“How can I make you understand how much you mean to me? All last week, I couldn’t wait to speak to you. I missed…” He shoves the table away impatiently, then brings it back to itsposition. All this activity to avoid saying the obvious. I want to beg him to just allow himself out of the tree. To live and allow love into his life.
“I missed you,” he says at last. “It scares me that if you become one of my quick encounters, I’ll have to give you up afterwards. Because I don’t want to lose you.”
“Lose what?” I force my voice out because I’m afraid of the F-word he might use.
He meets my eyes. “Our friendship, our amazing partnership, our business, our…” He goes on listing the different aspects of our relationship, all of them synonyms of that F-word: friendship.
“You want me to be your Beryl Kendric.”
“Who?”
Of course, he wasn’t there for the lecture. He left me and went off to do something else, then got into his car and drove away to Cardiff without telling me. You tell your lover – the person you’re in a relationship with – you tell them what you’re doing and where you’re going. But not a friend.
“I won’t do this. I can’t let you hold me at arm’s length for the rest of my life. If you really can’t love me, then I can’t be around you anymore. I’ll have to go away.”
He’s at my side in an instant, pulling me into his arms. “No. Don’t say that. You can’t go.”
The scrape of his stubble on my cheek and neck makes my insides turn to liquid. I close my eyes for a moment. Not knowing what comes next.
“Don’t throw away what we have. What we have built together.” He says this over my shoulder, speaking to the air behind me.
It takes real effort to peel myself out of his embrace. It feels more painful than peeling off my own skin, but I take a single step back and wait for him to meet my gaze. “You need time to cool off. We can talk again tomorrow,” I tell him.
He starts to speak but I don’t let him. “And please don’t tell yourself that I might reconsider or change my mind after a good night’s sleep. This isn’t something that came out in the heat of the moment. But I will give you time to think and you can tell me what you want to do after you’ve had a good night’s sleep.”
And I make myself turn and walk out of his sitting room, through the balcony and into my own apartment. With one sandal missing.
He has a day to think about it.
Chapter Forty-four
The next day comes and goes. And so do several more days. I don’t see Osian except from a distance. He is out very early in the morning, before our usual coffee time. Sometimes he’s in the café but surrounded by a few of his newPerllans. Or they’re on the stairs heading for the orchard on the east side where I can’t see them.
I, too, am busy. At least I pretend to be busy, writing up extensive handover instructions for running Hope Gardens; a list of jobs that must be completed before opening. I contact my solicitor to draft a legal settlement that transfers my ownership of the Hope Gardens Enterprise to Evan Kendric.
Of course, I desperately hope Osian will see sense so I won’t have to go. I don’twantto give up my life here, and I tell myself it’s a ‘pretend’ plan B. Even so, I’ve always been good at quick exits. Once my mind recognises a dead end, turning around becomes easy. Years ago, when school ended and Osian still wasn’t mine, it took me a few days to accept the offer from Queens College Belfast, apply for accommodation and book my flight. Last January, after the fiasco at Styler TV, it took me a weekend to start looking for another job. I was gone in a fortnight.
It doesn’t mean I didn’t carry the wounds from each and every escape, only that the exits were quick and final. As long as it’s clear my road is a dead end.
Osian’s silence for the last three days is very clear. He must be struggling to find the right words to reject me. Yet I give it one last try. To prove to myself there’s no confusion, that I didn’t misunderstand his silence.
So at 6:15 on Friday morning, I make two coffees, go out on the balcony and knock on his French windows before sitting at the small table.
A minute later he appears behind the glass, shirtless and sleep ruffled. Surprise and uncertainty flash across his face. Then he sees the coffee cups and the small plate of biscotti, and a wide relieved smile breaks on his face. He disappears back into the darkness of his rooms before coming back a few seconds later, pulling on a tee-shirt.
He’s covering up, taking care not to give me the wrong idea.
But it’s him who has the wrong idea. Because of the coffee, the biscotti, the early morning around the little table on the balcony. They are all the things we did as friends, as neighbours. He must think we’re picking up the old status quo, because when he joins me, relief shines in his eyes and he can’t stop smiling.
I wait for him to taste his coffee before saying, “I waited for you to come and tell me your answer.”
“I was going to.”
So I wait.
And wait.
He looks down at his coffee, at the table, at the sun climbing up into the sky; anywhere but at me.
