‘How come you suddenly don’t like roast potatoes?’ I asked, surprised.
Last time I’d been over on a Sunday, which admittedly had been at least six months before, she’d piled her plate high with them and had then been told by Mum that she’d put on loads of weight if she continued to eat like that. I’d actually – for possibly the first time in my life – felt sorry for Amelia.
‘She’s on a diet,’ said Amelia’s identical twin sister, Natasha.
‘That’s really not necessary,’ I said to Amelia, piling four roast potatoes on to my plate. ‘You’re both so slim, and you’re young. You should be enjoying your food.’
Mum shot me a dirty look. ‘Don’t encourage them, Maddie.’
‘Encourage them to do what? Eat?’ I said, irritated.
My mum had been on diets her entire life even thoughshe’d never been larger than a size ten. Her constant mithering about weight had clearly rubbed off on these two.
‘They’ve got their final ballet exam coming up,’ said Mum, by way of explanation. ‘Grade eight! And their university interviews are just around the corner. They need to look their best for them. Everything helps, that’s what I’ve told them. The way you present yourself is important.’
I didn’t think they needed to worry. They led a particularly cushy life, with everything falling into their laps and gigantic bedrooms decked out like something out of MTVCribs. For their eighteenths, Mum and my loaded step-dad had even bought them a brand new Mini Cooper to share. Not that I was at all jealous, you understand.
‘How’s work?’ asked Mum. ‘Scotland, wasn’t it?’
‘Hmmn,’ I said, wishing I hadn’t put a dangerously hot potato in my mouth.
I flapped my hand around in front of my mouth, as though that was going to do any good. And then, because I didn’t want to come across as being as lonely and pathetic as I usually did, I told them about Aidan.
‘I met someone, actually,’ I said. ‘In Loch Lomond. He’s a travel writer for theHampstead and Highgate Expressand he’s very good-looking. Sort of Sebastian Stan-esque. And very … funny. We just clicked.’
Everyone looked at me in shock.
‘I love Sebastian Stan,’ said Natasha, apparently in disbelief that somebody like that could be interested in somebody like me.
Never mind, she had her own preppy boyfriend who was very in to her, in fact there had been a long line of them throughout their teen years. Neither of my sisters could understand how it was possible to be single for the length of time I had been (two and a half years, give or take).
I was, for once, triumphant. I, too, had a life. And it felt great to tell them all about it.
‘We had this instant connection,’ I told Mum, really milking it now. ‘The chemistry was just there from the off.’
Chapter Sixteen
I let the smooth waters of the Arno calm me as I waited to hear Aidan’s explanation.
‘It’s probably best if I start at the beginning,’ he said.
Fuck. I braced myself. This was going to be bad.
‘Go on, then.’
‘It started a week or two before that night,’ he said, his voice faltering. ‘I’d had a call from my mum. I don’t know whether you remember, but she’d been having some tests?’
I nodded. ‘You never said exactly what for, but I remember.’
‘She was diagnosed with late-onset Hereditary Optic Neuropathy.’
I widened my eyes. ‘What’s that?’ It sounded terrible, but what did it have to do with anything?
‘She was basically losing her vision. She’d have bouts of not being able to see in colour, for example, and often everything would be blurred. It started in one eye and then, after six months or so, it started happening in both. That was when we – my dad and I – finally persuaded her to go to her doctor.’
The story I’d made up in my head was beginning to unravel in front of my eyes. In my scenario, it had had nothing to do with his mum’s failing eyesight.
‘My mum told me the diagnosis over dinner one night,’ Aidan continued. ‘She played it down, because that’s whatshe does, but I knew there must be more to it. Once it had sunk in, I—’