Alice Adams - Invincible Summer

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.

*

It took her a moment to recognize him, hunched over a cup of coffee in the corner, surrounded by bright young things banging up against him and sloshing their drinks onto his table. Perhaps not the best choice of venue, Eva thought. She stood by the door for a few seconds and took him in. He looked older, not in a bad way exactly, but greying around the temples and where he’d always been a bit gangly, he seemed more solid now. He looked sort of. . grown up.

At that moment he looked up and spotted her and broke into a smile, and the years seemed to drop away from him. A picture popped into her mind unbidden, a much younger Benedict silhouetted against a bright summer sky at the top of Brandon Hill. She walked towards him, reflecting self-consciously that the passage of time since they last saw each other had been kinder to him than it had been to her. The years of working long hours, the shock of losing her job, the anxiety over Allegra, the weight of supporting Sylvie, had all etched themselves onto her face, she knew.

‘You look amazing,’ exclaimed Benedict, standing and moving around the table to hug her as she reached him.

‘Ha, sure,’ she said, waving off the compliment and stepping back when he finally released her from the embrace. ‘It’s been a long decade,’ she added by way of explanation.

‘Are you mad? You look. .’ he paused, evidently casting around for the right word.

‘Old?’

‘No. Well, actually, yes. Old-er. But in a good way. Not bland like the kids in this bar. You’ve gained. . poise.’

‘I’ve gained laughter lines and crow’s feet, is what you mean. Still, what can you do? I guess we’re not kids anymore.’

Benedict gestured at the table without sitting down. ‘I got you a coffee. I have no idea why.’

She raised an eyebrow. ‘I think I’m going to need something harder.’

‘It’s at least a ten-minute wait at the bar. This place is a lot more crowded than it used to be. Also, it’s full of all these hideous young people. Shall we go somewhere else?’

As they pushed their way through the crowd and towards the door of the bar Eva could feel Benedict close behind her, and when they made it out into the open air she hesitated only a moment before taking his proffered arm.

Once they were safely seated in a pub a few minutes’ walk away from the river, they found themselves looking across the table at each other tongue-tied. Where could they possibly begin?