘Cappuccino? Mocha?’
‘Please believe me, Tyler. Nothing happened because we’re not together any more,’ I explain. ‘I would have told you about him if we’d been out on another date. It’s not really first date talk. But please believe me, I would have told you.’
‘I don’t mess with married women,’ he reiterates. ‘And, much as I like you, you’re married. You don’t think you are, but you are. You couldn’t even make him sleep on the floor. You shared a bed with him because you’re not done with him. Which is cool, but not something I want to get involved with.’
‘It wasn’t like that. I—’ I stop. This is humiliating. Excruciatingly humiliating. I am begging someone to believe that I’m not still with my husband. I am trying to stop someone from dumping me, rejecting me. I thought I was done with being scared of rejection by men when I got together with Seth. I’ve been rebuffed so many times in my life, I should be used to it by now. I shouldn’t mind too much standing in front of Tyler with him holding my favourite of his coffee cups in his hand, with him poised to make me a polite cup of coffee with which to wash down this huge, rich, creamy dose of rejection.
I wish I’d thought to take a picture of my favourite Beached Heads cup that Tyler had assigned me before this day. It would have made the wall at home. I’d have to take it down along with the picture of him and store them in the butterfly box, of course, but at least I’d be able to look at it occasionally even though I’d never be drinking from it again.
‘I think I’d better go,’ I say to him.
‘Coffee to go?’ he asks, his face open and friendly. Polite.
‘No, no, I’m fine.’
‘Are you sure? I’m making one anyway for the bottomless cup at the back, there. It’s no trouble.’
‘Oh, go on then, if—’ I catch myself. ‘No, actually, no.’ I’m a little more forceful than necessary but I’m not going to play along with this. He’s got every right to reject me but that doesn’t mean I have to accept it placidly. ‘I’m just going to go. Do some work or something. I’ll see ya.’
‘Yeah. Drop by any time you fancy a coffee, Clemency,’ he says, the politest kick to the guts I’ve ever had, I think.
Tap, tap, tap. Pause. Tap, tap, tap. Pause. Tap. Pause. Tap.
Seth’s secret knock. We came up with our secret knocks and secret codes in texts, in case either of us was ever taken hostage and we needed to let the other one know there was danger. (We loved doing stupid things like that.) He’s tapping on Lottie’s door. How he knew I was in here, have been in here since I briefly returned to the flat after I humiliated myself at Beached Heads, I don’t know. My guess is that he’s too scared to ring the doorbell to the flat in case Nancy or my mother answer. They’ve gone to Southampton for the day. Shopping, eating, hanging out like a family does on their summer holidays.
‘It’s open,’ I call.
He slides back the door and is a bit taken aback to see me splayed out like a starfish on the floor. I hoist myself upright to sitting while he climbs in and shuts the door behind himself, seals us into the place where we spent many hours working together. We reloved Lottie back to this current state of glory. The bodywork was mainly good, but she needed a lot of work – hence the name – and both Seth and I wanted to do it. We housed her in a garage a short walk away from the flat and every night after work and most weekends, we’d work on her. We talked so much while we worked on her. We talked about our lives before we met, about our years in college, about having children, about the engagement party, about deciding to get married. All those important things were discussed, and very often decided, while we worked on some part of Lottie.
He sits on his favourite seat, the one behind the driver’s seat that faces backwards.
I take the white test from its place in my bag, push it across the floor towards Seth. He stares at it for a long time in silence. He’s disappointed, it’s clear on his face, but he doesn’t say or do anything except nod while staring at the result. I knew I wasn’t pregnant. That was why it hadn’t been a worry for me. Not a total worry, anyway. I had felt a fleeting nanosecond of disappointment ripple through me, followed by a small wave of relief that things could end properly between Seth and me now – we had nothing to tie us together. Then a huge gut-wrenching sob had escaped me when I realised Seth and I had nothing to tie us together. I wasn’t going to have his baby and we were over.
‘When are you going back home?’ I ask.
‘I’m not. Not right away, anyway.’
‘What about work?’
He scratches his fingernails through his beard, the sound is dry and unpleasant. ‘I resigned.’
‘Resigned? Have you lost your mind? What are you going to do for money?’
‘I’m still working for them until my notice period expires, then I’ll be employed by them on a consultancy basis. I’ll tidy up their big projects, help with pitches, etc. Any meetings can be done on video conference calls. I even sold the motorbike. I couldn’t bring it so I sold it. I’ve sublet the flat to Jorge and his girlfriend.’
Slowly I ease myself up on to the seat diagonally opposite Seth. I rest my head against the window and stare into space. There is so much going on, but I keep thinking about Tyler. Every time I try to enjoy the memory of the way he smiled at me moments before we kissed, the expression of betrayal on his face before he left last night washes it away, and leaves huge chunks of guilt moored on the shores of my mind. He was so hurt, last night and today, and that was because of me. He didn’t deserve that. No one did, to be honest.
‘Have you been to see him?’ Seth asks.
I nod without looking at him. I know what Seth does, though: he twists his lips together and nods. Right now, he’ll be overtly struggling with himself – his innate, caring response as my friend will be in pitched battle with his instinctive, jealous response as my husband. ‘Want to talk about it?’ His friend role has won.
‘Not with you, no.’ He is not my friend. No matter what we might pretend, after a decade of sex and love and exclusivity, and then marriage, he can’t go back to being ‘just’ my friend no matter how hard we’d both like him to be.
‘Can I stay?’ he asks, probably relieved that he doesn’t have to listen to me chat about someone else.
‘With me?’
‘Yes.’
‘The flat is full, where would you sleep?’
‘In your bed.’
‘My bed?’
‘Yes.’
‘You think that’s wise?’
‘No. Do you still love me, Smitty?’
Of course I did. There was a hole in my life that was Seth-shaped. But he couldn’t step back into it. I knew I’d have to get used to living with that hole in my life because there was too much hurt for us to mend. ‘How is that a fair question?’
‘It’s not. But I don’t feel like being fair, not about this. And why should I be? If you can’t tell me if you still love me, don’t you at least miss me?’
I sigh, avoid looking at him. ‘That’s not the point. And how is it supposed to work with Nancy around?’
‘I don’t know. It’ll just have to, I guess.’ He shrugs. ‘You know I can’t sleep without you. It’s been hell these past few months. Last night was the first night I’ve slept properly since you left.’
‘Seth—’
‘Don’t you miss me, Smitty?’ he interrupts.
I know what he’s thinking: Smitty and he have only been on one date, it’s nothing serious, they haven’t had sex and, from the look on her face, he clearly isn’t keen to keep things going, which means I’ve still got a chance. All I have to do is stick around and she might be reminded of what we had, what we could have again.
If I was him, I would be thinking the same, part of me is thinking the same. But I have to put a stop to this for both our sakes.
‘Yes, you can stay,’ I say. ‘I suppose if you’re around it’ll make it easier to sort out the divorce.’