Still Me

Agnes’s eyes widened. ‘But he must come! You cannot live in different countries! How you can love your man if he is not here with you? I could not be away from Leonard. I don’t even like it when he goes on two-day business trip.’

‘Yes, I suppose you would want to make sure you’re never too far away,’ said Tab. Mr Gopnik glanced up from his dinner, his gaze flickering between his wife and daughter, but said nothing.

‘Still,’ Agnes said, arranging her napkin on her lap, ‘London is not so far away. And love is love. Isn’t that right, Leonard?’

‘It certainly is,’ he said, and his face briefly softened at her smile. Agnes reached out a hand and stroked his, and I looked quickly at my plate.

The room fell silent for a moment.

‘Actually, I think I might head home. I seem to be feeling slightly nauseous.’ With a loud scrape, Tab pushed her chair back and dropped her napkin on her plate, where the white linen immediately began to soak up the red wine sauce. I had to fight the urge to rescue it. She stood and kissed her father’s cheek. He reached up a free hand and touched her arm fondly.

‘I’ll speak to you during the week, Daddy.’ She turned. ‘Louisa … Agnes.’ She nodded curtly, and left the room.

Agnes watched her go. It’s possible she muttered something under her breath, but Ilaria was gathering up my plate and cutlery with such a savage clatter that it was hard to tell.

With Tab gone, it was as if all the fight left Agnes. She seemed to wilt in her seat, her shoulders suddenly bowed, the sharp hollow of her collarbone visible as her head drooped over it. I stood. ‘I think I might head back to my room now. Thank you so much for supper. It was delicious.’

Nobody protested. Mr Gopnik’s arm was resting along the mahogany table now, his fingers stroking his wife’s hand. ‘We’ll see you in the morning, Louisa,’ he said, not looking at me. Agnes was gazing up at him, her face sombre. I backed out of the dining room, speeding past the kitchen door to my room so that the virtual daggers I could feel Ilaria hurling my way from the kitchen wouldn’t have a chance to hit me.

An hour later Nathan sent me a text. He was having a beer with friends in Brooklyn. Heard you got the full baptism of fire. You all right?

I didn’t have the energy to come back with something witty. Or to ask him how on earth he knew.

It’ll be easier once you get to know them. Promise.

See you in the morning, I replied. I had a brief moment of misgiving – what had I just signed up for? – then had a stern word with myself, and fell heavily to sleep.

That night I dreamt of Will. I dreamt of him rarely – a source of some sadness to me in the early days when I had missed him so much that I felt as if someone had blasted a hole straight through me. The dreams had stopped when I met Sam. But there he was again, in the small hours, as vivid as if he were standing before me. He was in the back seat of a car, an expensive black limousine, like Mr Gopnik’s, and I saw him from across a street. I was instantly relieved that he was not dead, not gone after all, and knew instinctively that he should not go wherever he was headed. It was my job to stop him. But every time I tried to cross the busy road an extra lane of cars seemed to appear in front of me, roaring past so that I couldn’t get to him, the sound of the engines drowning my shouting of his name. There he was, just out of reach, his skin that smooth caramel colour, his faint smile playing around the edges of his mouth, saying something to the driver that I couldn’t hear. At the last minute he caught my eye – his eyes widened just a little – and I woke, sweating, the duvet knotted around my legs.

3

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Writing this in haste – Mrs G is having her piano lesson – but I’m going to try and email you every day so that at least I can feel like we’re chatting. I miss you. Please write back. I know you said you hate emails but just for me. Pleeeease. (You have to imagine my pleading face here.) Or, you know, LETTERS! Love you, Lxxxxxx

‘Well, good morning!’

A very large African American man in very tight scarlet Lycra stood in front of me, his hands on his hips. I froze, blinking, in the kitchen doorway in my T-shirt and knickers, wondering if I was dreaming and whether if I closed the door and opened it again he would still be there.

‘You must be Miss Louisa?’ A huge hand reached out and took mine, pumping it so enthusiastically that I bobbed up and down involuntarily. I checked my watch. No, it really was a quarter past six.

‘I’m George. Mrs Gopnik’s trainer. I hear you’re coming out with us. Looking forward to it!’

I had woken after a fitful few hours, struggling to shake off the tangled dreams that had woven themselves through my sleep, and stumbled down the corridor on automatic pilot, a caffeine-seeking zombie.

‘Okay, Louisa! Gotta stay hydrated!’ He picked up two water bottles from the side. And he was gone, jogging lightly down the corridor.

I poured myself a coffee, and as I stood there sipping it, Nathan walked in, dressed and scented with aftershave. He gazed at my bare legs.

‘I just met George,’ I said.

‘Nothing he can’t teach you about glutes. You got your running shoes, right?’

‘Hah!’ I took a sip of my coffee but Nathan was looking at me expectantly. ‘Nathan, nobody said anything about running. I’m not a runner. I mean, I am the anti-sport, the sofa-dweller. You know that.’

Nathan poured himself a black coffee and replaced the jug in the machine.

‘Plus I fell off a building earlier this year. Remember? Lots of bits of me went crack.’ I could joke about that night now when, still grieving Will, I had drunkenly slipped from the parapet of my London home. But the twinges in my hip were a constant reminder.

‘You’re fine. And you’re Mrs G’s assistant. Your job is to be at her side at all times, mate. If she wants you to go running, then you’re running.’ He took a sip of his coffee. ‘Ah, don’t look so panicked. You’ll love it. You’ll be fit as a butcher’s dog within a few weeks. Everyone here does it.’

‘It’s a quarter past six in the morning.’

‘Mr Gopnik starts at five. We’ve just finished his physio. Mrs G likes a bit of a lie-in.’

‘So we run at what time?’

‘Twenty to seven. Meet them in the main hallway. See you later!’ He lifted a hand, and was gone.

Agnes, of course, was one of those women who looked even better in the mornings: naked of face, a little blurred at the edges, but in a sexy Vaseline-on-the-lens way. Her hair was pulled back in a loose ponytail and her fitted top and jogging pants made her seem casual in the same way that off-duty supermodels do. She loped down the corridor, like a Palomino racehorse in sunglasses, and lifted an elegant hand in greeting, as if it were simply too early for speech. I had only a pair of shorts and a sleeveless T-shirt with me, which, I suspected, made me look like a plump labourer. I was slightly anxious that I hadn’t shaved my armpits and clamped my elbows to my sides.

‘Good morning, Mrs G!’ George appeared beside us and handed Agnes a bottle of water. ‘You all set?’

She nodded.

‘You ready, Miss Louisa? We’re just doing the four miles today. Mrs G wants to do extra abdominal work. You’ve done your stretches, right?’