The Last Goodbye

by Fiona Lucas

  “But—”

  “No,” Anna whispered harshly and put a finger over Gabi’s lips. “All I want you to tell me is this: Do you think he is who he says he is? Is he telling me the truth about himself?”

  Gabi nodded. “Yes. I think so.”

  “Then that’s all I need to know,” Anna said calmly, even though her insides were anything but.

  Gabi exhaled, looking unconvinced. “Okay. If that’s what you want.”

  “It’s what I want,” Anna said and tucked the book she was holding back onto the shelf where it belonged. “Now let’s grab lunch before I have to head back to the office,” she said and led Gabi out of the shop.

  Later, however, when she’d finished work, she found herself walking past the bookshop again. Then she found herself going inside. By the time she headed home, there was a hardback book nestled in the bottom of her shopping bag.

  ANNA SAT IN the sprawling café of Tullet’s Garden Center, just a stone’s throw away from where Scott and Teresa lived near Westerham, a pleasant commuter village near the M25. She and Teresa had organized a catch-up the Saturday after the party. Has it only been a week? Anna thought incredulously. It truly felt more like a month since she’d walked out of the Warlingham Court Hotel with Jeremy hot on her heels.

  Teresa was off buying a couple of cappuccinos and Anna had bagged a table and was minding her nephew.

  “He’s just so deliciously chubby,” she told Teresa when she returned with a tray and two mugs of steaming coffee, and then quickly added, “Sorry! Hope that’s not the baby version of fat shaming!”

  Teresa laughed. “He’s almost five months now. He’s supposed to be chubby.” She reached for her cappuccino and took a sip. “And talking of delicious men, how is it going with the one you brought to my party?”

  “Good,” she said. “It’s all very casual at the moment, though. Nothing too serious.”

  “Why not? Isn’t he as delicious as he seems?”

  “No, he is del—I mean, lovely. Charming, polite, interesting . . .”

  Teresa smiled at her. “You deserve someone lovely. You really do.”

  “I know,” Anna replied, and realized she actually believed that. “But . . .”

  “But . . . ?” Teresa said, frowning. “Do I detect a bit of hesitation? Because I had a quick chat with him at the bar when he came to get a round of drinks. He seems perfect for you.”

  Anna sighed. “I know. He’s lovely. I should be crazy about him.”

  “You just need to give yourself time. Dating someone new was always going to be a big step after Spencer. You guys were just so disgustingly in love.”

  “Maybe that’s it,” she said, nodding. “Maybe I’m overthinking things.”

  Little Spencer began to fuss and wriggle, so Teresa took him from Anna, strapped him into his pram and stood up so she could rock it backward and forward. “And he looked after you, took you home without a fuss, after what happened with Gayle last Saturday night. Patient and understanding are not qualities to be sniffed at.”

  Anna’s eyes widened. “You heard about that?”

  “My friend Megan—she was wearing that spectacular silver dress—told me about a fight she’d overheard in the corridor. She’d had a few martinis by then, so it wasn’t completely clear who she was talking about at the time, but the penny finally dropped. I would have called you earlier if I’d worked it out sooner.”

  Anna sipped her cappuccino and gave a one-shouldered shrug. “There was no need. You didn’t do anything.”

  “I’m surprised you didn’t tell me yourself.”

  “I did think about it. I just thought maybe that you’d . . .”

  Teresa’s expression grew even more serious. “That I’d go along with Gayle for a quiet life?”

  Anna nodded silently, feeling slightly ashamed, and looked down into her coffee.

  “Oh, Anna . . .” Teresa leaned over, still pushing the pram back and forth, and rubbed Anna’s arm. “I must admit that has mostly been my strategy for dealing with Gayle since I got serious with Scott, but I’ve come around to the fact that my strategy needs some drastic revision. I don’t think we can let her get away with this stuff anymore. It’s not good for her and it’s certainly not good for us. What do you think we should do? Call a family meeting or something?”

  Anna shook her head and swallowed. “I don’t think I’m ready to talk to her yet.” She wasn’t sure if she would dissolve into tears or have another outburst, and neither option was desirable.

  “Do you want me to say something? Because I will!”

  Anna smiled. She didn’t doubt that. “Not on my behalf. As much as Gayle is not my favorite person at the moment, she’s already lost one son. I don’t want her to cut you and Scott out too. Besides, I’m hanging on to the hope that this little man is softening her up a little.”

  Teresa raised an eyebrow and Anna laughed.

  “Well, maybe only on Tuesdays and Thursdays.”

  Little Spencer began to grizzle, and Teresa sighed. “I think I’d better get him in the car and see if a drive will put him to sleep for a bit.” She picked up her handbag and slung it over the handlebar of the pram. Anna walked beside her as they headed through the sprawling garden center and out to the parking lot.

  “Listen,” Teresa said, as they reached her car. “Christmas is still weeks away, but you know how much of a planner I am, so humor me . . . Would you like to spend the day with me and Scott and this little monster? I can put Gayle and Richard off until Boxing Day.”

  Anna stepped in and gave Teresa a hug. “Thank you,” she said quietly, “that’s a really lovely thought, but I’ve actually just booked a flight to Canada. I haven’t seen my parents for about eighteen months and I just feel I could do with getting away.”

  Teresa nodded. “That sounds like an amazing idea. Just remember . . . If plans fall through, you know where to come.”

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Anna yawned. It was late. She checked the clock on her bedside table. It seemed that, while she’d been reading, Monday night had slipped into Tuesday morning. She put the book she’d been holding down on the bed. She really should turn out the light if she was going to make it to work on time.

  A fortnight or so after her breakup with Lee, Gabi was still at a loss as to what to do with herself. She’d called round just after Anna had got in from work the day before, bearing a bottle of wine and insisting they have a girls’ movie night. They’d started with Green Card, then had gone on to Moonstruck. Even though Anna had been ready to call it a day after the second film, Gabi had pleaded with her to squeeze just one more in as she’d found Sleepless in Seattle on Netflix. Anna hadn’t had the heart to say no.

  Gabi was currently sprawled across the bed in Anna’s spare room, snoring softly, but Anna had come up to bed and hadn’t been able to resist picking up the book on her bedside table before she’d closed her eyes. Two hours later, she was still reading.

  It was Brody’s book. Or, to be more accurate, it was the fourth book in Brody’s children’s series. Anna had already read the first three. In just over a week. The lady in the bookshop was starting to recognize her. The last time Anna had gone in, the sales assistant had reached below the counter and produced the book Anna was looking for before she’d had the chance to amble down to the children’s section.

  “Thank you,” Anna had stuttered.

  The lady had just smiled. “It happens a lot with this series,” she’d explained simply. “Although I must say, you’re coming in faster than most. Your little one must be a voracious reader.”

  Anna had just nodded and tapped her debit card on the machine.

  It was hard not to read these books voraciously, she’d discovered. They were set in a fictional kingdom where magic and the unexpected were orders of the day. She understood completely why any child would be entranced by them. There were dragons and knights, elves and giants, gorgons and gryphons—along with some fantastical creatures she’d never
even heard of and was convinced had come straight from Brody’s imagination. These books were full of adventure for the central character, Pip, a poor stable worker’s daughter who had dreams of being a knight, but there was also an elegance in the writing, a wistfulness. And wisdom too. Brody didn’t talk down to his young audience but credited them with the capability to understand that life had both triumphs and disappointments. No wonder they’d been popular with hundreds of thousands of children and their parents alike.

  Anna opened her mouth to yawn and then shut it again, trying to stall it, which only made her want to yawn more desperately. She stared at the cover of the book, which showed a little girl with short blond hair, wielding a sword in the face of a hydra. She still couldn’t believe that Brody had written it, that it had all come from his imagination. And there was no doubt it was her Brody who had written these words; she could hear his voice in her head as she read each sentence, hear the rhythm and pattern of his speech, certain turns of phrase that were uniquely him.

  Why had Pip’s adventures been left unfinished? It seemed that the most recently published book had ended on a cliffhanger, with the girl lost and wounded in the Vale of Shadows. It seemed heartless to leave her stuck there, and Brody was anything but heartless.

  Why did he stop? Was it to do with his wife’s death? Was that why he was hidden away in a cottage in the middle of nowhere? How did it all fit in?

  It was a double-edged sword reading these books. On the one hand, she felt that connection to Brody even more strongly. Another layer to him—a really important one—that had previously been invisible to her had been revealed. She felt as if she’d been able to lift the top of his skull and peer inside his head, allowed to see secret things that no one else saw, which was ridiculous, since anyone could walk into a bookshop and read exactly the same words, but somehow this was different. This was her and Brody.

  The downside was that now her curiosity about him had more than doubled. The urge to dig for answers about his past was almost overwhelming. She kept finding herself on Google, poised to type his name into the search box, and having to make herself pull her hands away from the keyboard and fold them in her lap.

  They’d talked a couple of times since she’d started reading his books, but not since she’d started the third, almost five days ago. She kept meaning to call, but it felt weird having this new information about him, information he wasn’t aware she’d found. Their relationship had always been on a “need to know” basis, and she hadn’t realized how simple that had made things. They’d been able to talk without the fear of overstepping boundaries, of taking a wrong turn and saying something they’d regret later.

  Despite her discomfort, she couldn’t put off phoning him forever, because he might guess something was up. Come on, Anna. Just do it. Holding her breath, she dialed his number. If he was asleep, she’d just leave a breezy message and try again tomorrow.

  However, Brody answered straightaway. Anna had the oddest feeling that he’d been waiting for his phone to ring, that he’d had the same sense that she had, that if they didn’t talk tonight, it would feel as if there’d been too much of a gap in the usual rhythm of their conversations.

  Anna was desperate to ask him about his books, to find out why he’d stopped writing them, but she knew it wouldn’t be the right thing to blurt it all out straightaway. She needed to tread carefully, so instead she just told him been up late reading—without mentioning authors and titles. It turned out that Brody too had been kept up, reading a thriller he’d simply had to get to the end of.

  As they talked, Anna couldn’t help noticing that the man she was talking to now was very different from the man who had written Pip’s story. Something was missing. The man who had written about dragons and magic rivers, about snowflakes that could speak, was a man confident of all the delightful possibilities life could bring, who knew what hope was.

  Brody was no longer that man, and she wanted to know why.

  She needed to know why. It had been more than a month since she’d mentioned the possibility of them meeting each other, but now she just couldn’t get it out of her head. Perhaps the questions she wanted to pose should be asked face-to-face? It might make it easier to get him to open up. And if she gave him a month or two to get used to the idea, maybe he’d come around?

  “Brody?” she said when there was a lull in their conversation.

  “Yes?” He sounded relaxed, confident. It was now or never.

  “I know we’ve discussed this before, but I would really like to meet you in person.” Brody didn’t reply. Even across the waves that carried their connection, she felt a sudden frostiness in the atmosphere. Why?

  “We discussed New Year’s Eve and how much we hate it.” The silence was thick. She was sure he was going to jump in any second and argue with her, so she just kept going. Words were all she had at this point. “I don’t want to go to a New Year’s Eve party, Brody. I don’t want to mill around with strangers, or even people I know, and make believe that I’m happy and carefree when Big Ben chimes. It’s just too exhausting. There’s only one thing I want to do this December thirty-first. I want to spend it with you.”

  Anna’s heart pounded. She stared at her phone, willing him to respond and eventually he did. “I’d like that too,” he said, and his voice was rough. “I’m just not sure it’s possible.”

  “Why?”

  More silence. But it wasn’t menacing. The one thing she could tell from his reply was that it wasn’t that he didn’t want to meet her. It was something else. She could sense him struggling with himself, or maybe some unknown enemy. One of his giants. Whatever his reason, it was big.

  She pushed aside her curiosity, deciding her key objective should be to make it easier for him to say yes. “I can come to you, or you can come to me. Whatever is easier.”

  He still didn’t respond.

  “Or we could go somewhere neutral . . .”

  Where? She racked her brains for a good location. Somewhere everyone knew about. Somewhere they could meet on a significant date like New Year’s Eve.

  The only thing that came to her mind, thanks to the movie marathon earlier, and Sleepless in Seattle in particular, was “the top of the Empire State Building.” Ridiculous. Meeting up in person seemed a struggle enough as it was without moving it to an entirely different continent.

  Maybe it was talking about tall buildings in big cities that jogged her next suggestion free. “The Shard,” she said, becoming conscious of the idea the moment she heard herself say it. “The top of the Shard. At eleven o’clock on New Year’s Eve.”

  “Anna . . .”

  He was going to turn her down again, and she couldn’t bear to hear him do it. Not tonight, anyway. She had to find a way to stall him. “You don’t have to say yes now. It’s still more than two months away. You don’t even have to go at all if you really don’t want to. But I’ll book two tickets to the observation platform . . .”

  Could she do that? Was the Shard even open on New Year’s Eve? She had no clue. Well, if it weren’t, it would be a “sign,” like in Sleepless in Seattle, and then she’d never ask Brody to meet her again.

  She hurried on before he could shut her down. “If you come, you come. If you don’t, you don’t. It’ll be okay.” She had to trust him, that whatever the reason for his reluctance, he’d either get over it or explain it at some point.

  He sounded pained when he replied. “You could very well end up standing there waiting all night. You’d be alone at midnight . . .”

  The time she might need him the most. Yes, she knew that. It was a risk she was willing to take. “I don’t care,” she said.

  He let out a sigh, so heavy and so bleak that tears sprang to her eyes. Not for herself, but for him. For whatever giant blocked his path and blighted his life. Think about what brave little Pip would do, she wanted to tell him. She’s a part of you, and she knows how to fight. She knows how to hope.

  But she couldn’t say that. No
t yet.

  “And if I can’t be with you, I’d rather see the New Year in on my own, high above the city, watching the lights sparkle below me.”

  “Anna . . . Don’t . . .”

  The disobedient tears lining her lashes fell. “What is it? What’s wrong?” she whispered. “Don’t you want to meet me?”

  His voice was raw when he replied. “I do. More than anything.”

  Chapter Forty-Four

  The weekend before Halloween was gray and drizzly, and Anna holed herself up against the weather. It was the kind of Saturday afternoon that begged big, fluffy socks and an oversized cardigan that reached down to your knees. Anna put on both, then made herself a large mug of hot chocolate and took it into the living room, where she curled up with the fifth, and most recent, book in Brody’s series.

  When she looked up again, she discovered the rain had cleared but that it was dark outside. How long had she been sitting there? Her hot chocolate was half-drunk and stone-cold. She checked the clock on the mantelpiece. Six-fifteen! She was supposed to be leaving the house in just over an hour to meet Jeremy. They were going to see a film that evening at the new cinema down at Bromley South.

  She got up and stuck her mug of hot chocolate in the microwave to warm it up. Her mother would be horrified, but her mother didn’t need to know, did she? She was about to take it upstairs to her bedroom to sip while she perused her wardrobe, but when she reached the foot of the stairs, she turned and headed back into the living room. She and Jeremy would be sitting in the dark most of the evening, wouldn’t they? So she didn’t need to go all out on the makeup and a cute sweater and jeans would suffice. That meant she had time for one more chapter . . .

  By the time Anna managed to tear herself away from Brody’s book, she’d read three more chapters and she was cutting it really, really fine to meet Jeremy on time. She glanced at the clock and then at the book sitting in her lap. She didn’t want to go out tonight, she realized. Even though the plan was to see the latest Emily Blunt movie, and she’d been looking forward to it all week. She wanted to stay home and find out what happened to Pip.