by Josie Silver
He looks down at me, surprised. “Saucy.” He squeezes my waist. “You should probably stay out here, though, hostess with the mostest and all that.”
Sarah wades in to help, on the ball as ever. “You two sneak off for five minutes, no one’ll notice. I’ll create a punch-related diversion if anyone asks where you are.”
I don’t give Oscar time to say anything else, just tug him around the edge of the room and into the hallway. Before I open the door I whisper, “Close your eyes.” Heroically, he just goes with it, probably expecting some kind of sultry surprise. I lead him by the hand into the bedroom. “Keep them closed,” I warn, shutting the door and edging around him so I can see his face when he opens his eyes. “Okay, you can open them now.”
He blinks, looking at me first, shocked perhaps that I’m still fully clothed. God, I hope he’s not disappointed. I smooth my hands down my heavy skirt. I fell in love at first sight with this dress; it makes me feel like Audrey Hepburn.
“Not me,” I say, nodding my head toward the painting as he starts pulling off his tie. “That.”
He turns to stand at the end of the bed and his eyes settle on the vivid scene in pride of place. It’s like looking through a window to the other side of the world, and for a few seconds we stand together, hand in hand, and gaze at it. He squeezes my fingers, and then he climbs onto the bed so he can study it closer.
“Who did this?” he asks.
“A friend.” I kneel alongside him. “Do you like it?”
He doesn’t answer me straightaway, just stares at the painting, then runs his fingertip over the raised oils.
“Let’s go back,” he whispers.
“Okay.” I smile, wistful. “We could be there by this time tomorrow.”
I slide my hand inside his unbuttoned shirt and lay it flat over his heart. “You make me so happy, Oscar,” I tell him, and he puts his arm around my shoulders and kisses my hair.
“I mean to,” he says. “This is the second-best gift you could ever have given me.”
I look up at him. “What’s the first?” Maybe I should have gone for racy underwear instead.
He puffs a breath out, and out of nowhere I feel nervous, because his eyes are intense and he’s moved from kneeling beside me to facing me.
“I know I’ve asked you this a hundred times before, Laurie, but this time I’m not joking or laughing or messing around.” His dark eyes are damp as he holds my hands. “I want to take you back there. But this time I want it to be with you as my wife. I don’t want to wait any longer. I love you and I want you with me forever. Will you marry me?”
“Oscar…” I’m reeling. He kisses the backs of my hands and then looks at me fearfully.
“Say yes, Laurie. Please say yes.”
I look at him, and there in front of me, on his knees, I see my next stepping-stone. Oscar Ogilvy-Black, my husband-to-be.
“Yes. I say yes.”
Jack
“Why did he think Luke was your ‘boyf’?” I make twatty air quotes around the last word, my back against the fridge.
Sarah shrugs it off. “I don’t know. It was just a mistake, Jack. Forget it.”
I look away from her, nodding. “Maybe it was. But let’s face it, Sarah, you and my Aussie hero have become pretty pally of late, haven’t you?”
She sighs and looks at the floor. “Not now, okay?”
“Not now?” I half laugh as I parrot her words, turning them over out loud for consideration. “What not now, Sarah? Let’s not argue at Oscar’s party or let’s not talk about the fact that you’re spending so much time with some random guy who picked my phone up while I was unconscious?”
I’m not proud of how ungrateful that made me sound or how seedy it probably made Sarah feel.
“I’m not.” Her chin comes up, but her eyes tell me she’s not being completely honest, with me or with herself. “Get down off your high horse, will you?” she says. “I haven’t done anything with Luke or with anyone else and you damn well know it. I wouldn’t do that to you. But, Jack…” Her eyes fill suddenly, unexpectedly, with tears. “This isn’t the time or place for this conversation. It’s too important.”
“Sure,” I say, but I’m not ready to let it go, because that text did not sound innocent. “Would you like me to leave the room so you can reply?”
I know I should leave it, but we’ve been tiptoeing around the truth for a long time now and, for whatever reason, tonight seems to be the moment it’s finally going to trip us up. It’s not just about the text, it’s everything.
“You know something, Jack? I will reply to him. I’ll reply because, unlike you, he actually takes the time to message me.”
“I message you,” I say, although I know I’m on shaky ground.
“Once in a blue moon if you want a shag or you’ve forgotten something at work,” she says.
“What do you expect, love notes?”
I know I sound like an insensitive jerk, but surely she realizes I don’t have time at the moment? She’s hardly much better.
“You know what? Fine. You want me to be honest, I’ll be honest. I’ve thought about it, about Luke, in that way. He makes me laugh and he listens to me. He notices me, Jack. You don’t, and you haven’t for a long time now. All you notice is yourself.”
Luke’s a fucking hyena, I want to say, waiting to pick over the bones of our relationship.
“I notice you.” I’m suddenly breathless, because one careless comment from a stranger at a party has turned out to be the lit flame to the last thread tethering us together. Slow, threatening slicks of realization that this is it slide through the soles of my boots, up my legs, into my body, freezing me to the spot when I know I should reach out and hold her. This has been coming for a long time, hovering on the seat beside us when we watch a movie, at an empty chair at the next table when we go out for dinner, standing in the corner of the bedroom as we sleep.
“You need to actually be there, to listen,” she says. “You haven’t been there for a long time, Jack. Not before the accident, and certainly not after.”
We stare at each other across Oscar’s fancy kitchen, afraid of what happens next, and then Oscar’s brother rolls in, waving his empty punch cup in Sarah’s direction.
Ever the trained professional, she switches her smile on and says something chirpy to him as she reaches for the ladle. I press pause, watch her in action, and then let myself out into the garden for some air.
* * *
“You shouldn’t be out here without a coat.”
Sarah sits down beside me on the garden bench ten minutes later and hands me a beer. She’s right. It’s bitter tonight and I’ll know about it in my shoulder tomorrow, but right now it’s preferable to the heat and forced bonhomie inside the flat.
“We could just forget all about our conversation back there,” she says, her knee touching mine on the bench as she sips her red wine. That’s my girl. She might be plying everyone else with punch, but she’s sticking to the good stuff. She’s one of the most stylish women I’ve ever known, and one of the very, very best.
“But do you want to, Sar?” I ask her. Something in me can’t help it. I don’t want to ask her—and yet I have to. “Do you want to pretend?”
She stays silent for a while, looking into her wineglass. Then she closes her eyes and I study her profile; so dear to me, so familiar. Tears glitter on her lashes.
“Sarah, it’s okay to say it,” I say, gentle now because this is going to hurt us both. You don’t throw yourself over a cliff and walk away uninjured.
“How will it ever be okay?” she says. She sounds about twelve years old. I put my beer down on the floor and turn to face her.
“Because you’re you.” Her hair falls over her face and I smooth it back behind her ear.
&
nbsp; Tears run down her face. “And you’re you.”
For a long time now I haven’t felt like a good man; this might be the most decent thing I’ve done for Sarah in months. I just wish it didn’t hurt so damn much.
“We were good though, weren’t we?” She reaches out for my hand, her cold fingers wrapped around mine.
I can see her now, leaning on that stop button in the lift until I’d agreed to ask her out to lunch.
“Really good, Sar. Close to perfect, for a while.”
“Close is enough for some people,” she says, “for a lot of people. The world is full of close-to-perfect couples.” She’s wavering, searching my face. I get that. I’m wavering too. I can’t imagine what my life will be like without her in it. Who I will be.
“Is it enough for you?” I ask, and I swear if she says yes then I’m going to take her home, take her to bed, and let it be enough for me too.
She can’t answer me. Not because she doesn’t know what to say, but because she knows that once the words are out there they can’t be unsaid.
She leans against me and rests her head on my shoulder. “I always thought we’d love each other forever, Jack.”
“We will,” I tell her, and I feel her nod.
“I don’t want to say goodbye,” she whispers.
“Let’s not do it yet,” I say. “Just sit here with me for a bit longer.” I hold her for the last time. “I’ll always be proud of you, Sar. I’ll see you on the news, and I’ll think there she is, that dazzling girl who changed my life.” I’m not too proud to say I’m crying too.
“And I’ll hear you talking on the radio, and I’ll think there he is again, that brilliant man who changed my life,” she says.
“See?” I wipe her eyes with my thumb. “We can’t leave each other, not even if we try. I’ll always be in the background of your life, and you’ll always be in mine. We’ve been friends for too long to stop now.”
We sit there for a while longer, huddled together, watching as the first flakes of snow drift down from the midnight sky. There are no rings to give back, no possessions to tussle over, no kids to hand over in blustery car parks. Just two people, about to part ways.
One of us has to be the one to do it—be the one who gets up and leaves—and I know it needs to be me. She’s been the strong one for too long; I have to leave her here under Laurie’s protection. For a second I hug her to me, feeling the absolute impossibility of it. Every part of my body wants to stay here. Then I kiss her hair, and I get up and walk away.
FEBRUARY 16
Laurie
“I made us some sandwiches.”
It’s been a week since the night of the party. Since Oscar proposed, and Sarah and Jack split up.
The party was a roaring success, much aided by Sarah’s punch, of course. Even Fliss had a cup for the birthday toast, then half an hour later she shook her hair out of its neat chignon and asked if anyone had a cigarette. Gerry almost broke his leg in his haste to fetch her another cup of punch. I hadn’t intended to tell everyone about our engagement until we’d told our parents, but as soon as we stepped out of the bedroom, someone called “We know what you’ve been doing!” and Oscar couldn’t hold it in. “Yes. Proposing!” he shouted, and everyone clapped and kissed us.
Sarah was the first person I wanted to tell, of course. She cried; at the time I thought they were happy tears, punch-induced emotion. Even the fact that Jack had left the party early wasn’t alarm bell enough, probably because I was too caught up in my own happy bubble to realize the devastation that had occurred out in the garden. Heroically, Sarah didn’t mention that she had some big, devastating news of her own. In fact, she didn’t tell me at all. Jack did. He called me yesterday to find out how she was because she hadn’t been answering his calls and when I asked why he had to tell me. I waited for her until she stumbled out of work, brought her home with me, and now she’s here huddled on our sofa under a blanket.
“Delancey Street Special,” I say, handing her the plate of sandwiches while I slide under the blanket next to her. Oscar has tactfully made himself scarce for the weekend, leaving us free to watch rubbish movies, drink restorative red wine and talk, if she wants to. She looked as if she’d barely eaten all week when she came out of work yesterday; a ghost Sarah.
“It’s been a long time since we had these.”
“Years,” I say. She’s right. All our dates in London seem to have been rushed meetings in fancy restaurants or cocktail bars—I miss our cozy nights in. “I haven’t forgotten how to make them, though.”
She opens one and peers inside. “You remembered the mayo,” she says in a small voice. I wish she’d pick one up to eat. “Jack never really liked them. Not a blue cheese fan.”
I nod, unsure what to say because I’m more than a tiny bit furious with Jack O’Mara. He didn’t make a great job of explaining to me what happened with Sarah, something about realizing that good enough is not enough, that they were each other’s ninety percent. I was probably sharper than I should have been; I said that holding out for one hundred percent was unrealistic, a dangerous and childish experiment that was highly likely to result in a lifetime of meal deals for one. Sarah still hasn’t told me exactly what happened, but I’m trying to let her tell me in her own time.
“All the more for us.” I take the plate from her, but hold it toward her so she can help herself before I do the same and put it down on the sofa next to me. She slants me a “don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing” look.
“I’m not going to stop eating and wither away,” she says, even though she doesn’t take a bite. “You don’t need to worry about me.”
“You know that’s one of the dumbest things you’ve ever said, right?” I eat and nod toward her sandwich that she should too. She rolls her eyes like a teenager, but obliges me all the same by taking a tiny bite.
“There. Happy now?”
I sigh and give up on the sandwiches in favor of wine. Alcohol is more useful than cheese in a situation like this anyway.
“You should probably speak to Jack. Or text him, at least,” I say, because for the past hour he’s been lighting my phone up with endless messages to see if she’s okay. “I’ve told him you’re with me. He’s worried about you.”
“I don’t know what to say to him.” She puts her head back against the sofa and tucks the blanket underneath her armpits as if she’s in bed. Given that Oscar’s sofas are the reclining type and we’re close to full tilt, we pretty much are. “More than three years together, and I have no clue what to say.”
“You don’t have to talk to him. Just text him. Let him know you’re okay.” Though I realize I don’t know the full story yet; he might deserve to wallow in it instead.
“I will,” she says. “I’ll do it later.” She sighs, then asks me how he seemed.
“Worried?” I say. “He didn’t tell me very much, probably thought it was up to you.”
“I don’t want you to feel stuck in the middle, Lu. You don’t have to cut him out of your life too.”
The irony of her words isn’t lost on me. I’ve been stuck in the middle of Sarah and Jack for years.
“Are you going to cut him out?”
She picks at a loose thread of cotton on the blanket. “I think I have to. For a while, at least. I don’t know how to be with him as anything other than us, you know? I seem to have spent the last twelve months resenting him for one thing or another, and now I don’t have to do that anymore and I don’t know what to do with myself.”
“Twelve months is a long time to be miserable,” I say, surprised that she’s been unhappy for a whole year without me realizing. I mean, I knew they were both busy and stressed before Jack’s accident, and that Jack had been a jerk at times, but don’t all couples go through a bad patch? I feel like a crappy friend,
floating around obliviously in my own love bubble.
“I’ve blamed him in my head for everything that’s gone wrong, Lu. For the fact that we saw less and less of each other, for how much we’d grown apart or been pushed apart by our different lives, perhaps. The accident should have been a wake-up call, but it just made everything worse. And then I blamed him for that too—for wallowing, for not bouncing back.” She looks so downcast. “Easier than blaming myself, I guess. But I’ve hardly been around much either. I wish I’d tried harder to get through to him.”
I realize I’ve lumped the blame squarely on Jack’s shoulders myself since he called; he said nothing to suggest the break-up was in any way Sarah’s choice. I mean, I know these things are never black and white, but he left me with the impression that he’d called time because she didn’t quite measure up to his mythical one hundred percent. I’m both relieved and disquieted to know it wasn’t exactly like that.
“I don’t suppose blame is really what’s needed right now,” I say. “You just need to look after yourself, make sure you’re okay.”
“I miss him already.”
I nod and swallow, because I miss him too. It’s odd because I don’t see him all that much these days, but he’s always been there in the background. Sarah and Jack. Jack and Sarah. It’s become part of my vocabulary, forced at first, inevitable in the end. And now it’s just Sarah or Jack. The idea of him drifting away now they are no longer together makes me sadder than I know how to articulate.
“Maybe after a while you’ll both feel different? Maybe you just need a bit of a break?” I say, feeling like a kid whose parents are divorcing.
She half smiles, far away, as if she knows it’s fanciful. “We won’t. Or I won’t, anyway.” She swirls her wine before drinking some. “Do you know how I know?”
I shake my head. “No.”
“Because there’s a part of me that’s relieved.” She doesn’t look relieved. She looks more bereft than I’ve ever seen her. “Don’t get me wrong, I feel as if someone literally cut my heart out of my body. I don’t even know how life works without Jack in it, but there’s this bit of me”—she breaks off and looks at her hands—“this bit of me that feels relieved. Relieved, because being in love with Jack has always been, to one degree or another, bloody hard work.”
