‘The thing is,’ she said at last, ‘you and Rupert are destined to be together – that’s clear to me.’ She said it in the manner of a clairvoyant in a caravan at a fairground, asking me to cross her palm with silver. ‘Things might not be great between you at the moment and this seems to have come as a shock to you both – although I have to be honest, you should have seen it coming.’
I shrugged. Pen could be blunt but it was a fair point. We’d even talked about the chances of bumping into Dan and convinced ourselves it wouldn’t happen.
‘Rupert and Dan were friends once, right?’ she asked.
I nodded. ‘We were all friends once,’ I said.
‘You have to take yourself out of the equation here,’ she replied. ‘Because of your history with Dan.’
‘They were best friends at school,’ I said.
‘I think they can be friends again,’ she replied, as though it were that easy. ‘You’ve already told me that you think Rupert is lonely, but that’s quite a big thing to admit, you know.’
I thought about how Rupert had told me he had got too used to being on his own and I thought about the conversation we’d had in his parents’ garden last September when I told him we were a team. It didn’t feel as though we had been acting like a team for weeks.
‘The thing is,’ I said, voicing something I was almost too scared to admit, ‘seeing Dan again has made me remember how ill I was and how ill I could be again. I …’ I stopped, blinking back the tears that had made an annoying appearance.
Pen reached over and took my hand. ‘You need to talk to Rupert,’ she said. ‘You both need to let what happened in the past go. As an old friend once said “the past is the past” and if letting it go means making amends with Dan for whatever reason, then so be it.’
Sometimes I thought Pen was the most sensible person I knew.
30
RUPERT
The house was empty and cold when he got home. He turned on the lamps and had just got the fire going when Jess returned.
‘It looks cosy in here,’ she said. He looked up to see her leaning on the doorframe rubbing her hands together, her cheeks flushed from the cold. It was the first time he’d seen her since he walked away from her and Dan in town. He knew how badly he’d reacted, how awful it must have looked. He was ashamed by how jealous he had felt. He had promised Jess he wouldn’t let her history with Dan come between them and he’d broken that promise. He knew he had no right to tell Jess what to do and he had to talk about this with her before it was too late.
‘Where have you been?’ she asked.
‘College mostly, walking, thinking.’ He paused, looking at her. ‘I’m so sorry, Jessie, I should never have slept down here last night.’
‘No, you shouldn’t,’ she said with the steely determination of the woman he used to know. He felt that he hadn’t seen enough of that version of her recently. ‘I haven’t done anything wrong.’
‘I know,’ he replied, walking over to her.
She moved towards him and for a moment he thought she was going to come to him. He wanted to feel her arms around him, the warmth of her embrace, even though he knew he didn’t deserve it. But instead she walked past him to sit on the sofa. She didn’t look at him.
‘What happened yesterday?’ she asked. ‘Why were you so rude to Dan? You used to be friends.’
‘Used to be,’ he replied. It had been a long time since he’d thought of Dan Kelly as a friend, but he didn’t really know why. They hadn’t argued or fallen out and sometimes Rupert missed what they used to have. He’d walked away from a lot of things when he’d gone to Harvard and he’d never found that kind of friendship with anyone else. Most people he knew were no more than colleagues.
‘What happened?’ she asked.
‘Seeing him again made me remember how I used to feel when I saw you two in London together.’ He stopped, pinching the bridge of his nose. ‘I don’t know, you seemed to get on better with each other than you did with me.’
‘That’s ridiculous,’ she said, but he barely heard her.
‘I can’t bear the thought of him being with you. I’m sorry, I know I said I was OK with it.’
She sighed and he watched her rest her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands.
‘I wanted a fresh start when we met again,’ she said. ‘I didn’t want to be defined by my past or by my illness. I wanted to look forward and not back. But seeing Dan again has dredged up all these old memories of being ill that I don’t want to think about.’
He walked over to the sofa and sat down next to her, almost touching.
‘How are you feeling?’ he asked quietly. He should have asked her that question more often. He had promised Caro that he would look after her.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Honestly, I haven’t felt that great since we got back from London. This endless winter isn’t helping.’
He reached for her then, taking her hand.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he said. ‘Is there anything I can do?’ He felt helpless, as though he was losing her.
‘Talk to me,’ she replied. ‘Talk to me about how you’re feeling – don’t just walk away. Dan seems to have dredged up unwanted memories for both of us, but it won’t help if we bottle it up.’
‘I do want to be friends with him again,’ he admitted. ‘I’ve kind of missed him. I wonder sometimes what would have happened if I’d stayed in touch with him.’
‘Why didn’t you?’ she asked. ‘I think he was always a bit hurt by that.’
‘I don’t know,’ he said. But he thought he did know. He hated how she knew things about Dan that he didn’t and he didn’t want to admit that the reason he hadn’t stayed in touch with anyone was because he couldn’t bear to hear about Jess when he wasn’t with her. He’d only stayed in touch with Gemma on the off chance Jess would change her mind. ‘But I do know that I love you and I’m not going to let you go.’
… I moved in with Dan on your twenty-second birthday. I wanted to focus on moving on with my life, but I wondered what you were doing and who you were doing it with. I wondered how you felt and how your studies were going. I wanted to talk to you so desperately. It was the first birthday that we hadn’t spoken to each other since we learned to talk; our birthdays were the one time of year when you’d phone me from boarding school if they didn’t fall at half-term. Even as I was moving my worldly belongings into another man’s flat, all I could think of was you.
In the end it had been circumstance that made me move in with Dan. After weeks of sitting on the fence unable to make up my mind, Rich had announced he was moving out to live with his girlfriend.
‘I didn’t know you had a girlfriend,’ I said.
He grinned at me. ‘I don’t, I’m just sick of answering the phone for you.’
I chucked a cushion at him. ‘Seriously, we’ve been living together for nearly three years. Why have I never met her?’
‘Well, I only met her just before Christmas and you’re never here these days.’
I was always at Dan’s flat anyway, so it was a natural progression to move in with him and I couldn’t afford to stay on at Mornington Crescent on my own.
‘It’ll be all right,’ Rich said when I told him I was moving out too. He’d obviously noticed my hesitancy. ‘It’ll help you get over him.’ We’d never really spoken about you since you left but it was always there in the air between us, that I needed to get over you, to move on, to move in with Dan. I felt I was doing what everybody wanted – even Mum thought it was a good idea.
I just wasn’t sure if it was what I wanted.
Dan lived in a two-bedroom apartment just off Kentish Town Road. It wasn’t the most salubrious location but it was a really lovely flat. He was working at a photographer’s studio and the flat belonged to the studio owner. He’d managed to get a relatively low rent on the place because it was still used to take interior shots for advertising clients. Dan said they hardly ever needed to use it these days though
. Somehow Dan managed to convince the studio to never use the flat for photo shoots again, but still got his low rent. That was typical of Dan. He could always charm his way into and out of every situation.
I tried to settle down into a new routine. I’d finished my post-graduate journalism course by then and had started my cadetship at The Ham & High. On paper it was everything I’d ever wanted but in practice it felt awkward, like forcing two jigsaw pieces that didn’t fit. I found myself going to Mum’s flat after work rather than back to Dan’s, which I still couldn’t think of as home.
‘You’ll never settle in if you’re always here with me,’ Mum said, kissing the top of my head. ‘I know how hard it can be, but you have to let yourself move on. You can’t sit around waiting for Rupert forever.’
Gradually, as time went on, it turned out that Mum and Gemma and Rich were right. Dan did help me to get over you. Eventually I stopped comparing him to you, I stopped pretending he was you and I started to see him for who he really was. He was so different to you, so calm, so laid-back and he was exactly what I needed – he was a counterfoil to your stress and your perfectionism. A Yin to your Yang.
One day I realised that I had stopped thinking about you all the time, that Dan had become the centre of my world. I knew I would never stop loving you, but I stopped wondering what you were doing all the time and started to enjoy my life. I opened my heart and realised I could love more than one person.
And I started to live a life without you.
FEBRUARY 2018
31
JESS
‘You should do the pepper pot thing,’ Gemma said.
‘What pepper pot thing?’
‘You know, from Home & Away.’
‘Gemma, I haven’t watched Home & Away for years.’
I could sense Gemma rolling her eyes on the other end of the phone. ‘Whenever anyone in Summer Bay has an argument Marilyn sits them down at the table and gives them a pepper pot – whoever is holding the pepper pot gets to speak and can’t be interrupted. You can’t speak until it’s your turn with the pepper pot.’
‘Marilyn is still in Home & Away?’ I asked.
‘Never mind that. You and Rupert should do the pepper pot thing.’
‘It sounds like a terrible idea, Gem,’ I said.
‘Mike and I do this whenever we have a disagreement or find something we’re not communicating about properly. It works, I promise.’
On the surface everything seemed to be going well between Rupert and me. We spent our evenings together, talked about our days, shared jokes, watched TV, went out to eat whenever I felt well enough. But I couldn’t deny there was something missing. I wanted him to open up to me about the past and how he was feeling about Dan. After Rupert had admitted he might be willing to see Dan again I’d hoped we could talk about it but Rupert started to close down on me again. I was frustrated by it all and had started to blame myself for pestering him. Perhaps it was better if I left him alone, if I left the whole subject alone – but deep down I knew that Pen was right, that the three of us needed to talk, to put the past to rest.
It had occurred to me that perhaps Rupert and I could see Dan separately – that perhaps that would allow us to all move on more easily. But I hadn’t mentioned that to Rupert yet and it wasn’t something I wanted to take into my own hands. Not just yet anyway.
I was starting to get really frustrated about the house situation too. I’d shown him all kinds of different houses online – I’d even started a bit of not-very-subtle packing – but Rupert hadn’t shown any enthusiasm. That feeling of low barometrical pressure had descended on him again and I wasn’t sure what had brought it on. Maybe it was something I was going to have to learn to live with, just as he would have to learn to live with my aching joints and perpetual exhaustion.
I’d eventually told Gemma how I was feeling and she had come up with this truly ludicrous pepper pot scheme. It might work for her and Mike, but I just couldn’t see Rupert going along with something that was advised on an Australian soap opera. In fact, I could already imagine the look of scorn on his face if I mentioned it.
‘Do you have an alternative plan?’ Gemma asked.
‘Well, no, but …’
‘Then try it. What have you got to lose?’
‘I just can’t see that sitting with a pepper pot in his hand is going to make Rupert open up to me.’
‘Well, something’s got to,’ Gemma replied. ‘Rupert is the most uptight person I’ve ever known, but somehow and for some reason you make him relax. He has to talk to you if he wants your relationship to work.’
‘Maybe I’m scared of the answer to that.’
Gemma exhaled loudly. ‘If he doesn’t want this to work I’ll eat my hat.’
‘Do you think so?’
‘I know so.’ She paused for a moment, but I could tell even from two hundred miles away that she had something else to say.
‘Listen, Jess, there’s something else.’
I knew it. ‘Yes?’
‘Closure.’
‘Really?’ I replied unenthusiastically. ‘Closure for what?’
‘Closure with Dan. You used to love him and I know how upset you were when he left.’
‘I told him to go.’
‘That’s as may be,’ Gemma said. ‘But it can’t have been easy, not after what had happened with Rupert.’
I’d been trying not to think about it, trying not to dwell on how Dan leaving had brought up everything I’d felt about Rupert again. And I’d been trying not to think about how Dan coming back into my life again had made me feel all kinds of conflicting emotions.
‘Jess?’ Gemma said, interrupting my thoughts.
‘Oh God, Gemma, why did Dan have to turn up here too?’
‘I don’t know,’ she replied. ‘You believe in fate – you tell me.’
I hesitated. Did I still believe in fate? ‘I do believe in fate but I also think we have free will to make decisions,’ I said. ‘But that we often end up where we were meant to be anyway. I sometimes think that free will is where we make our biggest mistakes.’
‘But if you and Rupert are fated to be together then Dan doesn’t really matter. You just need to see him to move on.’
‘You’re fated to be a hopeless romantic,’ I said with a smile.
‘Do you still have feelings for Dan?’ she asked quietly.
‘I love Rupert,’ I replied, avoiding the question.
‘That’s not what I asked and that’s exactly why I think you need closure.’
‘I’ll think about it,’ I said.
As I put the phone down I started to wonder if what Gemma had said was right. Did I need closure? Rupert had said that he felt as though our future depended on coming to terms with the past – was closure what he needed too?
Was seeing Dan again what we needed, or would it make everything worse?
32
RUPERT
She was sitting at the kitchen table with the fancy Italian pepper grinder in front of her when Rupert got home from work. He was late, of course. He knew that he’d started coming home late all the time and he knew Jess hated it, even if she didn’t say anything. He suspected she thought he was purposely trying to avoid her, to avoid the difficult conversations she kept expecting from him. That was partly true. He wanted to talk about Dan and about moving house – but somehow he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. He felt lost and sad and he was terrified that he was feeling the same as he had when he was at Harvard. He often found himself sitting at his desk at college having completely lost track of time.
‘What are you doing with that pepper grinder?’ he asked as he came into the kitchen. She didn’t reply, and he walked over to the kitchen sink and poured himself a glass of water. He turned to look at her. ‘Did you walk Captain?’
She nodded, and he felt an immediate stab of guilt. He shouldn’t be expecting her to walk his dog every day just because he was losing track of time and coming home late. He could see th
at she wasn’t very well at the moment, but he hadn’t known what to say about that either, despite the promises he’d made to both himself and Caro. The seemingly never-ending northern winter was taking it out of her – it was taking it out of him too if he was honest; this was a bad winter even by Yorkshire standards. She was trying to hide it from him, probably because she didn’t want to worry him, just as he was trying to hide his feelings from her. He wondered why they were still hiding so much from each other and pretending everything was all right when they both knew it wasn’t. They’d been here before, after Ed died.
He sat down opposite her. ‘Are you OK?’ he asked, even though he knew the answer.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Not really.’ He could see tears in her eyes, but at least she was finally being honest. ‘I’m exhausted, Rup, I can’t keep going on like this. I don’t have the energy to look after Captain as well as everything else. I’m sorry.’
He reached across the table towards her, taking her hand. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve been so selfish. I’ll try to come home earlier.’ He had to pull himself together – Jess needed him.
‘It’s not just that,’ she went on. ‘When you are here you seem so distant. You don’t want to talk about anything. You don’t want to talk about Dan or the future or a new house.’
He didn’t say anything. As usual he didn’t know what to say. He felt as though he wanted to cry as well. He closed his eyes.
‘Do you care about our relationship at all?’ she asked quietly, pushing the pepper grinder to one side.
He looked at her then, surprised by the question. Of course he cared. For a moment he couldn’t believe she’d had to ask, and then he thought about the last few weeks, how he’d been behaving. He felt as though he was wrapped in cotton wool again, as though he couldn’t do anything even if he wanted to. He felt swamped by inertia, suffocating in it. He couldn’t sleep, which was how he knew Jess couldn’t either. Often when she woke at 3 a.m., looking for painkillers despite pretending she wasn’t in pain, he was lying awake too, unable to switch off his brain. Most nights he pretended to sleep because he couldn’t bring himself to have a conversation with her.
The Pieces of You and Me Page 17
