He looked at me steadily. It seemed to me the garden went very still for a moment. The trees stopped their rustling, the birds paused in their singing.
"And then when Ned died ..." he went on.
"Yes, when Ned died," I broke in, "exactly! Even then, much later you never came to me in that way. You never showed your hand, Jack, I never knew!"
"I couldn"t, Lucy. You weren"t ready. I kept thinking you nearly were, that it wouldn"t be long, but your grief was so huge. So magnificent. So ... humbling. Seeing you sob at that kitchen table, night after night, there was no point at which I could have said, "Ah well, never mind, Luce. Ned"s gone, but I"ve always fancied you, so how"s about it?" And how could I compete with a ghost? A ghost I loved and mourned, too?" He paused. "Particularly since you blamed yourself."
I glanced down at my hands. "I told you, didn"t I?" I said softly. "You were the one person I told. Before Charlie." "You told Charlie?"
"Yes, but ..."I shook my head dismissively, "for different reasons. To help him"
I thought back to that night when I"d confessed to Jack, over the contents of a wine box, crying, raving, insisting that I"d done it, I"d b.l.o.o.d.y killed Ned. Pacing round the flat like a madwoman, possessed, plastered, staggering, beside myself. I hadn"t forgotten he"d seen me like that. But I"d shut it out of my mind. As one can.
"And that made you ill, Luce, you know that, don"t you? The grief, and then the ridiculous guilt. So unfounded. You let go of the reins, for a bit."
"That"s tactful," I said wryly. "Let go of the reins, Christ, I went do-bleeding-lally. And everyone was brilliant. You, Jess, Teresa, my parents, the children G.o.d, the children. I"ll never forget Ben, one Sunday lunchtime "Mummy, shall I choose some clothes for you? Instead of that dressing gown?" " I shuddered.
"And then you rallied. Made a decision not to go down that route."
I nodded. "I did. And I got it together. I polished up my act, and then-"
"Then?" He was watching me intently.
"Well. Then I met Charlie."
He nodded down at the gra.s.s.
"Saw Charlie," I corrected myself. "Saw him in the street. And that was it."
Jack continued to contemplate the lawn. "Lucy, at the risk of sounding like an amateur psychiatrist, would you like to tell me about that?"
I sighed. "About Charlie? I don"t know."
"Yes, you do."
Something in his tone made me look up. I met his eye. Glanced away again. "Yes. OK. I do know." I paused. "I was attracted to him for obvious reasons. s.e.xy, gorgeous, handsome etc, but there was more to it than that. And Jess was quite wrong, incidentally. She thought I wanted him because I couldn"t have him, because he was unavailable, but no. No, it was the opposite."
"You wanted him because he was married."
"I think so"
"And a father."
"That too. A married man with a child. It was what I"d lost, you see. I didn"t want anything else. That"s what I"d had, what had gone, and I wanted the same again. That"ll do nicely, I thought, plucking him off the shelf. One of those. He was irresistible. Awful" I shuddered.
Jack shook his head. "Not really. This amateur psychiatrist would say it made perfect sense."
"Yes, but all the time ... Oh Jack G.o.d, if I"d known..." "What, that I was waiting in the wings?"
"Yes, I-"
"Oh, come on!" He got to his feet. Turned away, thrust his hands in his pockets. "Don"t make me laugh, Luce, it wouldn"t have made any difference! What the ultimate single guy? Jack the lad, Jack who couldn"t commit to lunch let alone a lifetime? Who was about as far from a reliable husband and father figure as one could possibly get? Please don"t tell me that if you"d known the lie of the land you"d have been round at my place, gagging for me like you were for Charlie. Please don"t tell me that!"
"No, no I"m sure I wouldn"t have. And yet . .
"What?" He swung back.
"Well, things have a way of coming full circle, don"t they? Of coming around naturally, don"t you think? It"s almost as if I had to go through all that. The grief, the guilt, the yes, all right, say it Lucy, the depression and then afterwards, as I came up for air, I remember feeling so elated. So high, so crazy as I chased around after Charlie. As if I could do anything. It was another kind of madness. The high after the low."
"And now? At the top of the circle? Where the two lines meet?"
"Now," I spread my hands carefully on the wooden table. "Now you"re all I want, Jack. All I want." I looked up.
We regarded each other in that long, leafy walled garden, and it seemed to me his eyes devoured every fibre of my being. And mine his. My heart swelled. How well I knew him, really, I marvelled as I explored his face, his eyes, his mouth, and how strange that only recently, I"d known myself to be in love with him. Or was that so? Wasn"t it true that he"d always had the capacity to rattle me? To force me to re-evaluate myself, view myself from unflattering angles, often with guilt and shame? Why, then, if I hadn"t cared? Why, if it hadn"t been bound up with love?
I looked at him now as he stood before me, arms rigid as he gripped the back of a chair, leaning forward, intent, watching my every movement. Yes, so much I"d seen of him, but so little I"d known, understood. The strings of girls, the wayward life, all, as he said, hugely enjoyable, but if I"d really stopped to think about it not Jack. Not in keeping. He wasn"t a shallow man, I knew that, his poetry told me that. G.o.d, literary reviewers told me that in column inches every Sunday, so why hadn"t I spotted it? Spotted that something was missing? A huge gaping hole in his life, a void, which he wrote about constantly, but couldn"t fill?
One of the books on the table was his, I knew it well. Recognised it. His first slim volume of poems, published just after we"d all left university, to boozy, enthusiastic acclaim, at a party in an Oxford pub. I went cold as I remembered the dedication. How we"d teased him. I opened it now, looked at the flyleaf. To the one that got away.
My mouth dried. "Jack I"m so sorry."
"Don"t be."
"So stupid. No idea."
"Just as well. You were married. A married woman." He grinned and I gave a weak smile in response.
"And Jack this house" I sat up, glanced around. "I mean, was it-"
"For the boys. And you, of course, but mostly for Ben, so he could go back to school. Be amongst friends, have the security he needs."
I appeared to have a lump the size of an Elgin marble in my throat. I also appeared to have stopped breathing. I stood up. "To live here? With you?"
He straightened up from the chair. Scratched his head awkwardly. "Well, yes. With me. Sorry. You see, I suppose what I"m asking, in a fairly cack-handed and inarticulate way, particularly since I"m supposed to have a way with words, albeit written ones, is whether," he licked his lips, "whether you"d do me the honour of becoming my wife."
"Your wife!"
"Quite a step, I grant you," he went on hurriedly, "and an impulsive one at that, some would say rash even, but not me. No, not me. I"ve waited nine years, you see"
Nine years. As he gazed at me, I felt the heavens crash in on my head. Felt suffused with a sensation I knew from past experience to be happiness, but also, felt the pure, white pain of lost time, exploding behind my eyes.
"I missed out the first time by being too slow, and I"ve waited and watched you ever since hopefully not too intrusively but now I need to show my hand. Can"t hold back any longer. Lucy, you look so shocked. I"d hoped, imagined, that you might feel, well .
I walked round the table and took his hands. His eyes were anxious, but I couldn"t speak, couldn"t rea.s.sure him. I felt totally overwhelmed, as tears, I think of relief, inexplicably choked my throat. You see, I"d never expected happiness to come like this again. It was something I"d once had, had never cherished enough, and had never expected to have back again.
"Yes," I breathed when I could. "Yes Jack, I do. You were right to hope and imagine, I do feel the same. I love you. I know that now and I think - well I think I"ve known for some time."
"So . .
"So," I took a deep breath, "to answer your question, yes. I will many you. But you"re quite wrong. The honour would be all mine. All mine."
We stood for a moment, smiling at each other. Then he took me in his arms and kissed me in the middle of that leafy London garden, its high walls protectively around us, under the gaze of a pure blue sky. And as he did, I felt my soul wander out of its cell. Standing in the sunshine, with his lips on mine, his arms tight around me, my bones loosening and turning to liquid as I melted into him, a feeling flooded through me that I felt, in all consciousness, had a pretty good claim to be called pure joy. When we finally parted and had panted into each other"s necks a bit, he stepped back, took my face carefully in his hands. Cradled it. Every nerve in my body crackled, every sinew creaked. I could feel his breath on my face, could see the desire streaming out of his eyes. Our hearts pounded together, thumping away in proximity.
"In the end," he whispered, his eyes searching my face, "I went for the pale blue Axminster."
"Did you?" I gasped.
"I did. It"s a short, tufted pile, and I"m told it"s very hardwearing."
"Excellent news."
"It"s what the salesman coyly called Top of the Range, but Ibelieve the expenditure will pay dividends. I believe it has longevity. Would you like to see it?"
"Nothing," I murmured, as he took my hand and led me back towards the house, "would give me greater pleasure."
end.