by Josie Silver
I hope Oscar is okay. It’s strange, but you never stop caring about someone, even if you don’t want to be with them anymore. I think I’ll always love him a little. And it’s hard not to feel an element of failure at becoming a divorce statistic.
It seems inevitable that, sooner or later, Cressida will step into my shoes. I bet his bloody mother never did take that photo of them down from her piano.
“I think you know where your place is, Lu.”
Sarah and I look at each other, and then we don’t say anything else because Luke appears from the beach and drops into the spare seat at the table.
“Looking good, ladies.” He grins. “What did I miss?”
AUGUST 1
Jack
Lorne looks like the hulk’s smaller, un-green brother, a fact that comes in handy when he’s trying to get served at the bar. It’s packed in here tonight, but he’s only been gone a couple of minutes before he’s already shouldering his way back across the pub bearing a couple of pints, a bag of chips hanging from his teeth.
“You bought dinner,” I say, swiping them when he reaches me.
“Closest thing you’ll get to a date tonight.” He grins. “Although the woman at the table behind you is making a bad job of pretending not to check you out.”
I open the crisps and lay the bag out between us without turning around. “Piss off.”
“I’m serious. She’s pretty hot too.” He winks at her over my shoulder, and I thump him on the leg.
“What are you doing, man? Kerry’s at home about to have your baby.” Lorne’s very lovely wife is eight months pregnant; we’re out for a couple of pints tonight at her insistence because he’s driving her half crazy with his fussing.
“It’s for you,” he mutters, shoving a handful of crisps in his mouth.
I sigh, adjusting my hearing aid because we’re next to a speaker. “I’ve told you. I’m off the dating merry-go-round for a while.”
“You said that.” He drinks deeply. “I just don’t believe you.”
He should. It’s been more than four months since Martique and I decided to knock things on the head, a separation that meant little to either of us. That was why we split, in essence; it was going nowhere, and I’m kind of over sex for sex’s sake. I don’t tell Lorne that, though.
“I’m thinking of becoming a monk,” I joke. “I look good in orange.”
He looks at me. “You’re sure? Because she really is a looker.” He nods toward the woman behind us. “Bit like Holly Willoughby.”
Time was that would have been enough to have me twisting around in my seat, but I just drink my pint and finish off the crisps. She may well look like Holly Willoughby and perhaps I could buy her a drink and take things further, but the fact is I don’t want Holly Willoughby or Martique or anyone else.
I wear myself out walking Edinburgh’s fascinating, steep streets, immersing myself in the city’s culture; I even bought a bicycle last week. I came to Scotland to escape and it worked better than I could have hoped.
I jumped in feet first when I arrived and lost myself in the work and the women, and now at last I’ve surfaced and I’m sucking down fresh, sweet air into my lungs. At first it seemed that I was gasping for breath; it burned my chest. Now, though, I breathe easy and I sleep through the night.
It’s just me and, for now, I’m good with that.
DECEMBER 22
Laurie
“Night night. Miss you too,” I say, waiting for Mum to ring off before I hang up. She’s in Tenerife with Aunt Susan; they’re both still in mourning, I think, but helping each other through it. In this case with sangria and sun. I don’t blame them; I seriously contemplated their offer to tag along, but in the end the pull of a dreary, cold London Christmas on my own was just too tempting to pass up. I’m kidding. Half kidding. I do at least have the house to myself for a couple of weeks, though; my flatmate and her clan have all decamped to Wales until New Year. My plan, such as it is, is to just chill out, stuff my face and see a couple of friends here and there. Anna and Daryl have insisted I go to them for New Year, but aside from that, I’m as free as a bird. I wander into the kitchen and flick the kettle on, trying hard to feel urban and cool rather than lonely girl in London at Christmas.
* * *
An hour later, and I’m making a cake. I know, totally out of character, but the bottle of Baileys Mum sent me was next to a pile of cookbooks in the kitchen and I was suddenly overcome by the urge for cake. I’m on my second generous Baileys, and I couldn’t care less that it’s nearly ten at night and it’s taken me nearly an hour to mash up a load of unripe bananas. I’m even humming along to Christmas songs on the radio. Is it sad that I tune in to Jack’s station most nights? His late show is one of those where people can call in to talk about anything they fancy, sometimes funny, sometimes sad. He’s not on yet, though, and I’m having a full-on croon to Nat King Cole. I’m reminiscing; he was my dad’s favorite.
I sit down at the kitchen table and close my eyes, and I’m back in my mum’s kitchen, the same smells of cake batter and Christmas songs, old-fashioned fairy lights pinned under the wall cupboards. We’re all there. I’m probably five or six, Daryl a year or so older, Ginny about three. Mum and Dad are there too, of course. No one’s doing anything in particular, no schmaltzy dancing or profound speeches. We’re all just there, and it’s so heartwarming and perfect that I don’t want to open my eyes and see all the empty chairs around the table. And then the music stops and Jack’s voice washes over me, and I’m okay again because his company stops me from feeling so alone.
I follow the recipe, weighing out the rest of the ingredients as he takes a couple of calls, one from a guy who wants to tell him about the fight he got into today with the Santa at his local garden center, and another from a woman whose decree absolute arrived in the mail this morning; she feels like the luckiest woman alive because her husband had been the very definition of The Grinch. It’s all very lighthearted; Jack is an old hand at keeping the tone just right.
I scrape the cake batter into the tin I’ve lined, licking my finger to test it as the next caller comes on.
“I want to tell my girlfriend that I love her, but I can’t,” he says. From his voice, I’d say he isn’t much more than a teenager.
“What do you mean, can’t?” says Jack. “Do you love her?”
The guy doesn’t miss a beat. “Oh yes. I nearly told her today after college. I was looking at her, and she asked me why I was looking at her oddly, but then the words got stuck in my throat. I can’t get it out.”
Jack laughs softly, and the sound is so familiar that I can see him clearly in my head, that amused glow that lights his eyes. “Look, if there’s one bit of advice I can give you, it’s for the love of God, man, just say it. You won’t die, I promise. What’s the worst that can happen?”
“She might laugh?”
“And she might not. The way I see it is you’ve got two choices here. Take the risk and tell her you love her or wait until it’s too late and someone else tells her they love her. How will you feel then?”
“Like a fool?”
I stand there with the cake tin in my hands, ready to put it in the oven.
“For the rest of your life, mate. Trust me, I know, because it happened to me. It’s Christmas—take the risk. You’ll always regret it if you don’t.”
I stare at the radio, and then I put the cake tin back down on the table and reach for my phone.
* * *
I’ve lied to the radio show producer about my name. I’m Rhona, and I’m up next.
“Hi, Rhona,” Jack says. “What would you like to talk about?”
I’ve turned my radio off because of feedback, so it’s just me and Jack chatting on the phone, like always.
“Hi, Jack,” I say. “I was li
stening to your earlier caller and I wanted to say how much your advice rang true with me.”
“It did? Why’s that?”
I can’t gauge whether he’s realized it’s me or not yet. I don’t think so.
“Because I know what it’s like to miss your chance and to spend the rest of your life waiting to feel that way again.”
He pauses for a beat. “Want to tell everyone your story, Rhona?”
“It’s pretty long,” I say.
“That’s okay. I’m not going anywhere. Take your time.”
“Okay,” I say. “Well, it started on a snowy December day almost a decade ago.”
“Fitting,” he murmurs. “Go on.”
“I was on the bus home from work. I’d had a god-awful day and I was done in, and then all of a sudden I looked out of the window and saw the most beautiful man—or boy as I thought of him then—sitting at the bus stop. I looked right at him, and he looked right at me, and I’ve never in my life felt anything like it. Not before and not afterward,” I say, letting it all out in a rush. “I spent a whole year looking for him in bars and cafes, but I didn’t find him.”
Jack’s breath is uneven in my ear. “You never found him?”
“Not until my best friend found him first and fell in love with him too.”
“Wow…Rhona,” he says slowly. “That must have been tough.”
“Unimaginably,” I say. I’m done, and I have no idea what to say next.
“Can I tell you something you probably don’t know?” he asks after a second of silence. “I bet it was as tough for him as it was for you.”
“Oh, I don’t think so,” I say. “I asked him once, stupidly, if he remembered me from the bus, and he said no.”
I hear him swallow. “He lied to you. Of course he saw you sitting there. He saw you there with tinsel in your hair, and he felt the exact same way, and he wished like hell that he’d got on that damn bus before it was too late.”
“Do you really think so?” I ask, my eyes closed, remembering. I’m that girl again.
“Yes,” he breathes. “But he didn’t know what to do. So he did nothing, like a mug, and then he stood on the sidelines and watched you fall in love with someone else, and still he didn’t say it. He had his chances and he missed them all.”
“Sometimes you just meet the right person at the wrong time,” I say softly.
“Yeah,” he says. “And then you spend every day afterward wishing that time could be rearranged.”
I can’t speak; tears clog my throat.
“Did you ever tell him how you feel?”
“No.” Tears spill down my cheeks. “He told me a while back that he loved me, and I didn’t say it back.”
“No,” he says, low, fractured. “You didn’t.”
“I should’ve.”
“Is it too late?”
I take a second to get my breath and hope his listeners will bear with me.
“I don’t know,” I whisper.
“I think you should tell him. Perhaps he’s still there, waiting for you to say it. What have you got to lose?”
* * *
I’m trending on Twitter. Or rather Rhona is.
#FindRhona #WhereIsRhona #JackAndRhona
It seems that David Tennant heard my late-night radio conversation with Jack, tweeted #findRhona, and in doing so caught the imagination of the entire nation. I’m now one half of a Christmas love story that the twittersphere is determined to give its happy ending. I scroll through the hundreds of tweets that have popped up in the minutes since the call, wide-eyed. Thank God I used a fake name, I think, listening to the snippets of our conversation shared all over the net.
I jump as my cell rings. Sarah. Of course. She always listens to his shows too.
“Oh my GOD!” she shouts. I can hear the baby crying in the background. “You’re Rhona!”
I put my phone on the table in front of me and hold my head in my hands. “I’m sorry, Sar, I didn’t mean to tell everyone like that.”
“Christ, Laurie, I’m not angry, I’m bloody crying buckets here! Get your sorry ass up there to him this minute or I’m getting on a plane to drag you up there myself!”
“What if…”
She cuts in. “Check your emails. I’ve just sent your Christmas present.”
“Hang on,” I say, dragging my laptop over and opening my inbox to see Sarah’s new email.
“Ah! I need to go, Lu, the baby’s just piddled all over me without his diaper on,” she says, laughing. “I’ll be watching Twitter for Rhona updates. Don’t screw this up!”
She hangs up as I click open her gift: a one-way train ticket to Edinburgh.
DECEMBER 23
Jack
Shit. There’s press outside my flat and my cell phone has been ringing nonstop since I got home last night. Everyone wants to know who Rhona is, because it was pretty damn clear from our conversation that we know each other very, very well. Unbelievably, it’s just scrolled across the rolling TV news tickertape—have they got nothing else to talk about? This wouldn’t happen at any other time of the year. Scotland has officially gone into a Christmas love story meltdown, and unlikely as it would seem, I’m playing Hugh Grant.
My phone rings yet again, and this time I answer it because it’s my boss.
“O’Mara!” he barks. “What’s all this, then?”
I struggle to answer. “It’s all a bit crazy, Al. Sorry, man.”
“The switchboard’s flashing brighter than the bloody Christmas tree, son! The whole damn country will be tuning in to see if Rhona calls back again. You’d better get your scrawny backside in here pronto and make sure she does!”
As usual, he dispenses with the social niceties, hanging up without a goodbye. I stand in the middle of my lounge and rub my hands through my hair. What the hell am I supposed to do next? I don’t think I can even get out of here without being mobbed. I look at my phone and finally pluck up the courage to ring the one person I really need to speak to.
“Hi, this is Laurie. I can’t pick up right now. Please leave a message and I’ll call you soon.”
I chuck my phone on the side and sit down out of view of the windows.
* * *
I’ve never been in through the back entrance of the studio before; we save that for the celebrity guests who sometimes rock up for the breakfast show.
“Big for your boots now, fella,” Ron, our sixtysomething security guard, jokes as he lets me in. He’s usually posted out in reception doing the crossword at this time of night. “Go on up.”
I take the lift to the top floor, and as I step out, I get a little ripple of applause from the handful of staff on duty.
“Very funny.” I shrug out of my coat, sticking my thumb up to Lena through the studio glass. She’s on air before me every night, and she waves like a loon then makes a heart symbol with her hands. Great. I don’t think there’s a single person in Scotland who doesn’t know about me and Laurie now. Or Rhona. I’ve tried her a dozen more times, and she still isn’t picking up; this whole circus must have freaked her out. I almost tried her mum last night, but common sense kicked in; I’m sure the last thing she needs is a late-night call because I can’t find her daughter. Laurie’s gone to ground, and the whole country is waiting for me to find her.
Laurie
I had to lie to the cabdriver just now. All I knew was the name of Jack’s radio station, and the first thing he said when I told him where I wanted to go was “Here, you’re no’ that Rhona, eh?” He was joking around, but my stomach was in knots every time he glanced at me in the rearview mirror as we slipped through the busy, Christmas-bright city streets. I’m here. I’m actually here. I’ve been on the train since four o’clock this afternoon; I thought the long journey would give me s
ome valuable thinking time. What am I going to say to Jack? What am I going to do when I get to Edinburgh? But in the end I just laid my head against the cold glass and watched the scenery change as we moved northward.
It’s a much more beautiful city than I’d imagined, soaring gray buildings and grand, imposing architecture. Perhaps it’s the fact that the streets glitter with frost and there are snowflakes blowing in the air, but there’s a magical edge to it. It’s Christmas in two days; revelers spill onto the cobbled pavements from the bars and pubs, and it’s wall-to-wall festive music on the cab radio.
“There you are, doll.” The driver pulls over into a bus stop to let me out. “It’s just there.” He nods across the street toward a glass-fronted building. “Good luck with getting in there tonight.” I follow his line of vision and my heart clenches at the sight of the gaggle of press photographers hanging around on the stone steps outside. I look back at the cabdriver, uncertain.
“How much is it, please?” My voice sounds thin and wavering.
He looks across the street, shaking his head. “You’re her, eh?”
I nod, terrified. I don’t know if I can trust him, but at this point, I don’t have any better options. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
He drums his fingers against the steering wheel, thinking. “Stay there.” Then he flicks the hazards on and gets out of the cab, dodging the traffic as he jogs toward the radio station building.