The Dilemma

SUNDAY 9TH JUNE

3.30 A.M.

Livia

It’s the cooling bathwater that wakes me. Disorientated, I sit up quickly, sploshing suds up the sides, wondering how long I’ve been asleep. I release the plug and the drain gurgles, a too-loud sound in a silent house.

A shiver pricks my skin as I towel myself dry. A memory tugs at my brain. It was a sound that woke me, the roar of a motorbike in the street outside. I pause, the towel stretched over my back. It couldn’t have been Adam, could it? He wouldn’t have gone off on his bike, not at this time of night.

Wrapping the towel around me, I hurry to the bedroom and look out of the window. The guilty beating of my heart slows when I see, behind the marquee, a yellow glow coming from his shed. He’s there, he hasn’t gone to settle scores. Part of me wants to go down and check he’s alright but something, a sixth sense perhaps, tells me not to, that he’ll come to me when he’s ready. For a moment I feel afraid, as if I’m staring into an abyss. But it’s just the dark and the deserted garden that’s making me feel that way.

Turning from the window, I lie down on the bed. I’ll give him another ten minutes and if he’s not back by then, I’ll go and find him.

THE DAY BEFORE

SATURDAY 8TH JUNE

8 A.M. – 9 A.M.

Adam

Leaving Livia sleeping, I move from the bed and stretch quietly in the warm air coming through the open window. I stifle a yawn and check the sky; not a single sullen raincloud in sight. Liv will be pleased. The weather is just about the only thing she hasn’t been able to control for her party tonight. She’s been on top of everything else for months, wanting it to be perfect. But the relentless rain of the last few weekends was beginning to get her down.

I watch the steady rise and fall of her chest as she sleeps, the tiny flicker of her eyelids. She looks so peaceful that I decide not to wake her until I’ve made coffee. I find the clothes I was wearing last night and pull on my jeans, flattening my hair as I tug the T-shirt over my head.

The stairs creak as I go down to the kitchen and Murphy, our red merle Australian Shepherd, raises his head from where he sleeps in his basket by the wood-burning stove. I crouch next to him for a minute, asking him how he is and if he had a good sleep, and tell him that mine was disturbed by a nightmare. He gives my hand a sympathetic lick, then puts his head back down, ready to sleep the rest of the day away. He’s fifteen now and not as energetic as he used to be, which is just as well because neither am I. He loves his daily walk but the days of our long runs together are a thing of the past.

Mimi, Marnie’s marmalade cat, who acts as if she’s a purebred pedigree and is anything but, uncurls herself and comes to brush against my leg, reminding me that she exists too. I fill their bowls, then the kettle. As I switch it on, the splutter of water connecting to heat disturbs the silence. I look out of the window at the huge white marquee, crouched on the lawn like a malevolent beast, ready to leap onto the terrace and swallow the house. I remember now, the nightmare that woke me. I dreamt the marquee had blown away. I pull it from my memory – that’s it, I’d been standing on the lawn with Josh and Marnie when the wind began to pick up, and the gentle rustling of the trees became a sinister hissing, then a deafening roar that ripped the leaves from the branches and tossed them into the air, dragging the fairy lights with them into the vortex.

‘The tent!’ Josh had cried, as the wind turned its fury on the marquee. And before I could stop her, Marnie was running towards it and had grabbed at one of the flaps.

‘Marnie, let go!’ I’d yelled. But the wind caught my words and whipped them away so that she couldn’t hear, and the marquee had carried her high into the sky until we could no longer see her.

Liv will laugh when I tell her – it turns out she’s not the only one feeling the pressure of the party. I move restlessly from the window and give my body another stretch, my fingertips brushing the ceiling of our old cottage as I raise my arms above my head. I’m not quite sure when Josh overtook me in height, but he’s been able to lay his palms flat on the ceiling for a while now.

His rucksack is where he left it, dumped at the end of the table along with two plastic bags. I move them onto the floor and run a critical eye over the table. It was one of my earliest pieces, a simple structure of varnished pine that I’d tried to make different by reinforcing the legs with a bridge-like structure, a nod to the dream I once had of becoming a civil engineer. At first, Livia hadn’t liked the lack of space underneath. Now, she loves to sit on the cushioned bench-seat, her feet resting on one of the beams, her body curved back against the wall.

The kettle clicks off. I fill the cafetière and leaving it to brew, unlock the door to the garden. The noise disturbs a male blackbird sitting in a nearby bush. There’s a panicked flapping of wings, and as I watch him soar into the sky, I’m reminded that Marnie is on her way home.

Smiling at the thought of seeing her again, because nine months is a long time, I walk across the terrace and climb the five craggy steps, enjoying the feel of rough stone against the soles of my feet, followed by dewy grass as I cross the lawn. The morning air smells of a damp mulch I can’t quite place, something to do with Livia’s roses. There’s a huge bed of them, on the right-hand side of the garden, in front of the wooden fence and as I walk by, I catch the incredible scent of Sweet Juliet. Or maybe it’s Lady Emma Hamilton. I can never remember which, even though Livia tells me often enough.

I walk around the marquee, checking that it’s properly anchored, in case my nightmare was a premonition of some sort, and see that they’ve taken it so far back it’s practically touching my shed, leaving only the smallest of spaces for me to squeeze through. I know why they’ve done it; they’ve had to leave room for the tables and chairs which will be set up in front of the marquee. But if it’s possible to resent a tent, I’m doing it now.

I sit on the low stone wall that borders the other side of the lawn, opposite the fence, and try to imagine what the garden will look like tonight with a hundred people milling around, lights tangled in the branches of the apple and cherry trees, and balloons just about everywhere. I always knew Livia wanted a big party for her fortieth but I hadn’t realised quite how big until a few months ago, when she began to talk about caterers and marquees and champagne. It had sounded so over the top that I’d laughed.

‘I’m serious, Adam!’ she said indignantly. ‘I want it to be really special.’

‘I know, and it will be. It’s just that it sounds a bit expensive.’

‘Please don’t ruin it before I’ve had a chance to work things out,’ she implored. ‘Anyway, the money isn’t important.’

‘Liv, the money is important,’ I said, wishing I didn’t have to mention it. ‘Josh is going away this summer and Marnie’s in Hong Kong, we have to be careful for a while. You know that.’

She looked at me, and I knew that look. Guilt.

‘What?’ I asked.

‘I’ve been saving,’ she admitted. ‘For the party. I’ve been putting money by for years, not huge amounts, just a little each month. I’m sorry, I should have told you.’

‘It’s fine,’ I said, wondering if the reason she hadn’t told me was because of the time I spent her savings on a motorbike. It still makes me cringe even though it happened years ago, before Marnie was born.

The thought of Marnie jogs my memory. I make my way back to the house and, stepping over Mimi, who always manages to get under my feet, find my mobile where I left it charging last night, tucked next to the bread bin. As I was hoping, there’s a message from her.

‘Dad, you’re not going to believe it – my flight’s been delayed so I’m not going to make my connection in Cairo. Which means I’ll get to Amsterdam too late for my connection to London. It sucks but don’t worry, I’ll get there somehow. Maybe they’ll put me on a direct flight and I’ll be there earlier than we thought! I’ll text when I arrive at Heathrow. Love you xxx’

Damn. I love Marnie’s optimism but I doubt they’ll put her on a direct flight to London. They’ll probably make her wait in Cairo for the next available flight to Amsterdam. Not for the first time, I wonder why I agreed to her taking such a roundabout way to get here.

When she began planning her party, the one thing Livia never imagined was that Marnie might not be there. We’ve always known the date of the party, so the first thing Marnie did when she knew she was going to be studying in Hong Kong this year was check when she had exams. But then the dates changed.

‘I now have exams on the third, fourth and fifth of June and then again on the thirteenth and fourteenth,’ she said, her face flushed with frustration when she FaceTimed us back in January. ‘I can’t believe I’m going to miss the party.’

‘What if I move it to the fifteenth?’ Liv asked.

‘I still wouldn’t be able to get there in time, not with the time difference.’

‘Or the twenty-second?’

‘No, because then Josh wouldn’t be there. That’s the date he’s leaving for New York, remember? He chose it to fit in with your party. He’s already got his ticket so he won’t be able to change it. I’m really sorry, Mum, I wish there was something I could do. But there isn’t.’

We spent hours trying to find a way around it, but in the end, we had to accept that Marnie wouldn’t be at the party. It was a huge blow for Liv. She wanted to cancel the party and use the money to buy flights to Hong Kong, and celebrate her birthday there. But Marnie wouldn’t let her.

‘I don’t want you to give up on your dream party, Mum. Anyway, Josh wouldn’t be able to come because he’ll have his finals. I’d have to study, so I wouldn’t be able to spend much time with you. And you know Dad is too busy to take more than a week off. And to come for less than ten days wouldn’t be worth it, not after paying so much for the tickets.’

Then, three weeks ago, she’d texted me.

‘Dad, what are you buying Mum for her birthday?’

‘A ring,’ I texted back. ‘With diamonds. But don’t tell her, it’s a surprise.’

‘Would you like to give her another surprise?’

‘Such as?’

‘Can I FaceTime you? Is Mum around?’

‘No, she’s out, looking for a dress for the party.’

‘Oh, good, I hope she finds one. Talking of her party…’

Then my phone had rung and that’s when she told me about the cheap flight she’d found, Hong Kong to Cairo, Cairo to Amsterdam, Amsterdam to London.

‘I’ve worked it out and if I leave after my exam on the Thursday, I’ll arrive in London on Saturday evening and could be at the house around nine. What do you think, Dad? It could be a surprise for Mum.’

She was sitting on a white desk chair in the student room she shared with Nadia, her roommate from Romania, and behind her I could see the duvet cover she’d taken from home, most of it puddled on the floor. She was wearing one of my old T-shirts and her mahogany red-brown hair was piled on top of her head, secured there, I guessed, by the usual pencil. It always amazed me, the way she did that.

‘I think she’d love it,’ I said, scooping Mimi onto my knee so that they could see each other. ‘When would you have to go back?’

Marnie bent her head towards the screen, cooing and kissing Mimi. ‘Not until the following Wednesday, so it means I’d get nearly four days with you. I don’t have to go via Amsterdam on the way back which means I get back to Hong Kong in time for my exam on Thursday.’

‘That’s a lot of travelling for only a few days here,’ I said, frowning.

‘Business people do it all the time,’ she protested. Now and then her eyes would look down to where I guessed her mobile was, checking for messages as she spoke to me. It was late evening for her, and it felt odd, suddenly, the realisation that she had a whole life in Hong Kong which Liv and I only knew snippets about.

‘Did you look at direct flights?’ I asked.

‘Yes, but they’re hundreds of pounds more. This one, via Cairo and Amsterdam, is six hundred and fifty. I can pay half out of my savings and if you could lend me the other half, I’ll pay you back as soon as I can.’

‘I don’t want you paying anything towards your ticket. It’ll be part of my present to your mum.’

She gave me one of her huge smiles and pulled at a gold necklace I hadn’t seen before.

‘Thanks, Dad, you’re the best! So, shall I book the ticket before the price goes up?’

I had to battle with myself, I really did. I wanted to tell her to book a direct flight to avoid the hassle of two changes. But only the other day I’d made Josh book his flight to New York via Amsterdam, not only because it was cheaper than flying direct but also because I felt he should rough it a bit and not have it too easy. There was no way I could justify spending hundreds of pounds more on Marnie when I hadn’t spent a hundred and fifty more on Josh. And also, was it really worth her coming home for the party, when she’d have to leave again four days later? I looked at her pretty face, illuminated by the desk lamp that stood next to her computer, and any reservations I might have had melted away. First of all, she looked so much like her mother and secondly, I knew how ecstatic Liv would be if Marnie turned up unexpectedly.

‘On one condition,’ I said, aware of Mimi’s unblinking green eyes staring up at me. ‘You don’t tell anyone – not Josh, not Cleo, not any of your other friends, and especially not Aunt Izzy – that you’re coming home. I want it to be a surprise for everyone.’

‘I won’t say a word, I promise. Thanks, Dad, did I tell you you’re the best?’

There are quite a few surprises lined up for Livia today, but Marnie turning up at the party is going to be the best surprise of all.