Page 31 of The Vow
‘And I should believe you because?’ Only half-teasing, I looked him in the eye.
‘If you don’t, this is a waste of time.’ His voice was abrupt as putting his drink down, he stood up.
‘Hey, I wasn’t entirely serious. I’m a divorce lawyer. Believe me, I’ve heard everything.’ I also knew better than most people that you can’t judge anyone based on appearance. But I was curious about this Amy. I’d grown up around here. I might have known her. ‘What’s her family name?’
‘Reid. She has a daughter, Jess. Nice kid. Really nice – another thing that makes this so difficult.’
I didn’t know any Amy Reids. He clearly wasn’t faking how badly he felt. It was coming off him in waves. But I knew too that you can’t build a life on something that doesn’t exist. And I found myself liking him. The way he had strength, yet compassion. That night in the bar, as I walked away, I knew that whoever Amy was, this man deserved so much more.
*
For some reason, I wasn’t altogether surprised when I saw him again – in my office. ‘Mr Roche.’ I was overly polite as he walked in. ‘I had a feeling it was going to be you.’
‘I hope you don’t mind. I thought that as you were a lawyer, you might be able to shed some light on something – in a legal capacity, obviously.’ Even though he was hedging, he clearly knew what he wanted to talk about.
I watched his face. ‘I can try. You do know I’m a divorce lawyer?’
As he shook his head, I wasn’t sure if it was an act or not. ‘You did tell me. I can’t believe I’ve forgotten. I’m an idiot. Look, I won’t worry you with it.’
But I was curious. ‘You might as well ask me, I might be able to point you in the right direction.’
‘This is strictly in confidence …’ He hesitated. ‘I wouldn’t want Amy to find out I’ve come to see you, but it’s her house. She refuses to discuss selling it. She always says she needs the garden for her work. But it’s made me think. If there is a reason she can’t sell it, would you have any idea how I could find out?’
‘It doesn’t sound very likely. If the house is in her name, it’s up to her what she does with it.’ It’s an impossible question to answer. ‘Where does she live?’
‘Steyning. It’s stuck out in the middle of nowhere and I’m trying to persuade her we should move somewhere with a little more life around us.’
As he spoke, an unwanted memory flashed into my head, of somewhere else in Steyning, up a narrow lane that snaked into the middle of the Downs. I pushed it from my mind.
‘I know Steyning quite well. But as to why Amy can’t sell … I couldn’t comment. She’s the person you need to talk to about this.’
When he said no more about the house, I wrote it off as a convenient excuse to come and see me. I had a feeling it wasn’t going to be the last time I saw him. The next time we bumped into each other, we went for a coffee. The time after that, coffee turned into dinner, when Matt told me about how he and Amy met. He admitted that he’d thought quite quickly she was the one. It was why he proposed so early in their relationship. They valued the same things, seemed to share a vision of what they wanted from life. He knew she loved him, that she wouldn’tbetray him. He’d even given her his grandmother’s engagement ring.
Were they happy, I asked him. When he looked evasive, I added,Your grandparents?When I told him that a ring conveys the joy or sorrow of its previous wearer, a shadow crossed his face. Clearly they hadn’t been. If you believe these things, as far as his marriage went, he’d already signed its death warrant.
All the time I listened to him talking about her, the penny had yet to drop that I’d once known Amy. I found out one evening, when he went to the bar to order drinks. At the table, I was deep in thought when my phone buzzed. But when I glanced at it, I’d realised it wasn’t coming from my phone. It was Matt’s.
When the face flashed up, shock washed over me. Recognising the woman, I felt the past come flooding back. I had never imagined she wasthisAmy. We’d been close at one time, until the end of one summer, when she’d suddenly dropped me without warning. Since, I’ve seen her only once. As a lawyer, I’d come across many unbelievable coincidences, but this one was too much – even for me. In an instant, everything fell into place. The behaviour Matt had described; that her ex-husband had left her. I had a feeling I knew where their house was, too. Even the thought of it fills me with dread. But what I didn’t know was how much Matt knew – about her past.
Once I’d discovered who she was, I became obsessively curious, unable to understand how someone like him was living with a woman like her. As our relationship developed, I was still wary, but his compassionate side drew me in. Then the day came when he told me how he felt. ‘You and me,’ he whispered. ‘Isn’t this how it should be?’ His eyes were earnest as he looked at me. ‘Until I met you, I didn’t know.’ Coming closer, his arms had gone around me and my deep frozen heart had started to thaw. To meet a man who wasn’t like the others, a man I liked,who wanted me, meant that I broke my own rules. Something told me Matt was worth waiting for.
But it hasn’t been at all easy. So many times he mentioned his reluctance to leave her, how he dreaded what state he’d find her in when he got home. He’d already told me how often he’d gone home to find her after a few drinks, lost in her own world, loud music blaring across the garden. He needed me to trust him, be patient. For a while, I was, but as more time passed, my patience wore thin. I’d listened to enough of his endless excuses about poor frigging Amy. So much so that I reached the point of no return.
After calling Matt and asking him to meet me after work, I knew exactly what I had to say. In the same bar off Brighton seafront where we always met, I waited for him, filled with sadness at the thought of what I had to say to him. When he came in, I watched his eyes light up as he walked towards me. A light that left as I started talking. ‘I can’t do this any more, Matt. You and me …’ I shook my head, not wanting to do this but knowing for my sanity that I had to. ‘I think we’ve come to the end of the road.’
In silence, he reached across the table, taking my hands in his. ‘This isn’t what I want.’
The look in his eyes was hollow, empty. ‘But I can imagine how you feel. It must be impossible for you.’
I’d hoped to shock him into action, but any hope I had of him seeing sense evaporated into the ether. There was no point in dragging it out. Getting up, I kissed him on the cheek, my heart aching as I walked away. But underneath, there was a much deeper sense of injustice that burned. Not for the first time, Amy had one over on me.
For a couple of weeks, I avoided Matt, before he called me again, asking if we could meet. Against my better judgement,I agreed. This time, he told me, he wasn’t spinning me a line. He knew now: he wanted to be with me.
The night he disappeared, he’d come to my flat. Fobbing Amy off with a story of a non-existent client, he told me he’d reached the end of his tether.
‘You were right – about what you said at the beginning.’ As I looked at him quizzically, he went on. ‘You said you can’t marry someone because you’re worried about them. There has to be love.’ He hesitated again. ‘It isn’t Amy I love. It’s you. I think I always have, right from when I first met you.’
As he spoke, I felt victorious. Walking over, I put my arms around him, claiming my prize. ‘I love you, too. So what are you going to do?’ But already, I knew the answer.
