Meet Me at Wisteria Cottage

by Teresa F. Morgan

  Whatever’s meant to be is meant to be.

  Right?

  He so badly wanted Maddy to be meant to be.

  He hated his PTSD; he hated that he’d fled and not faced Maddy. What if he’d irretrievably fucked this up? Harry wanted to punch something, anything … anger and frustration building back up inside of him. But he’d learnt a long time ago – the hard way – that punching immovable objects like brick walls or trees (as he was surrounded by some) hurt, and adding a broken hand to his problems would not help his current situation in the slightest. Especially as, if everything else failed, he needed to get back to his landscaping business.

  His phone started ringing. He couldn’t hear it from outside of the truck, but he could see it flashing in its phone cradle on the dashboard. The caller ID said Maddy. In his frantic movement to get to it, pulling open the door, he clumsily dropped the phone as he snatched at it. Harry let out another yell of frustration as he fumbled for the phone in the foot-well. Nothing was going right. Nothing. By the time he answered, it had rung off; she’d gone to voicemail. He didn’t want to know if she’d left a message or not, he just dialled the number back. To his relief, it rang. She answered quickly.

  ‘Harry?’

  ‘Yes, sorry, didn’t get to the phone in time. You called me?’ Harry winced. He couldn’t string his words together. What did he say? Fear gripped him: he mustn’t say the wrong thing.

  ‘Yes, yes … where are you?’

  ‘In my truck, parked on Clifton Down.’ He sat back down behind the steering wheel. ‘I don’t know whether to drive home or not. I don’t know what to do for the best, Maddy.’

  ‘Neither do I. Look, stay where you are, I’ll come find you.’

  ‘Okay.’ Harry nodded, not that Maddy could see it. Some relief rippled through him that he hadn’t left for Cornwall. Maddy wanted to talk.

  ‘See you in ten minutes.’

  Harry slipped his phone into his pocket, and stood outside his truck, watching the traffic, waiting for her. His body tensed. Thoughts went round and round in his mind. What to say, how to say it … This was it; this was the crucial fork in the road of his life. Would Maddy be going with him, or going the other way, alone?

  ***

  Maddy hoped the police wouldn’t contact her parents before she got home, but however tired and terrible she felt, she needed to speak to Harry. Since she’d walked back into the gallery and left him on the pavement, he was all she could think about. The sadness in his expression, when she’d brushed him aside, haunted her. He’d come all this way too, to find her, to speak to her. He had saved her from Connor. She should give him this time. She’d be lying to herself if she said she didn’t want to know why he’d disappeared. Of course she wanted answers.

  As she drove, the Downs were on her left, so she kept an eye out for Harry’s truck. She spotted it not that far along, and she saw Harry standing outside, waving at her. Unfortunately, she couldn’t park next to him and had to drive a couple of hundred yards until she found a parking space. A quick check in the vanity mirror in her overhead sun visor showed her she didn’t look like she’d been crying anymore. Ideally, she would have liked to have put some more make-up on because she was conscious she did look a mess. Rummaging in her handbag, she found her hairbrush, and gave her hair a quick brush through, tidying her ponytail. Surely, she should have done this at the gallery? As she put the brush back, she spied a lip-gloss, so hastily applied some.

  After a deep breath, and a check in her wing mirror, Maddy hurried out of her car and shut the door, locking it. She stepped across the grass verge and onto the path and headed towards Harry, who was walking towards her.

  ‘Hey,’ she said as she met him.

  ‘Hey.’

  ‘Let’s walk this way.’ Maddy pointed to where the path forked through some trees. ‘There’s a bench around the corner.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll follow you.’ He gestured with his hand.

  They walked silently for a while. It was awkward. What should they say, where did they begin? Then Maddy remembered earlier events and how Harry had come to her rescue.

  ‘Look, I’m sorry about earlier. I don’t know if I conveyed it to you properly, but I was very grateful for you stepping in with Connor.’

  ‘I wasn’t going to stand by and let him hurt you, Maddy.’

  ‘I know.’ She’d never felt unsafe with Harry. From the day he’d thrown her over his shoulder, he’d done everything in his power to make her feel safe, protected.

  It seemed odd walking side by side and not holding Harry’s hand, or even linking an arm through his. She missed the closeness too, longing to touch him. But would it be a show of weakness? She hadn’t decided yet what she would do. Maybe he knew not to impose on her boundaries, as he had his hands tucked into his jeans pockets, looking awkward and tense as he walked. Maddy held the strap of her handbag slung over her shoulder. Yes, he was an attractive man, yes she fancied him like crazy, but he’d hurt her, and was capable of doing it again. She would listen to what he had to say before she made any decisions. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t had enough practice listening to bullshit. Connor had given her a qualification in it. NVQ level 3 in bullshit detecting.

  The trees cleared and they came out onto a small green, the path continuing around, with a spectacular view of the Clifton Suspension Bridge. To Maddy’s relief, the bench on the corner was empty, and she gestured for Harry to head towards it. With the blue sky and a scatter of clouds like white candyfloss, it really was a spectacular sight.

  ‘Wow,’ Harry said. ‘Impressive view.’

  ‘Yes, Bristol’s landmark,’ Maddy said. ‘Paris has the Eiffel Tower; Bristol has the Clifton Suspension Bridge. Not sure if anyone actually proposes here, though.’

  Harry chuckled. Maddy sat down on the bench while Harry walked over to survey the view. Up by the fence, you could look down into the Avon Gorge and across to the city. She let him take his time, sensing he had something big to tell her. He had been quite closed off to her about some areas of his past. When she came to think about it, she realised she knew relatively little about him.

  Harry finally strolled towards her, his lips pursed together, a determined expression on his face. Then her mobile phone rang.

  ‘Shit.’ Unzipping her bag, she grabbed her phone and saw it was her mother. ‘Sorry, I’d better take this, it’s Mum,’ she said to Harry. He showed no disappointment in his expression, only concern. ‘Hi, Mum.’

  ‘Where are you, darling? I called the gallery and Angel said you’d come home. But you’re not back, so now I’m worried. What happened at the gallery? Angel said some man attacked you. Was it Harry? I feel wretched because I told him where the gallery was—’

  ‘No, it wasn’t Harry. It was Connor, Mum. Look, I’m with Harry now. I was coming home, I’m so exhausted, but I needed to talk to Harry first. Then I will come home and tell you all about it. Connor is with the police.’

  ‘That scoundrel.’ Sandra started off on one of her rants. Maddy pulled the phone away from her ear, rolling her eyes at Harry, who smiled, trying to make light of what was really a serious situation.

  ‘Mum! Mum, we’ll talk when I get home. But I can assure you I am safe, okay?’

  ‘Okay, dear. Maybe you should have called your mother first, though?’

  ‘Yes, yes, sorry.’ Maddy felt fifteen again. Did her mother not realise she was twenty-seven?

  Maddy switched off her mobile to prevent any more disturbances and placed it in her handbag. Harry took a seat beside her, but there was still distance between them. She sat on one end of the bench, and he on the other. How had they drifted so far apart?

  Chapter 37

  Harry took a deep breath, Maddy looking patiently at him. How did he tell her this without sounding bonkers?

  ‘I suppose I’ll start from the beginning, or maybe with the tablets in my bathroom cabinet.’

  Maddy shifted her body towards him, placing her handbag on her lap. ‘Go on.
’

  ‘I suffer from PTSD – Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.’He always assumed he needed to explain the abbreviation.

  ‘I thought only soldiers got that?’ She frowned.

  ‘No, apparently anyone can – anyone who is subjected to a deeply shocking or life-threatening incident can be affected. My PTSD is due to an accident that happened a couple of years ago when I was still in the fire service – although I wasn’t on duty at the time. God, this is so hard to tell you – I don’t want you thinking I’m some nut job.’

  ‘I don’t. Tell me, Harry.’

  ‘Okay, okay …’ Harry rubbed his palms along his jeans, already starting to feel the perspiration. ‘Karin, my girlfriend, was involved in a traffic incident. I was first on the scene. I’d worked a late shift, but we’d been on a job and couldn’t leave until the day crew turned up to take over, and then by the time I’d chatted with my colleagues and left the yard, it was nearly ten a.m. I’d been in no rush to get home; I thought Karin would be at work. We worked four days on and four days off, and so that had been my last shift.’ Maddy nodded, looking intently at Harry.

  ‘Anyway …’ Harry’s hands shook. Reliving this memory again, and retelling it always made him tremble. For a moment he feared he wouldn’t get the words out, or he’d freeze up. But he had to tell Maddy the truth. All of it. ‘The road wasn’t busy – rush hour was over – and Karin had hit an oncoming articulated lorry—’

  ‘Oh, shit.’

  ‘She was trapped inside the car. I was travelling the same way as the lorry on a straight road heading out of Exeter – we lived a few miles from Exeter – so I saw it happen.’ Harry remembered as if it were yesterday the crash unfolding a few hundred yards in front of him. The lorry’s break lights, smoke from the tyres, a car – metal and glass spraying – spinning and jamming up against the lorry. ‘I didn’t realise it was her car until I stopped and ran to the scene of the crash. I’m a fireman, that’s what I do. I help people.’

  ‘That’s what you did the time we were coming back from Truro.’

  Harry nodded, remembering his fear that it could be an accident, and his relief the car had only broken down.

  ‘Anyway, she was conscious, apologising, and I promised I’d get her out. I was talking to her the whole time making sure she stayed awake. But she was trapped by the dashboard. The impact had crushed everything down, trapping her. Her driver’s door was wedged up against the side of the lorry’s trailer, and I couldn’t get to her from the passenger side. I had nothing to cut her out with. Nothing. The airbags had deployed, there was a toxic smoke emitting from the vents – it was choking me and her. I had already dialled 999 – someone else may have in the traffic too – but I knew the response time. I checked on the lorry driver; he kept saying she came out of nowhere.’ Tears welled in Harry’s eyes. Although the events of that day were usually blurred, he could remember them now as clear as day. ‘A couple of other people helped with him – because of the smoke emitting from Karin’s car, I told them to get the driver out if they could but with minimal movement. He only suffered cuts and bruises in the end.’ Harry looked Maddy in the eye. ‘I couldn’t save her, Maddy, I couldn’t save her.’ Tears fell, wetting his cheeks. ‘I failed. She died, carrying our baby, she was four months pregnant.’ On that day his whole future had been wiped out in a split second.

  ‘Harry, it’s not your fault.’ Maddy placed her hand on his knee. Her eyes glistened.

  ‘I promised her. I promised her I would look after her and our baby. The crew turned up, ambulances, but the car burst into flames. They told me she was already dead before the fire started.’ Harry remembered the fire crew dragging him away from the car, two crew members holding him back, restraining him as he screamed Karin’s name, as he watched his future burn in front of him. For a moment, he gathered his thoughts, aware Maddy had taken his hand and squeezed it.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Harry.’

  Harry breathed deeply, filling his chest with air, and wiped his face as he looked out at the beautiful view ahead of him. Blue sky and sunshine, a mild autumnal day, some of the leaves on the trees were beginning to turn from their lush green to their yellows, golds and reds.

  ‘Once deemed fit to return to work, I realised every incident, the smell of fire, was a trigger. I got flashbacks, nightmares. I transferred from Exeter to sleepy, quieter Cornwall in the hope a change of scenery was maybe all I needed. But again, although big incidents happened less frequently I’d arrive at RTC’s—’

  ‘RTC’s?’

  ‘Road traffic collisions – I’d arrive and freeze. I was no good to anyone, in fact, I was more likely to get someone killed than save someone. So I left the fire service and concentrated on landscape gardening which I’d been doing on the side anyway – you need something to do on those four days off.’ It had started with him helping his dad in the early days, but when he moved to Cornwall he decided to set up his own landscape gardening firm. ‘I could build up the business, increase my customer base, and commit to bigger jobs. And that’s when I moved to Annadale Close.’

  ‘And so what happened between us was a result of your PTSD?’

  ‘Maddy, I try to manage it as healthily as I can. I stay active, exercising regularly, and the gardening is a great stress reliever, too. My doctor actually encouraged this route for me. I’m on medication too, to help me sleep, keep me happier, but then your house caught fire … which I handled …’

  ‘I kind of wish it hadn’t,’ Maddy said.

  ‘Well, no, but we started getting close because of it, and I was afraid to fall in love again because I feared I would lose you like I lost Karin, and when you joked about getting pregnant, it was like pushing me over the edge. I panicked. I’d never thought I’d meet someone else and feel like I did again. I’m sorry. It’s not your fault. And if anything, I’ve learnt these past weeks I can’t bear to be without you. Leaving you didn’t make me happier, it made me more miserable. I thought you’d be better off without me … and maybe you are?’ He glanced across to her, realising he’d been staring out across the Gorge.

  ‘Why didn’t you call me?’

  ‘When I left I was in a very dark place. You have to remember I wasn’t thinking straight either – I’d decided you were better off without me. And in my frustration, I broke my phone.’ Throwing it across a room hadn’t been one of his brightest moves. ‘When I realised my mistake, I had left it too long. What I had to say couldn’t be said over the phone or in a text message. I needed to face you. So I built myself back up, got my thoughts straight, then came to find you.’

  ‘Where did you go? Where have you been staying?’

  ‘With my parents back in Exeter. While there, I learnt that Karin apparently committed suicide because she was clinically depressed. Which I didn’t want to believe, but now my head is clearer I remember the lorry driver saying there was nothing else on the road to explain what had happened. At the time I thought maybe she’d swerved because of a rabbit, a fox or a deer – anything. I mean why would a healthy human being just move to the wrong side of the road and hit a lorry?’

  ‘She wasn’t overtaking another vehicle?’

  Harry shook his head. To this day, the accident had never made sense.

  ‘I’d sent Karin a message to say I was running late. She never told me she’d phoned in sick at work. All I got in a text was ‘I’m sorry’, which I never saw until after the accident, because I’d been driving.’

  Harry brushed his hand along Maddy’s cheek, looking from her slightly parted lips to her eyes. How did he convince her he’d made a mistake? How did he regain her trust? ‘Maddy, I love you. I am so sorry, and I really regret running like I did. Tell me what I have to do to fix this, and I’ll do it.’

  ***

  Maddy hung on Harry’s words. His hand still held her chin, and she thought he was going to kiss her. Would she stop him if he did try? The distance between them on the bench had reduced, their knees touching, his heat radiating up h
er thigh. The buzz of electricity between them reminded her of the first days they had shared together in the summer. Her gaze flickered between his gently parted lips, and then his blue eyes; from their colour, you’d think he was a man of ice, but he was the warmest person she’d ever known. She longed to be intimate with him again, but it could not be out of pity. Should she give him one last chance? Her heart pounded as their heads edged hesitantly closer, tilting to touch lips. Be brave … kiss him …

  A dog barked, Maddy jumped, and exhaling, she pulled away. A man and his collie strolled past on the path, silently apologising for the dog’s sudden outburst with a wave and a nod. The dog wagged his tail, then sank to all fours, eager for his owner to hurl a ball.

  She looked at Harry, who’d rested an arm on the back of the bench, looking more relaxed and casual, as if talking about the past had helped relieve the tension and stress he’d been carrying. His hand brushed her upper arm.

  ‘If you need time to take all this on board, Maddy, I understand. I know I’ve hurt you.’

  ‘I …’ she hesitated. ‘I’ve got so much going on in my head. Mum, Connor, then you turning up.’

  ‘I know, it’s unfair of me to pressure you,’ he rubbed his hands down his jeans, ‘I’ll give you some time to think about it. I’m not going anywhere. Well, except back home, to Cornwall, as I haven’t really come prepared today. No hotel, fresh clothes, nothing.’ He chuckled. His expression sobered, and he leaned in, kissing her cheek, the gentle warmth of his breath sending a tingle down her neck. ‘You know where I am if you need me. This time I will answer my phone. I promise,’ he said, then hesitated. ‘I love you.’ His last three words were exhaled with his breath as if spoken from the depths of his heart, the effects rippling into her own heart.

  Maddy watched him stand up, stretching out his long legs, as he looked at her thoughtfully, his blue eyes hopeful but sad. He took another look at the Suspension Bridge then started walking back the way they’d come. She hated the feeling of watching him go even though he’d promised he wasn’t going for good. He was giving her time, but she felt empty, hollow and alone. An ache in her chest swelled, rising to her throat. She feared she would lose him. She’d only just got him back.