The Chatsfield Short Romances 11-15. Fiona Harper
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to next after London? France? Italy? Australia?’
He puts his fork down and looks at me. ‘I am going home.’
I nod. Somehow I understand this is significant. Not the fact that he’s going back to Argentina, but that this trip is different. ‘When?’ I ask, then busy myself with arranging my cutlery on my empty plate.
‘Tomorrow.’
I look up quickly, see the regret in his eyes. I wonder if he experienced the same stab of cold I did at his reply.
‘I’ve been raising the finance to buy back the vineyard my family once owned. I’m going back to Mendoza to finalise the deal.’
I leave my knife and fork alone, look up and smile softly at him. ‘That’s marvellous. I mean, I know that I don’t know you…not really…but somehow I can tell you’re going to make amazing wines.’
I see the smile in his eyes. I want to smile back, grin so wide it feels as if my mouth can’t stretch enough to accommodate it, but I don’t. I look at the half empty wine bottle on the table between us. ‘What’s the name of your vineyard?’
‘Why?’
I shrug. ‘Because I want to look out for it. Maybe I’ll find a bottle of your wine one day and I will think of you.’ My words have made me sad, even though I know that is all the future connection I could ever hope to have with this man.
‘Then I hope you will enjoy it.’ His voice is as rich and warm as the Shiraz we’ve just drunk. I can feel him looking steadily at me. ‘But it will be a long time, and it will take a lot of dedication and hard work before that moment arrives.’
My face stays tilted down, but my eyes look up. ‘You won’t be coming back to London again?’
‘I will come to visit Tomas and Felicity at some point in the future, but I will not be in London as frequently as before, no.’
He smiles again, but this time it is tinged with sadness. Neither of us say anything for a while and then he breathes in sharply, as if being woken from a dream, and looks into my eyes. ‘I wish I could stay longer.’
His words tug at something deep inside me.
‘I do too,’ I reply, even though I know how insane this is.
He reaches out across the table and laces his fingers between mine. We both stare at our intertwined hands. It feels as if we’ve just made an important statement. I want to cry, but at the same time warmth rushes through me, making me feel giddy.
Cristian looks at the large clock on the far wall of the restaurant, above the bar, and then back at me. ‘We have tonight.’
I nod. We do. A perfect bubble of time.
We begin to talk again. It is as if we were back on the dance floor. Our conversation was going along one way, but we have paused, taken a turn, and now it heads off in a new, brighter direction. We discuss music and film, food and wine, politics and religion. Finally, a surly waitress slaps a dessert menu down on the table and coughs.
We are the last people left in the restaurant. Cristian and I look at each other, as if sharing a secret, then we smile and shake our heads. It’s only as he pulls away to reach for his wallet that I notice we’ve been holding hands the whole time.
Oh, Lord, I think, as we break eye contact so he can pay the bill. What am I doing? I really don’t know. All I know is that I’ve been feeling so empty, so sucked dry by life, that now this oasis moment is here I can’t stop drinking of it.
We leave the restaurant. It’s late. People are spilling out of the pubs and heading to the clubs. All week I’ve found the city nights warm and dusty, but now the light breeze tickles the hairs on my arms and the bright lights make the humid evening seem full of possibilities.
We walk without talking, making our way slowly through the bodies lining the streets. We haven’t touched again since we let go of each other at the restaurant, but I still feel as if we’re connected.
I forget. Just forget.
I forget the trauma that has brought me here, the events that have led me to this night, to this man. I just enjoy the strength of his silent presence as he walks next to me through the crowds. He was my first proper dance partner, and I still have that sense that we’re a unit of two amongst all the other bodies, communicating wordlessly, always in synch. I let out a deep and lengthy sigh. It feels as if I’d been holding it in ever since I stepped into my wedding dress last week.
My phone buzzes in my bag and I absent-mindedly take it out, a slight smile curving my lips. But when I see who the message is from I stop smiling. In fact, I stop altogether.
Cristian has walked on a few steps, not noticing. Someone bumps into the back of me. Suddenly all the heat and claustrophobia and noise of the city at night comes rushing back in.
We need to talk. G x
I close my eyes, hoping the mirage of a text will have disappeared again when I open them, but it doesn’t.
Now? Seriously? After all this time with nothing?
This is when Gareth finally decides to man up enough to contact me, when I have found one moment—one brief moment—to forget what he did to me? And with a text too! Not even a phone call! Really, he ought to be outside my hotel room on his knees, begging me for forgiveness.
And that careless little kiss at the end of the message…
I feel as if I could burst into flames on the spot, as if I could turn and punch one of these faceless people jostling round me, just because they have the nerve to be here when he is not.
‘Sophie? Are you okay?’
Cristian’s voice is warm and full of concern, pulling me back from the brink. I shake myself and look up. He rests his hand lightly on my shoulder. His eyes are questioning. They dart momentarily towards my phone and then back to my face. I breathe in and tuck it quickly back in my bag.
I want to believe this man cares, I realise, but I really don’t know him. And I’ve already proved that I’m too trusting, that I don’t scratch far enough below the surface in men to see what’s really there.
‘I’m tired,’ I say, and I’m telling the truth. ‘I think it’s time we went back to the hotel.’
We walk in silence. I don’t look at Cristian. I’m too scared to. On the dance floor I agreed to trust him completely, and I fear he can now tell I have reneged on the deal. My brain tells me I’ve done the sensible thing, while my heart yells ‘Traitor!’.
But when we’re safely inside the revolving door of The Chatsfield, preparing to go our different ways, I realise he has been my one bright moment in the week from hell. Maybe I’m weak, but I don’t want to let go of that yet. I don’t want to go back to the darkness that pulls itself over me like a blanket, thick and suffocating.
He stops in the middle of the lobby and I take a breath, turn to him.
‘Would you like to come up for a drink…a nightcap?’
I know my voice wobbles and he hears it too, gives me a questioning look. ‘A nightcap?’ he asks, a slight frown creasing his features.
I nod. ‘You know…brandy or something. I’m sure there’s something like that in the suite…’
We look at each other. I know what he’s thinking. He’s wondering if I mean just a drink. So am I. But this doesn’t feel like one of those tingly moments, hot and heady, the sort where a girl gets carried away. I just feel…desperate. I look at him, begging him to understand. He must know how this feels. I’ve seen it in his eyes. He knows the loneliness, knows that someone would do anything to escape it, just for a moment.
He