Alphabet Weekends - Elizabeth Noble [127]
‘I was never with you, Lucy. Not really. What I’m doing is not leaving Marianne. Not if I don’t have to. Not if she doesn’t leave me.’
She knew he didn’t mean that to sound as cruel as it did. And she knew she should stop. This was going to get undignified. But she couldn’t. ‘You were with me, though, weren’t you? All those times. All those times we made love, and held each other and talked together, you were with me.’
‘And I shouldn’t have been. I hate myself for it. Not just because of Marianne. Because now I’m going to hurt you too.’
And it did hurt. It hurt like hell. More than Will’s note all those years ago had come close to hurting her. How cruel only to realise in this moment – in the moment when it was taken away – how much she loved him. Her chest was tight, and she was beyond tears now. She looked at him, and knew now that she seemed tragic to him. He must be desperate to get away – he had said what he had come to say, and the rest was all pointless. But still, she knew, her eyes implored him.
He shook his head sadly. ‘I don’t want to abandon you, Lucy. Please know that. But I can’t be the one who helps you deal with this. Any more than Marianne can be. We can’t see each other. You must understand that, surely.’
Slowly, Lucy nodded. Then she stood up.
‘Give Patrick a chance, Lucy. He loves you.’
She kissed his forehead, eyes closed tight, lips dry, and walked away.
Natalie
Rose, Bridget, Susannah and Serena held up their glasses.
‘Here’s to about bloody time,’ Susannah said.
‘To slow-burning chemistry,’ Bridget added. Susannah rolled her eyes.
‘To fairy-tale endings,’ was Rose’s contribution. Rose was planning her wedding to Pete, and had unfortunately taken to talking in Brides magazine copy. But she was so glowingly, obviously, stupidly happy that it was hard to hold it against her.
Serena just winked and drank.
Natalie wished Lucy was there. She’d tried to persuade her to come and celebrate with them, but Lucy had said she would ruin it. ‘You enjoy your simple, straightforward love, Natalie,’ she had said. ‘You don’t know how lucky you are.’
Natalie thought she did.
‘Now, we want details… gory details…’ Susannah rubbed her hands gleefully.
‘Speak for yourself.’ Serena wrinkled her nose.
‘Oh, come on, a little vicarious excitement for the young mother,’ Bridget begged. This was only the third time she’d been out without Karl since the baby, and Natalie was afraid she was already a little drunk.
‘What I want to know,’ Rose half whispered, ‘is what it was like, you know, the first time you ended up in bed together. It must have been weird after all those years of not doing it.’
‘Dutch courage, Rosie, to be honest, got us through the first time. Who am I kidding? It always has, I think. No change there. But later that evening, after the third time—’
She was interrupted by a chorus of oohs.
‘Yes, I think it’s fair to say I’d stopped worrying about it being weird.’
‘Bloody right.’
They all laughed. ‘And this is why men are terrified of women going out drinking together.’ Serena giggled.
‘I suppose the next morning, when we woke up, I was a bit nervous – the most nervous. I was sober by then, of course, and I thought, I wonder if we’ve made a dreadful mistake – if it’s going to feel odd. And if I’d ruined everything between us, for ever.’
‘Fortune favours the brave, though.’
‘And it didn’t feel odd?’
‘No. Do you know what he said to me? The very first thing he said to me when he woke up?’ They all leant forward. ‘I shouldn’t be telling you guys this stuff.’
‘You absolutely should be.’
‘He said it had been more wonderful than he ever could have imagined.’
Serena put her hand to her mouth. ‘Tom said that?’
‘Tom said that.’
Rose hugged herself. ‘I love it.’
‘I was pretty keen on it too. I mean, I still wondered a little bit – you know, we were on holiday, and holidays make you feel different – and—’
‘Oh, for God’s sake! I don’t know how he puts up with you. I’d have