The One That Got Away. Annabel Kantaria

love or no love, it means the start of a series of meetings in discreet London hotels. For my own convenience as much as for his, I stop asking George to come all the way to Hampstead. We start meeting in central London. Snatched moments: lunchtimes; afternoons. We have our favourite meeting places as well as what rapidly becomes a ‘regular’ little boutique hotel in Mayfair, where we act out the pretence that we’re married. The hotel realises, I imagine, what’s really going on, but the staff play along happily enough. George buys a second phone; pays cash at the hotel. If it wasn’t such a cliché, it might be funny.

      I’m surprised by how right everything feels. For the first time since I was a teenager, I slowly give myself up to love, enjoying the feeling of well-being with which it infuses me; lapping up the knowledge that I am loved.

      But there’s a sticking point. An elephant in the room.

      He’s not mine.

      I try not to think about Ness. I’m not the one, after all, who stood at the altar and promised to be faithful. I don’t know how George does it, but, if I concentrate hard enough, if I squeeze my eyes shut when I’m lying in his arms and if I focus on the rhythm of his breathing and inhale the scent of his skin, I can just about pretend that Ness doesn’t exist; I can force her from my mind and inhabit a world in which, for an hour or two, for a stolen evening here and there, it’s just George and me.

      I can lie entwined with George, and imagine that he really is mine.

      As he always should have been.

      I try not to dwell on how right I feel in George’s arms; about how our bodies remember from all those years ago how well they fit together. I really try not to. I throw myself into work; I have client meetings, I’m driving our expansion into corporate clients. It’s during this period that I land some brilliant new accounts. People notice. Professionally, I’m on fire.

      But then, insidiously, the alien feeling that I no longer want to be alone creeps into my consciousness like the lavender-infused curls of steam I’m watching rise above my bath one evening. I’ve a glass of wine balanced on the edge of the tub and the radio on a chill-out station – this bath routine is my favourite part of the day, but tonight there it is: the notion that it would be absolutely right for George to be pottering about in the bedroom. Just like that, the thought pops into my head and then, once it’s thought, I can’t un-think it. I sink under the surface of the water and imagine George coming into the bathroom; I imagine him plucking a warm towel off the rack and holding it out to me. Me stepping into it, George enveloping me with it, then scooping me up and carrying me into the bedroom and, as I imagine this scene, my whole body relaxes.

      But this – this feeling that George should not just be in my apartment but in my life – is disconcerting. I’m a loner. Don’t get me wrong: I can deal with people well enough but, at the end of the day, I like my own space. Sharing my life is not something I’ve dreamed of since I was eighteen years old: ironically enough, not since I was a schoolgirl imagining her life with George Wolsey – and that was presumably just because I knew no better. It’s quite ridiculous if I think about it that, aged thirty-three, I’ve gone full loop. I have to be careful when I’m at work, not to daydream of how this life together might play out, but I’m not very successful. Like a creeping fog, George seeps into my day-to-day thoughts.

      I picture a house in the country. Not an old heap with rattly single-glazing and leaky pipes but a barn conversion, perhaps, modernised inside. Lots of light and space; the kitchen glossy white; an office for each of us to work from home a couple of days a week. I’ve always wanted to write a book. The business is ticking over nicely. I could easily take a step back and make time to write. I see myself facing an expansive view of green fields; sucking the end of a pen as I think about my next sentence. But I also picture a small cottage by the sea, roses tangled around peeling blue window frames; a golden retriever running ahead of George and I on the cold, hard sand. Sometimes I imagine a luxury apartment on the river, its picture windows overlooking the glittering lights of the Thames as George and I stand on the terrace on a Friday evening nursing ice-cold gin and tonics. It doesn’t matter, I realise, where we live: the important ingredient of this fantasy is George. George and Stell, back together, growing old together. George and Stell together for ever.

      Trying to focus on my work, I see George, in jeans and a black sweater, padding into my home office mid-morning with a cup of freshly brewed coffee and ‘that’ look in his eye… I snap my attention back to the computer screen but it’s minutes before my mind wanders again, this time down the corridor of the barn conversion, to an annexe off our bedroom where there might be… I breathe in deeply – it’s not too late!… a little nursery. White, with accents of colour. Blue or pink? I don’t mind.

      I don’t know what sex our baby would have been.

      I like to think a boy. A tiny version of George, his face crumpled and new.

      But I’m no marriage-wrecker. Walk away, I tell myself. Walk away now.

FOURTEEN

       George

      We meet, one night, for dinner. An unobtrusive restaurant that I know, with lighting so low it takes a minute for our eyes to adjust, and a lot of red velvet and ostentatious décor. There aren’t many tables, but plenty of very private booths. At first glance, the restaurant doesn’t look busy but, as we walk through, it becomes apparent that almost all of the booths contain couples – many of them, I imagine, here purely to snatch time away from prying eyes. It’s that kind of place to be honest: much as I’d love to show off that I’m with Stell, I’m hardly in a position to go somewhere conspicuous – not with the chance that I might be recognised.

      Stell’s energy is off-kilter tonight; nothing I can put my finger on – she’s just not her usual self. I follow her into our booth, squishing onto the bench seat alongside her, and my hand finds its usual place on her leg under the table. I stroke up and down her thigh through the thin fabric of her skirt, feeling the line of her stocking as the waitress asks if we’d like any drinks to start.

      ‘Champagne!’ I say, pointing to a good label on the wine list.

      ‘Champagne?’ Stell raises her eyebrows at me once the waitress has gone.

      ‘What?’ I raise mine back at her, mock innocence.

      ‘Are we celebrating something?’

      I put my hand on the side of Stell’s face, pull her towards me and touch my lips to hers. The scent of her makes me tremble with the memory of being inside her.

      ‘Us,’ I say. ‘We’re celebrating us.’

      She pulls away just enough so her lips move against my mouth.

      ‘There is no “us”, George,’ she says quietly. ‘You know that.’

      I kiss her again, tasting her bottom lip with the tip of my tongue. ‘But there is. We’re here. Now. Or am I dreaming?’

      She pulls away properly this time; smooths my hand off her skirt, suddenly prim. ‘George. Please. You and me? We’re an illusion. Smoke and mirrors. We don’t exist in the outside world.’

      I smile. ‘Of course we do. We’re here, aren’t we?’ I pinch my arm. ‘Ouch. See?’

      Stell sighs and shakes her head. ‘You know what I mean.’

      ‘Here we are!’ says the waitress, presenting the champagne bottle with a flourish. I nod. ‘Would you like me to open it?’

      ‘Yes please,’ I say, and we watch patiently while she fiddles to remove the foil, then twists the bottle until the cork works its way loose. She pops it discreetly, then carefully fills two flutes, making sure they don’t bubble over. I slip my hand back onto Stell’s leg under the table and give it a squeeze, but she doesn’t look at me.

      ‘I’ll just get a cooler for that,’ says the