‘You shower her with gifts—’
‘—I provided for you; I bought you everything you wanted.’
‘You tell her you love her—’
‘—Because it was true.’
‘You fuck her—’
‘—Stop!’ He rears back, as if I’ve pulled the pin out of a grenade and rolled it towards him. ‘That was never what it was! You know that wasn’t what it was!’
A fleck of his spit lands on the corner of my mouth. I wipe it off. ‘Then, you leave.’
‘I never left you! I was in a car accident—’
A car accident? Is that what he’s calling it?
‘—And after that, I was arrested!’ He runs his hand angrily through his hair. ‘I sent you hundreds of letters, you never replied!’
A cheer rises from the lawn. Someone has scored a goal.
‘This playbook you think I’ve used, I haven’t. It doesn’t apply to us, it isn’t real. You’re twisting everything that happened.’
‘Or you are.’
We’re both breathless. The air between us is snakes, tails lashing, tongues flicking.
He gives in first. The set of his jaw softens. ‘Lolly—’
‘Don’t call me that. Don’t youevercall me that again.’
‘Lauren, then,’ he says carefully, his hands open, no weapons. ‘How do we move past this? There must be a way.’
My stomach spasms. I wrap my arms around myself.
He registers the flicker of pain. ‘Sit down, please.’
Reluctantly, I lever myself onto the bench.
He stays at the other end, doesn’t come any closer, but I feel his eyes running over my body just like he used to, as openly as if it’s his own. ‘Something’s really wrong, isn’t it? You’re walking strangely, you can’t stand up straight, you keep clutching your middle.’ His voice is low and tender. ‘Are you hurt? Has someone hurt you?’
You’ve hurt me, I want to say.This is all because of you,and then I remember the doctor saying, ‘We have to go,’ the piercing coldness of the anaesthetic, the blue curtain.
I shut my eyes, listen to the club disband, the congratulations from the coach, reminders of next week’s match and then the boys are being collected by their parents, there is talk of pasta and movies. I want to collect Millie, I want to make her pasta. I’ll let her watch as muchPeppa Pigas she likes. I turn away so he won’t see me cry.
‘Listen to me, listen,’ he says. ‘The second I was released, I sent you a letter, I wanted to see you.’ His voice trembles. ‘You think I wanted to come back here, to all these memories? I could have gone anywhere – the Philippines, Columbia, Peru – somewhere with a decent number of butterfly species, I could have resurrected my career, I was a damn good lepidopterist. But I didn’t do any of those things. I stayed in London for you. I’m here for you.’
There’s a word pilots say before their plane crashes, what is it?
‘I know I haven’t been in your life; I’ve missed so many things.’
Brace. Brace.
‘But I loved you then. I love you still.’
‘I love you still’ doesn’t unravel me like ‘I loved you.’ Perhaps it’s because, eighteen years ago, I loved him too; there are times – breastfeeding Millie in the unholy hours of the night, pushingher buggy in the driving rain – when I can still feel the fire of it. But ‘I love you’ in thepresent tense doesn’t land. Because it’s ludicrous. Absurd. ‘You can’t mean that.’
‘I do.’
