The Life We Almost Had

by Amelia Henley

  ‘That sounds interesting.’

  ‘It’s a means to an end. I’ve been saving to see the world and working there has meant I can plan it all out properly, and get a staff discount. I leave next month.’

  I fixed my smile in place. There was no reason for me to be disappointed. It’s not like I’d see him again after this holiday, but melancholy settled heavily in my stomach once I knew that we wouldn’t even be in the same country.

  I stretched my mouth into a smile. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Thailand, Italy, China. India. Everywhere. I want to see it all. Everything. I’m a frustrated Christopher Columbus. Tell me something about you, Anna Adlington.’

  ‘I can play flute up to Grade 4.’ I watched his face for his reaction. ‘You look underwhelmed. Okay, you’ll be blown away by this one.’

  Adam drummed the table with his fingertips.

  ‘I know the offside rule,’ I said triumphantly.

  ‘I am impressed!’

  I knew he would be; he’d mentioned he loved football. We continued chatting about the superficial. The things that are easy to share. But even then there was something more to us. Something deeper. An affinity I was trying so hard to ignore. My rational mind kept pointing out that he was leaving in a month.

  This is not a date.

  ‘I want to show you something,’ Adam said after we’d split the bill. We left the restaurant and headed away from our resort past various bars. Vendors attempting to entice us inside with promises of half-price pitchers and cheap cocktails.

  ‘Come, come. Photo. Photo.’ A man ushered us over to a lonely parrot perched inside a cage too small for him to spread his wings. A cage whose stench made my stomach roil. ‘You pay. I take picture.’

  ‘No.’ How could anyone use an animal this way? The bird had half of his red and green feathers missing. A chain around his ankle. He looked so miserable.

  ‘I’ll have a photo taken,’ Adam said.

  I watched silently. Judgementally. I had thought Adam was kind. The man placed the bird on Adam’s arm and retreated, raising the camera in front of his face.

  It was so quick. I barely registered what Adam was doing as his fingers worked at the chain around the bird’s ankles. There was a flapping of wings and a happy squawk as the bird rose into the darkening sky.

  Adam grabbed my hand and we ran – the photographer’s angry voice chasing us.

  A stitch burned in my side by the time Adam led me down a narrow walkway where I could have stretched out my hands and touched either of the whitewashed buildings that flanked us. At the end, there was a cove guarded by a chain fence. A smattering of padlocks clamped to the links.

  ‘Love locks!’ I rushed forward, delighted, tilting the padlocks towards the moon to read the names, the initials, the declarations of undying love. It felt good that, despite being dumped, there was still a small ember smouldering inside of me that believed in romance.

  Adam strolled onto the beach and by the time I reached him, he’d shrugged off the shirt that had hung open over a T-shirt. He spread it over the sand before gesturing for me to sit. I slipped off my sandals and dug my toes into the damp sand. For a while we sat, listening to the crash of the waves rolling inland until we had caught our breath.

  ‘That was amazing,’ I said when the burning in my chest had subsided.

  ‘Maybe not,’ Adam said. ‘The bird is used to being given food and water. Being chained up. There’s a chance he might not survive in the wild but I reckon he’d prefer to take his chances than spend the rest of his days in that small filthy cage. Besides, he can always come back if he wants. If you love someone, set them free and all that.’

  I found it impossible to let things go; I was still checking my ex’s Facebook umpteen times a day. Once, when I was younger, I had a cat named Pugwash. He grew old. Sick. When I was sixteen, my mum told me that the kindest thing to do would be to put him to sleep but I shouted and I cried and I wouldn’t agree to it. For days afterwards I watched with shame as Pugwash limped around the house he’d once raced around with ease. My guilty ears listened to his sad mewing as he failed to make the jump onto the windowsill where he liked to watch the traffic. I knew it was best for him. I knew. And yet I still couldn’t envisage life without him. At the end of that week I came home from school and found Mum had made the decision for me. Letting him go when she knew I wouldn’t. Knew I couldn’t.

  ‘So you’re a regular hero,’ I said. ‘Saving women from drowning. Rescuing birds.’

  ‘Oh, I’m far from perfect,’ Adam said. ‘I leave the toilet seat up. Toast crumbs all over the worktop. I dip the butter knife into the Marmite.’

  ‘Urrgh, Marmite. You’re right. You’re not perfect.’

  Our laughter died away and there was a change in the atmosphere as Adam asked, ‘So, Anna Adlington, who has made me laugh more tonight than I have in months, who are you, really?’

  I didn’t know how to answer that. Who was I?

  ‘I… I don’t know anymore.’ As a wife I would have been someone. But now self-doubt and self-loathing had filled the space where my confidence used to be. I felt the constriction in my throat as my words thinned to nothing. Adam gave me a moment to compose myself before he quietly said, ‘I didn’t meant to upset you.’

  ‘You didn’t.’ I gave a hollow laugh. Part of me wanted to tell him everything, but the sting of being jilted was too sharp. Too raw. And there was a part of me, a bigger part, that still felt it was all my fault and I was scared to admit that to him. Afraid that if he saw the unlovable part of me that I was trying to keep hidden – the part that made it easy to cast me adrift – he would run away too.

  ‘He’s a fool. Whoever let you go.’ He read my silence.

  ‘If by “let me go” you mean dumped me two weeks before my wedding, so I had to come on my honeymoon with my best friend, who pretended to be my wife to save me the embarrassment of explaining it all to the hotel… Anyway, you said if you loved someone—’

  ‘Did he love you?’

  ‘No.’ I wrapped my arms around myself, forming a physical barrier to keep all my emotions inside.

  I was unlovable.

  ‘Did you love him?’ Adam’s probing questions were soft and rounded rather than pointed and sharp. It didn’t take long to consider my answer.

  ‘He was there during a difficult time. My dad… his heart…’

  Adam gently placed his hand on my arm. He didn’t tell me I didn’t have to talk about my dad the way most people did, hoping I’d change the subject, uncomfortable with my raw emotion, avoiding eye contact and shifting away.

  ‘I felt I needed him after that and… I think… partly… I wanted to be married. To have the security my parents had, to have someone look at me the way my dad looked at my mum. I think I knew on some level when he proposed that he didn’t love me, but I figured I’d never love anyone as much as I loved my dad anyway so… I was still grieving… am still grieving. It’s been nearly two years now.’ I hadn’t wanted to talk about it but now I couldn’t shut up.

  ‘And how’s your mum?’ he asked with genuine concern.

  ‘She’s… okay-ish. It’s been tough but she’s filling her time. This is the first time I’ve been away from her since we lost him. I’m ringing home every day. She misses me. She misses him.’

  ‘They’re lucky, those who find it. That eternal love.’

  ‘Can love ever be eternal?’ Despite the example my parents had set, I was doubtful I would ever find that.

  ‘I think so. Yes. Why shouldn’t you have absolute faith that you can achieve your dreams? Reach for the stars.’

  ‘Is that another Eighties song reference?’ I nudged him to show I was done talking about the sad things.

  ‘Nineties.’ He flashed a grin, teeth white under moonlight. ‘Speaking of the Eighties, I nicknamed you Star when I first saw you.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because you look like Star from The Lost Boys.’

  �
��Not because I sparkled so bright.’ I placed my hands against my cheeks and flashed a Marilyn Monroe smile.

  ‘That too.’

  The atmosphere turned from heavy to light and back again. I was dizzy with it all. Confused with my conflicting emotions. My rational self was telling me that it was the beauty of our surroundings, the lack of everyday stress, and a multitude of other things that weren’t Adam causing this tornado of longing. My heart whispering that this was it. This was the way I should have felt when I agreed to marry someone, only I hadn’t felt it. Not then.

  A breeze lifted strands of my hair and Adam tucked them behind my ear.

  ‘Star.’ The word melodic on his lips.

  This is not a date.

  I could have moved away, but I didn’t. Adam leaned forward and hesitated. Waiting for me to tell him to stop. To slow down. To speed up. But my objections, my desire, my logic and my desperate need to be touched were stuck in my throat.

  His mouth feathered across mine and the world fell away. He tasted of sangria and kindness, and long after our kiss had ended, I kept my eyes closed to savour it. For one perfect moment I released my thoughts that whispered this was only temporary. That soon I’d have to let him go. That one day this would be packed away tightly in the memory box labelled ‘holiday romance’ – transient and meaningless.

  Already, I didn’t want to be without him.

  Chapter Six

  Adam

  Our time together had been a whirlwind. Since that first night on the beach when I’d kissed Anna, we had been inseparable. Josh and Nell were happy for us, they’d formed a friendship of their own so I was living out my very own romcom. We’d done all the touristy things: visited the volcano, the lava tunnel, the underground lake. We’d strolled hand in hand around the markets. We’d watched the sun rise and set. We’d talked about anything and everything, everything except the future. But more important than any of that, we’d laughed. Proper belly laughs that made my stomach muscles ache.

  Every evening we’d eat together before retreating to the cove where we would lie on the sand, always touching. I loved that she was so tactile. Now, her leg was slung across mine, her fingers playing with the buttons on my shirt, her head on my shoulder. I told her about Roxanne. About the itch to travel the way my parents always had. Stories of when Josh and I were growing up and we’d made a hole in the fence between our gardens so we could slip through day or night, sharing comics and sweets. Later, cans of Strongbow and porn. She had laughed at that.

  ‘When I first met you and Josh, I didn’t get why you were friends – you both seemed so different – but I can see how much he means to you,’ she had said.

  ‘He’s family.’ I hadn’t told Anna about my parents, not wanting to evoke that look of pity, but we were almost at the end of our holiday and it seemed like the right time. ‘Nine years ago my parents moved to Australia.’

  ‘Without you?’ Her fingers tightened around mine. I could hardly bear to look at her face but when I did, I could see a desire to understand. Her eyes searching mine.

  ‘Yeah. Well, they wanted me to go with them. Dad’s family are from there and his dad wasn’t well. It’s too far to keep visiting so…’ I shrugged.

  ‘But you must have been only…’ Anna worked it out in her head. ‘Sixteen?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘That’s so young. Why didn’t you go?’

  ‘I nearly did, but the thought of carrying on my education in a foreign country seemed so daunting. Josh suggested I move in with his family; I spent so much time there anyway. After endless conversations between my parents and Josh’s, it was decided I’d stay in the UK until I’d finished my A Levels, but after I’d left school I wanted to go to the same university as Josh. My parents were cold people, distant. I’d never felt that close to them. They’d settled because Mum was pregnant with me but before that they’d always travelled. I felt I had tied them down. Josh and his family… I… I just belonged there. They put up with me every single uni holiday and after I’d finished my degree… Honestly, who’d want to trade the grey skies and constant dampness that is the north of England for a blazing sun and a beach on your doorstep, right?’

  ‘Right.’ Anna trailed a finger over my wrist. ‘But now you and Josh have a flat together?’

  ‘Yeah, just a small one. Despite our degrees, neither of us have high-flying careers. Josh temps – he never wants to be tied to anything or anyone – and I’ve been so focused on going away I guess I haven’t really made the best of the time I’ve had here. You’re happy living with your mum though?’

  ‘I am, but moving back home at twenty-four feels like a backward step.’ Anna sighed.

  ‘Where does Nell live? Could you share with her?’

  ‘No. She rents a house with a couple of girls she works with. I don’t think I could keep up with them. My liver couldn’t anyway.’

  ‘She’s certainly giving Josh a run for his money. Where did you meet her?’

  ‘Ah. Now there’s a story. We met during our first few days at uni. She was the drunk girl in the loo,’ Anna said.

  ‘The what?’

  ‘You know. In a bar there’s always a drunk girl comforting a complete stranger in the toilets. Telling her she looks amazing. That she is amazing. That the bastard who had made her cry isn’t worth her tears.’

  I nodded although I didn’t know at all. It must be a girl thing. Still, it wasn’t hard to imagine Nell determined and vocal, flying the flag for female empowerment.

  ‘And that was your fiancé you were crying over?’ I asked.

  ‘Nah. He came later. I was crying over some random I’d met earlier that night who ended up snogging the face off of someone else. I was a bit drunk. A lot drunk. Fresher’s week.’ Anna shuddered.

  ‘I’d like to snog the face off you.’ I dove on her, covering her face in wet kisses, while she shrieked in mock disgust.

  I replayed the highlights of our time together while I showered and dressed that last morning. Whatever angle I looked at it from, Anna was my perfect woman and tomorrow she was leaving. We both were.

  Today, though, we were visiting the home of some literary author I had never heard of and, judging by the fact we were the only people standing in his library, no one else had heard of him either.

  ‘Imagine writing a story that people would still read hundreds of years after you’d died.’ Anna’s face shone as she gazed at his typewriter in awe. I didn’t read books but I got it. She felt about words the way I felt about films and music. The way I felt about travel.

  The way I now felt about her, but I couldn’t tell her that. In twenty-four hours, we’d be nothing but a memory.

  Anna glanced around the room before stretching her arm across the security rope and running her fingers over the keys. ‘He once touched these. Imagine how happy he must have been sitting here, dreaming up characters.’

  ‘Haven’t you ever wanted to write?’ I asked.

  ‘I’d like to but I’m not sure what.’

  ‘Have you tried?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Everyone has something to say; it’s a matter of figuring out what that something is. What book would you write, if you could?’

  ‘A love story.’ Anna didn’t think twice. ‘One with a happy ending.’

  ‘A clichéd ending.’

  ‘Happy,’ Anna insisted. ‘Listen, this board says that he never finished his last work. Or did he and it wasn’t published. I can’t make sense of the way it’s worded.’ Anna frowned as she read the poorly translated sign again.

  ‘It must annoy you when you read things written incorrectly, Miss Teacher?’ I asked.

  ‘Not at all – I’m not the grammar police,’ Anna said too lightly. By now, I knew her better than that. I raised my eyebrows.

  ‘Okay, it does annoy me a bit,’ she conceded.

  I crossed my arms and waited.

  ‘Okay. Okay!’ Anna grinned. ‘It really irritates me. Honestly, I once wouldn’t
go into a steakhouse in London because it had been named Stephens Steaks without an apostrophe.’

  ‘That’s awful,’ I said.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Imagine naming a steak house “Stephen’s”. It hardly screams Wild West.’

  ‘Shut up,’ Anna laughed. ‘There must be things that annoy you?’

  ‘People who think the Eighties were uncool.’

  ‘Oh.’ Anna kept a straight face. ‘We’re back to talking about the Eighties. Again. Shame we have to go. You realize what the time is?’ She checked her watch.

  ‘No?’ I said. My watch still wasn’t working after its dunking in the sea.

  ‘It’s Hammer time,’ Anna sang as she stretched out the sides of her shorts in a homage to MC Hammer rather than a mickey-take, I’d like to think. ‘You can’t touch this.’

  I laughed while I watched her terrible dance. ‘I think you’ll find, Anna Adlington, that particular song was perhaps the Nineties.’

  ‘Shut up and touch this.’ Anna wrapped her arms around me and pushed her body against mine. Who was I to argue?

  ‘Last night then. Is it stupid to ask what your plans are?’ Josh splashed aftershave onto his cheeks. He hadn’t been able to charm Nell but they were hanging out most of the time. Each other’s wingmen apparently. I think the fact she hadn’t fallen for him was what was keeping him interested. I zipped up the one pair of jeans I’d brought. They were splattered crimson because I’d clumsily knocked a glass of sangria over them and couldn’t rinse the stain out under the tap.

  ‘Anna and I are having dinner.’ We were going back to the seafront restaurant we now thought of as ours.

  ‘You like her, don’t you?’ Josh asked.

  ‘Can’t stand her. That’s why I spend all my time with her.’ I sniffed my red T-shirt underneath the arms before tossing it on the floor and pulling the last clean one from my case. I still hadn’t unpacked. The wardrobe stood empty, the floor strewn with clothes. We really were pigs.

  ‘I mean you like her.’

  I waited for Josh to follow up with a sarcastic comment, but he didn’t.