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by Dizzy Girl

  I sighed and took my hands away from him. “I can’t apologise” I said.

  “And I’m not asking you to. I was angry with my parents. I’m not angry with you, but I had to say goodbye.”

  “To something you hadn’t known you’d lost” I said, standing up, my voice rising.

  “That’s true. But I did lose something, I lost any last shred of respect or love that I’d had for my dad. I lost ten years that I should have been with you.” Sunny thought about that for a moment before speaking again. “It’s easy to day dream now, we have jobs, a home, if we were to get pregnant next week, even if it wasn’t planned, I’d be thrilled. We were in a very different place back then. I only know that I’m angry with my dad because we should have been allowed to make those decisions together, he took that away from us. He should never have put all the burden on you.”

  I sat stunned, listening to Sunny’s words. I knew I’d secretly be pleased if I were to get pregnant too, but I still wanted to wait until we’d had some more time together first. We had a lot of years to catch up on.

  “I knew I loved you then, and if I hadn’t gone, however young we were, I truly believe we’d still be together anyway” Sunny said. “I never had to manage my own emotions when I was a kid. If he was angry then we were all on edge. If my dad was happy then we were happy, or at least pretending to be. Sometimes I still find it hard to put what I’m thinking or feeling into words. And now he's gone and I can’t tell him what he took from me. At least now mum is back and we’re talking again.”

  I picked up my glass and took a sip of wine. “I never wanted to break up your family.”

  “You didn’t” he said. “My dad did that all by himself. I wish I’d been stronger, run away or fought harder to stay.”

  “How could you have?” I asked. “You were a kid, you were scared of him. It’s different now, you have somewhere to live, a job, self-confidence and strength. He held all the power then, there wasn’t going to be any other outcome, not any easy one at least.”

  He placed both hands on my shoulders. “I promise you Amy, I’m not going to leave you again.” He sat back next to me. “I can’t. The first night I was at my grandad’s house I smashed it up. I was so angry at being sent away from you, I threw pots, I broke windows. My granddad just watched me and didn’t say a word. When I’d finished he handed me a broom and made me clean up. Then he sat me down and said that I was never to do that again. He said he wished he’d stood up to my dad more when he was younger. Grandad felt responsible I think for the fear that we’d lived with because he felt like he’d never taught him not to behave like that. I think that’s why he felt like he owed it to me to take me in. He told me that when you feel angry, to use it, to channel it and to make a difference, not to let it destroy you. I try to live up to what I learnt from him and not my dad. I want to be a dad one day, but I want to do it right. And I want to do it with you, if you’ll have me.”

  “I will” I assured him.

  “We’ll have our turn at getting married” he assured me. “You’ll look beautiful. I won’t be wearing a kilt. Your mum will cry. Actually, your dad probably will too. We’ll sit your Uncle Ken on the kids table so he can teach them all terrible habits.”

  I laughed and leant against him. “And we’ll promise each other to always be there, to talk and to listen, to laugh and together and comfort each other.”

  “I’ll tidy up after you if you promise to tell me if I ever act like my parents” he said.

  “I swear I won’t let you” I told him.

  “There’s just one more thing I should probably tell you” he said, and he looked so serious that for a moment I was nervous. “You were right, I’m not wearing anything under my kilt.”

  “There’s no one anywhere near us” I told him. “I think you should prove it to me.”

  Chapter Thirty Three

  I was busy at work, not writing up team meeting minutes again, thank goodness. Since the last debacle a few months earlier my boss had cut me a bit of slack and hadn’t asked me to do that again. It was nearly deadline time though for the next round of grant applications and I was fielding phone calls and emails from groups who were desperate to gain funding to continue their work. There was a lot of emotion and pressure involved, people’s jobs rested on getting enough money for the groups who could do the most with it.

  My mobile rang, and I used it as an excuse to grab my jacket and head out for lunch. The summer had long since faded and it was getting cooler again. I answered to hear Charlie’s excited voice.

  “We got it” she shouted into the phone. I pulled the handset away from my ear but not fast enough to escape the full force of the volume she was cheering at.

  “Got what?” I asked. “A hearing aid for my damaged ear?”

  Charlie laughed. “We got the house, the one we were looking at. It’s a bit further out.” It was five minutes walk towards Leytonstone, the other side of Centre Road. “They had accepted our asking price but they were waiting on the house they were buying before they would exchange. Well, it’s gone through. We’re going to be in in three weeks.”

  I started trying to add up weeks in my head. “In three weeks you’ll be…”

  “About two weeks off having the baby probably, yes. Which is why I’m ringing. Do you think you’d be able to help us move on the Saturday? I got some quotes for a van but they’re asking crazy money to move us that distance. It’s not like we’re moving to Birmingham or Scotland.” As if those places were right next door to each other. Charlie was one of those Londoners that thought the North started at Watford.

  “I can definitely help, I’ll ask Sunny if he knows what shifts he’ll have then. He’ll do his best to be there if he can too” I assured her.

  “Thank you” she replied, and I could hear the relief in her voice. “Mark offered to ask some of his lads, he reckons they’d be happy to help in return for pizza and beer, so we might have a few more helpers, but every time I even pack a box Mark starts fussing like I’m about to go into labour. Goodness knows what he’s going to be like when it actually happens.”

  “I’m sure he’ll be great” I said, though in my head I was remembering how drunk he and Sunny had got just because the snooty man in the wedding suit shop had been rude to him. Charlie might be right to have her concerns.

  “Yes, well, if it looks like he’s not coping do you mind if I ring you to collect Jason from my mum? She’s offered to come with me again if I need her. I don’t know how I’d have got through it last time if she hadn’t have been there.”

  “No problem” I told her. “I’ll make sure I leave my mobile on at all times from now on in case you need me.”

  We hung up and I sent Sunny a text to see if he was free to help. Sometimes it was lovely that he worked shifts, occasionally he’d meet me for lunch, or he’d have had the day off and I’d come home and the whole flat would smell amazing because he’d cooked dinner. We’d learnt though, from our experiences of being separated when Pamela stayed. For some times our working hours meant that we barely had time in the middle, with him leaving for work as I got home, or me being so relieved to make it through to the weekend, just in time for Sunny to spend the whole time at work. We left each silly notes, or I’d make a meal and leave it boxed up in the fridge ready for him to re-heat at whatever odd time he had his dinner.

  I wasn’t expecting Sunny to text back anytime soon, so when my phone beeped only a minute later I found myself getting excited. That lasted precisely three seconds until I had chance to read his message. “Sorry babe” he had written, “there’s a big demo that day, no leave, Chief’s orders. Should be home for seven though, save me some pizza.” Oh well, at least he could give me a massage after I spent the day carting boxes.

  I finished up the grant form I’d been reading, typed my notes up before I forgot what I’d read, and grabbed my jacket. Some Septembers can be mild, this one had come with a creeping edge of cold winds. My mobile rang again as I waited
in the queue to pay for my sandwich. I hoped it would be Sunny saying that he’d managed to get out of work after all. It wasn’t, but it was almost as good.

  “Hey girly” said the voice down the line.

  “Lucy, hey, good to hear from you. How’s the lovely Laura?” I asked.

  “Gorgeous. Not to get too soppy on you, but she’s ok.”

  “Last of the great romantics” I said, laughing.

  “Actually, I wanted to ask your advice about something.”

  “Don’t tell me, you finally want to find some new shoes that go with your blue suit instead of those high ones you can’t walk in and you want my advice on some sandals?” I joked.

  “No seriously. Besides, those shoes are worth a broken ankle. They’re amazing,” she replied, and for once she wasn’t laughing at my rubbish jokes. “I wanted some advice about Laura. It’s going really well, we’re spending a lot of time together. I’m really happy. We’re really happy.”

  I sat on a bench and started to unwrap my sandwich. It didn’t look like I’d be making it back to my desk to eat it any time soon. “So what can I do to help you?” I asked, taking a bite.

  “You and Sunny finally managed to move in together. With both of you knowing about it” she said.

  “Yes, smart arse, we did.”

  “Well, I was thinking about asking Laura to move in with me.”

  “And you wanted to know how to ask her?”

  “Yup” Lucy said, “without cocking it up. You know, like you guys did.”

  “It’s a good job I love you” I told her.

  “You know I’m not good at the romantic shit” Lucy said. “I’ve never even cared about doing that stuff before. But Laura likes it, and I like her, so I want to ask her properly. And I’ve lived on my own for a long time. I enjoy living on my own, I like coming home to find only my mess, or watching my programmes. She still watches Neighbours for goodness sake.”

  “I still watch Neighbours” I said. “Don’t diss Neighbours. You might be my best friend but there are some things which are sacred.” I opened my bottle of diet coke and took a sip. “In terms of asking her to move in, that’s easy. You can gift wrap a key, give it to her as a present. You can take her out for a nice meal and ask. You could buy a new chest of drawers and ask her if she wants it.”

  “Wait a minute” said Lucy, and I could hear keys clacking down the line.

  “Are you typing notes?” I asked.

  “Hell, yes” she said. “These are gold.” She went quiet, I managed two big mouthfuls of falafel and houmous before she spoke again. “What about actually living with her though?” And then Lucy’s tough armour started to slip. “I’ve lived on my own for years. What happens if she moves in and it goes wrong?”

  “I’ve been there Lucy. It sucks, but if it isn’t right, it’s better to find out. When I was living with Patrick and it started to go wrong it was awful. Some nights I cried myself to sleep because he wouldn’t talk to me and I didn’t know what was wrong. Other nights I cried because he did talk to me and he was spiteful and cruel. But it turns I was better off without him anyway. Now, living with Sunny, it’s so different.”

  I ignored the puking noises Lucy was faking on the phone. “You asked me” I told her. “Ok, yes, it took us a while, but we had a lot of baggage. You guys don’t have half the history that we had to work through. But once we had, well, you might like coming back after to work to a house that is just as you left it, but I like coming back to a home.”

  “You live with a neat freak” she pointed out. “You never come home to more mess than you left. In fact, you must usually come home to it being even cleaner.”

  “That’s true, but it’s not what I meant. It’s nice to come home and find flowers, or a meal, or even just a note that says ‘see you later, love you’.”

  “And that outweighs being able to just shut the door when you just want peace?” she asked.

  “Yes. You can still have your peace. If you tell Laura that you need your space sometimes, or go and have a bath. That’s what I do sometimes. But I’d bet good money that after that, when you’re ready and she’s there to hear about a crappy day, or to give you a hug when you walk in exhausted, you’ll be glad you did it.”

  “We’ll see” she said. “We’re going out tonight. I’m taking her to that posh place in town that you hated. The one you said was pretentious. Thought I’d ask her then.”

  “That sounds perfect” I said. “She’ll love it. But Lucy, one more thing.”

  “Yes?”

  “Don’t run the minute it gets hard. If it’s worth it, and I think it is, because she’s really lovely, give it a while to settle. Get through the teething issues of who leaves the dishes dirty for too long, or who uses up the last of the milk. Don’t get caught up on the details, as long as the things that really matter are there. If she’s the first person you want to talk to in the morning, and the one you need to talk to make sense of your day so that you can sleep at night, compromise, and be happy.”

  “Thanks Amy. I’ll let you know.” We said our goodbyes, I hung up and stuffed the phone back in my pocket. I finished my sandwich and stayed on the bench to eat my cake. I thought about our conversation and hoped that I’d given Lucy good advice. After all, I’d lived with Patrick for two years before it had all started to go wrong, but I knew that Laura wouldn’t have the same macho expectations of a partner. Sitting in the sunshine, thinking about how lucky I felt to live with someone who really did love me, and trust me and most of all, respect me, it had been worth the heartache to get there.

  I pulled my phone out of my pocket once more and opened a new text message. I wrote “No problem lovely man. See you after work. Love you loads,” sent it, and walked back to work to get started on the grant forms once again.

  Chapter Thirty Four

  The music thumped from the stereo as I danced around the bedroom. I grabbed a couple of dresses and a pair of jeans and threw them into my bag. I sang along as I grabbed my hairbrush and chucked that in too. On the other wide of the bed, Sunny sat folding a shirt and placed it carefully in his case.

  “Tell me again what we’re going to?” he asked.

  “Lucy described it as a celebration of surviving their first week together in the flat without killing each other. Laura said it was her housewarming party. I’m thinking of it as a chance to see old friends and to celebrate their happiness.”

  Sunny counted out two pairs and pants and sock and placed those neatly by his pyjamas. “Sounds good to me” he said.

  An hour later he was driving us on the motorway and I was telling him about the time that Lucy and I had been disciplined by the university for staging a sit in when they had tried to cut the student helpline service. “You do realise that a criminal record could be really harmful when you apply for jobs don’t you” he pointed out.

  “Some things are worth fighting for” I said. He reached over and gave my knee a squeeze.

  We parked outside Lucy and Laura’s flat. I knocked on the door and Laura opened it.

  “Welcome to my new home” she said, hugging us in turn and letting us in. Lucy handed us plates and told us to help ourselves.

  “Turns out there are lots of advantages to this cohabitation stuff” she said. “Laura’s an amazing cook, try the bruschetta. This is the first party I’ve ever thrown that I didn’t buy in the catering.”

  Sunny and I loaded our plates and found seats on the sofa. Laura introduced us to their friends, and Lucy asked Sunny if he minded being the only man in attendance. Sunny shrugged his shoulders. “I probably would felt awkward in the past, but since I went on my first hen night a few months back I think I can handle this.”

  Lucy snorted with laughter. “I would have given money to see that” she said.

  “I did” I told her. “Cost me a fortune in drinks.”

  One of the nicest things about getting older is that you don’t have to stay up later than you want to at parties anymore just to try a
nd look cool. By about eleven o’clock Lucy and Laura’s friends started to head off, and we were shown to the spare room. “Now this is civilised” I said. “A party and a decent bed afterwards, no more falling asleep on a sofa or a floor and waking up the next morning still drunk and with a cricked neck.”

  “Don’t go getting boring on me just yet” said Lucy, kissing my cheek and wishing us a good night.

  We slept well, in the cosy room, with our friends next door, radiating happiness at their new arrangements. I woke up before Sunny the next morning. He looked so peaceful, snoring gently under the duvet that I crept out without waking him. Laura was in the kitchen making a pot of coffee. She poured us out a mug each and we sat to drink them at the table.

  She told me about her studies and the placement she’d applied for at the Infirmary so that she could stay in Leicester for longer. I told her about my work, and before we knew it, it was nine o’clock and Lucy and Sunny staggered in, within a few minutes of each other, looking rested after their lie ins. I offered to grab a bin bag and start clearing up after the party but Sunny offered instead.

  “Why don’t you and Laura go out for fresh supplies” Lucy suggested. “You both love the deli round the corner and we ate pretty much everything in the house last night. If Sunny is half as good at cleaning as you claim I’d rather have him here anyway. Then when you get back we can have a late breakfast.”

  That sounded like a perfect division of labour to me. It’s not every day you get to shop instead of cleaning and still feel like you’ve been useful. Laura and I loaded up with fresh croissants, Lucy’s favourite blend of coffee, and some fresh fruit. We bought bacon and eggs, juice and a newspaper. We were just about to head back to the flat when Laura dragged me across the road to one final shop.

  “I don’t think we can get any breakfast ingredients in this one” I told her.

  She must have been getting used to my dodgy sense of humour because she didn’t even bother replying. She just opened the door and walked in. She walked to the back of the shop and showed me a pair of earrings. They were silver, with a line of three small diamonds and they cost as much as my last three pairs of shoes combined. They were stunning.