All I want to do is get out of here. Get to London. Claim the prize and fuck off back to my flat away from everyone else. I was mad to think that I could have everything I wanted with Lydia. What the hell was I thinking?
Chapter Twenty-Nine LYDIA
Half an hour later, I’m composed, standing – actually it’s more like leaning as I grip the back of garden chair – making small talk with the couple from next door who are younger than the Dereborns and seem quite nice. The garden has really filled up now and in the mid-afternoon sunshine, it’s really quite pleasant. Except as I look around the garden and the well-heeled people standing chatting with glasses of wine in hand, I realise that it’s all surface and that beneath, it isn’t pleasant at all.
Tom finally comes over, bringing a glass of wine for me and we move away to a spot by a magnificent rose bed. My heart turns over with that slow free-fall of love as I watch him approach. I can’t help myself, even though I know that none of this has meant anything to him. I smile sadly at him. I’ve got my pride. I’m not going to rake over all the things he said. He must be furious with me for letting the cat out of the bag about his film.
‘You can yell at me, if you like,’ I offer.
‘I don’t need to do that,’ he says, his voice so scrubbed clean of emotion it hurts. I’ve seen too much to ever be easy about him again. The injustice of his father’s treatment is like an open wound. I want to comfort him but I have no idea where to start. Suddenly the divide between us seems wider, deeper and longer than the Grand Canyon.
‘I really am sorry. I had no idea that they didn’t know. They don’t deserve you, you know,’ I say, my voice quiet and honest.
Now, he finally looks up. ‘Leave it, Lydia. You don’t know anything.’
I should leave it there but I can’t. Maybe it’s as much for me as for him that I have to say something. I know what it’s like to feel undeserving of love, to feel that you’ll never be enough for anyone. It’s a lonely place to be. I can’t bear for him to be there.
‘I do know,’ I declare. ‘And I promise you, you are worth being loved. For yourself.’
‘And what do you base that marvellous supposition on, Ms Smith?’
My heart hurts at the way he’s closed off again. Not for myself but for him. This is what love is – what they write about in songs and poems – and now I finally understand it. Love is selfless. He might not feel the same way but I need him to know that he is loved.
It’s like stepping off a cliff edge when you know there is no parachute, no crash landing mat, no miracle waiting to catch you. ‘Because I love you.’
Tom’s face registers a brief flash of emotion before it goes blank again. ‘We’ve been through an intense few days. I think maybe it’s a bit like Stockholm Syndrome. We got close but it wasn’t real. I think … that … we should leave here in the next half hour and get a train and get to Trafalgar Square.’
‘Okay.’ I’m not going to beg or plead. Strangely I feel quite calm. I’m not angry with him. If anything I feel liberated by saying the words out loud, by knowing that I can fall in love with someone. It feels like I’ve crossed a divide. How he feels about me is his problem. I’m not going to solve it for him but what I will do is help him achieve his goal. Suddenly, reclaiming my grandmother’s house doesn’t feel so important now. It won’t change my life. I’ve changed my own life by being the person I am. The house is a symbol of a time I remember being happy, but living there again won’t necessarily make me happy. I make my own happiness – it’s not defined by a thing. Whereas for Tom, making that film will change his life. It will help define him. Winning the money will give him the freedom to do what he wants.
‘Ah, Tom.’ His parents approach us with another man in tow, the social veneer well and truly back in place. ‘Do you know George? He’s the chairman of the Institute of Chartered Insurers.’
The introductions are made, although I’m pointedly ignored by Nigel, treated rather like a trophy wife, albeit a slightly tarnished one, but George is one of the good guys.
‘Lydia,’ he says with a naughty twinkle in his eye. ‘How lovely to see you. I didn’t know you knew Nigel.’
‘I don’t,’ I say with equally blithe delight. ‘Tom and I work together.’
‘Lucky Tom,’ says George. ‘Lydia’s one of the highflyers at BHCA. I’m still hoping you’ll join our committee one day. We could do with someone of your calibre. How many times do I have to ask you?’
Nigel suddenly warms up. ‘I hear you were at Cambridge,’ he says to me.
‘Yes.’ How the hell does he know that?
‘Our niece Annette was there,’ Nigel says to George. ‘She’s a doctor, you know.’
‘Ah, talk of the devil, there she is.’ Nigel bellows across the lawn, ‘Annette, come join us.’ When she arrives Nigel says, ‘I understand you two know each other.’
Annette beams at me. ‘Nice to see you again, Lydia. It’s been a long time. How are you doing? How’s your shoulder?’
I love her immediately, making out that we were equals at university and that she knows me.
Thankfully the Dereborns move off just then to find new victims to patronise with their largesse and hospitality.
‘How’s the leg?’ asks Annette, catching me shifting my weight from foot to foot.
‘Okay,’ I say, wishing that I could sit down. It’s bloody agony today. Standing on it is the complete red hot pokers experience. She gives me a sceptical look.
‘Shall we go inside and I can take a look?’
I nod but as we’re crossing the lawn Annette and Tom are grabbed by his parents. ‘Someone you must meet.’
‘Why don’t I see you inside?’ I say. ‘I need to get my things ready. I’ve left my rucksack upstairs.’
‘We’ll see you in the front room. The door off to the right in the hallway,’ says Tom.
I pack up my toiletries and lug the rucksack down the big staircase, careful not to bang it against my leg or the pristine white paintwork. Leaving it in the hall, I step into the front room. It’s a library with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and even one of those fancy ladders you see in films. With a rub at my sweaty forehead, I take a breath. I really don’t feel great. My vision is a little blurry. Shit! Orange. Warning signals go off like fireworks in my brain.
Someone appears in the doorway just as I’m squinting at the big hedge surrounding the front garden. My gut twists. I can see an orange vehicle roof.
It’s Annette.
‘Let’s take a look at this leg, then,’ she says with a stern I’m-not-taking-any-shit-from-you look.
‘It’s fine. Honestly.’ I glance back through the window, listening intently. No car doors slamming.
‘Bollocks. Sit down.’
‘I thought I liked you.’ My words are glib but my mind is elsewhere. Is it an orange Land Rover? I’m desperate to check.
