by Anna Bloom
What? “What?”
He held my gaze, totally serious. “The Anglers Arms wasn’t the one time I stopped by. I might as well tell you, I found out where you lived and whenever I was in London I walked past. I never planned to see you, or to talk to you. But I just liked to know where you were.”
“Oh my god. And you accused me of being a stalker?”
He chuckled and took another sip.
“That’s not fair. I couldn’t find you anywhere. Believe me, I searched.”
“I made it that way.” For a moment, his face dropped, shadows from the candles on the table stretched across his face. “I made it that way. I knew you’d look. I hated the thought of you seeing me like that.”
“Depressed?”
“Miserable.”
I held his gaze, my mouth dry. “So you thought Paul wasn’t the right man?”
“Lassie, I knew he wasn’t. But I was a dick. I know I was a dick. I should have fought harder, not lurked in the shadows like a tool without purpose.”
“A big one.”
His lips quirked.
I swallowed, unsure if I could speak the truth out loud, but then I figured, secrets should be a thing of our past. “I think he was having an affair.”
Matthew’s face stayed impassive as he waited for me to continue.
“I never found out, but the weekends away got more frequent. He never did anything with Hannah.” I shivered. “He never did, even from the start. I don’t think he wanted her,” I whispered.
Matthew reached across the table, asking for my hand which he held in his, brushing his thumb across my skin. “You deserve better than that, and so does she.”
“I don’t know. Maybe it was all in my head?”
He didn’t answer.
“So what am I going to do about McDougall? Am I going to call Fred and lay down the law?”
“Why don’t you come up with some ideas you can share with Fred and then maybe he won’t be so cross at starting all over again.”
“I’m not in the mood for drawing.”
“I can have a go?”
“Businessman Matthew?”
“Ex-businessman.” He laughed and downed the last of his wine.
“I saw your pictures in the shop, your mam made me look.” My cheeks flushed as I thought of secretly lifting the pages of those huge sketch pads.
He chuckled and shook his head. “So what do you think of me in a green and gold apron?”
“Ah, so it was you. I wasn’t sure if it was you or your dad?”
He shrugged but shot me a wide smile. “Is there any difference?”
Getting up from my seat, I walked around to his side of the table and kissed his cheek. Jack came in, rubbing his eyes. “I can’t sleep.”
“Can I come and sing you a song, the same one I used to sing Hannah?”
Jack looked between me and Matthew, but then gave me a nod and my heart melted. “Come on then.” I reached for his hand and he clasped his small one in mine. “My supplies are in my bag if you want to work on ideas for McDougall,” I said, throwing my innocent sounding comment over my shoulder to Matthew.
One thing I was pretty sure about was the simple fact that Matthew was nothing like his dad. He just needed to see that he didn’t need to live in his shadows of regret like his dad did.
An hour later—I fell asleep—I came down to find Matthew still working at the table. He’d done some of the design work, fixing McDougall’s need to be essentially Scottish, while bartering with cheap knickknacks from around the world.
I peered over his shoulder, watching him work on a sketch of Hannah and the boys on the beach. “Oh my, she’s going to love that.”
“You think?”
I nodded and laid my hand on his shoulder. The cotton threads staring at me like an unspoken question. “Matthew. You deserve more than that shop.”
He shook his head and dropped his gaze. “It’s all I’ve got left.”
I tugged the picture closer with my index finger. “That’s not true anymore, is it?” I smoothed my fingers through the inky strands of his hair, slivers of silver catching the light. “There is the possibility to be anything.”
Turning, he caught me in his arms and lowered me onto his lap. Heat licked warm darts of desire throughout my tummy. His gaze of heaven and slate burned just as bright.
“You don’t really have to go back to London, do you?” He asked. I tried to push back out of his grip, but he held on fast.
“You know I do. This is a sensitive time for Hannah. She’s had a tough time. Up until recently she was in a lot of trouble.” I cringed and ducked my head down into the crook of his neck. “A lot of the time. I used to dread the phone ringing at work. I was constantly being called into the school. It’s been better the last few weeks. Whatever is changing, I would be stupid to rock the boat now.”
He massaged strong fingers into the back of my neck, gently forcing me to look up at him. “I’m sorry you’ve always had to do things by yourself.”
“I haven’t always been by myself. I’ve had Ma. I know she’s not the easiest, but she has been there for me. And Ange…” I trailed off but then I remembered the unanswered question I’d posed earlier. “How did you know where she lived? Where to come and find me?”
“I’ve seen her. You know I have. She even admitted that to you.”
I nodded, my heart beating an erratic note. “She said that she’d tried it on with you.”
It still rankled like a violation, but at the same time, until now, Matthew hadn’t been mine…
“She got drunk a few times. I don’t know how she found me in places to be honest. Once I gave her a lift home because I couldn’t walk away and leave her there in that state. She seemed vulnerable.”
I nodded. “I think she is. She’s so brash and loud, always has been, but beneath that, I’m no longer sure. I think maybe I never looked after her enough, because she was always the one looking after me.”
Matthew stared at me long and hard. I could sense his unspoken words.
“What?”
With a shake of his head, he pulled me in. “Can we not talk about Angela on our last night together?”
I giggled as his lips trailed along my throat, arching my neck so he could get better access. “Shall we talk about the fact you shouldn’t become a greengrocer and instead should go back to uni and finally do your teacher training, which is what you always wanted?”
His eyes burned hot like the sun. “What we both wanted if I remember correctly.”
I shrugged. “Yeah, but I’m happy with the path I’ve made. The business was something for me to do after Paul died, because I felt like I needed my own identity.”
“Because you didn’t have one before?” His fingers brushed at my hair, lifting it off my neck and skimming through the strands.
“I think I wanted to make a bubble I could be safe in, so I felt like I had a life now my previous one was over.”
“And did you?” His thumb brushed my cheek.
“Yes. I mean, I miss the guys in the office. I’m looking forward to going back to work on Monday. That’s a good thing, right? It never was just a hobby to make myself look busy, otherwise I wouldn’t feel that way.”
Matthew nodded carefully. “You have to promise me we are going to make this work.” He caught my left hand, pressing the cords of cotton into my skin.
“I promise.”
“Good, now can we go to bed so I can ravish you until you're screaming? If you're going home tomorrow I sure as hell want you to remember our time together.”
I giggled and hung on as he stood on strong legs and kicked the chair back out of the way. “Very little chance of me forgetting. Very little indeed.”
Truth
Matthew
Ronnie leaving kicked like a football boot straight to the gut, studs and all. I thought she’d say yes, thought that I might be able to convince them both that Scotland had so much to offer, but leaving them at the airp
ort stung.
“When’s Hannah coming back, Dad?” Jack’s face blotched red with tears, snot trails dried on his cheeks.
“Soon. Week after next.” I turned from the front seat of the car and smiled at them both. “How about we paint her room for her?”
“What colour would she like?” Jack's lips turned up at the corners slightly.
“Black,” Ewan grouched, and it made Jack and I both laugh.
“Well, maybe we could do a grey or something.” I shrugged. “Black sounds a bit melodramatic.”
“Hannah is melodramastic.”
“Melodramatic.” I corrected. “She can’t help it, it’s her age. You wait until you’re fourteen and I can’t get you out of bed at the weekend any longer.”
“Never going to happen.” Jack tilted his chin. “That’s valuable Xbox time.”
I laughed and turned around to start the car.
“Dad?”
“Yes, mate?” I glanced at Ewan in the rear-view mirror.
“Are you going to move to London?”
“No! What makes you say that?”
I watched him carefully. “Nothing. I just wondered.”
“Ewan, I will never leave you boys. You will always come first. No matter what you do, no matter what you want to do, who you want to be, you will always be first.”
I started the car and flicked the indicator to head back out into the traffic. My stomach weighed heavy leaving the airport, knowing Ronnie and Hannah were checking in for their flight home. Ronnie had looked odd as she left, biting her tongue, not making eye contact. Odder than normal is probably what I meant. Try as I might, I couldn’t think of anything that could be making her be that way.
Maybe I’d pushed too far asking her to marry me.
In my soul though I didn’t think that was the case.
We’d loved one another for a lifetime. It was the one question I always should have asked.
Instead I’d asked the wrong woman, sold my life out.
As I drove back home, I thought of Dad. Would I have ever been able to please him? I didn’t know.
On a whim I stopped in at Mam’s, a strange need to be in the place the memory of the old man was strongest.
“You’re over-thinking everything again, Matthew.” She slid me a coffee across the table. Ewan and Jack were making ice cream soup at the other end of the table.
“I’m not. I’m trying to see a future.”
Mam shook her head and took a sip of her coffee. “You’re looking at the past for your happiness. You think that by making up for what went wrong all those years ago, you can alleviate the guilt you feel about your dad.”
I pressed my lips into a line.
“Do you think he didn’t appreciate you for what you were? I can tell you he did.”
“That’s not true, Mam. He nagged me, told me I had to be better, that I needed to do the right thing for the Carlings. It’s all I ever heard. Be a good man, be a good Carling.”
“Matthew.” Her palm hit the table making the boys jump. “He’s not here anymore. You are the Carling now. You. Who do you want your boys to see when they're growing up? Are they going to see the real you or the side of you that you think they should see?”
“What do you mean?”
Mam’s face dropped, her eyes glassing a little. Steam rose from her mug, obscuring her face a little as she blew on her drink. “Your dad. He didn’t show you the real him either. He showed you the side of himself that he’d been told to show. Don’t do it again. Don't repeat the past.”
“That shop deserves to be ours, Mam. McStandish sold Dad a lie.”
“Matthew, your dad didn’t care. He was so bloody tired at the end of it all, it didn’t really matter any longer. Look at this amazing house I live in. Your dad was happier with this as our home. He didn’t care once the business was gone. Things like that, they come and go: ideas, business, enterprise. They change for the world as the world needs it. Your dad knew that.”
“But Ronnie’s branding idea was good. The world does need that now.”
“Yes, Matthew. But does it need you to be the one standing behind the counter doing it? Is that your dream?”
I thought of the shop. I’d loved smashing it all up, dragging out all the crap Supersaver Foods' cheap furnishings, but if I thought about the man in the picture I drew—the man in green and gold—was that me, or was it my father? I didn’t know.
“Here. Let me show you this.”
Mam pushed back her chair and left the table, going out into the hallway, her tread on the stairs echoing through the empty house. The house was beautiful. There would have been so much space for us growing up as kids. Instead, the three of us were squished into a small house next to the second shop, three bubbling teenage boys in closed quarters. It hadn’t all been bad though.
She came back down clutching an old folder, curled around the edges.
“I’ve told you that your dad used to draw.”
“Yes, I know. You told me Pops made him give it up.”
“Here.” She pushed the folder across to me.
“What is it?”
“What, you want me to spoil the surprise? Just open it.”
Small pieces of paper slid out, browned and delicate. Pencil drawings with the most precise details of a baby stared up at me.
“That’s you.” Mam pointed at one gently.
“Me?”
“Yep. You wouldn’t stay still long enough, so he ended up taking a photograph and getting it developed to use, but I think he always tried to base them on the real-life version of you, not the one captured in print.”
I pulled another drawing out from underneath. The baby was wailing, gums bared. “Please tell me that's Liam?”
Mam’s hand landed over mine. “No love, you misunderstand. These are all of you. All of them.”
I stared at them; my throat thick. “Why did he make it sound like I should give up?” I rested my head in my hand, exhausted.
“Did he? Or did he tell you to fight harder?”
I thought back to the night he’d found me outside the Anglers Arms, and I’d been hesitating, on the cusp of going in, but my doubts holding me back.
“Do the right thing, Matthew,” he’d said.
Foolishly, I’d assumed he meant what he thought was the right thing, not me.
And since that day I’d never fought for anything ever again.
“Mam, I think I’ve really fucked up.”
“You’re late to the party, but it’s better late than never.”
“What about the boys?”
She rolled her eyes. “And the lesson is…”
“Fight.”
“Can you watch them for half an hour? I need to call my solicitor.”
Boxes
Ronnie
“Maaaaaaaaaa.” My lungs were fit for bursting. “Did you use all the boxes?”
Ma poked her head around the landing and peered down the stairs. “I have lots of things, Veronica. I’ve lived in this house a very long time.”
I glared daggers, but walked away, grumbling under my breath. Jeez, I’d lived in the house for a bloody long time too, but I hadn’t stolen all the sodding packing boxes.
It seemed silly to be rushing on the packing, the sale was taking forever to go through, but at the same time I needed to be proactive. Like maybe I should look at houses to rent again? My heart seemed resolutely against it, and I knew why… it had to do with the small blue box I had unopened in my knicker drawer that I was waiting to do with Matthew.
“When do I get a box?” Hannah slouched at the kitchen table. She’d been down since school had got back, but wasn’t keen to talk, and I was trying my hardest not to harass her, in a very caring and supportive way.
Not an easy balance let me tell you.
“How big a box do you need for all your eyeliner?” See… not an easy balance at all.
“Is Matthew still coming this weekend?”
“I think so, why?
”
She smirked. “You’re much nicer when he's distracting you.”
“Rude! I’m nice all the time.”
“In your own head,” she mumbled, but I let it go.
“Okay, I’m going to work. You sure you don’t need a lift to school?”
“No.” She lifted her face and her cheeks coloured. “Jackson is meeting me.”
“Jackson again? I thought he and Ana— Do you know what? Don’t worry.” I shot her a shrewd and language reading glance, coming up blank as usual. “You can talk to me, Han, you know that?”
I tried very hard not to let it rankle that the last two nights when Matthew had rung, she’d spoken to him at great length first, and then to Jack, which seemed an almost senseless conversation if you asked me. Or maybe I was just jealous because Jack didn’t ask to talk to me.
“I know, Mum. Do you want me to cook tonight?”
I nearly fell over. Face down, shock attack. “That would be nice. Maybe check Nonna hasn’t got yoga.”
Hannah grinned and I shook my head trying to remove the images of my mother in Lycra. “See you later, Han.”
“Bye, Mum.”
Okay, that wasn’t too bad. Things were significantly calmer.
On the drive to the station and the subsequent train ride, I thought of the blue box in my knicker drawer. It’s not that I wanted to keep secrets from Matthew. It was just, I wanted it to be right, and for us to be together. Initially, while we were away it seemed a bit too soon to create a whole drama about something that might not be.
That was days ago, and my period still hadn’t shown up.
Maybe I was just scared of how he’d react?
I guessed we both thought that part of our lives was over.
Maybe I was just chicken shit—well that’s a well-known fact.
“Here she is.” Natalie wheeled herself around from behind the reception desk.
“Don’t make it sound like I’ve been gone for years when it’s been two weeks.”
“Two whole weeks, Ronnie. Are you impressed the place is still standing?”
I glanced around. I thought I’d feel a ping of happiness at walking out of the glass lift and into my own domain, but strangely, it didn’t arrive.