Alphabet Weekends - Elizabeth Noble [124]
He stared into the middle distance.
‘I think, maybe, that we’ve been heading to this point since the day we met.’
‘I can’t think that – I won’t think that. That we were somehow doomed from the start. That’s bullshit, Lucy. I hate that you think that. It makes a lie of everything we’ve shared.’
‘It doesn’t.’ Lucy risked a hand on his arm.
He shook it off and stood up. ‘What are you doing?’
‘I’ll get some things. Go to Tom’s.’
‘You don’t have to.’
‘I can’t stay here.’
From the garden, she saw the bedroom light go on. It took him about ten minutes, then the light went off and she heard him coming down the stairs. The water next door had stopped, and the night felt very quiet.
He’d been crying. Lucy had never felt so sad. At the door, he turned as if to speak to her, but no words came, and he rushed out and away.
Y for Your Place or Mine
The bar she had chosen was as equidistant between their two homes as she could make it. Actually, the place exactly in the middle, according to the milometer in her car, was a rather dubious public house with an even more suspicious clientele, so she had compromised on this place, which was just a mile closer to her house. And it was very nice – very World of Interiors, very London. It had an endless zinc bar down one side, with minimalist stools, and the booths were in cowhide and fuchsia pink suede. The music was the kind played by people in their late thirties, who remembered clubbing fondly but knew they were too old for it. And good lighting. There were those clever floor-to-ceiling sliding doors all along the wall opposite the bar, the ones with no handles, and this evening they were open. Outside was decked, with water features, all gentle tinkling and soft lighting. It was warm, and there was a gentle breeze. She couldn’t have ordered better off a menu.
She’d rung Susannah earlier in the week, and persuaded her to post her beaded aqua Alice Temperley dress (‘My premìere dress? Wow, you’re serious!’), which had fitted easily into a padded A4 envelope, and which had been hanging on the side of her wardrobe for three days, making her shiver whenever she looked at it. Rose had provided a pair of what she called follow-me-home shoes, and Natalie had been tottering around the flat, wearing them over a pair of tennis socks, practising not falling over. She and Rose had drunk a bottle of Pinot Grigio and got giggly.
‘It’s going to be like that bit in Pretty Woman, is it? The bit where he meets her in the bar, and the crowds part and he sees her and, wham, bam, you know it’s all over for Richard Gere – he’s a goner.’
‘Yep. If it works.’
‘It’ll work.’
‘If it doesn’t work in this dress and these shoes, I don’t know what will!’ Natalie was holding the dress against herself.
‘So, let me get this straight.’ Rose was squinting at her. ‘You’ve made up your mind, have you?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘And you’re sure?’
‘As sure as I’ve ever been about anything.’
‘Forgive me a minute, Nat, but I’ve known you as long as most people, and I’ve known you to be really, really sure about loads of stuff in the past.’
‘Like what?’
‘Well…’ Rose thought for a moment. ‘You were really, really sure that Scritti Politti were going to be bigger than the Beatles. You were convinced that you’d have your own radio show by the time you were thirty. You were convinced you’d be married to Simon…’
‘All right, all right… I can’t be right about everything. But I was about you and Pete, wasn’t I?’
Rose nodded exaggeratedly. ‘True!’
‘And I will have my own radio show – you watch me.’
Again, Rose rolled her head around on her shoulders. ‘I’d listen!’
‘Thanks. I know. And I’m right about Tom.’
‘Well, Hallelujah for that! Welcome to my world. Haven’t I said that all along?’
‘You might have done. But other people can’t make your decisions for you, can they? You’ve got to get there on your own.’
‘And this is a decision, is it?’
Natalie thought for a moment. ‘Not a decision, no. Just a change. In me. In us. I can’t explain it. I just know.’
Rose had hugged