If Only by Kate Eberlen

Author:Kate Eberlen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Canada
Published: 2020-02-14T16:00:00+00:00

24

March

LETTY

Spencer was standing at the check-in desk, just as they had arranged by text. He took Letty’s ticket and upgraded it to business class.

‘How did your exams go?’ he asked, as they waited in the queue for security.

‘Bit of an ordeal,’ Letty said.

‘But you survived!’ Spencer said.

The subject was clearly over. It was refreshing to be with someone who had no idea about iambic pentameter or Homeric epithets and wouldn’t have even understood what the examiners were asking, let alone how to answer.

‘How’s Gran?’ Spencer asked.

‘She’s not too good at the moment.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry.’

‘She’s old,’ Letty said. Literally old now, she thought.

Marina had become an increasingly difficult and impatient old lady, with whom it was no longer a pleasant experience to spend an afternoon. The doctors were now describing her illness as vascular dementia, where a series of tiny strokes, or infarcts, knocked out bits of memory. Was it possible, Letty sometimes wondered, that there was an area in her brain labelled ‘Love for Violetta’, like a file in an old-fashioned cabinet, that would one day be randomly obliterated?

Part of Letty wanted to spend as much time with Marina as possible, knowing that their time was running out, but another side wanted to remember Marina as she had been.

As the plane took off, and there was no longer any chance of turning back, Letty felt a burst of relief. If her grandmother were in her right mind, she would approve, she told herself – hoping that was the truth, and not just a comforting platitude.

‘Champagne?’ asked Spencer.

It was two o’clock in the afternoon, but she was on a plane between two time zones with a man she hardly knew, on their way to a city she’d never visited, to see an opera she loved – so the normal rules, whatever they were, didn’t apply.

‘Let me pay for it?’ she said.

She wanted to pay her share as much as possible. Upgrading to business class was totally beyond her means, so she’d let that go, but a glass of champagne was something she could afford and buying it would demonstrate a kind of symmetry, if not balance, in the situation.

Spencer laughed. ‘It’s free in business.’

At the luxury hotel there were, as agreed, two separate rooms, and they were the kind that had two double beds in each.

Letty had expected to feel tired from jet lag, but instead she was buzzing to get out and experience the city. She brushed her teeth and splashed cold water on her champagne-pink face before knocking on Spencer’s door. Eventually he appeared in a towelling robe, his hair wet from showering, and when he saw that she was still wearing her leather jacket and jeans, a look crossed his face that made her feel as if she wasn’t treating his generosity with quite the respect it demanded.

‘Should I change?’ she heard herself asking.

‘People tend to dress up a bit more for dinner here,’ he said.

‘Of course,’ she said, slightly flustered.

Letty had brought just the single carry-on bag allowed in economy.

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