I nod. ‘Yep. I think families often either crumble or become tighter. I do feel very blessed in that regard. We have wonderful parents.’
‘Do you…’ She stops for a moment, and then says, ‘How are you now about it all?’
‘I feel guilty that it wasn’t me,’ I say reflexively, and am then surprised, because I don’t tell people that. I have so much guilt that I feel guilty just thinking about the guilt.
‘I thought you might. You know, we’re all dealt different hands in life and we can’t feel guilty about them. It’s what wemakeof the hands we’re dealt that counts. And obviously it happened to your brother, but it happened to all the rest of you too. You’ve lived through terrible trauma seeing that happen to your brother and you haven’t crumbled, you’ve stepped up and been a wonderful support to the rest of your family.’
‘I can’t crumble.’ The least I’ve been able to do for Max and my parents is stay strong.
‘I know.’ She inches closer to me and places her hand on mine for a moment. ‘Which is a big burden in itself. You have to deal with your own grief over what might have been for your brother. And you have the worry for the future, I’m guessing.’
‘Yeah, that’s one of the reasons I work such long hours doing this job. I mean, I genuinely think I would have been happier being a carpenter or a tree surgeon. But I need the money, for the future, so that I’ll always be able to look after Max.’
‘You’re wonderful and I think you have to understand and truly accept that you shouldn’t feel guilty that it happened to him and not you. It’s so destructive to happiness feeling either guilty or jealous. Every single one of us can look around and see people who we love who are on the face of it unluckier than us, and similarly luckier than us. We can’t compare or feel guilty or envious; we can only do the best we can with our own circumstances. I hope it doesn’t sound insensitive for me to say that thingscouldbe worse for Max. He could have had the same accident but not had such a wonderful, supportive family. Andthingscouldbe a lot better for you: you could have had a family that didn’t experience such terrible trauma.’
I’m frowning and I’m also almost smiling. Somewhere through her speech I’ve started to feel lighter.
‘It’s weird,’ I say. ‘Sometimes you can carry something with you for a long time and just one sentence or short conversation can make you feel differently about things. I think you’re right. And I think I’m going to remember this moment forever. I feel…better.’ I put my arm round her and hug her into me briefly before releasing her. ‘Thank you. Really. I’m incredibly grateful.’
She shakes her head. ‘You have nothing to thank me for. It’s all just true, and youarea wonderful person, and your family are lucky to have you, and I’m just glad if something I said helped at all.’ She looks at me for a moment, and then says, ‘I had a thing with Lizzie on Wednesday. She said some stuff that made me think about things differently too.’
From the way Freya’s looking at me, I feel that Lizzie might have said something about her views on romance. I would very much like to ask but I’m really not sure how to frame the question. Given that I do have a vested interest.
So I say, ‘Oh?’
For a moment I feel as though Freya’s going to say something kind of big, from the way she’s pressing her lips together, then relaxing them, and then slightly screwing her face up.
But then she says nothing.
And suddenly, I go for it. ‘Going back to our conversation the other day, I wondered what it was that happened to you. What the thing was that made you decide that relationships aren’t for you? If that isn’t too much of an intrusion.’
‘Yeah, no, it isn’t an intrusion. And I suppose it’s very simple. As you just said, sometimes you have a one-off event or conversation, or hear just one sentence from someone, that makes a huge impact on you and affects the way you see thingsforever more, or causes you to make a big life decision. And, yep, I do know when it was. It was the day of my father’s funeral. And, coincidentally – well, not really coincidentally; it was because of you – I had a similar conversation with Lizzie the other day. She told me that she thinks I’m not rubbish at relationships and talked me through every single one of my many failed romances and pointed out that they weren’tmyfailures.’
She pauses and takes a sip of the water she brought outside with her.
‘So after that conversation,’ she continues, ‘which was on Wednesday, I got thinking. And yes, I do know the catalyst for me realising that I can’t do relationships. It was after the funeral, at the drinks, and there were alotof bitter exes of my dad’s there – one of them my mother – and I wondered why you would go to the funeral of someone you really loathed. And they did definitely loathe him; they weren’t holding back. And then I realised that they had all still loved him and had had bad relationships with him. And that it was his fault. And then someone – one of his colleagues – told me that I was very similar to him and I was simultaneously pleased, because I’d kind of always wanted his approval, and not pleased, because of his disastrous relationship history, and the fact that I had a terrible track record too.’
She pauses again, takes another sip, and then concludes with: ‘Yes, so that’s it. That was the moment.’
‘But you haven’t left a string of exes who hate you?’ I say. ‘I mean, obviously I don’t know any of your exes.’ I actually feel like an ex myself even though we did not have a relationship at all, we just had a weekend of sex. ‘But I know you – somewhat, at least – and I find it hard to believe that you’ve upset people.’
‘I’ve made some people angry,’ she says, as though she’s sticking up for herself. ‘I had a couple of quite controlling boyfriends and they were not pleased when I left them.’
‘That isn’t you being, horrible, though?’ I want to hug her again as she frowns in a very cute manner as she digests my words. ‘Going back to something you said, and at great risk of sounding like a complete amateur psychologist quack, and without wishing to criticise your father in any way, if you always wanted your father’s approval do you think the facts are that hewasa difficult man and you were perhaps – in other relationships – seeking reassurance and approval from men similar to him? And you aren’t in fact like him? Perhaps when his colleague said you were similar to him they actually meant youlookedlike him? And weren’t necessarily particularly like him personality-wise, or temperament-wise, or certainly not relationship-wise?’ God, I hope hedidlook like her, otherwise I could just have made matters a lot worse. ‘If you do. Did.’
‘My goodness.’ Freya sniffs. ‘Youarean amateur psychologist.’ She sniffs again and wipes a finger under her eyes. ‘I think you’re a good one. I think you’re right.’ She puts her glass down and wipes again, with both fingers this time. ‘I think this might be a conversationIremember forever too.’
I want to ask her right now if she’ll go on a date with me.
I’m terrified to, though. I don’t want to destroy this, here, what we seem to have now.
So I just say, ‘Beautiful evening for big conversations. The sky’s so clear.’
‘Yep. The stars.’
She isn’t looking at the stars, though, she’s looking at me. Her lips are slightly parted and I can’t take my eyes off them.
There are a lot of her friends and a lot of my friends just on the other side of the balcony doors, though, so us kissing right now would be a really bad idea.
