by Pip Drysdale
‘How will they make things right?’ I was attempting to speak softly – the neighbour’s bay window was wide open – but it came out as a hiss. ‘If you want to make it right, take the tape down and never speak to me again.’
There was a dusty breeze blowing in towards me and the light was low and grey. He wore blue jeans, a cream pullover and a navy scarf. His skin was tanned and his head was hanging, eyes on his feet.
‘I have,’ he said. ‘Of course I’ve taken it down.’
That caught me off guard and my head grew light.
‘When?’ I asked. It was still up on Wednesday when I checked.
‘Yesterday,’ he said. ‘I wanted to do it sooner. But I was away in the mountains and the connection was non-existent. I tried to call you last night,’ he continued. Small. ‘It was my birthday and it felt so wrong without you there …’
I opened my mouth to speak but didn’t know what to say. David’s eyes flashed before me, and then two yellow bows. I tried to control my expression: I couldn’t let him know I knew about the prostitutes. That I knew how he’d spent his night.
‘Please,’ he said. His lip was quivering and he couldn’t hold my glance: ‘You don’t have to take me back but please let me try to make you understand why I did what I did.’ He looked up and there were tears in his eyes.
There had been many apologies, but in eighteen months together I’d never seen him cry. It threw me off balance.
But then Holly’s naked shoulders and the sound of her laugh filled my head. ‘Angus, you know I didn’t want to have a threesome. I did it for you.’ My voice was so low it was almost inaudible. ‘And then you uploaded it onto the internet.’
‘Baby, I was high when I uploaded it.’ The tears had started to fall and he was trying to stabilise his voice.
‘You were high?’ I said. ‘That’s your excuse?’
‘I don’t expect you to forgive me.’ His voice was a whisper. ‘But I need you to understand how it happened. I was coked out of my head after we broke up. I’d just dropped you home and didn’t know what the fuck I’d done. How I’d ruined everything. So I was watching it because I missed you so much, and I fucking uploaded it. I have no idea what I was thinking,’ he said, sobbing, his head shaking. ‘I was just so fucking angry about it all. Angry at myself.
‘I was hoping you’d never know. And then you did know and you were calling me about it but I just couldn’t face you. I was so ashamed.’ He paused and clenched his jaw. ‘So I just did what I do and blocked it all out. Pretended it hadn’t happened. I knew you’d never forgive me – how could you?’ He looked up at me, and the pleading in his voice seeped like molasses through the cracks in my armour. Then his eyes dropped once again to his shoes.
‘Angus, it’s not just about the tape,’ I said. ‘It’s about everything.’
‘I know it’s all my fault.’ He stood there, shaking his head. ‘You deserve better. But that’s why I’m in NA, Taylor.’ His voice was so small. ‘Narcotics Anonymous. Going to meetings, got a sponsor and everything.’ His shoulders were slumped. His dark hair greasy. ‘I know things have been bad and really hard for you. But I want to be the man you deserve. Darling, think about it, things are only ever bad between us when I’m on it.’
He was right: the drugs made everything worse. And as I stood there watching him, I ached for the way things might have been. The way they were supposed to be. But that was dangerous. I was weakening. I needed him to leave.
‘That’s great, Angus,’ I said softly. ‘I really hope the meetings help, but I really have to go.’ Then I went to shut the door.
‘Darling,’ he said, his hand reaching out to stop the door closing, ‘you know me. You know how hard this is for me – to reach out, to show weakness. I’m not in NA for the tea and biscuits. I’m doing it because I can’t lose you. I just can’t. You mean too much to me. But I don’t think I have the strength to do this without you. God, I don’t think I can …’ His gaze landed back on the floor between his feet. ‘I don’t think I can live without you. I mean, look at me: I can’t even sleep without you in the bed. These last ten days have been hell.’ He looked up at me and his eyes cut straight through to my core. ‘You’re my Sunday Girl, darling. You always will be.’
I took a deep breath and steadied my thoughts. Ten days? It had felt like ten weeks. And I’d never wanted anything the way I wanted Angus. He was my happy ending. But then a hot gust of anger blew over me: him, Kim, a sparkling white ski slope …
‘And what about Kim, Angus?’ I asked, acid in my voice. ‘I know you took her skiing; I saw the photos. What day is she? Monday?’
He looked like he’d been punched.
‘That was a mistake,’ he said, eyes to mine.
‘Yes. Well, you’ve been making a lot of mistakes lately, Angus.’
‘She means nothing,’ he said. Slowly. Like he needed me to understand.
‘Well, it’s nice to know that you sacrificed me for something that meant nothing,’ I said, dropping the roses at his feet.
‘Jesus, how can you be so cold?’ he asked, moving towards me and cupping my face in his hands. ‘I just lost my way, darling.’ I made a half-hearted attempt to pull away but my heart was beating fast and hard as he guided my gaze to his. ‘But I need you to understand this. Because you’re right, I’ve made too many mistakes. Big ones. Frankly, my whole life feels like a fucking mistake sometimes. Everything except you. I love you.’
His breath smelled of peppermint. And he was so warm.
‘But Kim is not you. Nobody is you. You are my fucking home, like it or not.’ He was shaking as he kissed me. A gentle kiss. It was so tender, he tasted so familiar, and the strength I still possessed began to dissolve like rice paper on my tongue.
I pulled back and looked up at his face – the little scar on his upper lip – and my heart panged. That was the thing about Angus: there was always this emptiness, a brokenness, a vulnerability about him that I just wanted to heal. And so it was impossible not to forgive him. Even when my head begged me not to.
‘Can I come inside?’ he asked, his voice a deep whisper.
And I could feel the pull of the sofa behind me, the one we would surely make love on if I let him in. The same sofa he’d whispered ‘I love you’ on for the first time. There was a deep sharp pain in my chest. I almost let him in. But I could hear my mother’s voice in my ear. See the cracked salt from tears on her face. I had to be strong.
‘No,’ I whispered back. His body was straddling the doorway, so I pushed him aside and shut the door.
‘Darling, this doesn’t change anything,’ he said from outside, his voice breaking. ‘I’ll just come back tomorrow. I can’t help it. I still love you.’
I stared at the door, my hands pressed against it, and I listened for his retreating footsteps.
‘I love you,’ he repeated, louder this time.
‘Go home, Angus,’ I said. I knew if he didn’t leave soon I’d give in.
And for a moment he was quiet. I could hear him shuffling on the other side of the door. ‘All I want is to start afresh with you, darling,’ he said. ‘A blank canvas. Pretend none of the bullshit ever happened and do it right this time. I feel like we deserve that.’
I waited for him to grow tired and go home.
‘Fine,’ he said, and then there was silence. My heart shook inside me as I waited again to hear the sound of him giving up, his footsteps leaving. But that sound didn’t come. So I was the one to walk away from the door. I was looking for my phone – I wanted to check the link, to make sure he’d really taken the tape down.
I found it charging by the bed, went to the email with the link, clicked on it, and nothing came up. The link was broken.
It was gone.
My forehead relaxed and I took a deep breath as the weight lifted.
‘Darling,’ Angus was banging on the door, ‘it’s fucking cold out here. Please let me in.’
I moved over to it.
‘Seri
ously, can I at least have a blanket or something?’ His voice was coming from lower down, so I imagined him sitting on my doorstep. ‘I don’t think you understand, darling, I don’t give a shit if I just live here forever.’ And he must have heard my footsteps moving up to the door because his voice got softer, he was no longer yelling. ‘Fine, leave me out here to freeze to death,’ he said. ‘But could I make one last request?’
‘What’s that?’ I said through the door.
‘I want the orange string bikini,’ he said. ‘To keep me company.’
And that was all he needed to say.
Because David had provided me with a dangerous comparison: he was a married man with an ‘understanding’ with his wife about dating other women, a man who’d just let me walk away that morning without so much as following me into the hallway. While Angus, despite all our problems and all his failings, needed me. More than that, he’d proven he was willing to fight for me.
And so, I reached for the cold metal deadbolt. Turned it. And let him in.
sunday
Master Sun said: ‘Take a roundabout route, and lure the enemy with some gain.’
12 FEBRUARY
I was wearing his green birthday jumper and nothing else, my naked legs wrapped around the twisted sheets. The tinkering sounds of coffee being made floated through from my sliver of a kitchen, drawing me from sleep. I glanced around the room: a small pile of ripped-up blue-and-silver wrapping paper lay in the middle of the coffee table, a block of hardening brie and some crumbs on a breadboard to one side, the roses in a water jug to the other. And a moment later there he was, walking naked towards the bed, two cups in his hands. And I remembered: I’d let him in. He put them down on the (still unread) copy of The New Yorker beside me, then jumped on the bed, making it creak.
Then he lay down next to me and nuzzled his nose into my hair.
‘God, I’ve missed the way you smell,’ he said. My eyes drew shut.
I’d missed him too. His gaze was so warm and the past ten days so turbulent; I felt like a flower that had only just survived a winter storm.
‘It’s so early,’ I replied, my voice as creaky as the bed. He hugged me tight over the covers, his leg slung heavily over mine. I gazed towards the window: a slice of bright white sky was visible through the curtains. And, in front of it, flashing and buzzing from the bedside table, lay my phone. I reached for it: Charlotte.
‘Hey,’ I said, clearing my throat.
‘Shit,’ she said, ‘you sound like you just woke up.’ I looked at the time: 10.07am.
‘I did,’ I said, propping myself up on my side and reaching for my coffee. ‘How are you?’ I took a sip – strong, hot – then put it back down.
‘I’m fine, but how was Friday? You were supposed to text me and let me know what he was like, remember?’
‘Oh,’ I said. Angus’s hand was now beneath the covers, warm on my hip, rubbing my thigh. ‘I tried to but they had bad reception,’ I said. ‘He was awful.’
‘Who was awful?’ Angus asked and I gave him a wide-eyed shush look and held the phone away.
‘Is someone there?’ Charlotte asked, amusement in her voice. ‘Well, now I know why you didn’t call me yesterday.’ She laughed.
I took a deep breath. ‘Yeah,’ I said.
‘Is that Charlotte?’ Angus asked loudly. ‘Hi Charlotte,’ he said into the phone.
She was dead quiet. I could almost hear her mind clicking into gear. ‘Is that Angus?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ I said, my voice small.
‘What the fuck?’ she said.
‘I know,’ I said, ‘but there’s more to it than we knew.’
I could hear her swallow. She was choosing her words.
‘I’m sorry, but I’m gobsmacked. Have you told your mum?’ she asked, her tone controlled.
‘No,’ I said. ‘It only happened last night. And she won’t understand.’
‘Damned straight she won’t. Honey –’ Her voice was high-pitched and she took a moment to calm herself. ‘Aside from the fact that he took some other girl skiing just after you broke up, he uploaded a sex tape of you to the internet. Have you forgotten?’
Angus was kissing my neck from behind, his head close to the phone and I didn’t want him to hear what she was saying, so I pulled away and leaned further towards my side of the bed.
‘I know, but it’s really complicated, and he took it down.’ Even as I said it I sensed that she was right.
‘Oh, he took it down? What a gallant gesture,’ she said.
Then we sat in silence, just her breath then mine, hers then mine, until she finally spoke. ‘He’s a dick, babe. I’m sorry, but you need to get away from him. Now.’
I took a deep breath. ‘Can I talk to you about it some other time? I really think you’ll understand when you hear the reasons for it all.’ I looked back at Angus, now lying on his back, arms crossed.
‘I fucking won’t understand,’ Charlotte said. ‘But, sure. What about tomorrow night? It’s half-term this week, so I leave for Scotland on Thursday for four days. So, no yoga this week.’
‘Sure, tomorrow sounds great,’ I said.
‘Fuck, babe,’ she said, exhaling loudly, ‘you worry me sometimes. But love you and chat tomorrow.’
‘Love you too,’ I said. And then we hung up.
I rolled over to face Angus and he reached his hands beneath his jumper, tickling my ribs as he pulled me to him.
‘No,’ I laughed as he hugged me.
‘Yes.’ He laughed back. Then the tickling stopped and we lay there for a few moments while Charlotte’s words echoed in my head. Was she right?
‘It’ll be fine,’ he said into my hair, as though reading my mind. ‘She just needs to get used to the idea.’
I pulled away and looked at him: tanned skin, thick lashes, strong jaw, dark hair now greying at the temples and a little flat bit at the end of his long and refined nose.
‘Maybe,’ I said. Then I let out a sigh and nestled my head back into the warm space between his chest and his chin.
‘What do you want to do today?’ he asked, his hand stroking my hair.
‘I have to do some work,’ I said. ‘It’s important and I’m really behind.’
‘Big project?’ he asked.
‘Really big,’ I said. ‘Promotion big.’ My mind moved to David. I’d slept with our biggest client and we hadn’t even swapped numbers. How?
‘That’s great, darling,’ he said. ‘What is it?’ he asked, sitting up.
‘Long story,’ I said, ‘and it’s supposed to be a secret. But … we’ve got this new client. I’m supposed to find him something to invest in – a load of us have the same project.’
‘Oh, sounds exciting. I’ll bring you your laptop,’ he said. Angus had never shown any real interest in my work before. It felt like he was really trying, like things really would be different.
‘It can wait till later,’ I said, touching his arm.
‘No, do it now, I’ll make brunch,’ he said, walking over to the bookcase to pick up my computer. When he leaned down and placed it on the bed beside me, I could smell him: sweat, musk and coffee.
‘Who’s the client?’ he asked, walking through to the bathroom. He left the door ajar and I could see his reflection in the shower door as I pressed the power-on button.
‘A guy called David Turner,’ I replied. It was jarring to hear myself say his name in full and out loud, as though he were just another client.
I could hear Angus pee – water on water – and he felt so close. ‘David Turner …’ he repeated. ‘Never heard of him.’ He flushed, washed his hands, wet his hair, and came back to stand next to the bed. He picked up his phone and started typing.
‘The Turner Group,’ I said, relieved that they hadn’t met at a business dinner by some shitty trick of serendipity.
‘Oh my God, what a bore,’ Angus said, squinting down at his phone screen. ‘Nobody should be a philanthropist until they have grey hair. It just
seems wrong. I mean, what is this guy? Forty?’
Thirty-eight.
‘So, what have you got so far?’ he asked, looking up at me.
‘Fuck all,’ I said with a smile.
‘Hmm, so, just any investment? Provided it’s in property?’ he asked, frowning.
‘Yes. But it also has to be clever, something nobody else has thought of.’
‘Okay,’ he said, sitting down beside me. ‘Well, I might actually have an idea for you … It might work – what about Eastbourne?’
‘What, the town on the coast?’ I asked, sceptical.
‘Yes. There’s a big development in the works down there,’ he said slowly. ‘Nicolai Stepanovich has already bought up most of the land. It’s part of another place-making scheme. This one’s aimed at the over sixty-fives: built-to-rent apartment blocks, a hospital, that kind of thing. He had all the investors already lined up but one of them pulled out unexpectedly.’
I was listening, nodding, taking it all in. I knew of Stepanovich: his last development had entirely transformed an outer part of Oxford, tripling house prices in the area within five years and turning a dilapidated red-brick shopping area into a large-scale mall. The ripple effect was huge. But that scheme had been funded by a very select circle of high-end investors; it was never even taken to market. To get David involved in this one would be a huge win. It would be exactly what he was looking for.
‘Construction is scheduled to start in May, so they’ll already be looking for new investment. And it was a large sum they lost, so they’ll need a few investors to make up the deficit: if your David Turner wants to take things up a notch, this is his chance.’
‘How do you know about it all?’ I asked.
‘We vied for the mandate. It was worth a mint but the idiots went with someone else. An old school chum told me about the investor falling through; it’s properly confidential but he knew how pissed I was when Stepanovich passed on us, and he thought it might cheer me up. Which, to be fair, it did. Now,’ he said, all seriousness, ‘there is something much more important we need to discuss before you even think about doing anything else.’
