by Fiona Harper
‘Aw, you’re missing him,’ Candy said.
‘It’s fine,’ Claire replied. ‘When he does have Wi-Fi we totally make up for it.’ Since he’d left, their messaging and emailing had gone into overdrive, way more prolific than it ever had been before, and way more intimate, too. That last night had changed things between them. She sighed. ‘I don’t know if this sounds stupid, but I feel like I don’t have to hold anything back from him. I can tell him anything.’
Candy smiled at her. ‘I don’t think that sounds stupid. I think it sounds pretty wonderful.’
Claire nodded. It was. She sat in bed each night, phone on the pillow beside her, and waited to hear from him. He was eight hours ahead, so he’d often get in contact when he got up bright and early before work. Sometimes she’d hear from him just before she started work, after he’d come back to his hotel after a long day.
‘He seems like a great guy.’
‘Pretty easy on the eyes, too,’ Peggy chipped in. ‘Has he got a brother?’
Claire laughed. ‘What about the poor barman? Is he yesterday’s news already?’
Peggy gave her a cheeky smile. ‘Just keeping my options open.’
Claire frowned. ‘Actually, I don’t know if he has a brother. I’ll have to ask.’
‘You’ve been seeing each other for … how long?’ Candy said, ‘And you don’t know about his family?’
Claire stared at her half-finished drink. How odd. No, she didn’t. She realised there were great big gaps in her knowledge of him, like those holes in a lump of Swiss cheese.
She didn’t know if he’d always lived in London, for example, or had moved here after university. In fact, she didn’t even know if he’d gone to uni, or what he’d studied. She frowned harder. How did she not know these things, especially when they’d spent hours messaging back and forth? She’d thought they’d covered everything there was to know.
But she did know everything that really counted. She knew how Nick thought, how his brain worked, that he was funny and loyal and – like Doris, really – had much more going on under the surface than he let people see. And she knew he thought she was amazing … and strong. Surely, those things were more important than knowing if he was an only child or had chicken pox when he was five.
‘I’ll ask him when he gets back,’ she told Peggy.
‘Ask who what?’ Peggy said.
‘Ask Nick about his brother.’
Peggy and Candy both burst out laughing.
‘What?’ Claire asked, starting to get a little irritated.
‘We were having that conversation five minutes ago,’ Candy explained. ‘Now we’re arguing about what Fred and Ginger’s first film together was. I say it’s Flying Down to Rio and Peggy says it’s The Gay Divorcee.’
Claire blinked. Had she really tuned out for that long?
‘Somebody’s got it bad,’ Peggy teased in a sing-song voice. ‘Somebody’s falling in lurve.’
Claire said and knocked back the last of her Doris Day. ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she said.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Love Me or Leave Me
Dominic kicked his hotel door open and threw his rucksack on the floor. The first thing he did was head straight for the shower, where he washed the dirt and grime of five days in the mountains near Yangcheng off of himself. His crew had retraced part of Gladys Aylward’s route through the mountains and, even for him, it had been exhausting. He had no idea how a tiny Cockney woman had managed it with a hundred orphans in tow, the advancing Japanese army an ever-present threat.
Once he was clean, he dried himself off, threw some clean clothes on and pulled his phone from his bag. He lay with his head on the pillow, fighting sleep. A host of messages from Claire popped up on the screen the instant he turned it on.
He had so much to tell her. But not now … His eyelids were trying to close, no matter how hard he tried to keep them open, and his arms were finding the weight of his tiny phone too much. He should send off a quick message, telling her he was back in Wi-Fi range and that he’d be in touch soon. In a minute, though …
His phone dropped to the mattress and he closed his eyes.
He’d missed her. Just for five days they’d been out of contact, and he’d really missed her. He’d missed telling her things, about the places he’d been to and the things he’d seen.
He loved telling Claire things, full stop. She never scowled or judged. She never shut him down for not putting things the right way.
He smiled as his brain started slowly switching off and began the descent into unconsciousness. For once, he had good news to tell her. Although it hadn’t been good news for the director and producer, that had been for sure. They’d manage to fall foul of complex Chinese bureaucracy and filming privileges had been denied for the next leg of the trip. They were going to have to either sweet talk their way back into the right people’s good graces, which could take weeks or months, or see if they could find library footage to fill the gaps in what they already had.
All in all, it meant one thing: he was going home. At least for now. And instead of the vague sense of dissatisfaction that often came with that knowledge, there was a feeling of warmth, of peace. He breathed out heavily and patted the bed beside him for his phone. He really should tell her …
That thought circled round his brain a few times, and his last semi-lucid thought before sleep overtook him was that maybe he should just let it be a surprise.
*
It was another forty-two hours before Dominic arrived back in London. There’d been a hold-up for his connecting flight in Shanghai and he’d spent the night on the airport floor. Not the first time, he’d reasoned, and probably not the last. Thank goodness for an inflatable pillow and his iPod, that was all he could say.
The thought of getting the Piccadilly line filled him with dread, so he found a taxi and slept from the moment it drove away from Terminal Four right until the moment it pulled up outside his front gate. He stumbled out of the cab, not even thinking about what time of day it was and crashed his way into his flat. Thankfully, it was mid-afternoon, and Claire was safely installed in her office near Clerkenwell, too far away to witness his noisy homecoming.
Five hours later, Dominic woke up in his clothes on his bed. He blinked back the drugged feeling of a deep sleep, rolled over and stared at the ceiling. He smiled and almost drifted off again. Not some anonymous hotel ceiling or the cracked and crumbling walls of a dodgy hostel. He was home.
Home.
That one thought dragged him back from the brink. He sat bolt upright, his heart pounding. He looked up at the ceiling again. Home meant Claire. He checked his watch, which he hardly ever took off when he travelled, even when sleeping, mainly so someone hadn’t snaffled it by the time he woke up again.
Eight-fifteen.
She might be up there right now.
His heart began to pound even harder.
But then he did a bit of mental maths and realised it was a Saturday evening. Hopefully, she was out. He hadn’t seen a light on or any sign she was upstairs when the cab had pulled up outside. He rubbed his hand over his face and stumbled out of bed and headed towards the kitchen.
Thankfully, he knew he didn’t have to resort to cold kidney beans for breakfast.
He opened the cupboard and spotted a row of cereal boxes, all full size, ready and waiting to be chosen and eaten with some long-life milk, which he pulled from the cupboard next door. Not as good as fresh, to be sure, but definitely better than nothing.
He made himself a cup of tea in between shovelling spoonfuls of Shreddies into his mouth and then sat at the table, munching away, until his brain was firing on all cylinders and his stomach was full. It took three cups of tea and two bowls of cereal, but it happened eventually.
The only thing he could think about, more than his recent travels, more than when his next flight was booked, was Claire. He couldn’t wait to see her.
His smile dimmed a little.
&nb
sp; It was time. No more excuses, no more stays of execution. He had to tell her everything, and he had to do it as soon as he saw her. Things had got way too serious for him not to.
He tried to ignore the little quiver that started in his stomach, that sloshed his recently consumed cereal about until he started to feel a little queasy and regretted that second bowl.
What if she told him to get lost? What if she never wanted to see him again?
He couldn’t think like that. He had to hope. And there was reason to hope, wasn’t there? He’d wanted her to get to know him before she judged him, but what he hadn’t counted on was that she’d get to know him better than any other woman had, that he’d open up and let her see so much. That had to be more than enough, didn’t it? Even when she realised what an idiot he’d been, she’d have to weigh it up against the rest of the truth she knew about him.
He hoped so. It made sense to him anyway, or maybe that was his sleep-addled, jet-lagged brain talking to him.
In any event, he decided that immediate action was probably not the best thing. For one thing, he really needed his wits about him when he talked to her. There was no point doing it when he couldn’t even form a coherent sentence. For another, he really needed a shower and a shave. If he approached anyone now – even the smelly dog that lived next door that liked to roll in poop it found in the park – they’d run a mile. Not the effect he wanted to have on the woman he … Well, the woman he really, really liked.
So tonight was out. He’d have to be content with staring at his bedroom ceiling and knowing she was up there. Tomorrow morning, however, would be another matter entirely.
He hoped he could pull it off. What was that DVD Erica had loved, the one where Tom Hanks had known he was emailing the blonde chick – the one who’d really liked her apple pie in that other movie? He couldn’t remember the name of the film or the actress, but he knew he wanted his revelation to hit Claire the same way. He wanted her to punch his arm, frown, then cry, then finally kiss him and tell him she’d wanted it to be him all along.
Maybe he should see if he could find it on Netflix tonight? Do a little research.
He yawned and jumped in the shower. When he was clean and dressed again, he went to check his overflowing inbox on his computer and, as he deleted most of them and responded to a few, he started to work on a plan …
He was going to knock on her door in the morning. Not too early, so they’d both had a good night’s sleep, and then he’d invite her out to breakfast. Only he wouldn’t take her to the little café where they’d almost had cappuccinos last time. No, he’d bring her downstairs to his flat, and lead her through to the kitchen, which, of course, he would have cleaned before then.
Hmm. That’s where the plan hit a snag. He didn’t think Shreddies were going to cut it as a romantic breakfast. Girls liked things like croissants and strawberries and freshly squeezed orange juice, didn’t they?
He stopped himself. No. He was thinking in general terms again, going for the obvious.
What would Claire like for breakfast?
He got up and paced round his spare room while he chewed that over. It took a while, but eventually he came up with something he thought she would like: a fresh fruit salad with a tropical twist, including mangoes and pineapple, guava and, yes, strawberries. Not because they were obvious, but because he reckoned Claire liked a little bit of British tradition alongside her taste for travel. Her crisp white notepaper alone told him that.
And after that he’d serve proper cappuccinos, one made with his little Italian coffee pot that sat on the stove, the one piece of kitchen equipment he was truly a maestro at using, and after that he’d make chilaquiles, tortillas simmered in salsa with avocado and scrambled eggs. He suspected Claire would like a bit of spice with her breakfast. He hadn’t cooked it in a while, but he learned from an old Mexican lady with no front teeth. For some reason, when he had the time, the inclination and the right ingredients – well, any ingredients – breakfast was the one meal he excelled at.
Once that was decided, he checked his watch to make sure he had time to go shopping and get back in again before Claire was likely to return and then he headed off to the supermarket.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Quiet Night of Quiet Stars
Claire rushed back from a night out at the cinema with Peggy as fast as humanly possible. She left her phone on the passenger seat of her car after dropping Peggy back home and kept glancing over to see if it had sprung to life with a new message. Unfortunately, it stayed depressingly silent.
Was he okay? He said he’d be back at his hotel yesterday at the very latest. She really should have heard from him by now. She pulled over and picked up her phone, opened both her message app and her emails to make sure she hadn’t missed anything, but all she saw was the last email he’d sent almost a week ago:
I’ll miss this … Will tell you all about the mountains when I get back. Next stop, the Yellow River and then on to Xian. Hope you’re not too jealous. Promise you I’m working very hard and it’s actually very boring. It’d be so much more interesting if you were with me. :-) Sleep tight, lovely Claire. Promise you’ll dream of me? N. x
She put her phone down on the passenger seat again and placed her hands back on the steering wheel.
Honestly, Claire, you’re losing it. You couldn’t even wait four more minutes to get inside your front door to check your messages? Just how hung up on this guy are you?
Pretty hung up, she admitted to herself. She hadn’t yet resorted to crossing off the days until he returned on her calendar with red pen, but she was perilously close. Anyway, she didn’t need to. It had been three weeks and one day. In just over a week he’d be home.
She drove home and pottered around her flat aimlessly for a bit before giving up and heading for bed. She wasn’t sleepy, but it was almost around the time Nick might send a message so she decided to get comfy and read while she waited to see if one came.
About an hour later, she yawned and checked her phone again. Still nothing. She hoped that didn’t mean anything. She hoped he was all right. What if something had happened to him?
There was a sudden loud noise from downstairs and she almost jumped out of her skin. Her pulse drummed in her ears, stopping her from listening properly to see if she could hear it again. Was it him? Her neighbour? She hoped so. She’d assumed that he’d shipped out again sometime in the last month, because it had gone awfully quiet. The only other alternative was burglars.
Stop it, she told herself. You’re just letting your imagination run away with you.
She was just settling down again when she heard another noise from the flat below. Was that a hoover she could hear?
She sat there for a moment, listening. Yes, it was a hoover! Thank goodness for that. She’d never have thought she’d be so pleased to hear her neighbour’s night-time wanderings. He must be back from wherever he’d been.
Oh, well, she thought, shrugging her shoulders. Everyone’s got to do their housework some time, and she supposed it was just white noise. It might even lull her off to sleep. That sort of thing worked on babies, didn’t it? He might even be doing her a favour.
She turned off the light, lay her head on the pillow and stretched out, staring into the darkness of her bedroom. Sleep didn’t come, not immediately, anyway. Instead she started thinking about Mr Arden from downstairs, about his documentary that had made her cry and that maybe, just maybe, she’d been a little bit tough on him.
The more she thought about it, the more she realised she was right. The same way she’d done with Maggs the day she’d gone to visit her father, she’d been taking her anger out on the wrong person. Yes, he was annoying occasionally, but he hadn’t really deserved the ticking-off she’d given him, especially in that first note. It was just that once she’d got caught up in all the back and forwards bickering she hadn’t been able to see straight.
Once again, she found couldn’t get the idea of him out of her head. Aft
er half an hour of lying there, trying to fight it, she decided to deal with it the only way she knew how. She got up, walked to her kitchen and got out her notepaper and fountain pen.
When she’d finished writing a softer, more conciliatory sort of letter than her others, she folded it, placed it one of her tissue-lined envelopes and licked the flap to stick it down, then she wrote his name on the front and stared at the letter sitting in front of her on her kitchen table.
Unlike her first note, there was no reason to want to call this one back. No sharp words, no misdirected anger. It would be okay to go and deliver it right now, so he’d find it first thing in the morning.
She continued to stare at the letter, wondering if she should just leave it on the table anyway, but in the end reasoned she’d be much more likely to get back to sleep if the whole job was done, so she stood up, shoved her feet in a pair of fluffy slippers so she didn’t make too much noise on the stairs and headed off out of her flat.
She was just stepping onto the tiled hall floor when she heard a noise from his flat and froze. For a moment, she stood there, heart racing, tempted to sprint back up the stairs and dive into her nice warm bed, but she made herself breathe evenly and slowly, waited for her heart rate to slow.
There were no more noises after that. The house was silent, and it would be stupid to go back upstairs, the letter still in her hand, when she was mere feet away from his front door.
Stop being such a wuss, Claire. The only danger you’re facing is accidentally bumping into him in your skimpy love-heart pyjamas. Hardly blood-curdling stuff. Anyway, even if he did hear her and come out to investigate, it would take a short while for him to reach his door, and by then she’d have sprinted up the stairs and be safely back in her flat.
Slowly, working through her feet like a ballet dancer, she crept across the hall, hardly daring to breathe. She was just about there, crouching forward and reaching that last distance to prise the letterbox open with her free hand, when all of a sudden there was light in the hallway of his flat, movement and a strange rustling sound.