‘No. Perhaps Isabelle wants you to become part of her life, but I don’t want you to become a part of mine. Is it too much, to ask you to stay away?’
‘Yes, it is.’ She looked at him, surprised because he’d given the wrong answer, one he wasn’t qualified to give. ‘Maybe I shut it out because I thought you had a husband. I wouldn’t have interfered, and I’m sorry about what happened to him but, Madeleine, I didn’t just come back here for Isabelle.’
She looked at him askance and said, ‘How very presumptuous of you.’ She looked sad as she added, ‘I loved Laurent very much. We miss him terribly.’
‘Then you should understand how I feel.’
‘Oh, please don’t!’
‘Why not? I’m not throwing you a line. I don’t even have the . . .’ Whatever it was he didn’t have, he couldn’t even think of the word for it. ‘You’re the only person I ever loved, and you’re the only person who ever loved me. I don’t expect it to mean anything to you—why should it? But it’s true.’
She smiled a little, and looked almost touched as she said, ‘It means something, and I did love you. It’s how I managed to hate you for so long, for the truth of who you were. That was the truth—who you were.’
‘Who I was,’ he said, stressing the past tense. ‘And do you still hate me now?’ She sighed, a sigh that seemed to suggest there was no point anymore, that too much life had happened to her. He wanted to comfort her, put his hand on her shoulder, but he restrained himself and said, ‘Then could we be friends? That’s all I want—to be able to talk to you, be in the same room. God, just to be in the same room as you! To be friends.’
She shook her head for a few seconds, thinking, locked in some internal dialogue, and said finally, ‘I’ll never fall in love with you again. You understand that?’
‘I know.’
She still couldn’t bring herself to give her assent, saying instead, ‘Where are you living now?’
‘Switzerland.’ She laughed. ‘What?’
‘Your whole life, you choose to live in places where they don’t speak English.’
‘I like having a reason not to talk.’ She laughed again, more of a politeness, an awkwardness that was like a first meeting. She brushed a strand of hair from her face and he noticed the wedding ring. ‘What about you? These last few years must have been tough.’
‘Oh, you know.’ She looked at the dashboard and said, ‘Would you turn on the heater? It’s very cold.’
‘It doesn’t work. Rental car—I should have taken it back.’
She looked at the heater like she was annoyed with it, then stared at him, fixing her eyes on his, an air of deliberation about her that put him on edge because he knew what she was thinking.
‘Luke, I won’t ask for more promises, but I couldn’t bear for the children to be hurt again. I couldn’t . . .’ He put his hand up, putting his fingers over her lips, stopping her words and fears, the touch of her mouth careering through his nervous system like it was wired directly into the past, bypassing everything that had come between. He lowered his hand again and she closed her eyes, the deliberation still in progress. Finally she said, ‘Okay, you can come in.’ She still sounded unconvinced that she’d made the right decision, and maybe it would be a long time before she would be convinced.
They got out of the car and walked towards the house, back towards the only sense of home and family he’d ever known. He walked back from the wilderness with the woman he’d loved almost half his life. And he was happy, because as much as this was only a first step, he knew he’d never be alone again, that the person who’d so desperately sought such isolation had that morning finally ceased to exist, no less than if he’d died there.
Chapter Twenty-One
As he got closer he could see that his regular news vendor was back behind her stand. She saw him coming and waved, and he said, ‘Where have you been, Wendy? My days haven’t been the same.’
‘Holiday,’ said Wendy, smiling broadly, her teeth all over the place. ‘The Canaries.’
‘Very nice. I’ll have a Sydney Morning Herald, please.’
She laughed loudly. It tickled him that the same joke always cracked her up like that.
‘Evening Standard or nothing.’
‘Evening Standard it is, then. What’s the news?’ She held the front page for him to see before she started reading, long enough for him to see the picture of Ella.
Slow and deliberate, Wendy said, ‘Guide dogs, the homeless and terminal cancer patients will be among the many to benefit from one of the largest charitable bequests ever made. The will of the murdered heiress, Gabriella Hatto, has left her entire estate, thought to be worth hundreds of millions of pounds, to a variety of charities.’ She looked from the paper and up at Dan as she said, ‘What do you think of that?’