It was twenty-seven days since Nancy had last spoken to Jim—she’d counted them. But it felt like a lifetime. His number still came up on her phone, although he never left a message and the calls were dwindling as the days went by.
She found herself thinking about him almost every minute of every day: she went to sleep wondering how he was, woke up from dreams full of jumbled images of his face. The worst thing was that everyone assumed her liaison with him was over, done and dusted, big smiles of relief all round. And this had put a real strain on her relationship with Louise in particular, because her mother, although of the same opinion as Louise, no doubt, had never raised the subject after that first row.
“You know what, Mum? You ought to join a gym or something,” Louise said now, as she stood with her mother in the garden, hands on hips, watching as Nancy deadheaded the roses and cut back the bamboo shoots that had strayed from the original shrub in the corner of the garden, springing up in all the wrong places as the summer had worn on.
It was hot for a change, the miserable weather earlier in the season giving way to a few days of cloudless blue skies. Louise had taken the other pair of secateurs from the canvas bag on the lawn and was searching for something to snip.
“Those, over there.” Nancy pointed with hers toward some fronds of ivy poking out through the hedge to the side of the house.
“Did you hear what I said?” Louise asked, pushing her sunglasses up her nose with the back of her hand. She was wearing shorts and a skimpy yellow vest—Nancy thought she looked much younger than her thirty-three years.
“Join a gym.” She paused in her task of breaking up the long stem of bamboo she’d just extracted from the back of the rose bush along the fence. “Why would I want to do that?”
Louise laughed. “Usual reasons. Get fit. Meet people.”
“I am fit. I do yoga twice a week on my iPad, walk the cat.”
“Ha-ha. It’s just there’s a new gym opened on the way to the restaurant. I popped in and it looks very glossy and hi-tech. I thought you might enjoy it.”
“I can’t think of anything more horrible than sitting on seats wet with other people’s sweat and pulling weights up and down to deafening disco music.” She sounded more snappish than she’d intended, because she knew what her daughter was trying to do. It was along the lines of all the other suggestions she’d made—oh, so subtly—since the split with Jim. These had ranged from a cookery course Ross’s friend Mark was starting in Lewes, to a film club in Brighton, to a rambling group that went up on the Downs every weekend.
Louise said nothing as she pulled at the ivy, stacking her pile of shoots neatly on the grass.
“Listen, Lou, I know you mean well, but please stop. I’m perfectly happy as I am.”
Her daughter turned to her, wrenched her glasses from her face. “Really? Can you honestly say you’re ‘perfectly happy’? Because you don’t seem it. You’ve been going around for weeks looking as if somebody died.”
“Thanks.”
They were facing each other across the lawn. “I assume it’s that whole business with Jim, but you have to move on. I mean, you’d only been together for five minutes.”
Nancy felt her body stiffen with umbrage. Don’t react, she told herself. And in truth she didn’t know how to respond.
“Granny’s worried too. She was the one who suggested you should get out more—like she always tries to. Keep busy.”
“Oh, for God’s sake.” Nancy could no longer contain herself. “Can you both stop treating me like some half-wit who doesn’t know her own mind? For a start, you have no idea what Jim meant to me. And second, if you think a few evenings drinking warm wine with some film anoraks in Brighton is going to change anything, you’ve got another think coming.” She suppressed the desire to shout and scream and rip into her poor daughter.
Louise looked taken aback. “Well, hey, sorry for caring.” She bent down, picked up her pile of cuttings, dumped them in the bag Nancy had placed in the middle of the lawn and stalked off toward her house.
Nancy sighed. “Lou!” she called half-heartedly—she had no real desire for Louise to turn round. She sat down on the swing seat, pulled off her gardening gloves and laid them beside her. Riven with guilt, she knew she would have to go and apologize. Louise was only trying to help. But it was so hard to keep hearing how Jim was merely an unfortunate lapse—an insignificant one at that—when he was etched onto her very soul.
As she swung back and forth in the sunshine, summoning up the strength to go in and talk to Louise, she saw Ross pulling into the drive. Not wanting to have to speak to him, she got up, putting on her gloves again, but he waved and came across the lawn. “Hi, Nancy. How’s it going?”
She thought he looked more cheerful than previously and wondered why. Louise kept telling her that, despite the summer, nothing much had changed at the restaurant.
She smiled at him. “Not great—just had a set-to with Lou.”
He frowned. “About?”
“Two guesses.”
“Not Jim again.”
She nodded.
“What did she say?”
“Nothing really, just that I should move on.”
“Hate it when people say that.” He gave her a sympathetic grin and lifted the nearly full bag of cuttings, took it over to the green bin on the edge of the drive and emptied it, pressed the leaves down and slammed the lid. When he came back with the bag, he said, “How do you feel about the whole thing?”
His question disarmed Nancy. No one had asked her that. They had just pontificated about what a rotter Jim was and what a narrow escape she’d had. “I feel like I’ve lost an arm,” she said quietly, and watched as his eyes widened.
“That bad, eh?”
“That bad.”
“I didn’t know.” He looked a bit furtive. “This is heresy, obviously,” he said, dropping his voice, “but have you thought of maybe seeing him again? I mean, if he means that much to you, perhaps you should try and work it out.” He pulled the corners of his mouth down, raised his eyebrows. “Dumb idea?”
“He lied to me,” she said, the tired old phrase like sand in her mouth.
Ross shrugged his big shoulders. “Sounds like he did it for a good reason.” He paused. “Listen, I liked the guy, for what it’s worth. And everyone fucks up, don’t they? Louise’ll kill me for saying this, so please don’t dob me in, but what have you got to lose by giving him another go?”
“My heart?”
“Sounds like you’ve lost that already,” he said, then patted her shoulder and walked off, hands deep in the pockets of his khaki cargo shorts.
It was as if someone had lifted a heavy lid and let the light into the darkness. Nancy sat back down on the swing seat. What harm could it do, as Ross had said, just to see Jim again, talk to him? Because nothing, she thought, could be worse than the misery she was currently experiencing. And if, when she saw him, she decided they couldn’t work it out, then so be it. At least she would have given it her best shot.
She found herself smiling like a mad woman as she got up from the seat again, put away the gloves and secateurs, stowing them with the leaf bag inside the tiny potting shed. Should she ring or text him?
By the time she’d found her phone, lying on the tiled shelf in the bathroom upstairs, she’d decided a text was the least stressful course of action. Because he might have “moved on,” to use that hateful phrase. He might be pissed off with her and have lost interest. It was at least nine days, she knew to the hour, since his last message. The silence had tortured her almost as much as the previous calls, each one of which had pulled her right to the edge. But to hear rejection—or, worse, indifference—in his voice now would send her over that edge. Trembling, she sat down on the bed and tapped into the phone: The cafe, ten o’clock tomorrow? Nancy x
Then she sat for an age before pressing “send.”
It was nearly midday, a Thursday. Did he have students on Thursdays? She wasn’t sure. Maybe he was away, out with his mates. Maybe he wouldn’t reply for a hundred other reasons.
She waited. She paced. She tried to play the piano. She leafed through the magazine Louise had left on the kitchen table, which had the details of the film club, page turned down, she was so anxious for her mother to join. She took the washing out of the machine and went to hang it on the whirlybird clothes dryer at the side of the house. And all these actions were punctuated by anxious glances at her mobile, which she knew quite well would ping loudly—and, indeed, twice—to alert her to any incoming message. Nothing.
Gradually, as the afternoon wore on, hope faded and her previously feverish mood was replaced by a leaden deadness of spirit, which stole her energy so that she could do nothing but lie on the sofa in a heap and close her eyes.
Nancy slept, she woke, she checked her phone, still clutched in her hand.
Can’t wait, xxx it said, and tears spilled down her cheeks.
*
Nancy was planning just to talk to Jim. Hear his side of the story. She told herself she at least owed him that. If there is ever going to be closure, she thought, I need to have this conversation. But the lengths she went to, in the choice of her clothes, the washing and styling of her hair, the carefully applied makeup, gave the lie to her rationale.
Arriving at the cafe where they had first met for coffee, she saw she was ten minutes early. So she walked round the block, wandered up narrow alleys, then spent a few minutes in Boots, picking up random lipsticks from the tester-bar. The weather had turned cooler and a layer of gray cloud on the horizon did not bode well. She wished she’d brought a sweater, her bare arms in the white T-shirt goose-bumping with cold. And all the while, as she glanced yet again at her watch only to discover barely two minutes had gone since she’d last checked, her heart was fluttering in her chest, her empty stomach churning with anticipation, with apprehension.
It seemed like a lifetime since they had last seen each other on the morning he had made love to her, laughed with her as he crept out early to avoid her mother and Louise. What would he say to her now? She, who had so callously refused to answer his calls and texts. They had reason to be angry with each other, but anger was way down the list of emotions Nancy was experiencing as she finally pushed open the door to the cafe, on the dot of ten.
The place was not busy—only three tables occupied—and Jim was not there. Dithering as to where she should sit, she settled at a window table near the door, positioning herself facing the entrance, then dithered as to whether to order a coffee or wait. Maybe he wouldn’t come, she thought, even though it was only four minutes past ten. She sat down, waited, got up, ordered a cappuccino, took it back to her table, picked up a copy of yesterday’s Racing Post, which was lying on the window ledge, and read some baffling piece about bloodstock without understanding a word. Nine minutes past ten. The coffee had been a good idea, the caffeine reacting well on her nerves. But Jim was seldom late . . .
Then the door burst open with a jangle of the bell and Jim charged in, breathless, eyes wild as he glanced around the room. When his eyes rested on her, he seemed relieved and apprehensive in equal measures. Nancy half rose to greet him, shocked by his sudden presence.
“God, Nancy, I’m so sorry. I had to let the estate agent in and he was late.”
They stood on opposite sides of the table, both wired to the hilt, staring, barely knowing what to do or say.
“It’s fine,” she said. She thought he looked thin, worn, not his usual confident self as he took off his leather jacket and hung it on the back of the chair, revealing a familiar denim shirt.
As he hovered, glancing at her half-full cup, Nancy felt her previously defended heart melt. When he met her gaze, she smiled. Uncertain, he smiled back as she came round the table. Then he opened his arms and she felt the warmth of his body against her own, the press of his arms on her back as he pulled her into his embrace. She inhaled the familiar scent of his woody aftershave, felt the cold metal studs of his shirt against her cheek. Almost internally, she heard him sigh and closed her eyes. When she finally raised her face to his, he had tears in his clear blue eyes.
“I thought I’d never be lucky enough to do this again,” he said softly.
“Me too.”
Loath to disengage, they finally drew apart to let someone by in the cramped aisle. As she stood there, the strain of the past month fell away, along with the reason for it, leaving Nancy feeling physically without strength. She sat down, never taking her eyes from Jim. He was smiling now, relief flooding his gaunt, handsome features.
“Another coffee?”
She nodded. “This one’s cold.”
She watched as he spoke to the girl behind the counter, took his battered wallet out of his back pocket, glanced round at her as he waited for his order to be ready as if he were worried she might vanish.
“How have you been?” he asked, after a long silence during which their eyes had quietly rested on each other, luxuriating in the miracle of being together again.
“I’ve been utterly miserable, if you must know.”
He laughed, an edge of hysteria in the sound. “Not wishing to be competitive, but I can definitely trump you. I haven’t breathed a single breath since I last saw you.” He was smiling, keeping it witty, but the words were obviously deeply felt.
“I was just so shocked . . .”
He nodded. “I knew you would be. You have no idea how sorry I am.”
“It doesn’t matter now.” She spoke the words without thinking, but she realized they were no less true for being impulsive. Her worry as to whether she could trust Jim had died when she’d first gazed into his eyes again. They were totally without guile, without deceit, which she had always known, even while also knowing he had lied to her.
“Doesn’t it?” he asked, sounding anxious. “Are you sure? Haven’t I broken something between us?”
Nancy grinned. “Perhaps the notion I had that you were perfect . . .”
“Ha! Shame that had to go.” His expression became serious. “But I’m getting sorted, Nancy. The divorce papers are lodged with the court—Chrissie’s agreed to sign them as soon as they arrive. And someone’s made an offer on the house. Good one too. Seems they’re in a bit of a hurry and want to complete four weeks from now.” He gave a small shake of his head as if he were in shock from the whole thing.
“And Chrissie’s okay with it?”
“Yeah, bit of a turnaround there. She’s hooked up with this guy at work. Makes all the difference.”
Nancy watched his face. “How do you feel about that?”
Jim looked surprised at the question. “It’s nothing to do with me, who she’s with, not anymore. But having said that, I’m over the moon she’s off my case . . .We should have done all this years ago.”
“Wow! It’s been a busy month,” Nancy said.
“Getting stuff organized stopped me going round the bend pining for you, Nancy. The thought that I’d lost you was driving me nuts. It would have been the most stupid thing I’d ever done. And I knew my cause wasn’t helped by your family thinking I’m a real-life version of Sideshow Bob.”
She laughed. “Well, they still think that. Not sure how I’m going to sell you to them this time.” She didn’t want to think about her daughter’s reaction when she told her about Jim. “But it’s my life.”
“You would think so,” Jim said.
“Where will you go when the house is sold?” she asked. “It’s so soon.”
He shrugged. “No idea. Rent something in the area, I expect. Can’t afford to buy around here on my share of the takings. I’m checking online, but the places I’ve seen so far are rubbish.” He glanced outside—the sun was shining again, the black cloud dispersed. “Anyway, I don’t want to think about it right now. Come on, let’s go and get some fresh air. It’s suffocating in here.” Jim jumped up and she followed. He took her hand as soon as they were on the pavement. “The sea?” he asked, and she nodded happily.