by Fiona Gibson
“Yes, I suppose it is.” She knew then that she wouldn’t charge Max for the window. She wasn’t sure if he’d like it and, she realized now, she didn’t really care either way.
“Well,” Conor said, “he’s a lucky man.”
She looked up at him, at the eyes that gleamed like sea-washed pebbles on the shore. An awkward silence filled the studio. She wished Lewis was here, firing questions about comets and clouds. “I didn’t say it was a he,” she said quietly.
“So, is it?” Conor’s eyes teased hers.
Jane sighed. “Max is…Hannah’s dad. My ex-husband. Not even ex, really—we’ve never got around to getting divorced.”
“So, he’s…?”
She smiled. “I suppose you’d call him my best friend.”
Conor’s eyes met hers. “Like I said, he’s a lucky man.”
Jane’s heart skipped as he raised a hand and pushed back a wayward strand of her hair. She could hear the buzz of the light. It felt too warm for February; the air was heady and thick. No sounds came from outside, as if the sky and the sea were waiting for something to happen.
“Where’s Lewis?” she whispered.
Conor’s fingers remained on her cheek, where he’d brushed the hair away. He was sitting on the bench, with Jane standing before him. “He’s having a sleepover with a friend in the village,” he said.
“Oh,” she said, and a smile tweaked her lips. She could do it. The scene she’d played over and over since the first time he’d invited her into his home—she could make it real. In a few hours she’d be leaving; this moment would be gone, washed away like a footprint on the sand.
Conor had taken hold of her hand. She looked down at the fingers—his weather-beaten yet elegant, hers slender and pale. She was sick of worrying about how others viewed her: her mother, with her “you should make something of yourself” lectures, and Hannah, whom she’d placed at the very center of her universe for the past fifteen years. She was sick, she realized as recklessness surged through her, of doing the right thing.
It was Jane who slid her arms around his shoulders and kissed him. Jane who ran her hands through his hair, and Jane who kept kissing and kissing him, oblivious to the studio’s harsh light. She could hardly believe they were her words—“Shall we go back to your house?”
He pulled away and smiled. “Let’s go.”
She felt so warm, so ridiculously happy, that she barely registered the blue-white flash of lightning, which was followed, seconds later, by a thunderous crack.
And the storm came.
35
Hannah inhaled deeply, feeling cool air filling her lungs. She’d never imagined that she’d grow to like it here, to relish the sense of calm that had crept over her without noticing. Down at the bay, something shifted on a rock. A seal, perhaps, watching her.
The rain seemed to come from nowhere, a rumble of thunder spurring her return to Hope House. She walked briskly, noticing that a light had been switched on in Archie’s studio. She froze. There were two people in there; people who obviously weren’t there to work.
They were wrapped up in a tight embrace, clearly not caring who might be wandering around in the dark and see them. Hannah felt repulsed, spying on them like this, yet couldn’t tear away her gaze. That kissing—it was virtually sex. She’d never seen anything like it—at least not for real. In movies, maybe. The schmaltzy films that Amy and Rachel were so fond of. No one, not even Ollie, had kissed her like that.
These people were old, too; they had to be. The only young people around Hope House were herself and Zoë. The couple parted, and Hannah tried to make out their faces. It was Conor, that man who’d been so friendly and attentive to her mother, and—
The woman laughed and took his hand as they made their way to the door. Hannah turned and ran. Of all the people to make a complete spectacle of herself—the woman who’d lectured her about getting drunk, and not completing her geography homework and, more recently, the shoplifting, which Hannah knew she’d never let her forget. It’s the last time, Hannah thought, pelting through the sudden downpour toward the house, you have a say on how I should live my life.
She was drenched by the time she got back to the room. The rain hadn’t built gradually but flooded down on her as thunder crashed across the island. Zoë stirred in bed as Hannah let herself into the room, but didn’t wake up. She pulled off her wet clothes and, not bothering with pajamas, flung herself into bed and bunched the blankets around her.
Her own mother, behaving as if she were fifteen years old. Was she drunk or had she gone completely bloody crazy? Didn’t she care that anyone could see with the lights blazing like that?
She fixed her gaze on Zoë’s sleeping face. Wake up, she thought, desperate to talk to another human being. Zoë looked so peaceful, her face far prettier without its customary makeup. The sky flashed silvery white. In a few hours, Hannah thought, we’ll be leaving, and her mother will have made a complete fool of herself for nothing. They were probably doing it right now. She was a mum, for crying out loud, and what were mums meant to do? Bake cakes, like her friend Sally—why couldn’t she be more like Sally?—and make sure there was plenty of food in the fridge. Jane did none of those things. She had a crappy job, spent the best part of her free time messing about in a clapped-out shed, and snuck out in the middle of the night and had sex with a man she barely knew in a hut with all the lights on.
Hannah tossed and turned in bed, feeling as if she could almost vomit. She glared up at the bubbly pattern formed by dampness on the ceiling. Her chest felt tight, and her breathing was shallow and fast. Calm down, she told herself, steady now. She scrabbled on the bedside table for her bag and rummaged for her inhaler. No inhaler. She lay on her back, trying to rein in her breathing—bring it down to a steady pattern. It was coming, she could feel it, like that time in biology when she’d felt the tightening and fear. Calm, calm, calm. Her pillow was damp from her wet hair. She flipped it over but it still felt clammy.
She swiveled out of bed and opened her suitcase, which still contained the clothes she hadn’t got around to unpacking. Naked and shivering, she grabbed them by the handful and flung them onto the floor. “Han,” Zoë murmured, “what’s up?”
“It’s okay. Just need my inhaler.”
Zoë sprung up instantly. “Are you all right? You sound weird. You’re really wheezing, Han. Has something happened?”
Hannah shook her head. Don’t speak, she told herself. Save your breath. Worst thing you can do is panic. She remembered after the last attack, the doctor reminding her to avoid stressful situations or anything that might make her anxious. Zoë clicked on the main light and peered at Hannah’s face. “I thought it was the storm,” she muttered. “I thought the storm had woken me. Did you hear the thunder? You weren’t outside in that, were you?”
“Yes,” came Hannah’s small voice.
“Han, this is scary—shall we get someone?”
“Think so.”
“You’d better get dressed. Let me help.” Zoë grabbed the sweater and jeans that were lying on the floor close to Hannah’s bed. “These are soaking. I’ll find you something else.” She flung open a drawer in the wooden chest and pulled out clothes haphazardly. Hannah allowed Zoë to feed her limbs into trousers and sleeves. She felt like a small, helpless kid.
“Is it getting any better?” Zoë asked.
Hannah shook her head.
“Come on, let’s get your mum.” Holding her hand now, Zoë led Hannah along the corridor and hammered on Jane and Nancy’s door. She pushed it open, and Nancy sat up abruptly. “What are you two—”
“Where’s Jane?” Zoë blurted, staring at the empty bed.
Nancy followed her gaze. “I’ve no idea. I thought…what time is it?”
I know, Hannah thought. I have a very good idea where Mum is and what she’s doing right now… “Nancy,” Zoë blurted, “Han’s asthma thing’s come on. We can’t find her inhaler in our room…”
“Oh, l
ove,” Nancy said, tumbling out of bed and wrapping an arm around Hannah.
“Gran—” The worry dolls fell from her hand to the floor. She hadn’t realized she’d been holding them.
“Shh, don’t try to speak. You two stay here. I’ll go down to reception, see if I can find a number for a doctor.” Bundling herself into a threadbare dressing gown, she hurried out of the room.
The waiting seemed to take forever. Hannah perched on a chair at the window and tried to watch the lightening sky. The storm was over, and the sky had filled with great swathes of pink. Hannah could hear her own tight, strangled wheeze. Zoë touched her arm. “You’ll be okay,” she soothed. “Your gran’s going to sort everything out.”
Make them hurry, Hannah thought, not focusing on the sky now, but rigid with fear. Make them hurry—
“Han,” Zoë cried, “your face, your lips…”
Hannah stared at her. They’re blue, she thought, her head swilling with the horrible sound she was making—
My lips are going blue.
36
Conor’s hand felt warm in Jane’s as they walked beyond Seal Bay, turning inland where the ground swelled toward the Fang. She hadn’t felt awkward as his lips and hands had traveled over her body, but crazily happy and hungry for him. His body had been so different to Max’s; more sturdily built with broad shoulders and long, strong legs. She hadn’t cared that it was gone 2:00 a.m. and dawn was creeping into his bedroom.
“Let’s go out,” Conor had said, “there’s something I’d like you to see before you leave.”
“What is it?” she’d asked.
Instead of answering, he’d kissed her again.
The church on the hill looked as if it had dropped from the sky. There were no other buildings around it; just swooping hills bisected by crumbling walls and dotted with sheep.
Built from rust-colored stone, the church looked solid and proud, despite its windows being in a poor state of repair. Some segments were either cracked or missing. Others needed careful cleaning to bring the colors back to life. Conor and Jane circled it, trying the locked door. “So,” he said, “what do you think?”
“It’s beautiful,” Jane said.
“It could be, if the windows were restored.”
“Wouldn’t Archie do it?”
Conor shook his head. “He doesn’t do restoration work. Reckons it’s not—” he chuckled “—art.”
“I do,” Jane said. “Just before I came here, I finished a rose window for a church….”
“Would you do it?”
“How? I’d have to take the panels out and transport them to London and—”
“You could do it here. It would take you, what, a couple of months?”
She laughed, then realized he was quite serious. “I’ve got my job, Conor. Hannah has school…we have a life.”
“It needn’t be forever. Just until you’d finished.” His eyes seemed to search hers.
“And there’s Mum,” she added quickly, “I’ve got to take Mum back to London, and I’ve another commission to start as soon as we’re home….”
So many reasons. As he placed his hands on her cheeks and kissed her again, Jane felt all her reasons for leaving being blown out to sea.
Hope House was waking up by the time Jane returned. She could see movement in some of the upstairs rooms; people preparing to leave. A crow was perched defiantly on the cracked washbasin. Self-consciously, Jane tried to flatten her hair and smoothed down her clothes, trying to make herself look respectable. As if she’d just been for a walk, that was all. A walk until 6:45 a.m. with a man who’d kissed every inch of her body. Her lips were tingling. She hoped they wouldn’t give her away.
She didn’t feel remotely tired as she strode into the foyer. She was buoyant and giddy inside. Mrs. McFarlane looked up sharply from the desk. “Here you are,” she barked. “We’ve been looking everywhere for you. You can’t believe how worried we’ve been, what’s been happening—”
“I only went for—” Jane began.
“Not you. We weren’t worried about you. You’ve no idea, have you, what’s happened to your daughter?”
Jane’s heart shot to her mouth. “What? Where is she?”
“She’s had an asthma attack,” Mrs. McFarlane said briskly. “Doctor’s still here, brought a nebulizer. She’s fine now—at least better than she was. They’re in your—” Jane was no longer listening but tearing along the corridor and bursting into her room.
Hannah was sitting up in bed, resting against propped-up pillows. Her face was waxy and pale and partially covered by a clear plastic mask attached by a tube to an oxygen tank. “I’m so sorry,” Jane murmured, hugging her. “So sorry, darling. I had no idea.” Hannah’s body stiffened. Jane pulled away slowly, chilled by her daughter’s glare.
An elderly man with a fuzz of soft white hair was sitting on the chair beside the bed. “You’re the mother?” he asked levelly.
“Yes, yes, I am.” She didn’t know whether to stand or sit, what to do with herself. Hannah was making it clear that she didn’t want to be held. Nancy and Zoë, who were perched on the other bed, were pointedly avoiding Jane’s gaze.
“Hannah’s breathing has settled,” the doctor said, “but I’ll stay for a little longer. You’ll need this.” He opened the bag at his feet, pulled out a pad of prescriptions and scribbled on the top sheet. He ripped it off and handed it to Jane; he was prescribing the same steroids—the ones that made her nauseous—that she’d had after the attack at school.
“We’re supposed to be leaving this morning,” she said. “Will Hannah be okay to travel?”
“Absolutely not. She needs another day’s rest.” He frowned at her, but his eyes had softened. “She’ll be fine, Mrs. Deakin. The worst is over now.”
The worst happened, she thought, when I wasn’t here. Jane studied his kind, soft face for a hint of blame or recrimination.
“Out in the rain, getting herself soaked,” Nancy muttered. “Did something upset you, Hannah, to trigger this off?”
“Unlikely,” the doctor interjected, lifting Hannah’s mask from her face. “Unlikely that it was caused by stress. This sort of thing is usually overexertion, perhaps hiking too much.”
Jane felt her daughter’s dark eyes boring into her. She didn’t need to say a word, as her gaze said it all: I needed you, and you weren’t here.
37
“Chicken or fish?” the air stewardess trilled as she shunted the trolley along the aisle. Chicken or fish? Chicken or fish? It was doing Max’s head in. From his aisle seat—easier to get in and out of with his leg in a splint—he smiled wearily. “I’ll have the chicken, please.”
Veronica slid her eyes in the direction of the stewardess. “Just water, please.” The stewardess passed her a bottle and cup. “Thanks,” Veronica murmured, then returned to the pressing business of staring pointedly out of the window.
Max glanced at her. There’d been no row, no outburst of any kind, so he couldn’t understand why she was being so frosty. It wasn’t his fault he’d been concussed and ruptured a ligament. He hadn’t damaged himself on purpose solely to wreck Veronica’s holiday. He leaned forward, wincing as a twinge shot up his leg, and extracted the in-flight magazine from the seat pocket.
“We’re an ideas factory,” Jasper was booming to his neighbor in the seat behind. “That’s the best way of putting it. Concept, branding, thinking outside the box. That’s what we’re all about.”
He was talking in management-speak like those jerks Veronica had invited to Max’s party. Max didn’t even know any management-speak. It wasn’t required in a cycle shop. He wanted to communicate with someone who spoke normally, but it looked unlikely that Veronica would be forthcoming. Her jaw was set firm, causing a tendon in her neck to protrude like a tree trunk poking out of the ground, relaxing only when she sipped her water.
He lifted the foil from his in-flight meal and hacked into the chicken. How did Veronica survive on so little food? he wonde
red. The snacks she carried around in little sachets in her bag looked like they should be sown in the garden, not consumed by ravenous human beings. He had a craving for curry—the mouth-searing, blow-out array of dishes he used to wolf down with Jane. There was a woman who knew how to eat. He couldn’t imagine her acquainting herself with millet or goat’s arse yoghurt. Max stole a glance at Veronica’s notebook, which lay open on her flip-down table. FoxLove on the go, she’d written, accompanied by a scattering of sausage-shaped objects that looked like dismembered penises.
“I’m going to the loo,” Max muttered.
Veronica flashed her eyes at him. “Fine.”
Max sighed. “Veronica, what on earth’s the matter? Why are you being so cold with me?”
“I’m not,” she muttered.
“I didn’t do it on purpose, you know.” He pulled himself up from the seat and stepped gingerly into the aisle.
“That’s him,” Jasper bellowed. “That’s the fellow I was telling you about. Ruptured himself, back of the leg, going to need some kind of reconstructive surgery. Rather him than me, I say! Feeling any better now, Maxy? Hope it’s not affected your groin, heh heh…”
Max fixed him with an icy stare. Jasper was wedged between Hettie, who was immersed in a book, and the poor sod he’d been boring stupid about his ideas factory. “Actually,” Max said, “it’s agony.”
Jasper’s smile froze. “Ah.”
“Did they give you painkillers to bring home?” Hettie asked, glancing up from her book.
“Yes, I’m just going to the loo to chug the whole bottle. About thirty should do the trick.”
“Max!” Hettie looked aghast, then caught his eye and giggled.
Max realized that he, too, was smiling. Funny, he mused as he made his way along the aisle, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d done that.
The taxi crawled through East London streets. It smelled faintly of cigarette smoke and Veronica’s hostile vibes. Her skis lay diagonally in their zip-up case across the floor of the cab, forcing Max to fold up his legs at an uncomfortable angle. He was determined not to complain or ask her to move them. He would suffer in silence.