‘Hi, Freckle,’ I said.
Fiona looked up for a second. ‘Oh, hi, Sally. Sorry, I’m watching this …’
Julian, seeing my face, winked kindly at me. As if to say, Leave her be.
I wandered off to the kitchen where Bea and her Brazilian masseur were making something complicated involving kale and flageolet beans. ‘How long has Julian been here?’ I asked Bea.
She raised her eyes to heaven. ‘Hours. He must be determined to sort Fiona out,’ she whispered.
‘I keep thinking that. But do you ever hear him telling her to stop taking drugs? To eat some food? To start behaving like a reasonable human being? Because I don’t.’
‘Well, no, but he must be saying these things when we are not here.’
‘I’m not sure he is, you know. He’d tell me if he had any important conversations. They just seem to be … hanging out.’
Bea looked up from the kale she was chopping. ‘Darling, are you jealous?’
‘No.’
I wasn’t, actually. It was more just … confusion. Those two had separated off in recent days, forming a little club, which, while it didn’t threaten me, didn’t make sense. What was their connection? Why was Julian so happy to spend all this time with her? And why was Fiona happy to talk to him when she’d all but stopped talking to the rest of us?
If I could somehow understand what the bond was between them, I’d feel a lot more comfortable. I knew Julian wasn’t on drugs. And I didn’t think for a second he was after Fiona, or even she him.
Then why? What were they doing?
Bea ordered me to get some wine out of the fridge. ‘It is time for a drink,’ she announced. ‘Maybe you are upset because Fiona is going to move in with Julian for a few months.’
I stopped in my tracks. ‘She is?’
Bea tutted. ‘Ah. Well, yes, preziosa, but you already knew this, no? I am sure it is nothing bad.’
‘I knew it was a possibility,’ I said glumly. ‘But I didn’t know it had been decided on.’
I stared off into the distance as Bea filled my glass with pale cold wine. I couldn’t imagine not seeing Fiona for as much as a day. How would she cope with nobody to look after her?
‘Hi there,’ Julian said, coming into the kitchen behind me. ‘I came to find you so I could snog you hard and then feel you up a bit. Bea, please leave,’ he ordered, which she did amid much hooting. Julian had written I luv Sally & Céline Dion on his hand. He kissed me all over my face and told me I was a chipmunk. Then he gave me a long, lovely hug. ‘She’s not been too bad today,’ he said into my hair. ‘So you can relax tonight. Enjoy this kale extravaganza of Bea’s and kill me with flageolet-bean trumps later on.’
I relaxed. If Fiona really did want to stay here, she was in good hands. Julian Bell lit up every room he walked into.
‘I don’t think I want to leave New York,’ I announced. ‘What shall we do?’ It was the day after Bea’s kale supper (ruined by Fiona and Bea having a loud screaming argument in Fiona’s bedroom) and I’d realized I had only five days left.
‘Mm? Hang on …’
Julian was sitting on his bedroom floor with his laptop on his legs, editing someone’s article for his magazine. He had pushed his sleeves up to his elbows but one had slid back down again, a limp concertina of dark blue hanging from his wrist. I smiled at him, absorbing every detail of his face, his hair, his long, surprisingly elegant fingers. I wanted to slide my hand up inside his sleeve.
He doesn’t touch-type, I realized to my surprise. I knew he’d started the Brooklyn Beaver three years ago, but because I’d not wanted to pry about his wife I was a bit hazy on the chronology of his life before that.
But that was the nice thing about what had grown between us. I was in no hurry to know everything: I trusted that it would all unfold as and when it was meant to.
‘Sorry, Sally, I won’t be a minute.’ Julian looked up briefly, smiling over his glasses, and I felt something warm glow in my chest. I went over to the window while I waited for him.
Julian lived in a relatively modern apartment in East Williamsburg, just off Graham Avenue, and had the back of a brownstone terrace and a tangle of overhead electrical cables for a view. It lacked the scale and magnificence of Raúl’s but I found it just as fascinating: here, after all, was real life, packed into small apartments, framed by peeling windows and lit by tattered lampshades and fairy lights. A small Hispanic woman sat for hours in the window of the house directly behind Julian’s; she made – with ceaseless momentum – bead necklaces, which she hung on a hook coming out of the window frame. Above her there was a young couple who spent more time on their phones than talking to each other, and to their right a tired, faded room through which an old man occasionally shuffled.
Julian’s apartment was on the ground floor – or the first floor, as Americans called it – and it had a small garden, which his bedroom opened on to. His room was the corridor through which Pam, his housemate’s dog, travelled to her favourite spot under a mulberry tree: she burst in whenever she fancied. Which had been a bit embarrassing on more than one occasion.
‘Hello, Pam,’ I said, going outside to sit with her. Julian’s bedroom door had one of those proper American screens that snapped shut to keep the insects out.
‘Sorry,’ he called, hearing it close behind me. ‘I’m on the last paragraph.’
‘Don’t worry. Me and Pam are hanging out.’
I sat on the bench by Pam. She thumped her tail enthusiastically in the dust, then went back to sleep. I thought how cool Julian’s housemate was, calling her dog Pam. Her name was Carmen and she worked nights in a homeless shelter. Because Julian almost always stayed at mine, I’d only met Carmen twice but she’d struck me as being extraordinarily chilled. I struggled to imagine Fiona taking her place.
I leaned back against Julian’s building, breathing in my beloved Brooklyn, and pondered what Julian and I should do about the future.
Immediately I grinned, pinching myself. It had happened! The love thing! Something that had a future worth pondering! A solitary flag, left over from a row of party bunting, flapped in the warm breeze above my head. A flying insect landed on the leg of my jeans and I realized I’d not looked at myself in the mirror and thought, You look fat in those jeans, for weeks. Not for the first time, I sensed how deeply happy I was.
‘You look extremely cute, sitting there with Pam.’ Julian came outside with two bottles of cold beer. ‘Please can you sit in my yard for ever?’
‘Even when it’s cold? And snowy?’
‘Yes. I’ll build you an igloo. You’ll be like this funny little mad snowman in my garden and we can have naughty igloo sex.’
‘Sign me up.’
‘Soin meeyoop,’ Julian giggled. His Black Country accent was getting worse.
He sat down on the bench and kissed me. I loved kissing Julian. I loved the feeling of his lips and the scratch of stubble and the way his eyes always opened at the same time as mine. He hooked up my legs and pulled them over his, wrapping his arms round me. ‘Don’t go,’ he whispered. ‘I might die without you. My heart might stop. Then how would you feel?’
I smiled happily. ‘That’s what I was trying to talk to you about just now, you knob.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes. I asked what we were going to do.’
Julian burst out laughing. ‘Oh, my God, you must’ve thought I was a total fucker! You ask about the future and I carry on working!’
‘It’s fine. You were wrapped up in what you were doing. I like you caring so much about your job.’
‘Well, I’m still sorry.’
‘No, I mean it. You’re passionate about journalism, aren’t you?’
For a split second, Julian disappeared somewhere I couldn’t follow. It was a minor thing but it caused a ripple of low-level surprise: I’d grown used to reading him effortlessly. As soon as it had begun, it was over.
‘I guess I am,’ he said, as if it were the first time he’
d thought about it. ‘Yeah, I guess I am. I didn’t expect that to happen …’
You’re not meant to know everything about him yet, I reminded myself.
He pulled me in again, kissing my head. ‘I don’t know what we should do about the future,’ he said slowly. ‘But I know we’ll make it work. I could come over in, say, October?’
My heart leaped. ‘To London?’
‘Actually, I was thinking perhaps Iran.’
I pulled back and kissed him all over his face. ‘Yes! Yes, please come to London! I would love that so much!’
Julian laughed. ‘And maybe you could get Christmas off and come here … It’s magical at Christmas. You don’t know shit about overindulging until you have your first American Christmas. I can teach you some lessons.’
‘Yes! Bingey American Christmas!’
There was a happy pause, during which Julian took my hand. ‘And then we can make a more long-term plan,’ he said, looking straight at me. ‘Because in the same way that I know I’ll always have fluffy hair to contend with, I know I’ll always want you in my life.’
Deep happiness dropped anchor in my stomach. I felt like I’d burst. ‘Good,’ I whispered. Good didn’t cover it! ‘That works for me too.’
My phone rang, and I ignored it. ‘Hadn’t you better answer it?’ Julian asked. ‘It might be Fiona.’
Mildly irritated, I answered. It was Fiona, and she was locked out.
‘Oh, well. Let’s go over there and get her,’ Julian said agreeably. A slight condensation formed on the shiny curve of my happiness.
‘What is it, Sal?’
‘Oh … Just Fiona. Is she really going to stay here?’
‘Oh, that … I’m not sure.’
Julian seemed flustered; his glasses slid off his nose. ‘It came up as a possibility,’ he added uncertainly. ‘You’ll have to ask her …’
‘Why does she talk to you? And not me?’ I blurted. Stop it, I told myself. Don’t ruin this lovely moment.
‘She doesn’t,’ Julian replied. ‘Well, not really,’ he added. ‘I guess it’s cos I’m Raúl’s best friend.’
‘Do you think so?’ I wasn’t convinced. But if it wasn’t that, what was it?
Julian kissed me again, his hands on either side of my face. ‘I do think so, yes. Anyway, it’s settled. I’ll visit in October, you’ll visit at Christmas, and then we’ll do something more radical. Deal?’
‘Deal.’
‘I’d do anything to make you happy,’ he told me simply. ‘You are my favourite thing in the whole world ever.’
Four days later I finished at the Met and began my final hours in New York. Bea was organizing farewell drinks on the roof of the Wythe Hotel, where Julian had fed me English tea and cheese toasties on our first night.
Everyone we had met during our time in New York was coming and Julian had bought me the most beautiful dress from a boutique near his house. I’d never imagined a man could choose a dress for a woman but it was perfect: simple, silky and yearning for my chunky silver necklace. ‘Unstructured,’ Julian said wisely, then rolled around giggling like a boy. ‘UNSTRUCTURED? I couldn’t believe it when the shop assistant said that! You women are mental! It’s a dress!’
There was a sad end-of-term feeling to our final day. The sky was torpid and swollen; change was in the air. I had packed, cleared out my locker at the Met and taken a final walk through the East River State Park on my own, remembering happier times there with Fiona a few weeks before.
Fiona had now officially told me that she would remain in New York for the time being, but she was refusing to tell me anything about her plans. I was doing my best at trying to be understanding but it was hard. I wasn’t used to being the enemy: Fiona had always told me everything. Always. If it weren’t for the promise of Julian looking after her, I would have had to resign from my job and stay.
By three o’clock I was packed and done, needing only to buy some shoes for tonight. I set out to get them in a final pilgrimage to SoHo.
The sky was heavy but my heart was light as I came up out of the subway at Spring Street. SoHo exploded around me: tourists with large cardboard shopping bags spilled in and out of the large chain shops while sleek, groomed rich girls tried on priceless jewellery and examined handbags behind the locked doors of posh boutiques. The traffic moved sluggishly along Broadway and a woman in a long skirt shouted about the love of Christ to an accompaniment of honking horns and human indifference. I stood watching her, curious, when suddenly I heard another female voice, which I knew very well.
I looked round sharply. Fiona was literally feet away from me, walking along Spring Street towards Mercer, her arm linked companionably through Julian’s. I stared at them, inexplicably paralysed. Julian looked down at Fi and chuckled at what she was saying. Then he glanced at his watch and said something. They picked up their pace and walked off into the crowd.
I watched until they were out of sight and wondered why I felt so afraid.
Surely they weren’t …
No. That was absurd. Julian had not been some sleazy flirt with Fiona, he’d been a good friend to her. How could I be anything other than grateful for that? If she hadn’t latched on to him she’d have isolated herself completely.
Without realizing what I was doing, I dialled Julian’s number.
‘Sal!’ He answered almost immediately. A fire engine was forcing its way down Broadway and I could hear its sirens relayed through his phone.
‘Hi!’ I sounded falsely bright.
‘What’s up, little ferret?’
‘Nothing! I’m just shoe shopping and I thought I’d say hello.’ My heart pounded sickly in my chest. I didn’t want to lie to him.
‘Oh, well, hi there, baby. I came round to yours earlier to do some groping but you weren’t there.’
‘Right.’
There was a noisy silence as the sirens made their way out of our call.
‘I was joking,’ he said, less confidently.
‘I know! So, what are you up to?’ I hated myself. Hated that my stomach was bracing in fear of what he might say. Terrified that he might lie. Please tell me you’re with Fiona in SoHo. Please.
‘I’m off to interview someone,’ Julian said, after a split-second pause. ‘Just walking to the Village to meet them now. But I’ll be back in plenty of time for the drinks.’
I said nothing.
‘I want to watch you getting ready in your new dress,’ he added. ‘Paint a moustache on your face, that kind of thing.’
Before I had a chance to think I ended the call and turned the phone off so he’d think I’d run out of battery. Everything had gone baggy and limp. I was not well.
A raindrop fell on my forehead, followed by another. In my state of petrification they felt like bullets on my skin.
Rain began to fall harder, yet the sun was still out. It blazed in the upper windows of the tall buildings lining Broadway, casting a strange, hyper-real glow.
It must be OK, I thought wildly. Julian loves me! He’s probably just indulging one of Fi’s whims!
But why? my head countered. Why did he lie?
I drifted sideways into a shoe shop and stared blankly at a pair of men’s trainers for ten minutes before an assistant came to ask me what I was looking for.
ACT FOUR
Scene Eighteen
October 2012, London
From: Sally Howlett
To: Fiona Lane
Sent: 15/10/12 23.01 GMT
Message: New York
Fiona,
I feel very weird emailing you about this. I nearly didn’t, because the last thing I want to do is upset you when you’re out there alone in New York … But I kind of have to.
The day of our leaving party, just over a year ago, I went shoe shopping in SoHo and I saw you and Julian walking along Spring Street together. You were going in the direction of the Village. You had linked his arm. You were laughing.
I don’t know why but I couldn’t bring myself to sto
p you. I panicked. It’s not that I don’t trust you, my darling, I just … I dunno. Something felt weird.
I rang Julian and he lied. He told me he was off to interview someone for the magazine. And later, when he came round to our apartment before the leaving party, he lied again.
I don’t want to talk to him about this or anything to do with New York. I’m finally beginning to relax at college and I’m trying to have a relationship with Jan. Which, God knows, isn’t easy with Julian around.
So I’m asking you instead. I hate myself for doing this but I have to know. Will you tell me, Fi? Will you tell me, because I love you and I loved him once and I need to know what was going on?
All my love
Me xxxx
From: Mail Delivery subsystem
To: Sally Howlett
Sent: 15/10/12 23.02 GMT
Message: Mail Delivery Failure
Your message has not been delivered to the address below.
Error: account has been deleted. This is a permanent error.
I stared at the message on the screen and let it take me: the terrible, bottomless despair that I had tried so hard, for so long, to avoid. Barry was in the bedroom next door, laughing on the phone to a friend. As I listened to him chatter away, a muffled voice from another world, I found myself strangled by a truth too terrible to bear.
I cried slow, quiet tears of anguish at my computer. I cried until my body began to fold in on itself.
And then, as abruptly as I’d started, I stopped.
I wouldn’t do this. I wouldn’t go back there. Couldn’t. If Fiona was determined to cut herself off from me, that was how it would have to be.
ACT THREE
Scene Seventeen
September 2011, New York
The farewell drinks were bittersweet. Infectious party spirit mingled with deep sadness as we drank cocktails and said silly things, like Let’s all set up a commune in France! Let’s meet up next year and climb Mount Kilimanjaro!
The Unfinished Symphony of You and Me Page 24
