It broke her heart that he, too, thought her mum might have the answers, might be able to succeed where he was failing. It made her want to rage at the woman she had stupidly shared her news with, letting her in, choosing her, telling her how she’d met a boy.
‘No, Dad. I’ll be okay, just want to rest.’
‘Rightio, love. Well, if you need anything ...’ He backed out of the room, letting his words trail, as if he, like her, really didn’t have the first clue how to make things better, especially when it came to women’s troubles.
It was an hour or so later when he called from the hallway. ‘You have a visitor, Lilly!’
She sat up in bed, her first thought that it was Wilkie, returned and about to beg for forgiveness, which she would of course give, before instantly falling into his arms and holding him tight as they made a plan for their future. But it was not Wilkie, the disappointment enough to send a fresh batch of tears to douse her pale cheeks.
‘It’s Bertie! Shall I send him in?’ her dad called again.
‘Yes.’ She did her best to keep the quaver of distress from her voice.
The two men now stood in her doorway, her dad looking worried. Bertie scanning her room, no doubt taking in the rather bland decor, peach-painted woodchip wallpaper, an old pink tasselled lamp and the white Formica bedside cabinet. Not a Murano glass chandelier in sight.
‘Would you like a cup of tea, Bertie?’
‘Oh, bless you, Robert, tea would be lovely.’
Her dad made his way to the kitchen.
It was lovely to see Bertie, looking handsome in his pink paisley shirt and white flared jeans, always so hip. The moment her dad left the room he swooped forward and threw the curtains open.
‘What are you doing?’ She shielded her eyes from the sudden bright light, having been cocooned in her dimmed hideaway for days now, like a mole rat being forced above ground.
‘What I’m doing is taking my life in my hands and travelling to Vauxhall, of all places, to kick you up the arse.’ He picked her jeans up off the floor and folded them. ‘I usually only come over to this side of the river under the cover of darkness to visit the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, so consider this an honour!’ He stared at her now. ‘This will never do, never! You can’t let the bastard win! You just can’t! That’s the rule!’
‘I don’t care about the rule! He left me, Bertie, he just left, he never even said goodbye!’ She thought he might need the reminder.
‘You think I haven’t had my heart broken a thousand times? The key to surviving is to get straight back up and keep going; otherwise life stops, Bob! It just stops, and that cannot be the case. You will look back at this time of your life and be so grateful for it! You will never again be as young as you are now, never have so much life stretching ahead of you. You’re a goddess! And you can’t waste a day of it sitting here looking at those dreadful curtains. They are enough to make anyone depressed!’ His humour was usually enough for her to snap out of any mood, but not tonight.
‘But I love him!’ She felt her bottom lip tremble.
‘Love!’ He flapped his hand in front of his face. ‘It’s a small thing, it comes and goes, and it holds you in its thrall, like being caught in a wave, but never doubt that you are at its mercy and therefore there’s nothing you can do to control it, even if you think you can.’
‘It wasn’t a small thing to me.’
‘It will be.’ He perched on the side of her narrow bed. ‘It will be one day, when you have lived a long and happy life and you look back. You’ll realise that thisWilkie’ – he almost spat the name, and she loved the solidarity of it – ‘you will realise that he was only a page in your life story, not even a chapter, or more likely a paragraph. Yes, just a bloody paragraph! No more!’
Lilly nodded, tears falling down her face, so wanting to believe what her good friend was telling her, and yet still feeling struck at the mere mention of her lover’s name.
‘I have this’ – she placed her hand on her chest where it hurt the most – ‘this pain!’
‘He’s hurt you, sweet thing, and it’s the first time. I remember what it feels like. We all do. It leaves an indelible mark that you think is a scar, but I promise you, I absolutely promise you, thatyou will reach a point in your life when it’s just a smudge where the ink of that paragraph has spoiled over time, no more.’
‘I want to believe you,’ she levelled.
‘Two things.’ Bertie wiped the tears from her face with his silk handkerchief. ‘First, I have never and will never lie to you.’
She nodded and smiled, knowing this to be true.
‘What’s the second thing?’ she sniffed.
‘I think we should forfeit the tea and go and find some champagne. What do you say?’
‘Maybe.’ She smiled at the brilliant Bertie Barnes, who was everything.
‘Well, it seems to me you have choices. You can either put on your glad rags, if you have anything clean’ – again he scanned the bedroom floor, where her clothes lay in heaps – ‘or you can go and phone Mr Wilkie Jones and tell him how you feel, see if there is any way forward, although I am sincerely hoping you do not do that. I want you to dance on and forget all about the rogue!’
