by Holly Miller
“Definitely wouldn’t call myself a swimmer,” Caleb says with a laugh. He looks so lovely tonight—perfectly disheveled in his checked shirt, jeans, and trainers. “I just bob about, really. Only because I read cold water’s supposed to be good for your circulation and immune system and mental clarity and all that stuff.”
Jools nods thoughtfully. “We swim in the lido sometimes. Not quite the sea, but close enough.”
“It’s as cold as the sea,” Nigel chips in. He’s holding Jools’s hand between refilling her wineglass and intermittently offering the different dishes to her, and I’m struggling to remember a time when I’ve seen her so happy.
They ask Caleb about his photography, and he’s too modest, so I have to keep interjecting with examples of his talent—the awards and grants he’s won, the numerous accolades and endorsements to his name, that time he got to shoot a famous influencer’s thirtieth birthday party after someone recommended him on Instagram. “I almost didn’t take the job,” he says, laughing, “because it was so ridiculous. I mean, she was nice enough, but she’d hired zebras because they fitted in with the color theme.”
Nigel smiles. “A photographer’s dream, no?”
“I mean, kind of. But she wanted everything to look very staged and dramatic. Which was easy, obviously, with all the animals and the fire-eaters and the dry ice. But I just prefer taking pictures of stuff that’s real, you know?”
“Bet the fee was out of this world,” says Jools, with a smile.
“Oh, yeah, don’t get me wrong—that party paid my bills for a whole year. But the big-ticket stuff really isn’t my bag. Her PR people wouldn’t let me out of their sight. Every single shot was signed off. Postproduction was ridiculous, bordering on unethical. I prefer low-key gigs. Jobs where I can actually see the impact of my work.”
I ask Nigel how he got into financial auditing. I sense he’s the kind of person whose appearance rarely alters between the office, the pub, and his living room. He’s delicately featured and exceedingly well groomed in a collared shirt and chinos, his dark hair neatly side-parted and weighted down with product.
He turns to Jools, poker-faced. “You were supposed to tell them I’m a stuntman.”
I laugh. My taste buds are dancing from the warm spices and mint, the soft cheese, pickled vegetables. “She wouldn’t date you if you were a stuntman.”
“No? How come?”
“Risk-averse,” Jools says, winking at me.
Nigel looks pleased. “Then we’re definitely the perfect match.”
Caleb leans forward. “What is it you audit, exactly? Sorry to be dense.”
I love this about Caleb—how interested he is in other people, how attentive. How little time he’d actually spend talking about himself, if it were left up to him.
“Well, essentially, I review company accounts. Check everything’s in order, and aboveboard.”
Nodding earnestly, Caleb starts asking more, even though I know Nigel’s job is about as far as it can be from the stuff Caleb finds inspiring.
Eventually, Nigel smiles, meeting Caleb’s eye. I can only hope a bromance is brewing. “At the end of the day, it’s not my passion, but . . . I couldn’t turn my passion into a long-term thing, so this is my backup plan.” He shrugs, takes a sip of wine. “I mean, it’s not bad. I like the company I work for, the people I work with.”
Caleb tears off a piece of flatbread and dabs it in hummus, the elbow of his shirt dangling dangerously close to a bowl of yogurt dip. “So, what is your passion?”
“Nigel was going to be a professional pianist,” Jools says, as though she can’t hold back any longer.
“Wow, seriously?”
Nigel nods. “Yeah. I had an agent, was doing well on the session circuit, had a couple of hotel residencies lined up, and then . . . bam.”
Caleb and I wait, breath held, to find out what the bam was.
“Arthritis. My fingers swelled up like sausages. I could barely use them for a year or so.”
“Oh God,” I say. “What . . . What caused it? I mean, you’re so young.” He’s just a year older than Jools.
Nigel shrugs. “No idea. But it was severe.”
“And now?” Caleb asks.
“Not bad.” He wiggles his fingers, which look perfectly slender and firm to me. “I’m on some pretty hard-core drugs. But I’ve no idea how long they’ll work for, or if funding could be withdrawn for them tomorrow, so . . . thought I’d better find something else to do.”
I nod. “Hence the auditing?”
Nigel laughs. “Yep. Being meticulous was literally the only other thing I was good at.”
“Do you still play?”
I notice his eyes going slightly glassy as he nods. “Just for fun. Could never . . . step into that world again. Too . . . you know. Heartbreaking.”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
The faraway look in his eye recedes then, and all his features seem to contract suddenly, as if he’s just woken abruptly from a dream. “Hey no, hate to kill the mood. It’s all good.”
Jools smiles. “He’s being modest, but he literally plays piano like a demon.”
“Let’s find one,” Caleb says, sitting up a little straighter and wiping his mouth. “Let’s go to a bar and find a piano. There must be one around here somewhere.”
Nigel shakes his head. “Ah, I couldn’t. Way too rusty to play in public. I’ll give you a tune back at the house later, if you like. I’ve got a keyboard.”
“What did I say?” Jools says, looking at us. “Too modest. Come on, Caleb. It is our duty to find this man a real piano.”
* * *
—
Eventually, we do—a battered-looking upright at the back of a bar that occasionally hosts live music nights. It’s a cramped, badly lit place where the color theme is basic dungeon, and that could do with all the windows being left open for about a week. Still, Caleb strides up to the bar, and after a little back-and-forth with a surly barman, he returns, triumphant, brandishing a bottle. “Piano’s yours,” he says to Nigel. “For the price of a bottle of cava.” He slings an arm around me, kisses my cheek. “Got you a Virgin Mary. That okay?”
I smile and kiss him back, because he knows it is, that a plain old Virgin Mary will forever remind me of the night we met.
We find a booth with a small table near the back, and after virtually draining his glass, Nigel strolls up to the piano, like the idea’s just popped into his mind to sit down and have a go. As he rolls up his sleeves, takes a seat, and starts to play, it’s clear that he’s much less buttoned-up than you might think on first appearance, that he has music running through his veins.
I’d been expecting—I’m not sure why—something jazzy, the kind of thing you might hear in a Park Lane hotel lobby, or a piano lounge in Manhattan. But he surprises me by kicking off with Coldplay, then Lady Gaga’s “Shallow,” then “God Only Knows” by the Beach Boys. After a while, I realize a small crowd has gathered, though I’m not sure where from, since the place was virtually deserted when we walked in.
I settle back in the booth and into Caleb’s arms. His fingers tap out the melodies on my forearms.
“Loving this dress, by the way,” he whispers to me at one point, brushing the hair from my neck, his voice grazing my ear as Nigel plays a tune by Stereophonics. He drops a hand to my thigh, fingering the hem of my dress in a way that I know to be far less absent-minded than it looks. I feel a current begin to race through me, and for half a moment I consider grabbing his hand and pulling him into a dark corner, or to the bathroom, or onto the street outside.
And then I start to worry, regretting again my fleeting doubts of the past few weeks, those stupid fears about Helen that are really nothing more than my own insecurity. So Caleb has been serious about building a life with someone else, in his past—hasn’t everyone? Haven’t I?
/> I lean over to him, squeeze his hand. “You and me,” I say, the words barely distinguishable above the piano and the crowd and the sound of Jools whooping. “If I’d moved to London—not being with you would have been the worst thing.”
“What?” he shouts, leaning right into me.
“You and me,” I shout back. “That was the best thing that happened, when I decided to stay in Shoreley.”
Nigel finishes his song with a flourish, and the crowd erupts.
“Sorry, Luce,” Caleb mouths, shaking his head. “Didn’t catch any of that.”
I determine to say it all again as soon as we’re out of the bar, but by then of course we’re all riding high on Nigel’s musical triumph—which culminated in the barman perking up and inviting him to pop in next week to discuss a regular gig—and by the time Caleb and I are on our own again, in Jools’s bedroom back at the house, it feels as though the moment has passed.
* * *
—
And then. Like a really bad joke from some higher power, it comes.
I’m downstairs in Jools’s kitchen, fetching water to take to bed while Jools is talking Caleb through how to use the shower, and showing him the best way to jiggle the bathroom door so the lock actually works, when my phone buzzes.
A message.
From Max.
Max Gardner.
Hey, Luce. It’s been too long. It was so great to see you in Shoreley back in April.
Kind of wish I hadn’t dashed off that night.
I’d love to catch up.
Let me know if you fancy it. I still think about you. M x
I stare at the phone for so long that when I next look up, I wonder if hours might have passed and the whole house has fallen asleep. But then I realize Jools has snuck into the kitchen and is leaning against the sink with an odd expression on her face.
“Everything okay?”
“I don’t know. I just got this . . . from Max.” I pass her the phone. Above our heads, the kitchen striplight flickers ominously.
Jools scans the message, then looks at me. “Is this the first time—”
“Yep. Haven’t heard from him since that night.”
“The night you met Caleb,” she says, meaningfully.
“Also the night my horoscope said I’d cross paths with my soulmate,” I say—I’m not sure why. It sounds stupid the moment it’s left my mouth.
Jools tilts her head, meets my eye. “Come on, Luce.”
I put a hand to my face. “I know, I know.”
She passes the phone back to me. “You haven’t done anything wrong. But you should delete it.”
I say nothing. Suddenly, the grimy malfunction of the kitchen—the leaky tap, the fizzing light, the mound of dirty dishes in the sink, the cupboards with their badly angled doors—seems to echo the abrupt dip in mood.
Jools peers at me. “You’re not seriously considering getting in touch?”
“No, I—”
“Oh God, you are.” She sighs, shakes her head.
“No, but . . . I don’t know. All this stuff with Helen . . .”
“All this stuff with Helen is in your head. They split up six months before you met.”
“And went through some fairly life-defining stuff together.”
“So what? So Caleb has some baggage—who doesn’t?”
“Max, probably,” I say, as a sort of joke. “He was always pretty good at processing things.”
“Clearly not, if he’s still messaging you after all this time.”
“Caleb and Helen . . . they’re still married. They’re not divorced.”
“So, what are you saying?” says Jools, her voice softening. “You think he’s still in love with her?”
I sigh, and frown. “No, of course not. I just . . . it’s so weird Max has sent me this when . . . I always used to think he and I were meant to be, you know?”
“Max is in your past, Luce. Caleb is very much in the here and now, and to be brutally honest, I think you’d be an idiot to answer that message.”
I’m about to reply when I see a shadow momentarily darken the slice of light at the edge of the kitchen door, which is slightly ajar. Then comes the sound of footsteps making their way upstairs.
Horrified, I stare at Jools. “Was that Caleb?”
She bites her lip. “No idea. Could have been Nigel, or Sal, or—”
I shut my eyes. Or Caleb.
She puts a hand on my arm. “Go upstairs, be with Caleb. Forget about Max. You’ve moved on now. Max Gardner is your past, nothing more. Caleb is your future.”
Go
“I’m just asking you to think about it. Please. You’ve been so desperately unhappy since all this happened.”
I sigh, shift the weight to my other leg. Mum’s right, of course—I have been miserable since finding out about Tash and Max. But her view on how easy it could be to fix is optimistic to say the least.
I’m standing on the street outside the Supernova offices, waiting for our pizza delivery to arrive. Seb and I are working late again, on one of the first campaigns I was assigned when I started at Supernova. It’s a series of animations for a global wildlife charity, reimagining well-known children’s stories in the light of climate change.
“Dylan’s birthday isn’t the time or the place,” I tell Mum. “I can’t bring all that . . . anger and tension to his party. It wouldn’t be fair.”
“But Lucy—that’s my point,” Mum says. “I think you’d only have to look at his little face to feel better about everything.”
“You reckon I’d feel better . . . about the fact that Tash slept with Max?” I say, to check I’m understanding her correctly.
“Well, it was a long time ago. I’m not condoning what she did,” Mum clarifies, before I can interrupt, “but nearly a decade has passed now. Are you going to let one drunken mistake destroy your relationship with your sister?”
It wasn’t just a drunken mistake, I want to say. It was the very worst kind of betrayal.
I tip my head back, stare up at the indigo sky of the evening and the ungainly clatter of pigeons flapping between the rooftops, the only nature visible from this particular patch of Soho pavement. It’s a hot Friday night, almost steamy, and for a moment I imagine I’m somewhere in the Southern Hemisphere, as far as I can be from reality.
To think, the whole time I was traveling through climates like that all those years ago, I was pining for Max and questioning myself . . . when all along, he’d done the most unthinkable thing.
“You need to find a way to move forward,” Mum’s saying. Then, generously conceding my sister may also have a part to play in all this: “Both of you.”
I try to think of a way to explain it to her that might topple her from whatever maternal fence she’s claiming neutrality from the top of. “How would you feel, Mum? If Dad had slept with . . . Auntie Kath?”
There’s a short silence, during which I can’t tell if Mum’s trying not to laugh, or seriously attempting to picture it. Could be both, I suppose: whether Auntie Kath—Leicester’s fiercest head teacher—has ever so much as kissed a man is a mystery my mother is no closer to solving now than she was thirty years ago.
“Well, I think the big difference is that you and Max weren’t married with children when all this happened, darling.”
No, I think, bitterly. But we might have been, one day. And that’s what Tash stole from me: a future, possibility, a shot at true happiness. What if I never meet another Max in my lifetime?
“Tash has apologized, hasn’t she? Can’t you at least try to meet her halfway?”
Mum knows she has. Flowers to my office and home, a voucher for a two-night stay at a health spa in Berkshire so “we can talk,” which I promptly sent back. Five long e-mails, two letters, multiple messages, voice notes, and missed calls.
Bu
t I’m not ignoring her to make a point. I’m ignoring her because I honestly don’t know what to say, how to even take one step toward forgiveness. Do I even want to forgive her?
On the street in front of me, a guy about my age passes by. He’s an office worker with swagger: sunglasses on, tie loosened, confident gait. He glances at me, and for a moment I feel self-conscious standing here in my flimsy chiffon dress. I catch the edge of his smile, but it doesn’t make me feel good. It just makes me ache for Max.
I switch my gaze to my feet, scuff at a protruding paving slab with the toe of my sandal. “Mum, you’ve always said you and Dad are . . . soulmates, haven’t you? That you were meant to be.”
Down the phone, there’s a scuffling noise, as though Mum’s covering the speaker with her hand. But I can still hear her snapping at Dad—“Yes, all right, Gus!”—which kind of weakens the point I’m trying to make, if I’m honest.
It’s weird. I’ve never heard Mum bark at Dad like that before. This Tash and Max stuff must be getting to us all more than I realized.
“Did you ever think,” Mum says, her voice softening, like I’m six years old again and this is her umpteenth attempt to talk me through a particular times table, “that maybe Max sleeping with your sister means he isn’t the person you’re supposed to be with after all?”
And suddenly, I feel stupid, because of course, this is elementary-level stuff. Max slept with my sister. Of course he’s not the man I’m meant to spend my life with.
Soulmates don’t cheat. They just don’t.
At least, that’s how everybody else—quite logically—sees it. And yet . . . I still can’t shake my feelings for him. Even after everything that’s happened.
“Please come to Dylan’s party,” Mum says again. “You haven’t seen him for two months. The time flies by so fast when they’re that age.”
But now a moped’s speeding up to the curb, which means I’m either about to be mugged or collect a pizza. Either way, I’m relieved to have an excuse to end the call. “I’ve got to go, Mum.”
