I Remember You (15 page)

‘Sure, sure,’ she said, watching her mother’s tense face in alarm. ‘Oh, Mum—I am sorry—’

‘Doesn’t matter,’ her mother said, stifling a sob. ‘Just—go away!’

She did, without a backwards glance. She ran to the door, pulled it open, ran out into the sunshine without saying goodbye, her heart heavy, her teenage sense of outrage already melting away into guilt, and sorrow, and a resolve to bring something back for her mother. An ice cream? A book? Her eye wandered as she caught her breath. Diving down the warren of medieval side streets and through a gap in the houses she suddenly caught a glimpse of fields, of the countryside beyond, a flash of enticing green. She would slip quietly through the streets, out through the gap in the ancient city walls, down the stairs to the water meadows. An apple and a book, that was all she needed, she’d pick some flowers for her mother on the way back. She jumped in the air excitedly. Everything was OK again, the memory of Mum’s face as she picked the coloured shards of china off the floor but a distant memory, with the extreme callousness of youth.

‘Hello there, you. What mischief are you up to now?’

She jumped, and turned around guiltily. ‘Adam! My God, you gave me a fright.’

‘Exactly.’ He smiled, and took her hand from her mouth. ‘If you weren’t up to something awful,’ he said, mock-slapping her fingers, ‘you wouldn’t be looking quite so guilty. What is it?’

‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘I’m just escaping home, that’s all. Mum’s furious with me. I’ve been horrible.’

‘I bet you haven’t.’ There was laughter in his voice, but a note of sympathy too. She heard it. ‘I was just off for a walk,’ he said. ‘Got some reading to do. I was heading down to the water meadows. Um—fancy coming with me?’ He looked down at her; he was so tall these days, and she felt so little; when had he grown so much, outstripped her, turned into this tall, broad-shouldered man? Where was the eight-year-old Adam, who could annoy her so much by dressing up in her pink ballet tutu? The last few months, since Philippa had died, had permanently changed him, and it was only now, coming across him by accident, that she saw it clearly. Who was this stranger, practically a grown man, in front of her?

She hesitated.

‘I could do with the company,’ he said, shrugging.

‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I was going that way anyway.’

‘Really?’ He smiled. ‘Great minds think alike, I suppose.’

‘Absolutely,’ she said, smiling too, and they set off together as the early morning sun crept up and over the roofs of the town, flickering through the silent streets.

Even today, years later, Tess could remember how much she’d wanted him. So perhaps she shouldn’t have let him, but she wanted to. Wanted to feel his arms around her, his body on top of her. To touch him, comfort him, when she didn’t know what else to do after what he’d been through. And so when
they were lying side by side on the rug he’d brought with him, in silence, listening to the wood pigeons coo dolefully in the trees at the edge of the park, feeling the blazing, lazing summer warmth steal over them, she did not move when he leaned over her, nor was she that surprised.

His hair flopped into his face, shading his features as he hung over her.

‘Are you OK?’ he said, his hand stroking her leg. She could feel the warmth of his palm on her skin, through her thin cotton dress.

She wiggled a little, her hair fanning out in the grass, and smiled up at him. ‘Of course I am. Are you?’ She stroked his face, wanting to make everything better, wanting him to feel better.

‘Sort of.’ His fingers moved more slowly, he was staring down at her. ‘Easter, I mean, it seems—a lifetime ago.’

‘It was,’ she said quietly.

He shook his head, as if he didn’t want to remember. Remember everything that had happened afterwards.

At Easter, at her mother’s birthday party, only a week before Philippa died, Tess had kissed him, or rather let him kiss her. They had been upstairs in the corridor, just the two of them, as music blared out from the garden and downstairs was filled with old married couples. They had both had a bit to drink, but not loads, and Adam had pulled her out of the corridor into the spare bedroom, pushing her hair back from her forehead, and kissing her passionately, so they fell on the bed and only leapt apart when they heard footsteps on the stairs. She had enjoyed it, even though it should have felt wrong, or weird, this boy who was now a man, her oldest friend. And then Philippa had died, and it had been forgotten, of course, buried in the rush of grief and despair that filled the next few months. She wanted to reach out to him, had wanted to help him. She didn’t know how. Until now.

Now, it was curiously undramatic. As if it was totally normal.
She looked up at him again. His expression was strange, not the Adam she knew. And she liked him, this new person.

She didn’t know what they were doing; she wasn’t sure he knew either, only that it felt right. And that’s when Adam kissed her.

He moved her arms so they were above her head, pinning her hands there, so he could run his hands over her body, over her breasts, kissing her stomach, her breast bone, her nipples—she could feel the scratchy hairs on his face, rasping against her skin. She cried out when he pressed down on her.

‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered, stroking her face. ‘Oh, Tess. I love you, Tess.’

She loved him too, she always had done. He wouldn’t let her move until he came up for air and they moved together, and she opened his trousers and took him in her hand and stroked him till he groaned. And when he finally pushed inside her, it hurt, but only for a moment, and then it felt great. As if he was plugging something, filling her up. They hardly made any movement in the field; he rocked his hips urgently against hers, and she welcomed him in, till he came inside her, his cry strangled as if she was hurting him. Then silence.

And it was as if she had been snapped back to reality and they were two teenagers again, one in a half-undone dress, her knickers in the grass, the other with his trousers discarded, his pants around his knees, breathing heavily against each other, rocking again, just the two of them, as his breathing subsided and she stared up at him.

‘Hello,’ he said, pushing the hair off her forehead.

‘Hello,’ she answered. ‘Adam—’

‘I’ve been wanting to do that for a while now,’ Adam said, with an attempt at composure, and then a smile broke out over his face, the one she knew so well, and he shifted his weight from on top of her, and covered her mouth with kisses.

It was scorching hot, deadly quiet in the grass where they lay. She was wondering what they had just done. It felt so
private, just between them. She couldn’t have imagined, have foreseen, the result of that one summer’s day.

‘You and me—’ he said, stroking her body with one hand, running his fingers up to her neck, over her breasts, between her legs.

She rolled over so she was on her side, facing him. ‘Me and you.’

‘You and I, really,’ Adam said, and she leaned over him, and kissed him.

‘Know-it-all,’ she said, in between kisses.

‘I mean—’ he said, almost shy. ‘Can we do that again?’

‘Now?’ She laughed softly.

‘Now…and later on. And tomorrow.’ He smiled his beautiful Adam smile.

‘I’d like that,’ she said.

‘Me too,’ he said. ‘Or rather, and I.’ He was lying on the ground, looking up at her, a curious expression on his face. ‘Thank you,’ he said, and he kissed her fingers. ‘It’s—you make me feel better, make me think it’s going to be OK. Thank you.’

She should have listened to him, properly listened, beyond the sweet words and the easy smile. She should have remembered what Adam was like but why would she? He was her friend, he was in unimaginable pain, and she wanted to be with him. She always had. By the end of the summer, she was nearly eighteen, and she was meeting Adam nearly every day, sometimes at his house where Philippa’s things were still everywhere—her tagine dishes, her embroidered kaftans, a hair clip, pilesof her books. Or they would go down to the water meadows. They didn’t talk; they sank frantically into each other’s bodies, Adam with an urgency, a desire to forget that Tess soon found disturbing, because she realized she could not reach him, could not help him, and that this, whatever it was, was not helping him, really, either.

After that first time, they used condoms. But it was too late. Before she went to university that autumn, Tess had found out that she was pregnant. And she knew exactly when it had happened. She didn’t tell anyone, except Adam, and only when she had booked herself into the clinic for an abortion. She told him, standing in the garden of Philippa’s cottage, the late September sun shining on her face, and watched with a numbing sickness as something she supposed was panic crossed his face, to be replaced by relief.

‘It’s fine,’ she had told him. ‘I’m sorting it out.’

He had moved towards her, but she kept her distance. The relief on his face was like a knife through her heart. But what had she wanted him to do? Sweep her off the ground, tell her he was here for her, they should stay together, keep the baby? No, no way. She was eighteen and she was going to university; her life was ahead of her, and she had to do this, have it taken care of, and then go to London, leave Langford.

It was such a long time ago now, her memories of it were obscured, as if slatted blinds fell across long parts of that summer and autumn, blocking out some bits, highlighting others. The waiting room at the clinic was a soft pale pink—she remembered that and felt it was strangely thoughtless, pink for a girl, blue for a boy. Why couldn’t it have been a more clinical colour, a sensible grey or a pale mint green? She had spoken to her mother the next day, from the telephone in her halls of residence, and she remembered her mother chatting inanely away about Adam and how good it was he’d gone on holiday. She had no idea about any of it. Tess still remembered creeping back upstairs to bed, curling up as tightly as possible, thinking perhaps she would never, ever get over the misery she was feeling now. After a few days she told herself she was stupid, of course she would. But she never quite did. That summer never quite left her.

The cab was passing Clapham Common, a ghostly grey expanse of nothing, the leaves of the trees black in the weird yellow light from the street lamps. Tess stirred. Perhaps that was how she felt about Adam now, too. Memories that were distorted, that stretched too far back for there ever to be a clean slate between them, an honest friendship.

She heard his voice again, breaking into her thoughts, telling her that she was living in the past. ‘You’re right, I have been,’ Tess whispered to herself. ‘But at least I’ve
got
a past. And a future.’ She lifted her chin, staring out of the window, narrowing her eyes, determined not to cry again. It still hurt her so much when she remembered.

‘I’m only thinking of my pet theory about Miss Honey-church. Does it seem reasonable that she should play so wonderfully, and live so quietly? I suspect that one day she will be wonderful in both. The watertight compartments in her will break down, and music and life will mingle. Then we shall have her heroically good, heroically bad—too heroic, perhaps, to be good or bad.’

A Room with a View
, E.M. Forster

No one had told Tess about the jasmine in Rome. All over the city, just before June, it bloomed, sparkling white on green against the old rose-pink buildings, like fairy lights, gleaming in the moonlight of the quiet streets, throwing an invisible cloak of perfume over the city. Everywhere she went, the faint, sweet smell of jasmine hung in the air; sometimes they would turn a corner and it would hit them again, the wall of an old palazzo covered in it. The scent was intoxicating, it was almost spicy, not too heavy, absolutely delicious. It was not like anything else, anything at all, it was fresh and seductive; and she was transfixed by it.

And so, one Monday afternoon when the jasmine was just unfurling, a group of weary travellers arrived in Rome, led by none more weary than Tess herself. The minibus, which had met them at the airport and weaved through the afternoon traffic, along the ancient Appian Way, past the ruins of the Baths of Caracalla, through the old ochre walls of the city, now disgorged its cargo onto a shady street in Trastevere. It was that most unwelcome time of day in European cities for the traveller, when evening has not yet arrived and the heat of the day is still immense. Coupled with the fumes and sweat, and the sun still beating down,
it feels as if the cool of night-time will never come.

Limbs aching from the cramped bus and from lack of sleep, Tess clambered off first, waving each of her fellow passengers out as she counted them. ‘Eight, nine. Ten, including me.’ Someone tapped her arm. ‘Yes, Carolyn?’

‘Tess, dear. Is breakfast included at the hotel?’

On the relatively short journey from the airport Carolyn Tey had asked when they would arrive, how hot it would be, and whether she needed to dress for dinner. Tess clutched her copy of
Orgoglio e Pregiudizio
and counted to three. She said, calmly, ‘I’m sure it is, but why don’t we double-check once we’re inside. Now, if you’d like to follow me—’

‘Oh, dear, cobbles,’ said Carolyn. ‘I do hate walking on cobbles. I keep thinking I’m just about to fall over. Don’t you know what I mean?’ Tess nodded, trying to look interested. ‘I don’t mean you, dear,’ said Carolyn. ‘You’re much too young to worry about that sort of thing. Andrea, isn’t it funny, walking on cobbles?’

Andrea Marsh, who looked hugely offended at being identified as ‘old enough to worry about falling over on cobbles’ nodded coldly, and walked on, followed by Ron, who was fixing his cap firmly to his head. It looked like a relic from a driving club in the fifties.

‘Dear, dear, dear me,’ came a mellifluous voice from behind Tess. ‘How far, do you know, my dear, to
l’hotel
?’

‘It’s around the corner,’ said Tess, struggling to keep it together.

‘Oh, my,’ said Jacquetta Meluish, fanning herself. ‘Oh, these pretty streets, through which we walk.’ They were twenty metres from the bus. ‘We should, I daresay, stick together? Lest one of our
gruppa
become unencumbered.’

Jacquetta had not vouchsafed a word during the previous two-month course, but in the ninety minutes since their arrival on Italian soil had transformed into a living breathing expert on all things Italian. Tess looked wildly about her.

‘Albergo Watkins,’ Jan called, from the front. ‘Is that what
it’s called? I thought it was supposed to have the moon or something in the title.’

They were gathered around the huge, panelled front door, which had two enormous disc handles attached to it. Stuck on the front was a chipped sign:

Albergo Watkins For stay pleasant

‘It’s only got one star,’ Andrea said suspiciously. ‘I thought we were staying in a four-star?’

‘Oh, no, no,’ said Tess. ‘I don’t think that’s a star. I think it’s…an…asterisk.’ She nodded, trying to convey an authority she did not feel. ‘It’s decorative. Not indicative. Ha-ha!’ She laughed semi-hysterically and knocked on the door. ‘Well, let’s see what they’ve done with Albergo di Luna, shall we?’

The door creaked open; they filed in, blinking in the sudden dark. Leonora and Diana were the last in. Looking at the man holding open the door, Tess blinked again.

‘
Buona sera
,’ she said. ‘Are you—’ she looked down—‘Signor Capelli?’

The man was not friendly. ‘
No
,’ he said. ‘
Signor Capelli e
…
Kaput
.’ He clapped his hands together, in a gesture of alarming finality. ‘
Benvenuti
. Well-come. Ladies.’ He spoke English slowly, with great emphasis. ‘To. Our Hotel. Ladies.’

Ron cleared his throat. ‘Er—hello. Excuse me.’

‘Ah. And
Signore
.’ The man bowed.

‘What happened to Albergo di Luna?’ Tess asked, feeling more and more as if she were in a strange modern play.

‘Caput.’

‘Yes, but—’ Tess said, wishing she were not being watched by the pupils of the Classical Civilization course. ‘I booked ten rooms—here—’ she batted her hand against a piece of paper—‘at the Albergo di Luna. Not at the Albergo Watkins, whatever this place is.’

‘Is the same.’

‘What?’ said Tess.

‘
Nuovo
…
com’e si dice
…It is new owner. New name.’

A large, fat fly flew right in front of Tess’s face; she brushed it away.

‘Oh, dear,’ said Diana Sayers. ‘I do so desperately need the
loo
, Tess. Could you ask—’

‘So do we have the rooms?’ Tess said, ignoring her with a stab of guilt.

With the illogicality she had forgotten about in Italy, the atmosphere suddenly changed. The man clapped his hands again, this time with a smile. ‘But of course!’ He clasped Tess’s fingers. ‘Welcome to new hotel!’

‘Er—’ said Tess. ‘Thanks!’

The ladies—and Ron—around her heaved a sigh of relief. The fly buzzed past Tess’s ear this time. She batted it again, trying not to get irritated. ‘Right, then. Let’s get the bags out of the van and sign in—and see our rooms, OK?’

‘Yes, yes,’ said the man in soothing tones, as if these were dull, bourgeois concerns. ‘I show you rooms now, yes? And bags come in moments.’ Much to Tess’s secret delight, he now clapped his hands again, and at this command a youth appeared, incongruously attired in a too-large bellboy outfit, and scuttled out into the street.

‘I am Pompeo,’ announced the man, in much the same tones as Kirk Douglas in
Spartacus
. ‘Welcome, come with me, to our hotel.’

Two flights up, with the ladies and Ron trailing behind him, Pompeo flung open a door. Striding into a dark room, he stood in front of a shuttered window, and gestured towards it with the back of his hand.

‘And now,’ he said, like a magician with a rabbit in a hat. ‘Hello to Roma.’

He leaned over, and pushed the shutters open—the wooden slats swung away, and the light flooded in; a row of buildings
beyond them, rose-coloured and slathered in jasmine, green and yellow rooves nestling in the afternoon sun; a white Baroque church in the distance, and there, just through a gap, the trees fringing the green Tiber river, and next to it, the Castel Sant’ Angelo and the cypress trees, black in the afternoon sun. Tess leaned out and breathed in and the stress, the strain of the last few days seemed to melt away. She could smell the jasmine, she could even smell coffee, something sweet on the air. Outside on the street, two men were arguing, in Italian, and even that to her, now she was here, sounded sweet.

‘Is OK?’ Pompeo asked.

She turned around; she was smiling. ‘It is more than OK. It is lovely. Thank you.’

As Tess brushed her hair later that evening, looking in the mirror, she sang, quietly happy. She was here, and she was determined to enjoy herself. London seemed like a bad dream. Francesca’s beautiful face, her ravishable body, Adam’s expression; all gone. That miserable cab ride to Balham that had cost her thirty-five pounds; sleeping on the sofa in the tiny sitting room of her old flat, like a stranger, the dry papery toast Meena had made her for breakfast when she’d arrived back, to find this snivelling wreck of a girl in her bed. Tess’s misery hanging over her like the clouds outside on that grey morning—all gone. Her hangover, her confusion, her volatile sense of self-worth, which should never, ever again be linked to whether some man found her attractive or not!—all gone. She was in Rome! It was time to put all that behind her, to live a little, live her own life, instead of either living through Will, as she had done in London, or living the life of an eighty-year-old afraid of getting a chill as she had been doing since she moved back to Langford. The scent of jasmine came to her again, through the open window. She laid down her brush and stepped back, looking at herself. She touched some dark
lipgloss to her lips and stared into the mirror. There were circles under her eyes, brown and smudged.

They were downstairs, waiting for her, a slice of middle England in the heart of Italy, and what she really wanted to do was run away from them. She wanted to wander by herself through the city, sit in a little restaurant with a
pizza bianca
, a glass of red wine and breathe out gently, then go to bed and sleep for hours, possibly days.

No, she told herself. That’s no good. You’re here, you made the decision to come here, now get on with it. But lurking in the back of her mind was the thought that had been there since she’d left Adam on Saturday night. That she had made a mistake in moving back to Langford, that she was trapped in a stasis of her own making, old before her time, unattractive, closed off to the world. The image of Francesca on the bed haunted her. She was so attractive, so sexy, she looked like a girl who knew what she wanted, knew how to fall in love, how to break hearts and how to inveigle her way into hotel rooms. Tess was not like that, she knew it, and though kissing Adam had woken her from her chintzy, tea-shop slumber, his almost instant rejection of her had sent her crashing back down to earth with a cold, hard bump.

Tess adjusted her pale blue linen dress and pulled her mushroom-coloured shawl over her shoulders, picked up her bag and turned back to face herself. The girl in the mirror watched impassively. Her dark blue eyes were grave. Outside, she could hear Ron saying, ‘Yes, nearly time to go, I did say I’d be here on time,’ rather loudly. It made her smile. The eyes smiled too. She nodded at her reflection, squared her shoulders and went out of the sunshine-filled room, shutting the door behind her.