by Claire Allan
I wondered, would he cry? Would he smile? Would he give me one of his super intense looks?
He had whispered down the phone to me late the night before that I was his – that I would always be his. It would be me and him against the world – and that with me at his side he was sure he could do anything.
‘This is forever, isn’t it?’ he’d asked, and I caught an air of something unfamiliar in his voice. Doubt? Fear? ‘I swore I’d never do this if it wasn’t forever – for better or worse and all that,’ he said.
‘Of course,’ I’d said, telling myself it was okay to feel a little nervous even if I wanted the lifelong commitment I was about to make.
‘Morning, love,’ my mother said, rapping on my bedroom door and pushing it open. ‘Are you all set?’
There was something about seeing her there – hair in curlers, dressing gown on, familiar and warm and loving, that made me feel a bit weepy. I couldn’t help it, and before I could say anything she was sitting beside me, holding me.
‘It’s a big day,’ she said, hugging me and kissing my head. ‘You will be happy, sweetheart,’ she said. ‘But you know you always have a home here. Always. You are always my girl.’
‘I love you, Mum.’
Chapter Sixteen
Emily
It was only a short drive to Cian’s house. A red-bricked detached house, set back from the tree-lined road in its own grounds off the Limavady Road, which runs parallel to the river in Derry’s Waterside. Double fronted. Gravel drive. Manicured lawn. I guessed his books must be selling well. He had been living the kind of life I could only dream about. I think that probably made it all the more tragic.
From the outside, this was the perfect family home – fitting in perfectly with Rose’s perfect life. Something in the pit of my stomach twisted just a little bit with jealousy. I willed myself to focus on the task in hand. Cian climbed out of his car, walked round and opened the door for me before opening his front door and directing me – and my takeaway parcel from Primrose – in through the door to the hall, where pictures of Rose and Cian and Jack hung on every wall. I looked around – Rose’s eyes on me as I did so. It felt like she was always watching me. Everywhere I looked she looked back. At work. Here. In my dreams. I felt my heart quicken again, looked behind me to see where Cian was – to see him lift Jack from the car and follow me in. ‘Go on through to the kitchen,’ he said, gesturing to the back of the house. ‘I’ll put this little one up in his cot.’
I was grateful to walk into the kitchen and out of her gaze – but that’s not to say she wasn’t there. She was everywhere. It was as if the ghost of her, the essence of who she was, hung heavy in the air.
‘What did you start, Rose Grahame?’ I whispered as I looked around at the place she had lived in.
Chapter Seventeen
I filled the kettle and switched it on. I would have gone ahead and made the tea but I didn’t want to go snooping through the cupboards for tea bags and cups. So instead I opened the fold-down box they had given me at Primrose and rearranged the sandwiches and pastries that were in it. They looked delicious, but my appetite had left me. A knot of tension sat in the pit of my stomach. I was in Rose’s house.
Any second now her husband would come back downstairs, and we would sit, most likely at this kitchen island, and drink tea and talk. I would comfort him. I may touch his arm gently again. My skin tingled at the thought and immediately I felt guilty. I shouldn’t allow myself to feel attracted to this gorgeous, vulnerable man, but there was a part of me that knew I was already lost and it was his very vulnerability that pulled me to him. I related to it.
I looked around. For a man on his own – a man struggling with the weight of grief – he kept the place remarkably tidy. The worktops were clear except for the kettle, a coffee machine, and toaster. The granite was smear-free. The floor clean. The walls, painted a very pale grey, had no trace of mucky toddler handprints. There was no overflowing laundry basket. No unwashed dishes. No finger paintings pinned to the large, American-style fridge. A family portrait in black and white hung on the far wall above a large, squishy sofa with loose white covers – a grey chenille throw hung over the back of it. The picture was one I had seen on Rose’s Facebook page – Rose and Cian, in white T-shirts, jeans, barefoot, sitting close together – and baby Jack, perhaps only six months old, propped between them. A picture of happiness, wide smiles all round. Rose Grahame staring back down at me again.
Apart from the picture on the wall, the only hint to the unknowing eye that a child lived here was a small wicker basket, filled with brightly coloured wooden toys in the corner of the room. I wondered whether Cian sat on the floor with his son and played with them. Or had Rose been the more hands-on parent? Perhaps it had been a joint endeavour between them?
I heard footsteps on the stairs and I looked around as Cian walked into the room. He looked a little brighter. His sleeves were rolled up further and the edges of his hair slightly wet. I imagined he had splashed his face with water, freshened up. Settled himself.
‘I didn’t know where anything was to make the tea so I just boiled the kettle,’ I said as he moved across the kitchen, opened a cupboard and took out two mugs.
‘Thanks,’ he said, setting about making the tea. With his back to me he said: ‘I feel a little foolish now. Crying like that. In public. What must you think of me?’
What did I think of him? I took a breath. ‘I think you’re a man who has suffered a great loss in the worst circumstances possible and it would be wrong if you didn’t have an occasional breakdown. I think anyone would understand.’
‘Except for those who think I had something to do with it …’ He turned towards me, his green eyes looking straight at me, almost as if he could see everything about me. ‘I’ve seen the comments on Facebook. I’ve seen people laughing and making snide comments. I’ve had messages you know – people saying I killed her. Can you imagine that? Can you imagine how that feels?’
‘I’m sure anyone who knows you, knows you had nothing to do with it. It’s clear you loved Rose very much.’
‘I still love her,’ he said softly, lifting the two mugs and carrying them to the kitchen island. ‘I always will.’
‘Of course,’ I said, once again a flash of jealousy pinging at me. I chided myself. Of course he would always love her. Of course he still did. What did I think? That less than two months after her death he would fall in love with me? I almost laughed at the ridiculousness of it all – almost.
He rubbed his beard, sighed and sipped from his teacup. ‘And Owen? The other girls in Scott’s? Have they been chatting about me behind my back? I couldn’t help but feel that Owen was off with me when I called in with Jack.’
‘Everyone seems very fond of you. I think with Owen, he just felt a bit thrown seeing you. The other girls say Rose’s death hit him hard. That he relied on her to keep that place running smoothly. I didn’t know him before … you know … but he, well all of them, I suppose, they really miss her. You coming in probably just added as a further reminder that she was gone.’
‘She was very dedicated to her job. To him. To all the staff there. They were all good friends too. Always wanting to go out together – laughing and giggling,’ he said. ‘I suppose sometimes I forget I don’t have a monopoly on grief for her.’
‘I think you have more right than most,’ I said softly, taking a small sip from my cup. It was scalding hot, burned the back of my throat, and I felt tears prick at my eyes as I waited for the sensation to pass.
‘Are you okay?’ Cian asked, looking straight at me in that all-seeing way again.
‘Can I get a drink of water?’ I croaked.
‘Oh God, did I make it too hot for you?’ he asked, jumping up and pulling a glass from the cupboard. ‘Rose always used to tell me off. Said not everyone liked to have the mouth burned off them the way I did.’
He handed me the glass and I sipped from it, fighting the urge to gulp it down. The pain started to e
ase. ‘It’s okay,’ I offered but he looked bereft.
‘See, I can’t do anything right.’
I reached out and touched his forearm, the bare skin warm beneath my touch. I fought the urge to close my eyes and breathe in the moment as a fizz of something – lust maybe – shot right to my core. ‘You can,’ I said softly. ‘You are doing things right every day – keeping going, caring for Jack. I see how you are with him, how he looks at you. That’s the most important thing you can do, and you do it well.’
I didn’t move my hand; I liked how solid and real he felt. Then he placed his hand on top of mine, covering it completely. Making me want to feel him cover me entirely. To consume me.
‘Thank you, Emily. You don’t know how much that means to me. You really don’t,’ he said, jolting me back into the moment. Back to the reality that having those kinds of feelings for him was not appropriate. Back to wondering if he felt a little shiver of it too.
*
I felt light and, dare I say it, happy when I went home that evening. I was proud, if that’s the right word, that Cian had confided in me. That he had sat with me, in his kitchen, and we had drunk several cups of tea and talked while Jack slept upstairs. He had spoken about Rose, of course, and his grief. He spoke of his love for his son. And he spoke of his life – his writing. How he feared he would never be able to put pen to paper again.
‘Isn’t it strange? To write about all the complexities of life, the intricacies of the human condition having led a relatively sheltered life? Then something like this happens, something that brings every emotion you ever experienced to the front of your consciousness – raw, real, more visceral than anything I could ever even think to write – and I feel paralysed by it? Christ, my last book was about a man terrified of losing all he held dear and I realise now it was bullshit. It was contrived nonsense. I don’t have the words to express this hell. I don’t have the ability to accurately depict what this feels like. It’s beyond me. So if I can’t write about it – about the reality of what this means, how this feels – I don’t think I want to write again.’
He had looked stricken at the thought. I’d wanted to tell him I had started reading From Darkness Comes Light and felt connected to him by it. But maybe that would be weird. Still, when I went home I started reading again and I allowed myself to indulge in a little fantasy. The kind where his hand would rest on mine every day. The kind where I would help him learn how to smile again. The kind where I would help him find his voice again – start to write again. He would love me for it. He would move me into his grand house and my pictures would slowly start to replace those of Rose in the hall. Our family portrait, he, Jack, me and perhaps a baby of our own, would hang above the sofa. We’d make sure Jack never forgot his mother of course. We’d speak fondly of her. We’d keep her picture by his bedside. She would be his mother, always. But he would have a new family around him. I would have a family around me. I allowed myself to think about that for a short time before I shook myself out of my reverie – reminded myself just how much he loved her. Would it be possible for him to ever love anyone like that again? Would he ever love me?
Chapter Eighteen
Monday morning arrived and we all ignored the fact that while we set about our work, the funeral of Kevin McDaid was taking place in the same church where Rose had been buried just a few months before.
It would be a different affair, no doubt. No crowds of gawkers weeping at the tragedy of it. The press would be there, I supposed, given the ongoing investigation.
Still, it wasn’t something we would discuss in work. We would just set about our business in our usual manner. There was a forced air of niceness about the place. Donna had a tight smile pinned to her face and had made sure to bring in chocolate biscuits from Marks & Spencer along with the milk for morning break.
She still looked tired though. I could have kicked myself as I remembered I had intended to text or call her over the weekend – see how things were going with the boys at home. If I wanted to make a life for myself here I needed to make real friendships. As a pathetic attempt at an apology I helped her make tea and coffee for everyone and poured some of the biscuits onto a plate.
‘You’re spoiling us,’ I said, light-heartedly.
‘Everyone deserves a treat now and again,’ she said, lifting a round biscuit and taking a large bite. ‘Besides, if I left them at home I wouldn’t get a look in. The boys would be on them like a plague of locusts.’ She half laughed, put the rest of the biscuit in her mouth and chewed.
‘Well I’m glad of the gesture – although my hips might disagree,’ I laughed back. Everyone gets jokes about diets. Especially women in a work environment on a Monday morning.
‘There’s nothing to your hips,’ Donna said. ‘Wait until you’ve carried three 9lb babies to term – then you’ll know about hips.’ She lifted a second biscuit and took a large bite, before patting her size 14 hips, hips that gave her a nice curve but that she was clearly uncomfortable with. I wanted to tell her she looked fabulous – hourglass, very Marilyn Monroe, but before I could speak, Tori marched in, her mouth a perfect ‘o’.
‘The police are outside,’ she said. ‘They want to talk to Owen. Do you know where he is?’
I shook my head, turned to Donna, who looked as though she had just seen a ghost, or heard of one’s impending arrival.
‘Donna?’ I asked. ‘Is Owen in? Have you seen him?’
She shook her head, putting the rest of her biscuit onto the worktop, running a glass of water and drinking it quickly while Tori just looked from me to Donna and back again.
‘I haven’t seen him,’ I said to break the silence.
‘He’s running a little late,’ Donna eventually said. ‘Traffic, but he should be here any minute. Did they – the police – did they say what they wanted him for?’
Tori shook her head. ‘I didn’t think to ask, I suppose I got a little flustered. I’m not used to police landing here.’
‘Jesus,’ Donna said. ‘That’s all we need on top of everything else. Police standing in the waiting area. As if people aren’t talking about this place enough with everything that has gone on.’
‘Should I go and bring them through here?’ I offered. ‘Get them a cup of tea while they wait for Owen?’
Donna stared pointedly at Tori, before looking at me. ‘That would be helpful, thank you,’ she said.
‘I’ll get the surgeries opened up, everything switched on. Tori if you could get reception up and running – and, Emily, if you don’t mind, look after the police. I’ll go and phone Owen and let him know to get here.’
She stalked off into the admin office, leaving Tori shaken once again. ‘I messed up again, didn’t I?’
‘Don’t take it personally,’ I assured her, leading the way to the reception area where two uniformed police officers stood, hats on, full bulletproof vests, handcuffs and guns on show. Not the relaxing atmosphere we usually tried to promote.
‘Can I help you?’ I started, and they turned to look at me – and I knew right there that I had seen the taller of the two before. Just a few days before, in fact, when I had stumbled into him coming out of Kevin McDaid’s wake. It was my time to look as though I had seen a ghost, I felt my legs wobble a little. I reached for the reception desk to steady me, trying to look as nonchalant as possible. He may not even recognise me – it was dark, it was a very brief meeting and I was dressed differently, wrapped in a winter coat. But the narrowing of his eyes, the slight tilt of his head, the almost imperceptible pursing of his lips made me think he did.
‘I’m guessing you’re not Owen Scott,’ he said, a smile on his face that didn’t quite reach his eyes.
‘No. No, I’m one of his receptionists,’ I said, making a conscious decision not to tell my name unless asked. ‘He’s running a little late but I’m told he’ll be here soon. If you and your colleague would like to follow me through to the staff room, I’m sure we can get you a cup of tea or coffee while you wait.’
‘Well that sounds like a plan,’ the taller man said, reaching his hand out to shake mine. ‘I’m Detective Sergeant John Bradley, and this is my colleague, Constable Stephen Johnson.’
‘Well, Detective Sergeant Bradley and Constable Johnson, we even have a selection of chocolate biscuits on offer.’ I tried to keep my voice light, professional, offer no more information than I needed to. I wouldn’t even ask what it was in reference to – that was none of my business.
But still, any interlude with the police made me nervous – not just because DS Bradley might be wondering why I had been at Kevin McDaid’s wake, but because it reminded me of when things were just so out of control. When I was doing my best to get better and move on but when he – the man I had once thought loved me – seemed determined to destroy me entirely. No, I wouldn’t tell these police officers my name unless I had to. I didn’t want them looking me up – seeing my file. Making decisions without knowing the full, sorry story.
I lead them through to the kitchen, where I made tea and small talk and tried to ignore the look they gave each other when they saw Rose’s picture on the wall.
‘So are there many of you who work here?’ DS Bradley asked.
‘Erm, well we have four dentists here, dental assistants, a hygienist and the admin team; I’m one of them – so fourteen? Some of us are part-time though.’
‘And you, are you part-time?’
‘No. For my sins I’m here full-time.’ I said. ‘But I like it. The people are good. Nice, you know.’
‘And Rose Grahame?’ He nodded to her picture. ‘Was she here full-time as well?’
‘Yes. Well more or less. I think she worked some family-friendly hours from time to time – to spend more time with her baby.’
‘You think?’ His eyebrow was raised.
‘I didn’t work here then. I started after.’
‘Ah, you’re her replacement?’ he said, holding my gaze a little too long. Was it a trick of his – to try and get me to reveal more about myself? Stay quiet, leave a pause, wait for me to speak? Thankfully I was rescued by Owen arriving.