When You Walked Back Into My Life

by Hilary Boyd

  ‘I did, yes.’

  ‘Great. Thanks.’

  Dominic hovered. ‘So … is Aunt Dot getting on alright?’

  ‘How do you mean?’ Flora began clearing the tray.

  ‘Weeell … in herself she seems fine, a bit slower perhaps. But medically, is she in good health?’

  ‘As good as someone of her age with her health problems is likely to be,’ Flora replied. ‘She sees the doctor every week, and apart from the small strokes she keeps having, she’s doing well. There’s nothing much we can do about that, except give her the right drugs.’

  Dominic nodded. Up and down, up and down went his neatly combed head. ‘Good-good, glad to hear the old girl’s bearing up. Remarkable lady, my aunt.’

  ‘She is indeed.’

  ‘Splendid,’ he muttered vaguely, pursing his lips as he stood there, watching her run hot water into the washing-up bowl. ‘Well, better be off. I’m stopping you from your valuable work.’

  Flora felt she needed a good bath once the oleaginous Dominic had gone. She wondered if the apparent concern for his aunt was in fact code for ‘Is she going to die soon?’ And she was pleased she had played it straight.

  *

  That night Flora settled herself down with a cup of camomile tea and, hands shaking a little, phoned the number Fin had given her. He answered on the second ring, and she felt her heart suddenly large in her chest, beating at double speed.

  ‘Flora … So glad you’ve called,’ he said.

  ‘How are you?’

  ‘I’m OK. Much better for hearing your voice.’

  ‘Not sure what to say,’ she admitted, and heard him laugh softly.

  ‘I know. Weird, after all this time.’

  ‘Sort of like we don’t know each other.’

  ‘Except we do … very well.’

  ‘We did,’ she corrected.

  ‘Have you changed, Flo?’

  She thought about this, and realised the huge gulf that existed between the naïve, trusting person she’d been before he left her, and the wary recluse she had become since.

  ‘A lot,’ she replied.

  ‘Was it my fault?’ Fin’s question was tentative, as if he were terrified of opening the door to an avalanche of distress.

  ‘Don’t let’s get into the blame thing again. I’ve told you how I felt when you left, and we all have to take responsibility for our own lives.’ She was sick of hating him for what he’d done. Sick of being the victim.

  ‘You’re being very generous,’ she heard him say quietly.

  ‘Well …’

  ‘Shall I come over?’

  ‘Now?’ The thought of being with him, close, alone, intimate again, was overwhelming.

  ‘Umm … perhaps it’s a bit late?’ Fin, a man totally unfamiliar with caution, was suddenly striking a careful note.

  She laughed. ‘I think you’ve changed too.’

  ‘I told you I had,’ he said, sounding childishly pleased.

  ‘Maybe we could meet up at the weekend?’ she suggested.

  ‘Great, any time. I’m doing absolutely nothing except waiting for your call.’

  That night she lay in bed, hugging Fin’s words close, repeating each detail of their conversation over and over as she fell asleep.

  *

  Flora woke on Saturday possessed with an energy and enthusiasm she hadn’t felt in years. Even the thought of confronting her sister seemed paltry in the light of having Fin back in her life. Her phone beeped a text and she grabbed it eagerly.

  Any chance of a re-match tonight?! Promise to go easy on the cocktails. Jake x

  Jake. She stared at the screen. She had forgotten about Jake. Should she ring and tell him? Or text? She didn’t know what to say, so she said nothing. It was early, she would reply later – when she’d spoken to Prue.

  Her sister was in the kitchen, grinding coffee.

  ‘Hi, sis,’ Prue didn’t immediately turn round from her task, and Flora perched on one of the stools beside the marble-topped island.

  ‘So …’ Prue set a cup of coffee in front of Flora and went to get the milk from the vast, gleaming, black Smeg fridge before sitting down opposite. ‘What’s up?’

  Flora had prepared her speech, but inevitably the lines deserted her and words came tumbling out in a blast of pent-up nervousness.

  ‘I … Fin and I, we met up the other night for a drink. And he apologised, said he was sorry, really sorry, for how he’d treated me. I … it was just great to talk to him at last and get it all out into the open. He explained what had happened, admitted he’d been selfish and stupid. He was so, so sorry, Prue … you’d have believed him if you’d heard it.’ She paused, watching her sister’s face fall, seeing the fixed expression which could only mean trouble. ‘Don’t start.’ Flora held her hand up. ‘There’s more, let me finish and then you can have your say.’

  Prue’s face remained stony, but she did as she was told.

  ‘And he said he’d spoken to you. About a year after he’d left? He said he’d called the house when he couldn’t find me in Brighton, and you’d said I’d moved on … that I was happy. He said you’d told him I was engaged.’

  Prue wasn’t looking at her, and the room had gone very still.

  Flora watched her sister push her fingers through her short blonde hair, the brick-red nails stark against the paleness of her skin.

  ‘Did you?’

  Prue finally met her gaze. ‘OK, yes, I did. I said you were engaged. I would have said you were dead if it’d meant that bloody man stayed away from you.’

  Flora took a deep breath and tried to control her anger. ‘I understand why you did that at the time, but shouldn’t you have told me, instead of letting me believe he didn’t care?’

  Prue threw her arms in the air.

  ‘You were fucking ill! You were almost destroyed by depression. You always deny it, but there were weeks when I thought you might kill yourself. There was no way on this earth I’d’ve given you foolish hope. Not about a man who’d treated you like that.’

  ‘OK, but what about afterwards? Couldn’t you have told me later, when I was better?’

  Prue’s face was suddenly flushed from her frustrated attempts to explain. ‘And how do you think you’d have reacted? What would you have done, Flora? You’d have done exactly what you’re doing now. You’d have forgiven him everything and gone straight back to him. Wouldn’t you?’ she shouted. ‘Wouldn’t you? Admit it!’

  ‘Well, maybe I would, but it’s my life. You had no right to make that decision for me.’

  There was the sound of footsteps on the stairs, and they both turned to see Bel standing in the doorway in her pyjamas. She looked anxiously from one to the other.

  ‘What are you shouting about?’

  Prue got up and stamped across the kitchen to get the cafetière.

  ‘Mum?’

  ‘Hey, Bel,’ Flora got up and gave her niece a hug. ‘Sorry, your mum and I are having a bit of a discussion.’

  Prue snorted. ‘Hardly a discussion. Your aunt has just informed me that she’s planning to get back with that bastard, Fin McCrea.’

  Bel stared at Flora, her eyes wide. ‘Are you?’

  ‘I didn’t say that. I said I’d had a drink with him, that’s all.’

  ‘Oh, yes, and he was soooo sorry, and soooo lovely, and changed from being a bloody prick, and such a good, good person all of a sudden.’

  ‘I didn’t say that, either.’

  ‘So you’re not getting back with him?’

  ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do. I’ve only seen him once, I told you.’

  Prue sighed, slumping defeated on the other side of the island, the handle of the coffee pot still clasped in her hand.

  ‘Wow,’ said Bel.

  Prue began again, this time her voice was controlled and deliberately calm. ‘Flora … listen, please. Yes, maybe I was out of order, telling him to fuck off like that. I was taken by surprise when he called and I said the fi
rst thing that came into my head. But I was only trying to do what’s best for you, and Fin is not best, darling. Really he’s not. He wasn’t then and he isn’t now. Leopards don’t change their spots.’

  ‘I’m very familiar with the spots argument.’

  ‘Well then. You’ll know I’m talking sense. If you—’

  ‘But if they still love each other …’ Bel interrupted her mother.

  Prue glanced over at Bel with exasperation. ‘Darling, I know you mean well, but please, stay out of this. You don’t understand.’

  Bel shrugged, and padded over to check out the contents of the fridge.

  Flora sipped her coffee. It was cold and tasted bitter, but Prue preferred a strong Italian blend, even for breakfast.

  ‘If you get back with him, you know what’ll happen, don’t you? Things’ll be marvellous for a few months, you’ll be “In Love”, it’ll be all sweetness and light and you’ll wonder why you were ever apart. And then he’ll get bored and do the same fucking thing again. You can’t trust him not to. Can you risk that, Flora? Can you really risk being ill again?’

  For a few moments they stared each other out in silence. Flora could see the frustration on her sister’s face. And the concern.

  ‘This isn’t about me being right or wrong,’ Prue said. ‘If I did the wrong thing, then I’m sorry. This is about your health. And that man will never, ever be good for anyone’s health – certainly not yours. Believe me.’

  ‘Toast, anyone?’ Bel was waving a couple of slices of brownbread, poised over the toaster, her young face tense. Flora and Prue shook their heads.

  ‘I hear you,’ Flora said, wearily, ‘but I think you’re wrong. I know what he did. He knows what he did. Can’t people make mistakes? We were happy for years before this happened, remember. And he explained what happened. He panicked about having a baby, and the responsibility and—’

  ‘Please, I don’t need to hear his pathetic justifications,’ Prue broke in, waving her hand at Flora as if to wipe away her words. She seemed about to say something else, but just shook her head.

  ‘So you’ll never forgive him? One mistake and you’ll never forgive him.’

  Prue pursed her lips, her face stubborn. ‘I’d hardly call it a “mistake”. I hate the man.’

  That’s a strong word, Flora thought. ‘I promise I’ll be careful with him, Prue. I won’t rush into anything.’

  Her sister nodded slowly.

  ‘Well, I’ve had my say. And you’re right, it’s your life.’

  Flora got up. ‘I … I want to live. I want to have a life again. And if that’s with Fin …’

  Prue’s face softened. ‘I want you to have a life too, darling. You know that.’ She got up and came round the island, pulling Flora into a strong embrace. ‘But what about Jake, for instance? Couldn’t you have a life with him? He’s a good man. You could trust him.’

  ‘I agree, he is a good man. But I’m not in love with Jake, Prue.’ She spoke with quiet emphasis.

  Her sister just shook her head, the fight gone out of her. ‘You haven’t given him a chance.’

  *

  ‘Dad died. Last year.’

  She was sitting with Fin in a café in Notting Hill. It was one of a chain – French farmhouse chic with exposed brick walls, chunky wooden tables, good bread and apricot jam. They had chosen a table by the window, and at this time of the evening, before six, it wasn’t full.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Flora said. She knew Fin had been as close to his father as he was, perhaps, to any other human being. Angus McCrea was a climber too, a weather-beaten Highlander of few words who, even in his late eighties, walked the Scottish hills near his home in Inverness alone, almost daily. ‘Had he been ill?’

  Fin shook his head. ‘Pneumonia. He got a cold and didn’t take it seriously. By the time they got him to hospital he was past help apparently. I was in Chamonix and didn’t know till two days later.’

  ‘Horrible for you … not to be there … not to have known. But he was so independent, he never complained about anything. You probably couldn’t have done much.’

  ‘I keep telling myself that.’

  ‘Well, it’s true.’

  ‘Maybe … but I hadn’t seen him in six months. I kept meaning to go up, but I had this guiding gig, which was good money, considering the crap they normally offer, and I thought I’d stay on while it lasted.’ He looked off across the café, obviously struggling with emotion.

  Flora said nothing. Story of his life, she thought, sadly. Always meaning to do the right thing, but never quite managing it.

  He must have sensed what she was thinking because he said, ‘I’ve changed Flora. All these things in the last few years – you, Dad, the accident – have really woken me up to what an arse I’ve been in the past. I’ve taken things for granted too much.’ He gazed at her, his eyebrows raised questioningly. ‘Can you ever forgive me … do you think?’

  For a moment she resisted the pleading, almost childlike expression in his keen grey eyes. But as she returned his look she found herself weakening, his eyes a magnet drawing her in, triggering a moment of pure desire, long suppressed, which coursed through her body making it hard to breathe. Fin must have seen it. He quickly reached over to take her hand.

  ‘Oh, Flo. I’m so, so sorry. I hurt you, I know. What can I do to make amends?’

  ‘Get me a large glass of red,’ she said, the tart reply a cover while she got herself under control. But her hand remained, tentatively, beneath his.

  He laughed with relief. ‘Coming up,’ he said, waving at the pretty, black-clad Frenchman who had shown them to the table and ordering a bottle of house red.

  They talked about normal things: friends, work, family, the summer of sport, the wine gradually taking the edge off Flora’s nerves. And her struggle to hold herself separate from the man sitting opposite, who was promising her the world if she would just forgive him, was weakening by the moment.

  ‘How long will you stay with your friend?’ she asked, as she picked at some olives and salami laid elegantly on a wooden board between them.

  ‘Not a whole lot longer, looks like. It was fine till Paul hooked up with this girl. But Jenna doesn’t like me being around, she’s made that clear, and I understand. I wouldn’t want me around if I was her.’

  Flora waited for him to go on. She didn’t want him to think she was asking for her own sake.

  ‘The bugger is, my leg’s not right yet. I don’t have the grisly disease they thought I had – the necro-whatsits thing – which I suppose is good. But that doesn’t solve the problem. It’s bloody painful still and no one knows why. So I suppose I have to wait around until that’s sorted. I’d be daft to change doctors at this stage, have to start explaining the whole sorry state of my bones to someone else …’

  ‘So what’ll you do?’

  Fin shrugged. ‘In the long term I reckon I’ll go and live in Dad’s house in Inverness. He left it all to me, and it’s a great place. It’d suit me.’

  Inverness. Flora jumped ahead in her mind. Angus McCrea’s house, which she’d only visited once, was in a comfortable Victorian terrace right beside the River Ness. Could she live there? She loved Scotland, but Inverness was so far from everything and everyone she knew.

  ‘I need to know if I can climb again first, of course,’ Fin was saying. ‘And if not – which heaven forbid – then perhaps I can open a climbing shop up there, or mountain bikes, run walking tours … stuff like that.’ He grinned at her. ‘Not sure how good a businessman I’d be, but I’ll have to earn my living somehow if the worst happens. I know I’ve got the small income from my flat in Fort William … Richie’s still there. But it’s not enough to live on.’

  He’s making light of it, she thought, but she wasn’t fooled.‘So you’re going back for more tests?’

  Fin nodded gloomily. ‘Bloody endless.’

  ‘You only had the accident this year. It takes much longer than you think for your body to get back to normal.�
�

  ‘So they say. And I have to believe them, Flo, because it terrifies me, the thought of never being able to climb again.’

  ‘Of course it does. But you used to tell me all the time about people who’d been much more badly injured than you, who went up mountains regardless. People with one leg. Or no legs even.’

  Fin laughed. ‘True.’

  ‘So? If they can do it …’

  ‘OK, OK, take your point.’ He sighed. ‘I just miss it so much. That freedom thing, the physical and mental strength, the exhilaration I get on a mountain … you know what I mean. I feel I’ve gone soft.’ He held his hand to his right bicep and flexed his arm experimentally.

  ‘I’m just saying you have to give it time.’

  Fin’s head sank lower, his broad shoulders slumped over the table.

  ‘Sorry to whinge, Flo,’ he said after a moment, raising his head again. ‘That’s not what I intended for tonight.’

  She smiled at him. ‘What did you intend?’

  ‘Oh, you know …’ He grinned back. ‘Just hanging out, having fun like we used to. Getting to know each other again.’

  There was another silence. Flora wanted that too. But more than anything she wanted certainty, maybe a sign from the universe – a bolt of lightning would do – something that would make it clear to her whether or not she should commit to Fin again. And she wanted that sign before they made love. Because she knew that afterwards she would be lost.

  Fin was gazing at her again, his eyes soulful and penetrating.

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t do that,’ she said, without much force.

  ‘Do what?’ he asked, all innocence.

  She didn’t respond immediately, just looked away.

  ‘Fin,’ she said quietly, ‘please. Can we not rush this?’

  He immediately looked contrite and sat up straight, his hands folded demurely on the table in front of him, his face determinedly composed, but failing to hide his obvious delight that she still found him so attractive.

  ‘Flora Bancroft, I will do whatever you ask.’

  Flora couldn’t help laughing. ‘That’d be a first.’

  *

  Fin saw her home, despite her protests. It was a warm early-autumn night, and they didn’t say much, just walked side by side along the broad avenue which led over the hill to her street. She was acutely aware of his presence and tempted at times to move closer to him, to take his large hand, permanently callused from climbing ropes, in hers. But she didn’t. Have some pride girl, she told herself. Don’t just go running at the first click of his fingers. Give yourself time to think this out. But her heart still beat out the rhythm of her excitement.