The Pieces of You and Me

by Rachel Burton

  At some point during that awful summer after Dad died, Rupert’s father managed to secure him a place at Harvard to study for his PhD. I don’t remember how it happened – it was something that had been rumbling for years and Rupert had always said it would never come to fruition. I don’t know what Anthony Tremayne had told his son to convince him to go in the end; all I do know is that one afternoon in Mum’s apple orchard Rupert had asked me to go to America with him, to leave all our sadness behind. As if it was that easy.

  ‘It wasn’t just your father.’ I looked up at him then, meeting his eyes.

  ‘Who then?’ he asked.

  ‘Melissa,’ I replied. ‘Your sister. I heard that argument you had about me. I heard her tell you that you shouldn’t give Harvard up just because my dad died.’

  I watched as his face crumpled. I knew he’d never known that I overheard that argument.

  ‘Why did you never tell me you’d heard us talking?’ he said. ‘Why did you carry on as though nothing had changed?’

  ‘Why did you?’ I asked in return. Because he hadn’t told me about Harvard when he came back out into the garden after talking to his sister. He told me a week later, by which time my heart was broken and I already believed that I’d lost him forever.

  ‘And then there was Camilla,’ I said, finally saying her name out loud. It sat in the air between us for a moment. I didn’t feel as angry as I thought I would. I was surprised to find that I was still holding his hand.

  He lowered his head again. ‘God, Jessie,’ he said. ‘I didn’t know about Camilla. Do you still not believe me?’

  For a moment I hesitated, torn between my own long-standing suspicions and my more recent, more rational understanding. Everybody except me had believed him when he said he hadn’t known that Camilla was going to Harvard as well. Everybody except me had known his decision had had nothing to do with Camilla.

  Before I had a chance to say anything he carried on speaking, quietly, without looking at me. ‘I never believed you about Camilla,’ he said. ‘I thought you were a bit paranoid to be honest. But when you told me …’ He paused, raising his head slightly. ‘I didn’t know.’

  ‘Rupert?’ I asked. ‘What happened?’ As if I didn’t know what he was going to say.

  ‘Camilla and I had a brief affair when we were both at Harvard,’ he said. It sounded so matter-of-fact. I tried to pull my hand away again but he wouldn’t let me. ‘Very brief,’ he went on, looking me in the eye. ‘She ended it after a few weeks.’

  ‘Really?’ I was too surprised by that to remember how hurt and betrayed I felt at the thought of Rupert and Camilla together. Too surprised to remember that I’d ended our relationship long before and that Rupert had been free to see anyone he wanted.

  ‘Yes really,’ he said. ‘I guess I wasn’t the person she wanted me to be.’ He stopped and I watched as the corner of his mouth twitched into a smile. ‘I guess not everyone finds me irresistible.’

  I smiled despite myself and he dropped my hand, holding my face instead, drawing me towards him.

  ‘All I ever wanted was you, Jessie,’ he said.

  I don’t know how long we sat there, looking at each other. I thought that it would be a good time to mention Dan but I didn’t want to break the spell that was binding us. After a while, as if by unspoken consent, we got up to leave, stepping outside of the warm pub into the summer drizzle outside. He pulled the collar of his jacket up and then snaked his arm around my waist.

  We stopped outside my hotel and turned towards each other.

  ‘You look so tired, Jessie,’ he said. I knew there were dark circles under my eyes that no make-up could cover. I knew I looked more than tired.

  ‘I should go in,’ I replied. ‘I need to get up early and do some work.’

  ‘How long are you staying?’ he asked.

  ‘Until Sunday.’

  ‘Can I cook dinner for you tomorrow? Captain and I can meet you after you’ve done whatever you need to do?’

  I nodded, unable to find the right words as I stepped closer to him, as we wrapped our arms around each other. As he kissed me, nothing else mattered. Camilla and Dan and Harvard and my illness all disappeared into the past where they belonged.

  All that mattered was that he was there, that he was back, and that he was with me.

  … We barely saw each other over the next school year. Studying for our A levels was more full-on than either of us had thought it could be. I was having extra tuition in Latin and Greek and Biology, all of which I was desperate to do well in – and you were never there. Your parents had filled every school holiday with extra study and trips abroad that you had no choice but to partake in. It was as though they’d realised they’d given you too much freedom the previous summer when they left you at home and you’d abused that freedom by spending it with me. I can still remember your father’s face, thin-lipped and white with fury, when he found out about us, when he realised we’d become more than friends.

  I can still remember your face too, defiant, jaw set, when you told him that you loved me and there was nothing he could do about it. I knew then that I was going to be up against this for as long as we were together.

  The summer after we turned seventeen I went to Greece with my school – a trip through Athens and Mycenae and Olympus and other places of great Classical interest. You hadn’t wanted me to go but if I was going to study Classics at university I had to do this trip. It was the first time I stood up to you, telling you that I wasn’t going to stay at home and miss out, that my education was as important as yours. I loved you, but there were some things I had to do, regardless of your opinion.

  By the time I was back from Greece you had left for America with your father. You were gone for nearly a month and it wasn’t until you weren’t there that I realised how much I missed you. We’d had a year of stolen moments – your bedroom on Christmas Day when our parents were asleep after lunch, John’s house when his family were away at Easter, clandestine meetings in the apple orchard. I wanted more time with you but I couldn’t just give in. I couldn’t just let you win.

  You and your father had gone to America to look at Ivy League universities and you’d feigned magnificent indifference to every single one, refusing to let him bully you. You came home more defiant than ever.

  ‘He only wants me to go to America so that I’ll be away from you,’ you said when you came back. ‘I’m not going to let him send me away again.’

  You were determined to stay in Cambridge, sure then that I too would stay, that we’d be at university together. I didn’t dare tell you that I was thinking of going away – of getting out of this city for a while.

  I first met Dan that summer. He came to stay with you after you got back from America, a friend from your school. His father had known your father when they were at school together – the same school you were at then. Dan’s father had died when he was small and you said you felt bad for him. I’d never known you to bring anyone from school home before and I was glad you had someone in your life other than me. Sometimes it felt as though the pressure on me to be perfect was too much.

  Dan was quieter than you, darker, more sullen, and he hung around with us, marring what little time we got to spend together. His father had died suddenly, leaving just enough money for these last two years at boarding school and I liked him. Underneath his quiet, brooding exterior, he had a self-deprecating humour that made me laugh and his slight northern accent from growing up just outside Leeds made him seem more approachable somehow.

  I liked the way he carried a camera with him everywhere, documenting everything. I’d never really seen anyone do that before if they weren’t on holiday. He’d take the films to be developed and we’d look through the photographs together. I could see, even then, how talented he was, but you never seemed very interested in photography.

  For those last few weeks of the summer, the three of us would hang out together by the river during that long hot summer, drinking beer, smo
king – doing things that your parents would have wildly disapproved of and my parents turned a blind eye to. Sometimes Gemma and Caitlin would join us, but their social lives seemed to have escalated that summer as I sat quietly with you whenever I got the chance, and they were always on their way to some party or picnic. Caitlin had already met her future husband and I was barely able to keep up with Gemma’s love life. It felt as though everything was changing.

  That was the summer Camilla started to join us. She had no interest in Dan’s photographs and certainly no interest in talking to me. I would watch the way she looked at you, the way she hung on to your every word, and I would see you puff up a little, enjoying the attention. I knew Dan saw it too and he would try to distract me, talk to me, take my photograph.

  ‘When we’re at Cambridge,’ Camilla would say to you, leaning over to touch you, ‘we’ll have so many opportunities. We can be anyone we want to be.’

  ‘A QC, a CEO or even the Chancellor of the Exchequer,’ you’d reply, smiling at her – a smile I always thought was reserved for me.

  ‘You could be the future Prime Minister,’ she’d continue as she leant against you, and I’d watch you blush even though I knew it wasn’t that side of politics that interested you.

  ‘When we’re at a rubbish university,’ Dan would interrupt as he looked at me, putting on a comical southern accent, ‘we can be stoned all day if we want to be.’ Then he would collapse into giggles. It was cruel, but I was so angry with Camilla, so annoyed with you for flirting with her that I let Dan be cruel. Besides, he was funny. I saw you try not to laugh on more than one occasion.

  I knew you were just joking around, I knew you were excited about the future and I knew I shouldn’t allow Camilla to get under my skin. Whenever I mentioned it, you would laugh softly and tell me I had nothing to worry about. But I always did worry, and when Camilla was there I’d find myself flirting with Dan. I saw the way you looked at me when I did that.

  Part of me was paranoid that summer, scared you’d change your mind about us, that you’d walk away from me and choose Camilla. And it turned out Camilla thought the same.

  One night I overheard her talking to a friend in the pub toilets. I don’t know if they knew I was there or not, but I always assumed they did.

  ‘Boys like Rupert Tremayne don’t stay with girls like Jessica Clarke for long,’ she said. ‘Jessica Clarke’s just a girl for now. I’m a girl for later, and I’m just playing the long game. Just wait and see.’

  I never told you I’d heard her say that. I never told anyone, not even Dan.

  I always had the feeling that Dan didn’t want to go to university, but he must have changed his mind because he ended up in London studying photography and design. He and I became good friends and I never really knew how you felt about that.

  Dan left at the end of that summer, a few days before our final year of school started. After he had gone you found me lying on my back in Mum’s apple orchard, stargazing. You had squeezed through the gap in the fence that we’d made when we were little. The hole was far too small for you really but you made it through somehow, still too lazy to walk around the block.

  You lay down next to me and took my hand.

  ‘Just us,’ you said quietly. Then you rolled on to your front and kissed me. It felt like forever since you’d kissed me.

  ‘I’ve missed that,’ I said.

  ‘Me too,’ you replied. ‘I’m sorry we haven’t had much time alone together this summer. I’m sorry about Camilla.’ You realised how upset I’d been then. ‘Will you be my Jessie again?’ you asked.

  You made love to me in my mother’s apple orchard that night. It was the first time for months and we weren’t scared about getting caught. We were on the cusp of adulthood and it was time to start living the lives we’d been planning together for so long.

  ‘You’re beautiful,’ you said afterwards, running your finger down the bridge of my nose.

  I shook my head, looking away. I didn’t always feel beautiful.

  ‘Jessie, look at me,’ you said, bringing my attention back to you. ‘I know you don’t think you’re as beautiful as the other girls you go to school with, but I’m not interested in anyone but you.’

  Our eyes locked. I loved you so much.

  ‘You’re everything I want,’ you whispered. I felt seven years old and a hundred all at the same time. I believed then that we were written in the stars. That night I didn’t think even Camilla could come between us.

  Because I still believed then that Camilla would be the biggest problem I’d have to contend with …

  17

  JESS

  I phoned Rupert around 5 p.m. on the Saturday afternoon.

  ‘Thank God,’ he said. ‘I’ve been trying to work, and I can’t concentrate on anything. I don’t think I’ll ever finish this book.’

  I smiled to myself. I knew how he felt. My fourth book was going to end up weeks behind schedule at this rate. ‘I’d ask what it’s about,’ I said, thinking about his book instead of my own, ‘but I’d only feel stupid in comparison.’

  ‘You’re not stupid, Jessie,’ he replied. ‘Besides you shift a hell of lot more units than I do.’ I could hear the smile in his voice.

  ‘Where do you want to meet?’ I asked.

  ‘I think Captain and I could do with stretching our legs, so we can come and get you in about half an hour if you like, then walk back here?’ I sensed him hesitate. ‘If that’s OK, if you’re not too tired …’ he went on.

  I tried not to be frustrated. Rupert didn’t even know the full story of my health yet, and already he was driving me crazy. I tried to remember what Caitlin always said when Gemma and Mum were fussing: that it was only because they cared. To think Rupert Tremayne still cared was a good thing. Wasn’t it?

  I told him I was fine, that I could do with some fresh air, that I’d see him in half an hour. I put the phone down and started to get ready. In comparison to the previous day I was fine. I might not have got much work done but I’d slept relatively well in my little hotel room and I’d spent most of the day resting, unable to think about anything except that kiss last night. I tried not to think about all the things Rupert and I needed to talk about before we did any more kissing. Nobody had ever kissed me the way Rupert did. To be fair, other than Rupert and Dan, nobody had ever kissed me. God, that was some admission for a thirty-one-year-old woman.

  He had taken me by surprise the night before when he asked me what went wrong between us. I’d always believed we were fated to be together, but after my father died and Rupert left, I began to stop believing in fate. I began to doubt that there was such a thing as ‘The One’ and I started seeing Dan because I thought falling in love with him would fix things. I thought it would fix me. It took me a long time to realise I didn’t need fixing.

  It’s hard to answer the question of what went wrong. Because in some ways nothing went wrong – we just grew apart. But in other ways everything went wrong and now we had a second chance at making it right. I had no idea he’d been feeling the same, no idea he’d regretted his decisions as well. He’d thrown me off balance when he’d told me that.

  He was waiting outside the hotel with his back to me, a big orange dog sitting at his feet. After the kiss last night, I’d been thinking about him all day. I knew I needed to try to give us a chance. I didn’t know how to tell him that though. I didn’t know what he wanted.

  ‘Hello,’ I said as I walked up to him, touching his arm. He turned to me and smiled that smile that had always been for me. Perhaps he wanted the same thing that I did.

  ‘Meet Captain,’ he said as his dog stood up and turned towards me. ‘Captain, this is Jessie.’

  ‘What breed is he?’ I asked as I crouched down to scratch Captain between his ears.

  ‘A Hungarian Vizsla,’ he replied. ‘I got him as a puppy just after I first moved up here. One of the secretaries in our department breeds them and a litter had just been born when I joined. Somehow she
convinced me to see them and it was love at first sight. They call them Velcro dogs because they’re so clingy and he’s definitely not a fan of being away from me – but then that feeling is mutual.’

  I smiled as I carried on stroking Captain. He was a very loving dog and I could see how someone could fall in love with him. I was just surprised that someone was Rupert. ‘I just can’t see you falling for a puppy,’ I said. ‘You’ve changed a lot in the last ten years if you can fall for a dog so easily.’

  ‘I think I was lonely,’ he replied as I stood up. ‘He caught me when I was vulnerable.’

  I looked back at him then. The Rupert I knew had never been vulnerable. That Rupert had always been self-sufficient.

  As we started walking he took my hand and it felt like the most natural thing in the world. To anyone else we looked like an ordinary couple. It was warmer and drier than the previous day and the sunshine felt nice on my skin. We made a fuss of Captain, chatted about our books.

  ‘I can’t tell you what it’s about,’ I said as he tried to get the plot of the fourth book in my series out of me. ‘How do I know you won’t leak it? I’ve already told you too much!’

  ‘What will you do to me to make sure I stay silent?’ he asked, a glint in his blue eyes.

  ‘You’ll see,’ I replied, smiling. I couldn’t remember smiling that much in a long time.

  We stopped outside a small terraced house on the university side of the city but still within the old Roman walls. ‘We’re here,’ Rupert said.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘My house.’

  ‘You own this?’

  ‘Well, I rent it actually. I really should get around to buying something. I wasn’t sure how long I’d be here.’ He looked at me. ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked, amusement in his eyes.

  ‘You must feel like Gulliver in Lilliput living here.’ I said, trying not to laugh. I hadn’t imagined him living somewhere like this at all, although I wasn’t sure what I had imagined. It was so small and he was so tall and, unless he’d changed beyond recognition, had a tendency to clumsiness.