Olivia’s Luck (2000)

by Catherine Alliot

  “You’re kidding!” Imo’s voice was still in my ear even though I wasn’t with her. I was glued back to Sebastian’s eyes again as he looked at me through the hall window. “Gosh, I thought he’d gone!”

  “What?” I whispered.

  “I thought he’d gone to Vienna!”

  I swallowed. “Obviously not.”

  “Ah. Right.” Her voice went quiet. “Good luck then, Liwy. You deserve it.”

  Her subdued tone made me glance into the receiver. “Imo?”

  “Hmm?” She sounded distant.

  “Lots of love.”

  She paused. “You too, darling. You too.”

  I slowly put the receiver down and stood up to open the door, my heart hammering around somewhere up by my oesophagus. Sebastian was there on my doorstep, leaning against the doorframe with his hands in his pockets. He was in khaki trousers and a pale blue shirt – quite smart for him, not his usual battered composing kit – but his eyes were the same as ever, dark and glittering, and he was wearing that devastating smile, the one that transformed his face, creasing it up into angles and slanting his eyes. It seemed to me it lit up the whole street.

  “Hi.”

  “Hi.”

  With these modest monosyllables, I found myself to be suddenly wide awake. Alive again. I felt my whole body begin to glow and every nerve tingled.

  “Can I come in?”

  “Hmm?” I gazed, wantonly.

  “Inside?”

  I jumped. “Inside? Oh – no!” Hurriedly I hastened distinctly outside, and joined him on the step, slamming the front door firmly behind me. He looked surprised.

  “Ah. I see. A doorstep conversation then.”

  “Well, it’s just that – I’m rather off my house at the moment,” I explained hastily. “It’s – the wallpaper.”

  “The wallpaper?”

  “So depressing.” Or did that sound neurotic? “Er – no, OK, it’s not the wallpaper, but it’s a long story, Sebastian, and a rather tortuous one at that, so I won’t go into it right now, but…” I glanced about desperately, no, not out the back because Lance might still be there so, “tell you what, let’s go and sit over there.”

  I hastened down the drive to the front wall, excitement mounting. It was a bit high and covered in creeper, but somehow, with a superhuman spring, I managed to jump up, and then contrived to look comfortable even though I had ivy up my bottom. He glanced at the filthy wall and in his smart clothes, clearly decided to stand. Suddenly it occurred to me he was spruced up for travelling.

  “Oh yes, Imo said you were off to Vienna.”

  “Imo?”

  I flushed. God, why did I have to mention Imo? Right at this moment? “Yes, that was her on the phone just now.”

  “Oh, right.” He coloured too, then recovered. “Yes, well, she’s right, I am, but the plane’s been delayed. I’m leaving any minute actually.” He glanced at his watch. “The taxi will be here soon. I just came round to say goodbye.”

  “Oh! Right.” For some reason the excitement began to drain out of me. Seeped right down into my shoes. This didn’t seem to have the makings of an embryonic romantic conversation, more – well, more a matter-of-fact, bon voyage conversation, actually. I wondered if Imo had got the wrong end of the stick. I felt slightly foolish too, sitting up here like a little gnome, with him standing before me, his shoulders level with my knees.

  “The symphony’s going to be played in the Musikverein tomorrow evening,” he explained, “so I’m flying out tonight to listen to the rehearsal. I’m leaving the house, too, hence all the frenetic activity.” He jerked his head down the street. I looked, and realised that his front door was wide open and that two men were busy heaving a heavy desk down the steps to a lorry. “My desk and my piano are the only things I actually brought with me to the house, so they’re going down to the country. The rest stays.” He grinned. “I thought you might think it a bit odd if I disappeared from the neighbourhood overnight without saying goodbye! I must pop in and see Nanette, too.”

  My throat felt curiously dry all of a sudden. “Oh…right. Yes, I’d forgotten you…only rent it.”

  “Oh yes, I’d never buy it. Renting was ideal. I needed to be here to write the music for the Abbey, because, somehow, being close to the old building got the inspiration going, but now that it’s finished, I don’t need to be here any more. I’m keen to get away, actually.” He smiled, his eyes creasing up at the corners.

  For some reason his words chilled me. “Of course,” I heard myself saying. “That part of your life is over. Time to move on.”

  “Quite. And my parents have been dying to move out of their house to a cottage in a village nearby. It’s far too big for them now, so I’m taking it over. It’s an old rectory with a lovely garden, and I’m not really a city person. It’ll be good to work in the country again.”

  “I see,” I said quietly. I met his gaze. “You’re all set up then, aren’t you? I’m moving on too, you know.”

  “So I gather.” He grinned.

  “Who told you?”

  “Your builder, the chap round the back.”

  “Ah. Yes, well, I’m sure he didn’t tell you exactly why, but believe me, it’s out of necessity. I don’t have your luxury of choice.” I met his eye, somewhat defiantly perhaps for someone who I’d been keen to share a special harmony with.

  “To Dorset?” He grinned again.

  “Sorry?” Why was he grinning at me like that.

  “Aren’t you going to Dorset?”

  “No no, to Chiswick, that’s where Claudia’s school is.”

  “Chiswick!” He looked appalled.

  “Yes, she’s got into St Paul’s Girls’ School. It’s a hell of an opportunity and it would be crazy of us not to take it up, so I’m pretty sure we’re going to be moving up there, although I have to say,” I grimaced, “I haven’t squared it with Claudes yet. Might go down rather badly.”

  He stared at me. “Liwy, is this because…is it because of Imogen?”

  I frowned. “What?”

  He licked his lips. “You know, we were never an item.” He ran his hands through his short dark hair. “I mean I know it looked as if we were, and if I’m honest, that’s the way I wanted it to look. I wanted you to think that I was going out with her, I was so bloody furious.”

  I gazed at him, completely lost. What did Imo have to do with me moving to London?

  “And I didn’t seek her out deliberately, either, didn’t make a beeline for her at all, but when she kept asking me to supper at her parents’ house, practically zooming into position beside me at the dinner table – with her mother doing most of the shoving incidentally – well, I was so bloody cross, I thought – why not? Why not escort a stunningly beautiful girl for a while? Why not let her arrange a pre-concert party at my house, if that’s what turns her on? Why not let her be seen on the composer’s arm at the premiere of the concert too, even if I do have to stick her ghastly mother as well!”

  “But – why?”

  “Why?” he spluttered. “Because I was feeling very firmly rejected and pissed off, since you ask!”

  “Rejected?”

  “Yes, Liwy,” he said patiently. “By you.”

  “Me!” I gaped. Eventually I found my voice. “God – how can you say such a thing? Good grief, that – that is so not true!” I slipped into Claudia speak in my outrage. “I mean, that night after dinner at Hugh and Molly’s I practically threw myself at you in the car! Asked you in for coffee, fluttered the old eyelashes seductively, the whole damn bit, and you sat there beside me like a frigging ice man, before politely showing me my car door! Oh, no, no,” I said vehemently, “I think you’ll find that if there was any rejecting going on it was instigated by you, Sebastian! God-and what about that day I came round to see you, to explain about Johnny coming back, just in case there’d been a smidgen of feeling on your part, just in case you thought we’d built up something of a relationship those past few weeks – picnics in
the park, suppers together, concerts – but you couldn’t have cared less! In fact, if I remember rightly, you sat down next to me with a big cheesy grin on your face and said how pleased you were for me, yes – gosh, how nice, Liwy, your husband’s back – and then you couldn’t hustle me away quick enough, so desperate were you to see the back of me and get back to your composing! Oh no, I think you’ll find the cold-shouldering was all yours!”

  He lifted his chin and folded his arms, regarding me, pink and indignant as I was, perched up on the wall.

  “Fine, Liwy,” he said quietly. “OK. Let’s take this step by step, shall we? The night you ‘threw yourself at me,’ as you put it, after Molly and Hugh’s, you were drunk.”

  “Oh excuse me,” I blustered, “I most certainly was not dru – ”

  “Oh yes you were, and you’d intentionally got plastered too. I watched you knocking it back, glug after glug of Pimm’s. I watched the way your mind was going too, you were so bloody desperate to forget Johnny and get back into the land of the living, and you kept glancing at me in that garden with ‘he’ll do’ written all over your forehead. He’ll do, you thought, he’s got a pulse, he doesn’t smell, he hasn’t got dandruff, he’s probably got all his own teeth, and, Christ, I’ve got to do it with someone, at sometime, haven’t I, so why not him? Oh, your body might have been with me that night, had I taken you up on your oh-so-generous offer, but your heart most certainly wouldn’t have been. It was with that bastard Johnny, as you so neatly proved by opening your arms and your bed to him again that very evening.”

  I gazed at him in horror for a moment. Then my mouth shut. “I had to do that,” I muttered defiantly. “Couldn’t help myself. I had to have him back in order to exorcise him. It was like a rite of passage; I had to get him out of my system.”

  “The other occasion you refer to,” he swept on, ignoring me, “was when you so sweetly popped round a few days later to inform me of Johnny’s return. And believe me, that was equally galling. Liwy, I do have eyes in my head. I do live in your street. I do stand at the window every day waving my arms like a lunatic, composing my stupid tunes. I did see him, believe it or not, in his car, going in and out of the house, playing with Claudia in the back garden, helping you pull up your radishes, helping you in with your shopping, and how d’you think that made me feel? Bloody wretched, actually, and very smartly kicked in the teeth, but I damn well wasn’t going to show it! Oh, I’m absolutely delighted you found me so cool and distant when you tripped merrily into my study that day, because believe me, I’d had a few days to think about it, and that’s precisely how I’d planned it. That’s how I fully intended to be!”

  “But – ”

  “And now,” he went on, with a sort of clenched fury, “you have the gall to sit up there, grinning like a pixie, swinging your little feet around and telling me you’re not moving to the country after all, you’re going up to London! Jesus Christ, what is it with you, Liwy? Can’t you make up your bloody mind just once!”

  My jaw dropped as I stared uncomprehending at him. Finally I shook my head. “Sorry,” I said at last. “Sebastian, I’m really sorry, but you’ve completely lost me now. I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. What on earth has us moving to Chiswick got to do with anything?”

  “I thought Claudia wanted to board,” he said patiently.

  “She does.”

  “At a school near Frampton.”

  I blinked. “Well, yes, that was her first choice, why?”

  “My parents live near Frampton. Or should I say – ” he thumped his chest – “I now live near Frampton.”

  I gaped. “You do? Good heavens, what a coincidence!”

  “Not really.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I suggested the school to Claudia.”

  “You…?” I boggled. “When!”

  “Oh, ages ago, when she was chatting about where to go. My niece went there and loved it. It’s got an excellent reputation, and I showed her a prospectus. Ponies, swimming, all that sort of thing.”

  Suddenly I remembered the much-treasured prospectus under her bed, well thumbed and scrawled over. I also remembered that I couldn’t recall where it had come from. He’d given it to her. My head swam. “But – why?”

  “Because I wanted you close by.”

  A huge wave crashed over my head. I gazed at him, but actually, didn’t seem to see him. My world was starting to spin. Those sweet, precious words: “I wanted you close by.” He gazed back at me and suddenly the spinning abated, and everything fell into place. Everything went very still. Very quiet. And it seemed to me that, in that silence, his eyes gazed into my very soul.

  “Mr Faulkner?” A cab drew up beside us, its familiar purr breaking the exquisite quiet.

  “Yes,” muttered Sebastian, not turning.

  “I called at the ‘ouse, like, but they said you were over ‘ere. ‘Op in, mate, if you’re coming, ‘cos we’re gonna have to shift if you’re gonna catch that plane. The traffic’s diabolical.”

  “Your taxi,” I muttered, not taking my gaze from those dark, shining eyes.

  “I know.”

  The sound of running feet didn’t distract us either, when towards us, down the street, came Maureen, dragging a case on wheels.

  “Well, thank heavens for that,” she gasped, panting. “I had a feeling you’d be here but you might have said! You’ll catch it if you hurry, and they’ve been ringing from Austria in a right old state asking how long you were going to be delayed. Come on, Sebastian.” She grabbed his arm and hustled him round, out of my garden to the waiting taxi. I watched as Maureen thrust some tickets in his hand. “Get in or you’ll miss it!”

  She bundled him in, together with his case, then slammed the door shut behind him and passed his passport through the window. I swung my legs round to the other side of the wall. Jumped down. Despite all that activity, we’d hardly taken our eyes off each other. I’d followed him all the way round. The driver shifted into gear.

  “Hang on,” I heard Sebastian say. He leaned out of the window, past Maureen.

  “I wanted to give you time, Liwy,” he called, “that’s what you need. I didn’t want to rush things. I did that before and it didn’t work out, that’s why it’s good that I’m going away. You need that time, Liwy, to recover, to get over Johnny.”

  I nodded, greedy with longing. Johnny, bloody Johnny.

  “I’ll ring you from Vienna and we’ll meet when I get back, take it from there.”

  I nodded again, tears of joy and relief and all sorts of other scrambled emotions making my eyes swim.

  “And while I’m gone, go to Frampton,” he called. “Go to the school, see if Claudia likes it. She may not!” He grinned.

  I opened my mouth to find my voice but the taxi had slowly moved off. All I could do was wave, eyes flooding now, and with a bemused Maureen beside me. I waved until he was out of sight.

  “Well then, dear,” said Maureen eventually, when we were left alone in silence. “What a to-do, eh? Still, must get on.” She gave me a sly, secret smile, squeezed my arm, and then bustled off down the road, leaving me there on that hot, empty pavement.

  I stood for a while, then moved on myself. Away from my house, and away from Sebastian’s house. I needed to go somewhere quiet and green, like the park. Yes, the park would do, to think, to hug my joy. My feet tripped lightly along the hot pavements. Yes, I’d wait, I thought, dizzy with longing. I mustn’t be greedy, mustn’t be impulsive. He was right: we both needed time. And then when he got back, we’d see. We’d take it from there, reassess the situation. It might not be right, I might not be right…And meanwhile – I stopped at the park entrance. Yes, meanwhile, I’d be sensible. I bit my lip. And actually, being sensible meant not going to the park and dreaming and longing and hugging myself, because my dreams had a habit of not coming true. Instead – I turned – instead I’d walk to Lucy’s and get Claudia. It wasn’t that far, and we could walk back together, discu
ss Dorset, rationally, but I wouldn’t mention Sebastian, just in case. Excitement threatened to bubble up again at the thought of him, the thought of those precious words ‘I wanted you close by’, but I bit it down. No, I mustn’t be disappointed again, mustn’t be let down, and heavens, I hadn’t even kissed him yet. Nothing was certain. But I could ring the school, plan a visit. I could even find a cottage, maybe, go and see some estate agents. There was a lot to do and –

  “Liwy!” I stopped. Didn’t turn. I must have imagined it. Then: “LIWY!” again, only louder. His voice – no doubt about it – and running footsteps too. I swung about. Down the old cobblestones of George Street, worn smooth with the traffic of time, and under the gaze of the ancient towering nave of the Abbey, came Sebastian. At the double. I stood still, could hardly breathe, and waited, until he arrived in front of me, panting hard.

  “Come to Vienna,” he gasped. “Bugger restraint, bugger giving you time – come to Vienna!”

  My head swam. “Wh-what now? I can’t, I – ”

  “Tomorrow, we’ll both go tomorrow.” His voice was taut with emotion. “I can miss the first rehearsal tonight. It always sounds lousy with an unfamiliar orchestra and I wonder how I ever wrote the wretched thing. Come tomorrow!”

  I stared. “Sebastian, I can’t, Claudia – ”

  “Oh, God, kiss me first, and then say you can’t.” He took me in his arms and kissed me very thoroughly on the mouth. I could hear his heart pounding against mine, could smell the sweet fresh cotton of his shirt, and when I came up for air, his eyes were glittering intently into mine, searching my face.

  “God, you’re lovely, Liwy,” he breathed, “and what really flips my heart over is that you don’t know that. No one’s ever told you, have they? That bastard Johnny never breathed a word, did he, kept it to himself, and you’ve lived most of your life thinking that people like Imogen Mitchell are better than you.” He traced my mouth with his fingertip. “It’s criminal, actually. You’re special, Liwy. When I saw you I confess I simply lusted after you, but when lust turned to love I was lost. Come with me, Liwy. Come and love me in Vienna.”