The Pieces of You and Me

by Rachel Burton

  19

  RUPERT

  The thought of Dan and Jess together was something that had plagued him when they were younger. Jess had always voiced her concerns about Camilla, concerns that he should have taken more seriously – but he had never been able to give a voice to how he felt about Dan and Jess. He had never wanted to. He trusted Jess and Dan was his best friend. He had known his fears were paranoia – brought on by the anxiety of being apart from her, the pressure of his exams.

  But there had been no denying how well they got on, especially once they were both in London together. It had felt to him as though they were always together, but he’d pushed his fear and his jealousy down with all the other things he didn’t want to talk about. Perhaps if he’d talked to Jess about it back then none of this would have happened. Perhaps if he’d given his fears a voice years ago, he wouldn’t have walked away from her for the third time.

  He shouldn’t have shut himself in the bathroom, leaving her lying naked in his bed. He should have stayed and talked about it like an adult. Jess had been free to see anyone she wanted to after he had left for America. He shouldn’t have stormed out of the bedroom like a jealous teenager.

  By the time he had dressed and returned to the bedroom, she had been dressed too and ready to leave.

  ‘It’s probably best if I just go now,’ she’d said.

  ‘Let me walk you back to your hotel.’

  She’d shrugged and had gone downstairs, gathering her bag and shoes from the living room where she’d left them the previous evening. She’d waited then while he’d attached Captain’s lead and opened the front door for her.

  They had walked slowly, letting Captain sniff everything on the way. They hadn’t held hands this time and Jess hadn’t linked her arm with his. They’d barely spoken until they neared Micklegate and Captain had stopped to sniff a bin. Rupert had finally asked her if she was all right.

  ‘I’m fine,’ she’d replied. ‘Just tired.’

  Once again, a wave of concern had washed through him. He knew there was something more she hadn’t told him, something about her health, and he had a feeling it was tied up in what she was trying to tell him about Dan. If he hadn’t walked out of the room, if he hadn’t let petty jealousy get the better of him, if he’d just listened to her, she might have felt able to open up to him. They had been on the verge of something last night when they spoke about the night before her father’s funeral. Had he ruined that progress with his overreaction to her relationship with Dan?

  His concern must have shown in his face because she repeated herself.

  ‘I’m fine, honestly,’ she’d said.

  ‘I shouldn’t have walked out of the bedroom. I should have stayed and listened. Why don’t we get a cup of tea and talk about this?’

  But she’d shaken her head. ‘It’s best if I just go. Last night …’ She’d trailed off.

  ‘Last night was wonderful,’ he’d said, quietly. ‘But there’s so much we haven’t talked about properly and perhaps we should do before we let that happen again.’

  He had watched as something in her face changed. It was infinitesimal, but he’d noticed it. A look of disappointment, as though she had misread what he was saying for regret.

  ‘It’s not that I don’t want it to happen again, Jessie,’ he’d said. ‘You wouldn’t believe how much. But I want to get to know you again – and I don’t know if you want that too.’

  ‘I do, it’s just …’ She’d hesitated.

  He had reached out and touched her arm, Captain straining on the lead behind him. ‘It’s OK, I don’t want to push you into anything. Like I said at Gemma’s wedding, if you don’t want this I completely understand.’

  ‘Ten years is a long time,’ she’d said, finally meeting his gaze. ‘And so much has happened to both of us since then. I don’t know if we can go back.’

  She’d left then, and he’d stood with Captain watching as she crossed the road towards her hotel to collect her bags.

  He stood for a moment, still watching the road where she’d disappeared from view, before turning on his heel and going back the way he came. She would be on a train to London within half an hour, going back to her life and out of his.

  But he didn’t want that to happen. Last night they had danced around a subject they had never talked about before – Ed’s funeral – and this morning she had almost told him something important, he was sure of it.

  She had said that she didn’t know if they could go back and he agreed. But perhaps they could go forward; perhaps they could start again from where they were now.

  And perhaps if he was completely honest with her, if he laid all his cards on the table and told her about what had happened at Harvard, she would trust him enough to tell him the truth.

  … Your parents at least were relieved when I told them I wasn’t staying in Cambridge with you. All that money on your expensive education wouldn’t be wasted after all if I wasn’t going to distract you through your degree.

  I could have gone to university anywhere I wanted, but to me London seemed the perfect distance to get some perspective while also knowing that you were only a short train ride away. My father supported my decision as well. He thought eschewing Oxbridge for the less stuffy Camden Lock was a good idea. He’d gone to university in London himself in the late Sixties and was always full of stories about what a wonderful time he’d had.

  We proved to be more of a distraction to each other than your father would have liked. We saw each other every weekend, alternating between Cambridge and London for three years, mostly at your insistence. You were so loyal – you never once missed a weekend, not even when you had the flu. You made me feel guilty for wishing, just once, that I could get some time to myself.

  I looked sometimes at Dan and Gemma, both in London at the same time, at the freedom they had to be who they wanted to be – to see who they wanted, to do as they pleased.

  Maybe I envied that a little.

  Maybe that was what drew me to the university newspaper. It was something separate from you, from us, something that neither of us had done before. I felt as though writing for the newspaper could be something that was just mine, just for a couple of years. I didn’t know at the time that I would come to love it more than I loved Classics. I didn’t realise that I would be good at it and I certainly had no idea that I would want to turn writing into a career.

  All I wanted was to have something that was just mine. It was the first time I started to understand, I think, that happiness and contentment don’t come from other people. I couldn’t rely on you or Gemma or even Dan to make me happy for the rest of my life. I needed to find that within myself and when I started to write, I started to understand how much I needed that …

  20

  JESS

  ‘Are you going to answer that?’ my mother asked on Monday morning as my phone rang for the third time in an hour.

  ‘Not right now,’ I replied.

  ‘I’m assuming it’s Rupert. What happened at the weekend, love?’

  It had been late by the time I’d got back to Highgate the previous evening and Mum had been out at one of her clubs or meetings – I couldn’t always keep track of her social life. I had gone straight to bed and hadn’t told Mum about my weekend in York but I’d lain awake going over everything Rupert and I had said to each other, trying to understand how the weekend had gone from something that felt so right to him shutting himself in the bathroom away from me.

  It was the mention of Dan that had done it and the fact that he and I had a past. I’d always suspected that Rupert had been as jealous of Dan as I had been of Camilla and the way he had looked at me when I told him about Dan had confirmed that.

  ‘I didn’t walk out of the pub when he told me about Camilla,’ I said to Mum once I’d reluctantly updated her. ‘So I don’t understand why he walked out of the room when I told him about Dan.’ I didn’t tell her it was the bedroom that he’d walked out of. I didn’t think she needed
to know about that.

  She sat for a moment looking out of the window, tapping her bottom lip with her index finger.

  ‘How were things afterwards?’ she asked eventually. ‘Did you speak again after he walked out of the room?’

  ‘He walked me back to my hotel. He realised he’d overreacted I think, but it felt as though it was too late by then.’

  ‘Why?’ Mum asked.

  ‘Please don’t do the Five Whys today.’ My parents had both done this all the time when I was growing up. They questioned every decision I ever made – not because they wanted to control my decisions as Rupert’s parents had a habit of doing, but to make sure I was making my decisions for the right reasons. It was a technique known as ‘The Five Whys’ and it was something Dad had learned years ago at a workshop. It dug into all your reasoning until you got to the root cause. It annoyed me beyond reason as a teenager, even though it did always work. But I wasn’t in the mood for it right now.

  ‘I’m just wondering if you’re giving up too quickly, if you’re falling at the first hurdle. It was never going to be easy.’

  ‘It feels as though so much has happened and I still don’t think he’s told me the full story of why he came back from America.’

  ‘But you haven’t told him the full story about your health,’ Mum pointed out. ‘Why is that?’

  ‘Mum …’ I began.

  ‘It’s just one why, I promise. I’m curious, why are you so reluctant to tell him?’

  I sighed. ‘Because he always used to tell me I was extraordinary, and I just don’t feel it anymore. Everything feels like such a struggle some days.’

  ‘Two books that are both critically acclaimed and selling well isn’t enough for you?’ Mum said wryly, arching an eyebrow. ‘Besides, I wonder how extraordinary Rupert feels these days. Real life catches up with us all in the end.’

  ‘Everything is so different now.’

  Mum leaned over and patted my hand. ‘Of course it is,’ she said. ‘Ten years have passed. If you’d been together for ten years everything would be different too. But you have to ask yourself if you want a second chance with him. And if you do, you have to tell him the truth.’

  As if on cue, my phone started ringing again. Rupert’s name flashed up on the screen.

  ‘Answer it,’ Mum said, standing up. ‘I’ll leave you to it.’

  He started talking as soon as I picked up, as though he was desperate to get the words out before he lost courage or before I hung up.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I overreacted when you told me about Dan. I know I’ve already said that but I don’t want this, whatever it is between us, to disappear. I don’t want us to walk away from each other again. I know there was more to what you were trying to tell me yesterday and I know I should have waited for you to feel you were able to trust me. And …’ He stopped suddenly, as though he’d run out of breath.

  ‘Hello,’ I said. I smiled to myself; I couldn’t help it. Perhaps he did still make me feel extraordinary.

  ‘Hello,’ he replied. ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘I’m OK. What were you going to tell me then?’

  ‘There’s something I haven’t been honest with you about,’ he said. ‘Something that happened at Harvard.’

  ‘I had a feeling you were going to say that,’ I replied.

  ‘Can I see you?’ he asked.

  I hesitated, torn in two again by my desire to see him, to touch him, to have him near me, and the feeling of dread inside me that we might just be setting ourselves up for a fall.

  ‘I know I keep saying that I understand if you don’t want to see me,’ he went on. ‘But this isn’t something I want to tell you over the phone.’

  I still didn’t say anything. I knew he had been keeping something from me, but I hadn’t really thought about the consequences of him telling me. If he told me what happened at Harvard, I would have to tell him what happened after I had glandular fever. I’d have to tell him how much my life had changed.

  ‘It’s OK,’ he said, breaking the silence. ‘I get it.’

  ‘No,’ I replied quickly, not wanting to let him go. ‘No, I’d like to see you again. Can you come to London?’ I had to do this; I had to be brave. If it meant we hurt each other again then we would have to live with that, but surely that was better than spending a lifetime wondering ‘what if?’

  ‘I could come this weekend,’ he said. ‘As long as someone will look after Captain.’

  *

  He arrived on Friday afternoon. Mum opened the door to him, greeting him as though it was the return of the prodigal son, except she made afternoon tea in the garden rather than killing the fatted calf. For an hour or so we sat amongst Mum’s roses, and everything felt perfect as the three of us chatted and laughed and reminisced. I tried not to think about what was to come.

  ‘Well, I must get on,’ Mum said, stacking up the tea things to take inside. I had no idea what she had to get on with. She usually spent Friday afternoons doing nothing at all. I wanted to grab her hand and make her stay.

  When she left, Rupert came and sat in the space she’d vacated on the bench next to me. I felt my breath tighten in my throat and the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end as his hand brushed mine. I looked at him and smiled in what I hoped was an encouraging way.

  ‘Talk to me,’ I said.

  21

  RUPERT

  ‘Do you ever wish you could go back in time?’ he asked.

  ‘Sometimes,’ she replied. ‘Sometimes I’d like to go back to before Dad died, but knowing what I know now, and spend more time with him.’

  ‘Maybe going back only works if we take the knowledge of the future with us,’ he said. ‘Otherwise we’d make the same mistakes all over again.’

  ‘After I saw you in York at Gemma’s hen night I got out all my old journals and photographs from back then. I’d forgotten so much – or at least I’d tried not to remember. So much of it was tied up with Dad’s death.’

  ‘I know,’ he replied. Everything about that summer was tied up with Ed’s death. It was why he had never known how to fix things, or even if he could fix things. It was why he hadn’t come home, why he’d never tried to contact Jess again, not even through Gemma.

  ‘That summer when Dan stayed with you – I’d forgotten so much about that.’

  ‘It was 2003,’ Rupert said. ‘The hottest summer since the Seventies.’

  She nodded. ‘That’s where I’d go back to if I could,’ she said. ‘But I’d do it differently of course.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Where would you go back to?’ she asked.

  ‘Trinity Quad,’ he said without hesitation. ‘The afternoon I asked you to marry me.’

  She laughed. ‘That was a good afternoon,’ she said.

  ‘Sunday should have been a good afternoon too. I shouldn’t have …’

  ‘Shh,’ she interrupted. ‘You’ve already apologised and I do understand. Talk to me properly.’

  ‘I didn’t leave Harvard because I was homesick,’ he said, knowing that if he didn’t tell her now he never would. ‘I left because I had to.’

  Jess stared at him. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked.

  He knew he had to tell her, but he couldn’t stand to disappoint her. What had happened at Harvard had changed him intrinsically and he couldn’t guarantee that it wouldn’t happen again. She needed to know. He also knew that if he wanted her to open up to him, if he wanted her to tell him her story, then he had to be honest with her.

  ‘I loved being away from Cambridge at first,’ he began. ‘It meant that I wasn’t confronted by memories of you and Ed every day.’ He stopped, rubbing his eyes.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said quietly. ‘I thought cutting contact was the right thing to do.’

  He looked at her then, reaching over to touch her gently. He always found himself wanting to touch her, to make sure she was real, that he wasn’t imagining her being there. ‘I know you did. I get it. I know you
had so much else to deal with. But I still missed you, and I missed your dad too. At first I was OK. I had so much going on in my life, I could mask my feelings. I was at the start of my career, I had a lot to focus on.’

  ‘Your PhD?’

  He’d nodded. ‘It was exciting and afterwards I got offered a place as an associate professor for three years. They said they’d put me on the fast track tenure programme. I jumped at the chance. It was an amazing opportunity and it would mean being away from home for another three years, and maybe forever.’

  He stopped again, and Jess reached for his hand, taking it in hers.

  ‘I don’t know what happened,’ he said eventually. ‘I just started to feel so sad all the time, so tired, as though there was this huge weight on my shoulders. I think everyone thought I was homesick, but Cambridge was the last place I wanted to be. My work suffered, my post-doctorate was a mess – I kept changing my mind about the subject – and in the end one of the senior lecturers said I needed to talk to someone. You know how keen they all are about therapy over there.’

  ‘I can’t imagine you in therapy,’ she said. He smiled. He knew how buttoned up he could be.

  ‘Talking about it all was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done and I don’t even known if it helped. Maybe it did in the long term, but at the time it made me feel even more helpless. I was put on medication, but it made me feel as though I was wrapped up in cotton wool. I lost my focus – my lectures were rubbish, my first book had to be completely rewritten. At the end of the three years they told me there was no funding for my position, that I wasn’t going to get tenure.’

  ‘God, Rupert.’ She looked stunned by what he had told her. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  His eyes flicked away from her. He didn’t say anything.

  ‘You were ill too,’ she said softly, as though to herself.

  He looked at her for a moment and wondered if she knew she’d spoken out loud. It felt as though she understood what he was trying to tell her, as though she wasn’t going to judge him or see him as a failure like his parents had. She was likening his experience to her own in some way, which just confirmed his suspicions that she had been more sick than she had told him.