After You Left(73)

‘How are you feeling?’ Evelyn asks.

‘I still don’t know. I’m in a daze, in some ways. I suppose work is keeping me busy, and when I get home I’m tired and I sit down and start thinking about it, but my mind just goes blank again. Then, the other day, I came across a small cream photo album with a little red lotus motif on it – Justin brought it back for me from a business trip to Florence. I flicked through the empty plastic sleeves and thought, God, not a single picture in it! Not that there probably should have been; we’d hardly had time to set about filling it, and who actually develops film these days, anyway? Nonetheless, it says something, doesn’t it?’

I glance at her – at her little pink ear with its tiny diamond bezel set in gold.

She catches me studying her. ‘Can you honestly say that, in your heart and soul, you believe you were meant to be with Justin? And that you feel that way, even after all this?’

It’s a direct question, which takes me aback at first. ‘Well, considering everything I’ve heard of your love for Eddy, and his for you, I can probably say that, no, not in the same way. I may have thought it earlier. Though I distrusted it – I distrusted his certainness. Perhaps because he was ready for everything too quickly. Marriage, children . . .’

At the thought of children, something new occurs to me: if his baby had been born perfectly normal, would he have still left me for them?

‘At the time, because I’ve always been romantic deep down, it all felt like it was the real thing. But then Justin isn’t a romantic. He’s a pragmatist. So you see’ – I look at her again – ‘I can’t make proper sense of it.’

With the beating of the sun on my face and the stillness of the garden, with only the drone of the lawnmower advancing then subsiding, I feel oddly peaceful with this intimate conversation. I could never have said all this to my mother, who lacked a certain emotional objectivity when it came to the topic of men. ‘I don’t believe many people have the kind of certainty that was between you and Eddy,’ I say. ‘I once got so annoyed at Justin when he couldn’t just say, yes, he was in love with me. But, in a way, now I see his point. But then how do you know when someone is The One? Is it because you know all the others definitely weren’t?’ I laugh a little. ‘Maybe being in love is one part circumstance, another part faith and the other part imagination.’ I meet Evelyn’s interested eyes. ‘Yet you knew Eddy was The One.’

‘I think what fully brought it home to me was when I saw him quite by chance in the Ballroom five years later. He probably should have long since forgotten me by then. But when I saw how his face was so flooded with what might have been . . . I will never forget that overwhelming, profound regret I suddenly had. How much I wanted to run to him, yet there I was standing across the room with Mark! It was a very bleak feeling for a young married woman to be having. I would not wish that on anyone.’

‘I wish I’d known Eddy. In some ways, he reminds me of Justin, even though they’re very different.’

‘My guess is that Justin was quite a serious fellow? Not lots of fun?’

‘He’s not a joker or a person who likes to be the centre of attention. Though he’s definitely got a sense of humour. But he isn’t one of these people who freewheels through life. He tends to take all the wrongs of the world on board and act like it’s his obligation to fix them, and that can be tiring at times. Sometimes, even when he was supposedly having fun, I sensed he was play-acting, maybe because he wanted to appear that way, but he knew he wasn’t that way.’ I shrug. ‘He’d probably be really offended if he knew I thought that.’

‘Well, maybe you need someone a bit more happy-go-lucky next time.’

I close my eyes to the sun again. ‘Urgh! I don’t want to think about next times.’

We sit for a while, then take a stroll. ‘Are they ever coming back?’ I ask of Eddy and the gardener, whom we can no longer spot.

‘Sometimes, he takes longer when he knows Eddy’s really enjoying it.’

‘That’s sweet.’ It’s charming how everyone likes Eddy so much. ‘I’ve been thinking that I need to see Lisa,’ I say, out of the blue. I glance at Evelyn, sideways. ‘You know? Like how you wanted to see Eddy’s wife?’

‘Why?’ Evelyn asks. ‘What are your real reasons for that?’

I think for a moment. ‘I suppose I just feel there’s this need to look at her and have her look at me – for us both to somehow confront what’s happened. Maybe because they’re all off there in their own corner, and then there’s me, over here. He wasn’t just a passing boyfriend. He was my husband! And I just feel like there needs to be a conversation . . . Is that entirely bonkers?’

‘Not entirely. But I’m not sure a conversation would be very productive, or would end well. I think if you want to see her, it should be for closure, to help you move on. To sort of see them and make them real. Remember, that’s why I did it – to help me walk away. Though there’s no guarantee it will help, not when it comes to the erratic tug of our emotions. I thought I’d walked away when I went back to London after our week together. But when Eddy’s letter came, all that went out of the window.’

We stand and contemplate one another. The sun suddenly beams its brilliance on us, and we are caught in a moment that Edward Hopper would have rendered in vibrant simplicity and colour. After a weighted pause, I say, ‘What a life we lead! Well, some of us, anyway!’ I think of Sally and how uncomplicated her love life is, with its long-time marriage that I used to think must be tediously dull. Perhaps I am a little envious of her, after all.