Hollie pointed to where a George Clooney look-alike was slumped on a bar stool, desperately in need of a shave and a good night’s sleep, not the double whisky he’d just ordered.
‘Look, you’re always complaining about the five hundred divorces you’ve racked up. This is your chance to redress the balance, to concentrate on the positive elements of the institution of marriage. Am I right, Matt?’
‘Despite my view that Hollie’s idea is ludicrous, I propose you take the path of least resistance and humour her, Liv. And you never know, it could be just the exercise in positivity you need to get your life back on track.’
‘Okay, okay.’ Olivia laughed, shaking her head at the hopeful expectation in their eyes, like a pair of puppies keen to earn their daily treats. ‘Thank you both for your invaluable advice. I’ll think about it.’
‘What, the trip to Singapore or the “lessons in love”?’
‘Both!’
In fact, she’d already drafted the first lesson.
Olivia Hamilton’s Lessons in Love: No 1. “Never start an argument you have no chance of winning!”
Olivia glanced out of the window of the Boeing 737, listening to the low drone of the aircraft’s engine as they cruised their way towards the southern Mediterranean Sea. As she loosened her seatbelt and settled back into her seat, she realised that it was the first flight she had boarded since her honeymoon in Paris seven years earlier, and the only time she had ever travelled abroad alone.
She experienced a sharp stab of regret when she thought of the surprise trip Nathan had booked for their first wedding anniversary. However, she had been cocooned in a complicated contested hearing in the High Court and unable to extricate herself from its claws in time to catch the train, and their long weekend in Bruges had been cancelled. Nevertheless, it hadn’t prevented him from continuing to schedule time away in the UK – a spa break in the Cotswolds, a jaunt up to Edinburgh, afternoon tea at The Ritz – none of which had actually gone ahead.
And yet still Nathan had continued in his battle to tempt her to spend time with him. Tickets to the theatre, to the cinema, to listen to Hollie play her clarinet in a concert for ‘Help the Heroes’ in the Royal Albert Hall – which she had never forgiven herself for missing even though Hollie had – and those VIP Ed Sheeran tickets. In the end, Nathan had resorted to inviting Matteo and Hollie along in the hope that Olivia wouldn’t feel able to let their friends down as well as him. Sadly, he’d been proved wrong. Even Hollie, who was regularly ‘on duty’ for police station callouts, managed to make it in time to take up her seat at Les Misérables!
Then she cringed, and the needle-sharp incisors of guilt skewered her chest when she remembered the expression of hurt on Nathan’s face as he watched her sprint towards him as the Venice-Simplon Orient Express’s last Pullman carriage disappeared from the end of the beautifully restored station platform. The trip had been arranged at the beginning of December as part of his fortieth birthday celebrations; it was one of the items that featured high on his bucket list and they’d missed it and it was her fault. Looking back, she should have realised that that was the final candle of hope to be extinguished on the cake of their marriage.
She thanked the smiling air steward for her milky coffee, and continued with her internal monologue of self-reproach, aware that she was prodding a fresh bruise, but she couldn’t help herself. She had been a dreadful spouse – not only that, but a neglectful partner and friend to Nathan. What surprised her was that he had tried for so long. How had it ended like this when their relationship, and their marriage, had started out so well? She had to concede Rachel was right when she’d thought they would be one of the lucky ones whose marriage endured. They were ideally suited. She had adored Nathan, still did. He had been her soulmate, and, in the years they had spent together before their careers had intervened, they’d been happy.
Nathan worked hard. He travelled extensively for his job as in-house counsel for a large pharmaceuticals company, yet he always found space in his busy schedule for her. ‘A golden couple’, her father had called them on their wedding day. They may have been well-paid, able to live in an apartment overlooking the river and take exotic holidays, but they hadn’t been rich in that priceless commodity that everyone wished they had more of – time. Nathan’s recent posting to Singapore was the ultimate recognition of his career success: promotion to General Counsel for the whole company. By rights, he should be enjoying his moment in the limelight with his wife by his side, but he’d had the misfortune to choose a partner who couldn’t even spare the time to celebrate his achievement.
No wonder he had taken such a drastic step.
And would it have been easier to accept the ending of their marriage if there had been someone else? Someone delighted to share in his success, someone who would holler his accolades from the rooftops with pride in her voice and devotion in her heart? Or maybe he had found someone and was just too considerate to tell her. Ironically, she had spent more time thinking about Nathan, what he was doing, what he was thinking, where he was at any given moment, and who with, since receiving the divorce petition than she had in the month leading up to that fateful moment.
A wave of anguish and desolation engulfed her body as she realised that she had inadvertently stumbled upon the second item for Hollie’s list before even setting foot on Maltese soil.
Olivia Hamilton’s Lessons in Love: No 2. “To stay together, you have to be together.”
However, dwelling for too long on the reasons for her break-up with Nathan threatened to stretch the guy ropes that were holding her emotions in check to breaking point and she had no wish to succumb to a torrent of tears in the public arena of the inside of an aircraft with rows of bored passengers watching on. So she resolved, for the time being at least, to push her heartache into the deep, dark crevices of her mind and instead to savour her first aerial glimpse of the island of Malta, the great outdoor museum of the Mediterranean.
It wasn’t long before they had landed at Luqa airport, and as soon as the ‘Fasten Seatbelt’ sign was switched off, she slung her holdall over her shoulder and joined the scrum in the aisle of pasty-faced holidaymakers, all eager to escape from their three-hour confinement, taste their first blast of warm sunshine and indulge in a few glasses of the local red wine.
It was the last week of February so thankfully there had been very few squabbling children on board the early morning flight from Gatwick. However, many of the travellers exhibited exuberant spirits for the start of their annual break from the minutiae of normal life or a visit to much-loved family. Couples held hands in the queue at Passport Control, overjoyed at being able to spend time together away from their day-to-day struggles and Olivia found herself adding a third discovery to the email she intended to send to Hollie.
Olivia Hamilton’s Lessons in Love: No 3. “Time away from the usual routine is essential to reconnect and replenish togetherness.”
As she held her passport open at the photograph page in front of the handsome immigration officer, a shard of pain sliced across her right temple. She put it down to the early morning start, mingled with the effects of her persistent battle with insomnia, which meant she was granted only snatches of respite from the contemplation of the ruins of her marriage. The last thing she wanted to do was socialise with a Maltese stranger sent to collect her from Arrivals. If it had been up to her, she would have preferred to grab a taxi to Valletta, check in to her hotel overlooking the harbour, dump her bag in her room and then plunge