‘None taken,’ Ed had replied, quickly. ‘But Khan’s is obviously the best takeaway in London town.’
‘Obviously,’ said Max. ‘I don’t know why it doesn’t have a Michelin star.’
There had been much drinking that night. Wine, beer and spirits. Max and Callie were demob happy, had a taxi booked home and were not afraid of their hangovers in the morning. Which was probably at least part of the reason for Ed’s awful behaviour later.
They had all collapsed onto the sofas after the meal, clutching their glasses. Eliza had opened the window and turned off the main light, and for a while, they had all gazed out at the view of south London, thousands of streetlights beaming out in the partial darkness of a summer’s evening, mapping each street.
‘Big year coming up next year for you guys, then,’ Callie had said, after a while. ‘Finally saying I Do. So exciting. Do you remember that time, Max?’
‘Sorry, when was that?’ Max joked, as Callie playfully punched him in the arm. ‘Yes, that I do. It was quite the time. They were the best days, actually. The best.’
‘Yes, you’re so lucky to have it all yet to come. That’s such an amazing time, when it’s just about you two and the love you have,’ mused Callie. ‘No ankle biters nipping at you, nagging you to feed them three times a day, that sort of thing.’
‘So pesky,’ replied Max, kissing her and rubbing her leg. He gave his wife a look which made Eliza wince. Ed had never looked at her like that. And right now he was staring into the distance, impassive. Callie had filled the space that was looming large.
‘Anyway, yes, it’s amazing, that feeling you have, just before you get married. I’m guessing you guys are right in that bubble now,’ she’d said, looking at Ed.
‘I’m not sure I know what love is, really,’ Ed had replied, after a pause, in the same tone of voice he’d have used if he didn’t know what time the bus was coming, or what food to order. Eliza’s stomach lurched.
‘Oh, come on mate, don’t go all heavy on us,’ said Max. ‘We all know how you feel about Lize.’
‘Yes, I know; we’re getting married and that’s great, it’s the right thing to do – but I mean, I don’t think I understand the meaning of the term, really. Not in the way you guys are using it. I never have.’
At that point, Eliza had got up, walked to the bathroom and slammed the door shut. She took several deep breaths, trying to subdue the adrenaline which coursed through her body, before collapsing onto the toilet seat, her head cradled in her hands. She had only heard the muffled responses to Ed’s pronouncement, but got the feeling that Max and Callie had decided that it might be time to leave. This was confirmed when they walked past the bathroom in the direction of the bedroom to retrieve their coats.
Callie had whispered at the door, ‘We’re off, Lize. But I’m on the phone, OK? I’m on the phone. Whenever. Speak in a bit. Love you.’
She had gone then. They both had. It had been very silent after that. Well, until Ed had put on some Coldplay dirge, loudly, to fill the void. Eliza had used the cover of the music to repeatedly hammer her head into the bathroom door, desperate to exorcise the disturbing thoughts which were now running rampant through her head.
Half an hour later, Eliza had emerged from the bathroom to find Ed in the lounge, staring at his phone, a small rucksack beside his feet. He had looked up at her and said, without any further explanation, that he felt it might be best to go back to Oxford.
*
‘Are you any clearer now?’ She wanted Ed to give her answers. Or at least, she thought she did.
‘I don’t think so,’ he said, looking around for their waiter. ‘I need time to figure that one out. But what I am certain of is that I don’t want to get married yet.’
‘Yet? Ed, you’re in your late thirties. We’ve been together since uni. When will you be ready?’
The waiter arrived to take the drinks order. Eliza stared directly down at the table and did not look up.
‘We’ll have a bottle of the Chilean Merlot. And a bottle of sparkling water,’ said Ed, before bidding the waiter to leave them. ‘Have your parents cancelled the venue?’
‘I don’t know,’ she replied, her voice hoarse. ‘Have you just brought me here to talk logistics and refunds?’
‘Eliza, I’m just being practical. They spent a lot of money on that venue. And I know money is tight.’
Yes, they had. The venue – the venue that would have been – was a stately home fifteen miles from her childhood home, bang in the middle of the rolling Cotswold hills.
Langland Manor was actually somewhere her parents had taken them out to at weekends when they were kids. The house was open to the public on Saturdays and it was also one of the first places in the county to provide a disabled toilet for visitors – a prerequisite of any Willow family trip after Patience got too big to be lifted into a toilet cubicle. So, about twice a year, in fine weather, they had all mounted an expedition to view the house’s manicured lawns and carefully laid-out vistas, before retiring to a wooden picnic table beneath apple trees to eat the packed lunch Mum had made; always egg and cress sandwiches, crisps and apple juice. And possibly Jaffa cakes for a treat.
It had been a relief, eating outdoors. Patience was a messy eater, but no one really noticed her table manners (or lack of them) there, with so much space. No one was really close enough, not even the inevitable staring, curious children, and what Patience hadn’t managed to eat, the birds had loved. Those picnic tables had had a fine view of the house’s Georgian facade, which in itself had been built on the carcass of a rather fine Tudor manor house. And while her mum and dad had bickered over Patience’s feeding efforts, wiped her face and hands and debated about who was going to push her up the slope back to the car, Eliza had stared at that house and soaked up its beauty, its stories.
She had always loved historical buildings. It was not the decor or the furnishings. It was the layers of human drama they had contained within them which inspired her. And when she and Ed had decided on it as a wedding venue, she had felt she was adding her own scene in that multifaceted human play. Well, it had certainly taken a dramatic turn.
‘Thanks for your concern,’ she said. ‘I’ll pass it on.’
She wondered idly whether wedding insurance covered being dumped. Ed was right; her parents were set to lose a lot of money that they’d saved up for so long, simply because of her inability to persuade a man to marry her.
The waiter returned, bringing with him the wine, the glasses and the food menus. He poured Ed a glass and waited patiently as he sniffed it, rolled it around the glass and put it to his lips and sipped.
‘Mmm. Nice,’ Ed said, satisfaction in his voice. Two full glasses were poured for them as they waited in silence.
Finally, Ed spoke. ‘So, I suggested we meet because I wanted to explain why I said what I said.’ He took a sip of his wine. ‘And why I left. I feel like we need closure.’
Eliza raised both eyebrows, and half-laughed.
‘Bloody hell, Ed, have you finally been reading those relationship books I bought? Closure! Is there any point? I mean, I feel we got closure when you packed your bags and took half the items in the flat. More than half, actually.’ As she spoke, Eliza knocked her newly poured glass of merlot with her left arm, and they both watched in horror as it tumbled to the ground, spilling its overpriced cargo all over the tiled floor, the glass smashing into hundreds of tiny pieces.
As a flock of waiters ran towards them bearing paper towels and a dustpan and brush, Ed glared at her. He looked around anxiously as the clean-up took place, aware that the couple next to them – who had not spoken a word since they had arrived a quarter of an hour ago – were listening in to everything they said to each other.
‘You seem really angry,’ he said, almost whispering now. ‘I get that you are. But let’s try to be calm. At least in here.’
Eliza swallowed hard.
‘I’ll do my best. Tell me then, why you left me.’
<
br /> ‘Let’s order food first and I’ll try to explain.’
Another glass was brought for Eliza and more wine poured. And after about thirty seconds of reading the extensive menu, Ed told the waiter that they were ready to order. He reeled off his choice – scallops, followed by a medium rare fillet steak, with blue cheese sauce and fries – and then looked across the table at Eliza with anticipation, like a conductor preparing to lead an orchestra.
‘I’m… I’m not feeling very hungry,’ she said, cautiously. ‘I ate a late lunch. Can I skip the starter and just have the mussels for main?’ The waiter asked if she wanted to have garlic bread with it, but she declined. After that, he smiled in her direction – she detected a possible note of sympathy there – took both menus and walked away in the direction of the kitchen.
‘Not like you not to be hungry,’ said Ed.
‘Situations like this do that to a girl,’ she snapped. Did Ed look slightly guilty? It was possible. But he’d always been good at hiding how he really felt. That was at least part of the reason why she hadn’t seen any of this coming.
‘So, as I said, I asked you here because I wanted to explain,’ he continued, unbidden, picking up a piece of bread from the basket a waiter had just left, and tearing it apart. ‘I’d like to start by saying how sorry I am that I did it the way I did it. Coming out with that stuff in front of friends. It wasn’t my intention. Anyway, I wanted to say also – I love you. But I think I’m not in love with you. Not the sort of love that Max and Callie were talking about. Not those sorts of feelings that withstand two kids, wrinkles, endless drives down the M40. I’m trying to look forward here, to the future – and I realise I don’t see us in it, like that. Let’s be honest here. Do you?’
Ed’s gut-wrenching summary of his feelings was interrupted by the waiter bringing the food. Eliza looked down on her steaming pot of mussels and felt bile rising.
‘Yes,’ she said.
Ed waited while the waiter positioned the plates, refilled their water and then retreated.
‘Sorry?’ he said, his whisper harsh.
‘Yes, I see,’ she replied, thinking: I see us getting married next summer, I see us having a family, I see us eventually settling in Oxford or somewhere else together and me working part-time for a PR agency. I see us buying a house with enough room for a vegetable patch and a downstairs loo so Patience can visit with Mum and Dad. I see Christmas decorations hung on the front door and you swinging our children up in the air in the living room, just missing the light fixings.
‘Yes, I see,’ she said.
‘You see?’
‘I see where you are coming from, I suppose. We had gone stale.’
‘You could put it like that. But were we ever like Max and Callie? Were we ever in love enough to make that promise to be together for the rest of our lives?’
‘You made that promise when you proposed to me. Why did you do that, if you didn’t want to marry me?’ she asked. She looked down at her pot of mussels, at those little bodies which had been boiled alive, and realised she couldn’t face eating them. Instead, she reached for her spoon and drank some of the sauce from the bottom.
‘I thought I did,’ he answered, slicing into his rare steak, blood spilling out as he did so. ‘Looking at it objectively, you and I are the perfect partnership. You’re intelligent, you’re fun, we don’t drive each other mad. You’re very attractive.’
Eliza felt her face begin to glow red.
‘But, you know, perhaps I’m just not the marrying kind.’
‘So you’re saying that it’s not me, it’s you?’ She looked up at him, her statement dripping with irony. Ed ignored her tone.
They paused to let the waiter take their plates. He looked concerned when he saw that Eliza hadn’t eaten her mussels. ‘I’m just not hungry,’ she said, by way of apology. He nodded and took them away.
Eliza excused herself and made her way to the toilets. She threw herself into a cubicle, locked the door and paused briefly, looking down at the bowl, before vomiting copiously. Afterwards, she leaned down over the sink and sucked in and swilled some water around her mouth from the tap, before spitting it out. She watched it spiral down the plughole, along with small splatters of brown, orange and red sick. And when she looked at herself in the mirror in front of her, she could see that her face betrayed the truly sorry state of her beleaguered, emotionally damaged digestive system. Her skin was almost translucent, her eyes bloodshot and dull. It took her several minutes to restore relative order with the help of concealer, powder and lipstick, and a hard pinch on each cheek.
When she emerged from the loos, Ed was entering his pin into a credit card reader at their table. He stood up as she approached, and handed over her coat.
‘I asked for the bill. Thought it best.’ Eliza gave him a grateful smile and followed him as he made his way to the door and out into the street. When she had caught up with him and stood next to him, she fought the urge to reach out and hold his hand. It had been such an instinctive gesture for so many years. Instead, she placed her hands in her pockets. Ed turned to look at her.
‘Which way are you going? I’m staying at a hotel near Blackfriars. Fancy a walk?’
Eliza had actually been planning to catch a tube from St Paul’s, but decided not to mention it.
‘Sure. I can get the bus from the bridge,’ she said, following him. Their walk took them through a network of quiet, tiny streets with names referencing their historic past; Dean Court, New Bell Yard, Addle Hill. The roads were so narrow that no parking was allowed, and, as it was now 9 p.m. and all but the most dedicated of workers had gone home, it was as if they had the City to themselves. Except – a Toyota Prius was ripping down Addle Hill at some speed; its driver probably lost and late for a fare.
Eliza had no time to see it. She just caught something white and large in her peripheral vision. It was Ed who grabbed her by the hand, forcing them both into the side of a wheelie bin, nudging it under an archway. Eliza toppled over, falling awkwardly onto her left side with her arm underneath her. The car did not stop.
‘Are you OK?’ Ed asked afterwards, slightly breathless, holding out his hand to Eliza as the Prius disappeared around the corner and out of their lives forever.
‘I think so,’ she replied, allowing him to pull her upright. She felt shaky. It was the adrenaline. ‘I’m going to be bruised tomorrow, but that’s all, I think.’ She added, ‘Thank God.’
‘Yes, thank God for that,’ he said. He did not let go of her hand. They carried on walking down the road, together, not talking. When they reached Ed’s hotel several minutes later – an ugly concrete square overlooking Upper Thames Street – he turned towards her and drew her in for a hug. She felt a further surge of adrenaline pass through her as he did so.
‘Do you want to come in for a bit?’ he asked, into her ear. ‘I spotted some good whisky behind the bar. Might be good for the shock.’
She nodded and allowed herself to be led inside. It was the most natural thing in the world to do.
11
Pete
December 22
There were some Christmas carols playing in the background, very quietly. The well-known tunes, etched on his brain since childhood, were being performed on the godforsaken panpipes and the arrangement was appalling, but they were there, and for that reason alone, Pete stopped in his tracks to listen to a particularly dreadful rendition of ‘Ding Dong Merrily on High’.
He was in the lobby of his hotel in Doha and the music was incongruous, because there was not a single sign around him that the festive season was nearing. Through the glass revolving doors, he could just make out a palm tree which was being buffeted by a light breeze. The sun had just set and the sky was now a dark brown, an improvement on the shade of dark-yellow urine that had been hovering over him outside today. Inside, the faded leather on the seats was also brown, and the beige walls, upholstered in damask, were as insipid and uninspiring as the flaccid offerings in the hotel’s
daily breakfast buffet: all you could eat for fifty riyals. If you could face eating it, that is.
He suspected that one of the reception staff was behind the musical choice. Most specifically, he suspected Edward, a forty-year-old from the Philippines. Always full of an inimitable joy from who knows what magical reserve, he welcomed Pete effusively every time he arrived back in the country. He was behind the desk right now, but his face was not giving anything away. Smart move. Acknowledging Christmas here was something of an underground movement, he thought.
There were several men in local dress – full length white robes known as thobes – having a very sincere business meeting to Pete’s right, and he could smell the expensive oud perfume that at least one of them was wearing. It was overpowering and spicy, like incense.
To his left, a group of white expat men were arriving through the doors, most likely on their way to one of the restaurants in the hotel, which all served alcohol, a relative rarity. They were all dressed identically: chinos, deck shoes, short-sleeved shirts, and each had closely cropped hair. They nodded at him, and he nodded at them, looked down at his own outfit – chinos, a red checked shirt and brown shoes – and smiled wanly. Wherever they came from in the West – the USA, Europe, Canada – they seemed to be united not only by a common dress code, but also a common purpose. Money.
Many, like him, worked for long stints out here without their families, to provide for a better life for them at home. Out here, so the saying went, an expat had two buckets: one for money and the other for shit. When either one filled up, it was time to go home. His shit bucket was filling rapidly these days, but his money bucket was still too far from the brim. He was skilled enough, after years spent learning his craft on building sites, but he had no qualifications to speak of, and that had always severely affected his earning potential. His finances kept him awake at night, kept him here. It had only been in the past few years that he’d finally managed to earn a decent wage, to be able to put a pot of money aside for a rainy day. And even then, he couldn’t be trusted with it. Even this contract wasn’t going to be enough to fill the abyss he was staring into.
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