Playing by the Rules (16 page)

There. She’d said it. She had said the l-word, even if only to herself, and it was done. Now she would be able to face it and get over it.

Because it was ridiculous.

She couldn’t have fallen in love with Josh so quickly. It wasn’t possible. A week ago, Josh hadn’t even been part of her world. He had existed only as a memory and a sometime subject of conversation with Jo. And tomorrow – or in a week, anyway – he’d be a memory again.

Sure, it would be a different memory. Now, filed under ‘Josh’ in Kate’s brain there wouldn’t be a skinny boy, subject of her first crush, but a stunningly sexy man. A man who had appeared out of nowhere and turned her world on its head and, she had to admit, turned her on.

It would be a memory to warm her on cold winter evenings. Maybe it would be a memory tinged with regret about bad timing. But a memory was all it would be. All
he
would be. All he
could
be. And it would be stupid to be in love with a memory.

If only he wasn’t also a man who had lied for her without a moment’s hesitation, for no better reason than to help her save face. A man who had looked after her when she was vulnerable and helped her mum just because she’d asked him to. A man her mother liked. A man whose own mother already loved Kate. A man whose kisses were like something out of a fever dream.

In the silence of her deepest heart, Kate admitted to herself she could love Josh if she let herself. If things were different. If they had more time. In a different world. But in this one, in addition to all those things, he was also a man addicted to a way of life that had no place in it for a quiet, party-shunning academic, who needed to grow roots to be happy or even properly sane.

So she could not be in love with him. What she felt for him must simply be lust. It had to be. And probably was, mostly.

Yet in spite of that – or maybe because of it – she was still going to throw away everything she had had with Alain. After all, if she could fall so deeply in lust with Josh so quickly, could she really have been in love with Alain in the first place? Did she even know what love was?

No wonder her head hurt. Not to mention her heart. She rubbed her eyes and realised that Josh was still waiting for an answer. She sighed and turned back to him.

‘Look Josh, everything you said is true. But maybe he had reasons we don’t know about for what he did. Maybe he’s sorry. I don’t know, and I won’t know until I have heard what he has to say. I have to hear him out. I owe him that much.’

‘But —’ Josh began, before Kate cut him off.

‘But nothing, Josh. I am going to see Alain, and,’ she said, glancing at the clock, ‘if he is prompt, I am going to be seeing him very soon. I think you should go.’

‘If that’s the way you feel about it, of course I will go. I’ve left breakfast on the bench. Eat something. And drink your orange juice. You need the vitamins.’

The words came out clipped and formal, and Kate’s heart ached for him. She wanted to say something, but the words caught in her throat and came out as an inarticulate gurgle. What could she say that would make any difference? It was hopeless.

Josh had paused when she started to speak, but when she stopped and looked away, he quietly picked up his keys and headed for the door. When he got there, he turned back to her, the look on his face unreadable.

‘Goodbye, Kate. I hope you will be very happy.’

Kate gurgled again, but this time, he didn’t stop; he opened the door and left.

It wasn’t until the lift doors had shut behind him, and she had thrown herself on her bed, that she started to weep.

The sound of Jo’s keys in the door brought Kate to her feet, if not her senses. She scrambled off the bed and made a frantic dive for the bathroom as Jo called out to her.

‘Hi, hon! I’m back! Did Josh come up? Have you eaten?’

Kate didn’t answer immediately, as she was vigorously splashing her face with water, in an attempt to mask the fact that she had been crying. She didn’t want to have to explain to Jo something she didn’t understand herself. Jo stuck her head around the bathroom door.

‘I can see he did come. I see the evidence of the breakfast fairy in the kitchen. But I don’t see him, and I don’t see any signs that you have actually eaten anything. What gives?’

Kate dried her face and hoped that her eyes were no more bloodshot than they had been before. She gave her friend a lopsided smile.

‘No, I haven’t eaten anything yet. I’m experiencing an inexplicable loss of appetite this morning.’ She groaned and Jo smiled broadly.

‘Yes, so I see. If you are going to go in for party-girl drinking, we are going to have to work on your stamina.’ She moved on into the kitchen, giving Kate a chance to rearrange her face into what she hoped was an appropriate expression before she followed her.

‘But where is Josh? It’s not like him to leave while there’s food to be had.’ Jo had perched herself on the bench and was helping herself to the fruit and cheese platter that Josh had left. Kate picked up an out-of-season strawberry and bit it to give herself time to work out an answer to the question. She swallowed with difficulty and told Jo the truth – more or less.

‘I thought perhaps it might be better if he wasn’t here when Alain came. And that’s going to be soon, isn’t it?’

Jo looked up at the clock and made a face. ‘Yes, now that you mention it. I should probably push off, too, shouldn’t I? I’ll go round to Mum and Dad’s. I’m overdue for a visit, anyway. If Josh comes back, will you tell him where I am?’ Kate nodded, then stiffened, as the doorbell rang.

Jo jumped down from the bench, gave Kate a quick hug, then pulled back so she could look her in the eye. ‘Good luck, hon. Call me if you need me.’ Kate nodded again, and Jo gave her another hug, before heading quickly down the hall. ‘I’ll let him in,’ she called over her shoulder.

Kate nodded again, pointlessly, since Jo was well out of sight, and sat down, suddenly feeling sicker than she had all morning. She was not looking forward to this. She heard the door open and Jo say something, and a man’s voice reply, then the door closed and footsteps came down the hall. She shut her eyes.

When she opened them, Alain was standing in front of her and the time for dithering was over. She stood up and, motioning him to follow her, moved into the lounge room. She felt more awkward than she would have thought possible in the presence of someone she knew so well. She also felt a bit otherworldly, as though she were separate from this whole thing, watching someone else go through it. Maybe this was what they meant by an out-of-body experience.

‘Please, sit down.’ Her voice was croaky and didn’t sound as though it belonged to her, but at least she had broken the silence. Alain sat down, looking about as comfortable as she felt, and, after a moment, she sat too. Some part of her knew how absurd this was, the two of them sitting perched on the edges of chairs on opposite sides of the room as though they had never met before. But she had never felt less like laughing.

‘Kate . . .’ Alain’s voice sounded strained, too, and he paused to clear his throat, before he went on.

‘Kate, I want to say that I am sorry.’ Kate was silent. She didn’t want to hurt him unnecessarily, but she wasn’t going to make this easy for him, either. She deserved some payback for her two weeks of misery. So she sat and watched him and waited for more.

The silent scrutiny was obviously too much for Alain. He got up and went over to the same window that Kate had looked through earlier as he went on. ‘I am sorry that I hurt you. I handled things very badly.’

He turned back to her, and, against her will, Kate was touched by the anguish on his face. ‘I never wanted to hurt you, Kate. I was trying to do the right thing. I didn’t want things to go on any longer once I knew my heart wasn’t in it.

‘But I still cared for you and I didn’t know how to tell you. So, like a coward, I left it until I could find “the right time”. Then I tried to do what I thought was breaking it to you gently.’ He grimaced. ‘I guess I made a pretty thorough mess of that.’

Kate frowned. There was something wrong with this, but she couldn’t put her finger on what it was. Then he spoke again.

‘Sophie made me realise just how much a mess of it I had made.’

There: that was it. He had said that he ‘cared’ for her. Past tense. And now he was talking about Sophie. Kate felt the ground shift under her. Was it possible –
could
it be possible – that he wasn’t here to ask her to take him back after all? She pressed her hand to her forehead, where the throbbing had suddenly intensified.

‘Alain, hang on . . . I need to get something straight. Why,
exactly
, are you here?’

Alain looked at her as though the question surprised him.

‘I’ve come to apologise for the way I treated you. To – well – make peace, I suppose. I don’t want you to hate me, Kate. You mean too much to me for me to live with that. And Sophie said —’

‘
Sophie
said?’ Kate’s incredulity was rapidly becoming anger. ‘Alain, are you trying to tell me that you came all the way out here to tell me that you are still with Sophie? Why would you do that?’

Alain looked, if possible, even more uncomfortable than he had before.

‘It made more sense when I was in Paris! Sophie said —’

‘Sophie said!’ Fury pushed Kate to her feet. ‘There it is again! For God’s sake, Alain! Did she actually send you here?’ Kate was more or less apoplectic by this stage, but she couldn’t help feeling a grudging respect for her former friend. Kate had had enough trouble getting Alain to go out for croissants.

‘Well . . . yes, I suppose she did,’ Alain admitted. He sat down again, looking tired. ‘She nearly killed me when I told her what I had done. She said I must be crazy to think that taking you out to that restaurant to tell you was breaking it to you gently. She said . . .’ Alain looked up at Kate and gulped. He looked so guilty that Kate almost felt sorry for him.

‘She said that you probably thought that I was about to propose to you. She said that I was lucky that I only ended up with your wine thrown in my face. She said that she would have followed it with the glass, if it had been her. She said . . . She said that she had to work with you, and so did I, and if I didn’t get over here and sort this out with you, she would never speak to me again.’

Kate sat down again with a bump. Was it possible for a conversation to be less expected than this one? It sounded as though Sophie had given Alain a tougher time for what he did to her than she had herself. But it also sounded as though Sophie and Alain were still very much together. What was going on?

So engrossed was she in her thoughts that Kate didn’t notice when Alain crossed the room to her. It wasn’t till he took her hand that she realised he was kneeling on the floor in front of her.

Her heart flew to her mouth, burning all the way. Or maybe it was bile. She certainly felt nauseous enough. Then, with her next breath, her brain caught up with her instincts, and she knew that, whatever he was kneeling for, it wasn’t for
that
reason.

‘Kate . . .’ Alain’s voice was quiet, and he seemed to be having trouble finding words again. ‘Kate . . . 
were
you expecting me to propose to you that night?’

Kate looked down at him and felt her anger ebb away. He was looking at her as though he really cared about the answer, and she suddenly found that she actually wanted to have this conversation. She wanted to know what had gone wrong between them.

‘Yes, Alain, I was. What was I supposed to think? We’d been together for a year. Was it so odd that I might think, when you said you had something to say to me, that it was about making things permanent?’

Alain pulled himself up onto the couch next to her and sighed. ‘No, of course not, when you put it like that. Oh Kate, you must think I am such a bastard!’ To her surprise, Kate found herself smiling. Alain had actually used the word ‘bastard’ and it amused her to think that, wherever their paths took them in the future, she had apparently left at least one mark on him, even if it was only a piece of Australian slang.

‘Actually, yes, Alain, I did think you were a complete bastard. Can you understand Jo and Josh’s reaction to you now?’

Alain’s expression darkened at the mention of Josh, but Kate jumped in before he could voice the question she could see forming on his lips.

‘Oh, no you don’t, Alain. You do not get to ask
anything
about Josh. In case you have forgotten, I’m not the one who is supposed to be explaining here.’ She took a deep breath. She was calmer than she had ever expected to be while having this conversation, but the question she was about to ask was still not going to be easy.

‘So I take it you never intended to propose to me?’

Alain swallowed, but had the grace to look into her eyes as he replied. ‘No, Kate. I’m sorry.’

He had spoken softly, and he really looked sorry too, but it didn’t help. Before she had seen him this morning, she had known that there was no future for them. A little voice inside her said that she’d known that for a while now. But oh, the difference between being the dumper and the dumped!

She stood up and moved away. Her pride demanded an answer to another question, but she couldn’t stand to look at him as she asked it.

‘What does Sophie have that I don’t, Alain? You haven’t known her that long. What about her was so right that you would get rid of me to be with her? What about me was so wrong?’

‘Actually, she is a lot like you, Kate.’

Kate spun around to face him.

‘What?’

‘Really, Kate, I mean it. She’s loyal and kind like you, she’s passionate about a lot of the same things you are, she even likes the same music . . .’ He tailed off. ‘Kate, why are you looking at me like that? You know all this stuff about Sophie. She’s your friend, after all.’

‘Not any more!’ Kate retorted. ‘But that’s not the point, Alain! If Sophie’s so much like me, why did you want
her
? Was I too staid? Too serious? Had I worn out my warranty? Did you trade me in for a younger model?’ Kate was getting angry again. This made no sense.

‘She’s actually older than you, Kate.’ Alain sounded a little peeved himself, now.

‘What?’ Kate snapped. ‘What do you mean she’s older than me? She’s barely started her doctorate! In case you have forgotten, Alain, I finished mine some time ago
and
completed my post-doc
and
am now lecturing.’ Kate smacked her head, as something occurred to her. ‘Maybe that’s what’s wrong with me! Maybe I threaten you, now that I’m your peer. Maybe you can only cope with students.’ She snorted. ‘Is that it, Alain? Poor Sophie! Will you trade her in, too, when she gets too educated?’

Alain looked as if he could cheerfully have smacked her, but, with a visible effort, he controlled himself and spoke calmly.

‘Kate, I know you have plenty of reasons to be mad at me, but that isn’t fair. She is NOT younger than you. Not everyone goes straight from school to university to doctoral studies. Surely she has mentioned the time she spent travelling?’ Alain paused, and Kate remembered that Sophie had actually spoken about her time off study. But she was still too angry to give him a civil answer, so she didn’t speak. Alain shrugged and went on.

‘And as for me not being able to cope with your level of education . . . Kate, do you not know how proud I was of your achievements? Did you never hear how much I bragged about you, about how great I thought you were to be able to lecture at university level in your second language? For God’s sake, Kate, our admiration of you was one of the first things that Sophie and I ever talked about!’

Kate was stunned. In her head, she heard her mother’s voice, saying
Kate, you are too hard on yourself. You need to learn to hear compliments, as well as criticism
. Had she really heeded her advice so little? When she rejected her mother’s lifestyle, had she thrown out her love and acceptance as well? Alain was saying that he had always admired her, and she had no reason to think he was lying. With the notable exception of his relationship with Sophie, she had never known him to lie. Yet it
was
news to her. What else had she not known about their relationship? About him? About herself?

She felt her way into the armchair behind her and sat down again. Her anger had deserted her once more, and she needed something supporting her if she was to have any hope of finishing this conversation in one piece.

‘So what was it, then? If I’m so great, why did you want her instead?’ Her voice sounded reedy and petulant, like a disappointed child’s, even to her own ears. She hated it, but it couldn’t be helped. The way she felt, she was lucky to be getting any sound out at all.

Alain passed a hand over his eyes.

‘Kate . . . Kate, I . . .’ He seemed to be having trouble talking, but Kate waited quietly and more or less patiently. She needed an answer to this question. She could wait all day, if necessary.

She waited for what felt like a long time, although it was actually only about thirty seconds. Finally, he blurted out, ‘She wants to have children.’

What? Had she heard him correctly? Was that supposed to be an answer? No. NO! She needed something better than that. She needed an answer that made sense.

‘Alain, what are you talking about? She wants to have children? What does that mean? Do you think I don’t?’

His voice was quiet as he replied.

‘Not with me, Kate.’

‘Did you ever ask me, Alain? Did we ever have this conversation? How dare you make that judgement for me!’

Alain remained calm, which incensed her even more.

‘Kate, I didn’t have to ask you. You talked about it often enough.’