He sounded sad. Sincere. For a split second, Rachel softened.
Then she stood up straighter and picked up her handbag from between her feet. It was time they were getting back.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘at least it sounds as though you mean it this time.’ She loaded the words with all the contempt she could muster.
They sat in silence on the Underground from London Bridge back to Angel. The air between them was sour and Rachel found that the longer they sat there saying nothing, the angrier she felt. She imagined plumes of fury emanating from her like poisonous fumes from a fire.
Jack stood behind her on the long escalators back up to street level, then followed her out into the chilly early-evening gloom.
‘Rachel, don’t you think we should try to clear the air before we head back?’ he said gently, catching her by the shoulder before she could walk too far in front.
She whirled round faster than he was expecting. Faster thanshewas expecting.
‘Clear the air?’
She spat the words out, wanting him to hear air quotes in her tone.
‘I see the years haven’t tarnished your brass neck. You’re an entitled tosser, you know that? Why should I care about clearing the air? Ifthe airis somewhat toxic, that’s on you, not me. Remember?’
Rachel felt brim-full of rage – as though her fingertips and hair must be crackling with it. She struggled to keep her voice even, to stop herself from saying more. She remembered that only this morning she’d sworn Jack would never be allowed to think what had happened between them still bothered her. She’d shut it out years ago, and it wasn’t coming back in.
Rachel swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat as she stared him down. If she let rip at him now, he’d see the strength of feeling he could still stir up – a strength of feeling that shocked and appalled her. Her whole body felt alive with it: heart thumping, blood fizzing with adrenaline, brain struggling to impose logical thought.
‘You’re right,’ Jack said abruptly. ‘Again.’
He stepped closer and Rachel tried not to look at him.
‘That was a stupid thing to say. You shouldn’t have to pretend the air is clear … I don’t expect you to be nice to me. You don’t owe me anything.’
She barked a bitter laugh and hated how it sounded. He flinched a little, as though she’d slapped him.
‘I didn’t plan to suggest to Greg that we were old friends … It just kind of came out. The truth is, when I look back …’
He sucked in a deep breath, then tore his eyes from the pavement to her face.
‘The truth is, I’m deeply ashamed of myself. Of what I did to you. You deserved so much better. All I can hope now is that – if I can stop saying all the wrong things for more than five minutes – we might be able to move on. I’ve changed since the last time we saw each other, and I’m sure you have too. I’m not the bad lad you remember … Not quite, anyway.’
A smile flickered briefly on his lips, then died. Rachel’s heart beat harder as her memory wound back to kissing them for the first time – knowing deep down, even then, that no good could come of it, and not caring.
She let herself search his face, separated from hers by just a few inches. She stared at him, unabashedly, for the first time all day.
Hadhe changed? Rachel tried to assess him dispassionately. She looked for features that, by rights, should have aged, degenerated – been rendered less perfect by another decade of life.
Was he shorter than she remembered, or was it just that her (now seriously uncomfortable) boots lent her an extra two inches? Were his lips a little thinner than before? Had she embellished when she’d told herself stories about his eyes: the green-gold hazelly-brown of them, so beguiling that she’d once joked he must be part witch?
The unfortunate truth was that he’d barely changed at all. In fact, he looked amazing. Yes, there were a few more lines around his eyes where the skin creased when he laughed. He also had a little more stubble than he used to wear – probably more than he used to be able togrow. But it suited him.
His hair was shorter now, though still a wavy mass of bronze-tinged brown. He had better clothes: corporate in comparison with what most people at R/C normally wore, but unfussy enough that he still looked more ‘senior person in a creative job’ than bank manager.
‘Come on,’ he sighed eventually. ‘It’s freezing out here and it’s past five. Let’s get back to the office. We don’t have to talk, just walk.’
He was still waiting for Rachel to say something, but she didn’t dare try. She felt disgusted, sick with hating him, but also burning with contempt for her failure to loathe himmore.
They plodded along next to each other in the dark, fingertips almost touching. He was too close; it was agonising. But moving might acknowledge weakness – imply she was overwrought. Better to stay put than seem to run away, she reasoned.
It was at this moment that a bus came to a stop alongside them, bearing an image of Jessica that must have been three metres high. In it, her improbably round breasts were squeezed into a pale-pink tank top, and her lips – thickly glossed to a mirror shine – were parted around what looked like a bar of chocolate.
Rachel read the copy:ANGELBARS: slimming never tasted sweeter. It was somehow both stupidly offensiveandoffensively stupid.