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10
JESS

As he said it his fingers found mine. When he squeezed my hand, I was back at my grandmother’s funeral remembering how I used to think we’d always be together. His jacket felt heavy on my shoulders, his presence next to me almost intoxicating. He had walked away from me the summer after my father died. There had been a time when I never thought I’d forgive him for that.

And yet, here we were.

‘I can’t stop thinking about you either,’ I said, not letting go of his hand.

‘Tell me something I couldn’t possibly know,’ he said.

I smiled. This was a game we used to play as children. When he came home from boarding school for the holidays we’d tell each other things we couldn’t possibly know because we’d been so far apart for so long. But there was so much to tell him this time that he couldn’t possibly know, and I didn’t know where to start. There were things I didn’t want him to know.

I felt his hand shift slightly in mine, his thumb tracing my knuckles. There was something I could tell him, something I could trust him with.

‘Have you ever heard of the author CJ Rose?’ I asked.

‘Yes,’ he said slowly. ‘I loved both of those books and I can’t wait for the next one. They reminded me of you actually.’

‘In what way?’

‘The fact that they’re set in Ancient Greece.’ I’d loved Classics since I was a child and read my degree in it. It’s why I chose to set my books in the fourth century BC. ‘But you’re meant to be telling me something I couldn’t possibly know, not quiz me about what books I like.’

‘Have you ever wondered who CJ Rose is?’ I asked.

‘Doesn’t everyone wonder who CJ Rose is?’ he said. He sat up straighter then, looking at me. ‘Oh, do you know?’ he said, excited for the gossip I might impart. ‘Tell me!’

‘Do you remember my middle name?’

‘Of course I do, it’s Rose …’ He stopped for a minute. ‘Jessie?’

I grinned. I couldn’t help myself. While I loved the subterfuge and didn’t really want anyone to know who I was, I also loved it when people found out.

‘Jessie, are you CJ Rose?’

‘Yup!’

‘So this is what you meant by freelance writing?’

‘I came up with the idea when I was sick. It took forever to write that first one but I got there in the end.’

‘My God, Jessie, that’s incredible! Wasn’t the second one shortlisted for an award?’

‘It was,’ I replied. ‘I’m hoping the third book will win one.’

He let go of my hand then and wrapped his arm around my shoulders, pulling me towards him. It felt good to be so close to him after all these years, as though we were two jigsaw pieces fitting back together again.

‘You have to promise you won’t tell anyone,’ I said pulling away from him, panicking suddenly.

‘I promise,’ he said, placing his hand on his chest. ‘Cross my heart.’

‘Thank you.’

‘But why is it so important?’ he asked. ‘It’s such a huge achievement, why don’t you want anyone to know?’

‘The people who matter know,’ I replied. I wasn’t ready to answer his question. I wasn’t ready to tell him that when my agent initially showed an interest in the first book, I was too ill to leave the house and that I’d written the second book before she and I finally met in person. When a publisher first made a tentative offer on the book, my agent had the idea to put it out under a pen name so I didn’t feel pressured to do interviews or book signings. Over the last three years CJ Rose had become quite the enigma. I sometimes wondered if it was the mystery that sold the books rather than the writing.

Rupert smiled at me. ‘Does that mean I’m someone who matters?’ he asked.

And then the ice was broken and the awkwardness seemed to disappear. We sat on the bench and talked and talked while the twilight turned to night around us and the sounds of Gemma’s wedding reception continued in the background. He asked about my books and I told him how I came up with the idea of a detective novel set in Ancient Greece one rainy Sunday afternoon in Highgate and how, once I started thinking about it, I couldn’t stop. I told him about my agent and how she’d signed me on the strength of my first three chapters and I told him about the long agonising wait for a publisher. We laughed to discover that our books were published by different imprints of the same publisher. All these years and neither of us had known.

We talked about people we used to know in Cambridge and what they were doing now. I told him about Caitlin’s family and Gemma’s husband and he told me that his best friend John was still in Cambridge, married with three children and a job in IT that Rupert didn’t understand; that they met for a beer whenever Rupert went back to visit his parents, which I guessed wasn’t very often. He didn’t talk about his parents at all.

‘Tell me something I couldn’t possibly know,’ I said.

He paused for a moment. ‘Mine’s nowhere near as good as yours,’ he said.

‘Tell me anyway.’

‘Do you remember Dan Kelly?’

I felt my stomach drop. What could he possibly know about Dan Kelly?

‘Of course I remember him,’ I said.

‘Well, did you know that he’s a regular photographer for National Geographic now? That camera that always hung around his neck came in useful in the end.’

‘That’s amazing! Good for him,’ I replied. I had a strange need to stand up for Dan. There was a bitterness in the way Rupert spoke and I wasn’t sure why. I knew Dan had never heard from Rupert again after he left for America – it was as though Rupert had severed connection with everyone when he boarded that plane – but I’d never known if he and Dan had fallen out before he left.

‘So you didn’t know?’

I shook my head. But of course I already knew – I knew he’d gone to India on an assignment for National Geographic five years ago. I was there when he got the gig. I was there when he told me he was going to turn it down to stay in London to look after me. And I was there when he left – it was me who persuaded him to go.

‘Did you and Dan not stay in touch?’ Rupert asked.

‘For a while,’ I replied. It wasn’t quite a lie.

‘I guess everything changed after Ed died,’ he said, finally acknowledging my father’s death.

I’d forgotten that Rupert called my father Ed. As I recall he was the only person who ever got away with it. Even Mum called him Edward. But Rupert was the son my dad never had, just as Dad was the father Rupert wished he’d had. I had never given enough thought, over the years, to how much Dad’s death affected Rupert; that perhaps he only left because he couldn’t cope with staying.

‘We should go back inside,’ I said. ‘People will wonder where we’ve got to.’

Rupert seemed to snap out of the reverie he was in then. He turned to me and grinned.

‘Really?’ he said.

‘I’m meant to be here for Gemma, not catching up with old flames!’

‘Old flames?’ he replied, raising an eyebrow. ‘Is that what I am?’

‘I don’t know what you are, Rupert,’ I said quietly. ‘I never expected to see you again.’

We stood up then, an awkward silence descending where there had been nostalgic chat. Rupert looked at his watch.

‘I should probably leave if I’m going to catch the last train,’ he said.

‘You’re not staying?’ I felt strangely disappointed at this.

He shook his head. ‘I never expected this either, Jessie,’ he said. ‘But I hope you’ll let me see you again.’

‘I don’t know …’ I began. I didn’t know why I was reluctant. There was so much that we hadn’t said.

‘Can we swap numbers this time at least?’ he asked. ‘Just in case.’

I smiled and nodded as he reached towards me to take his phone out of the pocket of his jacket that still hung from my shoulders. I gave him my number and he tapped it into his phone. Then he typed something else and I heard my phone beep from inside the clutch bag that still rested on the arm of the bench we’d been sitting on.

‘Now you have my number too,’ he said.

I reached for my bag but he touched my arm.

‘Read it later,’ he said. ‘And I’ll leave it up to you to call. I hope you do, but if you don’t want to for any reason, I understand.’

I slipped his jacket off my shoulders and handed it back to him. ‘You’re sure you can’t stay any longer?’ I asked.

He slung his jacket over his arm and glanced away from me. ‘I should go,’ he said.

When he looked back at me, when his eyes met mine, I felt myself slipping – hovering undecidedly. He used to be everything I ever wanted. I knew now that kind of contentment could never be laid at the feet of another person, but was Mum right? Was he still someone I wanted to spend time with?

As he looked at me he closed the gap between us, his hand on my lower back, drawing me towards him. He was so close, just as he used to be.

‘Jessie,’ he whispered. He bent his head towards me, his lips so close I could feel the warmth of his breath. ‘Have you ever wondered “what if?”’

My breath caught in my throat. Part of me wanted to turn away but I couldn’t. Because I had wondered ‘what if?’ – I’d been wondering for the best part of a decade. I’d been wondering as I tried to forget Rupert. I’d even been wondering as I fell in love with someone else. I’d never thought that Rupert had wondered ‘what if?’ as well.

But here he was standing with me in his arms and even though I knew that neither of us were being honest with each other, that both of us had stories to tell, I couldn’t turn away.

When his lips found mine, it felt as though time stood still for a moment, as though the last decade hadn’t happened and we were standing by the River Cam, the centre of each other’s worlds again. As he kissed me, I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him close, kissing him back. It felt as though nothing had changed. I was kissing Rupert Tremayne and it was glorious.

… The summer after our GCSEs everything changed. When you came home that July you were taller again, nearly 6’3”, broader in the shoulders. You’d started shaving. You felt more man than boy. You felt as though you’d outgrown me, as though you’d left me behind. I didn’t understand why this new version of you suddenly made me feel so strange. It was as though I was scared of who you were becoming.

The Saturday evening after you got back from school, I found you waiting for me when I came home. You were sitting on the steps of my house reading a battered paperback, which you stuck in your pocket when I appeared.

We walked over the bridge towards the Common, towards the Fort St George, the pub we knew we’d get served in as long as we sat in the garden. You held my hand and asked me how I was. From the outside I don’t suppose we looked any different from the two kids who used to play football here before GCSEs and boarding schools. But from the inside everything felt so different. Your hand almost burned in mine and your eyes flicked towards me constantly, as though you were checking I was still there. You had always been so sure of yourself, but you weren’t that night.

I thought I’d worked out what was going on before you turned me away from the pub. A group of people we’d known our whole lives were sitting outside but as soon as you saw them you changed direction.

‘Let’s go for a walk,’ you said. It wasn’t like you to put a walk before a pint.

We walked along the river by the side of the houseboats. We sat on the bench we used to sit on with my dad sometimes, the bench he always sat on when he let us swim in the river. You didn’t let go of my hand. Sometimes it felt as though you’d been holding my hand since my grandmother’s funeral. I never wanted to let you go but I was so sure that what you were going to say would mean that I would have to let go forever.

‘Everything feels different, doesn’t it?’ you asked. You didn’t look at me; you looked out across the river. ‘I think we’re growing up.’

‘I knew this would happen,’ I replied quietly. I wanted to take my hand away, but you were holding on too tightly.

You turned to look at me, your eyes meeting mine.

‘You knew what would happen?’ you asked. You looked panic-stricken. Part of me was glad that you were hurting too.

‘I knew you’d meet someone first. I knew you’d get a girlfriend.’ I looked away again, feeling childish. ‘You’re so good-looking and clever.’ I could hear the whine in my voice. I hated it. You still didn’t let go of my hand and when I looked at you again you were smiling. How could you smile when you knew my heart must be breaking?

‘Who is she?’ I demanded. ‘Do I know her?’ Please don’t let it be one of the girls from school. Please don’t let it be Camilla.

You touched my chin then, turning my head gently towards you. You’d stopped smiling.

‘She’s you,’ you said so quietly I could hardly hear you. ‘She’s you, I hope.’

It took me too long to realise what you meant. We sat there, on that bench, by that familiar stretch of river where we’d swum as children, by the stretch of Common where my dad taught us to fly a kite. I didn’t say anything. I knew it was my turn to speak but I felt as if the memories were falling in on me, weighing me down. I wanted to be a kid again. I wasn’t sure that I liked growing up after all.

‘I love you, Jessie,’ you said. ‘I can’t stop thinking about you. You’re my best friend, you always have been, but now we’re older it just feels different.’

‘You want me to be your girlfriend?’ I asked. It sounded such a childishly simple explanation for the complex emotions I was feeling at that moment. It felt like the time you asked me to marry you in the playground.

‘Yes,’ you said. ‘I want you to be my girlfriend. I’ve wanted nothing else for months. I was just waiting.’

‘Waiting for what?’

‘Until we were both sixteen,’ you said, blushing slightly. I suddenly realised how serious you were.

I felt as though I was at a crossroads. I didn’t feel ready to be anybody’s girlfriend yet. I was scared that this would change everything forever, and we would never get back what we used to have. But I also knew that we’d already outgrown what we used to have and that if I said ‘no’ now it would hurt you so much you’d walk away, and I’d never see you again. Looking back on that moment I never really felt as though I had a choice. That moment had been fated since we were born.

‘Jessie?’ you said, your face a question, and I nodded. I wanted to say yes, that it had always been yes, but all I could do was nod.

And then you kissed me. It was clumsy and awkward; there was too much tongue and you tasted of toothpaste and cigarettes, and something else that was almost animal. But it felt like the best thing that had ever happened. A wave of warmth washed over my body as you pulled away from me, smiling.

‘I think we need more practice,’ you said. You looked so happy and relaxed suddenly and I realised that I couldn’t remember the last time I saw you relax. I thought it was the pressure your parents put you under to achieve so highly, but suddenly I wondered if it was something else causing you so much distress. How long had you been holding all of this in? How long had you been waiting for me?

I don’t know how long we stayed there on that bench that evening practising kissing, finding the ways that we worked together. It didn’t take long to get the hang of it – we always knew how well we fitted, like jigsaw pieces clicking into place. We both lost track of time, and the next thing we knew was the thump of a pair of hands landing on our shoulders, the sound of your mates whistling at us.

‘So this is where you are,’ John said, grinning at us. ‘We’ve been waiting for you in the pub for ages.’ Nobody said anything about the kiss then. I knew though, that they’d wait until later, until I wasn’t there, to rib you about it. Everyone started to walk away from us except John.

‘Are you coming to this party then?’ he asked. I didn’t know anything about a party. I was always the last to find out anything. I suspected, since you hadn’t mentioned it, that you had no intention of going anyway. You hated parties.

You’d known John almost as long as you’d known me, and I saw a look pass between you, one of understanding, the conclusion to a conversation that I wasn’t party to. I had the feeling that you and he had already spoken about this, that finding us kissing hadn’t come as much of a surprise to him.

‘Maybe we’ll catch you up,’ you said. John, not usually so easily dissuaded, nodded and walked away, everybody else following.

You draped one arm around my shoulders then, and pulled me towards you. With your other hand you got your cigarettes out of your pocket, knocking two out of the packet and lighting them, handing one to me. I rested my head on your chest as I had done a million times before but again it was different. I could hear your heart beat, feel your breathing and the warmth of your body, and it all felt so different to the last time we sat here smoking at Easter. How could three months change so much?

‘Do you want to go to this party?’ you asked after a while.

‘Whose party is it?’

‘You know,’ you replied, dropping your cigarette on the floor and scrubbing it out underneath your boot, ‘I have no idea.’ We giggled together, both knowing full well we weren’t going to the party.

‘Shall we go back to mine?’ you asked instead. ‘There’s beer and Mum and Dad are still in France.’

I looked up at you. ‘If we go back to yours can we keep practising kissing?’

‘Do you think we need more practice?’ you asked.

‘Lots,’ I replied …