Summer at Tiffany's

by Karen Swan

  ‘They were my parents,’ Gem screamed suddenly, drowning out even Suzy. ‘And they left me. They left me, don’t you see that? I was alone.’

  There was a long silence, the two cousins standing as rigid as chess pieces in the light beam, while It’s a Wonderful Life flickered over them.

  When Suzy spoke next, her voice was quiet. Restored again. The anger – having broken through – had seeped away like a hill mist. ‘They never left you, Gem; they were taken. There’s a difference. And you’ve never been alone – you had Mum and Henry and me. There hasn’t been one day since the fire when you’ve been on your own, and that’s the problem. It’s why I don’t believe this marriage will ever work. I know you and Laird love each other, I can see that, but you are damaged, Gem. You’ve never recovered because the whole rest of your life has been spent denying the horror of what happened.’

  ‘I don’t deny anything. I live my life in an open way; I’m open to love, open to new experiences—’

  ‘Gem, you haven’t driven a car since you hit Rover; you won’t go in the water since you drifted off on that lilo; you won’t get near a fire pit because of the flames. You’re running, and everything you do – your search for Zen, this off-the-cuff, hippy-go-lucky wedding – it’s just a desperate attempt to distract us all from the fact that inside, you are burning up with rage.’

  Suzy’s voice was so quiet Cassie almost had to strain to hear, but her words had clearly hit their mark. Gem was crying, her head shaking from side to side, refuting the truth, but she was shaking as violently as if she was febrile.

  ‘I think . . .’ Laird looked across at Archie, who nodded back in wordless agreement. Laird led Gem away in silence.

  Archie wrapped his arms around his wife. ‘We’re going inside now too,’ he said gently but firmly, walking her back towards the house. For once, Suzy didn’t protest. She was all out of words.

  Cassie stared across at Luke and Amber, both of whom were mute with shock at the scene they’d just witnessed.

  ‘Holy crap,’ Amber breathed as they watched Archie and Suzy disappear inside the house, forgetting, temporarily, her enmity with Cassie. ‘Who knew? I mean, I knew Gem had some serious shit going on, but . . .’ She gave a low whistle.

  Luke, who was only half listening, raised an eyebrow as he twisted first one way, then the other. ‘Uh . . . anyone see where the dog went?’

  ‘What?’ Cassie gasped, suddenly looking down onto the blackened ground. In all the commotion between Suzy and Gem, they had completely forgotten about the puppy.

  She turned and looked behind her towards the fields. There were cows in the immediate field but sheep in the ones beyond, and if he worried them, the farmer would shoot him on sight. ‘Oh bugger, we’ve got to find him.’

  ‘What’s his name?’ Luke asked, walking towards her, his eyes locked on Cassie again as he moved in front of Amber’s line of sight. The dark passion in his eyes rooted her to the spot and for a moment, just one, she thought he was going to do what he would have done in the sea earlier, had she not leaped like a salmon out of his arms. But he bent down and switched off the projector as Amber gathered the Hermès blanket tighter round her shoulders.

  ‘Rollo.’

  ‘Rollo?’ Luke repeated, his voice benign but his eyes burning as he stalled for time.

  Amber was still behind him, out of eyeshot of them both, and Cassie felt her breath hitch. She had to get away from him. ‘We’d better split up. You go that way; I’ll look over here,’she said quickly.

  ‘What about me? I’m barefoot. I can’t go traipsing over fields in the dark with no shoes on,’ Amber whined.

  ‘Then go and put some shoes on,’ Luke said, before seeing her reluctant expression. He sighed. ‘Or don’t. Make some coffee.’

  He headed off into the darkness, using the light on his phone as a torch and calling Rollo’s name. Cassie followed suit, moving in the opposite direction as she headed for the stile.

  The fields and hedgerows took on a different aspect by night. She had walked along this path dozens of times in the past ten days, but the thorns on the brambles seemed exaggerated in the shadows cast by the moonbeams, and the sheer bulk of the dozing cows was altogether more menacing in the dark.

  ‘Rollo!’ she called. ‘Here, boy!’

  But there was no response: no bark to indicate he’d heard, no whine to tell her he was hurt or stuck somewhere; no sound of padded paws thundering over the grassy, baked earth.

  She shone her phone light into the nooks and crevices in the dry-stone walls and hedgerows, but her head was full of the news Suzy had just spilled. It made sense, at least, of their uneasy relationship – how Henry had been able to laugh and joke, when Suzy couldn’t; how he’d been able to forgive what he knew, when she couldn’t forget what she’d seen.

  ‘Rollo!’

  Cassie remembered the unsettling look she’d seen in Gem’s eyes when she’d ‘won’ their showdown, the mania that accompanied her every move. Suzy had been right – Gem was damaged. But was that really so surprising, given the circumstances in which she’d lost her parents? It was certainly no wonder Hattie – whose feathers were famously never ruffled – was fretful and sleepless about this marriage.

  The world darkened suddenly, spun too fast, as she felt her hand caught, the scent of vetiver and sandalwood cloud around her, an aftershave she herself had bought.

  ‘Don’t—’ she managed in the moment before his lips crushed hers, his hands spread across her back, pushing her in and keeping her close, as though she was the one who’d been lost and not the worn-out puppy she could feel sniffing the ground by her feet.

  Luke pulled back, his eyes glittering darkly. ‘Let’s just stop this now. You know we can’t carry on pretending, Cass. It’s too hard . . .’ He kissed her again, the feel of his mouth on hers so familiar, all the same desires she had long ago tucked away flickering into being like one of those reigniting birthday candles – no matter how hard she tried, the flame wouldn’t blow out.

  She hated that he could still do this to her, that after everything they’d done to each other – the rejections, humiliations, punishments – the chemistry wouldn’t let it just go, fade, die.

  She put her hands to his chest, pushing back, trying to breathe, to think. ‘Luke—’

  ‘It wasn’t over then, and it isn’t over now. I knew it when I saw you again in New York – and you knew it too, Cass.’

  She swallowed, knowing he was calling her on the lie, the pointless one she had tried to hide behind that day in the garden last week. He knew she had seen him, he had seen for himself the effect he had had on her, frozen still in the freezing night.

  His eyes burned into hers, seeing it all. ‘It isn’t over.’

  She stared back at him, her breath coming hard and fast, her heart like a boxer’s fist on her ribs as she remembered the effect of him on her, seeing him in the cab in New York, seeing him at the polo. ‘I know.’

  His eyes came alive. ‘So then be with me. If it was a hundred per cent right with him, you wouldn’t have hesitated, you’d be his wife already.’

  She didn’t reply. Emotions were swirling and crashing around inside her, her heart saying one thing, her body yet another.

  ‘He doesn’t understand what you went through, the person you’ve become. That year changed you, Cassie. I’ve only ever known you like this – free, independent, strong – but he wants you like a caged bird, the person you once were.’ He saw the resistance in her eyes. ‘I know you love him. I know you do. Just like I love Amber. But it’s a matter of degrees, isn’t it? “Almost” just isn’t enough in the end. We want it all, you and me – we want the rush, the right now, the energy. No one could ever touch us when it came to sexual chemistry. We weren’t just on fire; we were the fire. There’ll never be anyone else like that for us – you must see that.’

  She tore her eyes away. He made it so hard for her to think, putting words in her mouth, thoughts in her head. She just needed to—


  ‘You were looking for something the first time round, and you didn’t think I was it. You couldn’t let yourself believe that you could have found what you were looking for so quickly, so easily. So you called me the rebound guy, right?’

  She swallowed. It was exactly what she’d called him, how she’d ‘managed’ the memories when he had popped into her head, anytime she saw one of his images in a magazine, at a bus stop . . .

  ‘But what if I wasn’t? What if I was the real deal all along and you just weren’t ready to face it?’ He stepped forward – Rollo coming with him, Luke’s belt looped through his collar to form a makeshift lead – his finger hooking up under her chin, making her look at him again, that touch alone making her want him. ‘Just let go, Cass. You’re fighting something that’s right. We both know it. I never gave up on us. Look.’

  He pulled something from his pocket – a bangle? It was solid and gold, tiny screw-heads dotted round it. ‘It’s a symbol of love. Once you put it on, you don’t take it off. Like a ring, I guess.’ He studied her face as she looked at it more closely. Recognition dawning . . . ‘It represents never letting go. And I never did.’

  She didn’t need to see the little red box to know it was the Cartier bracelet; she remembered Amber and Gem’s excitement over it – a very modern proposal, they’d fancied. ‘No. You bought this for Amber,’ she said firmly, pushing back. Did he think he could just switch girls for the gift?

  ‘No. Look.’ He shone his phone light on the inner radius. She squinted.

  ‘December 31st 2012.’

  A hand flew to her mouth as she took in the date of the party he’d thrown for her in New York to convince her to stay – all her new friends lined up as proof that she had a life there, it could work . . . ‘It was meant to mark the first day of the rest of our lives, but . . .’ He blinked, his eyes fierce with emotion. ‘You left before I could give it to you. I’ve had it with me ever since: it was in my pocket at the gallery in Paris that night of the private view; I had it in London at the party . . .’

  ‘But why?’ she whispered.

  ‘In case the opportunity ever came up to . . . convince you we were real.’ He blinked at her. ‘I’ve tried letting you go. And I’ve tried just being your friend. I actually did.’ A small laugh escaped him as though the very idea was ridiculous. ‘As if that was ever going to work.’ His hand found hers, squeezing it hard. ‘You’re under my skin, Cass. Nothing I can do about it.’

  A moment passed. ‘I don’t know what you want me to say,’ she said quietly, almost flattened by his words, scared by the truth in them and what would happen if she responded, what would happen if she didn’t . . .

  ‘Just say no.’

  She looked at him in surprise. ‘No?’

  ‘Say you won’t marry me. Let’s live happily ever after.’

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  London blared. The sounds seemed louder, the colours bolder than when Cassie had left, not two weeks earlier, and she wove through the Pimlico Farmers’ Market with an energy that hadn’t been hers when leaving nearly a fortnight ago.

  ‘Hey, Cassie, you’re back!’

  She looked up to find Martin, her man for mushrooms, smiling at her. He got up at 4 a.m. to travel from Dorset for this farmers’ market, but he’d still had more sleep than her. She’d been awake all night, her mind racing, Luke’s words – his unproposal, so modern after all – ringing in her ears, offering her another way, another life.

  ‘I thought Zara said you weren’t around for another week. How was Cornwall? You’ve caught the sun.’

  ‘Have I?’ Her hand moved to her cheek. She felt flushed – high, again – even in spite of no sleep.

  ‘Catch any waves?’

  The phrase made her think of Henry – his signature list and some greater meaning attached to it; it made her think of Luke and their euphoria as they rode the wave together.

  ‘Just one.’

  ‘Only the one?’ Martin laughed. ‘Get back down there and try harder, missy.’

  ‘I’m going back tomorrow, actually.’ She held up the list and rolled her eyes. ‘Got a wedding to cater for on Saturday.’

  ‘Blimey, Saturday? What you doing back up here, then?’

  She adjusted her hat – a wide-brimmed, floppy fedora that kept the sun from her eyes. ‘It’s transpired that the bride’s got rather niche tastes. There wasn’t time to get everything delivered down; it was just easier to pop back here and do it myself.’ After the revelations last night, Cassie had resolved to do the best job she could for Gem; they may never be bosom buddies, but the poor girl had bigger things to worry about than menus.

  It had also given her the perfect opportunity to escape, partly from Suzy – there was no guessing the mood she’d be in this morning – partly from Luke. Especially from him. She’d deliberately switched off her phone. She didn’t want to have his voice – low and beguiling, that delicious accent – next to her ear, like he was on the pillow beside her. She didn’t want to see his eyes – vivid, intense, rapacious – undressing her, caressing her, talking her into things she knew were bad and dangerous, yet felt so good. She thought he could probably talk her into anything and that was why she had left; there was no perspective when he was near and she needed time to think. The cliff winds were swirling round her again but this time they were warm and caressing, enticing her to cast off her fears and finally make the leap of faith that had seemed so impossible before.

  She knew she was at a crossroads, perhaps the biggest of her life. This was it. Where her life ended up would be traced back to this moment, this decision. So much of what had happened to her up till now had been out of her control: the consequences of Gil’s affair had made divorce inevitable, not because of her anger or refusal to forgive – she believed she could have done that – but because there was a child involved who needed a father and she had refused to be the person standing in the way of that happening. She had had to go.

  Equally, falling for Henry had been easy, thoughtless, as instinctive as breathing, and up till now she hadn’t questioned it; she hadn’t needed to. Why dwell on the one piece of grit in their relationship when everything else sparkled? But the tectonic plates of what he wanted and she didn’t had been pushing against each other for two years, betraying their presence only in the warning tremors that occasionally made the ground shake beneath their feet; and the pressure was constant now, fracture of some kind inevitable. To move forwards, one of them would have to break.

  And it didn’t have to be her. She could have exactly what she wanted with Luke; she didn’t need to splinter off a piece of herself to be with him. He wasn’t pushing her into something in which she had lost faith. They were on the same page and everything that had been between them before was still there, just waiting . . . She remembered his kiss last night and the self-control it had taken to push him away before they’d lost themselves to something more.

  ‘I’ll take the oysters, thanks, Martin,’ she said brightly, holding out the money, her eyes falling to the golden glint on her wrist. Gem had been right. It really was modern. Vervy. Cool. She imagined their life in New York: dinner eaten out of steaming takeout bags; the two of them walking through the Village for coffees, her head on his shoulder; idle walks in Central Park; the look that would come into his eyes when they were alone, properly alone, again – it had always made her catch her breath, that look. Their chemistry was undeniable, unstoppable. Maybe Luke had been right – he’d been more than a rebound. After all this time, even after finding intense happiness with other people, the universe had somehow boomeranged them back to each other. They fitted; they wanted the same things, crucially, at the same time; they belonged together.

  Martin handed over the paper bag and her change. ‘Enjoy Saturday.’

  ‘Oh, I won’t,’ she laughed.

  ‘I’m gonna wanna hear about this wedding. All the gory details,’ he called after her as she slipped into the crowds again. ‘I love it when them br
ides is mad.’

  She stopped at all her usual stalls – the cheese, the chutneys, the purple carrots – knowing the traders by name and chatting with extra gaiety as they all commented on how ‘well’ she was looking. She was having a ball, shopping in the sunshine and mingling with the crowds; she felt lighter and freer than she had in months. She hadn’t realized what a burden it had been constantly trying to fend off a life she didn’t want. She felt giddy with relief.

  In under an hour the list was almost ticked off and her neon-orange string shopping bags were bulging. The flat was only a three-minute walk from here and already her palms were striated from the weight of the groceries, but she couldn’t make herself walk faster. After twelve hours of living in her head, reality was beginning to bite. Luke’s proposal had seemed so easy, so obvious when they were standing in the moonlit field, a puppy snuffling at their feet, but she didn’t know how to walk into her and Henry’s home and be presented with their own life interrupted; how to stand with a stranger’s eyes in her own hall and face everything that they shared. She wasn’t sure she could meet Henry’s gaze in the numerous photos she had proudly dotted on every surface when they’d moved in, their togetherness as tangible as a Saharan wind. She didn’t think she could look at what she was supposed to walk away from.

  She stopped walking, feeling fluey, her body aching and suddenly so, so tired she thought she could curl up on the pavement and go to sleep.

  She didn’t want to go home, but neither did she want to go back to Cornwall. Not yet. She still had to think. To be really sure . . . The bags in her hands sagged another inch closer to the ground. Luke’s face last night shimmered in her mind, the pretending over. She was further than ever from knowing what she wanted. Suzy had said she was caught between lives and she’d been right. She’d been right about all of it. But just because Suzy had been right, it didn’t meant that what Cassie felt was wrong.