The Guilty Couple(50)

I step closer and clear my throat. ‘Hello, Lee.’

He spins round at the sound of my voice and his face sparks with joy.

‘Olivia! Sweetheart!’ He gathers me into his arms and hugs me so tightly I have to rise up on my toes. My hands flutter awkwardly at his waist. I’m too startled, too hurt, to return the embrace.

‘Oh my god.’ His hands move from my shoulders to my face and he brushes stray hairs from my skin, still damp from crying. ‘I can’t believe it. It’s so good to see you, so, so good.’

‘It’s been a long time.’ I feel a hundred years older than I did the last time we saw each other but Lee’s barely aged. If anything he looks better than the last time we met. He’s freshly shaved, his skin is glowing and his groomed eyebrows arch up to an unusually line-free forehead.

He follows my line of sight and smirks. ‘Botox. Had to be done. Every time I met someone from Grindr they’d tell me I looked older in person.’

‘You look very well.’

‘So do you.’ He lies effortlessly, just as he always did. He’s the sort of person who will compliment you on the thing you feel most self-conscious about, almost as though he knows instinctively how to put a plaster over your Achilles heel. It’s effortless, the way he makes whoever he spends time with – male or female – feel like the most enchanting creature in the room. Lee’s company was always the panacea I needed after a horrible argument with Dominic or a stressful call with an artist who was upset that their work hadn’t sold. He’s not flawless, far from it. He can be stubborn, selfish and self-involved and we had plenty of arguments over the years, especially in the very early days of the business, but he was always such a positive light in my life for so long. That’s why it hurt so much when his visits and letters tailed off.

‘So.’ He squeezes my hand. ‘Want to have a look around then chat, or chat and then look?’

I return his smile. ‘How about a little of both?’

‘Wine for the lady.’ The waiter places a glass of rosé in front of me. ‘And a gin and tonic for the gentleman.’ He sets a glass in front of Lee.

We’ve moved on to a little bistro around the corner from the gallery. We made short work of the exhibition, partly because we were underwhelmed by the work on show, mostly because we didn’t stop talking for a single second. Just like Nancy and Ayesha, Lee wanted to know everything about prison – the routine, the other women, the showers, the fights and the relationships. I understand the fascination. I used to be the same. To those of us on the outside – housed, employed, lucky, law-abiding people who don’t know a single person who’s been to prison – it feels like an alien world. It’s a planet we know about but that no one wants to visit. As planets go prison is grimy, broken and boring. I don’t think Richard Branson will be booking his ticket any day soon.

We also talked about what Lee had been up to over the last five years: working in galleries and bars while he applied for Arts Council grants to start up a community-based arts project. And the state of his love life: a one-year relationship that broke his heart, a short-lived fling with a yoga instructor and various Grindr hook-ups which ranged from ‘hot as hell’ to ‘I was scraping the barrel that night.’ He listens intently, his eyes not leaving my face as I tell him everything that’s happened since I left prison. When I reach the part about trying to break into Dominic’s safe his jaw drops.

Neither of us have mentioned the way he ghosted me but I can’t step around it much longer. I can’t deny how deeply it hurt. I reach for my glass and take a sip.

‘Wait, wait.’ Lee holds out a hand to try and stop me. ‘We haven’t cheersed yet.’

‘I know.’ As I put my glass back on the table his expression changes. The smile slips from his lips and his posture, so loose and comfortable as we walked around the gallery, becomes tense and charged. ‘I think there’s something we need to talk about first.’

‘Okay …’ Now he takes a sip of his drink. He doesn’t set it back down afterwards. Instead he nurses it, holding it in front of his chest like a barrier. ‘I think I know what this is about.’

‘Four years, Lee.’

‘I know, I’m sorry.’ The light dims in his eyes as he bows his head. ‘There’s no excuse,’ he risks a glance up at me from beneath his groomed eyebrows. ‘I just … I guess … I went to a dark place, Liv. I could see how hard things were for you when I visited and how important it was to keep you optimistic and cheerful. You came alive whenever I mentioned the gallery and when I … when I had to tell that we’d failed, that I’d failed, I felt so guilty. It was your dream, our dream, for so many years and I’d run it into the ground.’

‘That’s not true, Lee. We’d been struggling for a long time. It was always touch and go – if we sell five paintings this week we’ll stay afloat and if we don’t, well, let’s just hope that we do. It was like that for so long.’

‘I know but …’ He runs a hand over his head and inhales nosily through his nose.

‘There’s no but, Lee. You did what you could.’

‘No.’ He shakes his head, his gaze fixed on the little sprig of flowers in a vase in the centre of the table. ‘I didn’t. After you went to prison I fell apart. I didn’t get out of bed. I didn’t go to the gallery. I ignored phone calls and emails. I just … there didn’t seem any point. And by the time I did drag myself into work I couldn’t deal with how much there was to do just to keep it afloat. Without you there to talk to I was overwhelmed. Every time I had to make a decision I’d get paralysed by fear. So I did nothing. And I lied to you about how well we were doing, until I couldn’t lie anymore.’