Shades Of Submission: Fifty By Fifty Part 56

And for a moment I thought she was going to tell me more about what had happened with Sally Fielding, but no, it was far more personal than that.

"Ethan found it really hard," she said. "When you came over. You just walked into the middle of things, and took up with all his friends. He found it very difficult."

"I... but I didn't know I was walking into anything. I was just visiting my big brother."

"All the Fielding nonsense was just blowing over and poor Ethan was still trying to deal with it. You didn't see any of that; you were oblivious. Like I say, Ethan hangs onto things, he doesn't let them go easily."

And then he was turning, that big goofy grin on his face, and I waved and smiled in return and the moment was past.

But my head was swirling again. All those naive old memories of my time at Cambridge, hanging out with Ethan and his buddies. Had I really missed everything? The undercurrents and tensions, the rumors that must have been flying? Had I been totally blind to whatever my big brother had been dealing with at the time?

And since then... the drifting apart, the tensions when we met, the sense of things unspoken. I'd thought it had just been one of those unfortunate things, but had it been deliberate, him pus.h.i.+ng me away because he had resented my blundering in at a difficult time?

Those memories of Cambridge had been happy ones for me. Bonding with Ethan, exploring a new country, making decisions that would affect my future.

But now...

Had I really got everything wrong back then?

The rest of the visit was, as the English are so fond of saying, nice.

We stopped off in a quaint little tea shop and drank Earl Grey. We chatted about the antiques trade, and about a trip Ethan and Eleanor had planned back to Yeadham Hall for a week exploring the north Norfolk coast. We talked about Eleanor's parents, how they still had plenty of spirit even with their declining years.

Back at the shop, we hugged and said our goodbyes without me going back up to the apartment. I wasn't sure if that was my choice or if I didn't go in because I wasn't explicitly invited. I was back to that paranoid state of mind, reading intent into even the most innocent of things.

I'd come up to Cambridge to get away from all that, but it turned out that the trip had only made things worse.

Suddenly I longed for the days when my most pressing concern was what to wear to an evening book launch party, or where to take a favorite author for lunch.

Right now I didn't need complicated, but no matter what I did I had complicated in spades.

On the way back, I pulled over at the Bishop's Stortford services and called Julie, to see if she was free for a drink that evening. I needed sanity. I needed someone I could talk to. And h.e.l.l, but I needed c.o.c.ktails!

Cosmopolitan. s.e.x on the Beach. Hanky Panky. o.r.g.a.s.m (why, naturally). Harvey Wallbanger. Vodka Gimlet...

Write down an account of an evening out with Julie Donovan and you would inevitably be writing out a c.o.c.ktail menu at some point. Julie was one of my discoveries at Ellison and Coles, and in a very short s.p.a.ce of time had become a bestselling author and TV regular. Now, she was working on the second volume of her memoirs, covering her time as a working cla.s.s Belfast girl studying at one of Oxford's most exclusive colleges.

"Going well?" I asked her over Cosmopolitans, and she knew immediately that I was referring to the book. We were at one of our regular haunts, a c.o.c.ktail bar just off Covent Garden.

"It's going grand," she said. "But that's not what you asked me out on a Sunday evening to talk about, now, is it? So what's been going on with you, then? How's your man in the House of Lords? Or was it the other one, the one you kicked out and now won't let go? Eh?"

That's one of the things I liked about Julie. No bull; always straight to the point. She wrote like that, too, an editor's dream.

I peered at her over the rim of my drink. Suddenly that all seemed so far away, sitting here at a tall table with a good friend, and all around us bright young things dressed from the pages of magazines, laughing and talking. This was my world. This was me.

Julie just sat and waited, her eyes fixed on me.

"Well," I said. "Charlie... I've tried to be blunt, I've tried to tell him it's all long over, history, but he just won't let go. And Will... he flew me to the Alps for dinner. He makes love... well, I don't know what to say about how he makes love. I've never known anything like it before."

"So what exactly is your problem, hun?"

So I told her. I told her about how changeable Will was, how there was a whole side to his life that I knew little about, other than that it was dangerous, that when someone like Sally Fielding stumbled into it she could just be killed and Will, although clearly upset by it, could still dismiss it as the kind of thing that happens. I told her how I'd left the next morning and vowed that I was done with him, but how all it took was a moment with him a few days later and I melted.

"There was a group of them, back in their Cambridge days," I said, after a pause as we moved on to s.e.x on the Beach. "They were known as the Cabal. That's what Sally Fielding was involved with. I got p.i.s.sed with everyone telling me only bits of what had happened, so I remembered what you said about researching a story: I went straight to the source and asked him. Will."

"That's what I said, is it, eh? 'Go straight to the source.' Honestly, Trudy, you shouldn't believe what I tell you. I'm a journalist, after all. Go to the source? I bet you didn't get anything from him, now, did you? Too close to events: they always have a blinkered view. Go to the bystanders, that's what I say, if you want someone with a clear view. Always go to the bystanders."

Hanky Panky. Vermouth, gin and the herby kick of Fernet Branca, served in a long-stemmed c.o.c.ktail gla.s.s with a sliver of orange peel floating in it for garnish. My old publis.h.i.+ng director had introduced me to it at the Savoy, where it was invented, and since I'd bought one for Julie it had become a firm favorite.

"So... bystanders, you say?"

"Hmm. I could easily have another one or three of these, hun. Yeah, bystanders. Onlookers. Someone close enough to be involved but without that blinkered perspective. Anyone fit the bill?"

I thought, my brain just a little fuddled by the three c.o.c.ktails so far. Drinking on a Sunday night! Not good, come Monday morning...

I tried to focus. The people I'd met back at Cambridge, when I'd thought Ethan was pleased to see me and hadn't realized that he was actually going through s.h.i.+t and resented me being there. Them.

"Well," I said. "There was Joe. Sweet and incredibly shy. Took him forever to ask me out, but nothing ever came of it. Nice guy, but he's got a wife and a small baby now... not sure he'd appreciate me popping up out of his past right now."

"So who else?"

"There was Neil. He was one of Ethan's closest buddies. Uber geek, but always thought he was G.o.d's gift. Stinking rich now."

"Really? You have a number for him?" We chuckled into our c.o.c.ktails, and then realized they were empty now.

Harvey Wallbangers were next up.

"And then there was Hammy. Ahmed's his real name, but they all called him Hammy. He was at the wedding. Mathematician or something."

"So are you in touch with any of these guys? Anyone you could take for a drink and grill about what happened in the past so you can put your pretty little mind at rest?"

"Well I could ask Ethan, I guess," I said, and we both laughed into our drinks again. Then I paused to think. "Most likely is Hammy," I said. "After the wedding he sent me a Facebook invite. I think there might be the embers of an old crush there."

"So you're friends on Facebook?"

I shook my head. "I didn't accept. I was a bit uneasy, I guess. Lots of things happening all of a sudden."

Julie held out her hand, and gestured impatiently. "So give it here, then," she said. "Gimme your phone."

"No! You can't just..."

"It's okay," she said. "I don't want to see yer man's c.o.c.k shots. I just want to hack your Facebook account, okay?"

Somehow that rea.s.sured me. It made sense after the day I'd had, and the c.o.c.ktails I'd had, which I realized were running dry again, so I paused to order a couple of Vodka Gimlets from a pa.s.sing waitress.

And then I realized Julie had my cell phone. Had I given it to her? Had she just grabbed it from the top of my bag while I was distracted with ordering drinks?

"Nah," she said now. "I've just accepted his friend request for you, so I can see his profile, but he doesn't have a phone number listed there. Looks kind of cute, though, if you like a bit of puppy fat to hold onto, and I know I do. But jeez, he likes Girls Aloud, for the love of G.o.d? That's one mixed up son of a"

"So what're you doing now?" She was typing something. On my phone.

"Don't worry," said Julie. "Trust me. I'm just messaging him on Facebook with your phone number. Apparently you were pleased to meet him again at the wedding and it brought up lots of old happy memories of your time at Cambridge, and it'd be good to catch up. Oh, and could he tell you anything about the Cabal?"

I s.n.a.t.c.hed for my phone, but she pulled away and then pressed the screen with a flourish.

"Sent," she said, and then the c.o.c.ktails came, and we laughed I don't know why and then I had my phone again and somehow it didn't matter any more.

I don't know how I got through the next day. My head pounded, my throat was so dry it felt like sandpaper grating whenever I tried to swallow. I felt sick, too, the kind of sick that can only be cured by a full English breakfast.

I sat there in a window seat of a cafe just around the corner from my office, a big mug of coffee steaming before me, a half-finished breakfast pushed away, and a stack of ma.n.u.scripts awaiting my attention. I often came here to work. Coffee and m.u.f.fins and a window seat from which I could watch the world pa.s.s by. In theory it was to get away from my desk, but in practice, with my phone and iPad, I could never really get away from the desk.

Still, at least that nauseous hole in my stomach had something in it now, and I was starting to feel a little more human again.

My phone. I reached for it and checked my in-box, but it was just work mail. Nothing from him. Nothing from Will.

So much seemed to have happened since that date: the trip to Cambridge with its unpleasant truths about a time I'd previously remembered fondly. Drinks with Julie. Oh dear, those c.o.c.ktails...

The date. The awkward conversation about Sally Fielding, that nagging feeling that I was being manipulated somehow. Should a man who could do what he did to my heart still leave me suspicious of his motives? It seemed so wrong to be so conflicted.

I started a text message and stared at the blank screen of my cell phone for minutes. I didn't know what to say. I didn't know what to do.

I put my phone away again and reached for the first ma.n.u.script.

Somehow I got through the day, albeit with a good supply of water, coffee and paracetamol, and an understanding PA who diverted my phone.

Home, a microwave curry and some c.r.a.p TV was my plan, but I hadn't bargained on Charlie. He was standing there on the corner of the street as I completed the ten minute walk from the Tube station. Blue, slightly rumpled suit that somehow emphasized the leanness of his body. Floppy blond hair that was in need of a cut. And those piercing blue eyes.

I paused, a.s.sessing him.

We'd been together for a year, then apart for a year, but then recently there had been a couple of times... well, a couple of times when things had gone much further than they should. But now? Now I looked at him and that lean, fit body didn't do what it had always done for me before. It didn't cause that tightening in my belly, that sudden heat in response to him, an animal thing. He was eye candy, no more than that. It was over, and I really didn't want this now.

"Hey there, Trude." There was an arrogance in his voice. The tone of a man who had learned that "no" didn't always mean no.

"Charlie," I said. "I really don't need this. I've had a long day, my head is pounding, and I just want to kick off my shoes and watch reality TV, okay?"

"I give a good foot rub."

"I know. I know, Charlie. Why don't you just go and work that charm on someone who gives a s.h.i.+t, okay?"

That stung like a slap.

He was standing in my way, and suddenly I didn't know what to do. Barge past him and risk that he might put an arm out and stop me, or worse, that he might turn and follow me inside? Stand here like a fool and make him think that this was going to be another of those times when I protested too much and really just wanted to be dragged into bed again?

Or turn, walk away, defeated.

I didn't have the fight today.

I turned, feeling my shoulders slump as I did so, and started to walk away from my apartment, heading down the street to where there was a little coffee shop, my sanctuary.

Did I really think he'd let me walk away?

He was there suddenly, at my side, matching my pace.

"Come on, Trude," he said. "Can we just be civil? Let's go inside and talk. What's the harm in that?"

I stopped and turned to confront him, and suddenly we were face to face, so close I could feel his breath on my face. "You been drinking already?" I asked. His breath was all beer and smoke.

He shrugged. "A pint, yes. What of it? Can we go back to the apartment and talk? Back to our place?"

It hadn't been our place for over a year.

"No," I said, my voice low and tight to stop me shouting it right into his face. "No, we can't go back to my place, Charlie. You're drunk and you should just go home. We're over, Charlie. Well and truly over. What do I have to do to make you see that?"

He tossed his head and made a dismissive sound in his throat. "So you say," he said.

It was my fault. All my fault. Those two times. No wonder he wouldn't take no for an answer.

I reached out, put a hand on his arm, squeezed. "It really is, Charlie. It's over."

He looked down now, and there were tears in those blue eyes, welling up, ready to spill.

"It's him isn't it?" he said, suddenly defiant again. "Will. It's always f.u.c.king Will."

"Why should that matter?" I said. "It could be anybody. It's just not going to be you, Charlie, okay?"

He shook my hand free and turned away, and suddenly it felt as if the tables were turned, as if I was the one demanding his attention.

"He's a bad sort," he said in a low voice.

That d.a.m.ned Englishness of his. How did he expect me to take him seriously when he said things like bad sort?

"Listen," I said. "I know you have history with Will and Ethan. I know about Sally Fielding. I"

"You do, do you?" Now he was facing me again, face close to mine, breath hot and beery. I wanted to take a step backwards, away from him, but I knew that would send the wrong signal. I needed to stand up to him, not keep backing off, giving in.

As we stood there like that, a woman with a toddler gave us a wide berth, staring at us, ushering her little boy past us quickly.

"You're making a scene," I said. "People are looking." G.o.d, but I could do English, too, if I wanted.

"So you know what happened with Sally?" he said. "Back at All Hallows... He's told you all about it, has he?" Then, in response to my silence, he went on: "I didn't think so. Why would he tell you about all that? You know his family hushed it all up, don't you? Friends in high places, a few well-placed threats, and we all just pretended none of it had happened."

"None of what?"

He looked down, away, suddenly shrinking into himself again.