I flick over a page of Corriere della Sera and briskly skim the headlines. Then my brain suddenly clicks.
I put the paper down and stare at Luke again.
What’s happened to him?
I’m looking at the Luke Brandon I used to know back when I was a financial journalist. He’s completely clean-shaven, and dressed in an immaculate suit, with a pale green shirt and darker green tie. He’s wearing proper shoes and proper socks. His earring is gone. His bracelet is gone. The only vestige of our travels is his hair, which is still in tiny plaits.
I can feel a bubble of dismay growing inside. I liked him the way he was, all laid-back and disheveled.
“You’ve… smartened up a bit!” I say. “Where’s your bracelet?”
“In my suitcase.”
“But the woman in the Masai Mara said we must never take them off!” I say in shock. “She said that special Masai prayer!”
“Becky…” Luke sighs. “I can’t go into a meeting with an old bit of rope round my wrist.”
Old bit of rope? That was a sacred bracelet, and he knows it.
“You’ve still got your plaits!” I retort. “If you can have plaits, you can have a bracelet!”
“I’m not keeping my plaits!” Luke looks incredulous. “I’ve got a haircut booked in”—he consults his watch—“ten minutes.”
A haircut?
This is all too fast. I can’t bear the idea of Luke’s sun-bleached hair being snipped off and falling to the floor. Our honeymoon hair, all gone.
“Luke, don’t,” I say, before I can stop myself. “You can’t.”
“What’s wrong?” Luke turns and looks at me more closely. “Becky, are you OK?”
No. I’m not OK.
“You can’t cut off your hair,” I say desperately. “Then it will all be over!”
“Sweetheart… it is over.” Luke comes over and sits down beside me. He takes my hands and looks into my eyes. “You know that, don’t you? It’s over. We’re going home. We’re going back to real life.”
“I know!” I say, after a pause. “It’s just… I really love your hair long.”
“I can’t go into a business meeting like this.” Luke shakes his head so the beads in his hair click together. “You know that as well as I do!”
“But you don’t have to cut it off!” I say, suddenly inspired. “Plenty of Italian men have long hair. We’ll just take the plaits out!”
“Becky…”
“I’ll do it! I’ll take them out! Sit down.”
I push Luke down onto the bed and carefully edge out the first few little beads, then gently start to unbraid his hair. As I lean close, I can smell the business-y smell of Luke’s expensive Armani aftershave, which he always wears for work. He hasn’t used it since before we got married.
“So… who exactly are you meeting with today?”
Luke did tell me, on the flight from Colombo — but they were serving free champagne at the time, and I’m not entirely sure I took it all in.
“We’re going after a new client. The Arcodas Group.”
“That’s right. Now I remember. So what are they? Fund managers?”
Luke’s company is called Brandon Communications, and it’s a PR agency for financial institutions like banks and building societies and investment houses. That’s kind of how we met, actually, during my days on Successful Saving magazine.