They trudged up the beach and along the pavement, staying several feet apart, not speaking. So different from their soaking wet walk this morning when it had felt like they were together. So sad.
Lily glanced at Matt a couple of times. He wasn’t looking in her direction at all. His profile looked very stern.
A tear dribbled down her cheek and she felt a wave of misery wash up her from toes to head, leaving her even colder. She couldn’t bear to say goodbye to Matt like this. Not again. They should talk now. She should explain to him why from her side she’d felt they had to end their relationship.
And while they were talking, she could ask about his marriage in case he was willing to tell her. It turned out she really wanted to know. She wanted to be able to remember the wonderful times they’d had together without them being tainted by the thought that he just couldn’t have loved her that much.
She cleared her throat. ‘I think we should talk so that I can explain exactly why I thought we should split up. If you’d like me to explain?’
Matt said nothing for a moment and then said, sounding unutterably weary, ‘I don’t want you to feel that you have to talk about something you don’t want to talk about.’
‘No, really, it’s okay. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before. I just couldn’t. I’d like to now, if you’d still like to hear.’
‘If you’re sure, then, yes, I’d like to hear what you have to say.’
They stopped under a palm tree and turned to face each other.
Lily began to gather her thoughts together, and then saw beyond Matt a group of men weaving their way along the road. ‘Would you like to come back to my room and talk there?’ she asked, indicating the men with her head. ‘For privacy.’
Matt glanced at the men and nodded. ‘Probably best, if you’re okay with that.’
Lily opened the hotel’s front door with the key the receptionist had given her earlier in the day and they tiptoed through the lobby and up to her room. She switched the light on and nearly screamed at the sight of herself in the floor-length mirror on the wall opposite. Matt’s jacket didn’t cover her as well as she’d thought.
‘I might just go into the bathroom and get changed,’ she said, grabbing dry underwear and shorts and a top on her way.
Matt had himself back in his trousers by the time Lily came out of the bathroom, his shirt loose over the top. His expression was very serious and he seemed so distant and looked so handsome that she just wanted to cry.
Fourteen
Matt
‘Shall we sit down?’ Lily gestured at the single armchair in the corner of the room and sat down on the bed, in a cross-legged position, like she had when they were folding scarves.
‘Great, thanks.’ It felt a little rude to take the only chair but he was hardly going to sit on her bed, and he didn’t want to stand and loom over her.
‘Cup of tea?’
‘No thanks, I’m good. Actually, a glass of water would be great.’
‘Of course.’ Lily stood up and Matt looked at his feet while she poured the water for him. If he lookedather, he might almost cry at the sadness of it all.
She handed the glass to him, poured one for herself and said, ‘So. Straight to it. I never told you a lot about my childhood and that’s because I’ve hardly ever talked about it to anyone, and that’s because I was quite friendless as a child and I reinvented myself when I went to uni and I didn’t want to go back to being the person I was. Basically, as you now know, I had very severe asthma as a child and got admitted to hospital a lot with life-threatening breathing episodes. My parents worked very long hours and didn’t want to take time off work to look after me, so my granny essentially brought me up. I lived with my parents but my granny lived just round the corner and in practice she was the one who was always there so really it was like I lived with her. My parents obviously do love me, I don’t want to imply that they don’t; just being a stay-at-home parent wasn’t for either of them, and I did need a lot of care because I had to miss a lot of school.’
She paused and took a sip of her water. ‘My dad coped better than my mum. She spent alotof time talking about my health, and there were a lot of things that I wasn’t allowed to do, because they made me ill, and it ended up that the health thing kind of defined both of us. Like, she has this amazing, very high-powered job as a consultant gynaecologist in a hospital, and I’m obviously me, a personwith othercharacteristics, but we just became the ill child and the mother of the ill child, and that was all anyone talked about in relation to either of us. And I didn’t really have any friends and the only fun I had was with my granny.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘No, no.’ She waved her arm, like she was pushing hissorryaway. ‘I don’t want sympathy. I didn’t have a bad childhood. I mean, no one enjoys having severe asthma, but I was very well looked after. And I had agreattime with my granny. And some good times with my parents when they weren’t being anxious about my health. I justhatedbeing the subject of all the sympathy and compassion and pity. I just wanted to be like everyone else. And while I was at school, living with my parents, I couldn’t be. So when I went to uni, I decided not to tell anyone about any of that, and I’ve barely ever confided in anyone about any proper weaknesses really, just surface stuff, and my new identity became like I’m the one who supports others. I rarely confide deep stuff in people. I just say I’m okay. I mean, really, you could say that hardly anyone knows the real me.’
‘When you say “hardly anyone”…?’ The question sounded pathetic but having started down this route, he should finish, for closure.
Lily looked down and then back up at him. ‘I told Tess, Aaliyah and Meg about my childhood during my first-year uni exams when my dad had a heart attack and I got really stressed. And they’ve been fab and they’re there when I need them but without being too in my face. Like they know that I’ll say when I’m upset but then I don’t really want to talk too much about things.’
‘Oh.’ Yeah. When he thought about it, of course she’d always been closer to her girlfriends than she had to him. And that really did hurt. It was also food for thought. Maybe they’d been more sensitive to her needs than he had. Yeah, they probably had. He put his hands over his face for a second, suddenly incredibly tired, and then focused again on Lily. ‘I’m glad they were there for you.’
Lily blinked hard, like she was trying to get rid of tears. ‘I didn’t mean to say that you weren’t there for me. I know you were. Would have been if I’d let you in. Sorry.’
‘No. Please don’t apologise. If anyone should, it’s me.’
