Sixteen
AS I ARRIVE home, I’m surprisingly calm. In fact, I almost feel a sense of relief. I’ve tried everything — and now I’m at the end of the line. There’s nothing else I can do but confess everything to Luke. He’ll be shocked. Angry too. But at least he’ll know.
I stopped in a café on the way, had a coffee, and thought very carefully about how I was going to tell him. Because everyone knows, it’s all in the presentation. When the president’s going to raise taxes, he doesn’t say, “I’m going to raise taxes.” He says, “Every American citizen knows the value of education.” So I’ve written out a speech, a bit like the State of the Union address, and I’ve memorized it word for word, with gaps for interjections from Luke. (Or applause. Though that’s a bit unlikely.) As long as I stick to my text, and no one brings up the question of Ugandan policy, then we should be all right.
My legs are trembling slightly as I climb the stairs to our apartment, even though Luke won’t be back yet; I still have time to prepare. But as I open the door, to my shock, there he is, sitting at the table with a pile of papers and his back to me.
OK, Becky, come on. Ladies and gentlemen of Congress. Four score and thingummy. I let the door swing shut behind me, get out my notes, and take a deep breath.
“Luke,” I begin in a grave, grown-up voice. “I have something to tell you about the wedding. It’s quite a serious problem, with no easy solution. If there is a solution, it will be one that I can only achieve with your help. Which is why I’m telling you this now — and asking that you listen with an open mind.”
So far so good. I’m quite proud of that bit, actually. The “listen with an open mind” bit was especially inspired, because it means he can’t shout at me.
“In order to explain my current predicament,” I continue, “I must take you back in time. Back to the beginning. By which I mean not the creation of Earth. Nor even the big bang. But tea at Claridges.”
I pause — but Luke is still silent, listening. Maybe this is going to be OK.
“It was there, at Claridges, that my problem began. I was presented with an impossible task. I was, if you will, that Greek god having to choose between the three apples. Except there were only two — and they weren’t apples.” I pause significantly. “They were weddings.”
At last, Luke turns round in his chair. His eyes are bloodshot, and there’s a strange expression on his face. As he gazes at me, I feel a tremor of apprehension.
“Becky,” he says, as though with a huge effort.
“Yes?” I gulp.
“Do you think my mother loves me?”
“What?” I say, thrown.
“Tell me honestly. Do you think my mother loves me?”
Hang on. Has he been listening to a single word I’ve been saying?
“Er… of course I do!” I say. “And speaking of mothers, that is, in a sense, where my problem originally lay—”
“I’ve been a fool.” Luke picks up his glass and takes a swig of what looks like whiskey. “She’s just been using me, hasn’t she?”
I stare at him, discomfited — then notice the half-empty bottle on the table. How long has he been sitting here? I look at his face again, taut and vulnerable, and bite back some of the things I could say about Elinor.
“Of course she loves you!” I put down my speech and go over to him. “I’m sure she does. I mean, you can see it, in the way she… um…” I tail off feebly.
What am I supposed to say? In the way she uses your staff with no recompense or thanks? In the way she stabs you in the back, then disappears to Switzerland?
“What… why are you…” I say hesitantly. “Has something happened?”
“It’s so stupid.” He shakes his head. “I came across something earlier on.” He takes a deep breath. “I was at her apartment to pick up some papers for the foundation. And I don’t know why — maybe it was after seeing those photographs of Suze and Ernie this morning.” He looks up. “But I found myself searching in her study for old pictures. Of me as a child. Of us. I don’t really know what I was looking for. Anything, I guess.”
“Did you find anything?”
Luke gestures to the papers littering the table and I squint puzzledly at one. “What are they?”
“They’re letters. From my father. Letters he wrote to my mother after they split up, fifteen, twenty years ago. Pleading with her to see me.” His voice is deadpan and I look at him warily.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that he begged her to let me visit,” says Luke evenly. “He offered to pay hotel bills. He offered to accompany me. He asked again and again… and I never knew.” He reaches for a couple of sheets and hands them to me. “Look, read for yourself.”
Trying to hide my shock, I start to scan them, taking in phrases here and there.
Luke is so desperate to see his mother… cannot understand your attitude…
“These letters explain a lot of things. It turns out her new husband wasn’t against her taking me with them, after all. In fact, he sounds like a pretty decent guy. He agreed with my dad, I should come and visit. But she wasn’t interested.” He shrugs. “Why should she be, I suppose?”
… an intelligent loving boy… missing out on a wonderful opportunity…
“Luke, that’s… terrible,” I say inadequately.
“The worst thing is, I used to take it all out on my parents. When I was a teenager. I used to blame them.”
I have a sudden vision of Annabel, and her kind, warm face; of Luke’s dad, writing these letters in secret — and feel a pang of outrage toward Elinor. She doesn’t deserve Luke. She doesn’t deserve any family.
There’s silence except for the rain drumming outside. I reach out and squeeze Luke’s hand, trying to inject as much love and warmth as I can.
“Luke, I’m sure your parents understood. And…” I swallow all the things I really want to say about Elinor. “And I’m sure Elinor wanted you to be there really. I mean, maybe it was difficult for her at the time, or… or maybe she was away a lot—”
“There’s something I’ve never told you,” interrupts Luke. “Or anybody.” He raises his head. “I came to see my mother when I was fourteen.”
“What?” I stare at him in astonishment. “But I thought you said you never—”
“There was a school trip to New York. I fought tooth and nail to go on it. Mum and Dad were against it, of course, but in the end they gave in. They told me my mother was away, that, of course, otherwise, she would have loved to see me.”
Luke reaches for the whiskey bottle and pours himself another drink. “I couldn’t help it, I had to try and see her. Just in case they were wrong.” He stares ahead, running his finger round the rim of his glass. “So… toward the end of the trip, we had a free day. Everyone else went up the Empire State Building. But I sneaked off. I had her address, and I just came and sat outside her building. It wasn’t the building she’s in now, it was another one, farther up Park Avenue. I sat on a step, and people kept staring at me as they went by, but I didn’t care.”
He takes a gulp of his drink and I gaze back at him, rigid. I don’t dare make a sound. I hardly dare breathe.
“Then, at about twelve o’clock, a woman came out. She had dark hair, and a beautiful coat. I knew her face from the photograph. It was my mother.” He’s silent for a few seconds. “I… I stood up. She looked up and saw me. She stared at me for less than five seconds. Then she turned away. It was as though she hadn’t seen me. She got into a taxi and went off, and that was it.” He closes his eyes briefly. “I didn’t even have a chance to take a step forward.”
“What… what did you do?” I say tentatively.
“I left. And I walked around the city. I persuaded myself that she hadn’t recognized me. That’s what I told myself. That she had no idea what I looked like; that she couldn’t possibly have known it was me.”
“Well, maybe that’s true!” I say eagerly. “How on earth would she have—”
I fall silent as he reaches for a faded blue airmail letter with something paper-clipped to it at the top.
“This is the letter my father wrote her to tell her I was coming,” he says. He lifts up the paper and I feel a small jolt. “And this is me.”
I’m looking into the eyes of a teenaged boy. A fourteen-year-old Luke. He’s wearing a school uniform and he has a terrible haircut; in fact he’s barely recognizable. But those are his dark eyes, gazing out at the world with a mixture of determination and hope.
There’s nothing I can say. As I stare at his gawky, awkward face, I want to cry.
“You were right all along, Becky. I came to New York to impress my mother. I wanted her to stop dead in the street and turn round and… and stare… and be proud…”
“She is proud of you!”
“She isn’t.” He gives me a tiny half-smile. “I should just give up.”
“No!” I say, a little too late. I reach out and take Luke’s arm, feeling completely helpless. Completely sheltered and pampered in comparison. I grew up knowing that Mum and Dad thought I was the best thing in the whole wide world; knowing that they loved me, and always would, whatever I did.
“I’m sorry,” says Luke at last. “I’ve gone on too much about this. Let’s forget it. What did you want to talk about?”
“Nothing,” I say at once. “It… doesn’t matter. It can wait.”
The wedding seems a million miles away, suddenly. I screw up my notes into a tight ball and throw them in the bin. Then I look around the cluttered room. Letters spread out on the table, wedding presents stacked up in the corner, paraphernalia everywhere. It’s impossible to escape your own life when you live in a Manhattan apartment.
“Let’s go out and eat,” I say, standing up abruptly. “And see a movie or something.”
“I’m not hungry,” says Luke.
“That’s not the point. This is place is just too… crowded.” I take Luke’s hand and tug at it. “Come on, let’s get out of here. And just forget about everything. All of it.”
We go out and walk, arm in arm, down to the cinema and lose ourselves in a movie about the Mafia. Then when it’s over we walk a couple of blocks to a small, warm restaurant we know, and order red wine and risotto.
We don’t mention Elinor once. Instead, we talk about Luke’s childhood in Devon. He tells me about picnics on the beach, and a tree house his father built for him in the garden, and how his little half-sister Zoe always used to tag along with all her friends and drive him mad. Then he tells me about Annabel. About how fantastic she’s always been to him, and how kind she is to everyone; and how he never ever felt she loved him any less than Zoe, who was truly hers.
We talk tentatively about things we’ve never even touched on. Like having children ourselves. Luke wants to have three. I want… well after having watched Suze go through labor, I don’t think I want any, but I don’t tell him that. I nod when he says “or perhaps even four” and wonder whether maybe I could pretend to be pregnant and secretly adopt them.
By the end of the evening, I think Luke is a lot better. We walk home and fall into bed and both go straight to sleep. During the night I half wake, and I think I see Luke standing by the window, staring out into the night. But I’m asleep again before I’m sure.
I wake up the next morning with a dry mouth and an aching head. Luke’s already got up and I can hear clattering from the kitchen, so maybe he’s making me a nice breakfast. I could do with some coffee, and maybe some toast. And then…
My stomach gives a nervous flip. I’ve got to bite the bullet. I’ve got to tell him about the weddings.
Last night was last night. Of course I couldn’t do anything about it then. But now it’s the morning and I can’t wait any longer. I know it’s terrible timing, I know it’s the last thing he’ll want to hear right now. But I just have to tell him.
I can hear him coming along the corridor, and I take a deep breath, trying to steady my nerves.
“Luke, listen,” I say as the door swings open. “I know this is a bad time. But I really need to talk to you. We’ve got a problem.”
“What’s that?” says Robyn, coming into the room. “Nothing to do with the wedding, I hope!” She’s wearing a powder-blue suit and patent leather pumps and carrying a tray of breakfast things. “Here you go, sweetheart. Some coffee to wake you up!”
Am I dreaming? What’s Robyn doing in my bedroom?
“I’ll just get the muffins,” she says brightly, and disappears out of the room. I subside weakly onto my pillow, my head pounding, trying to work out what she might be doing here.
Suddenly last night’s Mafia film jumps into my mind and I’m struck with terror. Oh my God. It’s obvious.
She’s found out about the other wedding — and she’s come to murder me.
Robyn appears through the door again, with a basket of muffins, and smiles as she puts it down. I stare back, transfixed with fear.
“Robyn!” I say huskily. “I… didn’t expect to see you. Isn’t it a bit… early?”
“When it comes to my clients, there is no such thing as too early,” says Robyn, with a twinkle. “I am at your service, day and night.” She sits down on the armchair next to the bed and pours me out a cup of coffee.
“But how did you get in?”
“I picked the lock. Only kidding! Luke let me in on his way out!”
I’m alone in the apartment with her. She’s got me trapped.
“Luke’s gone to work already?”
“I’m not sure he was going to work.” Robyn pauses thoughtfully. “It looked more like he was going jogging.”
“Jogging?”
Luke doesn’t jog.
“Now, drink up your coffee — and then I’ll show you what you’ve been waiting for. What we’ve all been waiting for.” She looks at her watch. “I have to be gone in twenty minutes, remember!”
I stare at her dumbly.
“Becky, are you all right? You do remember we have an appointment?”
Dimly a memory starts filtering back into my mind, like a shadow through gauze. Robyn. Breakfast meeting. Oh yes.
Why did I agree to a breakfast meeting?
“Of course I remember!” I say at last. “I’m just a bit… you know, hung over.”
“You don’t have to explain!” says Robyn cheerily. “Fresh orange juice is what you need. And a good breakfast. I say the same thing to all my brides: you must take care of yourself! There’s no point starving yourself and then fainting at the altar. Have a muffin.” She rummages in her bag. “And look! At last we have it!”
I look blankly at the scrap of shimmering silver material she’s holding up.
“What is it?”
“It’s the fabric for the cushion pads!” says Robyn. “Flown in especially from China. The one we had all the problems with over customs! You can’t have forgotten, surely?”
“Oh! No, of course not,” I say hastily. “Yes, it looks… lovely. Really beautiful.”
“Now, Becky, there was something else,” says Robyn. She puts the fabric away and looks up with a serious expression. “The truth is… I’m getting a little concerned.”
I feel a fresh spasm of nerves and take a sip of coffee to hide it. “Really? What… what are you concerned about?”
“We haven’t had a single reply from your British guests. Isn’t that strange?”
For a moment I’m unable to speak.
“Er… yes,” I manage at last. “Very.”
“Except Luke’s parents, who accepted a while ago. Of course they were on Elinor’s guest list, so they got their invitation a little earlier, but even so…” She reaches for my coffee cup and takes a sip. “Mmm. This is good, if I do say so myself! Now, I don’t want to accuse anyone of lacking manners. But we need to start getting some numbers in. So is it OK if I make a few tactful calls to England? I have all the phone numbers in my database…”
“No!” I say, suddenly waking up. “Don’t call anybody! I m
ean… you’ll get the replies, I promise.”
“It’s just so odd!” Robyn muses. “To have heard nothing… They did all receive their invitations, didn’t they?”
“Of course they did! I’m sure it’s just an oversight.” I start pleating the sheet between finger and thumb. “You’ll have some replies within a week. I can… guarantee it.”
“Well, I certainly hope so! Because time is ticking on! We’ve only got four weeks to go!”
“I know!” I say shrilly, and take another gulp of coffee, wishing desperately it were vodka.
Four weeks.
Oh God.
“Shall I refresh your cup, sweetheart?” Robyn stands up — then bends down again. “What’s this?” she says with interest, and picks up a piece of paper lying on the floor. “Is this a menu?”
I look up — and my heart stops. She’s got one of Mum’s faxes.
The menu for the other wedding.
Everything’s right there, under the bed. If she starts looking…
“It’s nothing!” I say, grabbing it from her. “Just a… um… a menu for a… a party…”
“You’re holding a party?”
“We’re… thinking about it.”
“Well, if you want any help planning it, just say the word!” Robyn lowers her voice confidentially. “And a tiny tip?” She gestures to Mum’s menu. “I think you’ll find filo parcels are a little passé.”
“Right. Er… thanks.”
I have to get this woman out of here. At once. Before she finds anything else.
Abruptly I throw back the sheets and leap out of bed.
“Actually, Robyn, I’m still not feeling quite right. Maybe we could… could reschedule the rest of this meeting?”
“I understand.” She pats my shoulder. “I’ll leave you in peace.”
“By the way,” I say casually as we reach the front door. “I was just wondering… You know that financial penalty clause in your contract?”
“Yes!” Robyn beams at me.
“Out of interest.” I give a little laugh. “Have you ever actually collected it?”
“Oh, only a few times!” says Robyn. She pauses reminiscently. “One silly girl tried to run off to Poland… but we found her in the end… See you, Becky!”