The car dropped them off at St. James’s Park and Ed took her hand as they walked inside. They’d never done anything like this before; he was usually way too busy during the week and what free weekends he did have were usually spent socializing or wining and dining various business contacts.
Time alone as a couple just never really seemed to happen, although Colette got more than enough time alone with herself.
Scarlet oaks and black mulberries were scattered throughout the park, and fig trees bordered the lake, which Ed had chosen as their picnic spot. He draped a light blue blanket on the grass and began to unpack the basket as Colette sat watching him, amazed. He was still unpacking the meal when she noticed the logo on the side of the basket.
“Fortnum and Mason? You really went all out,” she commented with a smile.
“Nothing but the best,” he answered as he lifted out the smoked salmon. Colette’s stomach gurgled afresh. She adored smoked salmon.
Her hunger was soon sated with the selection of mouthwatering delicacies Ed had chosen, each more delicious than the one before. They even shared a bottle of champagne, which they made quick work of before they were ready for dessert.
Colette lay back on Ed’s chest and stared at the blue sky. It had been far too long since they’d enjoyed this kind of thing together. It was moments like these that she held on to. Moments she hoped would last. She knew that soon he’d be back to work and life would return to normal again, but hopefully this would keep her for a while. Food for a starving soul.
“Thank you,” she said simply.
“You’re welcome,” he replied. “I know it doesn’t make up for this morning, but I wanted you to know that I am sorry. I don’t—can’t—truly understand how you feel. I suppose having a child means a different thing to you than it does to me, and I’m sorry I told you to forget it. I had no right. I just don’t know how to handle seeing you in pain. I just want to fix it.”
“You can’t fix this, Ed,” Colette replied sadly. “It’s just one of those things. I want a baby, and we just can’t seem to have one. There’s nothing that can be done about it.”
“Perhaps we could think about adoption...”
“I don’t want to,” Colette replied quickly. “We’ve been through this. I want to carry my own baby and I know that seems selfish given there are so many children in this world who want and need good families. I know that. But it doesn’t change the fact that I want to experience life growing inside me. I want to feel the fluttering, the kicks, and everything else that comes with being pregnant.”
“Including swollen ankles and morning sickness?”
“Yes, even that.”
“I wish I could give you what you want, darling. I really wish I could.”
She smiled weakly. They ate dessert in relative silence as Colette watched the ducks on the lake. She was surprised at the number of people in the park at this time, midday (didn’t they have jobs to go to?), and then figured they were probably wondering the same thing themselves.
After the picnic was over, Colette and Ed ambled through Birdcage Walk. They were silent as they moved beneath the trees, only the sound of the passing traffic there to entertain them. They were about halfway down when Ed’s phone rang.
He looked at the display. “Sorry, darling, I need to take this.”
He handed her the basket and walked away, Colette watching him as he went. It seemed her husband spent more time leaving her than he did greeting her.
She lingered around the area as she waited for him to return, occupying herself by studying moss growing on the trees and the numerous knots in the barks, almost like knuckles on a hand. There was so much green around her. It was nice to see. Very different to her usual view of dull gray buildings from her office window. She wondered what was happening at work now.
“Colette, I’m so very sorry, but—”
“You have to go,” she finished dully. Of course it wouldn’t last.
His face fell. “I’m so sorry, truly. I’ll call the car. I had told him to pick us up later but... Anyway, it shouldn’t take him long. I’ll have him drop you straight back home.”
“Don’t bother,” Colette replied as she handed Ed the basket. “I don’t feel like going home just yet. I think I’ll stay here for a while; I was so enjoying it.”
“It’s an emergency,” he told her, somewhat defensively now. “I have no choice.”
“I understand,” she said softly. “Honestly, go. I’ll head back in to watch the pelicans. I love them.”
“I know,” Ed replied. “I’m sorry I can’t come and look at them with you.”
“Go—do what you do best,” Colette replied sadly. “But I think I need to try something different today.”
Saying goodbye, she turned and began the walk back to the lake. She sighed deeply as she strolled, willing the stress and pressure she felt to leave her.
It had been a day of such mixed emotions, most of them negative, but there were still enough hours left in the day she might be able to salvage.
By the time she returned home, it was evening and she found a note from Ed telling her he’d gone to Surrey to see a client and he’d be back late.
For once, she was fine with that. She wanted to be alone.
Colette settled on the couch in the living room with only the side lamp for light, tucked up with her box of memories—things that were always a balm to her soul.
It was not so much a box but an old-style suitcase that had belonged to her mother and one she’d had since she was a girl.
Sadly, and despite her apparent remission, Miriam Turner had died shortly after Colette’s return from Italy—something Colette had never quite got over. To think that she’d been lazing around in the sun and living it up in restaurants and on boats, and worst of all focusing on stupid, trivial things like a summer romance, when she could have had three more weeks with her mother.
Three precious weeks she’d never get back.
She cast her mind back to that summer when she’d returned to Brighton, and Miriam had been so full of excitement to know how the trip had gone that Colette hadn’t noticed how frail her mother had become in the meantime.
Or perhaps she’d just been too preoccupied with her own stupid worries at the time.
“What was the food like?” Miriam was especially interested to learn all about Italian cuisine, and whether they should take Colette’s newfound knowledge and incorporate it into their own business. “We could try a version of cannoli in the bakery, maybe, put our own spin on it...?”
“I think that would go down really well, Mum,” Colette agreed, telling her all about zeppole, struffoli and some of the other pastries Luca had introduced her to, but her heart wasn’t in it.
When just weeks later, Miriam took to her bed with what Colette thought was just a bout of exhaustion, but passed away within days, life was once again completely upended.
And all Colette could think about was that they never had the chance to introduce the cannoli to the bakery.
She had been inconsolable as she sat by her beloved mother’s side while Miriam’s life slowly slipped away. Colette felt like the world had spun on its axis twice over.
Then her mother, her rock, was gone. Just like that.
She wasn’t prepared for the surreality of it and the absolute numbness she felt once Miriam had taken her last breath. It was like stepping off a roller coaster and being completely unable to find your footing.
Four long years of worrying and keeping things going, followed by the sheer relief of the so-called remission—she should have known it was too good to be true.
Colette often wondered if maybe her mother had lied about her miraculous remission just to get her to spread her wings and live a little, but she would never know for sure.
She was so devastated and completely useless that Noelle had to step up to make all the necessary arrangements and deal with the doctors and funeral arrangements.
Ed had been her crutch throughout it all, though, and following Miriam’s death, a budding friendship that had begun in Italy turned into something more.
The trip had transformed Colette in more ways than one.
Inside the suitcase were various bits and bobs from over the years, important mementos from special times in her life: two tickets to The Lion King musical, the first West End show Ed had taken her to, pictures of their summer trip to the Cotswolds a couple of years before.
Then she saw what she was looking for.
Nestled among the various photographs was a picture from that summer in Italy.
She was standing in front of Delfino with Mama Elene and Luca. He had his arm around her shoulders. She looked so happy.
Right then Colette made a decision. She wasn’t going to wait until the day of the launch to fly out to the Amalfi Coast, like Ed wanted.
She’d go on ahead on her own, and spend a bit of time with Kim and hopefully Annie before the night of the party, but more importantly in the place where, once upon a time, she had truly felt happy.
“Where are you now? I wonder,” Colette whispered as she trailed her fingers over Luca’s image on the photograph.
Six years ago, but it felt like it was yesterday. Even now she could almost feel the weight of his strong arm across the back of her neck and the delicious scent of his skin. She wondered if he still religiously visited Delfino every day for his usual espresso.
And whether she should look for him there when she returned...