The Man Who Didn't Call: The Love Story of the Year – with a Fantastic Twist

by Walsh, Rosie

  I slumped back down again. ‘Oh, Jenni, who are we trying to kid? I have got to let go of him.’

  She burst out laughing.

  ‘Why are you laughing? ’

  ‘Because you have no intention of letting go of him!’

  ‘I do!’

  ‘You do not!’ She laughed again. ‘If you wanted to let go of Eddie, if you really wanted to let go, Sarah Mackey, the last person on earth you would have called for advice would have been me.’

  Chapter Sixteen

  DAY FIVE: A Beech Tree, a Wellington Boot

  Eddie was on the phone to Derek again. I didn’t yet know who Derek was, but I imagined he was something to do with Eddie’s work: Eddie sounded more formal talking to him than he had when a friend called yesterday. Their conversation this afternoon was brief, mostly Eddie saying, ‘Right,’ or ‘OK,’ or ‘Sounds like a good idea.’ After a few minutes he was done. He went inside to replace the phone.

  I was sitting on the bench outside his barn, reading an old copy of Our Man in Havana from his shelf. It turned out that I still loved reading. I loved that a novelist on the payroll of MI6 had dreamed up a hapless vacuum-cleaner salesman, drafted into the Secret Intelligence Service so that he might better fund the extravagant lifestyle of his beautiful daughter. I loved that I could read about this man for hours and never once pause to overthink my own life. I loved that, with a book in my hand and no urgent need to be anywhere, or to be doing anything, I felt like a Sarah I’d entirely forgotten.

  The hot weather had not yet broken, but it would soon – the air still and curdled, hovering like a bird of prey before attack. My clothes hung motionless on the washing line above a thick cluster of rosebay willowherb, which didn’t move an inch. I yawned, wondered if I should go and check everything was OK at Mum and Dad’s.

  I knew I wouldn’t. The second night Eddie and I had gone to bed together, it had become quite clear that we would stay here, in this suspended world, until either my parents came back from Leicester or Eddie went on holiday. I didn’t want to be apart from him even for the hour it would take to walk home and back. The universe I knew had stopped, for now, and I had no desire to bring it back.

  From the edge of Eddie’s lawn, the squirrel, Steve, was watching me. ‘Hi, you criminal,’ Eddie said as he came back out. He looked at the squirrel, mimed shooting a gun. Steve didn’t move a muscle.

  Eddie sat next to me. ‘I like you in my clothes,’ he smiled, pinging the elastic of his boxer shorts against my side. I was wearing them with a T-shirt of his, worn thin at the shoulders. It smelled of him. I yawned again and reached over to ping his own boxer shorts. I had stubbly legs. Nothing mattered. I was stupid with happiness.

  ‘Shall we go for a walk?’ he asked.

  ‘Why not?’

  We stayed on the bench for a while, kissing, pinging elastic, laughing about nothing.

  It was a little after two by the time we set off. I was back in my own clothes, which smelled of Eddie’s washing powder and sunshine.

  After a few metres following the river, Eddie left the path and started striding up the hill, into the heart of the wood. Our feet sank deep in the untouched mush of the forest floor. ‘There’s a thing I wanted to show you up here,’ Eddie said. ‘A bit of a silly thing, but I like to come and check it’s still there from time to time. ’

  I smiled. ‘It can be our noteworthy activity for the day.’

  We hadn’t completed many noteworthy activities since this affair had begun. We had slept a lot, made love a lot, eaten a lot, talked for hours. Not talked for hours. Read books, spotted birds, made up an extended narrative about a dog who’d nosed around Eddie’s clearing while we’d eaten Spanish tortilla on the bench one day.

  In short, even though everything was happening, nothing was happening.

  I squeezed his hand as we climbed up through the woods, struck again by the dazzling simplicity of everything. There was birdsong, there was the sound of our breath, and there was the sensation of sinking into the mulch. And, beyond a deep feeling of contentment, there was nothing else. No grief, no guilt, no questions.

  We’d walked nearly to the top of the hill when Eddie stopped. ‘There,’ he said, pointing up at a beech tree. ‘A mystery wellington.’

  It took me a while to see it, but when eventually I did, I laughed. ‘How did you do that?’

  ‘I didn’t,’ he said. ‘I just spotted it once. I have no idea how it got up there, or who was responsible. In all the years I’ve lived here, I’ve never seen anyone in this part of the woods.’

  A very long way up – probably more than sixty feet – a branch, once heading skyward, had been snapped off. A black wellington boot had been placed over the remaining stump. Since then, a few younger limbs of pale green had grown below, but the trunk was otherwise smooth: impossible to climb.

  I stared up at the welly, puzzled by its existence, delighted that Eddie thought it was something he should take me to see. I slid an arm around his middle and smiled. I could feel his breath, his heart, his T-shirt just on the brink of damp after a hot uphill climb. ‘A proper mystery,’ I said. ‘I like it.’

  Eddie mimed throwing a welly a few times but then gave up. It was inconceivable. ‘I have no idea how they managed it,’ he said. ‘But I love that they did.’

  Then he stepped round and kissed me. ‘Such a silly thing,’ he said. ‘But I knew you’d like it.’ His arms wrapped tight around me.

  I kissed him back, harder. All I wanted to do was kiss him.

  I wondered how I could possibly go back to LA when happiness of this sort was right here. Here, in the place I’d once called home.

  Eventually we found ourselves in the leaves without any clothes on.

  I had mulch in my hair, probably insects. But I felt only joy. Deep, radial branches of joy.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Dear Eddie,

  I’ve thought long and hard about writing this letter. How can I possibly reach out – yet again – now you’ve made such a conspicuous show of being alive but unwilling to communicate? How can I be so desperate, so unwilling to heed your silence?

  But last night I found myself thinking about the day we walked up to see that welly. What a silly, lovely thing it was to do; how we stared up at it and laughed. And I thought, I’m not ready to give up on him. On us. Not quite yet.

  So this is it: my last-ditch attempt to find out what happened. To work out how I could have got it so wrong.

  Do you remember our last night together, Eddie? Outside on the grass, before we hauled your enormous tent outside and then spent the next few hours trying to put it up? Do you remember that, before we both collapsed with exhaustion in the damned thing, I was meant to tell you my life story?

  I’m going to start it now, from the beginning. Or at least the edited highlights. I figured that maybe it would remind you why you liked me. Because whatever else you might have managed to hide from me, the liking-me bit wasn’t made up. Of that much I’m certain.

  So. I am Sarah Evelyn Harrington. Born Gloucester Royal at 4.13 p.m. on 18 February 1980. Mum taught maths at a grammar in Cheltenham, and Dad was a sound engineer. He did a lot of touring with bands, until he started to miss us too much. After that he did all sorts of soundy things locally. He still does. Can’t stop himself.

  They bought a wreck of a cottage in the valley below Frampton Mansell, about a year before I was born, and they’ve lived there ever since. It’s about fifteen minutes’ walk along the footpath from your barn. You probably know it. Dad and his friend reopened that old path the summer he and Mum moved in. Two men, two chainsaws, several beers.

  Being in that valley with you made the place feel very different. Reminded me of a Me I’d forgotten. And as I said to you on our first morning, there is a good reason for that.

  Tommy, my best friend, was born a couple of months after me to the ‘slightly fraught’ (Dad’s words) couple in the house at the end of our track. He and I became best friends and we pl
ayed every day until that strange, sad moment in adolescence where playing just isn’t the thing anymore. But until then, we forded streams, stuffed ourselves on blackberries and made tunnels through blankets of cow parsley.

  When I was five, Mum had another baby – Hannah – and after a few years Hannah joined in our adventures. She was utterly fearless, my sister – far braver than Tommy and me, in spite of being several years our junior. Her best friend, a little girl called Alex, was quite literally in awe of her.

  It’s only now, as an adult, that I realize quite how much I loved my sister. How I was in awe of her, too.

  Tommy spent a lot of time at our house because his mum was – as he put it – ‘crazy’. I’m not sure, in hindsight, that was fair, although she was certainly preoccupied on a very deep level with very surface things. She moved their family to LA when I was fifteen and I was heartbroken. Without Tommy I had no idea who I was anymore. Who were my friends? What group did I belong to? I knew only that I had to latch on to someone fast, before I wheeled off the school social scene and became a confirmed loner.

  So I latched on to two girls, Mandy and Claire, with whom I’d always been friendly – if not exactly friends – only now it was more intense. Intense and exposing. Girls can be so cruel when they’re young.

  Two years later I was on the phone to Tommy at five in the morning, begging him to let me come and stay. But I’ll get to that later.

  I’m going to leave it there. I don’t want to just vomit my entire life story all over you, because you may not want to hear it. And even if you do, I don’t want it to sound like I think I’m the only person on earth with a past.

  I miss you, Eddie. I didn’t think it was possible to miss someone you’d known for only seven days, but I do. So much I can’t seem to think straight anymore.

  Sarah

  Chapter Eighteen

  There he was: Reuben. Right there at a table in the BFI cafe, talking to his new girlfriend, whose face was just out of sight. The brown-husked remains of a coffee next to his hand, all about him the simmer of self-possession and new masculinity.

  I remembered the shy, skinny boy I’d found quaking outside a Mexican restaurant all those years ago, his hair gelled and his neck sheathed in cheap aftershave. The crushed and trembling quality of his voice when he’d asked me out a few hours later. Now look at him! Broader, stronger, quite the Californian hero with his tapered fashion shorts, his sunglasses, his deliberately careless hair. I couldn’t help but smile.

  ‘Hello,’ I said, arriving at their table.

  ‘Oh!’ Reuben said, and for a second I saw the young man I married. The man I thought I’d be with forever, because a permanent life with him in that sunny, cheerful city was all I thought I’d ever need.

  ‘Hey! You must be Sarah.’ Kaia stood up.

  ‘Hello,’ I said, and held out my hand. ‘It’s very nice to meet you.’ Kaia was slim and clear-eyed. The soft imprint of old acne scarring on her jawline faded into smooth cheeks; dark hair trailed smoothly down her back.

  She ignored my extended hand and kissed me on the cheek, clasping my shoulders and smiling warmly, and I knew in that moment that she would hold the balance of power today. She was complete, this woman, and I was not. ‘It’s great we made this meeting work,’ she said. ‘I’ve been looking forward to putting a face to your name for a long time now.’

  Kaia was quite some woman if she hadn’t put a face to my name through Google Images. I was not quite some woman and had googled her as soon as I knew her surname, but Kaia, of course, had no online footprint. Too bloody pure.

  She sat down, smiling as I found a space for my bag under the table and took off the cardigan that was forcing out beads of sweat across my forehead. She was the sort of woman I’d sometimes see meditating on the beach at sunset, I thought, as I freed my arms. Good and grounded, with salt on her skin and wind blowing through her hair.

  ‘So …’ Reuben said, sitting down too. ‘So here we are, hey?’ He took a breath, then closed his mouth, realizing he didn’t know what to say.

  Kaia glanced at him and her face softened. That’s my look, I thought childishly. I’d look at him just like that when he lost his way, and he’d feel OK.

  ‘I’ve heard so much about you, Sarah,’ she said, turning back to me. She was wearing a long dress with a bold ikat pattern and an assortment of silver bracelets, and she was somehow more elegant than anyone else here. ‘And I know there’s a lot more to you than your outfit’ – was she reading my mind? – ‘but I have to say that’s a beautiful skirt you’re wearing.’

  I smoothed it down. It was one of my nicer ones, actually, but I felt rather self-conscious in it today. Like it was non-uniform day and I’d tried too hard .

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. I tried and failed to think of something to say that proved there was more to me than that.

  Kaia got out her wallet. ‘I’m going to go get us some drinks. What would you like?’

  ‘Oh, that’s kind.’ I checked my watch and was disappointed to see that it wasn’t yet midday. Reluctantly, I ordered a lime and soda.

  She slid out of her seat and Reuben got up, too. ‘I’ll help!’

  ‘I’ve got this,’ Kaia said. ‘You two go ahead and catch up.’

  But Reuben insisted and I found myself alone at the table.

  This is it , I thought, wiping my forehead with a napkin. This is my future. Running a business with my ex-husband, who’s now dating a yogi. One of the really nice ones. I watched them walk to the bar. Reuben slipped an arm around her waist and then turned guiltily to check I hadn’t seen.

  This is my future.

  He had come into the office six weeks after we split up, ostensibly on the verge of an anxiety attack. ‘You OK?’ I’d asked him, watching over my computer as he crashed around in one of the props cupboards.

  He spun round, eyes wild. ‘I’ve met someone,’ he blurted, cowering in the doorway of the cupboard.

  A large bag of red noses fell off the shelf behind him and he picked it up, hugging it to his chest. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he whispered. ‘I did not plan this.’

  He came towards me like a bomb-disposal technician approaching a device, his face frantically searching mine. A little trail of noses was falling on the floor alongside him, but he didn’t notice.

  ‘I feel so bad to be telling you this so soon after our break-up,’ he’d said. ‘Do you need to sit down?’

  I pointed out that I already was.

  It had stunned me how little I’d felt. It was odd, certainly, but I found myself more curious than jealous. Reuben was dating! My Roo! ‘Are you sure you want to know?’ he kept asking.

  I’d managed only to ascertain that Kaia worked part time in a juice bar in Glendale, that she was a yoga teacher and trainee naturopath, and that Reuben was totally gone.

  I watched her order drinks. She wasn’t beautiful, in an obvious, western sense, which in a way made it worse. She just glowed, in a slow-cooked, wholesome way. And she was good, I sensed. Kind and Good, in sharp contrast to my Manic and Dark. Reuben pressed down the tip of her nose and laughed. He used to do that with me.

  This would have been much easier , I thought churlishly, if Eddie and I had worked out. Even if Reuben got down on one knee and proposed to Kaia, right here in the bar, I’d have cheered and clapped and probably offered to organize their bloody wedding.

  If Eddie had called.

  My stomach pitted miserably and I checked my phone, as if that would help anything.

  Then I froze.

  Was that … ? Was it … ?

  A speech bubble. A little grey speech bubble, which meant Eddie – real, living, breathing Eddie, somewhere in the world – was typing a reply to my messages. I sat perfectly still, watching the bubble, and the South Bank faded to zero.

  ‘It’s so lovely to be in London,’ Kaia said, arriving back with my drink. No! Go away! ‘I’d forgotten how much I love this city.’ I glanced down. The bubble was still there. He was still
writing. I tingled. Terror, delight. Terror, delight. I made myself smile at Kaia. She was wearing one of those rings that sits halfway up your finger. I’d bought one, years ago, and it had fallen down a public toilet on El Matador Beach .

  ‘You know London, then?’ I made myself ask.

  The speech bubble was still there.

  ‘I came here a couple of times on assignments,’ she replied. ‘I was a journalist, in another life.’

  She shuddered lightly and I waited, hoping she’d continue. I had literally nothing to say.

  (This! This was one of those moments I’d talked about with Mrs Rushby. Total loss of self. Of manners, sociability, control.)

  Speech bubble: still there.

  ‘But I realized I wasn’t really enjoying my life.’ She paused, remembering the time when she didn’t really enjoy her life. ‘So I drilled down to what I cared about, and that was nutrition, being outdoors, keeping my body peaceful and strong. I jumped out of the fast lane and did my yoga teacher training. It was one of the best things I ever did.’

  ‘Oh great!’ I said. ‘Namaste to that!’

  Kaia took Reuben’s hand underneath the table. ‘But then I suffered a major trauma two years ago and that’s when the more profound change happened …’

  Speech bubble: still there.

  ‘And I realized, when I began to emerge from it all, that it wasn’t enough to be true to myself and my needs. I had to look wider; I had to help others. Give freely of myself, if that doesn’t sound too pious.’

  Her cheeks brightened. ‘Oh my God, I sound totally pious,’ she laughed, and I remembered that this was no easier for her than it was for me.

  Reuben looked at her as if the mother of Christ sat on the bench next to him. ‘I don’t think you sounded pious at all,’ he said. ‘Does she, Sarah?’

  I put my phone down for a moment and stared at him. Was he seriously asking me to make his new girlfriend feel better about herself?

  ‘So, long story short, I signed up as an associate at the Children’s Hospital,’ she said hurriedly. She wanted to stop talking about herself now. ‘One of the fundraisers. I do at least a day a week for them, often more. And that’s me, really.’