by Julie Cohen
‘I wanted her to.’
‘Well, it’s a good thing she didn’t.’
‘Maybe it was,’ he mumbled, and drank his beer.
‘She doesn’t even talk about you. She never mentioned you again. She burned all your letters and everything. I saw her doing it one night. God, how long ago was this?’
‘Ten years. It was ten years ago.’
‘Wow. Well, whatever you did, you fucked it up.’
‘You don’t know?’ he asked involuntarily. ‘She didn’t tell you?’
‘I told you, she never mentioned you again. Believe me, I asked her.’ She regarded him over the rim of her beer glass. ‘What did you do?’
He shook his head.
‘It must’ve been something bad. I remember my parents sent me to my friend’s house for a couple of days, and when I came back it was like you’d never existed. Except Emily was miserable. Did you cheat on her?’
‘It was something like that. Yeah.’
‘Dickhead.’ She took a drink of her beer.
‘I need to see her,’ he told her urgently.
‘I don’t think she’d be keen on that.’
‘I need to know she’s all right. That’s all, Polly.’
‘You want to apologise to her for being an ass, ten years ago?’
‘I . . .’ He bit his lip. ‘Yes.’
‘I don’t know. What did she say to you at the airport when you saw her?’
‘We didn’t get a chance to talk. Please, Polly. Can you give me the address of where she’s staying, or a phone number, or something?’
‘I’m not sure she’d want to hear from you. I should ask her first.’
If she asked Emily, she’d refuse.
‘Polly, it was a long time ago, as you say. A lot of water under the bridge. I just want to get in touch with her, for one last time, to see how she’s doing. And to say sorry.’
‘She’s happily married now.’
‘I’m married too. I’ve got a little boy. I’ll just call her, once, and then that will be it. For old times’ sake.’
‘Well . . .’ She screwed up her mouth, thinking, and in that moment, despite the make-up and the beer in her hand, she looked like a kid again. ‘I suppose it can’t do any harm. She can always hang up on you.’ Polly pulled out a pen from her handbag and paused. ‘Are you going to promise not to be a wanker?’
‘I promise.’
‘Say it. “I won’t be a wanker”.’
‘I won’t be a wanker.’
‘Cross your heart.’
He did.
‘All right. Wait, there’s nothing to write on.’
He held out his hand, fingers curled, palm down. She scowled, but she wrote the number on the back of his hand.
‘Thank you, Polly.’
‘Don’t make me regret it.’ She drank the rest of her beer and stood up. ‘She’s happy, now. She’s really happy. Don’t mess it up for her.’
‘I won’t,’ he said. ‘I want her to be happy. That’s what I want, more than anything.’
Chapter Twenty-Four
Even at nine o’clock in the morning it was too hot and humid to go outside. The minute you did, sweat sprang out under your arms, between your breasts, on your upper lip. Your lipstick melted off and your mouth tasted of salt. Emily hovered in the air-conditioned living room, looking out the window to the pool, where her father was swimming laps. There was a long-legged white bird standing on the concrete near the pool, absolutely still. It looked like a crane, though Emily didn’t know what it could possibly be looking for in the clear, sterile pool water. It tilted its head slightly as her father swam past.
Her mother, incredibly, was cooking a full English breakfast for Christopher, after he’d made a chance remark yesterday that he hadn’t had one for years. Heat and the scent of bacon radiated out from the kitchen.
The telephone rang across the room. She abandoned her window and the crane and picked it up.
‘Hello?’
‘Hello, can I speak to Emily?’
She knew his voice at once; would have known it even if she hadn’t heard it the day before calling her name.
‘Robbie,’ she said, in a whisper, before she realised that the right thing to do would have been to hang up immediately.
‘Emily,’ he said, his voice full of relief. ‘Oh my God, it’s so wonderful to hear your voice. Don’t hang up.’
‘Why are you calling me?’
‘I had to speak with you. I had to – I couldn’t believe it was you, yesterday.’
She looked around, though she knew no one could hear her: her father was swimming, her mother and Christopher were in the kitchen, and Polly, who’d been out till very late, was asleep and wouldn’t be up for hours yet. Still, she cupped her hands around the phone, and lowered her voice. ‘How did you get this number?’
‘Polly gave it to me. I ran into her by chance.’
‘Why are you in Miami?’
‘I live here. Listen, Emily, I never expected to see you again. I know you said we couldn’t see each other again. But now we have, and I can’t stop thinking about you.’
‘I . . .’ I can’t stop thinking about you either. ‘Don’t. Don’t think about me.’
‘I need to meet you. Please? Please meet with me?’
‘I can’t. I’m with my husband.’ As soon as she said it she knew it was a mistake: she shouldn’t have given him any reasons to argue with. She shouldn’t be talking with him at all.
But his voice. She heard his voice when she slept, sometimes. It hadn’t changed at all.
‘Bring your husband with you. It’s just an innocent meeting, Emily. Old friends.’
‘We’re not old friends.’
‘Old . . . acquaintances, then. Please, Emily. A lot has changed.’
How can it have changed, when I remember you like this? She didn’t say it. That would be a real mistake.
‘When can you get away?’ he asked. ‘Tonight?’
‘Not tonight,’ she said without thinking.
‘Tomorrow morning, before I go to work? Are you in Miami Beach?’
‘Yes. I’m—’
‘What about on South Beach? Say six o’clock? Right on the south end.’
‘I don’t know. It’s not a good idea.’
‘I’ll be there, waiting. If not tomorrow, then I’ll wait the next day too.’
‘It’s . . . Robbie, we agreed never to—’
‘Please come, Emily. Please.’
When she put down the phone, her hands were shaking. Her father slid open the patio doors and walked in, towelling off his hair. ‘Did you see that bird?’ he said. ‘Who rang?’
‘It was a wrong number,’ she told him.
She slipped out of the house as the sun was rising, but he was still there before her. He stood straight and tall, smoking a cigarette. A light blue bicycle was propped against the trunk of the palm beside him. She remembered him standing on a station concourse and she nearly turned around.
But then he spotted her and she forgot all about running away. His presence pulled her to him as he dropped his cigarette and ground it out.
‘Emily,’ he said.
She couldn’t say his name. Instead, unwillingly, she drank him in: the length of his dark hair, grown out since the last time she’d seen him. He was unshaven and wore a white T-shirt and shorts made of cut-off jeans, and his eyes had dark circles under them, as if he hadn’t slept for a while, or not slept properly. His eyes were the same as she remembered. His mouth was the same. He was more filled out now, more muscular, his forearms tanned and corded.
Even this early, it was too hot to breathe.
‘Should we – should we take a walk?’ he asked her, and she nodded.
They walked down across the fine white
sand to where the surf kissed the beach. She remembered the other beach they had walked on, with shingle mixed in with the sand. The water had been a different colour. There had been no palm trees, just buildings, and it had been a spring afternoon, cool enough to have to wear a jacket.
The beach was nearly deserted. Her sandals filled with sand and she bent down and slipped them off. Robbie put his hands in his pockets as they walked. She couldn’t bear to look at him. Instead she gazed out at the sea, where the sunrise was colouring the water with pink and yellow. But she still felt him beside her. Still saw him in her peripheral vision, like she’d seen him in the periphery of her memory for ten years. Her body fell into rhythm with his as they walked.
‘You didn’t bring your husband with you,’ he said.
She’d forgotten he’d suggested it. She’d not said a word to Christopher. He’d been still sleeping when she’d left.
‘Why did you want to see me?’ she asked him.
‘I want to know if you’re happy.’
‘Yes,’ she said quickly. ‘Of course I’m happy.’
‘Good. I only wanted you to be happy. Polly said you’re an obstetrician, and you’re working in South America.’
‘Yes. We’re on our way back to England after this holiday.’
‘How long have you been married?’ he asked her. There was a forced casualness in his voice.
‘Seven years. Christopher didn’t want to wait until we’d qualified. It made sense for us to be in married accommodation.’
‘Christopher . . . that’s . . .’ He took a breath. ‘You told me about him.’
‘Yes. He’s a good husband. Are you – are you married?’
‘Yeah. Five years. I’ve got a little boy.’
It choked her. Her hands flew to her throat before she caught herself and made them return to her sides.
‘Oh, that’s wonderful. What’s he called?’
‘William.’ He took out his wallet and held out a photograph to her. She took it: a skinny scrap of a boy, with Robbie’s dark hair and eyes. He wore a striped shirt and dungarees and was holding a toy car by one wheel. He smiled, revealing a gap in his teeth.
His beauty burned. She couldn’t look away from it. She had to look at the photo and look at it and burn. She wondered what his mother was like.
‘He’s lovely,’ she managed. ‘The spit of you.’
‘Chip off the old block.’
She gave back the photograph. Her fingers had left smears on its glossy surface, near the child’s dark head.
‘Do you have children?’ Robbie asked, replacing the photograph in his wallet.
‘No.’
‘You’re probably too busy.’
She didn’t answer that. Her diagnosis seemed too clinical; too much of an excuse for her failure, the failure of her marriage. Just kept walking along the beach. The wet sand was cooler than the air. In the distance, palm trees hung their fronds like limp scarves. They could be on a different planet from the one they’d been on the last time they had spoken, the last time they’d really spoken, on the silty bank of the river, with mist rising up from the water because of the rain.
‘What else have you been doing?’ she asked at last. ‘How are Dennis and Art?’
‘I don’t know. I haven’t spoken with them in years.’
‘What did you do after – after we said goodbye, the last time?’
‘I got on a boat out of Bristol to New York. I travelled around a little while and then joined the Navy.’
‘Did you go to Vietnam?’
He nodded.
‘You . . . you never seemed like the armed forces type to me.’
‘I didn’t know what else to do. I had to do something.’ From studied nonchalance, his voice had gone curt. ‘I was there for two years. Took some shrapnel in the thigh, so they sent me home.’
‘Robbie.’ She stopped walking, and he did too. ‘You were hurt?’
‘It’s fine. I was one of the lucky ones. Then down to Florida, got a job in a marina here. Marie’s a snowbird from Wisconsin. Nobody in Miami is originally from here.’
‘I can see why they come here,’ she said automatically. ‘It’s beautiful, though too hot for me.’
‘Are you happy, Emily? Are you really happy?’
‘Yes.’
‘I want you to be happy,’ he said. ‘It’s all I’ve ever wanted. You were right. I had to keep thinking about that, after I left. You were right. We hardly knew each other after all.’
‘Are you happy?’ she burst out.
‘No.’
He bent down and scooped up a handful of wet sand and threw it at the pink and yellow surf. It dissolved from a lump to a scattering of pieces and didn’t make a single ripple at all.
‘No,’ she repeated. ‘No, me neither.’
‘Why did we do it, then?’
‘Robbie, please don’t ask me that.’
‘You’re the only person who calls me Robbie.’
‘Please,’ she said, though she didn’t know what she was asking him to do, or not to do.
He touched her cheek with a sandy finger. She breathed in sharply.
‘Please,’ she said again.
‘This isn’t enough, is it?’ he whispered. ‘It isn’t what either of us wants.’
‘I don’t know what I want. Yes, I do. I want everything to be the same as it was before I saw you again.’
‘I don’t. That moment when I saw you in the airport was the most alive I’ve felt for ten years.’
She touched his lips with her fingers. She couldn’t help it. She didn’t want to and she knew she shouldn’t but her fingers, his mouth. His lips were firm and warm and she remembered what it was like to kiss them. She remembered them on the back of her sunburned neck and how they had tasted in the Cambridge rain.
‘We can’t do this,’ she whispered.
He nodded. ‘But we’re going to anyway.’
She didn’t trust herself to speak. She nodded.
Chapter Twenty-Five
After he watched her walk away through the dunes, he didn’t go to work. He rode his bike back over the causeway and rode around until he found a liquor store that was open. He bought a fifth of Beam, took it to the waterfront, and sat, watching the waves, drinking.
Water always ran in the path of least resistance first. It would take the easiest way. But then when the easiest way was full, when the water pressure was too great, when it had to flow, water would eat through rock. It would push aside mountains to get where it needed to go. It would break apart the earth into sand.
It just needed time, and sufficient pressure.
He thought of her face when he had told her about being wounded.
When JB’s opened, he went there for a beer.
They had cocktails by the pool before they went to dinner: Christopher was very good at making dry martinis, and Polly had a bottle of Cuban rum and wanted to make a cocktail she’d had at one of the bars she’d visited. She’d also procured several Cuban cigars, probably highly illegal. One of them was clenched between her teeth, emitting puffs of smoke as she filled four glasses with rapidly melting ice. Christopher and her father were sitting at the patio table, chatting about cricket, each with their own cigar, although Christopher was only holding his, not smoking it. Emily perched on the edge of a sunlounger.
No one had noticed. They hadn’t noticed she’d been gone that morning, and they hadn’t noticed the seismic change in her since she had agreed to see Robbie again. As far as her family knew, everything was normal.
Robbie had been the same and yet so different. He was sadder. He had a quietness to him that he’d never had before. He spoke less quickly and smiled less often.
She had done that to him. She had done at least some of that to him.
Her mother joined her
, stretching out on a neighbouring sunlounger. She had a martini glass in her hand. ‘It’s a bit cooler, at least.’
‘Maybe people get used to the heat,’ Emily said. ‘When they live here for a while.’
‘The palm trees, though,’ said her mother. ‘With real coconuts. It’s like being on a film set. I have to pinch myself to believe I’m here. Oh, Emily, look!’
She pointed at a small dun-coloured lizard on the cement near the pool. It paused, absolutely still, in a ray of sunshine, long enough for them to see its pinpoint black eyes and its legs parallel to the ground, and then it darted off, fast as thought.
‘In La Paz we knew a man who’d trained a tegu. They’re these big black-and-white lizards. He would ride on a bicycle, and it would ride on his shoulder, like a parrot.’
Her mother nodded, and this was normal, too. As long as she could remember, Emily had been offering her little interesting facts, conversational gifts. Hoping to please her. Impress her. As a child, she used to read the encyclopaedia in her father’s study, starting from the middle of the alphabet, and she would memorise lines and find her mother in the kitchen and recite them. Watching her nod, hoping for a smile or a ‘Well done,’ the kind of easy praise that her father could always give her and that her mother never did.
The habit was difficult to break.
‘Well,’ Emily said, starting to get up, ‘I’d better powder my nose before—’
‘Look at you,’ said her mother suddenly. ‘Look at you, Emily. A doctor, married to a surgeon. Helping the poor in a foreign country. I never thought . . .’ She trailed off and took a sip of her drink. Christopher’s martinis were quite potent, and she was on her second one, though she never normally had anything stronger than a single sherry.
‘I’m very proud of you,’ her mother said. ‘Very proud indeed. There was a time when I was worried. But I shouldn’t have been. You always knew how to find your way.’
‘Oh,’ she said. She’d half got up, but now she sat back down. ‘Thank you.’
There was a hammering sound from Polly’s direction. ‘How do you muddle mint?’ she asked no one in particular.
