‘I guess I could cope without you, just. But it wouldn’t be living. Will you think about it?’ asked Jonathan, as if he already knew what my answer was going to be.
‘I’ll think about it,’ I managed to gasp, as he raised my palm and kissed it, holding my gaze over the top.
‘Good,’ he whispered.
Honestly, sometimes I felt like the only thing missing from our romance was the Busby Berkeley dance routine.
‘Run this by me again,’ said Gabi, from beneath a large pair of black sunglasses. ‘Mr Perfect wants to take you to New York to live in his flashy condo for a month, while you’re homeless, and you don’t want to go . . . why?’
‘Because I hate letting people down,’ I repeated. When she put it like that, it didn’t sound so convincing. In fact, it sounded positively wimpish.
‘Mel, the only person you’re letting down here is me. Do you not understand how much cheaper Kiehl’s skincare is in America? I’m economising these days, you know.’
We were sitting on a bench in Hyde Park, eating ice creams and watching people pour out of offices, tearing off their clothes to catch the last of the parching London sun.
‘I’ll really miss him,’ I said mournfully. ‘I should have known it was too good to last. And I notice it’s not like he’s putting me in front of his career, is it? Hasn’t stopped him taking a job that “requires more travelling”.’
Gabi snorted. ‘Christ on a bike, Mel, I don’t understand you. He’s not asking you to move out there! He’s just offering you somewhere to live while Nelson does his bloody sailing sainthood!’
I looked at Gabi and could tell she was scowling beneath her huge shades. Evidently she’d discovered the downside of dating someone with innate nobility.
‘He told you then?’
‘Yes, he told me. And he didn’t offer me a go in his hammock either. No stowaways allowed, apparently.’
‘Well, no. You don’t have knotting skills.’
Gabi’s well-plucked eyebrow extended above the frames.
‘I don’t want to know, thanks,’ I said hurriedly. ‘But it’s just impossible. I can’t leave, and I can’t stay. What on earth am I meant to do?’
She pulled down the shades to give me the full benefit of her sarcastic look. ‘Will London really grind to a halt if you stop telling overgrown schoolboys not to tuck their shirts into their pants?’
‘Well, not as such, but I still have regular appointments with people and—’
‘OK, if he’s making such a big deal about choosing between him and work, how about this: tell him you’ll definitely go out there. No question. Jonathan, you are my lord and master and I can’t bear to be separated from you for ten of your earth minutes. But, really, plan to go for a fortnight,’ suggested Gabi. ‘I mean, it’s not un-reasonable for you to take a holiday – people expect it now and again. If you get ahead of yourself with the preparation stuff, all you’d have to do would be check your answering machine and get your emails. And you can do that from Jonathan’s house.’
‘That’s true,’ I said slowly. ‘And I don’t need to tell him I’m checking. I could do that while he’s at work.’
‘Exactly. Then, after a fortnight, if you’re still gagging to come home – though I can’t imagine why on earth you would be – you can make up some excuse about your family having a crisis that requires your immediate intervention, nip back, deal with anything that needs dealing with, then nip back again for however long you want.’ She cut me a sideways look. ‘I bet you a tenner you end up coming back to sort them out anyway.’
‘You make it sound like going up to Leeds on the train,’ I said, though actually it wasn’t such a bad idea.
‘Aaron and I used to go to New York for shopping breaks all the time.’ Gabi shrugged. ‘It’s no big deal.’ She paused. ‘Getting through Customs on the way back with all the stuff I’d bought, now that was more of a problem.’ She sighed nostalgically. ‘Aaron used to pay the excess rather than look at all my shopping bags again. Said it gave him flashbacks.’
‘Well, you’ll be lucky if you get so much as a commemorative parrot from Captain Pugwash,’ I said. I’d liked Aaron. For someone who worked in the City, he had a well-developed sense of humour and really good taste in socks.
‘Thanks. As long as that’s all he brings back from three months at sea,’ said Gabi darkly. ‘I’ve heard things about these sailors.’
‘I think you’re safe with Nelson. He’ll have them singing sea-shanties and playing deck quoits, then lights out at nine every night.’
We licked our ice creams companionably.
‘You’re not scared, are you?’ asked Gabi suddenly.
‘Scared?’ I bluffed. Gabi had a disconcerting ability to see into my head, and then see things even I hadn’t spotted. ‘What of?’
‘Of living with Jonathan. Him seeing you less than perfect without your make-up.’ She looked at me significantly. ‘Maybe meeting all his ball-breaking friends and relations. And his ex-wife. Things getting serious.’
‘Don’t mince your words, will you?’ I protested. But there was no point fibbing to Gabi. She knew me too well. ‘Um, yes, there is a bit of that, I suppose. It’s just been going so well, and—’
‘Stop worrying,’ she said firmly. ‘Anyone can see Jonathan’s mad about you. And you’ve already met some of his friends, haven’t you?’
I pulled a face. ‘Yeah, Bonnie and Kurt Hegel.’
‘And they liked you!’
‘Um . . . after a fashion.’ That had been quite a ghastly dinner. It was when Jonathan was still dating me in a professional capacity, and the first time he’d seen any of his and Cindy’s mutual friends since their separation. Unlike the carefully divided stock portfolios and antique what-nots, they’d maturely agreed not to divide up their friends in the divorce settlement. But between Kurt’s relentless interrogation, which I later realised was his idea of light conversation, and Bonnie’s searching therapist’s eyes, I felt like we were both on trial. Him for his feelings towards Cindy, and me for – well, I felt guilty about things I hadn’t thought about in years.
‘Pshuh!’ said Gabi. ‘Just give them the full Honey charm treatment.’
I stared at her, then clapped a hand to my mouth. ‘Oh, Gabi! They think I’m blonde! And called Honey!’
She flapped her hand dismissively. ‘Tell them you dyed your hair. Main thing is, you’ve met them, haven’t you? And they liked you, and they’ll have told everyone else how great you are.’ She peered at me. ‘Everyone else. So what’s to worry about? So long as that neat-freak Jonathan doesn’t catch you hanging the towels up messily, you’ll have a great time. Think about it – summer sales in the shops, proper ice cream, Jonathan pulling out all the stops to show you a good time . . .’
American ice cream. Mmm.
Not to mention Jonathan showing me a good time . . .
I wrenched my mind back to practicalities. ‘What about the office? What about post? What if people tried to turn up and leave things?’
‘Look, if it makes you feel better, I’ll call in and look through the post for you,’ said Gabi. ‘Get your messages.’
‘Would you?’ A plan was forming in my mind. One that involved Allegra working at my agency without actually shutting it down before my flight landed at JFK.
‘I do have office experience,’ she huffed. ‘But I’m making you a list of things to bring back from Bloomingdales, all right?’
So as not to waste any time she got a notebook out of her bag and started on it then and there. I gazed round Hyde Park and was surprised to feel rather excited.
5
Jonathan greeted the news of my decision by taking me out to dinner at Christopher’s and plying me with complicated American cocktails. But the next day he had to fly back to start organising his new job, and we had an emotional parting at Heathrow Airport.
Well, fairly emotional. He hated public scenes and I was trying to put on a Stiff Upper Lip about the whole th
ing.
‘Can’t wait to see you in New York,’ he said, holding me very tightly before heading into the business class check-in. ‘I’ll come and pick you up at the airport.’
‘OK,’ I said, and forced a brave smile.
‘Don’t be late.’ He touched the tip of my nose. ‘If I do half as good a job showing you New York as you did showing me London, you won’t ever want to leave.’
I didn’t work out what a lovely compliment that was until I was almost back in Pimlico.
To be honest, I didn’t rush back to the house, even though it was Sunday evening, which I usually reserved for armchair detective dramas and the week’s ironing. Nelson, being Nelson, had insisted that we start ‘going through the flat’ in advance of his departure. I’d have preferred to blitz it in one awful go, with gallons of coffee and the promise of a takeaway at the end, but he’d booked space at the Big Yellow Storage Place and was determined to fit everything into the space he’d arranged. And not a box over.
‘We need to weed out some of this junk,’ he insisted, forcing me off the sofa where I’d slumped, still playing back Jonathan’s last, long kiss in my head. ‘I’ve got boxes for storage, boxes for charity shops and boxes for the dump. And when I say dump, Mel, I do mean dump.’
Nelson stood back with his hands on his hips and surveyed the general detritus of several years’ domestic bliss with some desperation. ‘I mean, we can just ditch all those magazines, can’t we?’
He gestured towards the stack of lovely glossy mags, holding the stereo speakers off the floor.
‘Well, no . . .’ I needed those. I looked into my half-drunk gin and tonic and wished I had the energy to mix up another. ‘Can’t we start in the kitchen instead?’
But there was no stopping Nelson once he got started on ‘household tasks’. His father, who was a military enthusiast, had run their family like a sea cadet unit, using a series of whistles to indicate ‘task time’. Even now, Nelson and his brother Woolfe got twitchy when the football was on the television.
‘You realise how much you could have saved over the years if you’d just read those stupid things in the hairdresser’s?’ he added for good measure, lifting up the speaker so he could start piling them into a dump box. He brandished a fistful of Tatlers in my direction. ‘There’s over a hundred pounds of idiocy and shampoo ads in this stack alone.’
‘I think you’ll find half of that pile includes your Practical Boat Owners,’ I observed. ‘But you’re right – go ahead and chuck it all out. They’re just taking up space.’
Nelson’s packing action abruptly stopped. ‘Well, in that case, maybe we should do some selective chucking.’
The doorbell prevented me from responding in a way I’d have liked.
‘That’ll be Roger,’ he said, with some relief. ‘He said he’d come over to give us a hand.’
My face fell and I gripped my warm G&T harder. ‘Roger? Oh, come on, Nelson. It’s Sunday night! My boyfriend’s just flown back to New York! I’ve got a hard week coming up. The last thing I need is Roger Trumpet and his Personality Vacuum coming round here to punish me with small talk.’
Nelson gave me a reproachful look. ‘Don’t be mean. Roger’s nowhere near as bad as he used to be. Mainly because of your sterling efforts. You should be proud of him.’
‘I am,’ I said, pulling a desperate face. ‘But not on a Sunday night when we only have one more Sunday night left here!’
‘The flat isn’t going anywhere! You’re just moving out for a few weeks, for heaven’s sake!’
‘But I was going to iron!’ I wailed. ‘I thought we were going to make a curry and watch Inspector Morse!’
Heavy footsteps were now audible on the stairs leading up to our first-floor flat, and already I could feel Roger’s enervating presence begin to drain me of sparkling chit-chat. He did that to a girl. Ten minutes with Roger Trumpet, in a bad mood, was like inhaling chloroform.
‘How did he get in?’ I demanded. ‘Is the front door open?’
Nelson’s brow furrowed. ‘Now that is a good question.’
We didn’t need to wonder about Roger’s means of entry for long, because there was a brief knock on the front door and then Gabi appeared, with Roger in tow.
‘I met him outside,’ she explained, wiping the mascara from where it had smudged under her eyes.
Roger nodded at everyone by way of greeting. He wasn’t wiping his eyes, but he wasn’t exactly looking chuffed either.
‘I didn’t know Gabi had a key!’ I exclaimed, a bit too brightly. ‘Nelson?’
‘Um . . .’ said Nelson. ‘Yes. I was going to mention that to you.’
‘Were you?’ I said, still very brightly.
Gabi sniffed. Her nose was red, and her hair wasn’t as perky as usual. In fact, it didn’t even look as if she’d bothered to attack the unruly curls with her straighteners. It honestly wasn’t like her to be so downcast about a man. Whenever Aaron had gone away on business, she was on the phone to me within minutes, planning where we could go for cocktails. Still, Nelson was different, I supposed grudgingly. He was less a boyfriend, and more a lifestyle. We’d all miss him.
My heart went out to her poor sad face.
‘Gabi, would you be a sweetheart and go and put the kettle on?’ I suggested. ‘I’m gagging for a cup of coffee.’ And gratefully she vanished into the kitchen where loud clattering started up.
Roger, Nelson and I stood there in the middle of the floor. Nelson realised he was holding a stack of Cosmopolitans, the top one of which was last year’s Ho-ho-holiday sex special, and he quickly put them into a dump box.
‘So, how are you, Roger?’ I asked, grasping the conversational nettle. ‘Looking well!’
Roger pulled a face, which I guessed was meant to indicate some kind of response. For a young man in his early thirties, who was the heir to a substantial cider and sparkling perry fortune, who lived in Chelsea, and who was in possession of all major mental faculties, Roger cut a very unprepossessing figure. He’d gone through a more urbane phase, when I’d taken him in hand rather rigorously, but since I’d been spending more time at work and with Jonathan, instead of at home on the couch with Nelson and Roger, he’d regressed. Badly. Tonight he was dressed entirely in shades of porridge, and didn’t appear to have shaved for about four days. It might have passed as a style statement on a more put-together man, but not on Roger.
Communicating in shrugs and grunts was where I’d picked up, not left off.
‘Roger!’ I said, more emphatically.
‘I’m very well, thanks, Mel,’ he said. ‘Not much going on, but even less going on for the next three months.’ And he shot a wounded glare at Nelson.
‘Roger,’ said Nelson evenly, ‘if you wanted to crew on this tall ship, you should have applied. Stop acting like such a girl.’
‘I’m thinking of doing some sailing in the Maldives,’ he informed me. ‘One of my friends has got a Nicholson 35 that he needs bringing back to England.’
‘Roger . . .’
‘So I might do that.’
Gabi reappeared with the coffees, one of which she gave to Nelson. ‘Milk, three sugars,’ she said, and bit her lip.
‘Good timing, you two!’ I said, before she could ask to keep the mug to remember him by. ‘We’d just got started!’
‘Yes!’ said Nelson in the same ‘that’s right, Melissa!’ tone. ‘This box is for the charity shop, this one’s for keeping, and this one’s for dumping. I’m going to set my stopwatch for one hour, and then we’ll go out for dinner, OK?’
‘OK!’ I said.
Honestly. We sounded like a couple of children’s TV presenters. Or parents.
‘Fine,’ said Gabi, staring morbidly at a bookshelf. ‘Are these your books, Mel? I Do, or Die? Why Men Marry Some Women and Not Others?’ She looked inside. ‘To Melissa, Merry Christmas, love from Mummy and Daddy.’
I grabbed them off her, and dumped them in the charity shop box. ‘No need for those any more! And I n
ever thought I’d be sitting here saying that.’ I beamed with delight. ‘You know, when I think of the time I wasted on men like Orlando . . .’
Nelson looked up from his stack of CDs. ‘I never thought I’d be happy that you’d taken up with an American estate agent, but after Orlando von Borsch, I’d have given Jack the Ripper a chance.’
‘Nelson!’ I said. ‘He really wasn’t as bad as you made out.’
Nelson hated all my ex-boyfriends. Particularly handsome, year-round-tanned, slip-on-shoe-wearing ones like Orlando.
‘He was, Melissa,’ agreed Roger. ‘Definitely. He was a slimy creep. Don’t you remember how he made you collect his dry-cleaning?’
‘And never gave you the money for it?’ added Gabi.
‘And twice it included a strapless, backless, split-thigh ball gown?’ added Nelson.
I paused. Orlando had had a lot of dry-clean-only clothes. At the time I’d thought it was terribly chic, but now I wondered if he’d deliberately just sent everything there so I’d pick it up for him, free and gratis.
‘Well, that was the old me,’ I said confidently. ‘I was pretty dim in the past, I admit, but not any more. No one takes advantage of Melissa Romney-Jones now.’
‘Ding!’ muttered Nelson, wrapping one of his model battleships in an old copy of the Telegraph, but since we were all feeling rather over-emotional, I didn’t pull him up on it.
We packed and stacked in companionable silence for a few minutes.
‘Be ruthless with clutter,’ intoned Nelson. ‘There’s going to be no room in the new and improved flat for knick-knacks.’ He looked up. ‘And I mean that, Melissa.’
‘Like this, you mean?’ grunted Roger, waving an elaborately wrapped explosion of net and hand-folded paper doves.
‘Emery’s wedding,’ sighed Gabi. She looked at Nelson, who had suddenly become fascinated by a box full of old contact lenses. ‘It’s so sweet you kept it. Don’t you remember, Nelson? That was the night . . .’ Her voice trailed off in another uncharacteristic wobble.