At least she didn’t have to go to work today and smile politely at him. She was off now until after the wedding, and then all she had to do was serve her notice. So she filled her day buying all the things she would usually have organised ages ago—like stockings and a new eyeliner pen. Well, that was what she’d meant to buy, but, staggering back into the flat laden down with carrier bags, Meg decided that shopping really was the best cure for a broken heart— albeit a temporary one. But she’d take whatever she could get at the moment.
It was only when the clock edged to ten to six that Meg started to worry. Kathy had definitely said that she’d pick her up; Meg was sure of it. She had been ready for ages, changing her outfit umpteen times before putting back what she’d had on in the first place: a simple rust silk wraparound skirt with a small black top and some very new, very gorgeous Indian-looking sandals.
As was seemingly always the case, Kathy’s mobile was turned off. In a spur-of-the-moment choice Meg decided she’d take Kathy’s wrath any day of the week rather than her mother’s if she was late, so scribbled an apologetic note telling Kathy she’d meet her at the church, pinned it to the door and clattered her way down the stairs in her new sandals—which were already starting to rub.
‘Where have you been, Megan?’ Mary demanded. One look at her sister’s guilt-ridden face and Meg realised that Kathy had only now remembered that she was supposed to be picking her up
‘Sorry, the traffic was terrible.’
‘Which is why you should have left earlier. Now, come on, we’ve only got the church for half an hour.’
They might have only had the church for half an hour, but that didn’t stop them from being put through their paces.
‘You’re supposed to be smiling as you walk up the aisle.’
‘I will be, Mum, on Saturday.’ Meg’s sandals were really hurting now, and following a giggling Kathy for the tenth time really wasn’t helping matters. Neither did the fact that Flynn, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt and looking absolutely delicious, was smothering a smile as Mary told her off.
‘Okay, just one more time. Not you, Meg,’ she barked. ‘Just Kathy and Dad. I want to see them from the church doors and check how they look from behind. Flynn, you stand next to Jake like the book says.’
‘She’s not going to hum the ‘‘Bridal March’’ again, is she?’ Flynn asked as the trio disappeared, and even Meg giggled.
But the smile soon vanished when Kathy came running through the church doors, an anguished look on her face. ‘Meg, you’d better come,’ she said breathlessly. ‘Mum’s having palpitations.’
‘I’ll get my bag from the car,’ Flynn said, moving like lightning down the aisle. But Kathy put up her hand to stop him. ‘Not those sort, Flynn.’ Her eyes turned to Meg. ‘Vince just turned up.’
‘Vince!’ Meg’s shocked voice seemed amplified in the hallowed silence of the church. ‘But how did he even know that I was here?’
‘That was Mum’s question, actually.’ Kathy was trying desperately to keep the mood light, but she gave up when she realised no one else was even attempting a smile. ‘He went to the flat and found your note for me on the door. He wants to see you.’
‘Well, I don’t want to see him,’ Meg said firmly. ‘You can tell him that from me.’
Kathy shook her head. ‘There’s something else. Apparently he’s left his wife. Meg, I really think you need to talk to him.’
‘There’s nothing left to say. Just get rid of him, please, Kathy,’ she urged.
‘Your sister’s got enough to contend with, without doing your dirty work.’ Mary marched towards them, her face contorted with rage. ‘Bloody Vince.’
If it hadn’t been such an awful moment Meg would have registered that it was the first time she had actually heard her mother swear. Mary clapped her hands over her mouth as soon as the mild expletive escaped her lips. ‘Now look what you’ve made me do—and in God’s house too. I mean it, Megan, go and sort things out once and for all.’
For a second she looked over to Flynn—hoping for what, she didn’t know—but he looked as relaxed and carefree as ever, and Meg realised there and then that she was on her own. Vince was her problem and it was up to her deal with it.
‘Meg,’ Vince started as she marched angrily out of the church towards him, ‘I’m sorry if I upset your mum.’
‘No, you’re not,’ Meg retorted angrily. ‘Just what on earth made you think you could come here?’
‘I needed to see you…’
‘Now?’ Her voice was rising. ‘You decide you need to see me and that’s it? Doesn’t it matter to you that I might be in the middle of something?’ She gave a cynical snort before continuing. ‘But then what does a wedding mean to you? Not much, obviously.’
‘Meg, I’ve left Rhonda. My marriage is over.’
‘So?’ Meg shouted. ‘Tell someone who cares.’
‘Please, Meg.’ He was pleading with her, and, looking up, she saw how tired and utterly awful he looked. ‘Please. I just want five minutes. If you still don’t want me then I’ll walk away.’
‘I don’t want you, Vince.’ Her voice was definite. ‘Nothing you can say will change that.’
‘Five minutes. Please,’ he added desperately.
She didn’t owe him anything, not a single thing, but maybe Meg was curious as to what he had to say, or hopeful that hearing him out might bring her some finality. They simply couldn’t go on like this. With a small shrug she nodded.
‘Can we go to your flat?’
‘No. There’s a café down the road; you can speak to me there.’
Meg declined his offer of something to eat, in fact she chose iced coffee in the hope that she could drink it quickly and get out of there.
‘I’m sorry for lying to you,’ Vince began. ‘And if it’s any consolation I really did love you. I just didn’t want to hurt Rhonda.’
‘You hurt us both.’ The waitress brought over their drinks and Meg fiddled with the teaspoon, dunking it in and out of her drink—anything other than look at him.
‘I know that,’ Vince said sadly. ‘When we broke up, I really tried hard to make my marriage work, but all I could think about was you. I’ve left her for you, Meg.’
‘No, you haven’t,’ Meg said slowly. ‘You’ve left Rhonda because your marriage wasn’t working—it hasn’t been since the day you asked me out, and probably not for a while before that.’
‘But it’s over now. Can’t we try again? Wipe the slate clean? I know you don’t trust me, but, given a chance, in time I could show you how I’ve changed— earn back your trust.’
Meg gave him an incredulous look. ‘You shouldn’t have to earn back my trust, Vince. You had it, every last piece of it, and you ripped it up and threw it away. It’s gone. I don’t know how to say it any clearer: I’m never going to trust you and I’m never going to love you.’
He sat there, staring into the disintegrating froth on his cappuccino, and with a start Meg realised his eyes were brimming with tears.
‘So it’s over?’
Hallelujah, Meg almost said, but stopped herself. His pain, his desolation, gave her no surge of triumph, no sense of vengeance. It was all just a sorry mess.
‘It’s over,’ she said softly. Reaching across the table, she patted his arm. ‘But you’ll survive, and so will Rhonda. I’m living proof. Look, Vince, I really have to go. I’m in the middle of a wedding rehearsal.’
It was an utterly innocent gesture, a compassionate final touch before she got up and walked away, and had she glanced out of the window Meg would probably have thought twice about it. But she didn’t look up. She didn’t see Flynn standing on the pavement rummaging in his jeans for his car keys, or the pain in his eyes as he drove away.
‘Can I call you?’ Vince asked. ‘Not yet—in a few weeks, maybe. We could try and be friends.’
Meg shook her head. ‘No, Vince, we can never be friends. I mean that. I don’t want you calling me, not ever.’
Placing some money on the table, she didn’t even say goodbye, and she walked out of the café with her head held high, knowing in her heart that she’d done nothing wrong and wondering just why, then, did she feel so guilty?
CHAPTER TEN
MEG actually awoke not with a smile on her face, but for the first time in weeks with a sense of peace.
She was going to be all right.
Better than all right, she was going to be fine. Who needed a man? Okay, maybe years down the track it might possibly happen, but she wasn’t going to die waiting. There was simply too much to do—the world was her oyster, so to speak. The surgical day ward would just have to wait. She had enough in the bank to take a dream cruise and banish all the horrible memories once and for all. And, Meg decided, lying staring at the ceiling, if she was going to be a spinster why not go the whole hog and get a cat?
But who would look after the cat when she went on her cruise?
There were a million and one things to be done today—from important things, like picking up various relatives from the airport or train station, right down to necessary basics, like washing her hair today so it wasn’t too slippery when the hairdresser put it up, and tweezing her eyebrows to match the photo of Audrey Hepburn that Meg had faithfully cut out of a glossy magazine and stuck on the mantelpiece.
Meg was sleeping at the family home tonight— heaven only knew how, as practically every O’Sullivan in the phone book had been offered a bed for the night, much to Kathy’s horror. Meg had been assigned a sleeping bag on the floor of her sister’s room. And, despite the prospect of a hard floor and Kathy’s grinding teeth, Meg was looking forward to it in a mawkish kind of way. Looking forward to sharing a room with her sister for probably the last time. No doubt in a couple of years when the families converged, Kathy’s room would be overflowing with travel cots and squeaky toys. But not tonight. Tonight it was just the two of them.
Flynn.
He popped into her mind, as he always did, but Meg couldn’t deal with it today—simply couldn’t go there and be expected to keep on smiling. Throwing back the sheets, she forced his image from her mind, flicking on the coffee machine and darting down the communal stairs. Her neighbours bade her g’day with barely a glance; Meg in her heart-patterned pyjama shorts and skimpy crop top, rushing to collect her newspaper, was an all too familiar sight.
What wasn’t a familiar sight, Meg realised, as she picked up the paper the newspaper boy had tossed onto the grass, was the huge silver car parked on the street. Correction, it was familiar—very familiar. And so was the six-foot, dark-haired, delicious package climbing out of it and walking towards her.
‘We need to talk.’
Meg nodded dumbly, suddenly acutely aware of her lack of attire. ‘How long have you been there?’
Flynn shrugged. ‘All night. Is he still here?’
On closer inspection, Meg figured he was speaking the truth. Though still looking delicious, his T-shirt was crumpled like an old dishcloth and his chin certainly hadn’t met a razor for a while. ‘Who?’
‘Who do you think?’ He sounded irritated. ‘Vince, of course.’
‘Vince isn’t here,’ Meg said, confused. ‘He never has been. Honestly,’ she insisted when he gave her an unbelieving look. ‘Why on earth would you be sitting outside?’
Flynn completely ignored her question; he obviously had other things on his mind. ‘So what was that little tête-à-tête I saw you both engaging in?’
‘Flynn, I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.’ For once it was Meg sounding rational, Meg who sounded in control. It was Flynn who was obviously struggling to hold it together. ‘Look, do you want to come inside?’
He nodded and walking back to the flat, held the door open for her. Meg hesitated before going inside. Oh, she wasn’t nervous of Flynn—not for a second— she was more worried about going first up the stairs in a skimpy pair of shorts, which seemed a stupid thing to be getting worked up about, given the turn of events.
But she found it easier to focus on trivialities, too scared to let her mind leap ahead and ask the bigger questions—scared, so scared, of building up her hopes only to have them cruelly dashed again.
‘Do you want coffee?’
He shook his head impatiently. ‘I didn’t come for breakfast, Meg, I want to talk.’
‘Fine,’ Meg replied curtly, stalling for time, not sure whether or not she wanted to hear what he had to say to her. ‘I’ll have a coffee while you do the talking.’ She held up the jug. ‘Last chance.’
The aroma of the fresh brew got Flynn down from his moral high ground a touch, and grudgingly he nodded. An uncomfortable night in a parked car, however luxurious the model, wasn’t the best prelude to what he had to say, and strong, sweet black coffee was just too tempting an offer to refuse.
She carried the drinks through to the lounge and sat down, determined not to let him see how flustered she was feeling, determined not to be the one to break the uncomfortable silence.
‘He’ll only hurt you,’ Flynn blurted out. ‘He might say he loves you, that he’s left his wife, but he’s cheated before and he’ll do it again.’
Meg just sat there, sipping her coffee, refusing point-blank to look at him.
‘And even if he doesn’t cheat you’re going to spend your life wondering. Every time he says he’s going to be late, every time there’s a wrong number on the telephone you’ll work yourself up into a frenzy wondering if this is it.’
‘And you sat outside all night to tell me this?’
‘Yes,’ Flynn said simply. ‘After the church I went around to your parents’. They were all a bit upset. Your mum wanted to march around and talk some sense into you, but I said I’d do it. I’ve been up to your door countless times in the night—half of me wanted to break it down, to give Vince what he deserves, while the other half of me knew it would be pointless, that you have to make up your own mind, see what a loser he is for yourself.’
‘But I have already. I did the day I found out he was married.’ Her voice was starting to rise, a smouldering anger in her starting to ignite. ‘For months now I’ve been telling everyone it’s over—you, Mum, Kathy—yet none of you would listen. Why? Do you all think I’m so weak, so desperate that I’d take him back?’
‘No.’ He rose to his feet, running an exasperated hand through his hair before sitting back down again. ‘No one thinks that, Meg.’
‘Then why didn’t anyone believe me when I said it was over?’
He stared at her for the longest time before answering. ‘I guess we were all just scared.’
‘Scared?’ She gave a questioning, cynical laugh.
‘Your mum and Kathy love you. I guess they were scared of seeing you get hurt.’
‘And what about you, Flynn? Why were you scared?’
‘Because I love you too.’
And though the words were sweet and beautiful Meg had heard them before.
Before he’d promptly turned around and broken her heart.
‘You’ve already told me that, Flynn, but it didn’t stop you ending it. It didn’t stop you telling me that I was too suspicious and needy to merit you putting in what a relationship needs.’
‘Yes,’ he admitted. ‘But, hell, Meg, I’ve never had a jealous bone in my body until now. Seeing you and Vince together, sitting in my car, thinking you were up here making love to him, I finally understood where you were coming from.’
She stared at him, unblinking. The fact that they loved each other wasn’t in question here; it was how they dealt with their pasts that was tearing them apart.
‘Not good enough, Flynn,’ Meg finally answered, her voice unmoved. ‘So you were jealous; so you finally got a taste of how I was feeling. Just what’s that supposed to prove? Jealousy isn’t our only problem, but you refuse to acknowledge that.’
‘No, I don’t.’ His voice was a pale whisper. ‘You were right. I’m not over Lucy. All that bull about celebrating her life, not mourning her death—all
the big speeches about better to have loved and lost…’ His voice trailed off and he cleared his throat before turning his eyes back to Meg. ‘None of it was true, but I wasn’t lying when I said it. I truly believed I was coping, that I was over her.’
Meg felt the tears well in her eyes—tears for his pain and tears for herself too. He wasn’t over Lucy, she had known it in her heart, but hearing it confirmed, knowing he wasn’t ready to move on, felt like the final twist of the knife.
‘I’m so tired, Meg, so torn and tired. All I want to do, all I can do, is get away for a while. I rang Dr Campbell from the car this morning; he’s going to give me some unpaid leave.’ He gave a half-laugh but there was no humour in it. ‘Somehow I doubt even he could get compassionate leave approved by Personnel two years after the event.’
‘Well, they should. There’s no blueprint.’ Her voice was strangely high. ‘People deal with these things in their own way. I know you need time, Flynn, but I don’t know what you expect me to say here.’ She swallowed nervously, scared of saying the wrong thing, scared of putting on too much pressure that might send him scuttling away. But if she couldn’t be honest, couldn’t even tell him this, then there wasn’t much point.
No point at all.
‘I’ll wait for you.’
‘Meg, you don’t…’ He took a step towards her but she put up her hand.
‘Let me finish, Flynn.’ Tears were pouring down her cheeks, but there was no hysteria in her voice, just calm tones mingled with a quiet dignity. ‘I was mortified when I found out about Vince. Mortified that I could have been so fooled, so used, and mortified for what I’d done to his wife and my own family.’
‘It wasn’t your fault.’
‘I know,’ she admitted. ‘But it was how I felt. And, rightly or wrongly, I was embarrassed, humiliated. But the tears I cried, the pain I felt, they weren’t about Vince. Any love I had died there and then when I found out. Do you understand that?’
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