One Perfect Summer

laughs and looks around the room. ‘I’m alright.’ He meets my eyes again. ‘So you still live in Cambridge?’
    ‘I do indeed.’ This feels so surreal. The small talk . . . But it’s been over nine years. There’s so much to say that we hardly know where to start. ‘I’m a teacher,’ I say with a little smile.
    ‘You’re a teacher ?’ His eyes widen. ‘Wow,’ he says again.
    ‘Yeah, well . . .’
    ‘I bet you’re amazing.’
    I laugh awkwardly and tuck my hair behind my ear. And then he spots my diamond. His face freezes. It’s like the world is moving in slow motion as his eyes travel from my ring back to my face. ‘You’re . . .’ His voice is a whisper.
    ‘Married.’ I nod sadly.
    ‘Oh, God.’ He puts his hand to his mouth and the blood drains from his usually tanned features. He’s in shock. He can’t look at me. He’s staring at my ring which is glittering even more than usual under the reflection of the lights above the mirror ball.
    ‘When?’ he asks in a daze.
    ‘Four and a half years ago.’
    ‘Oh, God.’
    His eyes fill up with tears.
    I reach over and gently take his hand. It feels like the right thing to do. It’s warm, but it doesn’t respond when I squeeze it. It doesn’t feel at all familiar.
    ‘Are you happy?’ he asks.
    I hesitate. ‘Most of the time.’
    He looks up at me, almost hopefully. That wasn’t a categorical yes. And then he holds my hand properly and the familiarity of him comes flooding back. A lump forms in my throat.
    ‘I waited for you,’ I whisper. ‘Why didn’t you come?’
    ‘I did come!’ he exclaims, suddenly animated. ‘Not at first – I was royally fucked after what happened in Dorset. But when I came you had already moved in with your . . . boyfriend .’ He says this bitterly.
    ‘But that was years later!’ I cry.
    ‘No!’ He denies this ardently. ‘No, it was months ! I came to your halls of residence and a girl told me you were staying in with some bloke called Jessie!’
    I gasp with horror as understanding dawns on me. My fellow students used to think that Jessie was my boyfriend.
    ‘He wasn’t my boyfriend,’ I say in a tiny voice. ‘He was my friend.’
    The shock on his face must surely mirror mine.
    ‘You came for me?’ I reiterate.
    He nods. ‘Yes.’
    ‘I thought you didn’t care. I thought something had happened to you!’
    He shakes his head again. ‘No.’
    He lets me go and buries his face in his hands, his elbows resting on his knees. Tears start to trek down my cheeks.
    ‘I can’t believe you’re married,’ he whispers.
    ‘What did you expect?’ There are so many emotions running around my body. ‘It’s been almost a decade! A decade ! You haven’t exactly waited for me, either,’ I say dryly.
    He glances up at me.
    ‘I’ve seen you with all those women. It’s not like you’ve been waiting around, yourself.’ He’ll be able to hear the jealousy in my voice, but I don’t care.
    ‘None of them meant anything to me,’ he says passionately.
    ‘Oh, come on.’
    ‘They didn’t! Fucking hell, Alice, it’s not like I married any of them!’ He gets to his feet and starts pacing the room. I watch him, miserably.
    ‘What’s his name?’ he asks.
    ‘Lukas.’
    He half snorts. I realise he’s riddled with jealousy himself.
    ‘He’s German.’
    He snorts again.
    ‘What does he do?’ He’s trying to sound casual, but his eyes flit to my really-quite-large diamond.
    ‘He’s a physicist.’
    ‘Fucking hell.’ He shakes his head, almost in disgust.
    ‘What?’
    ‘He’s a brainiac too, is he?’ He raises one eyebrow at me. ‘I fucking knew you’d end up with a brainiac.’
    ‘ Joe! ’
    ‘You were never going to settle for a loser like me,’ he adds sullenly.
    ‘That’s not true!’ I exclaim, jumping to my feet. ‘You’re not a loser.’
    He laughs sardonically and I know what he’s thinking: he’s not a loser, now .
    ‘You were never a loser,’ I clarify.
    ‘Have you got any children?’ he asks suddenly.
    ‘No.’
    He falls to his knees on the floor and looks utterly crushed. I kneel in front of him. He looks up at me.
    ‘Why didn’t you contact me ?’
    ‘I tried. I tried for a long time after you left – I would go into central London and search the streets for you. Jessie even pretended to be an old friend of yours and called the pub to speak to your parents to see if they’d heard from you. When I saw you in Strike I managed to get hold of your