‘Are you staying here all night?’ Osh asks, glancing at me. ‘I mean, it’s cool with me but it’s a lot more interesting down there.’
‘I’m fine,’ I say. But I’m not. I haven’t been fine since Sam Mullins took to the stage. He’s gone now, the band’s first set over and the DJ now performing. But I’m still shaking.
He played so beautifully – the first time I’ve really heard him. At Eden I’d long since fled by the time he was on the stage, but tonight I couldn’t move. I’m not sure my legs are ready to carry me yet. Before the rest of the band joined him – when Osh was down there and I was in the lighting booth – Sam looked directly up here. Did he see me?
My phone buzzes for the third time.
‘You going to answer that?’
‘It’ll just be people getting their Happy New Year texts in before the networks get too busy,’ I say, hoping it covers my nerves. Wishing I believed it.
It’s probably Meg, trying to find me. But what if it’s Sam?
‘That violinist is a bit handy, isn’t he?’ When I stare at Osh, he’s still looking out at the venue.
‘Meg’s told you, hasn’t she?’
He pulls a face. ‘Yeah. Sorry, Phee.’
‘Does everyone at this party know about us?’
‘Pretty sure the DJ’s none the wiser. Look, you still care about him. And he accepted the gig, knowing you’re Meg’s friend. It’s at least two hours till he has to play again. And while I love seeing you, I don’t think you really want to be here.’ He nods at the window. ‘And there’s your chance.’
I look down at the stage and see Sam, hands in pockets, looking over the heads of the dancing guests, as if he’s trying to locate someone.
It isn’t me, I tell myself. He isn’t looking for me.
But my heart is slamming against my ribcage.
‘Phoebe. Go down there.’
I meet his kind gaze. ‘If this was in a script you’d cut it for being cheesy.’
His eyes roll. ‘If this was in a script Warner Bros would have paid me already. Go. Before Meg comes up here and drags you out.’
I don’t know what I’m doing. Or what I’ll say. I think of the last time we spoke and imagine this could go the same way. But he’s here. And so am I. And maybe at New Year you allow yourself to act differently. Or dare to dream of better. Even if it’s just a gesture as the old year dies and another begins.
Nobody else knows this, but I painted a pebble this morning. Before Meg invited me to the party or I’d spoken to Gabe in Hollywood. I slipped out of the house just after six a.m. and headed to the little park nearby. It’s only a small place, with a duck pond in the middle and a kids’ playground on one side, but I’ve always loved the light there. In summers past it was where I’d escape with a book, dreaming of all the places I might one day visit. Places I can now say I lived in for a while.
On one side of the pond, there’s a bench that is different from all the others dotted across the park. It’s painted in rainbow stripes, faded now but still lovely. At weekends I see people hurrying to claim it and children running right across the park to touch its colours. It bears a plaque I think must have been in place years before it received its multi-hued makeover:
For the wanderers and the dreamers,
The weary and the worried.
Rest a while here, friend.
Unlike the other bench dedications in the park there is no name, no commemoration of a life lived. But the sentiment has always struck me. It’s a tiny bit of welcome in a city whose people are used to being ignored.
That’s where I left my pebble – my way of marking the year. This morning I didn’t think I’d be at the party, so this was going to be my goodbye – to the year, to the city I’ll soon be leaving and to the life I’ve known before.
I painted a scene from a photo Sam sent me of Calgary Bay on the Isle of Mull – a wild mountainside overlooking the sea, the low-lying plain between land and shore peppered with tiny dots of colour in every shade in my paint box. The machair Sam told me about. And in the centre of the carpet of flowers, one phrase in sweeps of silver paint:
gu bràth
Forever.
I looked it up online. I wanted to honour the language of the land that birthed Sam.
When I start to descend the stairs I look out over the party. I can’t see Sam. He was by the stage a moment ago, so he must be close by. But where?
The dance floor is packed with enthusiastic bodies, drinks held aloft, jostling for space as they dance and yell at each other. Trying to move through them is like navigating a crushing, sharp-edged tide. I lose count of the elbows that jab into me, the feet stamping too close to my own. The ground shakes with an insistent beat and booms with sub-bass notes that reverberate through my body. It’s dizzying, making thought difficult and movement almost impossible.
I finally emerge at the edge of the stage where I last saw him, but he isn’t there. Looking out over the bobbing sea of green, silver and black-clad people I scan across for a glimpse of dark curls. For what feels like an age I search until I think I see him, over by the bar that looks like it’s been carved from ice. Bracing myself, I push, squeeze and weave my way through the mass of guests until I reach the other side of the dance floor. Out of breath, I emerge into a small pocket of air between the dancers and the banqueting table.
It is Sam.
At that moment, he turns towards me.
My heart constricts. My breath becomes shallow. And all I can see is him.
Like it did when we kissed in the packed concourse of St Pancras station eighteen months ago, the sound around us dims. The movement and the noise, the light and the activity become secondary as my feet take me shakily to him. It’s not the day we were supposed to meet again. It’s not the moment we met again by chance in a Cornish late summer festival. Yet here we are.
I raise my hand.
He does the same.
Neither of us are smiling. Not yet.
We begin to close the gap between us, oblivious to the guests jostling past. I don’t know what I’ll say; only that this is my very last chance to tell Sam I love him. That I never stopped loving him. And to thank him for changing me – for changing how I see myself. Through his eyes I saw what I never realised I could be. I think he felt the same.
We’ve almost reached each other now. I can see his chest rising, his hand reaching out. My hand reaches, too. I don’t care if it will end with a hug or a handshake. I just want us to touch.
And then a body steps between us. A woman. Her long blonde hair trails down her bare back, an emerald green silk dress draped around the rest of her body. I move to the side, but she isn’t walking past us. She’s going up to Sam.
Numb, I watch as her arms slide up around his neck and her lips close on his. His hands lift to frame her waist and… I don’t want to see any more.
The noise of the party crashes back around me. The room is too hot, too loud, too short of air. I have to get out.
He wasn’t looking at me. His hand wasn’t reaching for mine. I am an idiot. Of course he didn’t see me. I became invisible to him the moment I missed the train to London.
I hurry to the cloakroom, the assistant taking too long to find my coat. And then I throw it on, turn my back on the party and my friends and the woman in the green dress and Sam bloody Mullins.
And I run.