The Love of Her Life (36 page)

‘Who?’

Kate waved vaguely at her side. ‘The man who was with me. The old – the elderly gentleman. Where did he go?’

The woman shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Sorry. Didn’t see him.’

‘Yes, but he can’t have just disappeared,’ Kate said, trying to stay calm. ‘He didn’t just vanish into thin air. Didn’t you see him at all?’

‘It’s very busy here this afternoon, in case you hadn’t noticed,’ the woman said, with a real edge to her voice. ‘Was he checking in for the same flight as you? Because if so, he’s very late as well and needs to come to the desk. Otherwise, madam, I think you’d better go through.’

Kate looked wildly around her. ‘But – he was just with me! I can’t just leave him.’

‘Excuse me,’ came a voice behind her, and she wheeled round.

‘If you’re not going to move out of the way,’ said a hard-faced lady, with a bag clamped under her arm, and an embarrassed-looking husband next to her, ‘then we’ll miss our flight and I will actually be entitled to sue you for compensation.’

‘Oh my god,’ Kate said. ‘Are you serious?’ She said this with such force the woman stepped back, clearly wondering if she was dealing with a psychopath. ‘My friend – Mr Allan – he’s gone missing, he was here a second ago and now he’s gone off, and this lady won’t help me at all, and just because that holds you up for
ten seconds
, you want to sue me?’

‘Look, just please excuse me,’ said the woman, her face a rictus of unpleasant smugness. ‘Some of us have to catch that flight.’

‘Stupid cow,’ Kate muttered. God, she hated this country, and she would be glad to leave. She picked up her passport, casting a disgruntled look at the check-in lady, and slunk away, her heart racing.

Where was he? Mr Allan wouldn’t have just left without telling her – would he? She didn’t know what to do – she couldn’t leave without saying goodbye to him, but she didn’t want to miss her flight: what would he say if she did? Or perhaps he wanted her to stay so much he’d done this on purpose?

Kate shook her head; he wasn’t that bad. Or was he?

She hung around outside the Gents for a few minutes, anxiously checking her watch and feeling a bit weird, but there was no sign of him, and five minutes later found her hurrying through departures, worry seeping through her, draining her. She was late, she was worryingly late, and she didn’t know what to do. The hall was thronged with knots of people, occasionally bunching up to make way for a stewardess clacking her way through the crowd, pulling a trolley behind her, or airport staff in dazzling fluorescents. She was right about airports, she thought. They were stressful and – in this case, totally, horrifically chaotic – and they were the least romantic places in the world.

It was one-twenty-five. She’d have to go through, she couldn’t wait. She hoiked her bag over her shoulder, took
a deep breath, and got into the queue for security.

She was fishing through her things, making sure she wasn’t carrying her little bottle of perfume, when a voice said,

‘Thank god. There you are.’

She looked up, in confusion ‘Mr –’ But the words died on her lips.

Mac was standing in front of her, behind the security ropes, breathing raggedly, sweating slightly, shaking. Kate jumped, and her hand flew to her mouth.

‘You –’ she said, but the words died on her lips. She stared at him, both hands on her cheeks.

‘Where the hell have you been?’ he said, almost angrily. ‘I’ve been looking for you for twenty minutes!’

‘What on earth – you –’ Kate began again. ‘Where’s Mr Allan?’ she said, incoherently. ‘Did you see him?’

‘Yes, of course I did,’ said Mac. ‘I saw you in the queue. I was waving at him to come away, and when he did, I explained everything, and got him to step aside, so I could surprise you –’ he grimaced, ruefully. ‘He said to give you his love, and he told me to get on with it, but by the time we’d finished talking, you’d disappeared. It’s so bloody crowded in here,’ he said wrathfully. ‘I couldn’t see you, and I nearly missed you, and Kate –’ he took her hands away from her cheeks, and clasped them in his own. ‘I wanted to see you.’

‘Step aside please miss,’ said someone behind her. Kate looked at her watch, and stepped aside. People started filing past her, towards the security checks.

‘I know you’ve only got about a minute,’ he said, reading her thoughts. ‘I know – this is all wrong, it’s too rushed, it shouldn’t have been like this, I’ve been waiting for you for god knows how long, but I found out from Zoe when your flight was going and I knew I had to come down because
Kate – I love you. I’m sorry about the other night.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Kate said. ‘I’m sorry – you were entitled to it. After the way I treated you, it’s the least I could do –’ She moved forward a little, and someone pushed past her, knocking her even closer to him.

‘Kate,’ he said. ‘It’s not a game with me, never has been. I didn’t just want a one-night stand with you. I’m glad I left last week. I don’t want to freak you out again.’

‘You were right, though,’ Kate said. She was breathless. ‘I shut you out. I had to, Mac.
That’s why I don’t
deserve you.’

Mac’s face was without expression; but his eyes held hers. ‘It was stupid of me. Pathetic. I suppose a part of me wanted to hurt you, you know.’

‘I hurt you,’ Kate said. ‘You –’

‘It doesn’t matter now,’ he said.

‘It does,’ Kate said, quickly, too quickly, she wanted to talk to him as much as possible in the time they had left. ‘It does. You and me – we’ve never been you and me, have we? We’ve never really been on a date – unless you count two weeks together non-stop as a date.’ She smiled, and he smiled. ‘That’s what I worry about, I suppose,’ she said.

‘I know what you mean,’ Mac said. ‘That it’ll never get any better than this for us, that we’re not destined to be a couple, just ships who pass in the night?’

‘Yes,’ she said, relieved he understood.

‘But I don’t think that’s true,’ he said. He cleared his throat. ‘All along, I’ve been trying to make things right, and I was wrong.
You
were right. I just wanted to tell you that. I came here to tell you …’ He smiled carefully at her. ‘We’ve done everything the wrong way round. I was wondering if you wanted to go on a date sometime.’

‘A date?’ she said, shaking her head at him. The crowd behind her swelled, pushed her forwards.

‘Yes,’ he said, his fingers holding hers. ‘How about we go for a coffee one day. Or perhaps a pizza. There’s a lovely place I keep hearing about in Battersea. Or go to the cinema, see a play.’

The noise around them seemed to get louder; someone appeared behind them, trundling a case full of bottled water for the newsagents behind.

‘Hey,’ a voice said next to her. ‘Hey – you were in front of me, weren’t you? Aren’t you coming?’ The man who’d been behind her in the queue appeared at her side. ‘You know they’re about to close the gate?’

He moved on, brusquely, shaking his head, leaving Kate gazing at Mac. She gripped his hands tighter.

‘This is – impossible,’ she said.

‘I know. I know, darling. I’m going to say this quickly. OK?’

‘OK,’ Kate said, smiling. He leaned forward and kissed her.

‘I’ve got an idea,’ he said. ‘You see, you know and I know what’s been wrong with you and me. We’ve done it the wrong way round. We fell in love with each other the first night, and then we went backwards and backwards, till we were like passing strangers to each other. Don’t you agree?’

She couldn’t say anything; she just nodded. He slid his arms around her waist. ‘I don’t know, but perhaps we should start from the beginning again. I’m staying in London, I’m looking for a flat. Stay here too. Come on a first date with me. Let’s do it the right way round.’

‘
This is the final boarding call for flight BS080 to New York.
Would all passengers for flight BS080 please go to Gate 27. Gate
27 for flight BS080 to New York
.’

‘How can you be that sure?’ she cried. ‘What if fate’s trying to tell us something, that we’ll never be together? That we’ve tried, you know we’ve tried, and it’ll never work?’

He paused, and swallowed. ‘I don’t believe you,’ he said, fiercely. He clutched her wrists.

‘You do,’ she said. ‘
That’s
why you left. You do. And I think I do too. I think it’s too late.’

‘Kate,’ Mac’s face was white, his nostrils flared. ‘Don’t do this.’

‘I love you,’ she said, tears streaming down her face. ‘I don’t want to go.’

‘But you are going, aren’t you,’ he said, and he stepped back from the tape barrier that separated them, and turned around to leave. ‘And you know what? I don’t think I should have come here today. Perhaps you’re right, it’s too late.’

She watched him, as did her fellow passengers, who were gaping at them curiously. Her hands dropped to her sides; but he turned back and caught one, her left hand, and pressing her palm to his face, kissed the ball of her thumb, gently.

‘Perhaps you’re right.’

And then he was gone.

Kate swallowed, and turned back to the queue. One-thirty. She looked at one of the guards, showed him her ticket. His eyes opened wide.

‘You’d better go through now,’ he said, and pushed her along, down towards the fast-track queue, and she disappeared through the archway, towards departures, away from Mac, one step further away from London.

There was a sign on the way into Manhattan from JFK airport; Kate had noticed it before, it had been there for a while. It said: WELCOME HOME!! from your friends at American Airlines

Kate had slept the sleep of the emotionally exhausted all the way to New York, and had woken up with panda-smudged mascara eyes and what she told herself was a clear head. Before passport control she ducked into a Ladies, washed her face, put on some tinted moisturizer and lipgloss, put her lenses back in. She wasn’t going to walk into JFK looking like she’d just come back from a night out with Pete Doherty.

She was fine, she told herself. She was back. She wanted to talk to someone, she wanted to say ‘Hello, I’m Kate, and do you know what’s happened to me? Do you know where I’ve been?’ Because suddenly, she wanted to talk. She wanted to explain how she felt, she wanted to clap her taxi driver on the back (gently, so as not to throw off his suspect steering even more) and say,

‘How do you find your job? Because I’ve just left my job, and I’m really pleased about it. Except I have to find another
one PDQ – pretty damn quick, that is!’ She wanted to give him an interesting fact as the beautiful, gun metal skyline of Manhattan loomed up in front of them, she wanted to say,

‘Have you tried the whispering wall in Grand Central Station? You can hear what someone’s saying from thirty yards away? It’s amazing.’

or

‘When they built the Brooklyn Bridge, that’s the first instance of the bends, because the men who were doing it were diving so deep and coming up so quickly, isn’t that interesting?’

or

‘My best friend Zoe had a third date with this bloke called Diggory yesterday, and I’ve had to come back here and I don’t know how it went! It’s her first date since her husband died, three years ago, isn’t that incredible of her?’

or

‘I’m going to see my mum again and I feel like it’s for the first time in years, which is weird because I only saw her a month ago, it is weird. But I feel like I understand her a bit more, Mr Taxi Driver, are you listening, do you care?’

and, finally

‘Can you take me back to the airport please? I think I’ve made a terrible mistake.’

But she didn’t say any of that, of course she didn’t.

And then she rode into Manhattan, and the sky was blue and the cabs were yellow and the trees were green, and it was its old, glorious self, and they rode through the park, cutting across town to the Upper West Side, and Kate hung out of the window, not wanting to talk now, like a dog on a family trip, her eyes eagerly scanning everything in the
city she loved so much. The supermommies, jogging with their pushchairs, the businesswomen in pencil skirts and thick, massive trainers, striding fiercely back from the office, the families heading home after school, the harried businessmen crouched on the edge, the lines of traffic honking and yelling, the noise, the cheerful, aggressive, straightforward noise and bustle. She had missed it so much, longed to be here so much, it was the balm to her soul that she always needed and never more so than today.

Strange, then, that it felt so odd to be back. When she’d moved here, she had been wildly, ecstatically in love with the place, with everything about New York, with the Upper West Side, with the fact she could walk to the world’s best deli in five minutes, the fact that she could shop at Anthropologie, her favourite clothes store, the fact that she could eat burritos from Chipotle whenever she wanted, that the pavements were wide, and clean, and people were friendly and polite, that things worked, and when someone came to mend something they actually mended it, instead of scratching their arse and saying, ‘I could do it … but it’ll cost you, I’m afraid … Best to just buy a new one.’ But as the cab climbed through the streets up towards Riverside Drive, Kate looked out of the window and smiled, it felt different, she didn’t know why. She had just loved it here, loved everything about it, but it wasn’t where she belonged. The thought shot through her, disloyally, before she could dismiss it.

They were crossing Amsterdam Avenue. Was it the same for Venetia, she wondered? Did her mother truly belong here, or would she always long to be back in London? Kate honestly didn’t know the answer. They were drawing up outside the apartment now, and the driver popped the back of the cab, and hopped out to fetch her suitcases. She paid him and he immediately zoomed off, leaving Kate standing
on the curb, staring up at the apartment building, wondering for the second time in a few weeks, though in a different location, why she was here.

The first time Kate had come to visit her mother in New York was the first time she’d ever been to the city, and she remembered it still with a clarity undimmed by her subsequent residency there. She was fifteen. It was summer, the school holidays, and everyone kept saying it was far too hot, humid, unbearable, even. But Kate had loved it. Maurice the doorman had just started to work at the building, a month after Venetia and Oscar had moved in there, and he called Kate ‘newbie’, and said she should call him the same. Her mother took her to Bloomingdales, and bought her clothes – primary coloured, Benetton-esque sweatshirts that didn’t suit her at all, but which she adored and kept in her drawers for years afterwards. They had ice-cream floats, and they rented boats in the park. The city was curiously empty, everyone else was away, New York was theirs; Oscar taught her all the lyrics to ‘Manhattan’ on that very same subject. They saw
A Chorus Line
, which Kate and Oscar adored, but Venetia thought was awful. And she was with her mother, most importantly, for three whole weeks. Time to tell her lots of things, about her bedroom at home, about school, about Zoe, about how they were putting on
Macbeth
the following term, about how she had kissed Gavin Roberts
twice
now, once at the party Jude had in her parents’ garden while they were away, then the following week outside the cinema on the Finchley Road where they’d gone to see
Dave
. Did this mean Gavin was her boyfriend? And perhaps they would talk about Dad, about how sad he was without her, about how shocked all their friends were that she’d gone, left Kate behind and gone.

They didn’t talk about that, of course. They talked about
everything else but that, and nothing else, because Venetia didn’t say and something about her mother meant that Kate knew not to ask her. They shopped, and chatted, and walked, and lazed on the sofa in the stifling apartment, and sang as Oscar played the piano, and after three weeks Kate went home again, hugely grown-up on the airplane by herself, and when she got back the next morning to the rickety old house in Kentish Town, she found her father asleep on the sofa, sunlight strobing through the gap in the rug that served as a makeshift curtain in the sitting room. Daniel wanted to know all about her mother, but Kate didn’t tell lots. She wanted to keep the memory safe, holy almost. And thus was her post-divorce relationship with her mother formed, and it had continued to be the same ever since.

She realized, now, as she stood at the bottom of the steps up to the apartment building, that they were neither of them perfect parents, though they both suffered from her idolizing them. They’d tried, they hadn’t deliberately wanted to hurt her, they were just a bit hopeless, no better and no worse than any parent, and that didn’t mean she loved them any the less. But a lot of water had gone under the bridge since she was last here, though it wasn’t that long ago. Where had she heard that phrase? She shivered, and climbed the stairs.

As she banged through the front doors, Maurice leapt up from behind his desk and said, with a huge smile on his face,

‘Kate! Why didn’t your mother let me know today was the day you were coming back? Well, well. Give me those bags, young lady. I’ll call the elevator for you. It’s great to see you! You have a good trip? How’s your father?’

‘He’s much better, thanks,’ said Kate, squeezing Maurice’s arm. ‘How are you?’

‘I’m good, I’m good,’ said Maurice, putting her bags by
the lift. ‘It’s been pretty crazy round here, you know, though. Mrs O’Reilly’s been sick, but she’s getting better. Your mother got a new coat for summer, Kate, it’s beautiful. You know the board’s finally talking about getting quotes in to have the floors redone? Yes, I know.’ He nodded solemnly at the importance of this as Kate stared at him. ‘Plus,’ he finished, ‘don’t get me started on the new coffee machine they put in at Rick’s!’

The lift doors clanged open. ‘Thanks for the info,’ said Kate.

‘No problem,’ said Maurice. ‘It’s great to have a young face around the building again!’

‘Thanks, Maurice. I’ll see you later,’ said Kate, getting inside. ‘It’s great to be back.’

‘OH MY GOODNESS!’ a voice cried loudly as she emerged from the lift. ‘MY BABY GIRL IS BACK!!’

A pastel rush of cashmere and strawberry blonde hair pulled her out of the lift and wrapped itself around her; Venetia had been prowling the corridors, alerted by Maurice to her daughter’s arrival. She stepped back, holding her daughter’s face between her hands, and her large, blue eyes sparkled with pleasure.

‘Hi Mum,’ said Kate, submitting gratefully to her mother’s embrace, as Venetia hugged her again. ‘How are you? Oh, it’s good to see you.’ She sank into her mother’s embrace, remembering how she smelt – a mixture of Chanel perfume, shampoo and some kind of hand cream. Venetia’s cashmere sleeve was soft, her cheek was soft, her hair was soft – her cheekbones were sharp, though, and she crushed Kate’s face against her own angular bones, hugging her tightly as she did.

Are you a goody, or a baddy. Are you a goody, or a baddy.

‘I have missed you SO MUCH!’ Venetia cried, stroking
Kate’s hair so heavily that it hurt. ‘I have missed you! Haven’t I, Oscar, haven’t I?’

‘Yes,’ said Oscar, who had appeared at the doorway and was watching his wife and stepdaughter in fond amusement. ‘Hello Kate, darling.’ He kissed her warmly on the cheek, and stepped back, wiping his hands surreptitiously on the teatowel that was over his shirtsleeved shoulder.

‘Look at you,’ Venetia said then, staring at her curiously. ‘You look different. Did you get a haircut?’

‘No,’ said Kate, clutching a strand of her hair. ‘I didn’t.’

‘You look – did you lose weight?’

‘I wish.’

‘You look a little angular around the face,’ Venetia said, looking her over with an appraising stare. ‘I think you did lose some weight, darling. Which is strange, seeing as how no one in England eats vegetables.’

‘Yes, that’s totally true,’ said Kate, taking off her jacket. ‘I haven’t eaten a single vegetable all the time I was there. They don’t grow them there, you know.’

Venetia ignored this. ‘Oscar made lunch,’ she said, smiling her great big smile. She slung Kate’s bag over her shoulder. ‘He made burritos.’

Kate was ravenous. ‘Lovely,’ she said.

‘Let’s eat,’ said Oscar. ‘We’ll eat and then we can talk. We want to know how you are. How was it, being back? Not too horrible I hope? We were worried about you.’

‘Bless you,’ said Kate, as they came into the apartment. It looked so small, somehow, like a dolls’ house. She stared round, as if she hadn’t been there for years and years.

‘We need to talk about tomorrow,’ said Venetia. She held her daughter’s hand.

‘Tomorrow?’ Kate said blankly.

‘The party!’ said Venetia. ‘Come on Kate, you haven’t
forgotten! A MONTH back there and you’ve forgotten everything, haven’t you?’

Why do you think I came back, Kate wanted to say crossly. For this stupid party. Why else do you think I’m here? She looked at her mother curiously, trying to imagine her back in England, trying to think of her as an actual mother, or sitting in a room with her father. She couldn’t see it. Venetia pushed her hair out of her eyes with her arm, and smiled at her daughter, her beautiful, clear skin almost luminous in the sunlit hallway.

‘It’s OK,’ she said then, in her low, luscious voice, and Kate remembered then, how she could do that, how she sort of always understood. They stared at each other for a moment.

She’s the same height as me, Kate thought. She even looks a bit like me, I’d never noticed before.

‘Come on,’ said Oscar fondly, watching them both. ‘If the flatbread wilts now I’m blaming both of you.’

‘Hah,’ said Venetia, going into the dining-room, clutching Kate’s hand. ‘So, tell me everything. Did you see Zoe? And is Francesca still as hard as nails? How’s your father? Is that child still a nightmare?’

‘Zoe had a date last week, Francesca’s really well actually, and Dani is surprisingly adorable,’ said Kate, sitting down. ‘Sorry Mum, but she is.’

‘Why should you be sorry?’ Venetia sounded disingenuous. She took a sip of water and hummed.

‘No idea,’ said Kate, pouring her mother some wine. ‘Dad’s much better, too. He’s back in the studio next month, doing an album for Christmas.’

‘Oh, really?’ said Oscar. ‘Already? What is it?’

‘It’s – it’s an album of Barry Manilow covers,’ said Kate. ‘Come on. You know, he’s a really good songwriter, actually,’ she added defensively, as Oscar and Venetia howled derisively with laughter. ‘Oscar, you like him!’

Oscar held up both hands in defence. ‘I’m sure he is “a good songwriter”,’ said Venetia, smiling at her daughter, her face alight with some strange emotion Kate could not place. ‘It’s just – come on, darling. When we were married he was with Deustche Gramophon, doing Paganini’s most obscure Concerti. It’s – er – it’s just different, that’s all.’

Kate suddenly remembered her father’s message.
I still
think about Sheffield
. She watched her mother, searching for some clue. Parents, she thought, smiling back at her. They are strange, and she thought of Lisa yesterday, and Oscar, and how they were practically parents to her – better, in lots of ways. Mum and Dad are mad, she realized, though she knew it of course, and she merely nodded at Venetia and carried on, deliberately changing the subject,

‘But yeah, they’re all really well.’

‘Good,’ called out Oscar, placatingly, as Venetia sipped some water thoughtfully. ‘So, what else is new?’