Celia looked unconvinced. ‘You don’t need to do that, but would it kill you to crack a smile?’
Neve obediently lifted up the corners of her mouth. ‘How’s that?’
‘Like you’ve just had your wisdom teeth taken out,’ Celia said, but she sounded less sulky, and when Neve stuck her tongue out, she grinned. ‘It’s just as well you’re my sister, otherwise I’d have killed you by now.’
‘I do appreciate this, Seels, and now that William’s back and we can be together, I’ll be happy,’ Neve said, even as she wondered why her happiness had to be dependent on someone else. Shouldn’t she be able to find happiness from within?
Celia certainly seemed to think so. ‘I can get happy just from logging on to net-a-porter.com and adding expensive clothes to my wish-list,’ she said. ‘Or listening to Gloria Gaynor really loud. Or eyeing up gross men on the tube so they get all hot and bothered because they think they’re in with a chance. Happiness really isn’t that hard to find.’
‘You’re obviously more evolved than I am.’ Neve fluffed out the skirt of her dress. ‘This is actually very pretty. What shall I wear on my feet?’
‘Oh, I picked you out these great Alaia sandals,’ Celia enthused, her attention immediately diverted away from Neve’s total happiness fail as she dropped to her knees so she could rummage through the rows of shoes on the floor. She pulled out a pair of perilously high sandals with delicate taupe leather straps. ‘I had to put gaffer tape on the soles, so try to avoid any wet floors.’
Neve didn’t dare argue about the wisdom of putting her in a five-inch heel. She even sat quietly and docilely on the stool while two girls from the Beauty Department smeared products all over her comparatively pimple-free face. Neve was told that the smoky-eyed look was even more last season than bouffant ponytails and that they were going for a dewy, natural look.
The dewy, natural look took over an hour to achieve, but when the beauty girls finally returned Neve’s face to its rightful owner, she was forced to concede that it had been time well spent.
Her skin looked as flawless, if not more, than it had done before she started detoxing. She had a radiant glow, her eyes were enormous, and her glossy pink lips seemed more pouty than usual.
She looked like a girl who’d get second glances as she strolled through the metropolis in her chic outfit, swinging her tan leather bag (Celia had confiscated Neve’s battered satchel) and giving the impression she was someone with places to be and people to see. And actually she was that girl … with a panicked shriek, Neve looked up at the clock and realised she had half an hour to get from the Skirt offices in Marble Arch to the South Bank in the middle of the Friday rush hour.
‘Seels, everybody, thank you so much,’ she said hurriedly. ‘There will be payback but I have to go. The Bakerloo line will be rammed!’
But Neve never discovered how rammed the Bakerloo line was because using public transport was strictly forbidden when you were wearing borrowed designer pieces.
Celia came down to the street with Neve to help her flag down a black cab and maybe Neve was channelling the kind of girl who’d normally wear a dress like this, because as soon as she stuck out her arm, a taxi did an illegal U-turn and pulled up alongside her.
‘Thank you, thank you, thank you,’ she gasped, already half in and half out of the taxi.
‘I think you’re all paid up on the thank-you front now,’ Celia sniffed, giving Neve a quick hug. ‘Now, remember, don’t talk about diets and detoxes. Stick to boring books by dead dudes; should have him eating out of your palm.’
They were holding up the traffic so Neve had no choice but to shut the door and sink back on the seat as Celia stood at the kerb, waving and grinning like a loon.
Now that Neve was all gussied up and on her way to meet with destiny, there was no time to do anything but fret. From being her raison d’être, in the last few months William had begun to recede from the forefront of her mind and become something that she’d deal with at some unspecified moment in the future.
But the future was now, and even as she tried to think about William and possible topics for conversation, all Neve could think about was Max.
As she’d been herded out of the Skirt offices by Celia, she’d glimpsed a large picture of a Staffordshire Bull Terrier tacked to the wall: Keith posing for a picture and looking pretty cheesed off about it too. Just as Neve was hit with a wave of longing for Keith, she’d seen the desk with magazines neatly stacked on it, the sparkly pink spines of the WAG novels, a tub of Brylcreem perched on top of them and a framed black-and-white signed picture of Madonna – Max’s desk. She’d wanted to stop and run her fingers over the things he’d touched, the things he looked at every time he sat there, but Celia’s hand had been at the small of her back as she hustled Neve towards the lift and there hadn’t been time.
There wasn’t time now, when the only man she should be thinking about was William. Max had only been a starter boyfriend so she could make some rudimentary relationship mistakes and learn from them. In which case, romance with William should be a breeze, because she’d made so many mistakes with Max and she had to have learned some lessons from them, otherwise she’d have nothing to show for all those months, except a heart that was bruised and battered.
Thanks to her cabbie’s love of illegal U-turns and the fact that he’d faithfully promised ‘the missus I’ll be back in Poplar by seven thirty sharp’, Neve was deposited at the back entrance of the Royal Festival Hall at exactly ten minutes to seven. She had time to go to the bathroom and check that her make-up was still fulfilling its remit to be both dewy and natural-looking, which it was, though the waves in her hair were beginning to wilt, then slowly climb up six flights of stairs so she wouldn’t arrive at the top all sweaty and out of breath.
As Neve waited at the reception desk, her hands weren’t even shaking, though her toes in her borrowed sandals were clenching compulsively and she was having trouble breathing out. And breathing in for that matter.
When a waiter arrived, Neve found that she could hardly choke out William’s name and the time of his reservation, so she was staggered that she still knew how to put one foot in front of the other to follow the man across the long, light room.
Her gaze was fixed rigidly on the waiter’s back so when he came to a halt by one of the window tables, it was all Neve could do to peer shyly over his shoulder – and there he was; there was William calmly folding his copy of The Times and looking directly at her.
Chapter Forty
‘Good God,’ he said. Then he said it again, ‘Good God.’
The waiter melted away and Neve was left without anyone to hide behind and she’d never felt this exposed and vulnerable before; not even on the waxer’s couch or standing naked in a hotel room in front of Max.
She raised her hand in a feeble, half-hearted wave and decided that she might as well enjoy the stunned look on William’s face because his shock at her transformation was vindication. Proof that getting up at six in the morning to go to the gym and forsaking cakes and chocolate and other sweet things and even pouring those wretched juices down her throat had all been worth it.
William’s eyes ran over her again and again, then finished at her feet, where her toes were still all scrunched up because she couldn’t remember how to unscrunch them.
‘It’s me,’ she said at last, because William wasn’t saying anything.
William jerked in his seat as if he was trying to force himself out of his inertia. It must have worked because he was rising gracefully to his feet.
‘So it is,’ he said smoothly, his hand resting on Neve’s waist for one thrilling moment as he brushed his lips against her cheek. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t recognise you. Have you changed your hair?’
Neve patted her hair, which was getting less tousled with every minute that passed. ‘Well, yes, I suppose,’ she said, as William pulled out the chair opposite his so she could sit down. She hadn’t expected him to demand to know exactly how much
weight she’d lost, but the comment about her hair seemed rather disingenuous, she thought, until William sat down and smiled at her. It was a warm, genuine smile as if everything in his world was all right, just because she was sitting there.
He hadn’t mentioned it because bringing up someone else’s weight, or even their lack of it, was uncouth. He hadn’t wanted to embarrass her.
She smiled back at him, and then his hand rested on hers for one fleeting second. ‘It’s been too long, Neve.’
In her head his beauty had dimmed, grown duller with time but Neve could see that her golden boy was still as golden as ever: his floppy blond hair lightened by the Californian sun, eyes bluer now his skin was so tanned. He was wearing a crisp white shirt and jeans and looked less Brideshead and more preppy, as if he’d strolled across a rolling New England lawn to get there, instead of taking the District line from Fulham Broadway.
‘I’ve missed you so much,’ Neve said, and William smiled again – and in that moment everything that had happened in the last few months was swept away, didn’t matter, had never existed. There was only William. ‘Three years, Will. Don’t ever go away for that long again.’
‘I won’t, I promise,’ he said, and this time his hand rested on hers and stayed there as he beckoned a waiter over. ‘Shall we have champagne?’
Neve still felt almost sick with nerves, and a glass of champagne would have taken the edge off. Even better, they could have toasted their future, eyes meeting, glasses clinking, but she hadn’t eaten solid food in weeks and Neve didn’t want to run the risk that after two good swallows she’d be so drunk that she’d strip off her clothes and do a victory streak. ‘Just water for me,’ she said. ‘With four lemon halves on the side.’
William had been in LA so long that he didn’t blink an eye at her odd request or flinch when she squeezed all four lemon halves into her glass so the water went cloudy. ‘You always were an odd little thing,’ he murmured.
He made her quirks sound endearing, rather than neurotic, Neve thought gratefully as she took a sip. ‘So, how have you been?’ she asked. ‘Tell me everything.’
He began to talk and after a minute, Neve settled back in her chair, finally able to relax. She giggled a little as William described one of the students in his tutor group and nodded sympathetically as he began to recall his battles with the Dean.
She’d been staring at the London Eye for ages, trying to track its almost imperceptibly slow rotation when Neve realised that William was now talking about lyrical poetry and she was squirming restlessly on her chair. It was the bloody Cleanse. She’d been due her evening juice hours ago so it was no surprise that she was so distracted. She straightened up and widened her eyes so she could pay attention to what William was saying.
‘… and can one separate Pound’s fascist ideology from his creative output, or are the two intrinsically linked?’
She was damned if she knew. Neve smiled vaguely. William smiled back and kept on talking, which was fine with Neve because she could rest her chin on her hand and watch the way his firm, sculpted lips moved as he made words come out of them.
He was so handsome. The kind of handsome that made her feel as if she still wasn’t worthy, but when William smiled at her, as he was now that he’d reached the end of his monologue about Ezra Pound, it was like being bathed in sunlight.
Though that might have been more to do with the huge windows that took up an entire wall so Neve could gaze down at the people ambling along the banks of the river, see pleasure-cruisers chugging along the water …
‘Neve? Am I boring you?’
She was forced to turn her attention back to William and whatever he was talking about now – she didn’t have a clue. ‘No, of course you’re not,’ she assured him. William was frowning at her as if he suspected that she hadn’t been listening to a single word he was saying. ‘Please go on.’
‘I was just talking about the differences between academia in Britain and America, although by America, I mean the West Coast. As you know, I did my lecture on the Romantic poets at Amherst and it was received with a lot more intellectual rigour,’ William said, and Neve noticed that he’d popped the collar of his shirt and kept swiping his bottom lip with his tongue as he talked.
God, I would never want to be naked with him. The thought popped into her head unprompted. It wasn’t a new thought. It was a very old thought, though usually it was more of a blanket God, I would never want to be naked with anyone, even a qualified doctor.
I wouldn’t want to see him naked either. This was new territory, because now that she thought about it, Neve had never pictured their naked bodies colliding, writhing or gently undulating against each other, the way naked bodies did when you and the love of your life were all ready to consummate that love and make it official.
Neve studied William intently, who beamed at her now he could see that she was giving him her rapt, undivided attention. He was beautiful, he was smartly dressed, he was fiercely intelligent – and she absolutely did not fancy him.
She wasn’t fidgeting in her chair because she had that sweet ache low in her belly; it was because she was bored and restless. She tried to remember back to those long Oxford afternoons in William’s sitting room, where they’d sit and talk for hours. Neve had been certain that she’d loved him then, but now she wasn’t so sure. She’d loved to look at him, that much hadn’t changed, and she’d been flattered by his attention, the time he gave all to her, but not once had she ever wanted him to pull her down in front of the roaring log fire (which had smoked more than it had roared), tear off her clothes and make frenzied, passionate love to her.
It couldn’t have just been a crush. It was the real thing. It had to be.
William had finally finished picking holes in the American schools system, and to test out her new, alarming theory, Neve squeezed her elbows together to give herself a cleavage and looked at him from under her lashes, a half smile on her lips.
The only time she’d ever tried that out on Max, and then it had been completely unintentional, he told her never to do it again, especially not in Caffè Nero, because he was five seconds away from dragging her to the loos and doing something that would get them banned from every Caffè Nero in the country.
William gave her breasts a reflexive glance, his eyes lingering for a brief moment that should have had Neve tingling and suddenly getting short of breath, but she felt nothing. Not even when his leg brushed against hers as he shifted position.
Neve sighed and folded her arms. ‘So,’ she said. ‘You told me you had two surprises in store for me, so maybe you should start with this big, life-changing question you have to ask me?’
When William asked her out, or God forbid, declared his love, she’d feel it. She had to.
‘Are you sure you’re ready for it?’ William asked playfully.
‘Please, William, I’m in an agony of suspense here,’ Neve said, and she was dry-mouthed and slightly trembly but she couldn’t tell if it was anticipation, dread or Cleanse withdrawal.
‘How would you feel about coming to live with me in Warwickshire?’
‘I beg your pardon?’ Neve spluttered, because it fell somewhere between being asked out and a marriage proposal.
‘Well, not with me, but it would mean relocating,’ William said, and Neve wanted to scream at him to get to the bloody point. ‘I’m taking up the post of Senior Lecturer in the English Department at the University of Warwickshire and you’re going to be my research assistant.’
‘I am?’ All Neve felt was relief that William wasn’t asking her something that would lead to both of them getting naked. Relief and inestimable amounts of confusion. ‘Aren’t most research assistants PhD students?’
‘I talked to the Dean of Post-graduate Studies and he’s more than happy to accept you on to their PhD programme,’ William revealed proudly. ‘I’m sure you’ll have no trouble getting funding and, of course, I can help you out with a small stipend, though you won’t be able to su
pplement that with teaching until your second year. I thought you could expand on your MA dissertation for your thesis. What was it on again?’
‘Between the Wars: Reclaiming the Feminist Novel,’ Neve answered in a small, tight voice because William should have remembered the title of her MA dissertation, considering she’d written him enough letters about it. ‘Sorry, William, forgive me if I’m being dense, but what made you think that I wanted to start working on a doctorate thesis?’
William looked at Neve as if she wasn’t just being dense, but wilfully and deliberately dense. ‘Well, you can’t be my research assistant unless you’re a PhD student,’ he explained impatiently. ‘I know you wanted a couple of years off, but every day you spend in that library is a day that your intellectual muscles are atrophying.’
‘It’s not a library, it’s a literary archive,’ Neve snapped. ‘I like working there and I flex my intellectual muscles every day, thank you very much.’
‘Of course you do,’ William said appeasingly. ‘Or you think you do, but that’s only because you’ve gone so long without the vigour of daily academic debate.’
They had vigorous daily debates at the Archive, but they were mostly about which cardigan Our Lady of the Blessed Hankie would be wearing when she turned up five minutes after they opened or guessing the origins of the new stains on Mr Freemont’s tie.
‘I like working there,’ Neve repeated firmly. ‘I like the people who work there and I get to do different things every day. I’m even going on an advanced book repair course in the autumn and I’m wri—’
‘But I’m planning to write a book,’ William interrupted, taking the words right out of her mouth.
‘Oh …’
‘Ah, I thought that might persuade you where all else failed,’ William said. ‘I think I might like to write a couple of volumes on the correlation between Romanticism and the Modern Age.’
‘But Romanticism isn’t my speciality.’