‘You don’t know where it is,’ said Tess. ‘And she’s expecting me to be there, anyway.’ She looked up at him imploringly and then stepped a little further into the room. ‘Bye, Francesca!’ She waved. ‘Short but sweet. Speak to you tomorrow.’
‘Yes,’ said Francesca, smiling at her excitedly. ‘I’m sorry about all—all this. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. I’ve been waiting for you for ages! What on earth have the two of you been up to?’ She rolled her eyes behind Adam’s back, as if they were both complicit in Adam’s uselessness, and Tess could have hit her, then.
But it wasn’t Francesca’s fault, it wasn’t anyone’s. It was…just one of those things.
‘It’s just one of those things,’ she said to Adam, in the doorway again.
‘Yes.’ He nodded. ‘I think you’re right. Look—’
‘See you when I get back,’ Tess told him. His eyes widened.
‘When you get back?’
‘Yes.’ She nodded. ‘I’m going to Italy, remember? I’m away for a week.’ He looked at her—was it relief in his eyes, or something else? She winced at how much it hurt, and then patted the doorframe, unable to bring herself to touch him. ‘I’ll talk to you soon, yeah?’
‘Um—yeah,’ Adam said.
‘Adam—’ Francesca’s voice came from inside the room. ‘Aren’t you going to put her in a cab, for God’s sake? She can’t walk the streets on her own at this time of night.’
‘I’ll be fine,’ Tess called out, at the same time as Adam said, ‘She says she’ll be fine.’
She turned and looked at him. Yep, she was right. He was the same old Adam.
‘Thanks,’ she said, unable to keep the anger out of her voice, and she walked towards the lift.
‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ she heard him call softly to Francesca, and then he was running after her, down the corridor.
‘Leave me alone, Adam,’ she told him, opening the heavy door onto the staircase; she didn’t want to wait for the lift.
He followed her, as her feet tripped on the stairs. ‘Don’t go like this, T,’ he said. ‘This is all a big mistake, I’m sorry—’
She carried on running down the stairs. ‘Thanks. I know it is.’
‘Hey,’ he called down to her, increasing his steps as she was getting away from him. ‘This is hard for me as well, you know. I didn’t realize she’d be here…’
She stopped, on a landing, and looked at him. Both of them were breathing heavily. ‘Two girls in one hour is pretty good going, even for you,’ she said sarcastically, wishing she could bite her tongue. ‘And lucky for you, one of them’s waiting all ready for you, naked in a hotel room, and the other one’s off, so you don’t have to do anything. It’s all done for you. Just like it always is.’
‘Don’t be a bitch, Tess,’ Adam said. Her eyes widened and he shook his head. ‘Sorry. I don’t mean it. Just stop living in the past.’ He amended himself. ‘Don’t—let’s not say anything we’ll regret.’
‘Don’t call me a bitch,’ she said, venom in her voice. ‘And don’t say I’m living in the past, Adam. Don’t. There are lots of things I could call you, and I don’t.’
‘OK, go on then,’ he said, clenching his teeth. ‘You’re always right, aren’t you? Always bloody right. Tell me.’
‘I’m not going to tell you,’ she said, turning and running down the stairs again, the endless square spiral—when would she reach the ground, when would she be out of here? They reached the lobby, and a slumbering night guard looked up and smiled as they stormed past him, through the revolving doors, out onto the pavement. Adam caught her by the shoulder, and she cried out in alarm and stumbled against the black railing. He grabbed her, stopped her from falling.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Tess, I didn’t mean—’
‘You never mean it, do you,’ Tess said, wrenching herself out of his grasp and facing him, her eyes blazing. ‘You didn’t mean to kiss me tonight. You didn’t mean to come off your bike. You didn’t mean to fuck up your A levels and never hold down a job for more than three months.’ She could hear herself, saying these hateful things, but she couldn’t stop. ‘You didn’t mean all sorts of things, but they happened anyway, and no, of course you’re not responsible, are you? It’s never your fault, is it?’
‘Go on,’ Adam said, and he jammed his hands into his pockets and moved slowly towards her. ‘Go on, say it.’
‘You didn’t mean to sleep with me the first time, but you did.’ Her voice grew softer; her throat hurt, she wasn’t going to cry. ‘You didn’t mean to get me pregnant, but you did. You didn’t mean to forget on the day I had the abortion, but you fucking did, Adam, you did. And you didn’t mean to go off with Sally a week later on holiday but you did.’ Her voice was cracking. ‘Tell, me, Adam. What was the Dealbreaker with me, eh? What was wrong with me? When was the moment—the moment you looked down at me and thought, “Nah,gone off her now, doesn’t matter if I treat her like crap.”?’
She spat out the words, tears streaming down her face. They dropped on the pavement.
‘There wasn’t a Dealbreaker with you.’
‘Of course there fucking was,’ she said, laughing heavily. ‘There must—’ She wanted to say, there must have been some reason, some reason why you didn’t want to be with me, what was it?
‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry about it all. About the abortion,’ he said, his kind eyes frowning, looking deep into hers. His arms dropped back down to his side. ‘I’m sorry I made you go through it alone, I’m really sorry that it happened at all.’
A car lumbered slowly past, breaking the still of the Mayfair night. She stepped away from him.
‘Tess—’ he called after her. ‘Please—please, listen. I’m sorry—’ But she ran to the corner of New Bond Street without another word, afraid of what more they might say to each other. And this time he didn’t follow her.
A cab swerved violently to the kerb. Tess climbed into it, gave the driver Meena’s address, and settled back into the comfortingly hard shell of the seat. She stared out of the window, into the London summer night. She thought it might have started raining, but it was her eyes, brimming and bleary with tears. It was almost exactly thirteen years since that summer, and though it seemed like a lifetime ago, and though Adam had clearly forgotten almost all about it, she had forgotten nothing. She remembered it all.
Thirteen Years Ago
Neither of them knew it was going to happen. She would look back and marvel that she could have woken that day with no idea of what lay ahead of her. That she could start the day as a—a child, really—and end it in Adam’s arms, his hands clumsily stroking her hair, the two of them clinging to each other, exhilarated, exhausted.
Her mother was cross with her that day; Tess had accidentally broken a cup, two plates, and a vase, by throwing a spoon at Stephanie over breakfast. It had hit the dresser that stood in the corner of the crowded kitchen. It was bad luck, it wasn’t her fault. Well, not all her fault; she wasn’t the one who’d started it, it was her sister who’d jabbed the fork into her leg. It wasn’t fair being the youngest, it was very unfair, in fact.
‘You’re nearly eighteen!’ her mother had said, her face contorted into an agony of suppressed anger. ‘I really, really do not understand what’s wrong with you!’
‘But she started it! And she’s older!’
Her mother was harassed almost to a point past sanity. ‘I don’t care. I do not care. You should be ashamed of yourself. That was Grandmother’s plate, she was given it for her wedding. Broken into a hundred pieces. Are you happy now?’ Emily Tennant was shouting at her now, the pent-up anger of the humidity and stultifying heat releasing itself. Her face was red and shiny. A greasy tendril of hair flapped out from behind her ear.
‘I’m sorry, Mum,’ she said, genuinely contrite in the face of her mother’s rage. ‘I didn’t mean to, and she was the one—’
She was going to say, ‘She was the one I was aiming for,’ but she halted, not convinced this woul
d be the answer her mother was looking for.
‘I’ve got the Mynors coming round this evening, and the man coming about the curtains. Can’t you find something to do today? Because I really don’t think I can stand you and your sister going at it all day long.’
‘Sure, sure,’ she said, watching her mother’s tense face in alarm. ‘Oh, Mum—I am sorry—’
‘Doesn’t matter,’ her mother said, stifling a sob. ‘Just—go away!’
She did, without a backwards glance. She ran to the door, pulled it open, ran out into the sunshine without saying goodbye, her heart heavy, her teenage sense of outrage already melting away into guilt, and sorrow, and a resolve to bring something back for her mother. An ice cream? A book? Her eye wandered as she caught her breath. Diving down the warren of medieval side streets and through a gap in the houses she suddenly caught a glimpse of fields, of the countryside beyond, a flash of enticing green. She would slip quietly through the streets, out through the gap in the ancient city walls, down the stairs to the water meadows. An apple and a book, that was all she needed, she’d pick some flowers for her mother on the way back. She jumped in the air excitedly. Everything was OK again, the memory of Mum’s face as she picked the coloured shards of china off the floor but a distant memory, with the extreme callousness of youth.
‘Hello there, you. What mischief are you up to now?’
She jumped, and turned around guiltily. ‘Adam! My God, you gave me a fright.’
‘Exactly.’ He smiled, and took her hand from her mouth. ‘If you weren’t up to something awful,’ he said, mock-slapping her fingers, ‘you wouldn’t be looking quite so guilty. What is it?’
‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘I’m just escaping home, that’s all. Mum’s furious with me. I’ve been horrible.’
‘I bet you haven’t.’ There was laughter in his voice, but a note of sympathy too. She heard it. ‘I was just off for a walk,’ he said. ‘Got some reading to do. I was heading down to the water meadows. Um—fancy coming with me?’ He looked down at her; he was so tall these days, and she felt so little; when had he grown so much, outstripped her, turned into this tall, broad-shouldered man? Where was the eight-year-old Adam, who could annoy her so much by dressing up in her pink ballet tutu? The last few months, since Philippa had died, had permanently changed him, and it was only now, coming across him by accident, that she saw it clearly. Who was this stranger, practically a grown man, in front of her?
She hesitated.
‘I could do with the company,’ he said, shrugging.
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I was going that way anyway.’
‘Really?’ He smiled. ‘Great minds think alike, I suppose.’
‘Absolutely,’ she said, smiling too, and they set off together as the early morning sun crept up and over the roofs of the town, flickering through the silent streets.
Even today, years later, Tess could remember how much she’d wanted him. So perhaps she shouldn’t have let him, but she wanted to. Wanted to feel his arms around her, his body on top of her. To touch him, comfort him, when she didn’t know what else to do after what he’d been through. And so when they were lying side by side on the rug he’d brought with him, in silence, listening to the wood pigeons coo dolefully in the trees at the edge of the park, feeling the blazing, lazing summer warmth steal over them, she did not move when he leaned over her, nor was she that surprised.
His hair flopped into his face, shading his features as he hung over her.
‘Are you OK?’ he said, his hand stroking her leg. She could feel the warmth of his palm on her skin, through her thin cotton dress.
She wiggled a little, her hair fanning out in the grass, and smiled up at him. ‘Of course I am. Are you?’ She stroked his face, wanting to make everything better, wanting him to feel better.
‘Sort of.’ His fingers moved more slowly, he was staring down at her. ‘Easter, I mean, it seems—a lifetime ago.’
‘It was,’ she said quietly.
He shook his head, as if he didn’t want to remember. Remember everything that had happened afterwards.
At Easter, at her mother’s birthday party, only a week before Philippa died, Tess had kissed him, or rather let him kiss her. They had been upstairs in the corridor, just the two of them, as music blared out from the garden and downstairs was filled with old married couples. They had both had a bit to drink, but not loads, and Adam had pulled her out of the corridor into the spare bedroom, pushing her hair back from her forehead, and kissing her passionately, so they fell on the bed and only leapt apart when they heard footsteps on the stairs. She had enjoyed it, even though it should have felt wrong, or weird, this boy who was now a man, her oldest friend. And then Philippa had died, and it had been forgotten, of course, buried in the rush of grief and despair that filled the next few months. She wanted to reach out to him, had wanted to help him. She didn’t know how. Until now.
Now, it was curiously undramatic. As if it was totally normal. She looked up at him again. His expression was strange, not the Adam she knew. And she liked him, this new person.
She didn’t know what they were doing; she wasn’t sure he knew either, only that it felt right. And that’s when Adam kissed her.
He moved her arms so they were above her head, pinning her hands there, so he could run his hands over her body, over her breasts, kissing her stomach, her breast bone, her nipples—she could feel the scratchy hairs on his face, rasping against her skin. She cried out when he pressed down on her.
‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered, stroking her face. ‘Oh, Tess. I love you, Tess.’
She loved him too, she always had done. He wouldn’t let her move until he came up for air and they moved together, and she opened his trousers and took him in her hand and stroked him till he groaned. And when he finally pushed inside her, it hurt, but only for a moment, and then it felt great. As if he was plugging something, filling her up. They hardly made any movement in the field; he rocked his hips urgently against hers, and she welcomed him in, till he came inside her, his cry strangled as if she was hurting him. Then silence.
And it was as if she had been snapped back to reality and they were two teenagers again, one in a half-undone dress, her knickers in the grass, the other with his trousers discarded, his pants around his knees, breathing heavily against each other, rocking again, just the two of them, as his breathing subsided and she stared up at him.
‘Hello,’ he said, pushing the hair off her forehead.
‘Hello,’ she answered. ‘Adam—’
‘I’ve been wanting to do that for a while now,’ Adam said, with an attempt at composure, and then a smile broke out over his face, the one she knew so well, and he shifted his weight from on top of her, and covered her mouth with kisses.
It was scorching hot, deadly quiet in the grass where they lay. She was wondering what they had just done. It felt so private, just between them. She couldn’t have imagined, have foreseen, the result of that one summer’s day.
‘You and me—’ he said, stroking her body with one hand, running his fingers up to her neck, over her breasts, between her legs.
She rolled over so she was on her side, facing him. ‘Me and you.’
‘You and I, really,’ Adam said, and she leaned over him, and kissed him.
‘Know-it-all,’ she said, in between kisses.
‘I mean—’ he said, almost shy. ‘Can we do that again?’
‘Now?’ She laughed softly.
‘Now…and later on. And tomorrow.’ He smiled his beautiful Adam smile.
‘I’d like that,’ she said.
‘Me too,’ he said. ‘Or rather, and I.’ He was lying on the ground, looking up at her, a curious expression on his face. ‘Thank you,’ he said, and he kissed her fingers. ‘It’s—you make me feel better, make me think it’s going to be OK. Thank you.’
She should have listened to him, properly listened, beyond the sweet words and the easy smile. She should have remembered what Adam was like but w
hy would she? He was her friend, he was in unimaginable pain, and she wanted to be with him. She always had. By the end of the summer, she was nearly eighteen, and she was meeting Adam nearly every day, sometimes at his house where Philippa’s things were still everywhere—her tagine dishes, her embroidered kaftans, a hair clip, pilesof her books. Or they would go down to the water meadows. They didn’t talk; they sank frantically into each other’s bodies, Adam with an urgency, a desire to forget that Tess soon found disturbing, because she realized she could not reach him, could not help him, and that this, whatever it was, was not helping him, really, either.
After that first time, they used condoms. But it was too late. Before she went to university that autumn, Tess had found out that she was pregnant. And she knew exactly when it had happened. She didn’t tell anyone, except Adam, and only when she had booked herself into the clinic for an abortion. She told him, standing in the garden of Philippa’s cottage, the late September sun shining on her face, and watched with a numbing sickness as something she supposed was panic crossed his face, to be replaced by relief.
‘It’s fine,’ she had told him. ‘I’m sorting it out.’
He had moved towards her, but she kept her distance. The relief on his face was like a knife through her heart. But what had she wanted him to do? Sweep her off the ground, tell her he was here for her, they should stay together, keep the baby? No, no way. She was eighteen and she was going to university; her life was ahead of her, and she had to do this, have it taken care of, and then go to London, leave Langford.
It was such a long time ago now, her memories of it were obscured, as if slatted blinds fell across long parts of that summer and autumn, blocking out some bits, highlighting others. The waiting room at the clinic was a soft pale pink—she remembered that and felt it was strangely thoughtless, pink for a girl, blue for a boy. Why couldn’t it have been a more clinical colour, a sensible grey or a pale mint green? She had spoken to her mother the next day, from the telephone in her halls of residence, and she remembered her mother chatting inanely away about Adam and how good it was he’d gone on holiday. She had no idea about any of it. Tess still remembered creeping back upstairs to bed, curling up as tightly as possible, thinking perhaps she would never, ever get over the misery she was feeling now. After a few days she told herself she was stupid, of course she would. But she never quite did. That summer never quite left her.
I Remember You Page 15
