Go to see Lawrence, to see if he knows anything. Says he’ll try to find out where Mayo and the others are.
Tibs’s ‘accident’ all over the papers. (Luckily they do seem to think it was an accident.) Also pic of me and Perry and the news that Hello! is interested to cover our September wedding. Can’t bear to think about Tibs.
Perry and Daddy come up to London. They think I’m just crying for Tibs, but of course I’m crying for the whole fucking mess. I hang on to Daddy and weep and tell him I’m sorry. He keeps saying: ‘Not your fault, angel. Not your fault.’ If only he knew . . .
Long for Perry to leave, but he doesn’t. He’s brought the size-adjusted engagement ring. Now, it’s on my finger, but I don’t exactly love it. I keep thinking about Mayo’s little gold ring. Situation so weird and awful and full of lies. Feel I really do love Roméo and not Perry. But if I break it off with Perry and say I’m marrying a (probably illegal) Moldavian builder who may have fatally wounded Tibs, Mummy and Daddy could quite literally die.
7th May
Go to see Tibs on his life support. Poor baby. This sight is so terrible, I can’t believe I’m looking at it.
Still nothing from Mayo. And now his mobile is ‘no longer in service’.
Guess he’s fled away for ever.
Cry for five hours.
8th May
Tibs died in the night. My fault. My fault. My fucking fault!
Uncle Mart and Aunt Helena out of their minds with grief.
I tell Mummy we’ve got to postpone the wedding. She guts me by saying: ‘No, Juliet. No need to make everything worse than it is.’
I tell her I really want to postpone it, but she says, ‘No, don’t be selfish, darling. Think of other people.’
Oh God. Feel Mummy’s just casting me away, like she knows I’m responsible for the whole tragedy . . .
Terrible dreams about darling Tibs and fears about more terror to come. Wish I could go to sleep and wake up to find everything had just been a dream.
14th May
Tibs’s funeral. I wail for him. The only ‘brother’ I had or will ever have. And he could be such an awesome laugh.
The sadness of Uncle M and Aunt H too hard to bear. If they knew I was to blame, they’d slay me with a fish-gutting knife. Feel I want to confess to them, but a voice in me won’t let me do it.
Forgot to wear Perry’s ring to the funeral. He looked beadily at my naked hand. I said the emerald was too big to fit under my black gloves. Told him later I couldn’t sleep with him until I got over mourning Tibs. He said that was ‘a bit bloody steep’. Drove back to London at about 90mph. Don’t care if I die.
18th May
No diary for ages. Too wretched to write it.
I get a visit from Lawrence to tell me Mayo got in touch with him. Roméo and the others are being deported as illegal immigrants. They’re in a deportation ‘hostel’ called Mantua House, in Dover. Mayo says he wants to see me to ask my forgiveness for Tibs. Lawrence reminds me I could save Roméo from deportation by going through with a marriage.
I break down like a baby and say to Lawrence: ‘What am I going to do? Tell me what to do.’ We go into his flat and he rolls me a joint to calm me down. Then he says abstractedly: ‘it really is all a bit baleful.’
So much for hippie counsel.
19th May
Feel horribly alone. Keep imagining Tibs’s body under the earth.
20th May
Drag myself into the car and drive to Dover. Dull sky. No sun.
Mantua House a desolate shit-hole. Like a prison. Smells of sickness and death. Can’t stop shivering all the time I’m there.
Mayo lies on a hard bunk in a dark room. His mouth is dry when I kiss it.
Says to me; ‘How come, with all that happen, you still so fair?’ The things he says, the words he chooses, just get to me sometimes. I tell him I know he didn’t mean to kill Tibs. He drinks a sip of water and says: ‘I drink to you, my love.’
I try to stop crying, because I have to be honest with him at last. I owe it to everyone. I just can’t marry him. So I tell him it’s impossible, that we’re too alienated. I remind him we come from different worlds. I return his ring and tell him to forget me.
He barely moves or reacts. He looks terribly ill. He tells me his life is over. While he’s talking, I feel my period start. Blood begins to run down my thighs.
30th May
Diary more or less abandoned.
Spend all my money on stuff from Lawrence. And not just spliffs.
I miss Tibs like mad. And I miss my lover more than I can bear to admit.
I think his absence will follow me all through my life.
14th September
My wedding day.
Daddy’s face shines with joy as he leads me down the aisle. Is he happy for me, or merely happy about not losing Capell House?
I’m far too thin for my dress. When I get into it, it just hangs on me like a shroud.
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
NOVELS
Sadler’s Birthday
Letter to Sister Benedicta
The Cupboard
The Swimming Pool Season
Restoration
Sacred Country
Music and Silence
The Colour
The Road Home
Trespass
Merivel
SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS
The Colonel’s Daughter
The Garden of the Villa Mollini
Evangelista’s Fan
The Darkness of Wallis Simpson
FOR CHILDREN
Journey to the Volcano
This Collection of Stories copyright © Rose Tremain 2014
‘Captive’ first published in the Guardian © Rose Tremain 2011,
‘The Jester of Astapovo’ first published in the Guardian © Rose Tremain 2009, ‘Extra Geography’ first published in Good Housekeeping © Rose Tremain 2007,
‘Man in the Water’ first published in Prospect © Rose Tremain 2008,
‘Juliette Gréco’s Black Dress’ first published in Vogue © Rose Tremain 2008, ‘Smithy’ first published in the Guardian © Rose Tremain 2007,
‘BlackBerry Winter’ first published in the Telegraph © Rose Tremain 2011,
‘The Closing Door’ first published in the Guardian © Rose Tremain 2011,
‘21st-Century Juliet’ first published in Prospect © Rose Tremain 2007
Yarmouth Beach and Jetty by Joseph Stannard © Norfolk Museums Service (Norwich Castle Museum and Gallery)
Copyright © 2014 by Rose Tremain
First American Edition 2015
All rights reserved
First Edition
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Production managers: Devon Zahn and Ruth Toda
The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:
Tremain, Rose.
[Short stories. Selections]
The American lover / Rose Tremain. — First American edition.
pages ; cm
ISBN 978-0-393-24671-1 (hardcover)
I. Title.
PR6070.R364A6 2015
823´.914—dc23
2014033773
ISBN 978-0-393-24672-8 (e-book)
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