The Second Time I Saw You: The Oxford Blue Series #2 (23 page)

That makes a change from it being my fault, I think, but it’s no consolation to me and not helping his mood. I’ve heard him blame himself before, in his nightmares.

‘Fuck it.’ He walks to the fireplace and leans on it, his head bowed. ‘I’m going to have to leave the army.’ Then he snaps to attention. ‘I’m going to call Brandon and
go out looking for her. If I hadn’t been drinking, I’d drive myself.’

‘I only had a glass of wine much earlier, but I’m not insured for your car or I’d take you. But what if she comes back here while we’re out? Surely it would be better to wait a while, at least until the clubs close in Oxford?’

He paces the room. ‘I can’t let anything happen to her, Lauren. I’ve got to keep her safe.’

I put my arms around him and, to my relief, he doesn’t push me away. ‘You won’t. It’s only one a.m. She’s probably having a fantastic time in some club or at a friend’s house and has lost track of the time.’ That sounds lame, even to me, but I carry on. ‘She’ll be back soon, I’m sure.’

Hours later, Alexander is slumped in the chair opposite me, staring at his mobile. Like me, I think he’s willing it to ring. Yet it hasn’t, nor has Emma answered any of our calls. I’ve managed to persuade him not to call the hospitals or police so far, because I know they won’t take it seriously at this stage.

The chimes of the clock in the hallway cut through the silence of the house, one, two, three, and Alexander jumps up. ‘That’s it, I’m calling Brandon and I’m going to look for her. Can you wait up and call me if she comes home?’

Without waiting for a reply, he dials Brandon’s number and has just started talking to him when I hear the key scrape in the lock and the door open.

‘That must be her!’ I fly to the hallway and with a quick word to Brandon, Alexander is out of his seat after me.

Emma is framed in the doorway, her long hair plastered to her head, her velvet coat soaked. Her face is wet and, instinctively, I know that the moisture is not just raindrops.

Behind me, Alexander hasn’t noticed she’s crying and snaps, ‘Where the fuck have you been? I’ve been out of my mind with worry.’

‘Emma, what’s the matter?’ I ask and reach out to her, but she pushes past me to Alexander. He folds her in his arms and holds her while she heaves in great shuddering breaths. After a minute or two, he gently tilts her chin up to him and lifts the strands of wet hair from her face.

I’m only a spectator now and I can almost feel the strain in every syllable when he asks her, ‘Has someone hurt you?’

Emma lets out a strangled howl. My heart is in my mouth.

‘It’s Henry-y-y,’ she says with a gargling sob. ‘He’s d-d-dumped me.’

The clock ticks on, while Alexander struggles to process what she just said.

‘You mean Henry Favell?’

‘Yes.’ Emma mumbles now, perhaps already wishing the name unsaid. I don’t know what to do or say.

‘
Has
he hurt you?’

‘N-no. Not in
that
way.’

‘So, that’s where you were tonight? With him?’

She hesitates. ‘Yes.’

Alexander lets his arms fall from her body and walks into the sitting room like we don’t exist. Emma is left forlorn in the middle of the hall. I stay where I am, trying not to think of the fall-out which is about to follow.

Emma sniffs loudly, then says in a tiny voice, ‘Oh fuck.’

She looks at me, I look at her, and then she dashes into the sitting room after him. When I walk in, Alexander is standing in front of the mantelpiece, leaning on it with both hands, but I can see his expression in the mirror. It’s tight with fury and disappointment.

‘Why do you hate him so much?’ Emma’s voice rises to a shriek.

He doesn’t turn round, either because he doesn’t trust himself to or because he knows we can see him.

‘Look at the state of you now. Do I need another reason? Why do you think he’s after you anyway?’

‘He said he loved me. Why, do you think no one could love me?’

He bursts out laughing and whips round to face us both. ‘Of course I do, but not that bastard. He’s not fit to lick your fucking boots.’

‘This is not helpful …’ I have to stand up for Emma even if she has dropped me in deep shit.

‘It’s also none of your business.’ Alexander doesn’t even look at me as he says it but keeps his eyes on Emma.

‘I could rip his balls off for hurting you but I’m not sorry it’s over between you.’

Emma looks at him, distraught.

‘Listen, I care about you and I don’t want to see you like this.
Why
have you started seeing him again? You know he’s a devious piece of shit.’

Her voice rises in pitch. ‘I’ve already told you, I loved him. He said he loved me. I know you hate him so why would I tell you I was going out with him? I know you got Rupert to warn him off last year; you had no right to do that.’

‘I have every right. You’re sixteen.’

‘Seventeen. I can shag who I like. You do.’

I wince.

Alexander speaks slowly, every syllable enunciated in his cut-glass accent. ‘I’m responsible for you, and Henry Favell is a lying bastard.’

‘You were engaged to Valentina and she’s an evil bitch, so now we’re even. Thank fuck you dumped her and found someone normal, like Lauren. At least I can fucking talk to her! At least she listens to me when no one else will. She understands how I feel, don’t you, Lauren? What I felt for Henry?’

Emma is staring at me, pleading with her eyes and her voice.

I’ve never been in an auto accident but I’ve heard people say that just before the moment of impact, their brain slows everything down and they see the inevitable happen, but they’re powerless to do a thing to stop it.
Alexander is that truck approaching, a massive object sliding towards me.

He looks at me questioningly and I try to keep my face impassive as I see his eyes widen in shock, and something else I can’t quite detect. ‘You knew,’ he says.

Bang. I fly up into the air, tumbling over and over.

‘
You knew she was still seeing him
.’ He repeats the words.

‘She was only trying to help.’ Emma’s voice is a tiny squeak, mouse-like, and my first instinct is to laugh at them both. It’s really no big deal, I want to say, look at yourselves. She’s young and finding her way; you’re acting like some Victorian father. You’re way out of your depth here, with all that’s happened, and you won’t admit it.

‘I’m sorry, Lauren,’ says Emma, touching my arm.

‘Hey, it doesn’t matter.’ The words come out of my mouth but I hadn’t actually thought of them. I certainly don’t mean them.

‘No, of course it doesn’t matter,’ says Alexander so carefully I’m shaking inside. I’m also mad as hell at him, but me shouting won’t help anyone now, least of all Emma, who has crossed to Alexander and put her arms around him.

‘You’re angry. I’m sorry. I thought he loved me,’ she says intent on her brother’s face. I have the feeling that I’ve suddenly turned into the villain, that I’ve been shut out by the Hunts.

Alexander holds her. ‘I’m sure he was very convincing. Did he give any reason why he decided to upset you like this?’

‘He … he said … I was too young and it was too much hassle sneaking around behind people’s backs. He said he wasn’t prepared to act like a guilty schoolboy and that maybe you were right; he was too old for me. So, you see, you got your way in the end. You win, Alex, like you always do.’

‘Winning was never the aim, Emma. Protecting you was.’

‘But I don’t need protecting and please, don’t blame Lauren. She tried to tell me not to see him; she said you’d be like this.’

‘Did she really? What a shame she didn’t think it would be a good idea to share her thoughts and opinions with me.’

Emma lets go of him and scoots backwards. ‘Because you’d kick off like this, just like Daddy. I bet Mummy would have let me see him; I know she’d have been more reasonable.’

‘I can see you’re upset and, despite what you may think, I do have some sympathy with you. I’m not some robot who has no feelings, but you have no idea what our mother would have thought or done. I can tell you now she’d have been fucking horrified to see you wasting your life on Favell and being found drunk in the street.’

‘Maybe she would be here now if you hadn’t been screaming at me in the back of the car. I do remember that bit!’ Emma shrieks. ‘She told you to stop teasing me and act your age. She looked round at us to shout at
you and that’s why she hit the tree. It
was
your fault. Daddy said it and he was right.’

Alexander’s face is stony and I can’t bear to watch them throwing accusations like this at each other. It’s like a shutter has come down in Alexander and he can’t be reached, even if either of us wanted to. ‘Go to bed, if you like,’ he says coldly. ‘Go back out on the streets if you want. Do whatever you like.’

She rushes out of the room, crying. I have seen Alexander close to tears once this year and now I see it again. No matter how angry I am at being blamed for this mess, I also feel sorry for him. Sorry for them all, and glad I was born where I was, to my parents, not theirs. I stay, knowing there’s nothing I can, should or want to do, but I try. I reach out to touch his arm, knowing I’m approaching a wounded tiger.

‘Alexander …’

‘Just leave me alone.’

I did leave him alone. I went up to bed but I can’t say I slept much, with Emma crying down the hallway and Alexander pacing about downstairs. I feel as if I’ve been awake all night but each time I checked the clock at the side of the bed, the hands had leaped forward a little more, so I guess I have dozed, or dreamed or something. What I do know is that Alexander hasn’t joined me and that the first light of dawn is starting to wash the wall with a blue light.

I pull on a robe and make my way downstairs. There’s no sign of life so I make a pot of coffee and sit at the table. A while later, I hear the front door open and someone – it must be Alexander – walks into the kitchen. His T-shirt has an upturned ‘V’ of perspiration and he’s breathing heavily. He walks right past me without sparing me a glance, takes a glass from the cupboard and fills it with water. He drinks it straight down and then refills it, all as if I am invisible.

I knew it would be bad, but not like this. He has wiped me from the face of the earth.

‘You’re going to have to talk to me some time,’ I say as he wipes the back of his mouth with his hand.

He rinses out the glass and places it upturned on the drainer.

‘I’m sorry, Alexander. I really struggled with not telling you and perhaps I made the wrong call, but at the time I thought it was more important that she had one person she could be honest with, and who she could turn to. I hoped it would blow over and you would never need to know,’ I add, feebly, desperately hoping for any kind of reaction from him.

He stands at the sink, gripping the edge of the countertop either side. Anger bubbles up inside me and I abandon my coffee mug on the table.

‘That time I found the receipt for the pregnancy test at Falconbury. That wasn’t your test, was it?’ He directs this question to the window above the sink. The sun has started to creep above the garden wall. It’s a
glorious spring morning, dew sparkling on the bushes and cobwebs.
Perfect
.

My palms are moist, my pulse spikes but the one thing I cannot do is lie. ‘No.’

His face is like stone, and his eyes are twin ice chips. ‘I see.’ He turns away from the sink and starts to walk towards the kitchen door. Whatever I expected when he found out, it wasn’t this: I have been blanked, wiped from his radar, shut out.

‘I don’t think you see quite how impossible a position I was in,’ I plead.

He stops and, finally, he faces me, although I may as well not be in his sightline. He has already worked out his response to last night’s events and his strategy is to refuse to engage. There will be no negotiation, but I won’t stand for it.

‘On the contrary, I see it all. You knew Emma was sleeping with a man ten years older, who actually went to her school to shag her, and who is a gold-digging piece of shit. And yet you decided not to inform me of this fact.’

‘It’s not that simple, and you know it.’

‘It looks simple to me. You’re the one who’s keeping secrets now. And now I have to go away when I really don’t feel comfortable leaving either of you. You knew she was – and probably still is – seeing this bastard and yet you didn’t tell me. Why?’

‘Because you would have killed him, because Emma begged me not to because of your reaction, because
she
trusted
me and she clearly thinks she has no one else to trust.’

‘That all sounds so reasonable, Lauren, except for one thing.
I
trusted you, more than anyone else. Clearly, I was deluded.’

Deluded
?
I’m not taking that. I’ve tried to apologize and explain but he won’t listen to any kind of reason. ‘This isn’t about Emma, is it? It’s about you and … the pressure you have on your shoulders, the invincible Alexander Hunt. I risked my studies for you, I gave you my time and my nights and my sympathy and my body. I tried to protect your sister and help her when no one else would and you seem to think I’ve betrayed you. Well, you know what? I want to live my life. I want to spend what’s left of my time here enjoying myself, living my own life, dealing with my own screw-ups, not trying to solve yours.’

He watches me while I rant at him, without registering any emotion himself. He has pulled down the shutters again and I think it’s final this time. Well, so be it.

‘If that’s how you feel, I’ll take Emma back to Falconbury and you can stay here until your flight to Washington,’ he says.

‘I don’t need your charity. I’m going back to college.’ I hold my head up high, trying to control the tears that threaten.

‘Whatever you like. The last thing I want to do is hold you back,’ he spits out bitterly, and I turn and leave the room to gather my things.

From the Front Quad, the statues stare back at me, and their puritanical stone faces seem to say ‘I told you so’. I’ve been back in my room a while now, convincing myself I’m working on my exam essays but largely staring out of the window and trying not to flick through my Facebook albums. I haven’t cried yet; I still feel numb at what’s happened, even though, looking back now, the whole mess was inevitable. When someone knocks at my door, I’ve half a mind to get into bed and pull the comforter over me and never come out, but then I hear Immy’s voice. ‘Lauren.’

When I open the door, in place of the smile, I get a face of doom and raw, red eyes.

‘Skandar and I broke up,’ she says.

‘Oh shit. Come here.’ There’s a group hug and I know she’s trying not to cry so I let her go and say, ‘Come in. I’ll get the vodka.’

I sit her in my office chair and find the bottle, some orange juice and some glasses. I could say, ‘Join the club,’ and tell her about Alexander but that can wait. She needs me to listen now; she needs me to be the shoulder to cry on and the maker of large vodkas, the finder of secret stashes of Hotel Chocolat.

‘What happened? You seemed so happy last time you saw him.’

‘I was. I thought he was too but he said it was better to do this now than wait until next term, when we have exams. He said he wants to go off to the States to coach tennis and just bum around, as he put it, and that it was better to make a clean break now. A clean break? What’s that?’

She blows her nose noisily. I sit by her, helpless to do anything other than listen.

‘Maybe he really thought it was best, but that doesn’t help. I do know how you feel.’ So much more than you think.

‘Things turned out OK in the end though, didn’t they? You got back with Alexander, not that I want Skandar back, the shit. I could never trust him again. You and Alexander got through so much, with Scott, and Alexander’s vile relations and the whole sex tape thing, and anyone who can drive away that witch Valentina must mean a lot to him.’

‘You think?’ I swallow the lump in my throat, which has grown to brick-sized proportions. I can’t keep this facade up. So is now the time to tell her? Really, there is no point going through the whole ‘men are bastards’ scenario. They are, of course – that’s a given today – but in my case, I shoulder half the blame for even hoping that things might have run smoothly between Alexander and me. Whoever said marriage was the triumph of hope over experience must have had dating
Alexander in mind too. Or maybe that should be the triumph of lust over experience.

Instead of whining, I nod and agree while we drink the vodka. I also fetch a new box of Kleenex and feel guilty because Immy deserves my undivided attention yet inside my own heart slowly cracks in two. The shock of the anaesthetic is wearing off: finally the pain starts to hit, sharp and unrelenting. Alexander and I are over.

‘What am I going to do, Lauren?’ Immy winds a Kleenex round her finger.

‘I can’t give advice. I wish I could, but I’m the queen of fuck-ups myself.’

‘What do you mean?’

I wish I could keep up the facade a while longer but I can’t, and maybe it will help Immy to know she’s not the only one feeling like shit. Or maybe I need a hug so badly that I don’t care how selfish I have to be.

‘I’ve had a huge row with Alexander, I’m really not sure we can come back from this one,’ I manage, as the sadness hits me.

‘
What
?
’

‘Yep, this row was terrible; he wouldn’t listen to anything I said and honestly, Immy, I think I’ve had enough. I didn’t come here for this kind of shit.’

‘But what was the row about?’ asks Immy, eyes widening in shock.

‘Well … he blames me for something that wasn’t really my fault, and whatever the rights and wrongs, I felt I was in the middle of an impossible situation. I guess I
should have known it was going to end like this, but that doesn’t make things any easier.’

The whole break-up story pours out and when I finally draw breath, Immy gives her verdict.

‘Jesus Christ. That’s
so
fucking unfair. Emma should never have put you in that position and Alexander shouldn’t have blamed you for it!’

Well, at least I’ve taken Immy’s mind off her own love life for a little while.

‘I guess I have to take some of the blame. Henry is a piece of shit and I knew it and that he would hurt Emma and I should have told Alexander.’

‘But she trusted
you
, and surely it was better to have one person she could open up to than keep everything secret!’

‘They both trusted me, so I suppose I couldn’t win. I still don’t know what I ought to have done. Emma’s had a crappy time, and a shitty childhood for all her privilege. She did try to tell Alexander it was her fault.’

‘And he didn’t listen?’

‘Of course not, but I don’t think he could cope with anything right now. I think he wants life to be black and white at the moment. He wants to keep Emma safe, but I think he maybe wants to control her a bit too much and that’s backfired. I don’t want to walk away from the Hunts, because I really care for Emma, let alone Alexander, but this latest row might just have pushed me too far. I can’t be the punchbag for ever …’ I stop
talking, feeling utterly washed out. Pouring out the latest saga to Immy has made me feel worse, not better.

‘Those two must be so fucked up,’ Immy says. ‘Is there a chance they just need some time to sort themselves out?’ she offers hopefully.

‘You told me the very first time we saw him to steer clear. You told me to keep well away and that he was a load of trouble yet I ignored you. I went looking for trouble and I got addicted to it, the danger, the drama, the rollercoaster, but now the Hunt grenade has exploded in my face – twice, in fact – and I’ve finally learned my lesson.’

‘Oh, Lauren, I am so sorry.’ Immy’s face is full of sympathy.

‘Don’t be.’ I try a weak smile. ‘I had the ride of my life, but I wish I hadn’t wasted two terms taking it.’

‘What a mess,’ she agrees, then her face brightens. ‘I know this isn’t the greatest time to ask, but you will still come to the Boat Race party? It’ll be fun, packed with Blues rowers looking for a good time. We can get pissed, hit the clubs and shops.’ She looks at me pleadingly and I realize she needs cheering up as much as I do.

I summon up a smile. It’s all bravado, of course; what I actually feel like doing is lying down and howling, but that would be letting Alexander win, letting him and his troubled, screwed-up life damage me even more. I won’t let it and if I have to pretend I want to go to this party and dance and drink and laugh, I’ll do it.

I force a bigger smile on to my face, even though it physically hurts. ‘Try stopping me.’

So the term has come to a close, not in the way I expected and not that different from the way the last one ended. I had a final meeting with Professor Rafe after the weekend, at which he said he was ‘pleased with how I’d worked despite the circumstances’ and told me to keep up the standard of the final pieces of work I handed in. He also said that Trinity term – the summer one – would be a huge challenge that would demand my total commitment. I assured him that I was going to be completely focused on my work from now on. I’ve no intention of telling him why but he’s bound to find out that Alexander and I are history at some point.

But now work is over for a while and I’ve needed the distraction of a week away from Alexander and my worries so badly.

For the past few days, we’ve been staying at Immy’s parents’ flat in Chelsea, trying to console each other with a round of shopping, cocktails, dinner and clubbing. Hey, we even managed to get some work done, and I hit the Wallace Collection, the National Portrait Gallery and the Tate Modern. I guess we’ve had a good time, and Immy has shown remarkable powers of recovery. Yet even while I was dancing, I had the strangest sense of not quite being part of my surroundings, like I was watching myself dance and laugh from outside myself. Then again, that could have been the Manhattans.

I’ve had a couple of texts from Emma, saying she’s sorry for causing so much trouble, but I haven’t heard from Alexander. Did I expect him to come after me? Did I even want him to?

And by now, I guess he’s infiltrating some desert outpost or tracking insurgents. I don’t even want to think about it or him, because every time I do, I get angry with myself. But it would be good to know when he gets back, though what right or reason do I have now to ask? Maybe I can text Emma on Sunday, to see how she is? There has to be some way of working in his name.

Then again, if I don’t hear from her, I have no need to ask. I shake my head, laughing at myself. I won’t text, because Alexander will be back on Sunday, screwing up Emma’s life and his own, no doubt.

This morning, we surfaced late after another night out and Immy took me for brunch at a little Russian deli across the street from her flat. We got changed for the party and now I’m watching cherry blossom drift on to the black cab crawling through the traffic to Jocasta’s riverside house in south London. We had a few days of glorious sun that brought people out in shorts and T-shirts in the parks, although the rain has started again now. Immy is next to me, scrolling through her emails. I think she’s secretly hoping to hear from Skandar too, although she seems breezy enough. She glances up from the screen, rubs condensation from the window and says, ‘Oh, we’re here.’

The cab stops and we climb out. Behind the
wrought-iron railings, the brick house is what you might call ‘handsome’, with rows of sash windows and a portico with stone pillars. It reminds me, just a little, of our house in Washington, which is modelled in the English style, and suddenly I want to forget trying to salvage what’s left of my term and be there right now.

‘Not a bad party house, eh?’ Immy pays the driver and we stand on the sidewalk, admiring the house, while he pulls into the traffic again.

‘So this belongs to Jocasta’s family?’ I say, forcing myself to man up.

‘Her granny owns it but she’s moved into a retirement place now. Jocasta’s parents keep meaning to sell it for her, but the family is making so much from renting it that they can’t bear to get rid of it yet. Of course, it’s perfect for watching the Boat Race. The Thames is literally at the end of the garden.’

Immy had said the house was nice but it defies all my expectations. The moment we arrive under the portico, the door opens.

‘You made it, then.’

Jocasta air-kisses us both and gives Immy a hug. She’s blonde, like me, but there the similarity ends. Jocasta is barely five feet tall, I’d say, and coxes the Wyckham Women’s First Eight. Uniformed staff arrive to whisk away our coats.

‘You might need them later. It’s bloody freezing out by the river. Do you want a drink or a quick tour?’

‘Both,’ says Immy with a grin.

Jocasta laughs. ‘OK. There’s Pimm’s or you can have a beer. I know it’s not technically Pimm’s season, but who cares?’

A waiter arrives on cue with a tray of Pimm’s and we follow Jocasta through the hall and into a sitting room with high ceilings and plasterwork. The building may be Edwardian but the furniture is ultra contemporary, with metal tables, black leather sofas and bare-wood flooring. A huge flat-screen TV dominates one wall and is already showing the build-up to the race. A dozen or so people are chatting and drinking in front of the TV and there are more milling about on the other side of a wall of glass doors.

‘Let’s go out on to the deck.’

Jocasta leads us out on to a wide wooden deck which has steps leading down into a lawned garden. The river laps a muddy shoreline directly below it. We’re elevated above the water and I immediately regret handing over my coat so soon because the wind blowing off the river cuts through my dress. Little white horses flick up on the brown surface and iron-grey clouds scud across the dirty white sky.

‘I am
so
glad it’s not me out there today,’ I say, trying not to shiver.

Jocasta laughs. ‘Mmm. It is a bit choppy but maybe it will settle down when the tide turns. Immy says you know one of the Blues rowers? The big blond American, Scott Schulze?’

‘Yes, I do. He’s a good friend,’ I say warmly, realizing
that I mean it, and that I’ve missed Scott’s uncomplicated company.

‘Lucky you! He’s gorgeous. I’ve invited him over later, along with a couple of the other boys from the Blue and
Isis
crews. I don’t expect they’ll arrive until very late because they’ll probably go to the Blues Ball first, and God knows what state they’ll be in by then. They may also decide to drown their sorrows, of course, if they lose.’

‘Do you think Oxford will win?’ Immy asks me, as if I have insider information.

I shrug. ‘Cambridge are slight favourites, aren’t they?’

Jocasta snorts. ‘They must be
so
pissed off after last year’s thrashing and out to get revenge, but who knows? Anything can happen. Remember that guy who jumped in front of the boats a couple of years ago? I can’t remember his name now.’

‘Twat,’ says Immy with a vicious slurp of her Pimm’s. ‘We lost that race because of him.’