The Woman Who Wanted More

by Vicky Zimmerman

  ‘I’m not sure that’s the problem,’ says Kate, pulling her hand back to her lap as she tries to calm the anger pulsing through her.

  ‘Give me your hand?’

  Kate does not want to hold his hand. ‘Why didn’t you mention this to me before? It affects me enough to warrant a conversation, doesn’t it? I know it’s your home, but it’s going to be our home.’

  Nick opens his mouth and looks confused. ‘I guess I didn’t think it through properly, it didn’t occur to me . . .’

  ‘But if you were serious about us, after everything that’s happened, then it should occur to you. Can you tell Rob he can’t stay? He has other friends, it’s not like you’re his best friend.’

  Nick looks pained. ‘I can’t say no to him now.’

  ‘Yes you can, you just won’t. You won’t let the database team down, you wouldn’t dream of letting that douche Rob down, but you don’t mind letting me down.’

  At this he looks flummoxed. ‘But I know you don’t really like Rob, which is why I thought you’d rather move in after he’s gone.’

  Her old familiar cautionary voice is telling her to shut up and not ruin the night, to pick this battle another time, when they’re not in such a fancy restaurant, or at least to wait until she’s eaten her lamb chops. But Cecily’s voice is screaming for her to speak her truth and to speak it now, because the stories Kate’s having to tell herself to stay with Nick are becoming too hard to swallow.

  ‘Nick – how sure are you about us? Because if you were sure, I think you’d have made more effort to turn up at the hotel earlier. And I don’t think you’d be putting Rob before me.’

  He opens, closes, then opens his mouth again. She’s beginning to notice how much like a fish he looks when he does this.

  ‘I . . .’ He winces, as if the pain he’s about to inflict will hurt him more than her. ‘I’m at least seventy per cent . . .’

  Kate laughs; she can’t help herself. ‘Wow – I don’t even merit at least three quarters?’

  ‘I – well – it’s just . . .’

  ‘Do you have a spreadsheet you could show me, Nick? Because your data might be faulty. Surely algorithms can’t always be right or computers would never go wrong?’

  ‘That’s not technically the fault of the software necessarily, it could also be the hardware . . .’

  ‘Oh shut up, Nick.’

  ‘Kate – this is still hard for me . . .’

  ‘You know what? It’s harder for me. I’m not the mathematician you are, but here are my sums: I am one hundred per cent sure that this’ – she says, stabbing the table as she lowers her voice – ‘this, here, you, are not good enough. You just aren’t,’ she says, folding her napkin and placing it on the table.

  ‘I’m not saying it’s over!’ he says, panicked. ‘I’m not, it’s just . . . I’m not sure yet.’

  ‘But I am. I’m done. You’ve ruined my last two birthdays. I will not let you ruin a third. I deserve better.’

  He stares at her, wide-eyed, nodding sadly. Even now he can’t offer a single word of comfort, dispute or apology – it screams volumes.

  ‘Nick, the thing about our relationship . . .’ She looks up to see the waiter hovering, holding two plates of the most delicious-looking food. Kate’s shoulders drop wearily. What’s the point of even saying what she was about to? If you have to explain how love works to the person you’re in love with, they’re probably not worthy of it.

  ‘You know what, Nick? It’s fine,’ she says, pushing herself up quietly from the table. ‘Your pigeon’s arrived. I’ll get my lamb to go. Bon appetit,’ which in this instance is French for hasta la vista, and also for fuck you.

  Letting go hurts like hell, but it’s the right thing to do.

  And so is taking dinner home with her. In spite of everything – or perhaps because of it – it’s the best meal she’s ever tasted.

  Chapter Fifty-five

  Dinner for One the Night After a Heartbreak

  Nay, I have done, you get no more of me

  Michael Drayton

  Aim: to nourish and console yourself with life-affirming, buttery food made with minimum effort, thus allowing maximum time to retire early to bed with a good book (or a sleeping pill and a whisky, depending on the extent and flavour of the break-up).

  Menu:

  Linguine with butter and Parmesan

  Leftover chocolate ice cream* – made to Eva Polon’s secret recipe (see Summer Party to Celebrate the Departure of Your Snooty Neighbours and Their Yappy Little Pekingese)

  *If there is no leftover ice cream in your freezer, this is an occasion wherein it is perfectly acceptable to eat whatever cake is within arm’s reach.

  ‘HERE, HAVE ANOTHER TISSUE,’ says Cecily, yanking a Kleenex from the box and handing it to Kate with trembling fingers.

  Kate shakes her head rapidly in the hope velocity will confuse her tear ducts. She will not cry, she will not cry again over this idiotic man. ‘I know I’ll be all right. It’s OK that he doesn’t love me. It’s not the end of the world.’

  ‘True – but I know you cared for him deeply.’

  ‘And I know you really didn’t,’ says Kate, blowing her nose, just waiting for Cecily to add I told you so.

  ‘I simply didn’t like the way he treated you.’

  ‘I guess you can have your book back,’ says Kate, taking Cecily’s original copy of Thought for Food from her bag. ‘It didn’t manage to make him love me.’

  ‘There’s only so much any book can do,’ says Cecily, taking it and looking with curiosity at the cover. ‘Still, I think it’ll work well for you,’ says Cecily, a small smile playing on her lips. ‘Let’s see what happens next, your story’s not over yet.’

  ‘Oh Mrs Finn, I’m so not interested in dating another useless anyone ever again. What’s the point of ever loving someone if you’re always going to lose them?’

  ‘Love is the point. Give yourself time. It’s only been a week.’

  ‘Yeah, time’s the great healer, I know, I know,’ says Kate, sighing.

  ‘It rather depends on what you do with it,’ says Cecily, thoughtfully. ‘Oh by the way, I have a present for you. It’s nothing much, I’m not even sure you’ll be able to use it. Fetch!’ she says, pointing to an envelope on her bedside table.

  Inside is a card with a short message in Cecily’s elegant looped handwriting.

  To Kate,

  On the occasion of your fortieth birthday.

  I’m still not clear what your interests are, though I think you have good taste in food, poor taste in men. You’ve mentioned you like my attempt at a cookery book, so I thought you might like to own it.

  ‘Take and use my work, Amend what flaws may lurk’ – with apologies to Browning.

  Warm regards,

  Mrs Cecily Finn

  ‘Ah, thank you, Mrs Finn – that’s very sweet,’ says Kate, picking up the book again. ‘Do you mean I should keep this copy?’

  ‘You told me you had several copies at home.’

  ‘I do, yes . . .’

  ‘Why do you look confused again?’

  ‘No, nothing, I – sorry – I’m not clear which copy you’re giving me.’

  ‘Oh Kate, really?’

  ‘What?’ says Kate, laughing with embarrassment.

  ‘I’m giving you the book itself, the copyright.’

  Kate’s breath catches in her throat as her tears start to well up again.

  ‘Oh please don’t get emotional about that too,’ says Cecily, ‘I’ll run out of tissues.’

  It is the kindest thing anyone’s ever done for Kate, and a rush of gratitude overtakes her. She sits for a moment, dazed by it. ‘But Mrs Finn, it’s your work, it was your life.’

  ‘That’s why it warrants a good home. Otherwise it’ll come with me to the grave.’

  ‘Are you absolutely sure?’

  ‘Do you question everybody on their decisions or just me? I always say what I
mean – and vice versa.’

  ‘Yeah, I guess I had noticed,’ says Kate, sniffing back her tears and laughing. ‘You’re not just giving this to me because you feel sorry for me, are you?’

  ‘Good Lord, Kate, I’ve felt frustrated by you, occasionally angry and once or twice bemused, but I’ve never felt sorry for you, particularly not now. Now I feel hopeful. That’s a feeling I haven’t felt in some time.’

  Kate puffs out a deep breath and nods. ‘Mrs Finn, did you ever play rounders?’

  Cecily shakes her head. ‘Never one for sport.’

  ‘I used to dread rounders. Some days I was lucky – I’d swing the bat, I had a pretty strong swing, and I’d hit the ball and it would go flying, and even though I was an average runner I’d get a rounder or at least get to one of the further bases. But whenever this one girl Laura John bowled, the ball would whizz straight past me. I’d swing and miss every time. I’d feel my face burning red, everyone would stare, and all I’d want was to ask for one more chance – I’d do better next time, I would – because I knew I could do this. But rounders isn’t like baseball, you don’t get another chance. So instead I’d stand for a moment too long, disappointed with myself, and then I’d start to run, but because I’d hesitated I’d get caught out, I wouldn’t make it to the base in time.’

  ‘Kate – why are you telling me this?’

  ‘Oh, it’s a metaphor, Mrs Finn. Well, an analogy. It feels like my entire life is just my fourteen-year-old self, standing on the pitch, failing hard in front of everyone, being too slow to realise it, feeling desperate for another chance.’

  ‘Oh Kate,’ says Cecily, shaking her head. ‘Life is full of disappointments, big ones, small ones, even the best lives are. It’s what you do with them that counts.’

  ‘I suppose you’re right. Oh, shit. Oops, sorry, Mrs Finn,’ she says, blushing and covering her mouth.

  ‘What now?’

  ‘Nick’s still got all my cookery books. And I did this rather dramatic flounce out of the restaurant last week, like a South American soap star – I really don’t want any contact with him. I guess that’s why people say a clean break is best – I should have done that back in August – otherwise you get stuck with all these painful splinters.’

  ‘I have an idea,’ says Cecily, looking over at her bookshelves. ‘If you ever do leave your mother’s, pick whichever of these take your fancy.’

  ‘No, Mrs Finn, I couldn’t possibly do that.’

  ‘Kate, I cannot take them with me.’

  ‘True. But with all due respect, Mrs Madrigal’s just turned a hundred and four, I can’t sit it out another decade.’

  ‘Which is why I say take them now.’

  ‘I can’t break up your collection.’

  ‘You can, and then I can move the Existentialists out of the bathroom before one of the idiots soaks them while violating my privacy. Kate – it would make me feel useful for once.’

  ‘Mrs Finn – why are you being so kind to me?’

  Cecily shrugs. ‘Because I can be.’

  ‘I promise this is the last thing I’ll say about him, and I know it sounds trivial compared to your losses, but losing Nick feels like I’m losing such a large part of my life.’

  Cecily frowns at Kate through narrowed eyes. ‘That’s foolish even by your standards. I think it’s quite evident who’s lost more.’

  ‘Sorry, Mrs Finn, I absolutely was not comparing my losses to yours. I can only imagine what you went through.’

  ‘No,’ says Cecily, shaking her head impatiently. ‘That’s not what I meant at all, I wasn’t suggesting I’d lost the most but then neither have you. The person who’s lost something precious, obviously, is Nick. But you, Kate? You haven’t lost a thing. You’ve gained back your future.’

  *

  Kate sits on the bus home staring out of the window at the rainy grey day. After all that’s happened, does she regret giving Nick that second chance?

  If she hadn’t carried so much hope in their relationship, she’d have said her last goodbye at Stansted; she wouldn’t have given him time to figure out what he wanted.

  If she’d done that, she’d have started to accept the loss – she’d have been miserable, of course – but she’d have had clarity. She wouldn’t have become consumed by trying to decipher Nick as though he was the world’s most cryptic crossword. The realisation that there might not even be a solution to Nick had driven her half mad.

  If she hadn’t teetered on the verge of a meltdown she’d never have opted to volunteer, which means she’d never have found her way to Lauderdale. So does she regret these last few months of pain and disappointment?

  How can she, when without them she’d never have found Mrs Finn?

  PART FIVE

  Let food be thy medicine.

  Hippocrates

  Chapter Fifty-six

  CECILY HAS BEEN ASLEEP in her chair for the last two hours. Even though she emits a low nasal whistle with each breath it doesn’t disturb Kate, who sits opposite, her gaze drifting to the pink-and-white cherry blossom on the branches outside.

  April: at last. Some years you doubt spring will ever arrive. This winter has been particularly harsh, claiming Olive Paisner, who died from complications after a fall, and poor Bessie, from a stroke. It’s taken its toll on Cecily too. She’s eating such tiny portions, looking ever more frail, and her naps have been starting earlier and lasting longer. Kate hopes that with the coming of spring Cecily will perk up. In the meantime, Kate’s content to sit here reading while Cecily sleeps, in the warmth and almost-quiet.

  Kate has been reading rather a lot since the break-up – which is The Break-up, not The Wobble Two. It has been distressing for Kate to realise that even though this break-up wasn’t their first (and in retrospect could have been predicted and thus avoided), it hasn’t hurt significantly less than the previous one. A key reason she’d been so patient with Nick was that she’d been desperate to avoid the harsh realities of a broken heart. On certain days over Christmas and New Year she’d felt like she’d woken under cement sheets, her body immobilised by sheer misery.

  She’s coming to accept that this is the price of loving wholeheartedly, of taking a risk and losing. Her dreams are still occasionally disturbed by a vicious happy memory, but that’s happening less often now. If a sad song comes on the radio, she no longer has to rush to change the station – unless it’s The Magnetic Fields singing ‘The Book of Love’. Painful though it is, time is changing Nick from the man she loved dearly into an increasingly disconnected memory.

  On Rita’s insistence, Kate allowed her mother to buy her six therapist sessions as a Christmas present, though she’d have preferred a one-way ticket to Hawaii. In fairness, her therapist has proved helpful. He’s stopped Kate blaming herself for Nick’s inadequacies. Whenever she berates herself for being a fool for sticking around for more punishment, she’s meant to tell herself she is a generous person who gives people the benefit of the doubt – she just needs to choose better people.

  Her therapist has made her realise that while she’d spent so long pitying Cecily because Cecily’s life is so shrunken, Kate’s own lack of ambition has kept her life small too. Kate had wrapped herself in the comfort of her relationship duvet, treating the parts of her life that weren’t ‘her and Nick’ as if they were secondary – no wonder she feels bereft without him. And living with Rita has made Kate feel like a teenager in all the worst ways. As of last month, Kate’s been staying in Bailey’s spare room for low rent in exchange for free babysitting and help around the house.

  Kate hadn’t wanted to get sucked into years of paying for a therapist to listen to her moan – she has friends who’ll do that for free, and they can drink wine while they’re at it – so she’d asked the therapist, what would be the single most helpful action she could take for her future. The answer was succinct: radical self-care. Anything bad for her is now out: smoking, staying in bed ruminating about the past, being self-critical and Cara. If any
one was allowed an I told you so it was Cecily, because, well, she did. But if Cecily managed to bite her tongue, Cara should have, too.

  Conversely, Kate’s only allowing good things in. This includes all the usual suspects – vegetables, water, exercise – but any time she feels bored or lonely, she must nourish herself with the things she loves most: books and food. Over the last four months Kate has listened to the rest of Cecily’s life story – the decade spent in Italy, the travels she took herself off on in her sixties and seventies, the reluctant slowing down in her eighties, the first fall, then the second and, finally, the painful process of accepting her diminishment and having to let go. Now when they meet, Kate spends time reading to Cecily, and when Cecily is asleep, reading to herself.

  Cecily’s cookbook collection has been inspiring – Kate’s tried so many new recipes. In December, when she was hibernating and at her most fragile, it was all about soups – simple, comforting and perfect to come home to after a day on her feet. She’d started feeling more ambitious as the new year arrived, making ribollitas and laksas, and now she’s making complex, delicious meals as a matter of course, getting up earlier even than Bailey’s girls to make marinades and gremolatas and picadas.

  One particularly bleak January weekend when it was sleeting and grey outside, she was inches from calling Nick, either to tell him she missed him or hated him, she wasn’t sure which. Instead, she turned on her computer and started writing down some of the menus she’d been cooking that had comforted her, in the style of Cecily’s book. She’d realised that all her different painful feelings were distinct – sadness, loneliness, anger, regret – and each required a slightly different menu to battle them. Her recipes for the sick of heart was just a dumb thing she did while trying to distract herself – but she showed Cecily anyway, and Cecily pointed out that writing about the different flavours of unhappiness was all well and good, but the plan was to get Kate back to happy, and to focus more on that.