This is what she saw on New Year’s Eve when I called her.
I ate fish and chips on the pebble beach, picked up a pebble and took it with me, slipping it into my pocket to look at every now and again. Just because. I walked through the town and fell in love with that little place that, until Hannah mentioned it to me, I’d never even heard of. And then London went by so fast. I never expected it to. I did all the things she said we’d do, in my few days here. I took a big red bus tour, went to the Tower of London. I was too embarrassed to take a selfie with the guys in the red outfits, but I said hey to them as I stood in line for about two hours to look at the Crown Jewels. I went to the National Portrait Gallery and found the picture of the Brontë sisters that Hannah once told me she liked so much. I sat in front of it for a while, taking in the brushstrokes and the invisible space where their brother once sat. There, but not there. A bit like how I felt. But not anymore. And then I went next door to the NationalGallery and got totally lost. She was right. The National Portrait Galleryisbetter.
And then today, on my last day, I woke up, packed my stuff back into my rucksacks, paid my hotel bill, and, to save money, decided to ride the Tube instead of getting a taxi to the station. And that’s when I saw her. I thought I was going mad. But it was her. It was Hannah. She looked…amazing. Beautiful. That dress. Her hair. All dolled up like that, she was nearly unrecognizable and it took me so long—too long—for the pieces of her in my mind to fit together and for me to realize…it was her, standing right there, in front of me, staring at me as if she couldn’t believe I was there, either.
And now I pull out my paperback copy ofA Room with a View,which I bought on impulse in a bookstore near Covent Garden, and stare at the cover, feeling nothing but regret that I’m leaving London. Nothing but regret that I never got in contact with her again. I was such a coward. Everything I did concerning Hannah was cowardice, pure and simple. I never contacted her because I’m the worst kind of quitter. I quit on Hannah. I quit on chemo, until she and Grant collectively forced me back in. A man on a mission, a path, but to what…? I have no idea. A new path, one where I don’t know what’s around the corner. One where I can choose the direction, be in charge of my own life again. And I’m sure it was the right thing to do, ending things with her. That was confirmed when I saw that guy arrive behind her. His eyes moved from the back of her head toward me. That look on his face. Possessive anger. He was one unhappy guy. But the look on hers: shock, hurt, confusion. I did all that to her. I did that.
I told her to get on with her life, not waste her time on some guy being pumped full of drugs thousands of miles away, some guy trying not to give up on life, who then did give up on life. I did the right thing, I’m sure of it. It had to have been the right thing. I didn’t want to mess with that girl’s head any more than I’dalready done. Besides, I told her to be with someone else. And now I can see that she is with someone else.
I may be many things, but I am not the kind of guy who muscles in on someone else’s girl, who breaks up couples, even if Hannah was once—in some loose definition of the word—mine.
Chapter 34
Hannah
I’m still inshock. I nod, I smile. I watch Joan sweep down the aisle with a dainty tiara on her head and a dress that looks like gossamer silk clinging flatteringly to her small figure. And Geoff, who looks like a man so utterly in love as his bride-to-be moves toward him. But I can’t think about any of it, can’t process it. It’s so far removed from me all of a sudden. Davey is here. Davey. Is. Here.
I’m silently glad it’s a civil ceremony. No hymns. It makes the event go quicker, although the happy couple have chosen the Beatles’ “When I’m Sixty-Four” for us all to sing. Which makes me smile, although I don’t feel present enough to appreciate it. Joan giggles ironically throughout it all, because she and Geoff are now north of that august age.
Paul and Miranda have been invited. After all, Miranda used to live with me and sometimes partook in our over-the-fence chats before she moved out, when she wasn’t mortifyingly hungover.
The wedding is the very definition of beautiful. Christmas beautiful. But I move as if on autopilot toward our table. Paul and George chat together as we wait for the wedding breakfast to be served and I watch them, thinking they’re getting on well—not friends as such, only chatting because they’re forced into thesame room together. Paul says something and George laughs and then gives me a look as if he’s desperate to roll his eyes. I smile thinly and my expression drops a split second later when George looks away.
Miranda talks to me about her wedding. I’m sure she’s saying something about getting married in a different country, something about how it always rains here but overseas weddings are different, allegedly, and I make the right noises at the right points in the one-sided conversation. I can’t think and I can’t talk. I certainly can’t talk about Davey, about having seen him. I feel sick. I think I might throw up. Or scream. Or do both together, as if I’m that little girl fromThe Exorcist.
I stand up, push my chair back so suddenly that Miranda stops talking to me halfway through her sentence. I’m so rude. I don’t mean to be, but I have to get out of here.
“Sorry,” I announce to everyone and no one at our circular table. “Just need to…” I turn and hope they think I’m going to the loo. I half expect Miranda or George to follow me, but no one does and it’s the first time I’m able to form a coherent thought since seeing Davey, so I’m glad no one has gotten up to trail me to the ladies’ room. Inside I pull down a toilet seat and sit on top. And so I start. I make a decision. I’m going to delete Davey’s number. If he’d wanted to talk to me, to be with me or to make contact, he would have done that by now. He never phoned me. He didn’t tell me he was coming here. I phoned him, because Grant asked me to; begged me to. I feel like a fool now.
And if I’m not going to see him ever again, I have to accept that was it and I have to do something drastic, to admit to myself that it is all over and it will never be anything other than over. I pull my phone out of my bag. I open up the WhatsApp messages to and from Davey. I hit delete on all of them, and one by one they disappear as I move them to the side and hit the red trash-can icon. Afterward I don’t feel cleansed of him. I feel like a piece ofme has been ripped out. But I continue ripping out more pieces of me as I find the photos he sent me, look at his handsome face, his ridiculous pose making eyes at Kirstie and Phil. I only notice I’m crying when tears land on my phone screen, blurring the pixels.
My hand shakes, but I hover over the trash icon, tap it, hit yes to confirm I want to delete that photograph. And the first he sent: impromptu, his shirt off, tanned, muscular, traces of water on his skin from his shower. He looks so good. He was kind, funny, nice, and then ill, and now he’s here, without a word. Delete. It has to go. I can’t hang on to this any longer. I can’t hang on to him.
And then—because if I don’t do it now, right now, I know I’ll cave—I pull up a message to Davey. I admit to him the thing I knew, but never told him. “I love you,” it says. “I love you.”
And then I do exactly what Davey did to me all those months ago. I hit backspace on the entire message, knowing I’ve said it, but not sent it. And then I find his number in my contacts list. “Delete contact?” I hit yes, and Davey disappears out of my phone and my life forever.
—
I walk back to the table after fixing my makeup with my fingers, to find Miranda putting a spare bread plate over my food to keep it warm. I shoot her a grateful look and she wipes a stray fleck of mascara from my cheek that I must have missed.
“You OK?” she asks.
I nod. “I am now.”
She gives my leg a squeeze, a silent solidarity that doesn’t need explanation.
George is watching me, but he’s not smiling, not speaking, just watching me. I turn to him. Give him a false smile that sickens even me. He turns and carries on talking to Paul.
What have I done? What am I doing? I have no idea. I’mexhausted, but Miranda tops up our wineglasses before the poor waiter even has a chance to notice she’s downed hers.
“Come on, drink up. It’s a wedding. This table’s like a funeral.”
I do as I’m told. It’s easier than resisting. I knock back the glass of wine and can’t work out if this is going to make me feel better or worse. I’ll find out later.
—
“I got to you a few seconds before I called your name,” George tells me, his hands thrust into his pockets, now that we’re back at my flat and he’s decanted all my bits and bobs from his attire.
