‘I don’t sound like that.’
He kept going in the whine: ‘I need to go, I need my sleep, I’ve got to work . . . ’
‘I do have to work . . . hard.’
Luke raised both his hands in the air in exasperation. ‘I know you bloody do but other people work hard too. You haven’t got a monopoly on working hard—’
A man walking his dog paused by our car, clearly bemused as to where the screeching was coming from.
‘—and some people’ – Luke was really in his stride now – ‘some people actually work hard and don’t bloody go on and on about it, boring the rest of us with it and ruining our own days.’
I reached for the car handle, anger surging through me as I opened it and stepped outside, ignoring the still evening calm, the people tucked up in bed behind darkened windows. Slamming the car door I moved across to our flat, reaching for the keys in my bag. Bloody Luke. So I ruin his day, do I, daring to talk about my life? Well, I hope the next time he goes to talk to someone about his work, they pretend to listen but are really just thinking about what they are going to make for dinner.
I was inside and up to our flat, bleeping the car locked and hoping Luke ‘I breathe through my nostrils too loudly’ had shut the door already. I didn’t even care to check. I didn’t deserve any of this. I was tired, I was dirty, I just wanted to go to sleep.
Luke didn’t carry on arguments so I was surprised when he appeared in the doorway of our bedroom still looking mad, a sort of angry James Bond in his sharp suit. I noticed then the newly polished shoes, the tie I didn’t recognise. He had made an effort to dress up for the evening. Guilt fuelled my anger.
‘Have you finished telling me how shit I am and what a ball ache it is going out with me? Can I have my shower now?’
‘You’ll do whatever you like,’ Luke said, some of the anger leaving his voice, now looking a little sad. ‘Go ahead.’
Somehow this made me crosser. ‘I just don’t get what the big deal is. What have I done to deserve this?’
Luke didn’t answer, just turned his back and headed into the kitchen.
I followed him. ‘You can’t just say all this stuff to me and walk away, Luke.’
I could see his back tense, knuckles gripping the kitchen sink.
‘Why do you always get to be the nice guy? Why am I always cast in the role of villainous bitch?’
He wouldn’t turn around.
‘You always make me feel like I’m letting you down but I’m just tired, I’m stressed, I can’t be bloody perfect.’
When his voice came it was pitifully small, I barely caught the words, ‘I thought things were . . . tonight was . . . ’
‘What, Luke?’
He snapped: ‘It doesn’t matter. Clearly I was wrong.’
Confusion, tiredness, stress, guilt were all fuelling me now and I felt ugly and red as I hurled more insults his way. ‘It’s not like you’re perfect,’ I said.
He sighed. ‘I know, Lottie, I’m not pretending to be, I just miss—’
‘Miss what?’
‘You.’
My chest heaved up and down as he moved past me out of the kitchen. ‘I’ll sleep on the sofa and then, well . . . ’ He looked back at me. Did I imagine the watery eyes? My heart was still racing, my body pulsing with adrenalin. ‘Then we can decide what to do.’
That last line scared me into silence. I stood, only my own breathing loud in my ears, realising I had backed myself into this corner, still feeling every muscle tense. ‘If that’s what you want,’ I said huffily, wondering for the first time if I had gone too far.
Luke moved through to our bedroom and fetched his pillow and simply said, ‘None of this is what I want, Lottie. None of it.’
Darling Cora,
After the disastrous ballroom dancing evening, Arjun and I were drowning our sorrows in his living room. It was there that he confirmed the latest prognosis, and, Cora, it is not good. He has declined their treatment, wanting to tackle things with diet and exercise. He was told even with the treatment he would have a couple of years at most.
And did I comfort him at this announcement? Did I ask how I could help? I did not. I panicked, of course, and immediately changed the subject. Although I think he was grateful.
And so we play golf, laugh at Howard’s terrible jokes, tease Geoffrey every time he sends the ball into a hedge, bunker or water hazard (the man literally can’t find green) and Arjun is the same. Perhaps I notice tiny changes: a slower pace on the fairways, steadying himself when he picks the ball out of the hole, a slightly delayed laugh at times as if he was only just returning to the conversation. I wonder if Geoffrey can see it too. I want to ask. It’s so strange carrying around such a big secret. I would have wanted to tell you.
Arjun finally did confide in me on another matter. It seems he has been meeting Luke on a regular basis, working on a secret project. I’m not allowed to speak about it, Cora, to anyone – not that there is anyone to tell any more. Something about copyright. He sounded very solemn so I promised immediately.
All the dates and outings we’d been arranging for Lottie, Luke and the other members of Maplelands club had triggered a thought in him. He just didn’t know how to execute it.
Enter Luke!
Arjun approached him not long after the fateful night he broke his hip, sidling up to him in the clubhouse and dragging him off to a darkened corner to talk. He then spent much of the rest of the night swapping secret looks and winking at him, so much so that he believed Howard thought he had developed a crush.
This week Arjun’s boiler needs repairing so they have arranged the latest meeting at our house, a new centre of covert operations. This morning I opened the door to find Luke and a pretty redhead standing on the step swapping a joke. Arjun arrived moments later and they all gathered round the kitchen table with lots of bits of paper and coloured pens. It looked very official. I was chief tea bringer and I think performed my duties rather well. No one was short of tea (or biscuits) at any point. There were a rocky few seconds at the start when the redhead asked for green tea and I didn’t know what that was, but fortunately you came to the rescue as I produced something from a yellow box in our kitchen that you must have bought for just such an occasion as this. You were always very prepared.
The redhead seemed very animated. She put me in mind a little of a young Paula, and certainly seemed very enthusiastic about both Arjun’s idea and Luke’s plans for it, touching him on the arm with excitement when he came up with a new thought. I hadn’t seen Arjun so cheered in days, and I was so grateful to Luke for doing all this for him. Apparently he has been working on it for a while. He assured me it really was an exciting project and was happily designing potential logos and titles with the different coloured pens as Arjun explained more. The redhead seemed to know a great deal about the technical side and I was soon lost in a sea of complicated tech jargon, so I simply did what I knew best – offered to fetch more tea.
Luke was quiet again, smiling long after the moment had passed, his eyes often drifting to some other place. I hadn’t found time to talk to him about the disastrous ballroom dancing evening but I could see something had broken a little in him. I think he was glad to have something else to focus on.