he could shake it off and run away. He had never felt like that about
her before.
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CHAPTER EIGHT
3 – 4 am
THE CAMPING TRIP
August 2012 – Wimbleball Lake, Somerset
They both looked up at the roof of the tent, which sagged heavily
with collected rainwater. The portable lamp Tom had fixed to the
hook above them was now at least six inches closer to their noses
than it should have been.
‘And you’re sure you put it up properly?’
‘Yes,’ he hissed.
‘It’s just we’ve never done this before.’
‘I know, Esme.’
‘And I did say it looked a bit . . . well . . . sad.’
‘Sad?’
‘Yes.’
‘How can a bloody tent look sad?’
‘You know. Floppy.’
‘Next time you can do it.’
‘ Camping,’ Esme said, bitterly, as she shuffled around on the air bed, trying to get comfortable, and Tom started to giggle.
‘What is it?’
‘Floppy,’ he said, trying to stifle a laugh.
‘It does!’
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‘The sad, floppy tent,’ he said, which made Esme laugh as well, emitting the occasional snort that came whenever she found something uncontrol ably, unaccountably funny. Gradual y his laughter
made hers worse, and hers his. Until they were both in silent hyster-
ics, desperate to howl and giggle, but at the same time desperate not
to make any noise. It was fart-in-school-assembly laughter, the kind
that no amount of effort can suppress.
‘The maudlin tent,’ Esme said, struggling to get the words out.
‘Underwhelmed,’ Tom countered, and as she muttered ‘un fulfilled’
the two of them were into full, howling laughter. When from some-
where in the field, a nearby camper shushed them as if they were
children.
‘Sorry!’ Tom called out, making Esme laugh again.
‘Look, mate,’ they heard from another tent. ‘We’ve got a thirteen-
miler starting at seven tomorrow morning. We’d appreciate a bit of
kip.’
They laughed again as they moved their sleeping bags closer to
one another, shuffling like caterpillars on a bouncy castle.
As the laughter died and they came back to earth, Tom leant over
and kissed Esme. He was relieved that they were laughing about the
tent, instead of arguing about it, which until ten minutes ago had
seemed the more likely outcome. He knew that, had it come, rather
than passing them by like a storm on a summer’s day, a fight might
well have put an early end to their trip. It would have been the latest in a series of squabbles, fights and rows that had culminated last week with Tom sleeping on the sofa – the first time he’d been forced to
do so since they’d moved in together.
That big one was about the late hours he’d been keeping recently,
as he tried to finish work on a banal but cheerful ukulele soundtrack
he’d been commissioned to write and record for a payments techno-
logy company’s corporate video. TotalPay had been exceptionally dif-
ficult to work for. Not least because their junior marketing manager
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fancied himself as a musician-cum-critic and constantly found fault in Tom’s work, comparing it unfavourably to other, more expensively
commissioned payments technology companies’ corporate videos.
‘For what they’re paying you, it’s ridiculous,’ Esme had said,
irritated by the sheer amount of time he was putting into the project.
But having only recently started working with a large advertising
agency and a producer who liked his work, Tom wanted to show he
could do a good job and was willing to put the hours in.
He was frustrated. But recently neither he nor Esme would admit
it when the other was right. So instead of trying to talk, he had
chosen to shout.
‘Fucking hell, Esme. I’ve jacked in the covers band, I’ve sacked
off the gigging. I need to make money somewhere!’ he had yelled, then marched out of the bedroom and slumped down on the sofa,
only to realise it was far too small for any kind of proper sleep. So, instead, he spent two uncomfortable hours wondering if he should
concede a little ground to Esme, if only to get back to bed. In the
end he decided not to, believing that backing down would only lead
to more problems. He regretted his decision the next day, when his
back ached so much that he could barely sit at his desk chair for
more than twenty minutes at a time.
In the manner of couples experiencing a rough patch, Tom knew
‘the ukulele incident’ was a fierce and personal argument about a
fairly benign topic. But recently that kind of petty bickering had
started to crop up in all areas: when Annabel texted him in the
middle of the night; when half-drunk cups of cold tea were left
around the house whenever Esme worked from home.
The scale of the offence had little to do with the scale of the row.
But however bad the arguments were, Tom knew he couldn’t let
himself forget the last time something like this had happened. Back
in October 2008, when he’d panicked and called off the relationship
in a fit of self-destruction. That time the problem was proximity,
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rather than bickering. Esme was closer to him than anyone had been before, and he was unable to cope with it.
Of course, he realised how stupid he was almost immediately,
lasting all of forty-eight hours before begging her to forgive him.
However, angry and upset, Esme had kept him waiting for a week.
Eventually she agreed to meet him at a pub in Pimlico on a
rainy day in mid-Autumn. Tom arrived far too early, taking his place
among the regulars, with half a Diet Coke, a damp copy of the
Evening Standard, and a broken umbrella that had done nothing to stop his feet from getting soaked on the short walk from the Tube
station. The pub was an empty, grim mix of midweek drinkers and
people sheltering from the rain. All of them looking out onto the
rough, grey, Thames. Outside, the once-crisp golden-brown leaves
covering the streets had turned to a muddy, fusty sludge – the result
of days of non-stop rain.
Tom was focused on the crossword, trying to scrawl MAGPIE
without tearing the wet page when the door creaked open and Esme
appeared. He smiled and offered a half-arsed sort of wave. But as she
approached he didn’t know what to do.
A hug? A kiss? The former seemed a little cold, the latter a bit
too much, given the circumstances. In the end, he did nothing. She
removed her jacket and placed her bike helmet atop Tom’s newspaper.
He just about managed to avoid wincing at the half-done crossword
she had just ruined.
‘I still can’t believe you cycle in this weather.’
‘It’s not that bad,’ she said shortly, as she wriggl
ed out of her
waterproof trousers and hung them over the big grey column radia-
tor.
‘Can I get you something?’
‘Half a London Pride,’ she said. ‘Actually, make it a pint.’
When Tom returned to the table, she was perched on a stool
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flicking through her emails on her iPhone – her new favourite toy, and as a result, Tom’s least.
‘So,’ he muttered.
‘So,’ she said, allowing the murmurs of the pub and the distant
sound of the radio to make the silence between them that bit more
awkward.
‘Es, I’m really not sure what to say.’
‘I’ll just go then, shall I?’ she said, making to climb off the stool.
‘No, please. Esme. It’s just hard.’
‘Right.’
‘I mean . . .’ Tom began. But he had no idea what he meant,
nor what to say to fix things between them. He only wanted to see
her again – hadn’t thought as far as explaining himself. ‘I suppose I
mean I’m sorry.’
‘Suppose.’
‘Es.’
‘What? You either are, or you aren’t.’
‘I am.’
‘Well that’s good, Tom.’
‘Esme, please.’
‘You tell me it’s over. Completely out of the fucking blue. And
for no fucking reason that makes any sense. Then you invite me to
this bloody pub and all you can say is that you suppose you’re sorry?’
Tom went to intervene. But she was away now. There was no
point.
‘It’s going to take a fucking damn sight more than “sorry”, Tom.
Okay?’
‘I chose a place that’s near where you live,’ he said, tentatively.
‘What?’
‘The pub. That’s why I chose it. You sounded annoyed about it.’
‘Right, Tom. Let’s put pub choice to the bottom of the list of
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grievances. Why don’t we start with why this happened in the first place?’
‘I—’ Tom stopped. He knew the precise reason why he had called
it off. What he didn’t know was whether admitting it would be worse
than telling a lie. ‘I got nervous.’
‘Nervous?’
‘Yeah. You know. Like, the closer we get, the worse it’ll be if it
goes wrong.’
‘So you decided to make it go wrong?’
‘Well, sort of. But then I realised that I was wrong to make it go
wrong. If that makes sense?’
‘Very little about this makes sense.’
‘Look. We had a few arguments. Things were becoming different.’
‘It’s called life, Tom.’
‘I know—’
‘If you can’t stand that, then . . . God knows.’
‘I thought, if we moved in together, or whatever, and it didn’t
work . . . that’d be terrible, right? And I’m not exactly easy to live with. So I just—’
‘Got cold feet.’
‘No.’
‘Yes. You got cold feet. People get them all the time. You know
Christine? Before Barney she was with a guy called Jason. Two weeks
before they were supposed to move in together, he got off the bus a
few stops early, walked into a dodgy massage parlour and paid for
sex. You know what he blamed it on? Cold feet.’
‘Well I didn’t . . . do that.’
‘My point, Tom, is that cold feet is a bit of a bullshit excuse for
being a dickhead. Why was it easier to tell me we’re over than to say
what you were actually thinking?’
After a moment, Tom said, ‘Don’t know,’ in the manner of a
school child asked to explain precisely why he had set the fire alarm
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off. But he was being quite truthful: he didn’t know. All he did know was that he had made a mistake.
They didn’t reconcile that evening, even though they both wanted
a resolution. Instead, Esme made him wait a few days before getting
back in touch, making it clear that this was the first and last time
something like that could happen.
Tom had disrupted the trajectory of their relationship. Set things
back. But while he was sad for the problems he had caused, he was
strangely also a little relieved.
The camping trip was, if unofficially, another rebuilding and re-
-connecting exercise: five days of walking, eating and talking in the
West Country. Esme had imposed a ‘no social media or work email’
rule; Tom promised to be less quick to anger about the small things
that didn’t matter. Esme told him she would, in turn, stop being too
critical of his foibles.
And now they found themselves wet, cold and stuck beneath a
rapidly disintegrating piece of canvas.
‘Was this what you envisioned?’ Esme asked as the tent continued
to crumble. ‘Lying awake hoping the tent won’t fall apart.’
Tom thought about making a joke. But settled instead for honesty.
‘I was just hoping we’d get along,’ he said.
‘Tom—’
‘I know I’ve not been easy recently.’
‘Please, Tom.’
‘No, it’s true.’
‘Yes, but I’ve not been easy either, have I? Maybe I’m not under-
standing enough about your work and how things have changed. I
don’t really have to think about my next career steps all that much.
I’m in a bit of a bubble.’
‘There is no music bubble. Or at least if there is, I haven’t found
it.’
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‘But you’re good at the advertising stuff. I know it’s not what you originally wanted to do. But how many people get to call themselves
a composer?’
‘There are levels, though. Aren’t there?’ Tom said, thinking back
to the ‘in’ he’d thought he had about a year ago, when a producer of
TV soundtracks expressed some interest in the music he was making.
That interest died almost as soon as it was born. But through that
producer he had met another who suggested he could turn his talents
to advertising, mostly online. It was fine work for good money. Meet-
ing the deadlines meant a bit of compromise. And he was actually
okay with stopping the gigs, now having more reason to be at home.
He was finally making a living creating music. Just not in the way
he’d anticipated.
‘What do you mean, levels?’
‘Like, some people are composers of film scores and stuff. Some
are composers of jingles for businesses who sell credit-card machines
to supermarkets.’
‘But you are a composer, Tom. That’s amazing. And besides, who knows, one day you might work your way up.’
‘Hmm.’
‘And if you don’t, I’ll still be proud of every little jingle you make.
I’ll even listen to them in the gym.’
Tom smiled. He knew that she was probably telling the truth.
Every decision he had made, from his work as a private music tutor
to the wealthy and uninterested kids of Hampstead, to this new move
into advertising, had been wholly supp
orted and encouraged. Even
if her certainty about her career as a child speech therapist meant
she couldn’t ever quite empathise with him, she was always positive
about what he did.
‘I suppose I should apologise, too,’ Esme said quietly, after a
moment in which the campers around them thought the evening’s
chatter had finally come to an end.
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‘No,’ Tom said, unconvincingly.
‘Tom. Come on. I know I’ve been . . . uptight. I can’t even say
why.’
‘Because Annabel texts really late at night?’
‘Well obviously that is incredibly annoying. But it’s never both-
ered me before. Besides, I like Annabel. She’s good for you. Christ,
if it wasn’t for her at that party we’d never have met.’
‘I like to think we would have.’
‘How?’ she said.
‘Maybe on the Tube. You would see me reading one of your
favourite novels and start up a conversation.’
‘I would literally never start up a conversation on the Tube. And
I cycle to work.’
‘Flat tyre. And clearly you would also find me so irresistible that
you had to.’
‘Well, of course,’ she said, mockingly. ‘Anyway. I know I’ve been
uptight and grumpy. I just . . .’
She paused, as if struggling to find the courage.
‘What, Es?’ Tom asked.
‘I need to know. Are you . . . okay?’ she asked seriously, but before
Tom could make up an answer they were interrupted by the quiet
snap of a tent pole.
‘Shit, get out!’ Tom said, as they scrabbled out of their sleeping
bags, grabbed a few clothes and fell out of the tent, the front half of which promptly collapsed under the weight of the collected water,
sending it down a small slope towards the grumpy campers who had
earlier shushed them. And leaving Tom and Esme standing in a wet
field, wearing nothing but pyjamas and wellington boots.
‘I have to be honest,’ he said, as the rain began to soak through
his threadbare checked bottoms. ‘I didn’t really look at the instruc-
tions when I was putting it up.’
‘I know,’ Esme said, beginning to laugh again, as the one
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remaining tent pole gave way, creating a canvas outline of their airbed, cool bag and Tom’s walking boots.
‘Would you please be quiet?’ came a gruff, angry voice from
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