by Holly Miller
“I just hope . . .” Tamsin falters.
My gut twists. “Don’t,” I whisper.
“But it’s been such a long time coming. What if something—”
“It won’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do. I do know.” More slowly, my eyes repeat it for her. I do. I do know.
“How?”
Callie grips my hand. I force my expression into neutral. Today isn’t about me, it’s about Tamsin. “Just trust me, okay?” I say. “Everything will be fine. I promise.”
It seems to be enough. She nods, just once. Uses the tissue Callie’s passed her to dab away stray tears. “I guess this is what happens when you want something too much.”
“No such thing as too much.”
She manages a smile. “So what about you?”
“What about me?”
“Not you. You two. Fancy making me an auntie?”
I keep hold of Callie’s hand but deadpan the question. “Tam, it’s been six months.” Callie’s not even moved in yet officially. But she has told Steve. And molehills of her stuff have started springing up across the flat. I glance at her herbs and houseplants, lined up now on the windowsill. She brought them down yesterday, along with her window box, and the sudden burst of greenery felt like a flurry of fresh air. This week she’s got plans to fill the patio with flowerpots, plant them with summer blooms for the bees and the butterflies.
“Stranger things have happened,” Tamsin says.
They have. And they do. All the time. And then, unexpectedly, a thunderbolt of a thought. One that involves Callie being pregnant, and me rapturous with happiness.
Despite everything that frightens me about love, I can’t help thinking it would be a strange kind of wonderful. To look down at Callie’s belly, and know our baby son or daughter was snugly cocooned inside it.
But “Sisters” is all I say. I cast the idea aside. Bury my face in my mug.
* * *
• • •
After Callie falls asleep that night, I take Murphy for a turn around the block. While I’m out, a message springs to life on my phone. It’s from Melissa. She asks what I’m up to, says it’s been too long. Tells me not to be a stranger.
It’s not the first time. She got in touch at Christmas, then again in February. On both occasions I drafted replies, then failed to press send. Illogically, messaging her to finish things felt almost more cowardly than saying nothing at all.
But now I know that was stupid. I have to message her back. So I do, as neutrally as possible. I fill her in on how things are going with Callie, say it’s probably best we don’t message anymore. I want to be gentle, but I can’t be ambiguous.
I lay it all out, press send, feel ashamed. About the way I treated her, and about how things turned out between us. I hope that, one day, she’ll be able to forgive me.
49.
Callie
In early June, Joel suggests celebrating my official moving-in day with stone-baked pizzas in town. They’re so big we can barely finish them, but we still head down the road to a dessert bar afterward.
“We deserve this after all those boxes,” I assure Joel, over mountainous portions of chocolate torte and cheesecake. “Sorry I had so many. I could have sworn I didn’t move in with that much stuff.”
“No worries. Reckon I’ll be aching in some interesting places tomorrow, though.”
“Me too. I think my muscles have shrunk since the weather’s been nice. I’ve only been topping in the tractor lately—I’ve barely broken a sweat.”
“Sounds all right for a day’s work.”
“Well, yeah. It’s not bad. Enjoy it while it lasts, I guess.”
Joel digs into his cheesecake. He looks handsome as ever tonight in a shirt of light denim, sleeves rolled up to his elbows. “Exactly. Got to be better than winter, surely.”
I mull it over for a moment, shear off a corner of chocolate torte with my spoon. “I don’t know. Winter’s just got something about it. Like . . . there’s beauty in the bleakness.” I smile and shrug, because I can’t really explain it. Most normal people detest winter, with its drab skies and sideways drizzle, the constant urge to shiver. “Winter seems wilder, somehow. And I love that. Windswept landscapes, weather-beaten outposts—they’re my bag.”
Joel grins. “Nothing wrong with being niche.”
Smiling, I describe holidays from my childhood, how Dad and I were always exploring outside, going for hikes, collecting little artifacts en route. “That’s why I was drawn to Chile, I guess. It’s that idea of the great outdoors—being really plugged in to the wilderness.” I go on to tell Joel about how great Latvia looks, enthusing afresh as I recount Liam’s love for it.
“So how come you’ve never done it, Cal?” Joel’s forehead crimps with a frown. “I mean, you’ve got all those books and dreams about the stuff you want to see . . .”
Though I know it’s not intended as a criticism, I shrink back in my seat a little. “It’s just never seemed like the right time. I’m cautious by nature, and my world’s always been fairly . . . safe, even as a kid. And when I did try channeling Grace, doing things a bit differently, it all went horribly wrong.” I think back to my tattoo, to the horrible impulse-fringe disaster.
“No reason not to keep trying.”
“I know. And I would like to go to Chile and see that bird one day, if only to prove Dave and Liam wrong.”
“It’s that rare?”
I draw the spoon from my mouth. “It’s a kind of . . . enigma.” In my mind, a shimmer of memory surfaces. “My dad saw a rare bird once. Me and Mum were at the shops and Dad rang her in a flap, begging her to bring him a camera. So we had to jump in the car and race home to pick one up, then speed half an hour down the road to find him at the lake by the bypass . . . Mum was weaving in and out of traffic . . .” I laugh. “I mean, I’m no birdwatcher, but I was only seven, and it was pretty exciting. I’ve never forgotten it. I felt like I was in some sort of TV police drama.”
Joel holds my eye. “Well,” he says, “maybe it’s time for you to find a rarity.”
“Not now I’ve landed my dream job,” I say firmly. “Traveling’s going to have to wait.”
What I don’t say is that it’s not only about the job, of course. It’s the idea of being parted from Joel—my own wonderful discovery, a longed-for rare find right here on home soil. It would feel so wrong to turn my back on him now. Even if only for a couple of weeks. Even if it was to chase a dream.
* * *
• • •
Back at the flat, I’m fumbling with the keys in the outside door when I feel Joel’s hands around me, his smile on my neck. He mumbles something I don’t catch, so I pull back, ask him what he said, and he tells me I can do anything I want to do, never to think I can’t.
We fall into the hallway together then, and he presses me against the banister, our breath quickening through mouthfuls of kisses. We begin to tug at each other’s clothes, not even bothering to shed our jackets, just unbuttoning and unzipping enough to make it happen. Somehow we find our way down onto the carpet, eyes locked and lustful, bodies trembling with longing. And as we start to move, I feel the full atomic weight of my love for him, as though my heart has just exploded into a thousand shooting stars.
50.
Joel
I’ve agreed to be Callie’s plus-one at the wedding of Hugo, an old friend of the Cooper family.
It didn’t take long to work out why Callie’s parents had swerved it. It turns out moving to Switzerland after university and setting up in private equity hasn’t done too much for Hugo, personality-wise. Twice after we arrived at his Jacobean manor-house reception he called Callie by the wrong name, before asking if I was with catering. (I assumed he was referring to my slightly too-sharp suit. But since he appears to lack even a knock-knock sense
of humor, no one could really be sure.)
Hugo’s new wife, Samantha, seems okay. (If a little clueless, since she’s willingly marrying the douchebag. Good luck to her, I guess.)
My dim view of Hugo dimmed even further when we were seated at a table alongside all of his most ancient relatives. Not one of them is compos mentis, so Callie and I have been left to amuse ourselves. Still, that’s no bad thing. Sorting out our vegetarian food, for example, is proving to be an interesting intellectual challenge.
“There must have been a mix-up. It’s meat.” Callie’s talking through her teeth, staring at the miniature beef Wellington on her plate. Her smile looks like it’s been programmed onto her face.
All day, I’ve not been able to stop looking at her. Wanting to kiss the contours of her collarbone, press my fingers against its smooth hollows. She’s wound her hair into a soft bun, and her dress is a sweeping creation in vivid green. The earrings she’s wearing are leaf-shaped and studded with emeralds, a gift from me once I’d seen her dress.
A couple of weeks ago I walked into the bedroom while she was trying on outfits. This particular one ended up on the floor, a silky shamrock pool, only moments later.
But I really can’t think about that while surrounded by octogenarians. They’re an unpredictable lot. One of them has just started swaying violently out of time to the string quartet, whose current number sounds alarmingly similar to Britney Spears’s “Toxic.”
Callie looks around for a waiter. “I did tell them we were vegetarian, in the questionnaire.”
“Questionnaire?”
“Oh, yes. We had to fill one in, like a job application. And their gift list was positively autocratic.”
I swig my wine. “How many stag dos did you say Hugo had?”
“Three.”
I lean closer. “How many wedding days?”
“Two. This one, and one in Zürich.”
“How many honeymoons?”
“Two. One maxi, one mini.”
I raise my glass. “Let neither of us ever become a Hugo.”
“Cheers to that.”
We chink and drink. “Have I told you yet how incredible you look in that dress, by the way?”
“Six times. Seven, if you include that night it ended up on the floor.”
“I mean it, though. I’m not just brazenly trying to seduce you.”
She slides a hand to my knee. “I don’t mind. Have I told you yet how dapper you look in that suit?”
I smile, thinking back to stumbling suited-up with her into the department-store fitting room last week. As we fumbled with zips and buttons, I half wondered if we might get arrested. But then I very quickly realized I definitely didn’t care.
A waiter appears. “Can I help?”
Callie leans up, whispers to him that we’re vegetarian.
He freezes as if bowled over by her beauty, which I can just about forgive him for. “I’m afraid we received no requests for vegetarian food.”
None? For a wedding reception of over a hundred and fifty guests?
We wait for him to come up with something, but all he does is stare at us. He’s clearly expecting Callie to say it’s not a problem. That we’ll just become carnivores for the day. Or maybe he’s imagining they’re making eye contact.
“Oh” is all she says eventually.
He has the audacity to wink at her before walking away.
“Wow.” I smile. “Something about awkward vegetarians really does it for him.”
Her forehead puckers. “How do you mean?”
I lean forward. “I think he liked you.”
“No, he was just confused.”
Oblivious, as ever, to how beautiful she is.
Callie bends closer to her plate, prods the beef Wellington with her fork. “What do you think we should do?”
“I think we have only one option.”
“Go on.”
I raise my freshly filled wineglass. “Liquid lunch.”
“I think you mean wedding breakfast.”
“Don’t even get me started on why they call it breakfast.”
* * *
• • •
In the end we skip the food entirely and end up being first on the dance floor as soon as the lights go low. Callie’s laughing, leading me by the hand. Her smile is like a bulb in the darkened room.
We dance, we sing, we laugh till we’re dizzy. The perfect, perfect day.
* * *
• • •
At midnight we flee, wired and wild-haired. It’s a clear night, the air potent with summer. Callie’s shoes dangle from her fingers as we cross dampened lawns toward the wing where we’re staying. Her dress swings as she strides over the dew-darkened grass, my palm locked in hers.
I look at the star-pocked sky above our heads, draw the moment to my chest. I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy as I am right now.
Callie’s talking about a book she’s reading on wild swimming by a nature writer she loves. One man’s quest, apparently, to swim his way through the British Isles. “It just makes me want to jump into the nearest river. And it’s the right time of year, isn’t it? You can’t get much closer to nature than actually swimming in it.”
We reach the top of another vast lawn. “Well, now.” I pull her to a standstill. “Look.”
“What?”
“Your ideal opportunity.”
At the bottom of a natural bowl in the lawn is an ornamental lake the color of midnight, inviting as iced lemonade. The air is hot, and so are we: even to me, the idea seems delicious.
“Are you serious?”
Dropping her hand, I shrug off my jacket. Let it fall to the ground, then bend down to untie my shoes.
“Joel, we can’t.” She glances around. “They might escort us off the premises.”
I start unbuttoning my shirt. “Then we’d better be quick.”
She breathes out a laugh. Looks over her shoulder, once. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Okay,” she repeats, suddenly bold. She reaches over her shoulder, tugs down the zip to her dress. Pulling off the straps, she lets it drop like liquid onto the grass. She’s beautiful in bottle-green underwear, her skin marked with maple-brown tan lines from long days spent outdoors. She snakes across to me, takes over unbuttoning my shirt. We’re laughing, my undressing now a team effort.
I kick off my shoes while Callie unzips my trousers, flicks open my belt. And now we’re running hand in hand in our underwear down the sharp slope toward the lake. Kinetic with momentum, neither of us stops before hurling ourselves into the water. It’s deep-sea cold, a smack of liquid nitrogen. As we resurface we’re hooting and gasping for breath, kicking wildly. We splash and thrash, like fish fighting capture. But though we’re drenched and ridiculous and struggling to fill our lungs, our eyes collide and we start laughing again. We laugh so hard, we must be in danger of drowning. So we begin to kick instinctively for shore.
Eventually our hands meet mud. We haul ourselves onto the bank, membranes of pond weed attached to our calves. We’re both winded, unable to speak.
Rolling onto our backs, we look up at the stars. We’re panting like animals, brains and bloodstream recovering from the shock.
I’m first to speak. “How was it for you?”
“Mind-blowing.”
I turn my head. Her hair’s heavy with water, a glistening dark mass on the grass, like seaweed on sand. “Really, that good?”
“We’re going wild swimming,” she says, “you and me. We’ll join a club. Do they have wild-swimming clubs? We could do this every weekend, just us, together.”
I lean over and kiss her, run my hand down her body. Across that beautifully bizarre tattoo that makes me adore her all the more. “You cold?”
She shivers as I unravel a weedy ro
pe from her leg. “Yeah.” Then, “I want this to last forever. This moment, right here, with you. I love you so much.”
My skin shudders and twitches.
She tips her face up to mine. “Don’t let me say anything else.”
I push a wad of wet hair away from her face. “Why not?”
“Because I don’t want to scare you.”
I want to tell her that nothing she says could scare me. But I’m not sure it’s true.
The distant palpitation of the disco bass line drifts over from the Great Hall. A DJ from Italy, apparently, helicoptered in.
Callie slings one hand behind her head. Angles her face to the darkness, like she’s searching the sky for the Milky Way. “Because it is scary. How strongly I feel about you.” She announces this lucidly, voice crisp in the warm air.
“I know.” I bend down to kiss her again. “It scares me too.”
51.
Callie
Next day, the morning sunlight is bleach-hot on my skin, a cutlass through the parted curtains. Joel’s notebook is lying by his hip, so I guess he must have had a dream last night. He doesn’t tell me unless he wants to, and I don’t always ask.
“I’ve found you a club,” Joel whispers.
“Hmm?” My head feels like overkneaded dough. I’ve just about managed to make us both a cup of sachet coffee with scant UHT before climbing back into bed.
“A wild-swimming club. Look.” He props his iPad up in front of me. “They meet every Sunday morning throughout the summer.”
I shut my eyes. “Oh, God. I remember.”
“Do you remember the lake?”
I groan.
“And what you did when we got back to the room?”
My eyes reopen, gunshot-fast.
“When you decided to hang your underwear out of our window to dry?” he prompts.
“Oh, no. Did it . . . ?”
“Oh, yes,” he says, like he’s trying not to laugh. “I went down there in my dressing gown to try to salvage it.”
