The Story of Us

by Dani Atkins

  ‘Take it,’ I commanded for a third time.

  ‘I don’t want it. It’s yours.’

  I looked into his eyes and something inside me just snapped. ‘You don’t want it?’ He shook his head. ‘Well neither do I.’ And with that I closed my fist around the large diamond ring and hurled it with all my strength out into the ravine. It fell in a tumbling arc through the sky, its facets catching the last rays of sunlight as it plummeted like a shooting star on to the rocky ground far beneath us.

  There was shock and horror on his face at my actions. To be truthful, I was a little horrified myself. ‘Do you know how much—’ He broke off, which was just as well, or I might actually have pushed him over the edge to join his bloody ring. He took a step closer to the precipice, which was foolish, I thought, giving my current state of mind, and looked down solemnly on to the vast rocky terrain. ‘We’re never going to find that now,’ he declared.

  I didn’t feel a reply was warranted, but I did ask a question. ‘Do you have your phone with you?’

  He looked stunned and confused, but nevertheless put his hand into his pocket and retrieved his mobile. He held it out to me, in much in the same way as I had just held out his ring.

  ‘I don’t need it. You do,’ I said abruptly. He frowned, still slow to realise my intentions. I met his eyes one last time. ‘You’ll need to call one of your friends, or a cab company, or anyone you bloody well like.’ He still didn’t seem to get it, not even when I started to walk away. ‘I’m going, Richard, and how you get back from here is not my concern. In fact nothing about you is going to be my concern, ever again.’

  In the days following our break-up Richard employed every conceivable method to get in touch with me. He phoned, he texted, he emailed; he even sent me a letter. Short of sending a carrier pigeon, he used just about every means of communication possible. It did him no good; I tore to shreds anything that couldn’t be eliminated by simply pressing a Delete button. I suppose it was inevitable then that his only remaining option was to turn up in person at the bookshop. He was dressed in his work suit and wearing the tie I’d bought him for Christmas. The gift exchange hadn’t been entirely equitable last year: I’d bought him a cashmere jumper and a tie, and he’d given me a diamond solitaire that had cost him three months’ salary. I still felt a little guilty about that. Perhaps I should suggest he throw the jumper off the ravine, to square things up a little?

  ‘Hello, Emma,’ he said cautiously, loitering near the shop’s doorway.

  I met his gaze coolly. ‘Richard.’ That was all he got from me, no hello or greeting, just his name. He seemed to think that was enough encouragement, and took a step towards the counter.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  He tried the smile, the one I’d always said was so irresistible, but it seemed as though I had finally found some immunity. Richard saw the impassive look on my face, and read it well. He cleared his throat in a way which I knew meant he was really nervous.

  ‘I came to buy a book.’

  It wasn’t even worth rising to the bait. This wasn’t my business or my shop, so I could hardly throw him out and yell at him to go away.

  I raised a hand to indicate the stacks of books around us. ‘Knock yourself out.’

  My attitude clearly had him flummoxed. He must have been anticipating Furious Emma, Vengeful Emma, or even Distraught Emma. Couldn’t-Give-a-Shit Emma clearly hadn’t factored into his plans.

  He maintained the pretence that it really was a book he was after, by pulling some volume from the shelves and opening it at a random page. He looked at it unseeingly for a minute or so, then interrupted the silence of the shop. ‘You haven’t answered my calls.’

  I stopped pretending to be checking deliveries off an invoice, and laid down my pen. ‘No, I haven’t. And I’m not going to. I have nothing more to say to you, I said it all the other day.’

  ‘Well, I still have things I want to say. I need to explain.’

  ‘I don’t want to hear it. We’re done, Richard. It’s over.’

  There was a rustling noise behind me and I knew that Monique must have just come into the shop. I didn’t doubt for a minute that she’d been listening to our entire conversation from the back room, and had waited for just the right moment to make her entrance.

  ‘Bonjour, Richard, comment ça va?’ she said coolly, squeezing my hand surreptitiously beneath the counter as she passed me. Richard looked up in confusion, not knowing her well enough to know that she only reverted to her native tongue when she was exceedingly happy or furiously angry. And she certainly wasn’t smiling today.

  ‘Bon… er… hello,’ he replied, as wrong-footed as she had known he would be.

  ‘Can I help you with your purchase?’ she enquired, extending a many-ringed hand to him to take the volume. ‘It is a fascinating book, non?’ Richard looked down for the first time at the weighty hardback he was holding, and saw it appeared to be an encyclopaedia of European drainage systems. ‘Er, I’m just browsing,’ he said rapidly, sliding the book back into the wrong place on the shelf. ‘Actually, I came to have a word with Emma.’ His meaning was pointed and obvious, and I knew without doubt that Monique understood perfectly that she was now supposed to excuse herself, to allow us some privacy. He really didn’t know her at all.

  Monique threw back her arm as though she was a magician presenting me from a box which had been empty just a second before. ‘And here she is!’ Richard looked from me to my boss, and realised he was outmatched. It was like watching a highly devious Parisian cat toying with a field mouse. Monique was going to remain exactly where she stood, which, at that precise moment in time, was directly between us.

  Richard glanced at the clock on the shop wall, and I knew he only had an hour for lunch, and was going to be pushing it to get back in time. He had no alternative but to talk in front of Monique.

  ‘Emma, we can’t just leave things where they are. We need to discuss everything, calmly and rationally.’ He flicked a quick glance at the third person in the shop. ‘Privately.’

  ‘You can speak freely in front of Monique.’

  Monique smiled and gave a Gallic shrug. ‘Don’t mind me. I hardly speak much of the English anyway.’

  I quickly turned away to look out of the shop’s side window to hide my smile, and caught a glimpse of a very familiar car. Oh no. This was about to get even more uncomfortable.

  ‘Did you get the flowers I sent?’ Richard asked me suddenly, and I looked back at him, with a flash of remembered anger. The bouquet had been huge, so wide that it had taken several hefty shoves before I finally managed to push it all the way into the wheelie bin. I told him this, and felt nothing at his responding look of helpless despair.

  ‘You binned them?’ he asked disbelievingly. I guessed they must have cost him a small fortune, but still, not as much as the ring had done.

  ‘Yes, well I did consider driving to the cemetery and putting them on Amy’s grave’ – his face whitened at the coldness of my voice – ‘but then… well, frankly that didn’t seem appropriate either.’

  He came up to the counter then, and ran his hand distractedly through his hair. ‘Emma, you’ve got to help me. I just don’t know what to do here.’

  ‘You could buy a book,’ suggested Monique innocently. I don’t think he even heard her. His eyes were begging me, and despite myself some shred of compassion, which I thought I had thoroughly stamped out, stirred deep within me.

  I was saved from answering by the tinkling of the shop’s bell, announcing a new customer. I looked up and knew I’d been right to recognise the car. We were truly in an actual living breathing French farce. All we needed now was a scantily dressed maid, and we’d have cracked it.

  ‘Hello, Jack.’

  His eyes swept each of us, assessing – fairly accurately, I imagine – the scene he had just interrupted. I heard a small sigh from my boss, which managed to sound coquettish and delighted all at the same time. From Richard there was just a
single word ‘Monroe’, which could have been a greeting, or an accusation. Given the glower on his face, I thought the latter was more likely.

  Ignoring the other occupants of the shop, Jack directed his attention and welcoming smile at me. ‘Hi, Emma.’ I smiled back, trying to decide if the situation had just got better or a great deal worse.

  ‘It is a pleasure to see you here again so soon, Monsieur Monroe.’

  I heard Richard’s hissing intake of breath and wondered what had possessed Monique to poke the already angry tiger with such a sharp stick.

  ‘Again?’ Richard turned his obviously displeased look directly at me. ‘Does he make a habit of this then?’

  Jack took a warning step closer to the counter, so that between him and Monique I could barely see Richard. The testosterone was circling thickly in the air, like a miniature cyclone.

  ‘It’s a shop, Richard. People come in; they buy books, take them home and read them. It’s not a difficult concept to grasp.’

  I thought I saw a vague twitch of Jack’s lips, and was extremely grateful that he, as yet, hadn’t lowered himself to respond directly to Richard’s rude accusation. ‘And incidentally, in case you’ve forgotten, let me remind you – once again – that who I do or do not see, is no longer any business of yours.’

  Jack leaned back against the counter, now almost completely obscuring me from Richard’s view. He picked up a catalogue from a stack by the till and appeared to be casually browsing through the titles, but that was only if you were either blind or stupid, and couldn’t see that his real intention was to position his body as a shield between me and Richard.

  ‘Well, I don’t like it,’ Richard declared, shooting Jack the sort of look that a hundred or so years ago had men reaching for their duelling pistols. My admiration for my new friend’s tolerance level grew even greater, as he looked up equably and said, ‘Really? I find reading quite diverting actually. But perhaps that’s just because of my profession.’

  I’d only seen Richard get close to hitting someone once before, in all the years I’d known him, and that situation hadn’t been nearly as tense as this one was rapidly becoming.

  ‘Listen, I am trying to have a private conversation here with my fiancée,’ he ground out.

  ‘Ex-fiancée,’ I said, embarrassed that I had virtually shouted out the correction, as I frantically tried to pour some water on the flames before they properly ignited. ‘Ex-fiancée,’ I repeated, a good deal more quietly. Jack’s eyes went straight to mine, a hundred questions in them, most of them, in some form or other, seemed to be asking if I was all right. I gave a small imperceptible nod, but still his eyes remained on me.

  From the edge of my field of vision I saw Richard glance from Jack to me, and knew he’d missed nothing of the unspoken concern on his face and my answering silent reassurance.

  ‘Oh that’s marvellous,’ he declared with an angry derisive sneer, which made it clear that it was anything but. ‘Absolutely fucking marvellous!’

  He turned on his heel and stormed out the door, slamming it so hard behind him that for a moment I thought he’d actually broken it off its hinges. The stunned silence in his wake was eventually broken by Monique.

  ‘I may have to revise my opinion of that young man. He actually swears quite well, for a beginner.’

  CHAPTER 9

  I had only just fallen asleep, after what seemed like hours of tossing and turning, when my mobile phone buzzed impatiently on the polished surface of my bedside table. Thin early morning light was beginning to pierce through the gap in my curtains, and I had to peer several times at the phone’s display to read it was only six-thirty in the morning. I blinked to clear my vision and read the caller’s ID. Caroline. Automatically my heart skipped a beat. No one called at this time of day unless it was serious.

  ‘Caroline?’ I answered, feeling my stomach already clenching in preparation for more bad news.

  She cut straight to the point. ‘You broke up? You broke up with Richard and you didn’t think to tell me?’

  ‘Caroline, it’s six-thirty.’

  She steamed on ahead as though I hadn’t spoken.

  ‘What the hell were you thinking of?’

  ‘Richard told you,’ I said with a sigh.

  ‘No, he bloody didn’t! What the hell is wrong with the pair of you? I got a text late last night from some stupid girl – who I don’t even know that well – from the rugby club. Apparently Richard was in the bar there last night, drinking like there was no tomorrow, and spreading the news about the two of you to anyone who’d listen. I’ve been sitting here for hours waiting until it was a reasonable time to call.’ I was going to point out that, in my opinion, that time was still several hours from now, but she didn’t give me the chance to speak.

  ‘I can’t believe, Emma Marshall, that we’ve known each other for over twenty years, and this is how I had to find out.’

  When Caroline eventually paused for breath, all I could think was, Terrific, our break-up is now a juicy item of hot local gossip.

  ‘Why the hell didn’t you tell me?’ Caroline shot out accusingly, her lungs obviously back to full capacity. It really was way too early for this kind of conversation.

  I gave just one word in response. ‘Amy.’

  ‘What’s Amy got to do with any of this?’

  Like an earthquake, I could feel a rumbling and tearing as the ground our friendship had been built on slowly began to rip apart. I closed my eyes and saw a lifetime of memories tumbling end over end into the shadowy depths of the chasm.

  ‘Amy and Richard.’

  Just hearing Caroline’s gasp as I said their names was proof enough. ‘But you already knew, didn’t you?’ I said bitterly. ‘I guessed as much the other day, so don’t bother denying it.’

  ‘I… I…’ Caroline, normally so assured and confident, seemed to be having difficulty in forming a reply. ‘I didn’t know for sure.’ She paused and continued in a whispered confession, ‘I didn’t want to know.’

  ‘Why the hell didn’t you say anything to me, Caroline?’

  ‘Because I couldn’t be sure. Amy never said anything to me, and I could have been totally wrong… I just knew she’d been seeing someone, and that she was being strangely secretive about it.’

  I closed my eyes, as though I could shut out the pain of betrayal which was facing me every way I turned. ‘I can’t believe you didn’t say anything, Caroline, you’re supposed to be my best friend.’

  ‘I couldn’t,’ she said on a moan. ‘I couldn’t hurt you like that.’

  ‘And this isn’t hurting me?’ I challenged bitterly.

  Another long silence. Caroline was the first to break it. ‘Look, we need to talk about this properly, face to face.’

  ‘No, we really don’t.’

  ‘Emma.’ There was hurt rejection in her voice, and I guessed this conversation hadn’t gone at all the way she had expected. ‘Emma please, let me help you try to sort this out. You can still be pissed at me, I don’t mind, but don’t shut me out. I’m your friend. You need me.’ Her voice dropped to a whisper and I heard a tremor in it now that her anger was spent. ‘I need you.’

  And she was right, on both counts. We needed each other and she was still my friend – at this rate the only one I had left – now Amy and Richard had both spectacularly been snatched from me. But it was too soon, too early in the morning, and I was still much too raw.

  ‘I don’t want to talk about this, Caroline, I really don’t. Not with anyone, not yet. There’s nothing to sort out here. Richard and I are done. This can’t be fixed.’

  There was another long silence at the end of the line, and I could hear the low rumble of Nick’s voice in the background and knew I probably had him to thank for not receiving this phone call any earlier.

  ‘Give me a few days, Caroline. I need some space to get my head together. Please. I’ll phone you when I’m ready to talk. Please, just leave me alone until then.’

  I lay back agains
t the pillows after the call, knowing there was no hope now of getting back to sleep. As much as I wanted to turn to Caroline, I couldn’t ignore – or forgive – the fact that she’d suspected Richard was the man Amy had been seeing, and yet she’d said nothing to me. Not one word. She’d let me carry on planning a wedding, a life and a future, knowing all the while that everything I was building could well be sitting on a lie. The three people who I trusted more than anyone else in the world had each betrayed me, in one way or another, and the burning taste of bitter deceit seared my throat whenever I thought about it.

  I opened my bedroom curtains on Saturday morning, really grateful that it was my day off. Even the weather had improved, with the sun making a long overdue appearance. I dressed in jeans and a light-weight V-necked jumper and applied just enough make-up to ensure that no one could easily tell how little sleep I was actually getting these days.

  Feeling cowardly, I delayed going downstairs until I heard my father’s car drive away. My parents’ life largely followed a blueprint these days, which my mother gained a great deal of comfort from, which in turn comforted my father. This was a part of their Saturday ritual. They would journey to the large supermarket in the next town, where my mother would push the trolley and pull random and bizarre items from the shelves, which my father was mostly successful in returning unseen before they reached the checkout. Still, he missed the odd item, which explained the occasional jar of quail’s eggs or exotic condiment which sometimes turned up in the cupboard. After shopping they would go out for lunch to the same restaurant, where my mother would spend a good fifteen minutes studying the menu before ordering the exact same dish that she had chosen the week before, and the week before that.

  The day stretched ahead of me like a rolling desert highway, but I couldn’t settle to any one task. I tried to lose myself in the book I was reading, looking for escape in the pages of mystery and intrigue in a much easier world, where if someone did something you didn’t like, you shot them. Simple. Several hours later I finally admitted defeat and shut the book, with a sigh. The storyline was complex and none of it had gone in. I flipped it over and studied the author portrait on the back cover. It was a different photo this time, taken in a studio. I traced a finger over the thick dark hair, then shocked myself by idly wondering what it would feel like to run my hands through it. There was a glint in the golden-brown eyes staring back at me, as though he knew exactly what was going through my mind.