The Judas Tree, page 14
Harmony didn’t know what to say. Her cheeks were hot and her mouth dry. She was embarrassed – no, mortified – she’d been that obvious, that she hadn’t done more to hide whatever kind of schoolgirl attraction she unwittingly felt.
He leant close to her ear. His breath was hot against the side of her face. ‘You’re inside my head.’
He eased his grip on her. She felt faint. Her head pounded with a mix of emotions, nerves and vulnerability and anger vying with unwelcome excitement and a feeling of empowerment, the like of which she hadn’t felt in years. The noises of the bar and restaurant – the chatter and laughter of other people, waiters shouting orders, the clatter of plates – all of it faded into the background. Heat pulsed through her. All she needed to do was move her face a fraction closer, lift her chin, and press her lips against his.
Will’s face flashed into her mind.
‘I have to go,’ she whispered.
‘Don’t.’
His eyes locked on hers. She felt herself weaken for a fraction of a second.
No! the voice in her head screamed. For God’s sake what are you doing?
She closed her eyes and lifted her hand, placed it flat against Luke, briefly felt the hardness of his chest, the heat of him beneath his cotton shirt, then pushed him away from her. ‘I have to go,’ she repeated.
‘Because of Will?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Of course because of Will. Because I am married to him and I shouldn’t be here.’
‘Desire is proof you’re alive, Harmony. You don’t have to feel guilt. Without desire we might as well be dead. God knows how short life is. Never ever deny yourself pleasure. Pleasure is like gold dust.’
Harmony felt her chest tightening as if a vice was slowly squeezing the air from her lungs.
‘Look at them,’ he whispered. He turned her head gently in the direction of the couple at the table near them, the woman on her phone, the man with his newspaper. ‘They’re not old,’ Luke said. ‘They’re married but they’ve run out of things to say to each other. They’re at a table in this beautiful restaurant, and she’s looking at other men, bored and disappointed, wondering why she’s there, while he reads The Times obituaries, idly flitting through it in case a familiar name catches his eye. He’s wearing a grey suit, has grey skin, grey hair, sitting with a wife he’s not interested in, wondering if the men he went to school with are dead yet. Is that what you want? To be too scared to make changes that would make you happier? I want you, Harmony. I want to hold you, taste you. I want to be with you in a way other people can’t be. I want you very, very badly.’
Harmony breathed heavily, light-headed on his words, every syllable weakening her. Will’s face came into her head again. She closed her thumb on her wedding ring, felt its solidity against her skin. ‘Christ, what am I doing?’ she whispered.
Then she grabbed her bag and ran through the restaurant away from him, pushing out through the door and onto the pavement. She walked quickly down towards the Cromwell Road, shaking her head, cursing herself for accepting his invitation, for putting herself in that position.
She heard footsteps and looked over her shoulder to see him striding after her.
‘No, go away,’ she said, picking up her pace. ‘Leave me alone.’
He drew up beside her and took hold of her arm to turn her to face him. ‘Harmony—’
‘No, Luke. I’m married.’
Luke looked up at the sky, annoyed, frustrated, even. When he fixed his eyes on her again, they narrowed. ‘But you do feel it too.’ He stared at her. ‘I’m right, aren’t I?’
‘No, you’re not right. Who the hell do you think you are to say all this shit?’ She was cross with herself. Cross for opening herself up to him, for indulging such juvenile feelings of lust and attraction, for falling for his playboy looks like a pubescent girl with a crush on a teacher. She’d met him three times and there she was, tempted to do something stupid, a kiss that would seal the fate of a marriage that already hung in the balance.
She turned away from him and started to walk back down to the main road. When she reached it she looked left and right for a taxi. There were none and she swore. ‘I need a cab,’ she whispered. ‘For God’s sake, I need a cab.’
‘Don’t go.’
He was beside her.
She turned and they faced each other.
‘I know you’re lying. To me and to yourself,’ he said. ‘I know you feel it too.’
She noticed then a fragility about him, an innocence, that belied his boldness.
She threw her head back and stared at the sky above, then looked at him again and sighed heavily. ‘Yes, I feel it, OK? I feel it. But that’s all it can be. A feeling.’ She paused and shook her head. ‘Nothing will ever happen. People can’t help being attracted to each other, but they can help acting on it. I’m married to Will.’
He didn’t reply.
‘Do you understand? We can never be anything more than friends.’
‘That isn’t enough. Being friends doesn’t interest me.’
Harmony didn’t know what to say. His sudden raw intensity both scared and excited her. Until this moment she’d only ever truly desired Will. It was a desire woven into her love for him. Knotted into the way he made her feel – as if she’d come home – and the way he made her laugh and lifted her spirits, the way his happy-go-lucky attitude brought her out of her shell. But the way this man, this stranger, looked at her was potent.
‘We have one life,’ he said. ‘Fate brought us together – fate and circumstance – and I’m not going to apologise for how I feel. Tell me one more time to leave you alone and I will. You can walk away. We never need to see each other again. It’s easy.’
Her body screamed at her to kiss him but she stepped backwards. ‘Leave me alone,’ she whispered.
There was a taxi approaching, its orange light switched on like a beacon. Relief swept over her. ‘Taxi!’ she shouted, stepping off the edge of the pavement, into its path, desperately waving her hand in the air.
‘Harmony—’
‘50 Greenslades Road, Wandsworth, please,’ she said to the driver through the window.
Luke was right behind her. ‘You’re making a mistake.’
‘No,’ she replied. ‘I’d be making a mistake if I stayed.’
She got into the taxi and closed the door without looking at him again, and as they pulled away she laid her head back on the seat. She thought of how close she’d come to kissing him, then thought of Will. She couldn’t hide from him any longer. Being tempted by Luke had clarified her thoughts. She had to talk to her husband.
She leant forward to tap on the glass screen between her and the driver. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I gave you the wrong address. Can you take me to Barons Court instead?’
Chapter Fourteen
In the wine shop, Will was trying to focus on the website of a little-known producer from the southern tip of Italy who had just won a prestigious award at a regional wine festival in Naples. He hated being in the flat without Harmony and had stayed in the shop until late every night since she left. But it was impossible to concentrate. His thoughts constantly drifted back to her, reliving the moment she walked away from him, her gait uncertain, her small suitcase bumping along behind her. He was desperate to speak to her but every time he telephoned she either left the call unanswered or spoke in flat, single-word utterances that left him bereft. At night it was worse, her side of the bed so empty and cold, the bedroom quiet without her restlessness, his stomach a roiling sea. He’d spent most of each night pacing the pavements, consumed by anxiety.
He forced himself back to the Castella de Valde webpage, trying to read words that blurred on the screen. When the bell on the door jangled, he looked up with a start.
‘Harmony?’ He jumped off his stool and came out from behind the counter.
She stood in the doorway, the evening sun behind her casting her face in shadow. He combed his fingers through his hair, aware of his dishevelled appearance, cursing himself for grabbing yesterday’s shirt off the floor that morning.
‘Are you back? Are you coming home?’
She tucked a few stray strands of hair behind her ear. ‘I’m not sure what I’m doing.’
‘I’ve missed you.’ He approached her carefully, as if she were a wild horse and likely to bolt.
She didn’t move. Her eyes flicked over his face, her hurt as raw as it had been the day she left.
‘Shall we go home?’ he said. ‘We can’t talk here.’
She didn’t answer.
‘Harmony?’
‘I think I’d prefer to go for a walk. I’ll go back and change my shoes and put some jeans on. Meet me outside the flat in ten minutes.’
He watched her walk out of the shop and stayed frozen to the spot. His stomach churned. Had she come back to tell him she was leaving for good? If he could he’d have sold his soul to turn back the clock to before the vasectomy, before the miscarriage and the pregnancy, back to when their lives weren’t strapped to this horrendous, out-of-control emotional roller coaster.
Will closed up the till and shut down his computer, then switched the lights off and locked the door behind him. He turned into their street as she emerged from the flat, her work clothes swapped for jeans and a sweater, her hair free of its ponytail. He started to jog and reached her as she stepped onto the pavement. They stood in front of each other, apprehensive and awkward.
‘Where shall we go?’ he asked.
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘The river?’
She nodded.
They walked in strained silence, passing groups of friends enjoying the warm evening, standing outside pubs, spilling onto the pavement, laughing and joking, others rushing to get home or heading to the park for an evening kick-about.
Without warning she stopped in her tracks. ‘You know, I never once questioned you.’ Her voice was tempered with anger. ‘I never once asked you to tell me why you were so against having children. I just accepted it because I loved you.’
The past tense stung him.
‘I want you to explain it to me. You might not think I have a right to know, but I think I do. I want to understand.’
He thrust his hands deep in his pockets and thought for a moment or two. How was he going to formulate his mush of reasons into a coherent answer? There was nothing he could say that was going to help. The argument they were about to have was unavoidable. ‘I have no idea how to be a father.’
‘But that’s ridiculous. Who knows how to be a parent until they become one?’
‘The thought of it scares the shit out of me. I learned nothing from my father. Nothing at all. How on earth can I think of becoming a father if I’ve nothing to fall back on?’
He saw his family then, the three of them – him, his mother, and his father – standing in the car park outside the halls of residence. His mother had fussed around him, reminded him to do his laundry, kissed him, told him to call when he could. His father hanging back, his face devoid of emotion. And Will, full of excitement for his new start, his first step into adulthood, free to get on with his life. He’d looked at his father, given him a moment to step forward, but the man made no move towards him.
Be the bigger man, Will had told himself. You must be the bigger man.
So Will had walked up to him and offered his hand. His father shook it briefly, grasping the other too firmly, before Will let go and straightened his back.
‘I guess I’ll see you at Christmas,’ he’d said, unsure what else to say.
‘I’m sure we’ll see you before then,’ his stony-eyed father replied. ‘You’re bound to cock it up. You always do.’
Will looked at his wife, her questioning eyes burning with livid incomprehension. ‘I’d get it wrong. I’d make mistakes and I know what that does to a child. I’m not like you. I’m not strong like you. I’m not strong enough to raise a child.’
‘I’m not strong.’ She started walking again, her eyes focused on where she was going, her mind working overtime.
‘You are,’ he said, drawing parallel with her. ‘It was the first thing I noticed the day we met. You’d seemed vulnerable and sweet scrabbling around on the floor for your books, then we got talking and I was blown away by how determined and self-assured you were. How independent. Full of fight. You hadn’t had things easy, but you were gutsy and secure, and so optimistic.’
My anchor in a storm, Will had thought, after they’d made love for the first time, squashed together in her narrow bed, basking in the glow of sex. She was his salvation. She was everything he wanted to be: principled, brave, focused on the future and not shackled by the past.
‘I’m not like you. The way I’ve coped isn’t to fight, it’s to box the shit up and pretend it doesn’t exist. Not let it affect my life.’
‘But that’s not true, is it?’ She threw her hands up in frustration as she marched. ‘You can’t pretend it doesn’t exist because it does. You say you don’t let it affect your life but it’s the opposite. Whatever it is you’re hiding affects everything. Your past, this thing you’re trying to block out of your life, is affecting everything.’
He shook his head. ‘This isn’t a nice world. Children are vulnerable. I’d want to be there all the time to make sure nothing could hurt our child, but that’s not possible, is it? If you have a child you have to accept that at some point they’ll get hurt. I mean, look at us. Your dad leaving, your mum dying, my dad being a cunt, crying myself to sleep in a room with twenty-four other eight-year-olds, all of us trying to keep our sobbing silent so we didn’t get the shit kicked out of us. I don’t want a child of mine to feel any of those things.’
Her eyes welled and she snatched angrily at the tears with the back of her hand. ‘But our child wouldn’t have felt those things,’ she said. ‘Our child would have been loved and cherished. Our child would have been happy.’
‘You can’t guarantee that.’
‘I could have guaranteed it enough to the best of my ability. We’d have loved him or her with every breath in our bodies, and if you couldn’t have managed that, I’d have loved it enough for both of us.’
‘I think you’re being naive.’
‘Naive?’
‘Yes,’ he pushed on, trying to ignore her anger. ‘Sure, things at home would be good, our family would be content, but what about the bastards out there?’ He shook his head and looked up at the sky, trying to repel the image of Alastair Farrow, eyes glinting with spite, lip curled up in an evil half-smile.
‘If we all thought about the dangers out in the world, none of us would leave the house. You’ve convinced yourself the world is an evil place, but it’s not. It’s an amazing place with amazing things in it – knowledge, laughter, love, friends – all these things make life worth the risk.’ She shook her head in frustration. ‘If every person thought like you the human race would cease to exist. And why? Because of fear? And, yes, I get it, you and I have experienced pain. We’ve shed a lot of tears as children, but we went on and found happiness, didn’t we? Doesn’t that outweigh the bad stuff?’ She didn’t pause long enough for him to answer. ‘I think it does. I think the happiness I’ve felt makes the grief bearable. You saying that life is so awful it’s not worth existing, belittles everything we have together.’
‘You’re twisting my words—’
But she stormed ahead, not waiting for him to finish his sentence, her feet slamming into the pavement, hands balled into fists at her sides. He followed, turning over her words, recognising the truth in them, wanting to formulate a response that would communicate his complicated feelings. She came to a stop at the railings which ran alongside the Thames. He stood beside her. The tide was low, and the pebbles and rubbish revealed on the shoreline were covered in thick, dirty silt. Will waited for Harmony to say something, but she stayed quiet, leaning over the railings, watching the listless, muddy water pass by.
‘I’m going to say something which is going to sound harsh.’ He gripped hold of the metal railing, still warm from the day’s sun, for strength. ‘And I know it’s going to upset you, but …’ He stopped himself then, wary of the words he was preparing to say.
‘For fuck’s sake, just say it.’ The slight breeze brushed her hair across her face and she swept it back.
‘I’ve felt this way since I was eighteen. When most people were struggling with politics or religion or trying to get laid, I was dealing with this. The decision I made, not wanting to be a father, is fundamental to me and, rightly or wrongly, it makes me who I am. It makes me the man you married. If you don’t understand that then …’ He paused and took a breath. ‘Then maybe it’s your love in question here and not mine.’
She turned on him then. Fire in her eyes which brimmed with tears. ‘You think I don’t love you?’ she whispered bitterly. ‘You really think that? If I didn’t love you, Will, I wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t be standing here desperate to repair our marriage.’ She shook her head, tears spilling down her cheeks. ‘You know what? Maybe it’s beyond repair. Maybe there’s nothing we can do. Neither of us can give the other what they need. I needed you in what was a really dark time for me. But you weren’t there for me and worse than that you lied to me.’ She swiped at her tears and turned away from him, walking away from him a second time.
‘Harmony!’
But she didn’t reply, instead she walked faster, head down, arms wrapped around her body.
He slammed his hands against the railings, swearing under his breath.
When he got back to the flat she was sitting at the kitchen table. As he approached her she lifted her eyes to look at him. They were red from crying, the skin beneath them puffy, a raggedy tissue clutched in her fingers.
‘I heard what you said.’ Her voice was quiet but calm. ‘About being a father. I can’t change how you feel, I know that. And it’s not fair of me to ask you to. I know that too. But I can’t forgive what you did. It was dishonest and hurtful, and affects my life as much as it does yours.’
