‘So tell me, after all those years of ups and downs, how did you two finally get together? Really…’
Joyce smiles in the corner of my screen. She knows the story all too well. However, Meg senses my unease and crouches down next to me to grip my knee.
‘We met in Amsterdam. We were visiting mates.’
I pause. I’ve always blamed all those picturesque bridges that frame the setting, Rembrandt, the bicycles. Bicycles really do heighten the romance of a situation. We were there out of sheer coincidence visiting mutual friends. It was after an epic night out and we had all the alcohol in our systems so Tom and I walked around the city. I trotted around those cobbled streets in two-inch heels and I didn’t care because I was with him. He told me stories and six hours felt like ten minutes in his company. We even walked past windows of naked women masturbating on bar stools and he didn’t flinch once.
‘That was when you realised you belonged together?’ Delphine asks me.
I nod. She probably thinks the night ended with us slow-dancing in the middle of the street while a man offered us bunches of tulips. In fact there was a man. He tried to sell us weed. Tom bought some and we shared a spliff on some steps outside a church-like building. We kissed after three long years apart. A look was all that was needed to let me know how much he loved me. We had sex in our friends’ house, in the toilet for privacy, and it wasn’t particularly pretty but how we laughed when his arse turned on the cold water tap. Why was their downstairs bathroom the size of an airplane cubicle? After that, we were inseparable. And that feeling re-emerges of how intolerable it is that the universe would choose to separate us. Meg grasps my knee that little bit tighter.
‘And after that we came back to the UK, we got married and lived in Bristol.’
The call is quiet for a moment.
‘You know… our story is quite a personal one. It wasn’t straightforward. I was thinking a better story may be about his work he did. He travelled extensively, always volunteering and teaching. It was all steeped in something very genuine.’
Joyce puts a hand to her chest. I’m not sure if it’s because she knows that was true of her boy or because she knows I just can’t talk about him like that, like a fairy tale, like a story, because it, us, him – it all happened. It was all very true. There was no happy ending.
‘Possibly. I just like your angle. I like all of that pieced together. I also liked how you travelled the world after he died. It’s soEat Pray Lovebut younger, trendier.’
‘With less meditation perhaps, more wine.’
She laughs heartily. ‘And just like that, you’ve come up with a tag line. But I think people will really connect with your grand finale. You came back with your daughters that you met because of him. People will adore the kismet, how you were bonded by your grief, like a guardian angel.’
To emphasise that point, she does swooping arms like I indeed did fly in. However, she makes Cleo and Maya sound like souvenirs I picked up on the way back.
‘I’d rather they were left out of this. We saved each other. This is Tom’s story.’
‘Oh, it is – definitely. Did you remarry?’
Meg glares at the screen now from her lowered position. Joyce, I can tell, sits in her corner of the screen blushing.
‘I didn’t.’
‘Then people will love that more. You’re still bonded in love, even after death.’
I hold my hand up to the screen.
‘I just… my girls are the priority now. I’m a mum. It’s not that I… I just…’
‘I’ve even thought of a title,Tell My Grace I Love Her Very Much. Like from the song, “Space Oddity”. A real tearjerker. I think this would sell in the millions.’
Joyce sits there and studies my face. I can read the apology, the fact I’ve been cornered and told to confess snippets of a story so personal yet painful to me. I don’t care for millions. It would be a lovely nod to charity but I’d run five hundred marathons and swim ten thousand lengths if it meant I didn’t have to bring up how sad our story makes me feel. If I read that book, all I’d be thinking about is those years when we should have been together. I’d be throwing that book at the wall and writing it a shit Amazon review.
‘Well, I’ll certainly think about it. Thank you, Delphine.’
Delphine looks a bit shocked that she hasn’t been able to seal the deal in a single conversation. Look at all these books I own. I am books. I could give you the world. You could be a film. Name someone to play you, anyone. I have them on speed dial. Do you have Meryl?
‘Is there anything I can do to persuade you? Have you pitched this to other agents?’
Joyce intervenes. ‘Oh no, it’s not like that at all, but Grace and I are very different. How we’ve chosen to respect Tom’s story, how we’ve grieved. Whatever Grace decides is very much up to her. I’d like us to respect that.’
‘Oh, of course. I didn’t mean to tread. Please promise me you’ll think about it. Like I say, people seek out stories like this. Real love stories. We’ve all fallen in love with Tom after Joyce’s book so we’d like to know every side of him.’
‘I will think about it.’
She nods slowly. ‘Joyce, I have another call but always a pleasure, and Grace, it really was lovely to meet you.’
