‘We have each other.’
‘I feel…’ Granny was still struggling to talk. ‘Somehow it was easier saying goodbye to Lucas, but with Jan – I feel as if I’m losing my baby girl all over again.’
I burst in. ‘January!’ Grandad said as Granny wiped her eyes and attempted to compose herself.
‘Did you leave—?’ She sneezed.
When her tears began to flow again, I rushed to her side and wrapped my arms around her, inhaling her lily of the valley scent, kissing her damp powdery cheek.
She tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. ‘Did you forget something?’
‘I forgot to say thank you,’ I turned to Grandad too, ‘for all the things you have done for me. I couldn’t have had better parents.’
She pulled me into her arms. ‘Don’t be sad,’ I pleaded with them. ‘Promise me you’ll dust off your passports and go somewhere you’ve always wanted to go.’
They went to Fontainebleau in France, close to Paris. I remember Granny sending me a postcard. I pinned it to the fridge and smiled each time I saw it, realisingthat just as I had a new life in London, they too had a new life without Lucas and me.
‘Mum?’ Isla hits my arm, bringing me back to the present. ‘Daddy wants to talk to you.’ She hands me her telephone. It’s one of my old mobiles.
‘I can’t chat, Dan. I’m driving.’
‘Sure. This can wait.’
‘What?’ I sense there’s a problem.
‘It can wait.’
‘Quickly.’
‘OK, I was wondering – how do you feel about Isla meeting my new girlfriend soon?’ Clocking my hesitation he continues, ‘We’ve been going out for some time now and…’
I glance at Isla. ‘Can we talk about this tonight?’
‘Sure. Drive safe.’
I hang up, already dreading meeting her.
Dan came back into our lives seven years ago. I told Isla about him when she was old enough to understand. ‘If he’s my dad why doesn’t he live here?’ was one of her first questions. ‘Will you get married?’ and ‘Why not?’ Isla asked a lot of ‘why’ questions, most of which I struggled to answer.
I like the way things are between Dan and me. Over the years Dan has gradually spent more time with his daughter and now has Isla to stay every other weekend. He has become a good, stable, positive influence, and Isla is happy with our arrangement. Dan’s financial help has also meant I can afford to pay Ruki, plus it helps with the bills and pays for most of her activities after school. My mind fast-forwards to Dan marrying this woman and having a child, dropping all his responsibilities towards us. I don’t want her getting in the way. Oh, how did life get so complicated?
Sometimes I wonder what might have happened if Dan and I had met five years later. We’d have been in our late twenties. Our timing was lousy.
What if, what if…?
As I drive on I think about the day I met Daniel Gregory.
The day that changed my life.
8
2002
It’s my lunch hour and I’m in a crowded cafe off the Portobello Road, in Notting Hill, close to my office. I’ve been living in London for four years and am currently working for a literary agency, Green & Noel, on Westbourne Grove. I’m PA to Rachel Noel, and one of my jobs is reading submissions. Each week hundreds of unsolicited scripts land with a thud on my desk – we call it the slush pile – and it’s my responsibility to pass on to Rachel any script that has potential.
This is my favourite lunchtime haunt. The cafe is set on two levels. Black-and-white prints of celebrities decorate the walls, bottles of wine line the shelves and there’s always a mouth-watering display of cakes and biscuits on the counter. Westlife is playing in the background. I glance at my watch. Where’s Lizzie? After ordering my second cup of coffee I reach down into my handbag and pull out a script, deciding it’s better to look busy and alone than just alone. I scan the covering letter – the story is a thriller; it’s calledThe Man with Hollow Eyes.
Unable to concentrate, I leave Lizzie another text message. Recently she’s been scattier than ever because she’s broken up with her Greek boyfriend. Lizzie definitely wins the gold medal when it comes to complicated love lives, not that we’re competing or anything. When we first moved to London she went on a two-year catering course. She rebelled against the routine and structure, said it was like being back at school again. However, she stuck it out, determined to get a decent qualification. And in the meantime, to make it more interesting, she dated, in secret, one of the hottest-looking teachers on the course. Often I had to wear earplugs in bed. Lizzie has shoulder-length dark-brown hair that she ties back in a ponytail, accentuating her blue eyes, which are usually smudged with kohl eyeliner. But it’s her openness, free spirit and huge heart that make her so magnetic to both men and women. She also has this deep gravelly voice; she says she’s had it since she was a child. After catering college she was longing to travel again, so found work cooking for rich Americans in Nantucket, spent a season being a chalet girl in France and briefly dated one of the skiing instructors. ‘It’s sex and black runs, Jan,’ she’d say. After France she moved to Scotland to cook for a bunch of politicians, but hated it so much that she quit and found a job in Greece instead, working in a villa in Paxos. I remember her sending me postcards saying how much she loved it there, although she could do without being chased around the kitchen by dirty old Greek men. Lizzie has packed so much into the last few years because, like her parents, she can’t stay in one place for long. Lizzie can’t stay with one man either; it’s as if she is anxious that they will leave her, so she ends it before they can even try. But this time her tactic didn’t work. She fell in love. It all seemed so perfect until Lizzie discovered he was married with three kids. Out of the blue his wife had turned up at the villa when Lizzie and Andreas were in bed and, put it this way, they weren’t sleeping. Objects were thrown, names were called and Lizzie’s heart was broken. Since returning to England six weeks ago she’s been avidly reading self-help manuals. Despite her raciness and sense of fun, Lizzie hates the idea of hurting anyone. She feels tormented with guilt that she slept with a married man. It doesn’t matter how many times I point out to her that he was the one who hid his wedding ring from her, that he was the one who had deceived his wife, she is still at war with herself.
