Page 35 of The Life She Could Have Lived

NO

‘Look, everyone knows what he’s done, so I don’t think we should pretend it hasn’t happened,’ Anna said.

The comment was met with silence from everyone in the meeting room, and Anna felt put out.

Was she invisible? It was an emergency meeting, called by Deborah after the news had broken that a fairly major celebrity whose autobiography they were publishing had been caught shoplifting.

The book was due out in a month and the publicity for it was in full swing on both sides of the Atlantic.

Anna had never seen Deborah so stressed.

‘We can’t pull it altogether,’ Deborah said. ‘That isn’t an option.’

Suddenly, David’s voice was loud in the room. Anna jumped; she hadn’t known he was on the call. ‘You’re right, we can’t pull it. But we could try to work the scandal to our advantage rather than trying to play it down.’

There were mumbles of agreement.

Someone from sales spoke up. ‘Yes, that’s good. I mean, it’s not like he hurt anyone. It’s not the kind of crime people feel strongly about.’

Anna couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

David had literally repeated the thing she’d said, the thing everyone had completely ignored, said it in a slightly different way, and now he was the hero of the hour?

She looked at Deborah for some kind of confirmation that she was right to be outraged, but Deborah was still acting antsy, her eyes never resting on anyone or anything for more than a few seconds.

‘I said that,’ she found herself saying.

‘What?’ David asked. ‘Anna, is that you? Can you speak up a bit?’

Anna imagined she was in the same room as him. She imagined picking up the coffee pot from the middle of the table and throwing the burning liquid in his face.

‘I just said that there’s no point in trying to pretend it hasn’t happened. That we might as well make the best of it.’

‘I don’t remember hearing that,’ David said.

‘Deborah?’ Anna asked, hating herself for the pleading tone of her voice.

‘Sorry, Anna, I must have missed it, too.’

‘Let’s move on, shall we?’ David said.

And that was that.

Anna fumed about it all afternoon. She was still angry when Deborah asked her to come to her office before she left for the day.

‘I’m sorry about that, earlier,’ Deborah said.

‘The thing with David?’ Anna asked.

‘Yes. I missed what you said, but I know what it’s like to be treated like that. You know, you hit forty and you become invisible, in all kinds of spaces. In some ways it’s a relief – I’ve never missed the catcalls from van windows – but at work it’s bloody infuriating. So I’m sorry.’

Anna wasn’t sure what to say.

‘Anyway, that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about. I’m retiring, at the end of the year. I wanted to encourage you to apply for my job when I go.’

Anna was taken aback. Her brain hadn’t quite made the shift from one thing to the other.

‘Retiring?’

Deborah nodded. ‘It’s a little early. But that’s not important. I’d like to see you take over from me. Between you and me, you’re the best person for the job. I hope you’ll give it a shot.’

‘I will,’ Anna said. ‘Thank you.’

‘Good.’

Anna stood and made to leave, but she could tell Deborah had something else to say.

‘I know it’s none of my business,’ Deborah said, ‘but what was it that brought you back to London?’

Anna had never told anyone in the London office about her relationship with David. Had thought it was inappropriate. That she would be judged over it. But Deborah was leaving, and Anna was starting to realise that she wasn’t the sort of woman who judged other women for their mistakes.

‘I had my heart broken,’ she said. ‘I needed to get away from him.’

‘David?’ Deborah asked, and part of Anna was shocked that she’d guessed, and part of her wasn’t.

‘Yes.’

‘I’m sorry that happened. He should have known better.’

‘Yes, he should,’ Anna said. ‘But so should I.’

‘From a selfish point of view, it’s been great, having you back.’

‘Thank you. ’

When Anna left the office that afternoon, she was thinking about what Deborah had said and she almost didn’t notice the person who was standing outside waiting for her.

She didn’t see him, in fact, until he called her name.

Edward. When she turned back and saw him, leaning against the outside wall of her office building, she couldn’t quite put the pieces together.

He was part of another life, but even when she’d been in that life, she’d never seen him here.

‘What are you doing here?’ she asked.

‘I wanted to see you. Do you have time for a coffee or something?’

Anna met his eyes for the first time. He looked a bit bewildered, like he didn’t know what he was doing or where he should be. And that wasn’t the Edward she knew. It was enough to stop her from saying no, which was her initial impulse.

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘There’s a place just around this corner.’ She gestured and began to walk, and he followed her.

In the café, the barista smiled at Anna and asked if she wanted her usual. She called in there most mornings on her way into the office. ‘And for you?’ The handsome young man looked up at Edward, who asked for an Americano. ‘Sit down, I’ll bring them over.’

Anna chose a table, making bets with herself about what he was going to say.

It couldn’t be to do with the divorce, with the sharing of their assets, could it?

All of that was done and dusted so long ago.

But what else? His new partner, his child?

How could any of that have anything to do with Anna?

She took a seat and waited for him to speak.

‘It’s good to see you,’ he said.

Anna didn’t say anything. What was there to say? Was it good to see him? She wasn’t sure .

‘Listen, I know this is a shock, seeing me like this. I’ve just… I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately. And especially today…’

He trailed off, and Anna tried to think what he might mean by that.

And then it hit her. It was their anniversary.

Or would have been. She did a quick calculation in her head.

If she and Edward had stayed together, this would have been their fourteenth anniversary.

What would her life be like? Would she be doing the job she was doing?

Would they have children? Would she feel fulfilled, like she was on the right track?

‘I don’t know what to say,’ Anna said, because she felt she had to say something.

‘No, I know. I’m not explaining myself. Did you know it’s exactly three years ago that we met on the common?’

Anna thought about that. Could it be true? She had no idea when it had happened, only that it had been early summer. So perhaps, she thought. And he seemed so sure.

‘No, I…’

‘I went home that day, my head full of you. You looked incredible, and seeing you was like revisiting an old life. A happier one. And I realised, when I got home, that it was our anniversary. It felt like fate. But I convinced myself it was nothing, carried on with my new life with Ella and Jen, but I just knew it was all a lie, and every time Jen talked about the wedding, I put her off. I just couldn’t face it.

Plus I lost my mum, and I was a mess. In the end, she confronted me, and I admitted it. I was having doubts. And she left me.’

Anna fixated on the news of him having lost his mum for a moment.

They’d never been close, Anna and her mother-in-law, but it was strange to have known nothing of her death.

She had a memory from the wedding, her mother and Edward’s, both in slightly old-fashioned dresses and jackets, laughing together.

And now, one was dead, the other dying. She’d been living with the knowledge that her mum had terminal cancer for a while now, and it didn’t get any easier, no matter how patchy their relationship had been.

She snapped back to the present, to the news Edward had just revealed. ‘She left you?’

‘Yes. It was the right thing, I don’t blame her.

My heart wasn’t in it. When we met, she wanted to have a child and I was so raw from you not wanting to, and so we jumped into it, and then Ella came along and she was just wonderful, it was everything I’d thought it would be, but it wasn’t with the right person. It wasn’t with you.’

Anna felt herself go hot across her neck and chest. Was that what this was? Was this an attempt to get her back? Just then, the barista brought over their drinks and Anna reminded herself of where she was, and when. She hadn’t gone back in time. She was still forty-three. Edward was still her ex.

‘I missed you, Anna. I missed you so much for the first couple of years and I was terrible to be with. But by the time I met Jen, I really thought I’d moved on.

It was only seeing you that made me realise I hadn’t.

What a mess. I mean, I love Ella so much and I want to be the best dad I can to her, but Jen and I can’t be together. Not with the way I feel about you.’

Anna knew that she was going to have to say something eventually.

But what? That day she’d seen Edward with Ella, she’d felt shaken.

She’d gone straight to Nia’s, she remembered.

But that was as far as it had gone. A week later, it had been gone from her mind.

Just one of those things that happened, when old lives and new lives collided.

Seeing Edward hadn’t been painful, or wrenching, or anything like that.

‘Edward, I…’

‘Look, I know this is probably a shock. Me just appearing like this, with no warning. Perhaps I should have tried to get hold of your email address or contacted you on social media or something, but it felt right, to come here on this date.’

Anna reflected on this. It would have taken him less than a minute of online searching to find her email address. He was right, he should have done that. Should have approached her in a less confrontational way, given her some time and space to decide how she wanted to respond.

‘Edward, I’m with someone.’

‘Oh.’ He looked shocked, as if he hadn’t realised this was a possibility. As if the fact that she’d been single when they’d last met, three years ago, meant that she always would be.

‘How long?’ he asked.

‘Almost a year.’ She thought of Ben, of the way he made her laugh every day.

How they’d met by chance on a work night out that had ended in a kitsch bar in Shoreditch, how Anna had very nearly said no when he’d asked for her number.

How, after he’d put his number into her phone, she’d called him so he would have hers, and he’d answered and said, into the phone while looking her in the eyes, ‘I’m so glad you called, I wasn’t sure you would.

’ How she’d stopped looking for that feeling she’d always been chasing, because she thought she might have found it.

‘Is he a good guy?’ Edward asked.

Anna didn’t want to answer. She wanted to make a point of it being none of Edward’s business, the state of her current relationship. But it was easier, simpler, to go along with it.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘He’s a good guy. I wouldn’t be with him if he wasn’t.’

Edward raised both of his hands up to show that he was backing off. ‘I shouldn’t have come. I’m sorry.’

Anna blew on her coffee, took a sip. Her instinct was to say that it was fine, but she stopped herself. He was right. He shouldn’t have come. It hadn’t done either of them any good .

‘I think I’m going to go,’ she said, standing. ‘I’m sorry it didn’t work out for you, with her. And I’m sorry about your mum.’

Edward pushed his chair back to stand. She saw that there were tears in his eyes. ‘Thank you. How’s yours?’

‘She’s dying, actually. Lung cancer. It’s taking its time, but we all know how it’s going to end.’

Edward put a hand on her arm. ‘Jesus, I’m sorry.’

There was a moment of silence as they both considered the years that had passed since they’d been together. The bits of one another’s lives that they had missed.

‘Thanks for hearing me out,’ Edward said.

So he left first, in the end. But Anna left a minute later, as soon as she was sure he’d be gone and they wouldn’t end up walking down the street together.

She thought about getting home, to Ben, about telling him this story.

About how he would listen, and ask questions, and take it seriously without being jealous.

She imagined telling him that she was so pleased she was with him now, and kissing him.

And it all fell away, the tension and the worry of seeing Edward.

And that was how she knew, that she was exactly where she should be.