deeply. I haven’t smoked weed since I was at university with Nia, but it beats sitting here not being able to chat with Beatrice. Niall suddenly seems a lot more interesting, and the two of us sit giggling and smoking alone on the sofa. Every now and again I notice Beatrice look up from her conversation to glance over at us, an impassive expression on her face.
Later, as the sun goes down and the others have either gone home or to bed, I find myself alone with Beatrice. The room has darkened and Beatrice closes the French doors and flits about the room, lighting the candles on the mantelpiece.
‘Did you enjoy meeting everyone?’ she asks as she flops on to the sofa next to me. ‘They’re a great bunch.’ When I don’t answer, she turns to me, concerned. ‘Didn’t you have a good time? Is it about Lucy? If you want to talk—’
‘I’ve got my counsellor for that,’ I snap, my jealousy of earlier still niggling at me. I want to hurt her, push her out. Even as I do it, I know I’m not being fair.
Her eyes widen in shock and an injured expression flashes across her face. Instantly, I’m remorseful. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I’m just tired, I didn’t mean to snap.’ And before I know it I’m opening up to her about seeing my counsellor, the post-traumatic stress disorder, my problems with paranoia, although I omit the details about Alicia and all that came afterwards.
‘Oh, Abi,’ she says when I’ve finished. ‘Thank you for telling me. And I’m here for you, if you ever want to talk. You know, I’ve had my own problems – nothing like yours, admittedly, but I had a kind of breakdown. I was …’ she pauses as she rests her head against the soft cushions, her eyes appearing even larger in the candlelight. ‘I was extremely hurt by someone I loved.’ She tells me of her first year at university when she met the man she thought she’d be with for ever, how devastated she was when it all ended. How she couldn’t cope emotionally. ‘I had to leave Exeter, I couldn’t be anywhere near him afterwards, it was too painful to see him. So I went travelling.’
‘You went to Exeter University?’
She frowns as if irritated that I’ve interrupted her flow, her tale of lost love and broken hearts. ‘Yes, why? Did you?’
‘No, but a friend of mine did,’ I say, thinking of Luke. He wasn’t going out with Lucy then, of course, they didn’t meet until a couple of years after. But I remember the conversations we all had about our student days, sitting around our favourite table in our local pub, desperate to outdo one another with tales of debauched parties and recreational drugs. Luke always had what he thought was a funny anecdote about Exeter and Lucy would tease him that the place was his first love.
Beatrice is staring at me, her face serious. ‘Abi? I said, what friend?’
‘Only someone from my past. I don’t see him any more.’ I can’t bring myself to explain; it is too painful to remember how it all was. Before.
‘Oh, that type of friend.’ She laughs, almost as if she’s relieved. I can’t be bothered to correct her. I lay my head next to hers, the way I used to do with Lucy. We’re silent for a while, then her eyes snap open and she lifts her head from the cushion, staring at me, excitement bright in her eyes. ‘What did you think about Niall?’ Her eyes are shining, hopeful.
‘Very handsome.’ I give her a conspiratorial smile, but she frowns.
‘Oh, he is, isn’t he?’ She leans forward to retrieve her wine glass from the coffee table and takes a sip. Her hair falls in her face, hiding her expression, as she says, matter-of-factly, ‘As soon as I saw him I thought he’d be perfect. For you.’
When I’m certain Beatrice is safely ensconced in her own bedroom I go to him.
He’s lying on his side in bed with his legs pulled up to his bare chest, a stripy cotton sheet draped over him. The doors to his balcony are ajar so that a thin voile curtain ripples in the slight breeze. The light from the moon illuminates his face, his long eyelashes casting shadows on his cheeks and I have a sudden urge to bend down and kiss him where the freckles cross his nose. He’s so like his sister. His eyes slowly flicker open, aware that he’s being watched. ‘Bea?’ his voice is thick with sleep.
‘It’s me, Abi,’ I hiss.
He blinks as if his eyes are adjusting to the dark. ‘What’s going on?’
‘That’s what I want to know.’ I kneel down so that my face is inches away from his and I can smell the red wine and cigarettes on his breath.
He frowns. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Beatrice is trying to set me up with Niall,’ I say in a loud whisper, fuelled by the four glasses of wine I drank earlier. ‘If you feel anything for me at all, we have to tell her. It’s not fair.’
A slow smile spreads across his face and he reaches out and gently brushes my hair from my face. ‘Okay, so let’s tell her.’ Then he throws aside his duvet, revealing his long tanned legs. He’s only wearing his boxer shorts. I crawl in beside him as he pulls the cool sheet over us, cocooning us from the outside world, and curl myself into him, relishing the warmth of his skin, the soft fuzz of his chest against my cheek. In his arms I can believe that nothing bad will ever happen again.
And as his mouth finds mine he unzips the back of Beatrice’s dress, and wiggling out of it I discard it on the floor where it lies in a crumpled heap, forgotten.
Their favourite bench has been pelted with huge white dollops of bird droppings and Beatrice can’t help but see it as a bad omen as she reaches out to touch its arm, the wood warm under her fingers from the sun that continues to beat down relentlessly. She is unable to stop the tears spilling out from under her lashes. Maybe if she gives in and cries, gets it over with, she can begin to get on with her life, can begin to forget.
She angrily wipes away her tears with the back of her hand, and clutching her flip-flops in the other hand, she moves away from the bench towards the edge of the hill, the grass coarse and prickly beneath her bare feet. She could be Gulliver up here, gazing down on the city sprawling beneath her; her very own Lilliput. She can make out the many arches and four turrets of the Abbey to her left and, a little further behind, the curve of the Royal Crescent. A dog yaps behind her and she can hear the shrieks of children in the nearby playground.
Beatrice realizes she should be happy for her brother; she is happy for him. It’s been two weeks since Abi moved in and suspecting, knowing, she’s with Ben only serves to remind her how alone she is. She always thought she would be married by now, maybe with a baby on the way. But meeting him changed the course of her life, like a train forced to make a detour along another track to a different town, so that she’s lost, unable to get back on the right track to where her destination should be. And here she is, thirty-two years old, with no lover, no marriage and definitely no babies. She thought moving to Bath would help, a fresh start, but he’s here with her, always with her, in her head, in her heart. Wherever she goes, he will always follow. For the rest of her life. It’s been thirteen years, she thinks. Over a decade since her heart was not just broken but crushed, so why can’t she get over it? Ben doesn’t understand; she knows he’s been in love before and got hurt, but he was able to let go of his pain and move forward. Why can’t I?
Ben. She thinks of her brother’s kind hazel eyes, his ski-slope nose. She can’t lose him. He’s the only family she’s got left. By opening her house to other artistic types she feels less alone, part of something, a community, but they aren’t true family, they aren’t blood. Only Ben shares her genes, her DNA.
I can’t lose you, Ben. I need you.
A