The First Time I Saw You: the most heartwarming and emotional love story of the year

by Emma Cooper

  ‘You would have coped anyway.’ He gives a short nod of certainty. My eyes were stinging, and my body felt drained.

  ‘Well, thanks anyway.’

  ‘I’d best get going . . . I’ll help you. In the garden. Tomorrow. If you want.’ His sentences were deliberate, his pauses considerate. ‘I’ll bring breakfast.’

  I give up trying to sleep and find myself in the garden. I don’t need much light; the sky is filled with stars and the moon is proud and glowing. I look at the tea party that my mother has made, gently stroking the china and touching the ends of the forks. I think about the way Charlie cried when I saw him through the window and I think about my mother. I rip away the image of the night time and the overgrown garden like the page of a children’s book, and instead, imagine new pages filled with coloured pencil sketches of Mum, smiling in this garden in the summer. Pages flutter past and I see her unfurling the rose-patterned tablecloth, a butterfly dancing over her shoulder, her hair blowing away from her face. On another page, I see her placing the cutlery while swatting away a lazy bumble bee. Wind grabs the paper, turning it over, and there she is: licking her finger where some of the sugar has escaped its pot. Pages flash past until my hands smooth over the final drawings and I see her standing with her hands on her hips, her face turned towards the house as a side profile of myself slides a school bag from my shoulders.

  My morning coffee is warm in my hands as I reach for my phone, punching in Helen’s number.

  ‘Hi, it’s me. I’m sorry to ring so early, but, I, we, need to talk.’

  ‘Are you OK?’ she asks. Greg’s sleepy voice groans in the background.

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘Is the baby OK?’ Helen asks just as Charlie knocks on the door. I hold the phone in the crook of my neck and unlock the door. He doesn’t say hello, he just walks in carrying a tray of something smelling of cinnamon.

  ‘I’ve baked,’ he announces as he walks past me and into the kitchen.

  ‘Sophie?’ I shake my head and turn my attention back to Helen. ‘Who’s that in the background? Is it hot Irish Samuel?’ she whispers excitedly.

  ‘No. It’s Charlie from next door.’

  ‘Well, you didn’t waste much time!’

  ‘What, no! It’s not like that, we’re friends.’

  ‘So what’s he doing around your house so early? The kids aren’t even up yet.’

  ‘I know, I’m sorry, but I’ve found something. In the garden. Do you remember the table?’

  ‘Breakfast,’ Charlie calls. ‘It’s going cold.’ I still can’t quite get used to his bluntness.

  ‘Just a minute!’ I shout. He pops his head around the door frame and scowls. I stick my tongue out at him as he disappears into the kitchen.

  ‘Helen? Are you there?’

  Her voice is wavering, but she replies, ‘Yes, I’m here. What did you find?’

  ‘The table was covered by a broken fence panel. It hadn’t crashed completely on top but had protected it. The table has been preserved; it’s covered in moss and completely overgrown, but . . . Helen, the table was set. Like a tea party . . . do you know anything about it? Because I keep thinking about the present and the label, “don’t be late for a very important date” – it has to mean something. Helen?’

  ‘It does . . . it was . . . Look, I’ll explain everything, I promise. Just give me a week or so to gather myself, OK? I’ll come to you. I’ll come to the cottage and I’ll explain everything . . . Just let me get to grips with it first. Can you do that?’

  ‘Sure.’ I swallow the huge lump in my throat. ‘I’ll see you soon, love you.’

  ‘Love you too.’

  I follow the smell of cinnamon into the kitchen and stare at Charlie as he opens cupboards and pulls out plates as though he has always lived here. I’m not sure how I feel about this. Yesterday was different; the situation needed control and I was oblivious really to the way he made himself at home, but today, it feels intrusive. I’m still holding my mobile in my shaking hands, gripping the phone as I picture Helen on the other end, the sacrifice she will be making to come here. My eyes fill with tears as I sit down, a cinnamon bun placed in front of me. As I tear a piece off and feel the sugar and soft dough melt in my mouth, thoughts of Helen are swept aside. I actually groan with pleasure. Charlie sits down opposite and looks startled, a piece of bun halfway to his mouth.

  ‘Sorry,’ I mumble with my mouth full. He puts the food into his mouth and stares at me, then swallows. ‘Do you,’ I swallow, ‘want an iced coffee?’ He wrinkles his nose in disdain.

  ‘I don’t do cold coffee, but I’ll have an espresso from your space-aged machine, if you don’t mind?’

  ‘Right, sure. I’ll just . . .’ I get up, the feeling of unease returning; I feel like I’m a guest in my own house. He gets up, dusts his hands on his cut-off denim shorts, which look like they’ve been hacked off by a pair of blunt scissors, and heads for the garden. I have an irresistible urge to blow a raspberry at his retreating back.

  Is that what Samuel felt like when I went back to DC? Did he feel like I was an intruder when I stayed the night? Helped myself to wine from his fridge? The image of him kissing me returns. Was it really just an act, Samuel? Did you really sleep with me to get your own back, to prove a point?

  I bite down on my lip and carry the drinks outside, to find Charlie touching the moss cascading out of the teapot.

  ‘I think this is moss campion . . . it has pink flowers in June.’

  ‘I want to keep it,’ I say, passing him his espresso, which he takes with a begrudging mumble of thanks. ‘I want to keep it as it is.’ I stroke the chairs and imagine pink flowers tumbling down; the cups filled with petals.

  ‘So how are we going to get Handy Huw in with his rotovator?’ he asks.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I reply. He nods and passes me his coffee, then walks over to the next panel along to the dilapidated gate, looks it up and down and disappears back into the house. I stand sipping my coffee and looking at the table in all its fairy-tale glory. His return startles me and it takes me a moment to register that he is holding a sledgehammer as he stomps back to the panel and, in six heavy swings, sends it crashing to the ground in a pile of splintered mess.

  He stamps back towards me.

  ‘Huw can get in now.’ Charlie smiles, drains his cup and leaves.

  Week Sixteen

  Samuel

  I can’t breathe, I can’t see, I can’t live like this. I grip my phone tightly in my hand but what I want to do is throw it against the lounge wall and watch it smash into my twenty-year-old rugby-playing self. Instead, as I lower my hand, I let the black hole swallow it. I have found and rung every number for the staff at Sandwell and the answers are always the same. Nobody knows where Sophie is; three of them – new employees – hadn’t even heard of her.

  Insanity is nudging me, whispering to be let in; I can feel myself slipping into the darkness, the tunnel closing around my insides in the same way that it is closing around my vision. My small circle of sight is collapsing, and my ability to see is caught in the embrace of the snake which contracts and squeezes, taking my will to live with every movement.

  I can still see my phone screen, but I have noticed that the fog around it is rolling in. Where it used to be surrounded by life and colour, it is now smudged in soot. I’m powerless to stop it.

  Just over two weeks and I’ll be out of this brace, my leg will be out of the cast and for that I’m grateful. My sight will be a little easier to cope with once I can move around, but for now . . . I’m still stuck here.

  The house is quiet for once; the family have taken Will and Gertie to the beach. For the first couple of hours it was a relief. The silence smiled and relaxed into the sofas; the ticking of the clock grew cocky and commanding, taking over the house like an old general. But now I have nothing to do but watch Da’s old James Bond films on their small TV. My heart quickens when I realise that I won’t be able to see the whole screen of my fifty-in
ch flat screen by the time I return to DC – the edges will soon be eaten away by the encroaching darkness – but then I realise that my TV isn’t there anyway; it’s buried beneath the pile of rubble that used to be my home. I will never be able to watch a film at the cinema again . . . too much would be hidden in the tunnel walls.

  My eyes close and I replay the way she’d laughed at my jokes as we drove to the cinema.

  ‘What do you call a man with a piece of wood on his head?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘Edward.’

  ‘What do you call a man with three pieces of wood on his head?’

  ‘Still no idea.’

  ‘Edward Woodward.’

  ‘I don’t get it.’

  ‘What is there to get? Edward Woodward, the actor? The Equalizer? We didn’t have Sky until I was seventeen, so we were always stuck watching stuff from the eighties. The classics, my Da always called them . . . The A-team? Knight Rider?’

  She’d shaken her head.

  ‘You’ve got to have heard that joke when you were at school?’

  ‘Sorry, no, I guess we were too busy watching the Eisteddfod.’

  I think back to the way she talked, how when she’d had a few glasses of wine her speech pattern would change, her London accent slipping into something much softer.

  Feck’s sake . . . she’s Welsh!

  Week Seventeen

  Sophie

  The tape measure unravels as I count out the twelve centimetres. My thumb holds its marker and I bend and twist the reel over the curve of my stomach.

  ‘You’re getting big, Bean,’ I say, discarding the measure and rubbing my hand over my expanding stomach, which now sticks out further than my boobs. Although I can’t be sure if that is all Bean and not down to Charlie’s food parcels.

  Ungainly fat raindrops plod down against the window panes and I reach over the sink to pull the window closed, my tummy leaning against the counter, restricting my movements.

  I recognise Charlie’s knock and open the door.

  ‘Vegetable lasagne,’ he says by way of greeting from beneath his hood. He is holding the glass dish with a pair of pink oven gloves.

  I can’t help but smirk at him – this blunt-speaking, broad-shouldered man wearing something so feminine.

  ‘Do you mind if I put the match on?’

  I shake my head as he hangs his coat on the back of a chair, grabs the remote and flicks on the new flat-screen. My kitchen is instantly filled with sounds of a football stadium as England take on France. I’m not particularly interested; it’s the wrong-shaped ball.

  We haven’t talked much since my outpourings of last week; our contact seems to be restricted to food deliveries and his overseeing of Handy Huw’s handiwork.

  They managed to get the rotovator in, and between them, the lawn has been completely dug up and levelled, and the turf arrives tomorrow. I had mentioned that I had been thinking about getting fake grass.

  ‘Fake. Grass?’ Charlie had said scornfully.

  ‘What do you mean by fake?’ Huw had asked, his hairy belly hanging over his dirty shorts. ‘Like a different type to what’s local?’ His Welsh accent had softened the words, making them inoffensive and gentle. The more time I spend at home, the more I can feel my own words slipping back into their native tongue, the accent I had been so determined to lose, cuddling up against my new life like a faithful dog.

  Helen had never had the same lilt as Mum and me; she and Ian had moved to Wales the year before he met her. Mum had met him at the school Christmas fair while he sold home-made Christmas tree ornaments; he was personalising them on the stall with a wood burning pen. I remember her saying what a lovely idea and look at how he is with his daughter. So nice to see a father and daughter together like that. We didn’t know that Helen had had to stay up until midnight most days that week engraving the patterns, so he could make money from the stall.

  The lasagne is delicious, and we eat in companionable silence. I tear a piece of garlic bread away, the butter running between my fingers. I get up to wipe my hands just as my phone rings.

  ‘Go on, Harry,’ Charlie yells at the screen just as I pick up my mobile.

  ‘Hello?’ I answer; it slides from my grasp and smashes on to the newly tiled floor. ‘Shit! Shit! Shit!’ I crouch down but I know it’s beyond repair, the innards spilling out of the shattered screen.

  ‘You said you needed a new one with a better network,’ Charlie says matter-of-factly. ‘Yes!’ he exclaims at the TV as a goal is scored.

  ‘I know, but—’

  ‘At least it’s happened now before your website goes live.’

  ‘I suppose.’

  I wipe the butter from my fingers, then try to reassemble some of the parts, but it’s no use. The phone is knackered. I slide out the SIM card and return to the table.

  Charlie takes a sip of non-alcoholic red wine and grimaces. ‘You should get a better number for your phone.’

  I load my fork with lasagne. ‘Why? I’ve already put this one on my website.’

  ‘But you can choose one that’s easier to remember . . . something catchy, something accountanty.’

  ‘Accountanty?’ I query. ‘I’m not sure what you mean.’

  He shrugs and changes the subject. ‘When’s your sister coming?’

  ‘Next week,’ I answer with my mouth full. His lack of concern for etiquette has rubbed off on me and I feel more relaxed about table manners and manners in general. And that is a very good thing. Because I have just broken wind. Loudly.

  ‘Have you just?’ he asks, his nose wrinkling in disgust.

  ‘No!’ I lie, my cheeks burning with the embarrassment of it.

  ‘You have. I can smell it.’

  ‘I haven’t, I—’ Another blast escapes from my seat. Charlie sits back and folds his arms across his chest and raises his eyebrows.

  ‘It’s Bean,’ I say, looking at my food, unable to meet his gaze.

  ‘That’s a good name for it, you know: “Beans, Beans, they’re good for your heart, the more you eat the more you—”’

  ‘Yes, yes, I’ve heard the rhyme before.’

  ‘The same thing happened with Olivia.’ My embarrassment slides away and the room fills with the weight behind his words. ‘She would let rip all day long when she was pregnant with Jack.’

  ‘Oh, you have a son?’ I look at him and watch as he almost winces at the pain which flashes across his face.

  ‘Did.’ He stands up and begins scraping his plate into the sink.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say to his back as he puts on my oversized yellow washing-up gloves.

  ‘It’s not your fault. You weren’t the one driving. My wife Olivia was.’

  How do you answer a sentence like that? I pause, appropriate responses pushing their way forward only to be swallowed down by their ineptness.

  ‘Did they both die in the crash?’

  ‘Jack did. Olivia died three days later from internal bleeding.’ I remember Olivia, his girlfriend at school. She was a tiny little thing with long dark hair that almost reached her bottom; I always thought it looked too heavy for her to carry. I get up and gently place my hand on his shoulder. His body is warm, the kind of warmth that would stay even in the depths of winter; I can feel his muscles and bones moving beneath his skin: how can so much hurt be contained inside so thin a layer? He stops washing up and we both look at our reflections as the rain slides down our cheeks; our faces look like they’re drowning.

  ‘She had been drinking,’ he tells me in barely a whisper. ‘Not much, but enough. She’d been to her friends for a play date and they had opened a bottle of prosecco.’

  ‘When did they die?’ I ask.

  ‘Six months ago. Jack would have been four next month.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say. Two words that can mean both everything and nothing.

  Did he blame her? How do you grieve for somebody you loved but who killed your child?

  We stay like that for some t
ime, the rain continuing to slide sad tears down our reflections.

  Week Seventeen

  Samuel

  I’m not an idiot. I know that I’m going to need help soon, that my sight will be gone, and I will have to learn to cope with life as a blind person, but I’m just not ready yet. I don’t want to listen as Mam talks about guide dogs and how lovely it will be to have a dog around the house, one that’s trained, not like Dotty, our last dog, who ate all Da’s slippers.

  Mam came into my room yesterday all excited because she had found me a watch on eBay that I’ll be able to tell the time on. Isn’t that clever, Sammy, you’ll be able to feel where the numbers go by little bumps. Isn’t it clever? I know she’s only trying to help, but I hadn’t even thought about that, hadn’t considered that I wouldn’t be able to see the time. Do you think you’ll have a cane, Sammy? Ooh, look at this, it folds up all nice and tidy, you’ll be able to fit it in your pocket. I know that eventually, yes, I will need all of these, but I’m sick of hearing these questions, these scenarios and images of myself holding a cane, bumping into things, linking arms with my mother so I can cross the road. I try to push the thought away that I won’t be able to cook for myself. I say this to Sarah.

  ‘Will you pull yourself together! I’m sick of hearing you giving up on life just because you’re losing your sight. You could have died! You could be paralysed! You’ll still be able to cook, Mule, you’ll just have to learn to cook as a blind person.’

  I ignore her and instead speak into my phone, asking Google to search for Sophie Williams Wales. Google looks for Sophie Williams Way. I repeat the statement, slowing my words down so it can be deciphered better. This brings up the same list that I have been ploughing through for the past week.

  ‘Why are you still using your phone? I’ve shown you how to change the setting on the computer so that it will narrate the words for you.’

  ‘I just prefer using my phone.’

  ‘But you—’

  ‘Can you just leave it!’ I shout.