Emma was silent throughout the journey home and thankfully Steven didn’t try to make small talk. It was possible he had heard some of her conversation with Alex but then the atmosphere alone would have been enough for him to know that their relationship was floundering.
‘Do you want me to walk you up to the apartment?’ he asked when they pulled up in the car park.
Emma shook her head. ‘No, you get back to the bistro. I’ve taken enough of your time.’
‘You can have my time, any time,’ Steven told her. ‘Me and Ben are at your service, you know that.’
‘Like the brothers I never had,’ Emma said as she clambered out of the car.
Steven’s response was muffled by the strong gust that tore at her flimsy dress. ‘Goodnight, Steven,’ she shouted above the wind that had whipped across the river and tasted of salt.
She waved Steven off but the car didn’t move. He was determined to wait until she was safely inside the building so, with Steven’s eyes upon her, she made her way across the tarmac. To her left, a path wound its way around the apartment block, towards the promenade and, if she hadn’t been watched, she might have been tempted to forgo the confines of her luxurious prison and head to the river instead. The howl of the wind and the shriek of the seagulls would be background noise compared to the scream she held at the back of her throat. Instead, she turned to wave goodbye before stepping into the light and being swallowed up by the building.
The cold air off the river had cleared her mind enough to think so she took her time reaching the apartment on the sixth floor. She felt so alone. The tumour was in her body, nobody else’s. Those closest to her were still on the outside looking in. They might be brave enough to stand by her but they could only hold her coat while she steeled herself for the fight. Perhaps it was too much to have expected Alex to take this journey with her but if she was going to die, she wanted it to be in the arms of a man who loved her. She had her mum to hold her and that was important but when the end came, she wanted to die as a woman, not a child.
The thought of dying had become so familiar to her in the last few years and so intrinsic to her way of thinking that she often felt no emotional reaction to the idea, but her last thought burned into her mind as she was about to put the key into the lock of the front door of the flat. In reflex, she dropped her keys as if they were hot coals. She didn’t want to die, she screamed to herself.
It took all of Emma’s willpower to stop herself from slipping silently into her bedroom without announcing her return. She didn’t want to face her mother’s scrutiny and she didn’t have the energy to even appear sociable. As she walked dutifully through to the living room, her body tensed as she prepared herself for the cross-examination.
Emma appeared in the room as silently as a spectre and Louise jumped with fright. She had been sitting at the dining table next to her mum, poring over a mess of papers that had been scattered across it, some printed, some handwritten. Lines of words and rows of numbers.
Meg’s responses were a little more controlled as she swept up the pages without even looking at them. Her eyes were fixed on Emma. ‘What are you doing home so soon? What happened? Where’s Alex?’ she demanded.
It didn’t take much imagination for Emma to conclude that whatever plans they were concocting, she was at the centre of them. She didn’t want to know but she asked anyway. ‘What are you two up to? You look guilty.’
‘I’m helping Louise tie up some loose ends with the business,’ Meg replied levelly. ‘So why are you back so early?’
‘The company was enthralling but I was tired so I thought it best to call it a night.’ Emma knew the irony would be lost on them but it amused her.
‘Did you have another seizure? Like the other one you didn’t tell me about?’
Emma looked over towards her sister. ‘Thanks, Lou.’
‘So?’ Meg had stood up and was now doing the one thing that mothers are expert at. She laid her hand on Emma’s brow to diagnose the problem.
‘A minor one,’ Emma told her.
‘We’ll mention it at the clinic next week. I imagine your meds just need a little tweaking.’
‘Yes, I imagine so,’ agreed Emma, knowing that neither of them had a good enough imagination to believe that her health problems would ever be righted by a little tweaking. ‘Now, do you mind if I go to bed?’
Meg had removed her hand from her daughter’s brow only to plant it with a kiss. ‘Of course not. I’ll bring you in a warm drink in a little while.’
‘Thanks,’ Emma said, already wondering how long she would have to wait until she could safely switch on her computer and let her writing make sense of the emotions churning up her insides.
Chapter 5
‘Have I done the right thing?’
‘Only you can answer that one,’ Kate said. She had an inscrutable look on her face, similar to the look my favourite shopkeeper had given me, and my mind drifted to my last encounter with him.
He had been very understanding as he let me rant on. I had slammed down the box that contained my failed relationship on the counter in front of him. Its tattered gift wrapping had lost its sparkle and looked torn and crumpled. I told him I wanted my money back, no exchanges. I’d had enough disappointments in my life. They were going to stop now. In my fuming state, I even suggested that he might find a space on his shelf for me to see out the rest of my days.
‘Let’s get rid of this one first,’ he said.
I watched open-mouthed as he flung the box over his shoulder. It missed the shelves completely and vanished from view with a rattle and a thump.
‘I hope Alex’s flight home isn’t as bumpy,’ I remarked.
‘And I hope it is,’ retorted the shopkeeper. ‘Now, as for your other request, my firm view is the customer is always right.’
‘Good,’ I told him, slightly taken aback by his hasty agreement. I wasn’t ready to give up, surely he could see that?
‘Yes, I do see that,’ he whispered. ‘And I’m not the only one, am I?’
The image vanished before I could answer. He had left me to ponder my destiny. The customer was always right he had said but this customer still didn’t know what she wanted.
‘I feel so lonely,’ I told Kate. ‘I wanted someone to share in my adventures.’
‘And was that ever going to be Alex?’
We both knew the answer to that but I didn’t want to dwell on my humiliation or admit to the extent of my foolishness. I had been gullible and naive, words that I had never expected to associate myself with. ‘Perhaps I had more confidence in Alex than he deserved,’ I told her.
‘Perhaps you didn’t have enough confidence in yourself,’ corrected Kate. ‘You’re on your own now, I can’t tell you otherwise, but it’s not necessarily a bad thing. True, you have no-one to share your life with, no-one else’s expectations to live up to, but you also have no-one to let down. No-one except yourself.’
‘And you,’ I reminded her.
We were in a boardroom on the top floor of a building tall enough to not only scrape the sky but to pierce the atmosphere. The sun felt stronger and its rays streamed across the room, sending the shadows scuttling away into the deepest corners. The view took in the width of Central Park with its seamless layer of treetops, a tangle of paths and the glint of a lake in the distance. But I wasn’t there for the view. My full attention was given to the series of files on the table. They may not have been glittering boxes lovingly prepared by the kindly shopkeeper, but they were still glorious in my eyes. A curve of brightly coloured folders, spread out like a rainbow before me, each one holding the promise of adventure. Kate stood beside me.
‘Yes, and me,’ she agreed. ‘Which is why I’m giving you your choice of assignment. This is where the rest of your life begins, Emma. Choose well.’
The city centre was bustling with Christmas shoppers as Emma waited for Ben outside the museum. The decision to accept his invitation had been easy in the end. She needed to e
scape, not only the four walls of her bedroom but the fears that festered inside her head. Her future was uncertain and she didn’t know who she could count on to be there to the bitter end. Alex had been the first casualty but there would be others who would distance themselves when the going got tough. That made the offers from those who wanted to step closer to her all the more precious but she didn’t want more disappointments in her life, she reminded herself. She would have to tread carefully.
Emma stomped her feet to keep warm and looked up the steep stone steps that led to the original entrance to the museum. She could remember climbing those steps with her dad, gripping his hand tightly. Colossal columns stood guard on each side of the huge main doors, which had seemed tall enough for giants and she could remember as a little girl feeling very small and quite terrified. Nerves tickled her insides now and she wasn’t sure why. Her emotions were in flux. She was still reeling from the news of her diagnosis, and the drugs she had to take only contributed to her constant mood swings. There was the emotional fallout from her breakup with Alex to deal with. And now there were her feelings for …
‘Looking for me?’
She hadn’t noticed him walking towards her; she realized she had been looking out for someone in chef’s whites. Ben was as particular about his appearance as he was about his food in the kitchen. He may only have been wearing jeans and T-shirt beneath his winter jacket but it was a perfectly co-ordinated casual look that had taken time and effort.
As they walked towards the new entrance at the side of the building, Emma couldn’t quite shake her nerves. It was still early morning and they practically had the place to themselves. She felt obliged to sneak into the building but the heels of her boots clicked harshly against the atrium’s stone floor, loudly announcing their arrival. Emma tried to keep her weight on the balls of her feet and managed a few steps without making a sound but then Ben stopped her in her tracks.
He looked completely bemused. ‘What are you doing?’ he asked.
‘It’s alright for you, you’re wearing trainers,’ Emma whispered.
Ben laughed softly. ‘We are allowed to be here. Look,’ he said, pointing at the signs all around them, ‘this is the World Museum. What’s the point in seeing the world if you can’t leave your impression on it? You can clomp around like a troll in a dwarf mine if you like.’
It was Emma’s turn to laugh. ‘Thanks! If I wasn’t feeling self-conscious before, I am now.’
‘Come on,’ Ben insisted, pulling her towards the lift. ‘The world awaits.’
They inspected the floor plan as they waited for the lift to arrive. ‘Where shall we go first?’ Emma asked.
‘We could start at the top and work our way down,’ suggested Ben.
‘The planetarium? If you’re suggesting that I include space travel in my story then I think you should start writing your own book and leave mine alone.’
‘Me?’ Ben laughed, shaking his head. ‘In case you hadn’t noticed, the sum total of my writing involves a Specials Board. You’re the one with the degree in English.’
They had already stepped into the lift and, ignoring Ben’s advice, Emma chose to begin her explorations in the ancient worlds on the third floor. ‘Of course you can write,’ she told him. ‘Look how much you’ve helped me with my research already. That shows you have imagination. And you understand computers, know your way around the Internet …’
‘Managing an Internet connection is easy and I can even come up with the odd idea or two,’ Ben insisted as the lift swept them upwards ever closer to the destination of Emma’s choice. ‘It’s getting those thoughts into a sensible order, finding the words to describe them. That’s the problem.’
Emma wouldn’t give up. Her moment of anxiety had passed and she was an adult again, ready to take on yet another project. ‘I could teach you the basics of creative writing,’ she offered as her imagination whirred into life. She could transfer her knowledge over to Ben so that her writing could live on, even if she couldn’t. She pictured it like a scene in My Fair Lady, only she would be Professor Higgins. ‘We could start with the mundane stuff like grammar and sentence structure, figures of speech.’
Ben laughed, still shaking his head as they stepped out of the lift. ‘I never could get my head around that stuff at school. I was like a fish out of water.’
‘See!’ gasped Emma excitedly. ‘That was a perfect use of a metaphor. Of course you’re a writer, if only you would believe in yourself.’
Ben was grinning at her. He had laid the bait and she had snapped it up in her eagerness to take on a challenge. ‘Let’s just concentrate on the job at hand shall we? Point and click, that’s the limit to the skills I can offer you,’ he said, lifting up his camera, which had been hanging from his neck.
‘I’ve seen your photos, remember. I think your skills are a little bit more advanced than pointing and clicking,’ she scolded.
Before Ben could answer, Emma was striding ahead, clip clopping all the way to ancient Egypt. She breathed in the musty aroma of another world and time. The temperature of the room didn’t have the heat of North Africa but the scattering of mummified remains rising out of the shadows allowed Emma to transport herself to the ancient tombs of a lost world. The touch of the stone relics felt cool but not cold and Emma closed her eyes and pushed her imagination to the limits.
‘I want to walk through the Valley of the Kings,’ she whispered.
‘Good choice,’ agreed Ben softly.
They barely spoke as Emma moved from one artefact to another, pausing to read the descriptions of the exhibits and information boards. As they paused in front of a large stone sarcophagus, Emma looked up to meet Ben’s gaze. He was decidedly uncomfortable.
‘I’m starting to think this wasn’t such a great idea,’ he confessed as he cast his eyes over the exhibits, which seemed focused on one common theme.
‘Why?’ Emma asked, her eyes narrowing and daring Ben to continue and not be like the rest, not run in fear of the word.
‘I thought I’d be giving you inspiration to write about life but this,’ he began, pointing towards a cabinet that housed the mummified remains of some poor, ancient soul, ‘this is all about death. In fact, the whole museum is about the past. It might celebrate humanity and the living world but the exhibits here are far from alive.’
Emma didn’t reply immediately, she wasn’t sure how to, so she carried on moving through the exhibits, eventually stopping at one particular display board, which she read out loud: ‘Knowing that death lays us low, knowing that life lifts us up, the house of death is for life.’ It was a quote from the teaching of Prince Hardjedef and there was something she found quite profound in his words.
‘And what does that mean? To you?’ asked Ben gently.
‘It means I’m still alive and it means I want to make my own mark on the world, however brief my time here is. Those words were written nearly five thousand years ago and people are still reading them today. I don’t expect my writing will survive such a test of time but I want it to matter and that way it will give me eternal life too.’
‘You’re unbelievable, did you know that?’ Ben whispered as Emma gazed into another glass-fronted display cabinet, this one housing the tiny remains of a small boy.
‘I’m as fragile as the next person,’ she told him. Emma took a breath of warm and slightly stale air, the mustiness of the exhibits leaving a distinctive, ancient taste on her tongue. Then she set her shoulders straight. ‘Come on, there’s still plenty more to see.’
‘Fragile but with a will of iron,’ Ben added as they headed towards ancient Greece and Rome before moving on, with the simple press of an elevator button, to the rainforests, the jungles and the African plains. It was only when they took time out from their travels for a cup of coffee that Emma was ready to talk and make sense of the jumble of ideas that had flooded her mind.
‘I need to plan my first big assignment,’ she began. ‘I want to storm the business world, flitting bet
ween London, Paris and New York, but I also want to see some of the greatest sights the world has to offer. I’ve got so many ideas spinning around in my head that I’m not sure where to begin.’ She was sitting in the museum’s cafeteria, her elbows on the table, and she was holding a large cup of coffee to her lips but she had yet to take a sip. For the moment, it was enough to smell the aroma and feel the warmth of the steam as it wafted across her face.
‘You said you wanted to see the Valley of the Kings,’ Ben reminded her.
Emma smiled. ‘So I did. Yes, I think that might be a good place to start. We can learn a lot from the past.’
‘Our own included,’ Ben said.
Emma thought about that for a moment. ‘If I’m relying on my past, then I’m going to end up with a rather miserable story,’ she said, finally taking a sip of her coffee, which was now disappointingly tepid.
‘All the more reason to make some good memories,’ Ben said. ‘And I’m sure your family and friends will help, and you have Alex.’ His last words were more of a question than a statement.
Emma eyed him suspiciously. ‘So what exactly did Steven tell you?’
Ben’s face was a picture of innocence but Emma could see through him and he knew it. ‘He only mentioned that the atmosphere looked a little frosty between you two.’
‘And?’
Ben grimaced as Emma glared at him. ‘And he sort of mentioned that you ordered him out of the restaurant.’
Emma sighed heavily. One of the reasons she had wanted to leave so early that morning was to avoid further questioning from her mum about her dinner date. ‘So now everyone’s going to find out that we’ve split up.’
Ben shook his head. ‘No, Steven isn’t a gossip and neither am I. We won’t say a word.’
Emma’s anger softened a fraction. ‘I’d rather people didn’t know, for now at least.’
‘Does that mean you haven’t even told your family?’
‘I have so little privacy these days, I’d rather keep some things to myself, and besides, I’m not expecting them to be particularly sympathetic.’
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