After that day on the stairs, things had changed. Over the next three or four months I was giddy and buzzy when we were working together – and quite devastated the time he was on holiday and a freelancer was covering.
Physically, I was hyperaware of him. If he walked near me, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up, and if he left the room, I was irritable and anxious, impatient for his return. Even though our connection was unspoken, when my team needed Hugh to open early, they said, ‘Get Amy to ask. He’ll do it for her.’
Soho back then was Hook-up Central. Everyone seemed to sleep with everyone else, like they were collecting footballer cards: the Spanish Girl; Maria’s boyfriend; the Swedish coke dealer; the kitchen porter at Pollo with the enormous schlong; the bar-girl at the Coach and Horses; the male model from Dundee; the Japanese boy with the Afro. Maybe Hugh was part of that scene and I was just another person to be ticked off a list. ‘Rockabilly Amy, with the mad clothes. Yeah, I did her.’
I wouldn’t have been the first woman to sleep with a man she thought was wild about her and be ghosted the moment he rolled off her. But my colleague Phoebe offered the intel that Hugh was single and he wasn’t a slut, and for a short time relief made me euphoric.
Then a fresh bout of soul-searching engulfed me. Richie’s cheating had changed me: the thought of trusting a man scared me witless.
Paradoxically, my life – which had been functioning efficiently – suddenly seemed threadbare and sad. I was only twenty-seven: I should have been sharing a flat with two other girls, drinking our heads off and having one-night stands. My life was empty of fun, spontaneity and connection. Once again, I was the odd-bod.
It was impossible to consider a sex-drenched fling with Hugh. It wasn’t just because of Neeve, it was because of me – even before Richie had done what he’d done, casual sex had never held any appeal. If things were to become more serious, Hugh would need to hear my sorry story. But what if I offered myself on a plate, saying, ‘These are my wounds,’ and he legged it? How was that even survivable?
Then came the night he’d arrived at the front door of my mean flat in Streatham, bearing a giant muffin and a hot chocolate kit.
We’d been together that entire week – me, my assistant, my client, his colleague, the voiceover artist and Hugh, all crowded into the attic studio. It was a challenging campaign and we were on a deadline, living on Haribo and Diet Coke and taking turns to run down to the newsagent to replenish supplies. By then I was openly happy whenever I was around Hugh, even though whatever there was between us remained unspoken.
That evening it was time for me to leave before Hugh had finished the daily edits and I needed to hear them to prep for the following day’s work.
‘Go,’ Hugh said. ‘Pick up your daughter. You want me to bike the tapes round when I’m done?’
So I gave him my home address. And could you blame me for wondering if something might happen? A man calling around to a colleague’s home is generally considered creepy, but when he appeared at my door, I thought, Here we go, I’m ready. Then he gave me the tapes and the goodies and went away, leaving me mute with disappointment.
Two days later, we finished up that campaign and, because it ended a few hours earlier than expected, we all piled into the pub. For once I was able to stay – I’d booked a childminder, anticipating that I’d be working into the night.
These were all things I took as signs that the planets were in alignment.
Latish in the evening, I encountered Hugh in the corridor. He’d come looking for me. He blocked my path, then backed me against the wall and said, ‘So.’
‘So?’
‘So, Beautiful Amy, what are we going to do?’
A charge zipped through me – this was finally happening. But my terms had to be laid down. ‘I’m not in the market for anything casual.’
He took me by the shoulders and fixed me with those eyes, not smiling now, not smiling at all. ‘There are three things you need to know. I’m crazy about you. I’m serious about this. I’m loyal as a dog.’
‘Okay,’ I said.
‘Okay?’
‘Okay.’
And, oh, that first kiss. Sweet and hot, like tasting a dark chocolate truffle. It lasted and lingered, the kiss that kept on giving, more thrilling and delicious than my most lascivious imaginings.
The first time we went to bed together, he unwrapped me like a present, laid his naked skin next to mine, held me tight and hard, hard enough to hurt a little, and said, ‘You’ve no idea how long I’ve wanted this.’
In those early days we had kissing sessions that lasted for ever. Wonderful as they were, they were a consequence of Neeve being around – sex happened nothing like as often as I wanted and kissing had to fill the gap. Hugh and I never got the chance, the way other new couples do, to spend our first few months lounging around in bed, enjoying long, lazy weekends of sex and papers and food and more sex.
From the word go, we were corralled by responsibilities, first Neeve, and then, after only four short months, I got pregnant with Kiara. It was an accident: I was on the pill, something must have gone wrong, but Hugh absorbed the news with equanimity. ‘Maybe a bit sooner than ideal but kids were always part of the plan, right?’
Then when Kiara was only two years old, we took in Sofie. (Joe had left Urzula when Sofie was still an infant and by the time she was three, neither Joe nor Urzula wanted to take responsibility for her.)
Occasionally, regret bothered me for the carefree part of our relationship we never got to have. My concern was more for Hugh than for myself, but he always dismissed my apologies. ‘I love you. I love you.’
And I believed him.
11
Sunday, 11 September
‘So I’ve booked my flight.’
My heart begins to race. It’s Sunday morning, it’s gone noon and, surly and sullen, I’m still in bed, making my way through the papers because it counts as work, and as long as I’m working, it’s possible to pretend that my life hasn’t been entirely derailed. Every few minutes my phone beeps – the photo of Hugh with his magic towel has exploded Facebook – with texts, tweets and missed calls. I’ve seventy-one unread messages on Facebook Messenger – seventy-one!
I’ll never read them. There’s probably a handful of true friends in there but the majority will be ambulance-chasers. I know this because – and God knows it’s not something to be proud of – it’s what I’d be like myself if, say, Genevieve Payne posted a thing about her husband going travelling. Agog. Yes. Utterly. And sending frantic texts to see if anyone else had the inside gen.
It’s simply human nature – we mistakenly think there are only so many disasters to be allocated, and if it’s happening to someone else, we’ll be spared.
Hugh has spent the morning cleaning the house. He, Neeve and Kiara have been all industry, banging, clattering, running taps and calling to each other. I suppose he’s trying to be nice, as if having an un-dusty lamp will be a great consolation to me during the six months he’ll be missing.
I should be with the girls, showing them I can be depended on, but I want to punish Hugh while he’s still here to be punished.
At one stage he comes to the bedroom door, looking prim and virtuous in a pair of Marigolds and carrying a basin of cleaning stuff. ‘Is it okay if I do our bathroom?’
‘No.’
‘But –’
‘No, Stupid Face. Get out.’
And now he’s back, with real news. ‘Dublin to Dubai to Bangkok.’
As if I give two fecks about his itinerary. ‘When?’
‘Tuesday.’
‘Tuesday, the day after tomorrow?’
‘Yeah.’
Oh, God. He really is going – and so soon.
‘Amy,’ he says quietly, ‘am I doing the right thing?’
This is a surprise, a huge, good one. Hastily, I sit up and, trying to muffle any hope in my voice, I say, ‘You don’t have to go.’
I’m sorry now I posted the thing of him with the towel. I’ll have to find some way of defusing it, but that’s the least of my worries.