Harry made himself smile. Tish met his eye, but didn’t smile back. Harry felt on edge. There was too much history between them, and at the same time not enough. He didn’t know why she’d come, after all this time. When she sat down and shrugged off her jacket and said nothing, neither, it seemed, did she.
‘Hi.’
‘Hi.’ Around them greetings were being exchanged and conversations picked up where they’d been left a week, a fortnight, a month ago.
Tish swallowed and, despite his best intentions, Harry found himself looking at the scar on her jawline. She looked good, but not the same. Conscious of his gaze, her hand travelled to her face.
He felt ashamed. ‘Sorry.’
‘It’s okay. Everybody looks. You get used to it.’
‘How are you doing?’
‘Okay.’
‘Good.’
She looked away at the couple next to them. The woman was leaning across the table, her big breasts filling the small space, sucking the face off her man. A proper, full-blooded snog. Across the room one of the prison officers stood watching their display, poised to intervene, but either through indifference or kindness he let them have their moment.
When Tish looked back at Harry, there was a spark of something that was more like the old Tish in her eyes. ‘Good to see that romance isn’t dead after all.’
Harry just about managed to compose a second small smile, but it was a feeble attempt. He knew what she was reminding him of. But there was no point going there. Not now. That was another life – a life that was long gone for both of them. A wave of pity, for himself and for Tish, rolled over Harry. He hung his head.
‘Hey,’ she prompted. He looked up. ‘I’ve not come to cause you grief. Well, not much. I came because I want to ask you some questions. And I need you to be straight with me when you answer them.’
‘Okay.’ He owed her that.
She shuffled in her seat, drawing herself more upright, making herself more present. ‘First off, I want to know why you never said anything about us.’
He had known this was probably why she’d come. His promise mattered. No more lies. That was the deal he’d made in the dark, long hours of the night in his cell. It was one of the measures of him as a man – his own man, not some watered-down version of his dad, ducking and diving and coming up smelling of roses. And suddenly here was Tish, asking him for a truth that was complicated and that reflected badly on him. It was a test he had to pass.
‘I did. I told the police that Jess saw the video of us kissing.’
‘Is that all you said?’
Harry looked at her and couldn’t not remember. The memories were stuck fast inside him, corroded with a thick layer of shame, but still so strong. The attraction, the excitement of sneaking around, the fierce pleasure of the sex. Perhaps that was the way it would always be with Tish – that spike in his gut, which ran straight down into his groin. They could never just be friends. ‘Yes.’
‘But you didn’t tell the police about us…being together?
Harry understood her hesitation. For two years they’d been circling each other, coming together for intense, short bursts, then pretending nothing had happened, until it did again. Friends with benefits. What a fucking stupid phrase that was.
‘No.’
‘And you only told the police?
‘What do you mean?’
‘Harry. I want to know who else you told about us?’
‘No one.’
‘You never said anything to your dad?’
‘He knows about the video. But he thinks it was just a snog at a party.’
She flinched, then asked, ‘Martha doesn’t know?’ His expression was enough for that question not to require an answer. ‘And you never told any of your mates? No snide little comments?’
He shook his head. ‘No. Well, I wasn’t going to, was I?’ Cheating with your best mate’s girl – classic scumbag behaviour. Jake, or one of his brothers, would probably have smashed his face in. He would’ve deserved it.
‘What about Mo? He visited you, didn’t he? Last month. Did you talk about me?’ Her face flushed.
‘You mean about us?’
She nodded.
‘Course not.’
‘Good. Don’t.’
‘I won’t.’
‘Don’t.’
Once again Tish raised her hand to her face. Gently she ran her fingers across her chin, her fingertips coming to a stop when they touched the deep seam of the scar. There had, according to his father, been a flap of skin that had been hanging down beneath her eye. They had had to stitch it back onto her cheek in order to reconstruct her face. The thought made Harry want to die. When he steeled himself to look at her again, he found her searching his face.
‘Did you never say anything because you were ashamed of going with me?’
‘Tish. Please. There’s no point going over this. Not now.’
She stiffened and straightened up even more. ‘There is, for me. I want to know. Were you ashamed you’d slept with me? That you were sleeping with me?’
He sighed. ‘Tish, what difference does it make? Once we crashed… once I crashed the car, it was all over. Everything was fucked. What we were doing before – what any of us were doing – it doesn’t matter.’
Tish stared at him. ‘Maybe it doesn’t matter to you, Harry. But it does to me!’
The truth. His pact with Jess’s memory. The measure of his journey back. Okay, so be it. ‘All right, if you really want to know: yes, I felt guilty. I still do. I was cheating on Jess and she deserved better than that. It was a shitty thing to do.’
Tish blinked, and for an awful moment Harry thought she was going to start crying, but he should’ve remembered – Tish was made of sterner stuff. ‘So I was just a grubby little secret.’
‘Tish. No. You know that’s not how it was.’
‘Yes it was. It’s exactly how it was. You always thought you were better than all of us, didn’t you, Harry? But you’re not. That’s why you kept quiet, isn’t it? It wasn’t to protect me. You didn’t want to admit you were shagging me. You and your precious reputation. Dom Westwood’s fucking golden boy. Even when you were facing prison, even then, you wanted to avoid looking bad and…’ she gulped, gearing up for her finale, ‘and being shown to be the lying, cheating bastard you are!’
Harry reached across and risked putting his hand over hers. ‘Tish. That’s not it. Christ, I promise that wasn’t it. I thought I’d done enough damage. I didn’t say anything because I thought it would fuck things up between you and Jake.’
They stared at each other. Tish was still breathing hard. ‘Well, you needn’t have worried. He didn’t stick around for long. You might have noticed, I’m not as photogenic as I used to be.’ She lifted her chin, defiant. There was so much of her that was still so impressive. ‘Besides, he’s been a busy boy – plenty of sympathy-shags to be had. He didn’t want me around cramping his style.’
The waves from the crash just kept rolling in, eroding everyone and everything that had once seemed so solid and permanent. Harry kept quiet and let her vent. There seemed nothing he could say that would make any difference. He watched her struggling with the rush of old and fresh passions. She was so fierce and lovely.
When she’d finished talking, she leant back in her chair as if exhausted. Harry glanced around the room. They weren’t the only ones to have run out of steam. Some of the couples were silent, looking at the wall clock, waiting for ‘Time’s up’ to be called.
Tish’s next question brought him back into focus. ‘You really did love Jess, didn’t you?’ The tone was still spiky, challenging.
‘Yes.’ Love and lust. Not the same thing. A lesson learnt the hard way.
‘I knew that all along, really. I always knew it was Jess and not me.’ Tish looked so sad. The pause was a long one, stuffed full of memories. ‘The night we crashed – do you think about it a lot?’
The change of topic jolted him. ‘Yeah. It was
so bloody awful. I’m never going to forget it.’
‘Me neither.’ She was quiet again for another few beats. ‘Do you know what got to me, more than anything else? More than even this.’ She gestured at her face.
‘No,’ he said nervously.
‘That you chose her. Even with me screaming in pain, crawling around on my hands and knees, blinded by all that blood, when I was more frightened than I’d ever been in the whole of my life – you stayed with her.’ The couple next to them were arguing now, the passionate snogging of their greeting long forgotten. Tish’s voice dropped. ‘You didn’t even come and check on me. If it hadn’t been for that random bloke who turned up to help, I could have crawled into the road.’
Harry hung his head. She was right. He hadn’t for a second considered leaving Jess’s side. The sounds of other people’s conversations only amplified the silence between them.
She spoke first. ‘Harry?’ He looked up. Some of the tension seemed to leave Tish’s body. She said quietly and calmly, ‘It’s okay. Or at least it is now. In the long run, you did me a favour. That night made me face up to the fact that you never really loved me. I suppose I always knew that, in my heart, but I didn’t want to accept it. I do now.’ They both swallowed. A lump of grief each. The silence that followed was kinder, less full of recrimination. Tish’s eyes filled. ‘I miss her so much.’
Harry closed his eyes for a few seconds, grateful for the acknowledgement of something shared – at last. ‘So do I.’
‘I’ve got something to give you.’ Harry opened his eyes just as Tish slid an envelope across the table. ‘I was going to keep it, to remember her by, but it doesn’t belong to me.’ Before Harry had even moved his hand to pick it up, he caught sight of one of the officers rushing across the room. He left the envelope where it was. He knew the rules. The last thing he wanted was a sanction.
‘Do not touch that!’ The officer’s voice was loud. People around them looked, curious. Tish started to protest, but the screw stopped her. ‘In no circumstances is it acceptable for visitors to pass gifts to inmates without prior permission.’ He picked up the envelope and opened it. For a second he stared inside it. He looked at Tish for an explanation.
She flustered. ‘Sorry. I didn’t think. I’ve not been inside a prison before. I didn’t mean to do anything wrong.’
The officer upended the envelope onto his palm. He poked around with his meaty fingers, examining the contents. Harry sat and waited. He was used to his life being determined by someone else.
Tish, used to life outside, was less compliant. ‘I’m really sorry, Officer. Please. It’s something I thought Harry might like.’
To Harry’s surprise, the officer suddenly cracked a smile. ‘Okay. But I’m warning you, young lady, you do that again in front of an officer less chilled-out than me and you’ll find yourself in proper bother.’ He dropped the contraband into Tish’s cupped hands.
As he turned to walk away, Tish said, ‘So, can I give it to him?’ She flashed him a smile – a full-wattage ‘Tish in her glory days’ grin – and the officer, caught in her beam, grinned back.
‘Go on then. But just this once. You’ve got two minutes left.’
Tish placed her gift onto Harry’s outstretched palm.
It was the seahorse necklace he’d given Jess for her seventeenth birthday. He looked up, confused.
Tish said, ‘I stole it. One day when we were up in her room. I wanted to take something from Jess, something that she cared about. I knew you’d given it to her. You never were great at keeping secrets, not really.’
The buzzer went.
Tish stood up. ‘I’m sorry. I hope you’re going to be all right, Harry, with everything, but I won’t be coming again. See you around – some day.’ She shouldered her bag, turned and walked away, without looking back.
Back in his cell, Harry looked at the necklace. An image of Jess sitting up in bed, her face so open and happy, the wrapping paper caught in the folds of the duvet, filled his head. The seahorse thing had started as a joke. Jess had made a comment about what odd-looking creatures they were, and he’d Googled them and discovered that they ate about fifty times a day…like Jess. She had countered with facts about their exoskeleton: hard on the outside, soft on the inside…just like you. And it had gone on from there. Hippocampus hippocampus. Poor swimmers with excellent eyesight, able to change colour to match their environment. Creatures that paired for life. Jess’s favourite fact was that the female seahorse always went into the male’s territory every morning, where they would greet each other with an elaborate spiralling ‘dance’. He and Jess had taken to circling each other at least once every time they met, a secret gesture of their togetherness.
The necklace chain slid through his fingers. It had lain against Jess’s pale skin and Tish’s. Jesus, what a mess!
Chapter 62
SAL REFUSED to lie to Mo. If that dumped Tish in it, so be it. Sneaking around, arranging the prison visit behind his back, then lying about where she was going: Mo deserved better than that. Sal’s frustration also lay in her confusion over Tish’s motives for suddenly wanting to see Harry. Why go backwards, when life was finally going forward? Sal couldn’t see any earthly benefit that could come from her daughter going on some crazy mission to confront him. She was also concerned that there was more to the trip than the desire for a showdown. They’d been here before, with Harry Westwood. His hold over Tish had been strong. Sal had thought – had hoped – that Mo had cured her of that obsession. What if she was wrong? What if her daughter really was doomed to repeat her own self-destructive behaviour with men, picking the bad boy instead of the decent one?
Mo turned up at the house about two hours after Tish left for Darlington. He made out as if he’d just been passing, but he wasn’t daft. He must have sensed something was off. After a few minutes of awkward small talk, he asked Sal straight out where Tish was, and she told him. He looked at the floor for a second, then back up, composing himself. There was no outburst of justifiable anger, no swearing, no calling Tish out, only a shiver of disappointment. Sal was the one who felt a flash of pure frustration. After all that Mo had done for Tish, after his kindness and all-round loveliness, Sal was ashamed of her daughter.
‘I’m sorry, love. She should’ve told you. I don’t know why she didn’t.’
Mo flipped his phone over in his hands. ‘It’s okay. Thank you for telling me.’ He was so reserved. Maybe that was the problem; maybe Mo was too nice, too much of a pushover for Tish.
‘I’ll tell her – when she eventually gets back – that you came round, and that she needs to call you. It’ll be this evening. She’s gone up on the coach.’
‘Thanks.’ He turned to leave.
Sal felt compelled to say more, to encourage him to stand his ground. ‘I didn’t know she was planning it, Mo. I promise. Not until yesterday. She’s out of order. You’ve every right to tell her that. I’m sorry, love. I really don’t know what she’s playing at.’
He just shrugged. On his way out through the kitchen, Sal saw him stop, crouch down and stroke Harley. She hoped it was a ‘goodbye for now’ rather than a ‘goodbye for ever’.
Chapter 63
WHEN TISH stepped out through the last set of prison gates into the cold, grey November afternoon she felt free – released of her debt to Jess, and of her ties to Harry. Despite the wind knifing through the shelter and the long wait for the shuttle bus, her mood was upbeat. She had been right to come. When she noticed that one of the kids waiting with his mum was staring at her face – blatantly, open-mouthed – she wasn’t bothered. She stuck out her tongue and the kid looked away.
Her positive mood evaporated the moment she looked through her messages. What the hell! Her mum had no right getting involved. Tish had planned to speak to Mo about seeing Harry face-to-face, so that she could explain properly. This was not the way it was supposed to play out.
Settled in her seat, she tried to compose an appropriate message to Mo. She came
up with some words – a few okay sentences, even a whole paragraph – then deleted them all. She redrafted the text again and again. None of her attempts sounded right. Mo had always respected her privacy, but she knew he had his suspicions about her and Harry. A sudden prison visit – which Mo would know took time and effort to organise, and therefore must have necessitated weeks of lying – hardly helped to allay those suspicions. Why the hell hadn’t her mum covered for her? A text wouldn’t cut it. But the thought of Mo being mad at her, thinking she’d betrayed him, wasn’t bearable, either. She couldn’t ring him from the bus; it was too public for such a private conversation. Knowing that she was going to be trapped on the coach for at least the next couple of hours, she resorted to sending him one short message. ‘I can explain.’
For the rest of the journey Tish sat with her phone in her hand, waiting for a reply that never came.
He didn’t answer her calls or respond to any of her texts that evening, either. Sal was unsympathetic; in fact she seemed pleased that Mo was holding out on her. That only made things worse: judgement on top of judgement. Tish and her mum had words. Shouted ones – like in the old days.
The following morning Tish got up early. She got ready quickly, but carefully. At the last minute she decided to take Harley with her. A shameless ploy, but she was prepared to use anything. Mo’s dad answered the door, in his dressing gown. She said she’d wait outside for Mo – because of the dog.
Mo took his time. When he did finally appear, she noticed that his sweatshirt was on inside out. She didn’t make a joke of it, like she normally would.
‘Thought you might want to come for walk.’
He shrugged on his jacket. ‘Did you?’ He was sulking.
‘No, not really. I came because you’re obviously mad at me. And I want to explain why I went. You’ve got it all wrong!’
‘I’ve got it wrong!’
One Split Second: A thought-provoking novel about the limits of love and our astonishing capacity to heal Page 22