The Place We Met Read online

  ‘Yes, with a landscape gardener called Ernesto. I often see the two of them walking their dog. They’ve got a Bolognese called Pepe, such an adorable thing, all fluffy and excitable. Gino and Nico hate her, of course, but I think Bruno is rather in love.’

  The little brown dog looks up at the sound of his name, a twitch of pleasure in his tail, and Elsie beams like a proud mother.

  ‘Dogs are far better company than men,’ she confides, not for the first time. ‘I’m far happier with my boys than I ever was with any of my husbands, God rest their souls.’

  ‘Perhaps I should get one,’ I suggest, and I see Elsie’s blue eyes crinkle with mischief.

  ‘A dog, or a husband?’

  ‘Elsie,’ I warn, but I can see she’s about to unleash.

  ‘Marco must be worth a date, at the very least,’ she says, picking up the menu and squinting at it for a second before tossing it down. If I know Elsie as well as I think I do, she’ll let Giorgio choose her lunch. The members of the group at the far end of the table have begun ordering carafes of wine, and baskets of oven-warm bread are being set down between plates. The smell makes me realise how hungry I am, having had my breakfast before the sun was even up this morning, and I tear into my bread before the waiter has even removed his hand.

  ‘Don’t be naughty,’ I chide Elsie, and she pretends to look wounded.

  ‘It’s not naughty of me to want my favourite girl to have a bit of fun,’ she protests. ‘If I was your age, I’d have been shoving you out of the way to get to him, but as I’m not …’ She leaves the end of her sentence unsaid, but her meaning is clear.

  ‘I’m not interested,’ I say primly, trying not to smirk at the sad expression she pulls.

  ‘I think there’s something wrong with your eyes,’ she replies, all concern. ‘Shall I call my optometrist friend Maria and ask her to book you in for an appointment?’

  ‘There is nothing wrong with my eyes!’ I exclaim, half-laughing.

  The waiter has made it back down to our end of the table again, and Elsie pulls yet another sad face when I tell her that no, she cannot under any circumstances have a whole carafe of wine to herself.

  ‘Just a glass, then?’

  ‘A small glass.’

  ‘Spoilsport!’

  As soon as the order is written down, Elsie predictably returns to the subject of Marco.

  ‘I just think it might be nice for you to have a boyfriend here,’ she says, trying a slightly different tack. ‘I worry about you getting lonely.’

  I gesture at the group sitting around us and notice Tim staring at me over the top of Will-yum’s shiny bald head. ‘I’m hardly lonely, Elsie. I barely get any time to myself, to tell you the truth. I have Shelley to keep me company – and you. And anyway,’ I add, raising a hand when she goes to interrupt, ‘I’m not looking for a boyfriend.’

  This last statement halts her argument momentarily, but I can see those tenacious cogs of hers whirring behind her eyes. Elsie knows about my ex, of course, but she doesn’t know all the grisly details of our break-up. I begged my parents not to tell her, because I wanted this place to be free from the tarnishes of that time, and of what happened. Taking that into account, I suppose I should appreciate the fact that she’s finding my reluctance to move on frustrating. And she’s right – Marco is, undeniably, a very attractive man, but there’s a lot more to a person than just the way they look. I barely know the guy, yet, so how can I know how I feel about him?

  ‘It’s been a long time,’ Elsie says next, her voice low but kind. ‘You are allowed to be happy, you know? That’s all I want for you.’

  But it hasn’t been all that long, I think. Seven months ago, we were still living together. I was balling his socks into pairs for him as I unloaded the tumble drier, picking up the crunchy peanut butter that he liked from the supermarket and leaning my head on his shoulder while we watched TV on a Saturday night. When I think about those small, simple gestures, it seems impossible that the two of us have reached the point we’re at now, where I cannot bear to see or speak to him, and he is a stranger once again, just as he was the night we met. I remember sitting at my parents’ house after everything had come crashing down, my legs curled underneath me on the armchair, staring unseeingly at the television. That weird film had been on, the one where Kate Winslet’s character has her ex-boyfriend, played by Jim Carrey, erased from her memories, while he tries, and fails, to follow suit. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, it’s called. Such a beautiful title for such a bleak premise. Would I erase my ex from my memories if I had the chance? Some days, yes – but then if I did, would I ever learn from what had happened?

  ‘I’m not unhappy,’ I assure Elsie, sipping the glass of orange juice that’s just arrived. And it’s true, most of the time. If I can just get through this first year, I’ll be OK. One day at a time, that’s what my mum always says.

  Elsie looks sad now, as if she’s heard everything I’ve just been telling myself in my head, and wraps her fingers around the soft part of my arm.

  ‘If I ever meet this ex-boyfriend of yours,’ she says, her lip curling at the thought, ‘I’ll set the dogs on him.’

  We both look down to where Gino, Nico and Bruno are fast asleep under Elsie’s chair, each one snoring like a tiny lawnmower, and I can’t help but shake with laughter.

  22

  Lucy

  The sun begins to droop as Bellagio’s many clocks tick on through the afternoon, and the light pours down from rooftops to balconies, creeping across windows and through railings. Long shadows stretch haphazardly across jumbled cobbles, and tiny birds pick through the dust in search of crumbs.

  Pete and I walk off our lunch by heading up to Punta Spartivento on the northern tip of Bellagio and clambering over a broken set of steps on to the grubby beach below. I watch while he attempts to skim stones across the surface of the lake, looking in vain for shells to collect and taking endless photos of the distant Alps. Inspired by the view, Pete tells me a story about the last time he and his mates went on a skiing trip, neatly omitting the parts about drinking themselves into a stupor on a regular basis – which I know they most certainly would have – and instead focusing on how many tricks he learnt to do on a snowboard.

  ‘I’m surprised none of you ended up with a broken neck,’ I exclaim, as he shows me a video on his phone of himself and his friend Sean, each of them taking it in turns to soar through the air and land in an inelegant heap on the snowy ground.

  ‘Yeah,’ Pete agrees, chuckling. ‘Sean especially – you know how clumsy he is.’

  Clumsy is exactly the word that Sean had used to describe himself when he arrived at A&E that fateful day, having tripped over his own shoelaces while on the escalator at Camden Town underground station and broken his leg in three different places on the way down. He wasn’t making all that much sense, thanks to the morphine shot that the paramedics had kindly administered, but he still managed to poke fun at himself. When I asked him if he wanted to call anyone, he said he’d already texted his ‘best boy’. I’ve been grateful to him for sending that message ever since.

  Pete turned up a few hours later, by which time Sean had been taken upstairs to a ward. The breaks to his leg were severe enough to warrant surgery, but there wasn’t a free slot until the following morning. I was the nurse in charge of looking after him, so it was me who got to bring Pete through from the waiting room, but that day wasn’t the first time we met. It happened a whole month beforehand, down in the hospital canteen.

  I had been on shift for ten hours at this point, and only an hour before had helped attend to a woman in a terrible state. She was so distraught by what had happened to her that it had left me shaken, and I can remember feeling an overwhelming need for something comforting. In the absence of a hug, chocolate was the next best thing, and so I used my short break to pop down and buy the biggest bar of Dairy Milk that the canteen had on offer. It was standing there, by the shelves of confectionery, that I first saw
Pete.

  He had that look common to most of the visitors to All Saints who aren’t patients: tired, bewildered and a bit lost, and my heart immediately went out to him. I could tell that he’d come in straight from work, because he was dressed in a shirt and tie, the latter pulled away from his throat and lying half-knotted across his chest. There was wax in his ginger hair, but it was sticking up where he’d run his hands through it, and he was staring unseeingly at the packets of pre-prepared sandwiches, chewing on his lip.

  ‘I wouldn’t go for the BLT,’ I said, making him jump a fraction. ‘Plenty of L and T, but barely any B. I got one last week that was purely T, if you can believe that.’

  He looked at me, puzzled but friendly enough, and picked up one of the packets.

  ‘How about the tuna mayo?’

  I curled up my nose.

  ‘Bread’s always soggy.’

  He put it back down again with a grimace.

  ‘Cheese and pickle, then? Surely you can’t go wrong with that?’

  ‘Better,’ I allow, looking up at him just as he glanced down at me. ‘But I still say the all-day breakfast is the best they have on offer.’

  His eyes searched the jumble of sandwiches until he located the one he was looking for.

  ‘All-day breakfast it is!’ he said, holding it up with a flourish.

  After that he accompanied me over to the coffee machine, where I showed him how to insert the little pods, and then we found ourselves in the queue together, where he offered to pay for my food.

  ‘Oh no,’ I replied, handing over some coins before he could insist. ‘It’s embarrassing enough that you’ve caught me buying this humongous bar of chocolate.’

  He shrugged, as if seeing my purchase for the first time.

  ‘I’m a big fan of the stuff, too,’ he admitted. ‘But maybe not for dinner.’

  I asked him what he was doing at the hospital as we wandered back towards the lifts, and he muttered something about a friend having an accident, but didn’t go into detail.

  ‘Well, it was nice to meet you,’ I said, going to walk away, but something in the look he gave me made me hesitate.

  ‘Bye, Lucy,’ he said at last, smiling at me as the lift doors closed, and I’d crossed my fingers in the hope that it wouldn’t be for the last time.

  I thought about Pete for the remainder of my shift, and all through the following one, too.

  The weekend came and went, but still there was no sign of him at the hospital. I couldn’t find him online, because I didn’t know his surname, but that didn’t stop me trailing endlessly through hundreds of men called Pete and Peter on Facebook, hoping to spot his face. After a few weeks had passed, I was getting ready to file him along with all the other missed opportunities I’d had in life, when suddenly, just over a month to the day after we’d had our first conversation, there he was, standing in the A&E reception area.

  ‘Pete?’ I asked, delight at seeing him again elbowing its way past my usual shyness.

  He blinked a few times, bewilderment slowly turning to recognition, and then he grinned.

  ‘It’s you,’ he stated happily, and my insides started doing the conga.

  He was dressed in a dirty rugby kit and there were dried patches of mud all over his legs. We both looked down at the state of him, then back up at each other, and laughed. I couldn’t believe that he was back, standing right in front of me, and he couldn’t seem to take his eyes off mine. If love at first (or second?) sight is possible, then it’s probable that I fell head over heels for Pete at that very moment, and my feet haven’t reconnected with the ground since.

  Pete is still lobbing stones into the water ahead of me, punching the air triumphantly every time he manages to get one to skim, ignoring the squawking birds that keep flying up from the surface in fright. If Julia were here, she’d already have told him off for scaring them, but I decide to let them fight their own battles. Instead, I take photos of him, using the sport mode on his proper camera to capture the rapid movement of his wrist and the twist of his body. I love his strong arms, and the broadness of his shoulders. He’s the biggest and most muscular man I’ve ever been out with, not to mention the sexiest, and just looking at him is enough to arouse me. Just as I always am when I’m close but not next to Pete, I’m clutched with an urgent need to touch him, and hurry forwards across the mud and gravel.

  ‘Hey there, bird botherer,’ I say, sliding my arms around his middle from behind and slipping my hands into the front pockets of his jeans.

  ‘Hey yourself,’ he says, dropping the stone he was about to throw and turning around to face me. ‘Are you impressed by my skimming skills?’

  ‘Very,’ I reply obediently. ‘First the chess secret and now this – you really are a dark horse.’

  ‘My dad taught me,’ he explains. ‘Probably to stop me playing chess for once in my life.’

  My hands are back in his pockets, and I can feel him stirring into life against my stomach.

  ‘What are you trying to do to me?’ he murmurs, nibbling my ear until I squirm.

  ‘Nothing,’ I say sweetly, inching my forefinger across further.

  ‘How long is it till the boat leaves?’ he asks, pressing against me.

  ‘Almost two hours.’ I make it clear that this information saddens me as much as it does him. ‘There’s only one afternoon service at this time of year.’

  ‘Damn it,’ he breathes, taking a step back and rearranging his jeans.

  I want him to kiss me, but when I move towards him he hops to the side, out of reach.

  ‘Stay away, nympho,’ he jokes, batting away my hands when I stumble after him. ‘Otherwise I’ll be forced to take you right here, right on this beach.’

  ‘You wouldn’t dare,’ I taunt, grabbing for him but only catching his glove.

  ‘Oh, believe me, Lulu,’ he says, his voice a low growl. ‘I would.’

  As much as the idea excites me, there’s no way I would ever let him do such a thing. It’s the middle of the afternoon! How would I ever face my dad again?

  The horrible voice re-emerges in my mind then, urging me to ask Pete if he ever had sex with his ex-girlfriend on a beach, or in a park, or anywhere more adventurous than the confined interior of a bedroom. Why do I feel the need to know? Why can’t I stop goading myself?

  ‘Lulu?’

  I swivel my eyes round. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘Fine.’

  He frowns. ‘You’re doing that thing again, where you disappear into your own head.’

  Oh, so he has noticed.

  ‘What thing is that?’

  ‘You know what thing. It’s like you’re here with me one second, then gone the next.’

  I stifle a pretend yawn. ‘I’m probably just tired.’

  He doesn’t look convinced, so I plaster one of my reassuring nurse’s smiles across my face.

  ‘Come on, you sexy thing,’ I tell him softly, standing on my tiptoes so I can kiss him on his unmoving mouth. ‘Why don’t we go and see if Bellagio has any gelato places open?’

  He agrees to that, albeit begrudgingly, and I fill the silence with determined chatter about the time Julia and I had an argument when we shared an ice-cream sundae, and my stroppy sister ended up throwing half of it in my face.

  ‘She’s mad, your sister,’ Pete sighs, endearingly protective of even the six-year-old me, and so, suitably encouraged, I reel off more entertaining tales from my childhood as we walk. Pete begins to cheer up again in no time, his earlier concern forgotten, and I feel the tension start to leave my body. I must try harder to stop doing this to him – and to myself, for that matter. He’ll end up getting sick of me, and it’s not as if he’d find it hard to replace me with a younger, skinnier and less neurotic model. It wouldn’t be the first time, and I’d only have myself to blame. All this new information about his ex-girlfriend has left me feeling off kilter, and I need time alone to digest it all. But against that, I’m also feeling an increasi
ng need to keep Pete within reach at all times. My gut is whispering to me that my relationship has become precarious, and it’s impossible to ignore it completely.

  A sleepiness has fallen over the village by the time we make it back to the narrow roads lined with gift shops and boutiques. Lake Como’s post-lunch calm is a phenomenon I had forgotten about in the years since I was last here, but I remember it well now. In a country where food and, by extension, mealtimes are as vital as a pulse, it’s not surprising that the days here are structured around them.

  ‘I can’t imagine actually living in a place like this,’ Pete comments, just as I was about to declare how much I would love to buy an apartment here. It comes as a bit of a surprise, too, because I had assumed he was a fan of quiet, sleepy places – he moans about London often enough.

  ‘But it’s so beautiful,’ I point out.

  ‘Yeah, but even that would wear off after a while, wouldn’t it? And it’s just so quiet. I think I’d get bored after a few days up here.’

  Given that I was the one who chose Como as our holiday destination, his words do sting a bit, but it’s my love for this place, not concern for my own feelings, that makes me say, ‘I think you’re mad.’

  He stops, rubbing at his nose. Both of us have runny ones, thanks to the icy temperatures.

  ‘Mad?’

  ‘Yes, Mister – mad. As in loop-the-loop loopy. Bellagio is gorgeous – and, trust me, it’s anything but quiet in the summer. You’d be lucky to find an empty restaurant seat at all in July, and in August the beer has been known to run out.’

  ‘Bloody hell!’ Pete’s properly aghast by that last nugget of information.

  ‘That’s why I wanted to bring you here now,’ I continue, drawing his attention to the beautiful Christmas decorations outside the nearest shop. ‘So you could see the place at its best, without hundreds of tourists getting in the way.’

  I watch his expression change as my words sink in.

  ‘This is why,’ he beams, wrapping his arm around me as we continue to walk.