The Last Goodbye Read online

  “Maybe you should go after your mum. She looked upset.” I rubbed my temples. “I think I’ll head up to bed.” I could feel a tension headache coming on. The evening had left me exhausted.

  I climbed the dark staircase and headed to our bedroom. The room we were staying in was at the front of the house. I drew the drapes that hung on either side of two huge windows overlooking the driveway. The room was furnished with all the original dark mahogany furniture. A tall standing mirror stood over in front of one of the windows beside a lacquered screen. The bed was covered with a pelmet and a roll-top bureau sat in the corner beside the fireplace. All the rooms had open fireplaces although the family never used the ones in the bedrooms any more. The floorboards were covered with Persian rugs that were almost threadbare they were so old.

  I got changed quickly because the room was so cold and hurriedly climbed under the covers. I was glad to find that Edwina had put a hot-water bottle in the bed earlier to warm the sheets.

  I read my book until the door opened a while later. Ben came in and closed it softly behind him.

  “Well, how is she?” I said, putting my bookmark between the pages and closing the book shut.

  “She’s okay – a bit upset though.”

  “Of course she is. Did he apologise to her?”

  “Dad – apologise? Some chance!” He sat on the edge of the bed and took off his boots.

  “Well, I’m sorry, I know he’s your dad but he really is an ignorant man.”

  He climbed into bed beside me and put his cold feet beside mine on top of the hot-water bottle and started moving it over to his side.

  “Oi! Get lost!” But I let him take it anyway. “I feel really terrible about it all.”

  “Why? You did nothing wrong.”

  “I know but I should have just kept my mouth shut. I feel bad for your mum – she enjoys your visits so much but then this happens.”

  “I don’t let him get to me any more – it used to. It used to really upset me when he would say things like that but now I know I’ll never get his approval no matter what I do, so there’s no point even trying.”

  “You don’t need his approval.”

  “I know,” he sighed.

  “Here – it’s my turn,” I said, using my foot to bring the hot-water bottle back over to my side. “Well, I think now you’ll be taking a leaf out of my book.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Well, after tonight I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to avoid going home for a while. I can give you some tips!” I said, laughing.

  The following morning I could tell that Edwina was putting on a brave face as she served us up breakfast. She was trying to force cheer into her voice. Laura was chatting about her flat-mate, telling us some anecdote about how she came home steaming drunk and tried to get into bed with her.

  None of us mentioned what had happened the night before as we tucked into our Eggs Benedict. Ben was noticeably quieter.

  Laura set off for home after breakfast and Ben went out to put our cases in the car, so it was just myself and Edwina alone in the kitchen. After a minute she placed her knife and fork down on her plate and turned to me.

  “Is he all right?”

  “He’s okay. I think he’s used to it by now.”

  She let out a long sigh. “I’m at my wits’ end with him.”

  “Who? Ben?”

  “No – Geoffrey.”

  Edwina never confided in me about her husband and I wasn’t sure what to say.

  “We had a blazing row after you two went to bed last night – there is just no getting through to him.”

  “I see.”

  “You know, he’s going to be a grandfather soon and I think it’s time to just let bygones be bygones, but he is resolutely stubborn.”

  “But why can’t he just be happy for Ben? Ben loves his job. He is happy. I wish Geoff would just accept it.”

  “So do I,” she said wearily. “So do I. But it’s not just about his job – it’s been going on for years. I can remember one time very clearly – Ben must have been only about eight or nine and he came home from school and said quite innocently to Geoff that his friend Richard’s dad was a solicitor, just like he was. Geoff started to roar at him. ‘I’ll have you know I am not a solicitor, you stupid boy!’ he spat. ‘I am a barrister – there is a world of difference!’ I’ll never forget it – the look of fear and confusion on poor Ben’s face. He didn’t understand what he had said wrong. He was too young to understand his faux pas. I told Geoffrey to calm down, that it was a silly mistake, and that Ben was only a child. But Ben had got such a fright that he started crying which added fuel to his father’s rage. Then Geoffrey shouted at him to ‘stop being such a mummy’s boy’.” Her hands fluttered to her neck and she fingered the chain around it. “That was the start of it, Kate. From that point on they always seemed to be rubbing each other up the wrong way although Geoff should have had more sense. Ben was only a child.”

  “Ben never told me any of this.”

  “I’m not surprised. I’m sure they aren’t his favourite memories of his childhood. Then there was rugby – as you know, Geoffrey is big into his rugby and he had always assumed that when he had a son he would follow in his footsteps and play schools rugby and beyond. But Ben never had an interest in the game. It wasn’t that he didn’t like sport because he competed in athletics and he liked rowing in school but just didn’t enjoy rugby. Geoff just couldn’t accept it – he would force Ben to tog out at the side of the pitch for under-eights training and poor Ben would wait all game and only be brought on for the last five minutes. Then, when he’d go on to the pitch, he’d get trampled on and Geoffrey would shout at him the whole time – ‘Tackle him, Ben! Take him down, Ben!’ But it wasn’t in Ben’s nature to be rough – he’d rather let people hurt him than hurt somebody else. Then in the car on the way home Geoff would spend the whole journey telling him what a disappointment he was. Ben only told me about it all recently – obviously, if I had known back then, there was no way I would have let Geoff get away with doing that to him.”

  I was stunned. Ben had never told me any of this. It probably hurt too much. I couldn’t believe what a bully Geoff actually was. My heart broke for Ben. Maybe that was why he was so patient with the children in his class – because he knew how horrible it was to be shouted at as a child.

  Ben came back into the kitchen. “Right then, we’re all packed up – time to hit the road.”

  “Yes, of course,” said Edwina. “You don’t want to leave it too late, or you might hit traffic with everyone making their way back up to town again for work tomorrow.” She stood up from the table and brushed down her skirt.

  She walked us out to the car and we hugged goodbye and set off for home. Geoff didn’t surface to see us off. He stayed down in whatever room he was içnoring us from. I knew that even after we were gone the tension between Ben’s parents would probably linger on. Poor Edwina! She didn’t deserve any of this. It must be awful to be caught between the man you love and your children, especially when he was such an obstreperous oaf.

  Chapter 8

  The next morning I watched Nat through the window as she chained her bike up on the railing outside, even though there was a sign affixed to the front of it saying ‘No Cycles Please’. She would keep watch periodically in case a warden came around to remove it.

  “So how did you get on in Surrey?” She pronounced ‘Surrey’ grandly as ‘Sorrrey’.

  “Yeah, we had a nice time. It was good to see his mum and Laura but his dad didn’t disappoint as his usual arsehole self.”

  “That man sounds like a complete dick.”

  I had told Nat countless stories about him before.

  “To put it mildly – I can think of other words,” I said. “How was your weekend?”

  “Really good, Kate – we went out with friends for drinks on Saturday night.”

  I hated the way she used the word ‘friends’. To be honest it made my ski
n crawl. All of Will’s friends had mistresses on the side. Nat had told me this before and I knew this was who she was referring to. I had been horrified when she first told me. She had made it sound like it was just another hobby to these men – the way Ben goes running or another person might enjoy knitting. They would all go out together just like any normal group of friends, except they weren’t – the one thing that they had in common was that all the men had wives and children tucked up in bed at home. Some of them even holidayed together – Nat had told me about two couples that had just come back from ten days in Langkawi. They had lived it up in a five-star all-inclusive resort and told their wives that they were in Asia ‘on business’. I thought the whole thing was seedy and horrible and couldn’t understand why Nat would want to be involved in a circle built on lies like that. I knew that she and Will were seeing a lot more of each other these days, at least several times a week, but she thought that they were different to those other couples. To her, those women were a bit on the side whereas what she and Will had was different, more special somehow. But I bet the other mistresses thought the same about her.

  Sunlight started to creep across the honey-oak flooring and up along the white walls as the day went on. It was quiet. We had a few time-wasters who liked to browse around the gallery but had no intention of buying anything. You could spot them a mile off – they were usually the same old faces that lived in the leafy streets surrounding the gallery and had nothing better to do with their lives. Then they would question us to the nth degree about the photographer and his subject matter and who his muses were, like they were going to buy, but they just never bit the bullet.

  My phone rang then and I rooted around in the bottom of my bag and managed to get it on the last ring. I saw Edwina’s number flash up.

  “Hi, Edwina, is everything okay?” Even though I got on very well with my mother-in-law, she usually rang Ben if she needed to talk to us.

  “Yes, of course, dear. I know you’re probably in work now but I just wanted to say that I’m sorry we never got to finish our conversation yesterday but I didn’t want Ben to know that we were talking about him.”

  “Don’t worry, I won’t say a word.”

  “Oh, thank you. It’s just that I think Ben is a bit embarrassed by it all, although Lord knows Geoffrey is the one who should be embarrassed! I also just wanted to, well . . . apologise for his behaviour.”

  “You don’t need to apologise –”

  “Well, one of us does and hell will freeze over before it’s Geoff. I love having you and Ben to visit – I just wish it didn’t have to turn out like that every time.” She sighed heavily.

  “Me too.”

  “You will come again, though, won’t you? You won’t let Geoffrey put you off?”

  “Of course we will.”

  “Oh good.” The relief in her voice was obvious. “It’s just with your baby on the way, well, I don’t want to be cut off from the child’s life because of Geoffrey.”

  “Don’t worry, Edwina – we want you to be a big part of this baby’s life.”

  Chapter 9

  The weekend after, Ben and I decided to have brunch in Café Les Cloches down the street. It was a warm sunny day and we strolled along, Ben’s arm slung around my shoulders. We liked to do it now and again – it was our treat to ourselves on a lazy Saturday morning after a busy week in work. Anton, the owner, was from Lyon in France and had moved over to be with his English girlfriend Flora and they had set the café up together. Its pretty periwinkle-blue timber shop-front stood out on the otherwise residential street. Café Les Cloches was a treasure. It was tiny with seating for a mere twenty people inside but Anton had recently put some more seats on the pavement out the front to accommodate his ever-growing number of customers. Those of us in the know kept Les Cloches a secret for fear we’d never get a seat there if the rest of London found out about it. It was a busy little spot and had a reputation for its breakfasts. You needed to get there early at the weekends because it was full of people like Ben and me lounging over a long breakfast and reading the newspapers. I’m sure Anton was driven demented because the table turnover was so slow but that was why it was so popular. Sometimes you’d have to queue to get a table but we were lucky to see a couple getting up to leave just as we arrived, so we were able to get their seats outside in the sunshine. We sat down at the Parisian-style table and chairs, as people stopped on the street to read the chalkboard menu listing the daily specials. For once I was actually looking forward to the food and didn’t feel queasy at all. Maybe my nausea was finally starting to go. Our Polish waitress had taken our order and I had decided on the Full English while Ben had gone for waffles with fresh berries. He had asked her to leave off the whipped cream.

  After we had eaten our breakfast, we ordered coffees – decaf for me, a macchiato for Ben. I always felt a bit pretentious ordering specialty coffees – I could imagine Dad’s voice saying, ‘It was far from macchiatos you were raised!’ And it was – coffee was unheard of in our house when I was growing up – coffee was for other people. Tea was what we drank and if you came to our house you were only offered tea – there was no choice in the matter.

  Ben had the newspaper stretched wide between his toned arms and I was flicking through the magazines, which were my favourite part. We had been at a gig in the Old Vic Tunnels the night before and my ears were still ringing from the sound that had bounced around inside the old barrel vaults.

  “See, you can get flights to Dublin for only £9 plus taxes each way,” Ben said as he read aloud from the paper.

  I knew he was waiting for me to say something so I pretended that I couldn’t hear him and continued to read a review of some play in the Culture section. He just wouldn’t quit.

  “Oh shit!” Nat said that evening as she rushed back into her kitchen. A cloud of grey smoke rushed out to meet us. She had invited Ben and me over for dinner that evening. She was really pushing the whole ‘get-to-know-Will’ thing – I had to resist the urge to tell her that we had already got to know him, and we still thought he was a dick. I knew Ben was dreading it as much as I was.

  She was in a flurry as she slid her hands into a pair of oven gloves and removed the offending dish from the oven. She stood fanning the smoke with the gloves.

  “I’m so bad at timings – this is the first and last time that I will be having a dinner party.”

  Her hair was parted in the centre and plaited elegantly in two French plaits, which were gathered up loosely on the back of her head. She was wearing black peg-leg trousers and a long-sleeved silk blouse with delicate pearls sewn along the neckline.

  “Need a hand?”

  “Brill – Kate, could you stir that sauce for me, please? Oh and Ben, would you mind opening this bottle of red? I could do with a glass.”

  “Sure.” He took the bottle off the worktop and started rooting in a drawer for a corkscrew. He uncorked it and poured them both a generous glass.

  Nat sat on a stool and took a sip. “I needed that, I’m parched.”

  “Where’s Will?” I asked.

  “Well, I’m not sure – he should be here soon though.” She glanced up at the clock.

  Suddenly she bolted up from the stool.

  “Crap! I forgot to put on the potatoes!” she wailed. “Fuckedy fuck!”

  We made ourselves useful while Nat busied herself peeling potatoes. I could see the worry lines knitted between her eyebrows. I knew she was wondering where Will was. It was nearly eight thirty and I was starting to wonder if he was going to show. I suppose that was one of the hazards of dating a married man – you never really knew if he would be able to make it to events you had planned together – his wife might blow him out of it at the last minute, asking questions about where he was going, or his kid might get sick. You probably could never fully relax.

  At eight forty-five, Nat had to take the meat out of the oven.

  “Damn it!” she said. The pork belly that she had been slowly cooking was now n
icely charred on top.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “We can just cut that bit off.”

  “I’ll just try and ring him again . . .”

  Ben and I pretended to be deep in conversation while Nat phoned Will.

  “There’s no answer . . . I hope nothing has happened . . .” She bit down on her bottom lip nervously.

  “Don’t worry – I’m sure he’s on his way.” I rubbed her arm. She had gone to a lot of trouble for this evening – I hoped he wasn’t going to let her down. The table was set and the tea-light candles that she had scattered around the room flickered softly. Florence & The Machine was playing in the background.

  Nat topped Ben’s and her glasses up again. The bottle was nearly gone now. I felt desperate for her. I wanted to go and give her a big hug. Plus I was starving and Pip was thrashing around inside me, complaining about the delay to her dinner.

  “Do you think we should eat?” I finally asked when it was close to nine. I thought I was going to collapse if I didn’t eat soon.

  “Yeah, I suppose we’d better – no point in letting it all go to waste.” She sighed.

  Ben uncorked the bottle we had brought over with us and handed a glass to Nat.

  Although she hadn’t said it, I had seen Nat phoning Will twice more but he hadn’t answered.

  “Are you –” I was interrupted by the buzzer.

  Nat rushed over to it and pressed the button to sound the intercom.

  “I’m so sorry, Nat!” Will was panting on the other end.

  She buzzed him up and went out into the hallway to let him in.

  “I’m so sorry!” I could hear him saying to her over and over again breathlessly.

  They came in the door then.

  “Sorry, guys – I hope you weren’t hungry?” he said. “It was Noah’s birthday party today and of course some of the parents didn’t get the brief that the party was over at six and we couldn’t get rid of them. Cue fourteen overtired, screaming four-year-olds and, even worse, their hyperactive parents getting excited at the sniff of free wine and the chance to compare every mundane milestone in their kids’ lives! I’m so sorry.” He turned to look at Nat forlornly. He gently brushed a piece of hair out of her eyes. A look passed between them. Ben and myself might as well not have been in the room.