After Isabella

by Rosie Fiore

  Lucie threw down her spoon. ‘What? How did you know?’ Her face was dark with sullen suspicion.

  ‘You left the bathroom cabinet open. I saw you’d opened the box of pads. I wasn’t prying, Lucie, honestly.’

  She could see Lucie wrestling with anger and embarrassment, and considering fleeing to her room. She kept her eyes down and continued eating.

  Eventually Lucie said, ‘Yes.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘Melissa had some pads in the bathroom. I took a few.’

  ‘But you didn’t tell her.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’m sorry you had to go through that alone. I wish I’d been there.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Lucie. ‘Well, you weren’t.’ And this time she did push her plate away, hop off the stool and go back up to her bedroom, shutting her door with finality.

  Esther sighed, finished her food and cleared away the bowls. She had some business she needed to sort out. She had been unsure what to do, but it was now clear that there was only one possible choice.

  Subject: So sorry

  Dear Phil,

  For someone who teaches English for a living, I’m finding this email surprisingly difficult to write. You can’t tell, but this first line has been deleted and rewritten countless times. I’ve hit undo and redo so often, I’m surprised they’re not worn out. Anyway, here goes.

  I am so glad I met you. I’d decided to try going out and doing something new that evening at the Tate, and you made my first evening out such fun. I also so enjoyed our time on the Heath last weekend, and our two subsequent evenings too. It has been wonderful to meet someone new and begin to get to know you.

  I’m sorry our plans for dinner this week haven’t worked out, and I wish I was writing this email to reschedule, but I’ve had something of a minor family crisis. As you know, my daughter came back unexpectedly from visiting her father in Manchester today. There have been a few rather unfortunate events, and she’s really terribly upset. I’m going to need to make her my sole priority for a little while, and I’m afraid that rather precludes inviting you for dinner, or indeed going out in the evenings. I’m so sorry.

  This won’t be forever, but I’m afraid I can’t say how long I’ll need to cry off having a social life. I don’t expect you to wait around while I resolve my family issues. I do hope you understand.

  She typed the words ‘Perhaps someday’, deleted them, typed ‘Maybe at some future date’ and backspaced the words away. It really wasn’t fair to keep him hanging on, especially when she wasn’t at all sure she liked him. In the end, she typed:

  Again, I’m so sorry.

  Warmest wishes,

  Esther

  She hovered the mouse over the send button for a full minute. Then she saved the email to Drafts, half got out of her chair, sat down again, called the email up and hit send rapidly. Now it was done.

  What a mess she had made of everything. What did Woody Allen say? ‘If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans.’ She’d imagined that her life was on an even keel, but it had taken only a week to show how precarious everything was. Lucie, whose happiness was more important to her than anything, felt hurt and betrayed and saw Esther as the author of her misfortunes. On top of that, she had treated Phil badly – not deliberately, of course, but through circumstance. There was just no way, however, she could start something with him at this point. The last thing Lucie needed was more uncertainty. She might feel she was low on Stephen’s list of priorities, but she would never be made to feel that about Esther.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Subject: Re: So sorry

  Dear Esther,

  Thank you for your email. I have to say, I’m not surprised. I found your behaviour a little unbalanced and your mood swings disconcerting. It was very clear to me from our meetings that you were not stable enough for any kind of long-term relationship. You blew hot and cold, sharing inappropriate confidences, then being sexually aggressive, then pushing me away. My colleague Gillian, who met you that night after the Tate, said to me that she thought you were a hysterical female.

  I thought you were very attractive, but I am afraid I cannot involve myself in the chaotic goings-on of your family.

  Best wishes,

  Phil

  The email came in at around ten the following morning. Esther was in her office alone. She read it once, twice, then sat staring at individual phrases for some time. ‘Unbalanced’; ‘sexually aggressive’; ‘hysterical female’. She closed the email, left her office and went to get a glass of water in the kitchen, then came back and read it again. She had absolutely no idea how to respond. It was a piece of sheer ugliness. It was malicious and unpleasant. It exposed Phil as a mean, narrow-minded misogynist and Gillian as a conniving cow, who probably wanted Phil for herself. He had managed to turn the whole thing around, to make it look as if he was rejecting her. He was a nasty man, Esther realized. A nasty, cruel, unpleasant man that she was well shot of. She had only just met him, and it was a lucky escape. She was fortunate not to have him in her life. And yet the injustice stung so fiercely, it took great willpower not to pick up the phone and ring him. She wanted very much to set him right on so many points. But she knew how he would interpret such a call, and the names he would call her. There was no way to win this one. Dignified silence was the only option. Well, dignified silence and a good bitching session. She gathered up her laptop and went to find Regina.

  ‘Coffee. Out,’ she said. ‘And we won’t be talking work.’

  Esther filled Regina in on the happenings of the last few weeks, from the Friday night at the Tate to Lucie’s return, her email and Phil’s reply. She opened the email and handed over the laptop for Regina to read it herself. Regina’s response was satisfyingly dramatic. She gasped, hissed and even swore. She read it twice, then pushed the laptop back across the table.

  ‘Well, my darling girl, you dodged a bullet there,’ she said.

  ‘I know! But you would never have known. He seemed so nice. So normal. Never in a million years would I have guessed… would I ever have imagined…’

  ‘He hates and distrusts women. And he’s a freak.’

  ‘It looks that way. But how are you supposed to spot them? If they walk around wearing nicely ironed chinos and talking normally, packing picnics and taking you to comedy clubs? Are all the men out there scary misogynist freaks?’

  ‘Of course they aren’t. You just landed a bad one on your very first fishing trip. There are loads of lovely, sane, sensible men.’

  ‘Where? I thought the Tate was a pretty safe place to go looking for one. It’s not a dodgy bar or a nightclub. I was supposed to meet some pleasant, polite, Guardian-reading fellow who plays the oboe and has an allotment. Not Jack the Self-Esteem-Ripper.’

  ‘At least you can laugh about it.’

  ‘The alternative isn’t really available. Costa frowns upon people sobbing into their flat whites. And to be fair, Psycho Phil is the least of my problems. Lucie is much more of a worry.’ She told Regina briefly about what had happened following Lucie’s return from Manchester.

  ‘Oh dear.’

  ‘Oh dear indeed. Maybe Phil’s right. Maybe my life is in chaos and I am a hysterical female.’

  ‘Nonsense. You’re the most level-headed, reliable, loving mum I know. Just keep doing what you’re doing. Love Lucie. Be there for her. She’ll be fine. You know she will.’

  Esther wasn’t so sure. Lucie remained sullen and closed. She appeared certain that everything that had gone wrong in Manchester was in some way Esther’s fault. Esther understood that it was easier for Lucie to be angry with her, and awful to her, secure in the knowledge that Esther’s love was total and unconditional, than for her to be angry with her father, whose affections must have seemed very conditional and fickle indeed. Knowing this didn’t stop it hurting, though, and it hurt a great deal.

  At first it looked as if Lucie had undergone some kind of radical personality change, but as the weeks str
etched on, Esther had to admit that the signs had been there for a while. Lucie had gradually been shedding her good-girl persona – wanting to spend more time away from home, wanting to be with her friends, resisting Esther on small issues. She was growing up, on the verge of becoming a teenager. Esther also realized, with an ache, that Lucie had spent the last few years trying to be very, very good, as if, through her parents’ divorce, she was concerned she might be too much trouble. If she was now being sullen and sulky but at least expressing her true self and her own opinions, that had to be a good thing. Didn’t it?

  Still, a lot of the time it felt like war, and Lucie would answer even the most banal questions in a sarcastic monotone. It took all Esther’s willpower not to snap at her. She maintained a cheerful tone no matter what and kept doing the same things she had always done. She cooked the dishes Lucie had always liked, even though Lucie rolled her eyes and refused to eat them. She offered to take her shopping, to the cinema, out to dinner, even though she knew Lucie would say no to all of them. Through it all, Esther did not lose her temper, even though, deep down, she was boiling at the injustice of it.

  Her life felt suddenly joyless. Until comparatively recently, she had thought herself happy – working, running, being with Lucie. But the awful, abortive interaction with Phil, and the family crisis brought about by Stephen’s new baby seemed to have sucked all the pleasure out of her existence. She felt lonely and hollow. Even though she hadn’t felt deprived by her lack of a social life before, she found herself resenting the endless evenings at home. Even when Lucie went out to visit friends, she avoided going out herself. It seemed best to stay at home, to be on call. She knew she was being perverse and that she was only doing it so that, in contrast to Stephen, she would appear reliable and steady.

  Now she kept thinking of all the things she might have been doing – the events she might have attended, the groups she might have joined. The nice men, the anti-Phils, might well be out there, waiting to meet her. But where was she? Sitting at her kitchen table for the umpteenth Saturday night in a row, marking essays or filling in endless forms as part of her head-of-department duties.

  But then the conference came along. It was a gathering of academic leaders from universities around the country to discuss new techniques for recruiting students. ‘It’s a vital networking opportunity,’ said the principal. He had called Esther into his office for a special meeting. ‘Student numbers are down with the new fee structures, and your department is especially hard hit. We need to get out there, press the flesh. Build some new relationships. See if there aren’t some other universities we can get into bed with, maybe create some new joint courses, unique offerings for the marketplace.’

  The principal had been attending some marketing conferences himself. He had learned a lot of new buzzwords and liked to use them. Esther wished he wouldn’t. She had preferred it when he was a slightly woolly ex-professor of geography who never knew what was going on. To her the conference sounded like hell on earth – four days stuck in some stately home in the middle of Buckinghamshire with a load of crusty academics. Nothing came of these events, she was certain. It was just an excuse for four days of eating and drinking at the university’s expense. Hang on a minute – four days of eating and drinking at someone else’s expense? Away from home and Lucie’s huffy sulks? Meeting new people? Going to a part of the country that she didn’t know especially well? Perhaps it wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

  The conference fell on the Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of a week in May. It was term-time, so Lucie couldn’t go up to stay with Stephen, which was probably a mercy. However, when Esther tentatively mentioned that she might have to go away for work, Lucie showed uncharacteristic animation and said she was sure she could stay at Rebecca’s for a few days. A call to Rebecca’s mum proved this to be true, and the arrangement was quickly made. Lucie seemed thrilled at the prospect. Esther examined her own feelings – a complex cocktail of a sneaky, desperate desire to escape her day-to-day life, albeit temporarily, resentment at Lucie apparently being happier without her than with her, and crushing parental guilt. Eventually she reasoned that the first two balanced each other out and removed the need for the last, so she resolved to go to the conference and make the best of it, confident that Lucie would have fun and might well be in a better frame of mind when she returned.

  She looked at the website of the place where they would be staying and discovered that it had both a spa and a gym, as well as acres of grounds in which she could run. The formal events took place between ten and five, and even if she did ‘flesh-pressing’ and ‘networking’ over dinner, it would still give her hours to herself to relax, regroup and breathe.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  She opted to take the train up on the Sunday evening rather than drive – it was easier to get the university to pay for a train ticket than for mileage, and it also meant she could get a bit of work done on the journey. It also, oddly, made it feel more like a holiday. She went through her conference pack on the train – she hadn’t had time to give it more than a cursory glance before. There were a couple of interesting sessions that she was looking forward to attending, as well as a talk by the head of the English Department of a big American university, whom she had always wanted to meet. At the back of the pack there was a full list of attendees. She glanced down it. Unsurprisingly, she knew quite a few of them – academics she had collaborated with on various projects, a smattering of people she had got to know during her undergraduate and postgraduate studies, and Michael Wolfson. Michael had taught Medieval English at her university for some years. He was a sound academic and a good colleague. For a long time she’d considered him one of her better friends at the university. Five or so years earlier, he’d been offered a professorship in the Midlands and had left London. They had stayed in sporadic email contact, but, inevitably, that had waned to nothing. He was warm and funny and was married to a mathematician called Lisette, with whom he had two teenaged sons. She was delighted to know he would be there. He would make a good dinner companion and gossip partner.

  The event organizers sent a minibus to collect her at the station, and she arrived in plenty of time to get ready for the drinks reception on the first evening. She showered and changed into the red jersey dress she had bought for her wine-tasting date with Phil. She was determined to wear the dress again to erase the negative associations it had inevitably acquired.

  As usual, she was ready too early, so she decided to stroll down to the gym and spa complex and see what was on offer. It was a warm, golden evening and the rolling lawns of the stately home looked velvety and well tended. The gym was small, with a reasonable selection of treadmills, cross-trainers and weights, more or less what you would expect from a five-star hotel. The spa was closed for the evening. She could hear splashing from the far side of the complex, however, so she crossed the gym floor to have a look at the swimming pool.

  It wasn’t quite full size – maybe eighteen metres or so, rather than twenty-five – but certainly long enough to swim decent lengths. And indeed a man was swimming, a fast, economical freestyle, slicing his way up the length of the pool, performing a professional tumble-turn at the end, and continuing. It was rather mesmerizing to watch. Esther became conscious that she was staring and was about to turn and go when the man finished his last length and stood up in the shallow end, shaking the water from his eyes and hair. He had his back to her and her first thought was that he was beautiful – his skin was an even golden olive and his back smoothly muscled. In an instant, however, she realized that she recognized the shape of his head. It was Michael Wolfson. He put his hands on the edge of the pool and vaulted out smoothly. He was wearing black shorts which sat low on his hips, and as he bent to retrieve his towel, she found herself looking at his muscular calves and thighs. He hadn’t spotted her, and somehow it didn’t seem an appropriate moment to step out of the shadows and renew their acquaintance. He wasn’t wearing much, and she didn’t want him to
think she was some kind of voyeur. She walked back quietly through the door into the gym and left the complex. She’d see him at the drinks reception.

  She was handed a name badge and a glass of Prosecco as she arrived and was ushered into a windowless conference suite, where there was a low buzz of chatter from a smallish group of people. There had been quite a lot of name badges still on the table – she suspected many of the delegates had not yet arrived. People were clustered around the food table and were mainly chatting in pairs. She didn’t see anyone she recognized and hung back a little. A veteran of many conferences, she knew the dangers of rushing in and chatting to the first stranger you saw. Inevitably, you picked the biggest bore in the room and were then stuck with them for the rest of the evening or, worse, the rest of the conference.

  A few moments later, someone she knew entered – a professor from a university in Scotland called Biddy Bates. She had worked with Biddy on a research project on teaching methods and had liked her very much. She had a dry sense of humour and a wicked twinkle in her eye and could be counted on to not take events like this too seriously. She waved, and Biddy’s face lit up when she spotted her. She hurried over, scooping up a glass as she came.

  ‘Ah, a sane and familiar face,’ she said, smiling and kissing Esther on the cheek. ‘Good to see you.’

  They exchanged news, and Biddy, who was a notorious gossip, shared a few scurrilous details about various delegates and speakers. Esther enjoyed talking to Biddy and began to relax, but she couldn’t quite resist keeping half an eye on the door. Even though she was focused on Biddy’s face and what she was saying, she had a heightened awareness of the rest of the room and who was in it.

  Biddy broke off for a second and turned to grab a canapé, and Esther glanced towards the door just as Michael walked in. He stopped and surveyed the room, and his eyes locked with hers. She saw something, an emotion that was more than happy recognition, cross his face. Then he collected himself and smiled and walked over to greet her and Biddy. He was a few inches taller than her, broad-shouldered and strong, with a dark complexion (she recalled that his mother was Italian or Spanish). His black hair was greying attractively at the temples and, as it was receding slightly, he wore it very short. His eyes were a deep chocolate brown and they danced with amusement.