So why does that very idea make me feel as though I’m being buried beneath a tennis court’s worth of just-poured cement?
I recline in the seat, closing my eyes a moment, wishing it were so easy to drone out my mother’s wittering about potential brides.
‘I think a June wedding would be perfect, if you can make that timing work, darling.’
My gut is being squeezed in a vice.
I’ve been back in England three days and I feel as if I’m withering away into nothing. I stand abruptly and move to the windows, which perfectly frame a view over the east lawn towards the Kyoto garden and then the nearby stables.
I love this place. I have always felt at home here.
But not now. Right at this minute, I would do almost anything to be back in Manhattan, in the penthouse that was my bolthole when things turned bad with Saffy.
But I don’t want to be there alone.
I press my hand to the glass, then drop my head forward, the cooling glass against my forehead bringing some kind of sharp sanity.
I want Imogen.
My insides groan.
I want her but I can’t have her. I tried. I tried to extend what we were and she didn’t want that. I will never forget the sight of her face when she pushed me out of the elevator. Her tears—because of me.
Oh, God. I’d do anything to have her not cry. I’d do anything to fix this.
‘I’m sorry to deprive you of a week of sex, but I have no doubt you can find someone else to fill your bed until you leave.’
As though what we were could be boiled down to a simple equation. Sex.
It was so much more than that. Because she was right, I could easily have found someone else to seduce for a night, if I’d just wanted to fuck some warm, willing body.
But I haven’t wanted that. Not since Sydney. Not since I met Miss Anonymous and lost a part of myself to her.
I spent over a week on tenterhooks, as though my very survival depended on my ability to find her once more. I found her, and I held on as tight as I could for as long as I could. Even at the end, on that last morning, I offered what I could to prolong our farewell, because I wasn’t ready to walk away from her.
Would I have been ready a week later? Would New Year’s Eve have rolled around, and might I have hopped onto my jet and come here to England, to my parents’ party, to meet the potential brides my parents had yet again selected?
‘The Greenville on Strand could host it,’ my mother continues, a little hopefully, as though booking a suitable venue is of more concern than finding someone to marry. ‘The ballroom there has been redecorated and is quite perfect.’
Fuck. Fuckety-fuckety-fuck. The idea is anathema to me.
Sleeping with someone else. Marrying someone else. I only want Imogen.
I want her in a way that is filling me with boiling lava; I need her. I need her and I need her to know that.
* * *
My face hurts from stretching this smile across it. I look out on the sea of kids eating their Christmas lunches, their faces happy, the mood ebullient. I alone am suffering. I stand in the background, watching the festivity as it overtakes the hall, knowing that there are eighty-seven of these lunches being held around the country for all the kids we support, that Christmas is alive for the Chance community.
And usually this is my favourite day of the year. I feel as if this is what Christmas is truly about—the ability to give and make better the lives of those who owe you nothing.
I know how important this day is but my heart is too heavy to appreciate it. I find it almost impossible to enter into the spirit, so I keep my head down, busying myself with the logistics I don’t really need to worry about. I clear tables and disappear into the kitchen, filling the sink with warm sudsy water and losing myself in the anonymity and pure, physical labour of washing dishes.
I take my time, the feeling of warm water on my gloved hands at least a little soothing. Staff move around me, chatting amongst themselves. I keep my back turned. I try to cheer myself, thinking about the incredible donation of gifts we received this year, gifts that made sure every child was spoiled with something truly lovely.
Ordinarily, I’d be walking on the clouds. But not today.
Not since he left.