Written in the Stars (21 page)

I walk into the throng and quickly end up in the centre of the room, swallowed up by bustling, beautiful people. I edge over to the bar and stand on tiptoe for a moment to see if I can see Milly’s bobbing sleek black hair amongst the crowd. I feel like I will be safe when I reach her, but all I can see are a mass of expensive handbags, sparkling jewellery and men in slick suits. I squeeze my slightly sweaty palms together and wish that I had seriously considered Milly’s offer to borrow something from her wardrobe. I’d felt smart and summery and kind of . . . well, ‘me’ when I left the flat in faded jeans, a floaty top and gladiator sandals. I tied my short hair in stubby French plaits that I thought looked nice for a night out. I realise now that I seriously underestimated the dress code – and the guest list – for this occasion. Because all the great, good and glamorous of London’s advertising, media, business and finance worlds appear to be here.

‘BEA!’ Milly calls. ‘You’re here!’ I wave joyously as I see her pushing through the crowd, glass of champagne in hand. She looks beautiful in a billowing, empire-line maxi dress with gold jewellery and sparkling gold heels. It’s not her usual style: she wears much more structured stuff, but it really suits her. I’m so relieved to see her that it takes me a moment to realise that the room has hushed and the atmosphere has grown what can only be described as hostile. That’s when I see the staring faces, familiar faces I’d last seen smiling and wearing fabulous fascinators and top hats on my wedding day.

Milly envelops me in an embrace. ‘Thank you for coming,’ she whispers. ‘I know how hard this must be for you.’

‘Hard?’ I whisper back. ‘I’m Loni’s daughter, remember? Attention-seeking, public-laundry-washing runs in the family!’ I swallow, my fake bravado suddenly gone as I stare over her shoulder at the guests, most of them whispering loudly to each other.

Milly squeezes me and guides me over to the bar, away from her three female work friends who look like they are about to burst with undisguised glee that finally they’ll get the gossip on what happened to my wedding. All of them are single and never went to the trouble of hiding their annoyance that someone like me – a lowly, unimportant, plain-looking temp – could bag a man like
Adam Hudson.

‘Just ignore them all,’ Milly advises. ‘You’re here with me. Come on, let’s get you a drink. Bubbles?’ she says and I nod gratefully, thanking her with a smile for her kindness.

Five minutes later, Milly and I are safely ensconced in the corner of the room on a sofa. I can hear a conversation between two women standing to the left of us in which the words ‘runaway’ and ‘bride’ seem to be coming up regularly. I sink further down in the seat.

‘They’ll get over it if they see you’re not bothered,’ Milly says quickly and pulls me up. I remember her saying the same to me when she was trying to get me to go back to school to finish my A levels after my breakdown.

‘Is Adam coming?’ I ask as I rearrange myself on the seat.

Milly shakes her head. ‘I wouldn’t do that to you both. Besides, he’s still travelling, but he promised Jay he’d come and visit us in New York.’

‘Oh,’ I say, feeling my heart sink unexpectedly. I have to remind myself it is a
good
thing that I don’t have to face Adam tonight in such a public place. But I realise that it was him I was thinking of when I got dressed for the party. You don’t spend seven years with someone and just switch off your feelings, even if you were the one who walked – sorry,
ran
away. ‘You’ll all be in New York together,’ I point out to Milly miserably.

‘So come over too,’ she says impatiently. ‘After all, there’s nothing keeping you here now. You could still get Adam back, you know, it’s not too late . . .’

‘I don’t want him back,’ I say with an assurance I don’t feel. ‘I need to move on with my life.’

‘If you say so,’ she shrugs. ‘But how exactly are you going to do that?’

‘With my new job!’

She looks at me sympathetically. ‘You don’t have to pretend to me, Bea. I feel awful about leaving you like this. I know you’re still having a hard time. I wish I could be here for you. Help you get back on your feet . . .’ She studies me for a moment with her sharp gaze and her features soften. Milly is different with me than she is with other people. I know she’s considered a bulldog at work – and with friends. She’s impatient, stubborn, direct and yet with me – and Jay, in fact – she is softer, more forgiving, always prone to protection rather than attack. I don’t know what sort of pathetic image I must display to incite this treatment – that’s a lie, I do. But nevertheless I’m determined to prove to her – and myself – that I can go it alone.

‘Milly, you have already done way more than I deserve. You’re letting me stay in your old flat rent-free. Seriously,’ I say tearfully, clutching her hand, ‘I don’t really know how I can ever thank you . . .’

‘Don’t!’ Milly says, waving her other hand in front of her face.

I catch her hand and hold it as I look into her eyes. ‘I’m going to miss you so much but I promise you, I
am
going to be all right.’

‘I’ll miss you too,’ she says in a choked voice. Then she sniffs. ‘Ugh, I cannot be seen crying in public. It’ll ruin my ball-breaking reputation. And besides, we’ll see each other soon. I’ll pay for you to visit me . . .’

‘I’ll save up,’ I tell her.

‘On your flower shop salary?’ Milly says doubtfully. ‘I mean, I’m not being funny, Bea, but that might take a while.’

I bite my lip before I answer. ‘Listen, I know I don’t have a big salary Milly, but this job feels like the first good decision I’ve made in years. I really think that I might finally be on the right path.’

‘Good,’ Milly says but she doesn’t look convinced. ‘Well, I guess I’d better mingle,’ she adds, standing up. ‘Will you be all right on your own?’

‘Tonight, or always?’ I joke. She doesn’t smile. ‘Of course I will!’ I say brightly. She looks at me, the worry evident in her eyes, then shakes her head and gets swallowed up in her party whilst I stand and look on, alone.

Chapter 31

I sit back on my haunches and gaze around me at Milly’s garden. It’s only been a week since she left but in that time the suffocating heat of summer has hit its height and I’ve made the most of my spare time away from the flower shop by being out here, taking solace in digging and weeding, planting and pruning. I gather up the cuttings and survey my work. I’ve fed the roses, pruned the early-flowering geraniums and pulled out loads of black vine weevils. I’ve hoed bare patches of soil, cut back overgrown bushes and perennials and tended the flowering clematis – I couldn’t help but think of our roof terrace, and wonder if Adam had remembered to do the same. Then I remembered he wasn’t even there. He’d gone.

I’m soccer-punched by a memory.

‘I can’t believe he’s gone!’ Kieran sobs as I stroke his hair, my own tears and the sterile hospital smell almost choking me.

I blink and come back to the present. In the last few days I’ve been getting more and more of these flashbacks to the night Elliot died. I try to push the memory away.

‘Focus on the flowers,’ I murmur to myself. Ever since I moved in three months ago, found Dad’s gardening diary and began digging the earth out here, I’ve felt like I’m digging through my past. I glance down at the little blue book lying by my side, the pages fluttering in the breeze. Dad’s slanted scrawl and diagrams are as familiar as if they were my own, even though I hadn’t seen them for years until I moved back here. I pick up the diary and clutch it to my chest and then to my nose as I inhale the musty scent of memories.

I catch a glimpse of the platinum ring I’m wearing on my right hand. I tentatively put it back on when I found it again in the suitcase along with the diary. It is Loni’s wedding ring. The one I’d stopped her throwing in the sea after she kicked Dad out. The same one I’d worn for a year after Kieran left as part of our promise not to forget each other.

I take it off now and roll it between my thumb and forefinger as I think about Kieran turning up at my wedding. Was I too quick to send him away? Should I have given him more of a chance to talk? Listened to him, like I listened in the shop to the man who was nursing his sick wife?

I put the ring back on, marvelling at how it feels at once unfamiliar yet comfortable, as if it made an invisible impression when I wore it for that year, a groove on my skin that has never gone away, despite the time that has passed. Putting it back on is like opening up the portal to my past. I close my eyes, thinking about the days of that summer that Kieran and I spent counting the many reasons we were meant to be, honing our love story like we would be telling it for years to come.

‘I wasn’t going to come here this summer, you know,’ Kieran had said one afternoon when we were lying on Wells beach, in front of one of the little beach huts, pretending we owned it. He rolled onto his stomach, displaying his oak-brown back, and gazed up at me through his eyelashes. His eyes were hypnotically green; I remember thinking that I could lose myself forever in them. ‘Elliot got us jobs at this pub in Devon but on the day we were meant to drive down from where we were staying in Dorset, I turned the camper round and headed in a different direction. Completely spur of the moment.’ He blinked at me, lashes brushing his dark skin as he lit a cigarette, exhaling the smoke as easily as he’d told the story. ‘It was like I was being pulled by a magnetic force. Then, when I met you, I knew what, or rather who, it was I’d been drawn to . . .’

‘I wasn’t meant to go to the beach party that night,’ I continued. ‘But Loni ended up inviting a load of her cronies over. Cal was at college and I just felt this urge to go for a run on the beach . . .’

‘You looked so sexy in your Lycra!’ Kieran laughed, dropping a kiss on my chest.

‘I heard my name being called. Then I saw you, sitting playing the guitar, and I knew, I knew I wouldn’t be leaving any time soon . . .’

‘I couldn’t move when I saw you, let alone leave. It was like the sole purpose of my summer was to meet you,’ Kieran told me as I stroked his golden-streaked hair. Then he sat up and kissed me, pressing his lean, half-naked body against mine so I sank into the sand. I loved how urgent, how full of need and desire his kisses always were. In that moment I knew my life had entered a new dimension: my sleepy, cosseted Norfolk existence had been sparked into life at last. It scared me, but it made me feel alive too. I didn’t need anything other than Kieran to make me happy now.

My phone rings and I pull it out of the pocket of my jeans.

‘Hi, Loni,’ I say in a voice that does not sound like my own.

‘Bea, my darling! It’s been aeons since we last spoke! A lifetime! Too busy shaking off the shackles of your boring old existence to call your poor mum?’

‘I’ve just been busy,’ I say tightly. I pause and look at my right hand and then at the diary on my lap. ‘I’m finding my world, Loni, and with all my heart giving myself to it,’ I say softly. ‘Just like you’ve always told me to. I’m taking a leaf out of your book – literally.’

‘That’s what I like to hear! As long as you know that I’m always here, darling. You’re never alone, remember that. Even in your darkest hours there is always a light to aim for – isn’t that what I’ve always told you? And hasn’t it always been true? Last time you thought your life was over, you moved to London and met Adam. And now, you’ve got yourself this wonderful new job and I’m so proud of how strong you’re being, darling. But that doesn’t mean you don’t need help. When your dad left—’

I don’t let her finish. ‘You became the woman you were meant to be. What was it you said after Kieran dumped me, Loni? “You don’t need a partner, just your pride.” Leave before they leave you – that was the message, right? And that’s what I’ve done with Adam. Left before he left me.’

Loni is uncharacteristically quiet for a moment. ‘But Adam would never have left you, darling, surely you know that? And that wasn’t the point I was trying to make all those years ago. It wasn’t
your
fault that Dad or Kieran left. Your dad adored you. And Kieran – well, those were pretty extenuating circumstances. He had just lost his twin, my pet. He just wasn’t in the right place to love you . . . you have to stop blaming yourself.’

I think of Kieran standing before me on my wedding day. Did he come back because he’s in the right place now? I think of the time ball in Greenwich and envision it dropping now, making everything clear for me to see. Kieran being there was a sign that it was time for us to give it another chance. To try again. A fresh start. That’s what I’ve always wanted. Maybe this is my chance to fix what happened in the past. Why didn’t I see it before?

‘I’m sorry but I really have to go, Loni,’ I say urgently. And I end the call.

I stand for a moment as the penny – time ball, whatever you want to call it – drops, over and over again. I’ve been in denial these past few months. Could it be that I left Adam because I’d never stopped loving Kieran? I throw my gloves off and run back into Milly’s flat.

I strip off quickly and get in the shower. I feel like I want to wash both the dirt from the garden and what I’ve done to Adam away. I loved him so much but I’ve never stopped thinking about Kieran. A guy I hadn’t seen for eight years and who I spent just one summer with. It’s madness. I feel like I’m being haunted by my past, and the more I try to throw myself into this new life, the more it takes me back to my old one. Kieran’s brought everything flooding back. I’m living back in the place where I came to recover after it all happened which means, logically, the next step is returning to Norfolk to see if he’s still there. It feels like everything is leading me to that summer, to him – and that terrible night.

And I don’t think I can ignore the signs any longer.

I get out of the shower and grab my phone, open Facebook and before I can talk myself out of it, I scroll through my messages until I find the one he sent me after the wedding. And without thinking, I quickly write and send a reply:

Kieran, I’d really like to see you . . . if you still want to, that is? Bea.