He laughed, perhaps recalling how they had joshed all those years ago. ‘Apparently not!’ His eyes were full of warmth for her – the warmth that speaks of a disarming narrowing of the distance between the past and now. ‘Actually, the older I’m getting, the more I tend to think about days gone by.’
‘You’re a bit too young to be doing the “in the olden days” thing, aren’t you?’
‘You’re right. Sad, isn’t it?’
She wasn’t sure if he was teasing. He would be in his mid-forties now. He was five years older than she was. Turning forty had been a wrench for Evelyn. Her thirties had blitzed by, and perhaps for the first time she had truly taken stock of her life. I’ll probably never bear children. We’ll probably never adopt. I’m sure we’ll stay together forever if we’ve made it this far. It’s unlikely I’ll ever fall in love again. The last one had been a rogue thought, and she had wondered why it had even entered her head.
‘Anita and Billy were only married for three years, you know. I knew it wouldn’t last,’ he said.
Eddy had been Billy’s best man. Anita was friends with Evelyn’s friend Elizabeth. ‘I wasn’t even supposed to be there!’ Evelyn found herself thinking back. It was as fresh as yesterday. ‘If Elizabeth’s boyfriend hadn’t run off with someone else, I wouldn’t have been dragged along in his place, and you and I would never have met.’ The past was hurtling back to her, details slightly softened by that one incandescent memory of how bowled over by him she had been.
‘Why did you do it?’ he asked.
‘Go to the wedding?’ She knew he didn’t mean that.
‘Stand me up.’
‘Eddy . . .’ It was so unsettling to find herself having to explain the unexplainable all these years later. She had often grappled with it: with why. ‘I don’t quite know how to say this,’ she said, honestly. ‘When I met you – that night – I was leaving for London exactly one week later. Through the very generous referral of a total stranger, I had a flat set up, and I’d paid a deposit on the rent. I had a job! When you asked me out, I should have just told you that, but in the moment, everything was so magical I couldn’t have it end on that note. You had made such an impression on me. I didn’t want to say goodbye.’
She was surprised to find herself becoming ruffled, slightly short of breath. She had time-travelled back to twenty years ago. She could recall the tug of her dilemma as though she was in the grip of it right now. ‘But then leading up to it . . . I just thought, there’s no point. It was the craziest idea for us to see one another again. I needed so badly to leave. Back then, and I know it sounds dramatic, I wanted to be so much more than there was opportunity for – even though, to be honest, I didn’t know what the hell that something was. So I just thought, why on earth would I risk going out with someone who . . .’
‘Might make you want to stay?’
‘Please don’t look at me like that.’ She shielded her eyes, briefly. She just remembered thinking, What if I fall in love with him? I can’t fall in love with him because I’m leaving. I’m twenty years old and my future can’t be here, for the simple reason that I’ve already decided it won’t be! How many times had she looked back over the years and been completely unable to identify with the girl who had thought that way?
‘I went back to your house a second time, you know. I knew that business of you having to work late was a lie. Your mother told me you’d moved to London. I’m sure she could tell by my reaction that you weren’t just a passing fancy for me. I think your mother was quite intuitive.’
Evelyn hadn’t known this. Her secretive mother had never said.
‘I’m not proud I stood you up, Eddy. I’ve never done that once I’ve made a promise. It was a horrid thing to do.’
‘So I was just the unlucky one, eh?’
He might have been faking hurt feelings, but perhaps that was wishful thinking; Evelyn saw genuine regret in his eyes, and she was a little dumbfounded by it. ‘It was twenty years ago, Eddy.’
‘I was devastated when I knocked on your door and you weren’t there. I was surprised I could be so bothered about it, actually. And it was more than just a pride thing. It was because I’d expected better of you – of the situation. I thought meeting me had left you feeling the same way it had left me. I remember dancing with you and thinking, Right at this moment, looking at this girl, this could be what holding The One feels like. That’s how big of an impression you made on me, Evelyn.’
‘You’d probably just drunk too much.’
He looked neither disappointed nor surprised that she was making light of it, just reflective. ‘Anita said you were always a bit uppity and high on yourself.’
Evelyn’s jaw dropped. ‘What? How dare she? She didn’t even know me! I’d never even met her until her wedding day!’
His serious face burst into a smile.
‘You’re teasing me!’
‘I am.’
‘Good heavens, you haven’t changed one iota!’ He was exactly the same Eddy.
‘Yup, I bet you left for your nice life in London, and you never even gave me a second thought!’
She extended him one of her withering blinks. ‘Actually, when I left, I had no idea what sort of life I was leaving for. I just wanted to get away from here at the time; that was all I’d ever wanted for some insane reason – to not have a life like my mother’s, and like that of every other woman I saw. Though right now, I’ve no idea what was exactly wrong with it. But can we please stop trying to make me feel bad? It’s becoming tiring.’