The Last Goodbye

by Fiona Lucas

  “Finally!” Gabi said, as they were presented with a new combination of gin, tonic and botanicals to sample.

  Anna took a demure sip. She wasn’t sure if she could discern all the notes of the different botanicals in this one, as Tom had said they would, although she could definitely detect a hint of cinnamon. She wasn’t sure what arrowroot tasted like, so she had no idea if she could identify that.

  During the time they were supposed to be discussing the gin with each other, Gabi leaned in and said, “We were shooting a burger cookbook today. Five burgers! And I hate doing burgers.”

  “Why?” Anna asked. “They’re not difficult to cook, are they?”

  “No . . .” Gabi glanced at the instructor, who was chatting seriously with a group at the other end of the long table. “But each bit—meat, bun, lettuce, tomato and other ingredients—have to be picked and styled individually, even the way the mustard drips and the cheese melts, and then it is a race to get the shot before the bun goes soggy. We were just about to do the last dish of the day when the client decided he did not want the brioche bun he’d picked. He wanted sesame seed instead!”

  “Not good?”

  “No. Not good. I had to go shopping, and they were out of stock at the local supermarket, so I had to spend forty minutes gluing sesame seeds onto a plain bun. With tweezers, Anna! This is why I need gin tonight . . .” She sighed dramatically and flipped her long hair over her shoulder. “Sometimes I think I need a less stressful career, one where I can work with food, but I don’t have to deal with people.”

  Anna smiled. “No, you don’t. You love your job, and not everyone has that. You’re very lucky.” She thought for a moment. “I don’t feel that way about my job at all.”

  “I guess you’re right.” Gabi nodded grudgingly. “About my job and your job. You never talk about it. Nothing good, nothing bad. That says something.”

  Anna frowned. Did it? When she’d applied for the position at Sundridge Plumbing and Heating, it had just been a way to cover the bills. Everything had seemed dull and pointless at that time, so why should her job be any different?

  “It’s not like when you worked with BlockTime,” Gabi said. “You never stopped talking about work then.”

  Anna shrugged. “It was a start-up, so it was an exciting time, and it’s hard to get fired up about invoices and plumbing bookings in the same way.”

  Gabi looked thoughtful. “Why don’t you go back?”

  “To BlockTime?” Anna shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

  “Why? You loved working with Vijay and Rhys.”

  And Spencer, Anna silently added. What I really loved was working with Spencer.

  “I know . . . But the reason I didn’t go back after it all happened was that it was just too painful, Gabs. I tried for about two days, remember? But all I could see was the empty chair at Spencer’s desk, his mug, unwashed and gathering dust, next to the kettle. It was too much. I couldn’t do it.”

  Gabi reached over and rubbed Anna’s shoulder. “I understand, but maybe it is time to get a different job now, one that you do find exciting.”

  They were prevented from discussing it any further because Tom Collins launched into his spiel about the final gin on the tasting menu. Baskerville Gin was made in Dartmoor with spring water from the national park and flavored with gorse flowers and hawthorn berries. Anna sipped it gingerly when given the go-ahead. It was complex, with bold, clear flavors and an underlying earthiness. For some reason, it reminded her of Brody.

  And thinking of Brody took her back to the conversation they’d had last week about her blank, looming future, how she’d told him that she needed to start dreaming again. Isn’t that what Gabi was talking about too?

  “I think it’s more than just finding a new job. I struggle to get excited about anything.”

  “This is why I suggest all the classes,” Gabi said seriously. “I hope you will find something that makes you feel . . .” She broke off, searching for the right words. “That makes you feel. Life is nothing without passion, Anna.”

  “I think I’m starting to get that now.”

  “Hallelujah!” Gabi threw her hands up in the air. “What made you understand this finally?”

  Anna was about to tell Gabi about the conversation she’d had with Brody, but then she stopped herself. Gabi didn’t know about Brody yet, and Anna wasn’t sure she wanted to tell her. Because telling her about him would mean telling Gabi how she met him, and Anna just knew that Gabi would give her one of her trademark Seriously? looks when she heard the whole story.

  Besides, how did she tell her best friend that she’d tried talking to her about the same things she shared with Brody, but that Gabi just hadn’t been able to listen? Not in the way Anna had needed her to. That would only hurt her feelings, and she’d been trying so hard. And it wasn’t Gabi’s fault—she just hadn’t been through anything similar like Brody had.

  They paused their conversation as the class came to an end, then took their drinks and moved to a quieter corner of the room. “Okay,” Gabi said as they sat down. “Do you still want to go to salsa, or do we need to find a new activity?”

  “I’m happy to keep going with salsa,” Anna replied. “I wouldn’t want to deprive you and Lee of the chance to see each other.”

  Gabi smiled, and her face glowed. Things had been going well with Lee in the last month or so. Very well, seeing as they were now official. Anna was so pleased for her—it was about time Gabi had someone who showered her with attention like this. She was crossing her fingers that this guy didn’t turn out like all the others. However, Lee’s job as a police officer made his social life challenging, and Gabi’s wasn’t much better. He and Gabi had to take the chance to meet up whenever they could.

  “How about lettering? Like the pretty bullet journals on Instagram? I saw an advert for a class in the art supplies shop when I was picking up new paintbrushes for work. You were always good at design.”

  It was the sort of thing Anna would have been interested in, once upon a time. She weighed the idea up in her mind, tried to get excited about it, but it was like attempting to start a car with a flat battery—there were a couple of hopeful flickers and then, well, everything flatlined.

  “I think, just like with the job, trying yet another class isn’t going to solve anything.”

  “But—”

  “Not that I don’t appreciate your input,” Anna added hastily, “or that I don’t enjoy most of them. It’s just that I think it’s deeper than that. I need to find a sense of purpose to life again.”

  “That’s why it is good to do classes,” Gabi replied. “To help you find that spark.”

  “Yes and no,” Anna said. How did she explain this? “It’s a bit of a catch-twenty-two situation. The classes are all well and good, but without that spark inside to start off with, there’s nothing to ignite, nothing to fan into flame. The activities just become something else to cross off on a tick list.” She sighed. “You were right—I am a zombie. Something’s dead inside, Gabi—there is no life, no passion—and I don’t know how to get it back again.”

  Gabi swirled the gin around her glass and stared into it for a moment. “Maybe it’s like this . . .”

  “Like gin?” Anna asked.

  “No, like gin tasting. We live our lives . . . We try one thing, we try another thing, until we find out what works for us.” She took a sip and then looked back up at Anna. “What do you want your life to be, Anna? If you could choose? What would you do next?”

  Anna blinked and looked back at Gabi. If only she knew the answer to that question.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Anna grimaced as she knocked on Gayle and Richard’s front door. It had been almost a month since the Camber Sands outing, and she hadn’t attended the Barry family lunch the fortnight before, due to an actual migraine this time, not just a fake one. In that time, she hadn’t called Gayle, and Gayle hadn’t called her. Mind you, they’d never spent much time talking
on the phone, so nothing had really changed there.

  Her mother-in-law answered the door. She gave Anna a lavender-scented kiss on the cheek as usual, but the memory of that blustery, gray day at the beach loomed between them as Gayle ushered her inside. Anna quickly joined Scott and Teresa in the dining room to help set the table. Scott pulled a chair out for his wife, raising his eyebrows.

  Teresa rolled her eyes. “I’m not sitting down,” she said, answering his unspoken request. “I’m fine.”

  Scott scowled until Teresa went over and thanked him by kissing him softly on the cheek. His hand drifted possessively toward her protruding stomach and he rubbed it gently, which earned him a glowing smile from his wife.

  It was touching that the pregnancy was bringing this protective side out in Scott, but Anna had to turn away and busy herself with the large canteen of cutlery inherited from Gayle’s mother. Is that what Spencer would have been like with her, with their baby? She wished she’d had a chance to find out. But not wanting to put a damper on the afternoon, she sucked in a breath and hurriedly swiped at her eyes.

  Lunch continued as countless other lunches before it had, with the polite passing of covered vegetable dishes, the obligatory compliments to the cook and exclamations on how crispy the roast potatoes were. Richard, as always, filling a moment of silence with, “Well, this is keeping us all quiet!” as he grinned broadly round the table. They all knew which parts they were supposed to play, which lines were theirs. In some ways, this made it easier. Anna discovered she could park the irritation she’d been feeling on the drive there and just skate over the top of it.

  As Teresa passed her the custard jug for dessert, Gayle coughed gently. “Is that okay with you too, Anna?”

  Anna looked at Gayle, the jug warm in her hands. She must have drifted off and missed something. And she obviously hadn’t heard Gayle correctly. For a moment, it had very much sounded as if her mother-in-law had asked her opinion on something.

  “Um . . . Could you run that past me again?” Gayle was not looking impressed. “Sorry . . . Got distracted by your yummy-looking apple pie.”

  Gayle gave her a curt nod, mollified, and carried on. “It’s been three years now,” she said, keeping direct eye contact with Anna, just to make sure she continued to pay attention. “And our regular family lunches have been lovely, but I feel that it’s time to have them once a month rather than every fortnight.”

  Everyone else looked at Anna, waiting for her response. Was this a trick question? Was there some horrible catch she hadn’t spotted? Changing Sunday lunches to once a month felt like being let out on parole early. There was only one possible response. “That’s fine by me.”

  “Since this is the third Sunday of the month,” Gayle said, “why don’t we just continue in that pattern?”

  Scott pulled out his phone to look at his calendar. “So the next one will be in May, on the . . .”

  “On the sixteenth,” Gayle finished for him. “And June’s really should be on the twentieth, but Richard and I wanted to talk to you all about that.”

  The atmosphere grew solemn. Anna blobbed a bit of custard on her pie and placed the jug back on the table. No one else was picking up their forks and spoons, so she followed suit, and hoped it all wouldn’t be cold before Gayle had finished.

  “It would have been Spencer’s thirty-fifth birthday on the twenty-eighth, so I propose we move June’s lunch to the following Sunday, but instead of having it here, we’ll go out—somewhere Spencer liked to eat.”

  “What was the name of that restaurant near you, Anna?” Richard asked. “The very smart Indian place we went to for his thirtieth?”

  “The Cinnamon Café,” Anna replied. “But the prices are more upmarket gastropub than cheap and cheerful local takeaway.”

  Richard waved her concerns away with a brush of his hand. “Don’t worry about that,” he said, smiling. “Gayle and I would like to treat you all.”

  There were murmurs of thanks from around the table, and Anna breathed a sigh of relief. Last year Gayle had insisted on doing a “nice” roast, incorporating all of Spencer’s favorites, the crowning glory of the menu being Spencer’s favorite black cherry cheesecake. Yuck. He’d always asked for it when they went round to his parents because Anna refused to serve it at her dinner table. Even the smell of all that fake cherry flavoring made her want to gag. Stifling the urge to vomit definitely wasn’t the way she most wanted to remember her husband.

  And since the suggestion was to meet up the day before his birthday, it meant Anna would have the actual day to herself. Her spirits lifted. What about going back to Camber Sands? She could wander around the way she’d wanted to. She might even stay a night or two at a bed-and-breakfast.

  Her luck continued after dinner. When Gayle reached for the pale blue photo album that Anna recognized as the one containing Spencer’s baby pictures, Richard peered around the edge of his Sunday paper and said, “Didn’t we look at that one last time?”

  Gayle’s fingertips were already on the spine of the album, but as she hesitated, Richard rose and chose a volume from the other end of the shelf. A wedding album. Anna’s heart did a little leap. “How about this one?” he said, handing it to Gayle, then returned to his paper, giving Anna a treasonous wink as he passed her. Anna could have kissed him.

  Gayle didn’t move for a moment but then she turned and came to join Anna on the sofa, laying the album down on the glass and wood coffee table as they always did, then opened the cover.

  The first group of pictures were of Anna on her own and with her bridesmaids, but Gayle flipped through that section of the album swiftly until she found the photos of Spencer and his best man. She took a long time looking at each shot, drinking it in, and then she carried on to those taken after the ceremony. She paused at one of Anna’s favorites: a close-up of both of them, so similar to many others taken that day, except that Spencer had an extra twinkle in his eyes and one corner of his mouth lifted slightly in mischief. Gayle let out a little sigh. “He looks so handsome, doesn’t he?” she said, almost reverently.

  “Yes,” Anna replied. He really did. Tears threatened, but she blinked rapidly, refusing to allow them to form.

  She glanced across at Gayle and, seeing a similar sheen in her eyes, debated whether to reach out and touch the other woman’s arm, but she must have dithered too long, because Gayle seemed to inwardly shake herself, regaining her composure. She turned the page, and the moment was gone.

  “I think it’s time for a cup of tea,” Gayle said when they’d finished. She rose to replace the album on the shelf. “Would anyone else like one?”

  Anna slumped onto the sofa and let out a long sigh once Gayle had swept from the room. Richard rustled his paper and lowered the top edge so he could look at Anna. “You mustn’t mind her,” he said in a low voice. “She doesn’t mean to be so . . . you know.”

  Anna nodded. This was about as eloquent as Richard got.

  “She found the anniversary very hard,” he added. “You wouldn’t know it to look at her, and she’d deny it if you asked, but she’s struggling.”

  Anna stood up, went over to Richard and gave him a hug. They stayed like that for a few seconds, him reaching up with his paper on his lap, her bending down over him, and then he patted her on the back, and she gave him a quick kiss on the cheek.

  She exhaled as she stood up again. Come on, Anna. Stop being so petty. Yes, she’s a bit of a nightmare, but it’s not because she hates you. She’s hurting. Just like you are.

  Anna was pretty sure she was never going to get an apology from Gayle for the ashes, but maybe she could broker a truce, allowing the current chilly awkwardness to defrost a little. Rather than sitting back down, she went into the kitchen to see if she could be of any help.

  When she entered, Gayle was standing with her arms braced on the counter, looking out of the window. There were no cups and saucers out, and the kettle was silent, no steam wafting up from its spout. Gayle turned, looking mild
ly surprised to see her. Anna thought her mother-in-law looked as if she’d aged ten years during the walk down the hall to the kitchen.

  “Don’t worry about tea for me,” Anna said, deciding this wasn’t the time to bring anything up. “I think I’m going to head off shortly.”

  Gayle just nodded, then walked over to the freezer, where she removed a plastic container from a drawer and handed it to Anna. “You’d better take these, then,” she said, as Anna looked on, confused. “From after Camber Sands. We had quite a lot left over.”

  Anna looked down. Inside the box, misty with frozen air, were twelve perfect vol-au-vents. The dig was as effective as if Gayle had prodded her in the chest with one of her perfectly manicured fingernails.

  Gayle turned and busied herself putting a few things away from the dishwasher. “You were quite rude, I thought,” she said, when she stood again, “to leave without having supper with us. We were all finding it difficult that day, not just you—and the very least you could have done if you were going to speed off like that was come in and say a proper goodbye to everyone.”

  Anna was speechless.

  Gayle put the mug she was holding in the cupboard, then turned to face her. “In difficult times, family really should stick together.”

  Oh, now Anna was family? It hadn’t felt that way at Camber Sands, not one bit.

  “I think you owe me an apology,” Gayle added.

  Anna felt as if she’d been punched in the head. Gayle wanted an apology? From her? In what alternate universe was the woman living? She opened her mouth to tell Gayle exactly what she could do with her fricking apology, but then Richard’s words came back to her.

  She’s struggling . . .

  She looked back at Gayle. That tightness around the jaw, that determination, it was all Spencer. Mother and son had always looked like each other, but Anna had never seen it as clearly as she did at that moment. Her anger crumbled like the dry pastry inside the Tupperware box she was holding.

  “I am sorry the day ended badly,” she said, and that was as much of an apology as Gayle was going to get, because it was the truth. “I found it difficult too . . .” she added but trailed off again as she saw the steely look in her mother-in-law’s eyes. There was no point. Not today. Gayle’s guard was up as high as it would go.