Seven
Stay
It’s early evening, and I’m on one of the sofas in Tash and Simon’s living room. Dylan’s curled up in an armchair with Tash’s iPad, already bathed and in his pajamas. He’s supposed to be playing a times-table app, but I know he’s really watching kids unwrap pricey toys on YouTube. He announced he wanted to make his own videos last week, and my heart kind of broke for him, because I know that deep down, he doesn’t understand why other boys get to play with all these awesome toys on tap, and he doesn’t. Tash and Simon might be well off, but Dylan’s never spoiled.
Tash and Simon have cracked open a bottle of wine from their basement—or as I like to think of it, lower-ground floor, given the basement is roughly the size of your average bungalow. I’m trying out a margarita made with nonalcoholic spirits: I was skeptical at first, but Tash is one of those people for whom my not drinking is a bigger deal than it is for me, who feels guilty about drinking herself unless I’ve got a nonalcoholic alternative in my hand. So I let her faff about with limes and ice and agave syrup, and the result is actually not bad.
It’s been a peach-warm afternoon, and the brocade curtains are still parted at the French windows, which are open to entice a breeze. The sound of bleating lambs drifts through the gap. Beyond the boundary of the vast lawned garden, the landscape undulates, giving way to a tapestry of fields and hedgerows that leads, eventually, all the way to the sea.
“So, we read your pages,” Tash says, tucking her feet up beneath her on the other sofa.
Tash and Simon have been pestering me to let them have a sneak peek of my novel, so a couple of days ago, I e-mailed Tash the first ten pages or so for them both to read. And then, before I could change my mind, I e-mailed the same to Caleb, with a note that said, One condition: you can’t say it’s good if you think it’s terrible x.
He e-mailed back within thirty seconds. Pretty sure that’s not going to happen. But of course—I promise x.
“So . . . what did you think?” I ask Tash, tentatively.
“We thought it was lovely,” she says brightly, like she’s reporting back on a wedding that secretly bored her stiff.
Next to her, Simon nods with an enthusiasm that hints at rehearsal. “Really, really good.”
Simon’s what I guess you might describe as classically handsome. He keeps his dark hair short—it’s little more than a neat shadow, really—and there’s a crisp line of stubble along his jaw. He’s a mortgage broker, which seems to involve a lot of golfing and attending a never-ending series of niche midweek awards dos.
Dylan clambers down from his armchair and runs up to Simon with the iPad, bellowing something incoherent about a scooter.
“Okay,” I say, uncertainly. “Anything more specific than ‘lovely’ and ‘really good’?”
“Atmospheric,” Simon declares triumphantly, after a pause, in the manner of a game show contestant having a brainwave. He holds open his arms, letting Dylan climb onto his lap.
“Come on,” I say, impatiently. “What did you really think?”
Tash sips her wine. “I think your writing is great. Seriously.”
“But . . . ?”
She hesitates. “I suppose I was a bit surprised you’d set it in the twenties.”
“Why?”
A light shrug. “I don’t know. I guess because you’d said it was loosely based on Mum and Dad. So maybe I was just expecting it to be a modern-day thing.”
“Well, hence the term ‘loosely.’ They’re only the inspiration. It’s not their biography.”
She sips her wine again. “Did you get in touch with that guy yet, about joining that writing group?”
I stare at her. “Oh, you actually hated it.”
Her eyes widen. “No, that isn’t what I meant! I just remembered you were going to try a session with that group, that’s all.”
Self-doubt and dismay spread through my chest like a bruise.
There have definitely been times over the years when the world’s seemed to be telling me to jack writing in. Like when that pipe leaked above my bedroom at uni and destroyed all my writing notebooks. And when I had that short story accepted for publication in an anthology just before I left, only for the small press to fold before it could ever get printed. The handful of submissions I made to magazines, all returned with form rejections.
I feel humiliated suddenly, exposed. My biggest fear has been that my novel isn’t good enough to share, or even exist—and this lukewarm response has proved me right.
Why, why, did I send it to Caleb?
“You encouraged me to do this, Tash,” I remind her, childishly defensive suddenly.
My sister’s eyes get even wider. “Lucy, it was excellent—honestly.” She elbows Simon next to her. “Wasn’t it?”
He looks up. “To be fair, I’m not much of a reader, but . . . yeah. It was good.”
Hardly a resounding endorsement.
Tash rolls her eyes. “Lucy, I swear, I loved all the back and forth between Jack and Hattie, and you do tell it so beautifully . . .” She trails off, seeming to sense the need to pick her words carefully. “I just remembered that writing group and thought, you know . . . it might be useful. Only because you’re a beginner. You’ve never had any formal training.”
I scoop up the glass containing what’s left of my fake margarita. If I can’t even show my work to my own sister without feeling this way, what chance would I have in front of strangers?
Lifting the iPad close to Simon’s face, Dylan starts describing his preferred scooter from a short list of three, which thankfully saves us all from having to sit through the world’s most awkward silence.
“That came out all wrong, Luce,” Tash says, once Dylan’s finished his sales pitch. “We honestly loved it.”
I meet her eye. “Really?”
“Really.”
Dylan squeals with delight at something Simon has said and dashes from the room, iPad abandoned. Simon takes the opportunity to top up Tash’s glass, then his own. “So, how’s it going with your new bloke?” he asks, clearly sensing a need to change the subject.
Tash looks relieved. “Yes, come on—what’s the gossip?”
I smile. “No gossip,” I say primly, which is actually sort of true.
“Come on,” Tash says. “We love gory details.”
I shake my head. “I’ve known him—what—two weeks?”
“But you like him, right?”
I can’t help smiling. “Yeah, I do. But . . .” I trail off, unsure as to whether my fears are even real at this stage.
Tash leans forward. “But what?”
“I’m not sure . . . I mean, he said the reason he and his wife broke up was because they were different people, by the end.”
“Okay . . .”
“And, there’s a lot about him I like, but . . . he wants to go traveling, and he’s just . . . very different to anyone I’ve dated before.”
In the past, I’ve mostly been drawn to guys who were very driven and focused and goal-oriented. That’s not to say Caleb isn’t any of those things—but it’s certainly not what would spring to mind if I were asked to describe him. Still, him not being my usual type actually feels like a good thing.
But I still can’t figure out if we’re holding back on the physical front because Caleb’s not planning to hang around. We’ve lost hours over the past couple of weeks to getting cozy on his sofa. But we’ve not taken it beyond that yet, and maybe it’s because we both know that this is something that can’t last.
“Him being different isn’t bad, though, is it?” Simon says. “I mean, those relationships ended, so—”
“Yeah, definitely. No, it’s more that . . . I really like him, and I don’t want to get too involved if—”
“He’s going to up and disappear?” guesses Tash.
I nod.
“You could just ask him,” Simon says, with a shrug.
“It’s early days.” I smile. “I don’t want to scare him off.”
“You want to know what I think you should do?” Tash says.
“No, what?”
“Have fun. Just go with it. Who says you have to get serious?”
I swallow, and nod. “No, I know.” But what I don’t say to either of them—because how can I possibly know this yet?—is that I have a feeling, deep down, that I already feel serious about Caleb.
I already know that I don’t want to let him go.
The next day, Caleb invites me to his place for supper. I head over to the cottage at six o’clock, my mind gently rippling with anticipation.
I already love Spyglass Cottage and its two hundred years of history, its tiny winding staircase, the bijou bathroom. Yes, it’s shabby—the paint is peeling on the window frames, the electrics are temperamental, and some of the floorboards are warping—but it’s got character, a personality. There are past lives and memories buried within its walls.
“Something smells good,” I say, after he’s let me in and I’m following him through to the kitchen.
He’s wearing faded jeans and a lightly crumpled T-shirt, his feet bare and hair fluffed up like it’s freshly washed. “Thanks, but . . . you should definitely reserve your judgment till you’ve tried it.”
I smile and pass him the dish containing the apple crumble I’ve knocked up, dessert being my standard dinner party gift in lieu of wine. “Ditto. So, what’s on the menu?” I peer over at the bubbling contents of the Le Creuset on top of the Aga, the pot’s orange enamel stained brown from years of use.
“Well, it started out as a veggie curry, but all my spices were out of date, so . . . I think we’d better just call it a stew.” His expression is halfway between a grimace and a smile. “But all the veg is from the garden, so I’m hoping you’ll give me points for that.”
I smile. “Don’t worry. My crumble was going to be a pie until I realized I can’t actually make pastry. The apples are from my sister’s tree, though.”
“I really don’t fancy our chances if the apocalypse comes, Lambert.”
I laugh, flattered by the sudden and affectionate use of my surname.
He throws me a sideways smile. “Sorry. No idea where that came from.”
“No, I like it.”
He lets out a breath. “I’m being literally the most awkward host ever. Must be nervous, or something.”
“I don’t think you get nervous.”
He smiles and meets my eye. “Sometimes I do.”
Since it’s a warm evening, we eat outside on the back patio, perched on plastic chairs coated in lichen. The garden is long, narrow, and wildly overgrown, as though it hasn’t been tended to in about a decade—though Caleb has cleared a path to the veg patch through the jungle of brambles and nettles. The burgeoning greenery is daubed with the butter-yellow splash of dandelions, violet clouds of forget-me-nots, the creamy foam of cow parsley. At the far end of the garden, I can just about make out an unruly hawthorn hedge, woven through with honeysuckle and flanked by a line of lime trees, their leaves gently twitching in the breeze. Behind them, the sinking sun is bleeding into a cocktail-colored sky, the clouds becoming watercolor brushstrokes.
Caleb’s been showing me the images from a job he was working on this week—taking photographs for the fish bar and grill on the promenade, which has just received a rave review in one of the broadsheets. The shots are impressive, capturing precisely the grill’s rustic, down-to-earth vibe while showcasing bits of fish as if they’re works of art.
Once we’ve finished the stew, which was pretty good, we portion the crumble into bowls, drowning it in custard. “I take it back, by the way,” Caleb says, examining his spoon after a couple of mouthfuls. “About the apocalypse. I reckon we’d do all right.”
“My sister should really take the credit for this,” I admit. “She had to talk me through it. She’s a lot more accomplished than me at most things.”
“You’re accomplished.”
“Hardly.”
“Don’t people always feel that way about their older siblings?”
I lick my spoon thoughtfully. “Maybe. Do you, about yours?” I ask, meaning his stepsiblings.
“Yeah. Which is stupid, really, because I’ve never been into money and fast cars and . . .” He glances over at me before elaborating. “My stepbrothers on my dad’s side are older, and they both work in property, and making everyone else feel like abject failures is kind of their hobby. Or maybe it’s just me. I think they see me as the black sheep of the family. Insofar as I am family.”
I think back to when I’d just returned from Australia and had withdrawn almost completely from my own family. I don’t think even Tash quite knew how to reach me. There was a time when we were only speaking every few weeks. I think, deep down, I felt jealous of how smoothly life seemed to have panned out for her. How easy she appeared to find things. The strength of her relationship with Simon.
But when Dylan was born, everything changed. Suddenly, there was a brand-new little life linking me to my sister. Day by day, Dylan started bringing us closer—and since we’ve been living under the same roof, we’ve more or less re-created the strong bond we had as kids. Improved on it, even.
“So,” Caleb says, meeting my eye with a smile. “I read your pages.”
Reflexively, I put a hand to my face, still a tiny bit crushed by Tash and Simon’s slightly tepid response last night to my writing. “I’m not sure I want to know.”
He spoons up more dessert. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why don’t you want to know?”
I smile, then take a long swig of water, trying to wash my vulnerability away. “I let my sister and her husband read the same pages I sent to you.”
“And?”
I shrug lightly. “They were expecting something different, I think. Maybe it just wasn’t to their taste.”
As we talk, I can just about hear the faint murmur of waves on the shoreline dancing through the air. It mingles with the whoops and hoots of revelers winding through the town, and the folksy sound of live music drifting over from The Smugglers’ beer garden. Shoreley is gearing up now for the tourist season, and though I love how people flock to it like migrating birds in the summer months—it arouses my sense of local pride—I think on balance I prefer it out of season, when the cobblestones are quiet and the beach is a blank canvas and you can always hear the sea.
“Lucy.” His gaze hooks onto mine. “I loved it.”
A warm breeze lifts the hair from my face. I flatten it back with one hand, then wrinkle my nose self-consciously. “Really?”
He leans forward. “Really. God, when you told me about all that Margate-in-the-twenties stuff and we were talking about The Great Gatsby and all the hedonism and hope . . . I mean, it sounded great. And you completely and utterly nailed it, one hundred percent. I felt like I was there. I felt . . . transported, just completely absorbed. And the chemistry with Jack and Hattie is something else.”
I feel a blush of flattery rise up my neck. “Wow. Thank you.”
“I’m serious. Your writing’s beautiful. Honestly, Lucy. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but . . . you’ve got a gift.”
I let his gaze sink into me, pleasure budding in my belly. “You’re not just humoring me?”
“Believe me, I’m a terrible liar.” He smiles slightly helplessly. “Look, I get it: I’ve been putting my work out there for God knows how long. I do understand what it takes to show people your stuff for the first time. So I would never patronize anyone who does. I respect you way more than that, Lucy.”
I realize I’m shaking slightly, and for the first time in years, I find myself craving a long swig of chilled white wine. I take a steadying breath, drawing the scent of honeysuckle into my lungs.
“If I’m honest, I had everything crossed it would be good, because I knew I wouldn’t be able to fake being impressed. Lucky for me, I didn’t have to.”
“Thank you,” I say, finally relaxing enough to be able to smile. “That means a lot. Writing . . . It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do.”
“Lucy,” he says, leaning across the table like he really wants me to hear this, “it’s really good. You should keep going.”
I bite my lip. “Tash got me a flyer for a writing group, in Shoreley.”
“You going to go?”
“I might.”
“Can’t hurt.” He meets my eye, like he understands my reticence, even without me spelling it out. “That’s one of the reasons I wish I hadn’t dropped out of college, actually. Having that . . . group support goes a long way.”
“Have you ever doubted yourself? With your work, I mean?”
“Only pretty much every day,” he says, a soft smile on his face. “Look—you do anything creative, you spend your life questioning your choices and doubting your ability. It’s part of the deal. But the payback, when it comes . . . That feeling when someone else likes your work, and you manage to pay the rent for another month off the back of something you’ve dreamed up . . . There’s nothing like it, Luce.”
“I’m really glad I met you.” The words leave my mouth entirely without permission. I chase them down with a self-conscious laugh.
But Caleb isn’t laughing. He’s looking me right in the eyes. “I’m really glad I met you, too.”
From over at The Smugglers drifts an acoustic song I can’t quite place but sounds like it might be Jack Johnson.
“I’ve never . . .” I start, then falter. “This feels really—”
“Yeah. It does, doesn’t it?” And then he leans forward and kisses me, lips sinking against mine, tender pressure that makes me melt inside. His mouth teases mine open, and I have to actively hold back how hungry I am for this, for this amazing man who knows just what it is to be human, whose heart seems to beat exactly in time with mine.
After a couple of minutes, we draw gently apart. Caleb still has one hand at the back of my head. “Want to go inside?”
I can only make a sort of happy murmur in response, but luckily he understands what it means, so we abandon our bowls and glasses and he leads me back indoors, gripping my hand like a promise. My body is buzzing, almost shivering, with want.
In the living room, he turns to face me, kissing me again. This time, the intensity ratchets quickly up, our movements becoming faster and deeper, greedier. Our mouths are heated and damp, our breath loud and heavy. I grab the hem of his T-shirt and tug it roughly over his head, and as I do, we stumble backward onto the sofa. I pull him on top of me, he pushes up my dress. A sharp groan flees my throat at the delicious torment of his fingers against my thighs. I sink into his touch, giddy from the weight of him against me, from the feeling of his hand roaming the skin beneath my dress.
We explore every inch of each other’s dips and curves and grooves, fingers skating over flesh, the tease of limbs pressing then releasing. I discover that Caleb is not muscular exactly, but toned and lean. He has the physique not of someone who goes to the gym, but someone who’s never needed to.
I flick open his belt, delighting in the hot dance of his breath against my neck. And then all I can hear is the rush of my own blood and the throaty sound of him gasping my name as he moves inside me at last and I let go completely, pulsing and shuddering and intoxicated with pleasure.
Go
While Max is away in Leeds, I determine to make the most of my final week of freedom—reassured by the prospect of my forthcoming salary—before my start at Supernova on Monday. I set out to explore London in springtime, as though I’m emerging from the chrysalis of my old life. The trees are twitching with greenery, their branches growing heavy with confetti, as vapor trails carve scars into a blue-skinned sky. Families and tourists and office workers—distinguishable by their varying gaits, curiosity, impatience—are shedding winter clothing like molting birds. I spend a few days checking out Jools’s recommendations for favorite brunch cafés, the best spots for rye brownies, warm croissants, whole-milk flat whites. I browse charity shops, bookshops, and markets, pick up artisan doughnuts and freshly baked sausage rolls and armfuls of flowers for the house. And when Jools isn’t working nights, we brave the still-chilly water at the lido before filling our bellies on Lebanese mezze at the Common, watching children career haphazardly across the newly mown grass—the tang of it heady as freshly picked mint—delighting in the freedom afforded them by the firming ground, the warmth of the hatching spring.
I go shopping too, update my summer work wardrobe, spend hours on Instagram trying to figure out how the advertising world dresses. I mean, I’ve worked in advertising before, of course, but only in a hideous brutalist office building abutting a multistory car park in Shoreley. Nylon featured heavily. Soho—and Supernova—it was not.
In the evenings Jools and I head out for drinks, sourdough pizza, late-night treats in dessert bars. Sometimes we meet Reuben, and sometimes Sal, who I decide I would definitely want as my midwife if I were ever to fall pregnant.
Originally from South Africa, Sal is one of those people with a story to tell about everywhere she goes, each person she encounters: this pub, where she once had a very long and involved conversation with Jack Dee. That waiter, with his heavy addiction to chemsex and S&M. Those lads over there, who look like football hooligans but are in fact all very high up at a well-known tech giant.
Max and I have FaceTimed a few times since he’s been in Leeds. He’s walked me to his hotel window, showed me the skyline of the city at night as the promise of Friday burned between us.
That part—the view, and the tour he gave me of his hotel room—actually made me feel a little queasy, brought back unwelcome memories. But I didn’t let it show. I just focused on his face, the balm of his voice.
I’ve met some interesting guys in the two weeks I’ve been here—friends of Jools, acquaintances of Sal or Reuben. But being with Max again has reignited that certainty I felt for so long—a certainty I still feel, deep down—that he and I were meant to be. I’ve not been able to stop replaying our three incredible nights together—the chemistry, the fun we had, the mind-blowing sex—after which I scroll further back in my mind to how it felt when we were together at uni. To the kinetic pleasure of kissing him, the drug of feeling his hands on me. But that inevitably leads to the sharp thunderclap of our split, a shock close to hitting black ice on a road and waiting to strike a tree.
On Friday afternoon, the day Max is back from Leeds, Jools knocks on my bedroom door as I’m watering the potted plant on my windowsill with a rinsed-out milk carton.
I’ve spent most of today trying to spruce up this room, because I’m vaguely aware that at some point, I might have no choice but to invite Max back to it. I headed out early this morning to buy fresh white bed linen, a couple of cheap framed abstract prints, three potted plants, a thick gray rug for the floorboards, and some throw cushions. I dithered over tea lights too, before deciding they were probably second only to joss sticks in the student bedroom stakes.
“Looks great in here,” Jools says, coming over to the window. She’s wearing a pair of tiny denim shorts and a peach-colored spaghetti-strap top, sunglasses pushed back into her wild hair.
“Not a patch on yours.” Jools spends time and money curating her possessions: she wouldn’t need to panic-buy half of Wilko in an attempt to impress a new boyfriend.
“Is this for Max’s benefit?”
I nod. “His flat is the kind of place that should have its own concierge.”
“He wasn’t exactly born with a silver spoon in his mouth, Luce.”
“I know,” I say guiltily, because I do. “I know that.”
She gives my elbow a consolatory squeeze. “Anyway, just came to say bye. Wish me luck.”
Jools is off to Shoreley for a couple of days, to celebrate her dad’s sixtieth. Her trips back there are rarely without drama—past visits have involved fistfights, bombshell revelations about affairs and illegitimate kids, and a permanent family-wide barring from one of Shoreley’s major hospitality chains.
“As long as no one ends up in A&E, I’ll be back on Sunday night,” she says, “so I’ll see you before you go.”
For a moment I can’t think what she means, before remembering it’s my first day at Supernova on Monday—otherwise known as the opportunity of a lifetime. Get your priorities straight, Lucy, for God’s sake.
Jools laughs, climbing onto my bed and pulling her legs into a yoga pose. “Do you actually need me to call you on Monday morning to remind you?”
“Ha, no. I’m coming back here on Sunday night.” A pause, then a thought occurs to me. “Jools. Have I been a crappy friend?”
“What?”
I sit down next to her. “I mean, I move in here with you and then . . . I don’t know . . . I promptly disappear for days on end with Max.”
Jools places a hand on either side of my face, kisses my forehead. “I work shifts. We were always going to be ships in the night, a bit. I’m happy for you, Luce. You deserve some good karma right now.”
In the aftermath of my breakup with Max, Jools—unlike Tash, and many of my other friends—never disparaged or criticized him, or declared she hadn’t liked him all along. She helped me through my heartbreak without once running him down, something I realized afterward must have taken the self-restraint of an alcoholic at an open bar. I’m not sure I could have done the same, in her position.
We sit quietly together for a couple of moments, our skin scored with shards of afternoon sunlight. Then Jools smiles and says, “I actually always thought you’d get back together at some point. You were made for each other. Everyone could see it.”
“He might hurt me again.” It’s the first time I’ve voiced it out loud: that Max could just up and leave one day, exactly as he did before. Maybe he’s still scared of commitment. For a wild, crazy moment, I wonder if I could get in touch with his ex, ask if any of this sounds familiar.
Jools nods. “Maybe. So, take it slow.”
“It’s a bit late for that.”
A smile. “I meant emotionally.”
“So did I.”
A few hours later, I meet Max at his flat, this time with a packed bag (he messaged earlier: Stay the weekend?). We’re heading to the house party of a friend of his tonight, in Balham.
He’s waiting just inside the front door when I arrive. Straightaway I drop my bag and we stumble toward the bedroom, our kisses wild and frantic as our clothes come off, no other thought than to be together.
“I have something to confess,” he says through the gap in the en suite door as I towel off from showering afterward, the peppery scent of his posh body wash infusing the steam.
“What’s that?” I say lightly, though—irrationally—my mind is barking, Girlfriend? Wife? Kids?
“The party we’re going to. It’s at Olly and Joanna’s.”
I put my head around the door. Max is in front of the mirror, freshly dressed in dark blue jeans and a black long-sleeved sweater.
“You don’t mind, do you?” He apologizes with his eyes. “Thought you might not agree to come if I told you.”
The idea of it does feel slightly awkward: we were at uni with Olly and Joanna, childhood sweethearts from the same town in the Midlands, who were both studying chemistry. They were part of our wider circle, but we all thought they were slightly co-dependent, and already I’m struggling to remember a single thing about who they really were—like what music they were into, or which films they enjoyed, or what drinks they would order at the bar.
“Are you . . . friends, now?”
Max nods. “Bumped into Olly in Balham one night a couple of years back. He was hammered, so I walked him home. He sent me a crate of wine the next day to say thanks.”
“A crate?” I say, thinking, What’s wrong with a bottle?
“They’re nice, I promise.”
“Is that because they’ve got more exciting, or you’ve got more—”
He cuts me off with a laugh. “I’ll let you be the judge of that.”
Olly and Joanna’s house is halfway down one of those long, tree-lined streets where every second property is home to a young family, all with identical side-return extensions, bi-fold doors off their kitchen-diners and a particular style of Berber rug in the living room. Max tells me Olly is an analytical chemist now, and that Joanna works as a scientific writer for—get this—the same pharmaceutical company.
“They work together now, too? That can’t be healthy,” I say, as we climb out of the cab.
“Don’t drop that,” Max says, smiling down at the bottle of champagne I am gripping by the neck. “This isn’t a broken-glass kind of street.”
“Do you think they know they’re two separate people?”
Max laughs and takes my hand, and we walk up to the front door together and ring the bell like we’ve been a couple attending house parties for years.
I feel mean, of course, as soon as Joanna answers. She’s exactly as I remember—pin-thin in a slightly pinched way, with strawberry-blond hair and unnervingly pale skin, made even paler by the darkness of her navy silk dress. “Hello, you,” she says to Max, leaning forward to kiss him, before standing back and taking me in, shaking her head proudly like I’m her firstborn child on day one of primary school. “Lucy! Haven’t seen you since your famous disappearing act.” And before I can wonder if she’s being deliberately snarky, she’s pulling me into a kind of long-lost-friends hug, all musky perfume and strands of wayward hair.
Inside, Olly is similarly effusive—Took you guys long enough!—and soon we find ourselves with drinks in hand, drifting between groups of Olly and Joanna’s neighbors, colleagues, and friends, many of whom Max seems to know.
Every flawless room of this house is aglow with lamplight, platters of M&S nibbles on surfaces where we once might have balanced ashtrays and plastic pint glasses. It’s all very middle-class and urbane, with most of the conversation seeming to revolve around the much-admired renovation of Olly and Joanna’s house, and swapping contact details for builders, plumbers, and electricians, as well as the usual debates on the council’s approach to policing, schooling, parking. There’s a lot of underplayed wealth going on here—the kind nobody admits to but that slips out in offhand references to second homes, nannies, postcodes. I start to feel conscious of my cheap sundress, green-and-white cotton in a bold print—perfect for the weather, I’d thought. I hadn’t even worried too much about the creases, thinking, How posh can a house party be? But I know a pair of Louboutins and a hundred-quid manicure when I see them.
“Sure you don’t want one of these cocktails?” Max asks me, after we’ve been here an hour or so. “They’re insanely good.”
I smile. “I don’t think drinking in public after ten years dry is a very good idea.”
“Ten years?” Max says, but fortunately as he does, he’s clapped on the back by a tall, sandy-haired guy with high cheekbones and glinting blue eyes, who turns almost straightaway to me.
“Lucy Lambert. Well, well.”
Beneath the chatter of the room, a Mumford & Sons bass line is galloping away. It strikes me that the frantic beat seems to suit this guy’s entrance, somehow.
I know those eyes, I think, my mind scrambling to place them. But in the end, it takes me too long. “Sorry, I—”
“It’s Dean,” Max says, at the same time as his friend says, “Dean Farraday.”
“Oh,” I say, my eyes readjusting to the slimmer, sharper, more self-possessed version of Max’s friend from his law course. One of the guys he went to live with, after he graduated. I always used to wonder if Dean—or Rob—had persuaded Max to finish with me, in order that they could be three single lawyers in London together. But I eventually concluded that had to be rubbish, because Max was always someone who knew his own mind. “Sorry—I didn’t recognize you.”
“Imagine me several stone heavier.” Dean winks. “Max finally talked me into the gym.”
I laugh. “I didn’t mean that.” And I didn’t, really—my confusion was far more about the poise, the gravitas, that never really existed in the Dean I knew back then.
I ask what he’s up to these days. He tells me he’s living in Chiswick with his wife and young daughter, that he’s a criminal barrister at a chambers on Chancery Lane. “Unlike your man here—the ultimate sellout.” He shakes his head, eyes alive with mischief. “All that potential, wasted behind a desk.”
“Couldn’t do what you do, mate,” Max fires back, tongue-in-cheek. “Too many five a.m. starts and nightmare clients and trains to the arse end of nowhere.”
Smiling, Dean swigs back some champagne, then turns to me again. “And what are you doing these days, Lucy? Don’t tell me,” he cuts in, before I can reply. “You’re a best-selling novelist.”
I smile. “Not exactly.”
Dean affects mock shock. “What? You mean the rumors weren’t true?”
“What rumors?” But I know, of course, because I’d been the one to spread them.
“That you’d quit uni to go and write a novel on a beach in Thailand or somewhere.”
My only option is to style this out. “Actually, I’m starting a new job on Monday. In advertising.”
“Ah,” Dean says knowingly. “Well then. Welcome to the club.”
“Sorry?”
“Of professions people love to hate. Estate agents, lawyers, ad men. Or women.”
“Ignore him,” Max says. “He’s only trying to justify his nonexistent social life.”
But the barrister in Dean starts to dig deeper. “So, come on, Lucy. What’s your story? One minute you’re at uni with the rest of us, the next . . .” He makes a motion with his fist, which I assume is supposed to represent a puff of smoke.
I smile, even as I feel my body grow warm with discomfort. “Am I being cross-examined?”
He smiles too, though not unkindly. “Sorry. Force of habit.”
Back then, I told everyone I was off traveling, that I planned to write a novel. I cringe when I think about it now—how confidently I informed them I’d be writing in hotels, on beaches, from hammocks, and in bars.
But the truth was, Max ending it at the start of that final autumn term had floored me—to the point where I hadn’t been sleeping; had missed deadlines, seminars, and tutorials; had handed in coursework that was sloppy and badly thought through. After a week back in Shoreley trying to pull myself together, I’d attempted to struggle on through to the end of term, avoiding Max completely, who’d moved out of our flat and into a temporary room in town.
But the downturn in my performance had been severe enough that my seminar leader had asked to meet with me just before the Christmas break, whereupon she suggested I might want to consider repeating my final year. Twenty minutes later, on the way out of the faculty building, I’d seen a flyer tacked to a noticeboard, calling for volunteers to work on a community program in Thailand. And that was it. I’d seen enough signs by then: my mind was made up.
After I dropped out, the texts and calls checking on me persisted for a time. But pretty soon after Boxing Day, when I boarded my flight to Paris—my first stop—they began to dry up, before more or less stopping completely as everyone returned to uni in the new year. I got a new phone, replying from then on only to the odd e-mail, assuring whoever had sent it that everything was fine. That I was reveling in my freedom, traveling and writing, having the time of my life.
Max contacted me too, but my response to him was much less cheery: just a couple of cool sentences—perhaps to punish him—to say I wasn’t coming back. My friends ended up filling in the rest, and after that, I didn’t hear from him again.
The music switches now to something cheesy, and a smatter of cheers goes up, a few hands lifting skyward.
“I mean, I did go traveling,” I tell Dean.
He nods, thoughtfully. “Well, good for you. I only seem to make it as far as ski resorts these days. And I absolutely loathe skiing.” He exhales, scans the room. “Right—better mingle. I know every single person here bar two, apparently.”
He and Max shake hands. “Love to Chrissy,” Max says.
“Don’t cock it up this time,” is Dean’s parting shot, though I’m not sure which of us it’s aimed at.
By now we’re at the back of the living room, in a quiet corner next to an oversized standard lamp with a spotless glass shade like an overturned goldfish bowl.
Max turns to me, lifts an eyebrow. “So. I’m not to cock it up, apparently.”
“I wasn’t sure who he meant.”
“I’m going to hazard a guess and say me.” He reaches for my free hand, his thumb skimming the inside of my wrist. “Sorry about all that.”
“No, he’s . . .” I shake my head. “Dean’s nice. I always liked him.”
“So,” Max says, “what did happen to that novel? You ever write it? Can I read it?”
“Ha! No.”
He smiles. “Not about me, is it?”
I jab him gently with my elbow. “Nope.”
“Think you’ll ever pick it up again? Writing novels was all you talked about, at uni.”
“Probably wasn’t realistic. I mean, at least at Supernova I’ll get to write on an actual salary.”
“Well, will you at least show me your traveling photos sometime?” Max says. “Be nice to see you again . . . as I knew you back then. If you know what I mean.”
“Oh.” I swallow. Now’s not the time or place to go into why I don’t have a single photo, no evidence at all that I was ever even there. “Yeah, okay.”
Max smiles, sips his drink. “Luce, have you had a chance to think yet . . . about what I said?”
Last weekend, I stayed with Max until Monday, when he was up early to catch the train to Leeds. I walked with him through the warm morning, beneath a milky sky, to the tube at Clapham Common.
“I want you back,” he whispered, as we paused on the pavement outside. He smelled lovely, of aftershave and mouthwash. “I’ll do anything to make it work with you again.”
I said nothing, just hugged him back and kissed him, told him I’d see him Friday. And it didn’t seem right to discuss it over the phone while he was away. We stuck to lighter topics, like Max’s big case in Leeds and my final week of freedom, Jools and the house and Reuben’s narrow escape from a psychotic van driver after the pair of them got into a slanging match as he cycled along the Holloway Road.
I look up at Max now, into those storm-gray eyes. And I nod, just once. “I want to see where this goes. I want to give us a try.”
And in an instant, it is as though I have been momentarily dropped into my old life, because Max is scooping me up and whirling me round, whooping and laughing, just as he would have done in the students’ union all those years ago. And people are looking over and laughing too, even though they’re not in on the joke, and I’m grinning, my face braced against his shoulder, thinking, Yes. This is our time. It’s finally come.
The next morning, we go for brunch in a café close to Max’s flat. He tells me he stops there most days for espresso on his way to work, and sure enough, they greet him by his first name when we walk in. I wonder, fleetingly, how many women he’s come here with, the morning after the night before. I’m paranoid the waitress’s smile is partly code for Your secret’s safe with me.
The café’s nearly full, but we get the last table for two by the window, overlooking the road. The space is sunny and high-ceilinged, its chalkboard scrawled full of brunch offerings, the scent of coffee beans spiking the air.
It’s a warm day, and Max is weekend-casual in shorts and a T-shirt, sunglasses propped on top of his head. I keep catching sight of him and thinking, We’re really together. This is finally happening. We actually were meant to be, after all.
His skin is gleaming, his eyes bright. He snuck out for a run first thing this morning, even after all those cocktails last night and barely a couple of hours’ sleep when we got back to the flat.
“I feel guilty, Luce,” he says out of nowhere, as I’m dipping a sourdough shard into the molten middle of my poached egg.
“Guilty about what?”
“That you never got your degree. It was my fault you left uni, wasn’t it?”
I pause, leaving the toast speared into the egg like it’s been slayed. “I guess if we hadn’t broken up, I wouldn’t have quit. But it was my choice. Nobody forced me. I made that decision.”
“Have you ever thought about going back?”
“A degree’s just a piece of paper,” I say, though I’m not sure that’s true. Being a dropout affects everything—your CV, your self-confidence, your prospects—if you let it, which for a long time I did.
“What did your parents think?” he asks, raising his voice slightly above the pneumatic pulse of a coffee grinder.
“They were sad for us.”
“I meant about you dropping out.”
“Actually . . . they weren’t really thinking about that. And neither was I, at the time.” I stop short of saying it was my broken heart that everyone was worried about, to retain some level of dignity if nothing else.
“How are they, your mum and dad?”
Max met them a few times—those occasions when he came to Shoreley, and twice in Norwich, when they visited me at uni. Each time, he was the perfect boyfriend—attentive and polite, but not overly smooth, never trying too hard. I thought back then that maybe Max’s particular gift in life was making people fall in love with him.
“They’re good. Still working.” Mum’s a primary school teacher, and Dad’s in middle management at an insurance company—though there’s been talk of redundancies lately, which is never great news for someone in their fifties. But I’m not going to bore Max with all that now.
“Still head over heels in love?”
“Ah, sickeningly so.” I smile, set down my fork, pick up my coffee. “And do you remember my sister, Tash?”
He hesitates, probably reluctant to admit he doesn’t, not properly.
“I think you only met her a couple of times. But she’s doing really well. She works in marketing now. Married, with a son.”
“Crazy,” Max says, like he’s struggling—as I have been, over the past few weeks—to get his head around the passage of time, to become reacquainted with everything he’d thought was firmly in the past.
“Tell me about your last girlfriend,” I say, sipping my coffee.
His expression remains open, unfazed. “All right. What do you want to know?”
“Why did you break up?”
“Our lives were going in opposite directions. I like it in London, but she wanted to give it all up to start a yoga retreat abroad somewhere.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. We were polar opposites, really, personality-wise.”
“Do you ever think about what might have happened if you’d gone with her?”
Max finishes his espresso and laughs. “Yeah, I’d have caught the next flight back to Heathrow.”
I smile.
“And you? Why did you and your ex split up?”
“Lack of fire in the belly,” I say, which is a generous way of saying a bit lazy and that amount of online gaming’s not healthy for anyone.
I don’t mention, of course, that I thought of Max often while I was with my ex. Sometimes late at night, while he snored beside me. Occasionally out at dinner, as he was asking for a knife and fork to replace his chopsticks. And once—I was ashamed of this—while we were having sex. It was all I could do to stop from calling out Max’s name.