Leo heard himself groan.
‘At twelve o’clock,’ Lard admitted.
They all glanced at the clock. It was just before twelve. Leo groaned a bit louder.
‘Phone her. Tell her I’m ill,’ he suggested.
‘She’d never believe us.’
‘Dead,’ he said brightly. ‘Tell her I’m dead.’
‘Leo, if you don’t meet Emma for lunch, you will be.’
Leo forced himself to his feet. ‘I thought you two were supposed to be my friends.’
Grant and Lard swivelled their gaze to Old Baldy’s office. ‘What shall we tell Isobel?’
‘Nothing,’ he said with a shake of his head. ‘She’ll know. She’ll know all about it already.’
‘We could look after her for you,’ Lard suggested. He licked some melted chocolate from his lower lip in a very lascivious manner.
‘Don’t even think about it,’ Leo warned him. ‘She’ll chew you up and spit you out.’ And, not noticing that his friends looked quite interested in being chewed up and spat out by Isobel, he proceeded, like Daniel going into the lion’s den, to keep his lunch appointment with Emma.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Bertorini’s is one of my favourite restaurants. And not just because it’s the haunt of celebrities who are trying to convince the world that they’re just ‘ordinary’ people, or even because it has featured in several trendy films and television series. It isn’t far from where I work or live, down by the side of the Thames near St Saviour’s Dock and, as such, is one of my local haunts.
Leo and I came here on one of our first dates – that’s also why it’s so special for me and also why I’ve chosen it today. Not that Leo will ever remember the romantic significance of the venue. I sigh to myself. I’m going to be very calm and grown up about this. Discuss rationally with Leo where we have gone wrong in our relationship. Even though it’s mostly his fault, I’m feeling magnanimous enough to concede that it’s never a show without Punch.
The restaurant is busy, even this early, with lunchtime diners. There’s a terrace that borders the river, but it’s far too cold to sit out there today, even with the patio heaters on full blast. The umbrellas are out, but they’re being buffeted by the strong breeze that’s invariably present along the water’s edge and look as if they could topple over at any moment. Oh, the joys of a British summer.
I stare out of the window, toying with the stem of my wine glass. Sipping my Chardonnay, I pretend that I don’t mind being alone, although I desperately wish I’d thought to buy a newspaper to read or a trashy magazine. It’s already 12.15 p.m. and Leo is late. The pitying glances from the staff will start soon. Staff who are used to me spending hours in here alone waiting for Leo. But before I work myself up into a lather, I’m going to try to convince myself that it’s the fault of his dunderheaded friends for failing to pass on a message properly and not down to Leo’s usual tardiness. I’m maniacally punctual. If I’m fifteen minutes early for something, I’m always convinced I’m late. Poor punctuality is, to me, one of the worst forms of arrogance. It says to someone that you feel your time is more important than theirs. I’d rather chew off one of my own ears than be late. At this rate I’m going to chew off both of Leo’s ears – and possibly something else – if he’s any later.
At that moment, just as my shoulders can reach no higher up my neck, Leo walks in. And it is a walk. Not a rush. Not a dash. Just a walk. But, at least, it isn’t a saunter.
‘Hi.’ He looks bashful and it’s a look that can melt my heart. Leo does very good bashful. Pulling up a chair, he sits down opposite me. ‘How are you?’
All the calm, measured sentences I have rehearsed fly out of my brain like a flock of scattering birds.
‘Leo,’ I say, without preamble, ‘when we were together, were you seeing someone else?’
‘Er . . .’
The waitress comes over. I feel like kicking her in the leg. This is very bad timing. I’ve gone for Leo’s jugular and now she has given him an excuse to duck.
Oblivious to my irritation, the waitress hands Leo a menu – in a very leisurely manner it seems from my side of the table. ‘Can I get you a drink, sir?’
‘Vodka, please.’
The waitress smiles at my boyfriend as she walks away. An overly familiar smile, if you ask me. Leo grins back. I clutch at my knife.
‘Is that why you were unable to commit to me?’ I ask.
‘Make that a double, please,’ Leo calls after the waitress. He looks back at me. ‘No and no, are the answers to those questions.’
‘I brought your car back this morning,’ I tell him. ‘The one you abandoned outside the restaurant without another thought.’
‘Ah. Good old girl.’
I’m not entirely sure whether he’s referring to me or the car.
‘Wondered where she was. Fine example of modern motoring.’
‘It’s a heap,’ I say dismissively. ‘You were far too drunk to drive. I took the keys off you.’
‘I remember,’ Leo says. ‘It’s all coming back to me now.’
‘I saw her, Leo.’ I blink back a tear. ‘I saw her. Coming out of your flat. This morning.’
‘Ah.’ Leo’s face has guilty written all over it.
So I’m right. I always am. Nevertheless, it’s like a body blow. Nothing can ever prepare you for this moment. Leo is a lot of things, but I don’t think he’s ever been unfaithful before.
The waitress returns with two shot glasses of ice-cold vodka for Leo. He knocks them both back in one.
‘You couldn’t just bring me the bottle, please?’
‘How long has it been going on?’ I persist.
Leo looks with desperation at his empty glasses. ‘Not long.’
‘How long is not long?’ I want to know. I need to know. ‘Two weeks? Six weeks? Six months?’
‘I didn’t meet her until after you’d dumped me.’
‘That was the night before last, Leo! You’ve been single for one day. One whole day.’
Leo hangs his head. ‘I met her on the way home from your birthday party.’
‘The birthday party that you largely missed? Except for the bit where you passed out in my cake, of course.’
‘Yes,’ Leo says. ‘That would be the one.’
I feel as if I’m going into meltdown. Is this what a panic attack feels like? My palms are clammy and I can feel all my insides shaking like they do on those exercise machines that wobble you about. ‘You certainly didn’t waste your time.’
Leo’s shoulders slump and he reaches out to take my hand. ‘Emma.’ He uses his soft, sugary voice, the one that he normally reserves for when I’m sick. ‘I never meant for any of this to happen.’
I snatch my hand away. ‘That is just the most typical thing for a man to say.’
‘I am a man.’
Finding a tissue, I sniff into it. I feel on the verge of tears and this isn’t how I’d wanted it to go at all. I hate tearful, clingy women and Leo does too. Or does he? I’ve got to the point where I’m not sure what Leo likes or doesn’t like any more. Have I ever really taken the time to find out? ‘Tell me, Leo,’ I say. ‘And I want you to be perfectly honest about this. What does she have that I haven’t got?’
‘Er . . .’ Leo looks round the dining room, clearly hoping that some sort of International Rescue for the emotionally retarded might swoop in and help him out.
‘Do you think she’s prettier than me?’
‘Yes,’ Leo says. ‘She’s all sort of sparkly and gorgeous.’
I feel my face crumple.
‘Emma.’ Leo takes my hand again. ‘You said you wanted me to be honest.’
‘I know what I said,’ I snap. ‘But there’s honest and there’s honest, Leo. Why couldn’t you have lied? You normally do.’
‘Perhaps this is the new me.’
‘Well, perhaps I don’t like it any better than the old one.’ Rummaging for another tissue in my bag, I try to compose myself. I don??
?t want some bit-part soap starlet who happens to be in the restaurant seeing me like this. ‘Is she younger than me?’
‘Er . . . Are we going for honesty again?’
I shake my head. ‘Not too much honesty.’
‘Not necessarily.’
The waitress returns with the bottle of vodka and puts it down next to Leo, along with a large wine glass. ‘Thank you,’ he says gratefully and proceeds to pour himself an unhealthy measure.
‘It doesn’t have to be like this,’ I say. ‘I’m quite prepared to overlook your . . . mistakes. All of them. And give you one more chance. Just one more.’
Leo downs half of the vodka. ‘Emma,’ he says. ‘I don’t know what to say.’
I smile at him. This is like old times. It could be like old times. Just me and Leo. The hand-holding. The looking sincerely into my eyes. He can be so sweet when he wants to be. We’ve had some good times together. Some very good times.
‘I don’t want another chance,’ Leo says, breaking into my reverie with another hammer blow. He sighs and swigs at his drink. ‘You said yourself, the magic has gone. It’s over for us. And I’ve met the most magical being I’ve ever encountered. She has bewitched me and there’s no going back. I’ve never been able to make you happy, Emma. You’ve always wanted me to change. To be someone else. Anyone else. She wants me just as I am. Goodness only knows why. She doesn’t want me sober, punctual and in a straitjacket. She wants me. Just me. And I want her. She’s fun to be with.’
‘And I’m not?’
‘We want different things from life.’
‘You want fun and I don’t?’
‘It isn’t that simple, Emma. I feel that you constantly disapprove of me. You might have loved me, but I’m not sure that you ever really liked me.’
I can hear the dull thud of my heart. It fills my ears, my brain. The worst thing about it is that Leo is right. And he’s never right. I’m the one who’s right in this relationship.
‘I’m in love, Emma,’ Leo carries on hammering away. ‘I’m in love with someone else.’
Everything in my world stops. They’re the words that no one ever wants to hear. Now Leo is saying them to me. I summon every ounce of dignity that I can muster and dress it with a tight smile. ‘Then there’s really nothing more to say.’
‘No,’ Leo whispers. ‘I’m sorry. Flip. I’m so really, really sorry.’
I make myself stand up even though my legs feel strangely wobbly as if I’m just getting off a boat after several days on a rough sea.
‘I loved you,’ Leo says. ‘I loved you very much.’
‘Until yesterday?’
Leo can’t meet my eye.
‘You had a funny way of showing it.’
‘I had my way of showing it,’ Leo counters.
‘So this is it?’
Leo nods sadly.
‘It’s been very nice knowing you,’ I say.
‘Emma . . .’
I don’t want to hear anything else Leo has to say, so I walk calmly away, even though the other diners seem suddenly to be blurred.
Leo looks upset. I can tell that it isn’t coming easy to him to do this. He doesn’t hurt deliberately – he isn’t that type. Leo only hurts people by accident. Surely he’ll realise that soon.
I still keep a watchful eye on him as he refills his glass again and sits alone at the table looking miserable. How could he do this to me? He must be mistaken, surely? Leo has never, ever wanted to end our relationship. He’s always been happy with the way things were. And it hurts me to admit that Leo’s right, I’ve been the one to do all the complaining. Any minute now he’ll call me back. He’ll laugh and say that he was giving me a taste of my own medicine. But it doesn’t happen. I keep on walking and Leo keeps on letting me go, saying nothing, until I’m nearly out of the restaurant. I’ve lost him, I think desolately. I’ve lost him to someone else. Through both of us being too stupid to see how good our relationship was.
The waitress, bearing a tray with plates of steaming pasta, tries to squeeze her way past me. ‘Excuse me,’ she says with a smile.
‘Wait,’ I say, staying her with my hand on her arm. To the waitress’s evident surprise, I take one of the plates of pasta and turn to head back to Leo. ‘I’ll deliver this.’
‘He didn’t order that,’ the waitress says hurriedly after me.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ I assure her. The pasta in question is a creamy combination laden with bacon, mushrooms and layered with cheese. It smells divine.
I walk towards Leo and, when I reach him, put the plate of pasta down in front of him. Leo looks up with an uncertain smile.
I tip the plate and the hot pasta slides off and lands in Leo’s lap. Revenge, I think, is a dish best tipped over someone hot. To his credit, Leo doesn’t jump up or make a fuss or try to avoid his punishment. He sits there and endures it stoically. I love him all the more for it.
‘Bastard,’ I say softly and then turn on my heel, leaving Leo, the waitress and the other diners speechless.
And I appreciate that this might be an inappropriate emotional response to my sorrow, but it feels very good. Very good, indeed.
Chapter Thirty
Leo was in his local hostelry – the nearest within stumbling distance of the office – and he was propping up the bar with Grant and Lard. The place was full of people who were dressed exactly like them in the uniform of the City; in recent years double-breasted pinstripes had given way to single-breasted, three-button designer-label suits now, but you could still spot them a mile away. And they were all talking in loud voices and not listening. The early-evening crowd letting off steam before heading home or to their favourite restaurant or takeaway. Leo’s so-called best friends were sniggering into their beer at his plight.
‘It’s all right for you two to laugh,’ he complained. ‘That was the longest lunch-hour of my life.’
‘Emma took it badly?’ Lard said.
‘I should say so,’ Leo confirmed. They all looked down at his lap which was still covered in the creamy remnants of Emma’s pasta punishment. It looked vaguely obscene.
‘It could have been worse,’ Grant told him.
‘How?’
Grant studied the froth on his beer. ‘I’ll get back to you on that one.’
Leo didn’t understand Emma. She’d spent years telling him how useless he was and how she’d be better off without him, then when he finally obliged and found someone else – or someone else found him – she wasn’t happy about that either. Leo decided that he would never grasp the intricacies of the female mind – they were all mystical, magical, unfathomable beings. Not just the one with fairy wings and a lethal wand. Emma could wreak just as much havoc without one.
‘Emma saw Isobel coming out of my flat. This morning. She put two and two together . . .’
‘And came up with four,’ Grant noted with a wise nod.
‘Yes.’
‘Not good,’ Lard said. ‘But at least it means that Emma can’t fail to see how you were a goner in the face of such beauty. A mere, defenceless snowflake to an avalanche of blatant raw sex.’
‘Quite,’ Leo agreed. ‘I’m just not sure my girlfriend views it like that.’
‘Ex-girlfriend,’ Lard reminded him.
‘Oh. Of course.’ It was so easy to forget. You couldn’t simply disentangle yourself from your previous life overnight. He was going to miss Emma. Despite the fact that she didn’t think he loved her enough, Leo really did love her more than anything. He just might not have been able to do it or say it the way she wanted him to. And that saddened him.
From now on, this would be his advice to anyone who might be struggling with a relationship – if anyone told you that they loved you, just say it right back. Don’t even think about it. Certainly don’t leave one of those uncomfortable pauses. Just spit it out. It would save an awful lot of trouble in the long run, really it would. Leo wished that he’d had the sort of parents who’d told him that they loved him on a regula
r basis, but he could acknowledge now that not once in his life had they ever said those crucial three words to him. And Leo had never said it to them. That was probably why the L-word was such a big deal to him and why he had trouble wrangling with emotions in general, although Leo wasn’t one to over-analyse these things or to blame his shortcomings entirely on his parents. Basically, he thought that he was far too shallow to warrant an in-depth probe. Children could safely have paddled in him.
‘Emma’s gorgeous too,’ Grant said in a rather clipped way.
‘Yes, Emma’s beautiful. But she’s not all glittery and girly,’ Leo pointed out. ‘Isobel’s so feminine and floaty. She looks as if she’d break if you touched her.’ Looks, however, were deceiving. ‘You, my friend, are speaking as a man who has never been thwacked by the full force of Emma’s handbag.’
‘Does Isobel have any sisters?’ Lard asked. Lard found it very hard to get girlfriends, that was why he ate so much chocolate. And because he ate so much chocolate, he found it hard to get girlfriends.
Sighing, Leo said, ‘I have to tell you something. But it’s a big secret. A big, big secret.’
‘Get a life,’ Grant advised him.
‘No,’ he said. ‘This is serious. You might be shocked.’ Leo huddled closer to them.
‘Wait,’ Lard said. ‘Wait, wait. This doesn’t involve bedroom gymnastics again, does it? You’ve not managed seven times a night? She’s not kinky, is she? I don’t think I could look at Isobel without spontaneously combusting if you told me she’d got her own set of pink, fur-lined handcuffs.’
‘No. No.’ Leo tried not to sound irritated by the fact that it was his sex-life and not his welfare which preoccupied his seedy friends’ minds. Then he paused. If Isobel had produced pink, fur-lined handcuffs it wouldn’t have surprised him in the least. Actually, he felt quite cheered up by the thought. ‘Though she may have.’
His friends were all ears now. ‘This is serious,’ Leo repeated. ‘Very serious. And you are seriously not going to believe me.’
Grant and Lard shuffled closer to him. Leo cleared his throat. Having made this announcement, he didn’t then know quite where to begin. So he went for some more throat-clearing. His furtive friends glanced round to check that no one was listening, then nodded for him to proceed.