did that night, sitting with him in my bedroom and listening to him tell me it was over. I’m not proud of it, but I actually begged him to change his mind. He wouldn’t.
“Pippa, you’re eighteen,” he said. “It’s been incredible, you’re wonderful and special, but we need to move on. A long-distance relationship won’t work. It’s finished.”
“But I love you!” I sobbed.
He wiped the tears off my puffy, blotchy face with his thumbs and held my hands. “I don’t love you,” he said gently. I realise now that it was the only thing he could say in order to make me let him go. I hoped it wasn’t true that he’d stopped loving me, but I knew he wasn’t going to change his mind. He got up and left, saying a polite goodbye to Mum and Dad, got on his motorbike and roared off into the night (the story would be much better if it had been a Harley but it wasn’t, it was a beat-up old Honda). I cried solidly for about a week and then dusted myself off and went to London with my shiny new chef’s knives. It took me a while to get over what had happened, but eventually I did, and turned my focus towards learning to cook, having a good time and shagging anyone who’d stay still for long enough to let me.
It took almost three years and although I hadn’t forgotten Nick, I was more or less over him. Then, at the end of a particularly brutal shift, some of my hard-drinking colleagues announced that they were heading out to Soho to catch the last set of an awesome new band. I wanted nothing more than to get the night bus home to my grotty digs in Archway and snatch four hours’ sleep before work began the next day, but I had a reputation as a party animal to uphold. So I didn’t say no even though I had no make-up on and my hair smelled of roast beef.
The club we went to was a wall of smoke and sound. We fought our way through the sweating crowd to the bar and bought a bottle of Jack Daniels between the six of us (back in my cheffing days I could properly hold my drink). And Tom and the lads were right – the band was top. I took my glass and moved towards the stage to get a closer look at them and there, unmistakeable in spite of having grown even taller and grown his hair even longer, was Nick. I remember thinking with a brief pang of jealousy how much nicer his hair was than mine, then imagining how it would feel falling over my face when we fucked.
I decided immediately that I wasn’t going to let him get away again. I’d found him, he was mine, and I’d keep whatever secrets I had to in order to keep him. This sounds like the kind of romantic bollocks I had no time for, then as now, but it was honestly as if everything stopped, suspended, while I stood by the stage willing him to notice me, notice me, notice me! Then he said something to Iain, standing next to him with his bass guitar, and they played the opening chords of Beautiful Day . I knew than that he’d seen me too. It was the song that had been playing the night we first met, and that was the start of us being together again. It wasn’t quite as simple as that, but it was the start nonetheless.
“So, the website says it’s a moated medieval manor house,” said Nick, as we heaved our bags into the back of the taxi (actually, he swung his in quite easily and I heaved mine – travelling light has never been one of my core competencies). He opened the door for me and then scrambled in himself, pulling out his iPad.
“The foundations of Brocklebury Manor date back to the thirteenth century,” he read, “when it was first occupied by the De Vere family. The house has played a role in some of the key events of the past eight hundred years, having been used as a place of refuge by the embattled blah blah. . . Wars of the Roses blah, Mary Queen of Scots blah. . . Do we want to know all this?”
“Not really,” I said, shifting up close so I could see the screen. “Let’s see what it says about the food.”
“Okay, but don’t
“Pippa, you’re eighteen,” he said. “It’s been incredible, you’re wonderful and special, but we need to move on. A long-distance relationship won’t work. It’s finished.”
“But I love you!” I sobbed.
He wiped the tears off my puffy, blotchy face with his thumbs and held my hands. “I don’t love you,” he said gently. I realise now that it was the only thing he could say in order to make me let him go. I hoped it wasn’t true that he’d stopped loving me, but I knew he wasn’t going to change his mind. He got up and left, saying a polite goodbye to Mum and Dad, got on his motorbike and roared off into the night (the story would be much better if it had been a Harley but it wasn’t, it was a beat-up old Honda). I cried solidly for about a week and then dusted myself off and went to London with my shiny new chef’s knives. It took me a while to get over what had happened, but eventually I did, and turned my focus towards learning to cook, having a good time and shagging anyone who’d stay still for long enough to let me.
It took almost three years and although I hadn’t forgotten Nick, I was more or less over him. Then, at the end of a particularly brutal shift, some of my hard-drinking colleagues announced that they were heading out to Soho to catch the last set of an awesome new band. I wanted nothing more than to get the night bus home to my grotty digs in Archway and snatch four hours’ sleep before work began the next day, but I had a reputation as a party animal to uphold. So I didn’t say no even though I had no make-up on and my hair smelled of roast beef.
The club we went to was a wall of smoke and sound. We fought our way through the sweating crowd to the bar and bought a bottle of Jack Daniels between the six of us (back in my cheffing days I could properly hold my drink). And Tom and the lads were right – the band was top. I took my glass and moved towards the stage to get a closer look at them and there, unmistakeable in spite of having grown even taller and grown his hair even longer, was Nick. I remember thinking with a brief pang of jealousy how much nicer his hair was than mine, then imagining how it would feel falling over my face when we fucked.
I decided immediately that I wasn’t going to let him get away again. I’d found him, he was mine, and I’d keep whatever secrets I had to in order to keep him. This sounds like the kind of romantic bollocks I had no time for, then as now, but it was honestly as if everything stopped, suspended, while I stood by the stage willing him to notice me, notice me, notice me! Then he said something to Iain, standing next to him with his bass guitar, and they played the opening chords of Beautiful Day . I knew than that he’d seen me too. It was the song that had been playing the night we first met, and that was the start of us being together again. It wasn’t quite as simple as that, but it was the start nonetheless.
“So, the website says it’s a moated medieval manor house,” said Nick, as we heaved our bags into the back of the taxi (actually, he swung his in quite easily and I heaved mine – travelling light has never been one of my core competencies). He opened the door for me and then scrambled in himself, pulling out his iPad.
“The foundations of Brocklebury Manor date back to the thirteenth century,” he read, “when it was first occupied by the De Vere family. The house has played a role in some of the key events of the past eight hundred years, having been used as a place of refuge by the embattled blah blah. . . Wars of the Roses blah, Mary Queen of Scots blah. . . Do we want to know all this?”
“Not really,” I said, shifting up close so I could see the screen. “Let’s see what it says about the food.”
“Okay, but don’t
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