I was very happy when The Times called and asked whether I would like to work the following weekend. After the disaster of my being so late, I had been worried that I had blown it, especially when they hadn’t needed me since. I hadn’t wanted to give much detail that morning about why it had been so necessary to go to the country – it hadn’t seemed right to talk about Lucas’s fragility to someone who’d never met him – but I had managed, I thought, to convey how important it had been. I had apologised profusely and promised that it wouldn’t happen again.
The piece I was working on now was about a change in the legislation for funding of British-made films and I was making good progress. Looking around the newsroom I was filled with the knowledge that I’d made the right decision about my career: there wasn’t anything I would rather be doing than this. It was exhilarating to realise it and I was smiling as I flicked back through my notes. I was also looking forward to an uninterrupted evening on my own with Greg. It seemed like some time since we’d had a weekend to ourselves.
Martha and Michael had stayed in London, too. Poor Martha had been in a terrible state the previous evening, when normally we would have been driving up to Stoneborough. I could see that she longed to be at the house just to be near Danny and yet was terrified at the same time of seeing him again in case she betrayed how much she had cared for him and laid herself open to his terrible scorn. Needless to say, he hadn’t called. Michael was going to a drinks party thrown by one of his colleagues and he’d asked Martha to go with him. She’d been reluctant but I’d told her she should, rather than spend the evening at home feeling melancholy.
On the desk beside me, my telephone rang. I answered it, assuming it would be one of the people I wanted to interview and for whom I’d left messages.
It was Lucas. ‘I need to talk to you,’ he said.
‘I’m at work,’ I said, dropping my voice and looking over the top of the partition to see if there was anyone in the vicinity who could hear me. ‘How did you get this number?’ ‘Your mobile’s off so I called your house. Martha told me where you were so I just rang the switchboard.’
‘Look, Lucas, I really don’t mean to be rude but I have to get this piece done. I’m on trial here – I shouldn’t be getting personal calls. Can’t I ring you later?’
‘It’s important,’ he said. ‘And you’ll be with Greg later so we won’t be able to talk privately. I won’t take up much of your time.’
My heart sank. I needed to concentrate on what I was doing and I really couldn’t let myself be plunged into another Stoneborough mini-drama. And yet I remembered what had happened the last time I hadn’t taken his calls. I knew I wouldn’t forgive myself if it happened again. ‘Go on then,’ I said. ‘But make it snappy or you’ll get me into trouble.’
He hesitated for a second. ‘OK. To cut to the chase, Jo, I think I’m falling in love with Diana.’
My immediate reaction was shock. I’d had no idea that that was going to happen. Then an unexpected and wild jealousy surged through me. ‘Have you slept together?’ I said without thinking, as if he was cheating on me and I had every right to know. I glanced up quickly to check no one was looking at me; I wasn’t sure how loud my voice had been. I had known, of course, that Lucas would meet someone else one day but I hadn’t expected it to happen so soon. It was a blow to have been replaced with such ease.
He seemed unfazed by my question. ‘Last night. Diana cooked and we had supper outside on the lawn.’ He paused, as if torn between wanting to keep the memory private and the need to share his excitement. ‘It was really late – probably about two – and everything was so still, absolutely silent. It was like being the last people left in the world. We’d talked about everything: my parents, Patrick, Elizabeth, what it was like being round that group when we were children. It’s strange, Jo. In a way I feel as if I’ve been waiting for her to come back all my life.’
‘Lucas …’ I could see Rebecca approaching, back from buying lunch at the canteen. Her desk was two along from mine. She’d be able to hear every word I said but there was no way I could end the call now.
‘And it helps, having her here now when you’re off in London. And because she was there when we were children, she understands.’
I couldn’t tell whether or not the barb was intentional so said nothing.
‘I feel like life is starting up again. It’s so weird: the last time Diana and I were together was in that wood and we found each other there again, twenty years later.’
He was waiting for me to speak now. Rebecca sat down and moved her mouse to clear the screensaver. It was unfortunate that she was in the office; she’d only come in to finish off a piece she hadn’t managed to complete the previous day.
Lucas continued, provoked by my silence to greater emphasis. ‘Jo, when she kissed me, it was like falling in love and everything making sense. I never thought I would say this but you were right to break it off. I think it’s the real thing this time.’
‘That’s wonderful,’ I said as quietly as possible while still being audible to him. ‘I’m happy for you.’ Say it like you mean it, Joanna, I thought to myself, glad that he couldn’t see me. I looked up just in time to catch Rebecca’s questioning eye. I made an apologetic face.
Finally, after assurances that I would call him at some later point over the weekend, he rang off. The call left me unsettled. On the one hand, the news could be seen as a relief. Perhaps if he was going to be with Diana now, the baton of responsibility for him could be passed on. It might also mean a let-up in the pressure of his scrutiny of me. But despite those things, I felt a backwash of desolation. His finding someone else was another station along the road away from our shared history, a further erosion of the bond between us. I was also hurt by the message lying like a reef beneath the surface of his words: he had wanted to tell me how out of the picture I was. I told myself off. Why shouldn’t he want to gloat a little about his new relationship? I had no right to feel slighted. And he and Diana had experienced something that gave them a tighter bond than most people ever had. Perhaps she really did understand him in a way that an outsider could never do.
Rebecca stayed until the end of the day and, after I’d filed my piece and begun to pack up my things, she asked if she could have a quiet word. She indicated a desk in the corner, away from the others. Even before she began, the way she composed her face told me the news wasn’t good.
‘I’m so sorry, Joanna,’ she said. ‘I like you and I think you’ll be a good journalist but I just get the impression that you have too many commitments elsewhere. We need someone who can focus on what needs to be done here. I’ve been trialling someone else as well and I’m afraid that I’ve decided to give the maternity-cover job to him.’
On the tube back from Wapping to Shepherd’s Bush I sat in a state of unblinking disbelief. It was only when I reached Greg’s flat that the reality of it hit me and the tears came. And the thing was, she was right: I was overcommitted. How could I give anything else my full attention when there was so much going on between us all and when I was responsible for Lucas’s fragile emotional wellbeing? Although I knew it was partly my fault for not telling him straight off that I would call him later, my mental picture of him was now crystallising. Lucas was becoming a burden and, though I hated myself for the cruelty, I couldn’t help it. Because of him, I had wasted the biggest opportunity I’d ever had.