by Holly Miller
I smile. “Hi, Dylan. Remember my friend Max?” I stop short of saying Uncle Max.
He might not, I suppose. Max has only met him once.
Dylan is so sweet in his oversized St. Edmund’s blazer, his blond hair neatly combed into a side parting. He reminds me of Prince George that time he met Obama in his dressing gown.
But Dylan’s frown deepens now, and he looks up at Max. “My mum doesn’t like you.”
Simon’s still not home, which is what doing thirty on the bypass does for you, but Tash has been hovering in the hall with their coats and Dylan’s book bag. She pretends she hasn’t heard, but she must have done, because Tash never misses a thing. “Right, Dylan!” she trills from the doorway, clapping her hands. “Homework time.”
Sorry, I mouth to Max, as Tash ushers Dylan upstairs. I hear her whispering to him as she goes.
Max shakes his head. “No, I’m a fan of straight talkers. He’ll go far.”
“He doesn’t mean it.”
“I think he probably does.”
My stomach swings with apprehension. The situation’s impossible, really: yes, Max did a terrible thing, but he and I have made a choice to move on. Still, I guess you can’t assume everyone else will come with you. That’s not fair, either.
“This is no more than I deserve, Luce,” Max says, calmly.
“You don’t need to self-flagellate.”
“I know. I’m not.”
“You can honestly head off if—”
“Luce, if I feel a bit awkward for a few hours, it’s fine. I can handle it. I promise.”
* * *
—
Mum and Dad arrive an hour or so later, as it’s getting dark, with Macavity in a pet carrier. They’re moving in here with Tash and Simon until the cottage is sorted out.
As Tash makes sure everyone’s warm enough—I notice she’s tactfully avoided lighting the fire—Simon passes round brandies. He misses out me, and Max because he’s driving, making us both a latte from the posh machine instead.
I don’t know why, but as soon as we’re all sitting down, I start to cry—the great, hiccupping, ugly tears I’ve been holding in all day.
Max reaches out to rub my back, Mum and Dad make soothing noises, and Tash pleads with me not to blame myself. I know how this looks: that I’ve turned on the waterworks so no one gives me a hard time. But I feel genuinely awful about messing up.
“It’s just stuff, darling,” Dad says, from the opposite sofa. “The important thing is that you’re safe. God knows what would have happened if you’d been there. We’re glad you weren’t.”
“I keep telling her the same thing, Gus,” says Max.
At the sound of Max’s voice, there’s a pause so uncomfortable it makes my scalp prickle. It’s like they’ve all been pretending so hard he’s not here, they’re genuinely shocked to realize he actually is. Like a mannequin moving in a shop window. I’m unused to feeling this way around Max: he’s personable and warm, quick-witted, the kind of person everyone wants to sit with at the pub. Painful silences usually don’t get a look-in.
“So, tell us about your lovely weekend in Sussex,” Tash says to Mum, sipping her brandy. “Something to cheer us all up.”
Mum glances at Dad, then clears her throat. “Well, we weren’t sure whether to mention anything . . .”
Tash and I share a look. A film reel of mortifications spools through my mind. Oh God. What are they going to say? They’re not nudists, are they? Was it a sex party? Please don’t let it have been a sex party.
Mum and Dad are sitting very close together on the sofa, holding hands. It strikes me that I haven’t seen them do that in a while. The last eighteen months have been tough for them—I know Dad’s suffered from some bad migraines lately, and talk of redundancies at his company has started up again.
“This weekend . . . we were at a marriage retreat,” Mum says. The words come out in a whoosh.
Mum’s had a funky new haircut recently, and I realize as she speaks that she’s wearing lipstick, which she never normally does. Dad’s got a new hairstyle too, but his is a bit more cabin-in-the-woods.
“What’s . . . a marriage retreat?” (Tash is clearly also thinking sex party.)
Mum glances at Dad. “It’s where you go . . . to work on your marriage.”
“Why do you need to work on it?” Tash says, with about as much tact as Dylan when he asked where babies come from.
Next to me on the sofa, Max shifts. “Do you want me to—”
“No, stay,” I whisper, squeezing his hand.
“We’ve been having some . . . problems, and we decided . . . this was our last shot.”
“John and Roz recommended it,” Dad chips in, like we’re talking about a box set, or the best place to buy lawn mower parts. “You know, with—”
“Yes, yes, John-and-Roz-with-the-barge,” Tash says, irritably.
Mum turns to me. “We actually want to thank you, Lucy.”
“Me?”
“Yes. What happened last night . . . It’s put everything into perspective for us.”
“I don’t follow.”
Mum’s face brightens suddenly, like her favorite band have just walked onto an invisible stage. “We’re going to do something wild. Aren’t we, Gus?”
Dad beams at Mum. I haven’t seen him look so happy in . . . well, a really long time. “Yep. We’re going to take advantage of being nomads. Give married life another go.”
“What do you mean, another go?” Tash says, her voice becoming more and more agitated. “You’re already married. And I don’t understand what all this has to do with Lucy, or nomads, or—”
“Losing everything in the fire . . . it’s made us reevaluate,” Mum says. “And we realized . . . we don’t want to lose each other.”
“I’m going to take voluntary redundancy,” Dad says. “And we’ll bank the money from that, and the insurance, then do something crazy with it.”
I notice Simon meeting Max’s eye with the shadow of a smile. I’m pretty sure they’d get on, if they officially had permission to—Simon knows now about what Max and Tash did one night before he’d even met her, and to his credit, he seems entirely unfazed by the whole thing. There is a level of understanding there, perhaps, reminding me—not for the first time—of Andrea. Maybe, because Simon did something stupid once too, he refuses to judge Max for having done something similar.
“Crazy’s about right.” Tash is leaning forward now, her blond bob dancing in front of her face. “Listen. I think you’re both in shock—”
Mum doesn’t blink. “Actually, this is something we’ve been thinking about for a very long time.”
“Thirty-five years, in fact,” Dad says.
I feel Tash glance at me, perhaps for support, but I can’t take my eyes off Mum and Dad. They’re gleaming like two kids in love, flushed with excitement. I haven’t seen them like that in so long.
“You don’t know this, but when we met on holiday in Menorca, when we were twenty,” Mum says, “we actually spent the fortnight talking about wanting to sail around the world.”
“You can’t sail,” Tash points out.
“Tash, please,” says Simon, uncharacteristically sharp, like she’s talking over all the good bits in a film.
“And when that holiday was over and we came home,” Dad says, “me to Shoreley and your mum to Somerset, we started making plans.”
“You didn’t realize you were pregnant,” I say, the picture slowly slotting into place.
“Oh,” says Tash, the culprit.
Mum shakes her head like we’re misunderstanding. The beads on her earrings rattle. “Having you girls was the most wonderful gift we could ever have hoped for, but now . . . it’s as though this fire was a sign.”
“Take the money and run.” Dad chortles. “Or buy a boat, anyway.
”
“But Mum, what about your jobs? Your pensions? I mean, you’re not millionaires—you’re a teacher, and Dad works in an office.”
Mum tilts her head. “So, only millionaires can have dreams?”
Tash shuts her eyes. “No, of course not. I just don’t think . . . I mean, how can you go from your marriage collapsing to going off round the world in the space of twenty-four hours?”
“Sometimes, if you don’t know what to do next, you just have to look for a sign,” Dad says, reaching over to take Mum’s hand.
I smile faintly, realizing it’s been a long time since I looked to a sign from the universe for guidance. Probably not since I found out about Max and my sister. I kind of miss it.
“And can you really learn to sail at your age?” Tash says. “Don’t you think that’s just a tiny bit irresponsible?”
“At our age?” Dad echoes, then laughs.
“Lucy?” Mum says, and everyone looks at me. “You’re being very quiet.”
I swallow. My mouth feels tacky and unsupple, as though I haven’t spoken out loud in about a hundred years. “In principle . . . it’s a brilliant idea. But yeah—I think you should take some time to think about it. Tash is right: you’re in shock.”
“Very often in life,” Dad says, “you don’t know you needed a shock until you get one.”
* * *
—
I can still remember that first day I met you at uni,” Max says, as we’re driving along the M2 back to London, the orange motorway lights flying over the car roof like tiny UFOs. It’s dark now, late, getting on for midnight. “And you were telling me the story of how your parents met, and I thought it was this . . . crazy, unattainable fairy tale. It was so different to what I’d known with Brooke.”
I smile, lean my head against the headrest. I know exactly what he means: I’d wanted to write a whole goddamn novel based on that fairy tale. “And what do you think now?”
He makes a hopeful shrug. “Well, I don’t really believe in fairy tales. But it is pretty romantic—I mean, they want to go and do the thing they first talked about thirty-five years ago. They’re literally sailing off into the sunset together.”
“Things must have been pretty bad, though. For them to go on a marriage retreat.”
“Well, isn’t the point that they went on it in the first place? They obviously wanted to save it.”
I turn to look at him. “Max?”
“Luce.”
“Would you ever want to quit your job to buy a boat and travel the world?”
“Nah.” He looks back at me briefly. “Farraday’s right—I’m too much of a corporate sellout.”
I smile. “Someone’s got to be.”
He smiles too. “Yeah. And to be honest, I like it that way. Life’s good, and with you, it’s pretty much perfect. So long as we’re together, that’s all I care about. I’m just glad we made it.”
I feel him glance at me again, but he doesn’t have to ask: he knows my traveling days are done. And I’m fine with that. London is my home now. I belong there, with Max. We’re building a life together, a life that I love.
For a moment I shut my eyes and enjoy the warmth of the car, the engine’s comforting rumble, the feeling of knowing Max will always be by my side.
“Wasn’t it funny,” I say, laughing, “when Tash started saying they couldn’t sail a boat, like Mum and Dad are going on ninety? They’re in their fifties.”
Max rarely lets slip any kind of opinion on Tash. So he just keeps his mouth steady and says, “Yeah.”
We drive the rest of the way back to London without talking much, listening to Snow Patrol. The music takes me straight back to Norwich and to loving Max with my whole heart, from the first moment I met him.
Seventeen
Stay
“God, I’m sorry, Luce. I really thought he’d love it.”
I’m facing Ryan by the door in the now-empty church room. He asked if he could have a word after the session, and I could tell by the look on his face that it wasn’t good news.
It’s March now. Caleb’s been gone for three long months. The tail end of winter by the sea—though vividly scenic, and lavish with frost-filled panoramas—has started to feel incessant. I am yearning for warmer weather.
A few weeks after Caleb left, I said Ryan could pass several chapters of my novel to his agent. And for the first time maybe ever, I felt quietly confident. It was ready, this sentimental story about love, and about longing and hope, that I’d poured my whole heart into. It tackles a few tough themes—including some similar stuff to what I went through in Sydney, with Nate—and I’m privately proud of the result. In that respect, I feel as though I’ve partly rewritten my past, regained control over some of the trickier parts of my own history.
We thought a response—either yes or no—might come quickly. But the weeks slid unremarkably by, even though Ryan nudged him a couple of times.
Today, finally, the e-mail came. One of the few professionals, aside from Ryan, who’s read my work, and the response was a hard no.
Ryan looks as remorseful now as if I’ve caught him graffiti-ing appendages on the church wall. “I honestly would never have sent it to him if I thought he’d turn it down.”
I nod. “I know.”
“But, listen, Lucy—it’s true what he said. This is no reflection on your writing, it’s just that he represents more . . .” He trails off.
“Highbrow stuff?” I supply, with a half smile. “It’s okay, you can say it.”
He looks at me for a couple of moments. His dark eyes are dewy, the expression on his face intense. “This isn’t going to make things weird between us, is it? You know I’m your biggest fan.”
I smile. We’ve known each other almost two years now. Ryan’s a friend, and a good one. I lean forward and hug him, so he can be in no doubt. His frame feels fragile and wiry in my arms, so different to the sturdiness of hugging Caleb. “Not at all. If I ever do get published, your name’s getting top billing in the acknowledgments.”
“Not if,” he says, sternly, pulling back from me. His words echo against the high ceiling, the stone walls. “When.”
I think we’re about to leave, but though he’s set his hand on the doorknob, he doesn’t turn it. “How’s Caleb?”
I can see that the teacher in Ryan is trying to end on a positive, which is sweet but also unfortunate, because talking about Caleb’s pretty tough for me right now. “He’s really well, thanks,” I say, trying to keep my voice light, my tone upbeat.
“Where is he at the moment?”
“Myanmar.” To stop myself becoming too emotional, I get out my phone, tapping through to the most recent pictures Caleb’s sent me, of the rust-colored temples and hazy sunrises, the elaborate pagodas and formidable stone Buddhas.
Ryan swipes through them, seeming impressed. “Remind me why you didn’t go with him?” he says when he’s done, handing back my phone with a gratified smile, like he’s just been flipping through a holiday brochure.
“I wasn’t really . . . in a place in my life where I wanted to go away. Maybe I will, someday.” I realize with surprise as I’m saying this that for the first time in more than a decade, it might possibly be true.
“Big deal, isn’t it? Saying good-bye to the person you love for six months. Not sure I could do that.”
Ryan never talks much about his love life, other than occasionally making reference to having been on a (usually disastrous) date. Emma says he broke up with the love of his life in his midtwenties and never fully got over it. Which kind of makes sense, when I think about it. His writing makes a lot of references to regret. Chances missed, opportunities squandered.
I nod. “Yeah, it’s a big deal. Bigger than I first thought, maybe. But . . . it’ll work out.”
On the morning Caleb flew to Bangkok, I dropped him off
at Heathrow. We parked up in the dropoff zone, then sat together for a while without saying much. The sky was a rich, predawn purple, and together we watched it gradually brighten, then dissolve into daybreak. We listened to the roar of ascending planes, their lights skimming above us like shooting stars.
“This feels all wrong,” he whispered, when it was nearly time to go.
Despite every synapse in my body throbbing in agreement, I shook my head firmly. “It’ll feel right as soon as you get there.”
We’d had this conversation so many times—late at night in bed, first thing in the morning through the shower curtain, across currents in the sea, over candles flickering in restaurants. And every time, I told him the same thing—if it was right for him, then it was right for us.
“God, why does this feel so impossible?” He laughed then as he welled up. “If this is what leaving you is like, I’m never going to do it again.”
And then we hugged, hard, heads tucked against each other’s shoulders, breathing through our noses. We hugged like you do when someone’s died. It was a kind of grief, I think: I suddenly couldn’t bear to say good-bye. I tried to draw in for the last time the exact sensations of being close to him—the broad solace of his shoulders, the press of his arms around my rib cage, the sweet scent of his skin.
“Six months,” he whispered as we eventually drew apart, his eyes damp, the words wavering.
“Six months.” It had seemed so straightforward when we first talked about it, like an exam we simply had to prep for and sit. But now the prospect felt overwhelmingly daunting. I was dreading having to miss him, go to sleep alone, love him from a distance of thousands of miles.
After we said good-bye, I drove straight from Heathrow to Jools and Nigel’s new flat in Ealing. Jools let me in, and I crawled into their spare room and stayed there. I’d taken a rare week off from Pebbles & Paper, earmarking it purely for eating pizza and ice cream and watching box sets and wallowing. That had always been my plan—seven days of self-pity, before getting straight back into my writing, and making something exciting happen for myself.
