Still, my hand lingered, my insecurities at odds with a desire to do what he asked.
‘You are absolutely beautiful,’ he’d whispered, as he ran his thumb across my lips. He’d kissed my neck as his fingers trailed down my bare back, feather-light touches that sent pulses through my body. His eyes didn’t leave mine as we made love. They bored into me, searching for something hidden within. For the first time, he gave me something he’d never given before. What it was, I can’t explain, but I’d felt a deep connection with him. An unspoken commitment that what we had was real.
Now, as I look at the photo in front of me again, I wonder if she was the woman he had been trying to get away from that night. Was he throwing away the manacles that had bound him to her? Had he chosen that time to sever all ties?
Pammie and Adam came back into the living room, Adam ducking his head to get through the beamed door.
‘Here you go,’ said Pammie, as she placed a tray on the table in front of the window. ‘This will fatten you up.’
I closed the album as I stood up, but not before I caught a fleeting glimpse of the caption written underneath the photo: Darling Rebecca – miss you every day.
5
‘You’re fucking kidding me?’ spluttered Pippa, as she shoved a pizza slice into her mouth.
I shook my head.
‘And you’re sure they were a couple? Like, a proper couple, not just good friends? Maybe they were mates, part of a bigger group.’
I shook my head again. ‘I don’t think so. They seemed very into each other. As you’d imagine a boyfriend and girlfriend to be.’
Pippa stopped chewing and a swathe of pink-tinged fringe fell over her left eye. ‘She might not be dead.’
‘She must be. What else would explain “miss you every day”? You’d never write that about someone who was happily living half a mile down the road.’
‘Maybe his mum . . . Pammie, is it?’
I nodded.
‘Maybe she just really liked her and, when they split up, she was upset and really missed her?’ She knew she was clutching at straws.
I shrugged my shoulders. If the truth be known, a little part of me selfishly hoped that the woman was dead, rather than be that ‘missed’ by Pammie, to the point where she felt the need to write it under a photograph. That was a lot to live up to.
‘Why didn’t you ask Adam when you were driving back?’ asked Pippa.
‘I didn’t want to upset the apple cart,’ I replied. ‘We’d had an odd exchange on the way down there and he’s clearly very protective of his mum, so I have to tread carefully.’
‘But you’re not asking about his mum, you’re asking about the possibility of him having had a girlfriend who’s now dead. It’s a pretty big deal, Em. And if that is the case, you’d have thought that would have come up in conversation before now . . . wouldn’t you?’ She added the last two words gently, as if to soften the blow of the sentence before.
I had no idea what to think. Every time I tried to answer the question, I had to remind myself that we’d only been together for a little over two months. It felt longer because it had been so intense, but how can you possibly expect to tell somebody about the decades of your life in eight weeks? We’d touched on exes, of course, but we were still skirting around things to a certain extent, not wishing to get too heavy, too soon. Anytime we’d spoken about our pasts, we’d both been careful to keep things light-hearted. A dead girlfriend wouldn’t have fitted comfortably into any conversation we’d had up until now. Nor would the subject of my ex, Tom. But I’d been happy to share the small misdemeanour of my solitary one-night stand with Graham or Giles – or whatever his name was.
‘That’s shocking!’ Adam had laughed as we sat opposite each other, sharing a Rocky Road Sundae at TGI Friday’s in Covent Garden, a couple of weeks before. ‘You had sex with a man and you didn’t even know his name?’
‘Oh, like that’s never happened to you?’ I’d chided.
‘I’ll hold my hands up to a one-night stand, but I definitely asked her name first and I still remember her name now.’
‘Go on then, holier than thou, what was it?’
He’d thought for a moment. ‘Sophia,’ he’d exclaimed, proudly.
I’d scoffed at his smugness.
‘And then there was Louisa, Isabelle, Natalie, Phoebe . . .’
I’d sucked a mini marshmallow up with a straw and launched it at him.
‘So, what are you going to do?’ asked Pippa, bringing me back into the present. ‘Is it something you need to know, or are you prepared to leave it where it is?’
‘I really like him, Pip. And, this aside, everything is going really well. I’ve never felt like this before, and I don’t want to do anything to jeopardise it. It’s just a little blip on the landscape. I’m sure it’ll work its way out eventually.’
She nodded in agreement, and reached out to touch my hand, for added reassurance.
‘So, what was his mum like? Do you think she liked you?’
‘Oh, she was just the sweetest thing. She went out of her way to make me feel welcome. I had a horrible thought, especially after the incident in the car going down there, that I was the latest in a long line of girls that he’d taken to meet her. But she actually took me aside as we were leaving and said, ‘You’re the first girlfriend he’s brought home in a long, long while . . .’
‘Okay, well that’s a big plus point right there,’ Pippa said matter-of-factly, trying to pull me back from the ex-thing that was nagging at my brain. ‘His mother loves you. They say the way to a man’s heart is through his mother.’
‘I thought it was through his stomach?’ I laughed.
‘Ah, that too, but we all know that it’s really via his dick!’
I choked on my wine, and she fell off the sofa.
There’s never a dull moment when Pippa’s around. Her ability to stick two fingers up at life when it isn’t quite working out is what drew me to her when we first met working at a shoe shop. Our old boss there, Eileen, didn’t quite appreciate Pippa’s feistiness, and it was only a matter of time before things came to a head.
‘I’m afraid I don’t have that boot in a size 40,’ she’d heard Pippa say to a customer, ‘but I do have this ballerina pump in a size 34, if that’s any good?’
Tears had rolled down my face, and I’d had to excuse myself from my customer to run to the stockroom. Pippa had quickly followed, with Eileen in hot pursuit.
‘A certain level of professionalism needs to be adhered to when dealing with clients,’ she’d said, wagging a finger. ‘You have both crossed the line today and I will be taking it up with my superior.’
‘Oh, Come On Eileen,’ Pippa had said, in a sing-song voice. ‘I think what you mean . . .’
My breath had caught in my throat, my face had turned red, and my bladder had threatened to collapse as Eileen, who happened to have dark curly hair, had glared at her. ‘If you think you’re being funny . . .’ she’d said.