What’s been happening? I really hope things haven’t been too bad for you, but you’re making me worry. .
From: eva.andrews21@hotmail.com
To: benedict.waverley@cern.ch
Date: Tuesday 11th February 2010 19:32
Subject: RE: It’s been a while. .
It’s taken me a couple of days to answer because I’ve really had to think hard about how to respond. Even though that last message was half-joking, the truth is that it *has* been a really tough few years. I know it’s never been the done thing to say how we really feel but I’m getting too old to beat around the bush, so here it is. You really hurt me, Benedict. I know things were never straightforward between us, but to just ditch me like that without an explanation? That was pretty low and I’ve spent the last couple of days thinking about whether I want someone who could do that back in my life. I’m only giving you the benefit of the doubt because it sounds like you’ve been having a bad time too, but don’t kid yourself that I forgive you because I don’t.
Here’s what’s been happening. I can’t remember whether you knew that Sylvie was pregnant (I have a feeling I told you in one of the emails you never replied to) but she had a baby, a beautiful little girl named Allegra who is now nearly four. There’s no easy way of explaining this so I’ll just come out and say it: the hospital didn’t monitor her properly and as a result she was starved of oxygen at birth and has some brain damage. She spent months in hospital before she could come home and it’s still not totally clear what the prognosis is for her in the long term. She definitely has some developmental delay and a bit of cerebral palsy, mainly down one side. The doctors didn’t seem terribly hopeful at the beginning but she’s outstripped our expectations. And, oh Benedict, you should see her. She’s all enormous eyes and perfect little fingers and toes. I was never too keen on kids before, but I suppose now I do understand a tiny bit of why it was so important to you to keep your family together.
Anyway, Sylvie’s marriage to Robert (my old boss) didn’t last long — no surprises there. Being a father, let alone to a disabled child with everything that entails, wasn’t a part of his life plan and he decamped pretty soon after the birth, though he did at least have the decency to give Sylvie the house, and I’m living there with her now.
What else? You may or may not be surprised to hear that Lucien got caught with a load of coke and sent to prison just before Allegra arrived (that’s a whole other story, he’s out now), so there’s really been no one else and I’ve helped out with the baby as much as I can. In the early days I worried that Sylvie would just fall apart but after the initial shock wore off she’s sort of grown into her new life and seems a lot stronger now. It’s weird, throughout our twenties she seemed lost and the spark just went out of her, but even though life’s not exactly easy for her now, it feels like she’s got the fight back in her. She’s started painting again too, and recently managed to get a few of her pieces into the Affordable Art Fair and they actually sold, so it seems as though things are finally starting to happen for her.
Oh, and while all of this was going on, I got fired and Julian broke up with me and I couldn’t sell my flat and I fell out with my father, who blamed me for the global economic collapse and thinks I’ll be first up against the wall when the revolution comes. So, yeah, not a good few years.
I’m tempted to leave it there so that you wallow in maximum guilt, but I suppose I should be honest and say that things have at least been looking up lately. I’ve finally sold my flat and patched things up with Keith, and Sylvie and I have started a business. We’ve been working ourselves into the ground this last year, but it’s up and running and starting to do really well.
So. That’s pretty much everything that’s been going on at this end. Got to go now.
From: benedict.waverley@cern.ch
To: eva.andrews21@hotmail.com
Date: Tuesday 11th February 2010 23:48
Subject: RE: It’s been a while. .
I’ve been sitting here for almost two hours trying to reply to your message but I can’t seem to get the words out right. I think maybe that’s because what I’m trying to say is simple but email’s not really conducive to communicating how much I mean it. What I want to say is this: I’m so very, desperately sorry you’ve had to go through so much without my being there to support you, and Sylvie and Lucien too. I wish I’d been a better friend to you all.
Would you be willing to meet up with me? Please, Eva? I’d really like the chance to say that in person. Just name a time and a place. I’ll be there, any time, any place. (Except for Wednesday nights and next weekend and alternate weekends thereafter. But any other time.)
*
Benedict sipped at the rather chichi little cup of coffee he had inexplicably ordered, reflecting that caffeine so late in the day wouldn’t help him to sleep that night. When he’d finally reached the front of the melee at the bar he suddenly realized he didn’t know what he wanted, but the barman hadn’t seemed inclined to indulge him and, reasoning it would be better not to get drunk and maudlin, he’d blurted out his order almost at random. Eva was going to think he was mad when she arrived to a cold espresso instead of a nice glass of wine.
He didn’t know why he’d suggested they meet at the Southbank either, except that they’d once come here for what had turned out to be a very pleasant lunch on one of his trips back from Switzerland. They’d agreed on a bar by the river that neither of them had been to in years, and now he was there he found that he was at least ten years older than most of the other patrons, who at seven thirty on a Saturday evening were already drinking and flirting with reckless abandon. How young and absurd they appeared to his jaded eyes, the boys with their tight jeans strutting like peacocks and the girls who looked barely more than children, flicking their hair and squawking with laughter at the boys’ tepid witticisms. Laugh it up, kids, he thought, you don’t know what life’s got in store for you. And then, hearing how old and bitter his interior voice had become, For God’s sake, Benedict, you’re thirty-five, not fifty-five.
He wasn’t looking forward to watching Eva’s expression when she saw him. When people meet after a length of time measured in years they assess one another for damage, and he knew that on him the damage was profound. His eyes had bagged and his hair was greying along with the stubble on his chin that he now rather fervently wished he’d taken the time to shave.
The fact that he was in love with Eva had taken varying degrees of prominence in his life at different times, but had nonetheless been a constant for more than fifteen years. Could it really be that long? His feelings had waxed and waned, burning brightest in the years after they’d met and then going almost into abeyance when he and Lydia had first been married and his love for the boys and their life together had eclipsed almost everything. In that period they had been relegated to the status of inconvenient truth and shoved into the background, and he wondered whether it was really wise to reopen that wound now. Still, perhaps he was getting this meeting all out of proportion considering how long it had been since they’d seen each other. Perhaps it would be awkward, or they’d have nothing to say to each other, or she’d have changed so much they’d have no connection anymore.
That train of thought juddered to a halt the moment he saw her. As soon as his gaze met hers, it was clear that it was too late. She was standing in the doorway scanning the room and as her eyes came to rest on him she smiled and in that moment he remembered what an effervescent smile like that could do to you, and he realized too how very long it had been since anyone had smiled at him like that. She was slimmer than when he’d last seen her, and her hair was longer and kind of messy around her face. She was wearing jeans, slightly flared at the bottom, with plimsolls and a blue corduroy jacket, nothing special but somehow she made it look so right. At least he was old enough not to bother trying to pretend to himself anymore. You couldn’t talk yourself into or out of loving someone. God knows he’d given falling out of love with Eva and falling in love with Lydia his best shot.