But my mind had already skipped tracks.
I don’t want to tie you down,I’d said to Satoshi – but I did. Every day it got stronger, this inexorable temptation to tie him to me forever.
I wanted him to be there in the morning when I woke up. To be there at school drop-off – always with me at first, but eventually by himself sometimes, hugging the girls goodbye and bumping knuckles with Lex. For him to come home to me after the bar closed, to slide into bed with me after he’d eaten the dinner I’d left in the fridge for him, to wrap his arms tight around me.
I wanted my home to be his home. I wanted him to be there next Christmas, him and Isamu and his mother too, piled into my place with all the Fishers and Shaws. I wanted him to be there for all the milestones – his and mine and the kids’. I wanted him to see my hair turn grey and tell me I was beautiful anyway.
When he said,Fiona, all I want is you,I wanted so badly to believe that it would always be true.
Eventually, though – when the sparkle had worn off, when our illicit Thursdays turned into mundane routine, when my dad had been horribly rude to him too many times, when he was ready for a child of his own but I was too old and too tired to give him one, when I’d finally taken more than he was prepared to give – would he regret it? Would he think back to that day in his office when he’d told me I deserved pleasure and that he’d love to give it to me, and wish those words had never come out of his mouth? What would the loveliest man in the world tell himself on his wedding day, this beautiful soft-hearted man, this man who was far, far too good to be true?We’ve come too far for me to back out now. She’s been humiliated so badly once before, and she relies on me – I can’t let her be left again.
He’d made me a promise. But if Matt could lie, and Jonah could lie, then so could Satoshi – and once again, I would probably have no idea.
‘I’m sorry.’ Jonah squeezed me tighter, and I realised I was crying. ‘We weren’t trying to keep secrets from you. It’s just – there didn’t seem to be any point telling you. You already had so much to worry about – and then it was real, and serious, and there was nothingtotell.’
‘It’s okay,’ I forced out. ‘I understand.’
I pulled back and got to my feet, managing not to stumble despite the roaring in my ears. ‘Come on. Sadie will never forgiveme if I don’t get you to the altar on time. Especially if it actually counts this time.’
Jonah stood, studying me. ‘Are you sure you’re okay, Fi?’
I pasted on a smile. ‘I’m fine.’
Chapter EighteenSatoshi
Tasting today: nothing.
Sometimes you can’t taste anything.
Some of the best vineyards in the world were misty. In the mornings, before the sun had reached its zenith, it felt like you were walking through a cloud.
One of my earliest memories was of my father waking me very early and taking me out into a misty vineyard in Alsace when I was a toddler. He’d got distracted – typical of him, hyperfocusing on his work at the expense of everything else – and I’d wandered off into the fog. Isamu had eventually found me sitting underneath one of the vines, sobbing.
Oh, Sato,he’d said, impossibly large in my memory, although he wouldn’t have been more than fifteen.Did you get lost?
My only response had been incoherent wailing.Onichan – Onichan—
It’s okay. I’ve got you.He let me wind my arms around his neck and cry snottily into his shoulder.But you’ve got to be careful in the vineyard, all right? Stay where someone can see you – or botrytis will grow all over you.
He’d showed me some grapes, covered in grey mould.You don’t want to be covered in this, do you?
Botrytised grapes produced beautiful dessert wines. The rot made little holes in the skins, evaporating the water and concentrating the sugars and flavours, and the resulting wines were so lovely I’d named Yquem after one.
But I’d never forgotten it: the terror of being lost in a cloud, and then the visceral repulsion I’d felt looking at those grapes and imagining being lost forever, grey mould creeping up my skin.
That was how I felt now, sitting in the third row of Sadie and Jonah’s wedding ceremony. The sun was high in the sky, the mood lively and bright, bride and groom both weeping with joy as they professed their love to each other – but I was deep in the mist, unable to find my way out, being slowly enveloped by rot that was going to pierce my skin and drain me dry.
Standing beside Jonah, Fiona looked flawless. Her hair was swept back from her face, her neck a long line disappearing into the sweetheart neckline of her rose-pink dress, her makeup pristine and even, concealing that tiny constellation of five freckles beside her nose I loved so much. But even as she smiled at her brother and his bride, there was a furrow cutting a line between her brows, and her fingers were twisted tightly together, knuckles white.
I had seen her fall apart enough times to know that she was only just holding it together, and it made me feel like the marrow was being sucked out of my bones. I wanted to go to her – to put my arms around her and hold her tight and not let go – but what would I even say to stop her slipping away from me?I can give you what you want. I can be what you need. I’ll never want anyone but you, so please let me keep trying to make you happy.
People around me started clapping. The groom was kissing the bride, and even as I started clapping too, sunshine beating downon the back of my neck, everything around me was cold and grey and murky.
I escaped to the cellar door as quickly as I could, grateful to have the excuse of the bar, something tangible I knew how to manage. I had to reach down deep to dredge up my customer service smile, but I found it, and I plastered it across my face like the rictus grin of a skull. ‘It was a beautiful ceremony, wasn’t it?’ I said, over and over again, pouring glasses of sparkling wine and taking ten seconds longer than I needed to open each new bottle. ‘Jonah and Sadie are a beautiful couple.’
There was no amount of busy I could be, however, that would keep me from noticing when Fiona entered. She and Chess were walking together behind Jonah and Sadie, the respective pink and green of their dresses matching the flower girls, who had run in ahead. Sadie murmured something to Jonah then leaned up to kiss him before she and Chess peeled off in the direction of their table, leaving Jonah and Fiona there alone.
Jonah put his hand on Fiona’s elbow. They stood there for a long moment as he said something to her. Fiona nodded, and they hugged. Jonah was incandescently happy – there was no trace left of the drawn, white-faced man from earlier – but even though Fiona was facing away from me, I could see the long lines of tension in her body.
