If We Were Young: A Romance

by Bloom, Anna

  “What time does the party finish?” He asked, already turning for Amanda. “When’s the sleeper departing, Amanda?”

  “Nine thirty.” Her gaze remained on her screen; too busy contacting his mother I surmised. Why were they so close? Why would she be on the phone to her?

  Oh.

  Matty. His mother.

  His business-like persona with me despite our desperate and intense kiss last night.

  God, I’d been slow.

  So slow, Ronnie. Wake up.

  I crumpled a little. Like a blow-up toy that had been out in the sun too long, I deflated.

  Stupid Ronnie. The Kiss was nothing more than a theory. And it had now been put well and truly to bed.

  “I need to organise some things.” I turned on my heel, my heart clanging.

  “We’ll need to leave your house at eight thirty at the latest,” he called, crisp and professional.

  “Fred!” I shouted as I walked out of my office. “We’ve got to talk.”

  * * *

  “Scotland?” Ma snipped at the stem of the rose in her hand and thrust it into the vase in the middle of the table. The roses had failed in their intended role as a sweetener.

  “Believe me, I don’t want to go.” My eyes stung a little. So pathetic. I’d have shot myself if I weren't so scared of making a mess on Ma’s floors.

  She fluffed the leaves of the roses. “These are like the ones your dad used to bring home every Friday night.”

  “I know, Ma.” I didn’t roll my eyes because it was obvious she needed to have a moment, but I did a huge internal one for my own satisfaction.

  “He was such a sweet man.”

  “Yes, he was.” I glanced at the clock on the wall. “He was a good man. I never remember him shouting or you two arguing.”

  For a moment Ma’s attention hovered far away, her fingers still resting on the dark-green leaves of the pale-pink roses. “That’s very true. He was always happy to just do what I wanted, never gave me any problems even before we got married. Now, Veronica, tell me about this trip.”

  “It’s with Supersaver Foods. We are doing their rebrand as you know, but the company is in serious trouble. I didn’t realise how much they had running on the relaunch.”

  Ma held her finger. “So, your business, which is also struggling, is now helping to fix another business which is also struggling?”

  I thought of Matthew in my office this morning. Angry again.

  “Yes, I guess you could put it like that.”

  “And Scotland? Why there?”

  “Because that’s where the company is based.” I paused for a moment. “Mum, I’m a grown woman. I don’t have to ask permission to go away.”

  The finger wagged, so I cut in quick. “I’m asking you, as Hannah’s grandmother, if you could keep an eye on her; but if it’s a problem, I can ask Ange. She’s down here at the moment, I think.”

  “Well, I suppose it’s a relief you won’t be up in Scotland with her. Who knows what trouble you’d get in to.”

  My shoulders dropped. “Ma, what do you see when you look at me? I’m thirty-five for God’s sake.”

  Her shrewd glance swept my face. “I see your father, actually.”

  “Really?”

  She turned her back and took the vase to the sink to fill it with water.

  “I will ring Hannah and tell her I’ll need to pick her up from the party early. Am I taking her to meet Ange or bringing her back here?”

  Time ticked by. The clock seemed to be turning faster than usual, and I hadn’t packed. That was a good thing though. If I was rushing, then I couldn’t think of going to Scotland with Matthew.

  I needed to not think about that until the last possible moment.

  “Here, Veronica. It’s her home. And then I suppose I’d better cancel your date for tomorrow night.” She huffed.

  Jeez. Had everyone taken cranky pills?

  “Thank you.”

  The door rang at eight as I hauled my small cabin case down the stairs. “I’ll get it.” I launched myself down the last three steps, but Ma, who’d been on standby for the last fifteen minutes, hovering in the hallway, got her hand to the latch first.

  “Good evening.” I couldn’t see him, but my body reacted to his voice alone.

  I ignored the tight squeeze in the pit of my stomach and tried very hard to silence the voice in my head singing: On a train with Matthew. On a train with Matthew. Nights away with Matthew.

  I needed to focus on the very hard fact that he hated me.

  H.A.T.E.D.

  “Ah, so you are Supersaver Foods?”

  Oh God, kill me.

  Ma patted her hair which reminded me I hadn’t brushed mine. Had I even packed my brush?

  I waited for Ma to let me past so I could see Matthew for myself, but she’d frozen, her hand still on her hair, her mouth slack.

  “You’re…”

  “Matthew Carling. I believe we met when Ronnie was at university.” He sounded so professional and courteous, smooth and assured. The snapped growl from our morning meeting couldn’t have been further away.

  I had one conclusion to draw. He was schizophrenic.

  Ma had a sharp frown on her face and stared at Matthew like he was the hardest crossword she’d ever faced. I know. He was.

  I elbowed past her. “I’m sorry, Matthew. I’ve had some trouble with Hannah. I will need to get her before we leave.”

  The scowl flashed back, and he flickered his gaze along my body.

  He’d reserved his scowl just for me. I was such a lucky girl.

  “We have half an hour.”

  “I know. It’s just around the corner, but she wouldn’t leave until eight. Just five minutes, and I’ll pop around there now.” I didn’t explain the giant war of Messenger that’d taken place over the previous hour while I tried to extract my daughter from the party early.

  “I’ll drive, we really can’t miss the train. The others are all booked, I believe.”

  “Okay. I’m sorry.” Bloody hell.

  “Here.” He yanked my bag out of my hand. In his grasp it looked rather more like a handbag. “I’ll put this in the boot.”

  “Uh, thanks.”

  I turned to Ma who still hadn’t snapped out of her dream state. “Ma, are you okay?”

  “Yes. Yes.”

  “I’ll get Hannah and then shove her through the front door at you, okay?”

  “Sure.”

  I turned to go, but she pulled me back and her cold slender fingers grasped my cheek. “I’m sorry.”

  “What for?” I scrunched my face. I could feel the black stare of doom on my shoulders as I loitered by the front door.

  “Just sorry.” She shrugged, but she seemed shaken.

  “Why do you look so weird?”

  With a smile she shook her head. “Nothing, just an old lady and her silly thoughts.”

  My eyes opened in alarm. She never called herself an old lady.

  I opened my mouth to question again, but the horn honked loudly from the car. “Sorry.” I blushed. “I don’t think Mr Supersaver Foods likes to wait.”

  Her face crumpled a little. “I’ll be ready for Hannah.”

  I turned almost reluctantly, which is not how I usually left Ma. I was normally running at high speed trying to escape the finger or eyebrow.

  Matthew had the engine running when I got out of the house to the car.

  “I’m sorry.” I slipped in and buckled up before he could shout at me. “It’s only a couple of streets away; she’s a pain in the arse sometimes.” I glanced over at him and found his face pensive as he stared out the window.

  “I’m sorry about Ma. That was weird too.”

  He turned, slate and heaven staring into my gaze. “Let’s go, shall we?”

  I nodded and grabbed my phone out of my bag. I texted Hannah Be Ready but I didn’t expect a reply.

  Trains

  “I’m sure I recognise you from somewhere.” Hannah sat as fa
r forward as her seatbelt would allow, her face between our two shoulders.

  “No, I don’t think so. Although I’ve been told I have a familiar face once or twice before.” He shot her an easy smile.

  How come I didn’t get the easy smiles?

  Hannah wasn’t sure though. I could almost hear her brain churning over. “No. I do think I’ve seen you. And you’re from Scotland you say?” She shook her head. “You didn’t know my dad? I think I saw you with him?”

  I cast him a mortified side-eye. Why was she talking so much? She never talked this much.

  “Hannah. You haven’t met Matthew before, okay? Leave it,” I snapped.

  “Fine.” She slumped back in her seat, but I could still sense her stewing, working out what was going on.

  “Matthew and I knew each other a long time ago. Remember I told you last night?” I turned in the seat and offered her a placating smile. “But I haven’t seen him the whole time you’ve been alive.”

  “Okay.” She shrugged and I let out a slow breath. It would be so nice not to hand deliver a stroppy teenager to my mother. “But this is the guy you wanted to punch in the balls, right?”

  “Hannah!” I hissed. Turning back around, I slumped in my seat, catching a ghost of a smile on Matthew’s lips.

  We sat in silence until we got back to the house and I almost pushed Hannah up the drive and through the front door. Then once the door shut, I realised I hadn’t given her any parenting guidelines for while I was away, so I shouted some through the letterbox before running back to the car.

  “I’m sorry about that.”

  His fingers tightened on the steering wheel. “It’s okay. I can’t imagine what it will be like when my boys are teenagers.”

  “It’s no easy task I can assure you.”

  I waited for him to turn and smile at me. When it didn’t happen, I buckled up my seatbelt. “Okay. Scotland. You know I’ve never been before.”

  “I know.”

  With that he started to drive us towards the station.

  “I’m sorry. There’s been some mistake with the booking.” Matthew towered over the ticket desk. Pretty scary if you ask me, but the tiny little man on the other side of the glass didn’t back down.

  “I apologise, sir. But the booking was for a twin cabin, not two first class ones.”

  Matthew sighed and flicked a dark glance over me. “Okay. Not a problem. Can I upgrade now, please? We have to get this train.” He flashed the man a cajoling smile and nodded his head towards me in a ‘can you see we are not suitable to share a cabin’ kind of way.

  “I’m sorry, sir. The train is full. It’s the double or nothing.”

  I elbowed past Matthew and smiled at the man with all my teeth. “I apologise about the confusion. It’s just this is a business trip, and that’s not entirely professional. Are you sure there is nothing that you can do; no one else can be swapped about?”

  The man stared at the computer screen for a whole two seconds. “No. They are bunk beds though.”

  “Oh.” I turned to Matthew and cranked my neck back to look up at him. His face had morphed into a mask of anger, with hard lines and his lips pressed into a straight line. Nothing unusual there.

  For the millionth time in the last week I wondered what the hell had happened to the guy.

  “Bunk beds aren’t the end of the world. It’s only a few hours, and I guess we could have dinner if you wanted?” I lifted my shoulders but then let them fall.

  What I wanted to do was grab him by the lapels and ask him how things had changed so significantly in the last forty-eight hours.

  “I can suffer it, I suppose.” He reached a long arm past me and snatched the tickets off the counter.

  “Thanks,” I mumbled to the man.

  “I’d say have a good trip, but…”

  I stared after the retreating figure of the giant Scot, my stomach plummeting. “Yeah.”

  My eyes were stinging by the time we found the cabin. He opened the small door and then stepped back so I could squeeze past. I refused to breathe as I brushed across his coat. It would make it hurt all the worse if I had his scent in my head too.

  The cabin was like any long-distance train. White plastic walls, two fold-down bunks. A small door which must have led to a washroom the size of a wardrobe.

  “I’ll take the top.” I didn’t look at him. “I’d hate for the bed to break and you crush me to death.”

  He would. He was a giant. I’d be an imprint on a cheap mattress.

  “Fine.”

  Ignoring his eyes on me, I clambered up and then laid face first on the bed.

  “What are you doing?” This was followed by a deep sigh.

  “I refuse to talk or look at you anymore.” I pressed my face further into the pillow. Maybe I’d just stop breathing. I’d take that right now.

  “Fine.”

  Another sigh.

  Then there was a creak as he must have sat on his bunk below.

  Gah. The man.

  I lifted my head so I could wipe at my cheeks. Bloody hot and sticky, my hair stuck to the trails of my tears.

  “Fuck, are you crying?”

  Not on the bunk below then.

  “Please go away.”

  “Ronnie?” I quivered as his hand landed on the back of my head. There was a long chance he planned to finish my suffocation project.

  I held still as his fingers swept through my hair.

  “I’m sorry, Ron.”

  He genuinely sounded remorseful and I turned my head so I could crank an eye open and look at him. Still stood in his coat, his black hair messed up; his eyes were bright but pinched around the edges with a squeeze of concern.

  “I don’t get you.” I covered my face with my hand, screwing my eyes shut. So sticky and yuck, gah. He didn’t need to see this. “I thought Saturday night we’d kind of got somewhere.” I was such a child; I talked into my palm. “I guess my evaluation of the theory came out different to your conclusion.”

  Fingers tugged against mine, but I still didn’t open my eyes. “Is that what you think?” His low voice licked through me.

  “You’ve been a complete arsehole all day.”

  “I know.” He almost whispered as he leant down to my ear. “I have real issues with jealousy. And I’m sorry.”

  I opened one eye again and found him leant down close. I could smell his skin, the hint of fresh air still hanging around his coat.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You.” He swallowed hard like the words were a challenge. “This morning when I came into the office your staff were having a lovely little jolly sitting around with their coffees and talking about how they would get you dating again. Tinder was mentioned, then the one with the red lips started saying how you were still so in love with Paul and that no one else would ever match up to him so maybe you’d stay a widow forever.”

  What the hell?

  “And then that Fred, with the skinny jeans, said that he would find a way to wake you up.”

  “He’s a child.”

  “Ronnie, he really isn’t.”

  I held in my responsive gag.

  “But why are you angry?”

  I watched his face carefully. “I hate the thought of you being in love with anyone, even your dead husband.”

  My heart clanged like it had received a shock directly from electricity.

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “I didn’t say it was logical.”

  We stared at one another; my heart began to beat faster.

  “I’m sorry I’ve been rude all day.”

  I shrugged. “Obnoxious.”

  “Will you come and have dinner with me?”

  As if on cue the train jerked as it left the platform. There was no getting off now. I didn’t even know what the next station was. This was a one-way ride into the unknown. Matthew’s world. His world I’d never been in before.

  “I don’t much feel like sitting out in public and maki
ng small talk, Matthew. I’ve got a headache, and honestly, I’m done in. There are only so many arguments I can have in one day.”

  “Hannah?”

  “And Ma.”

  “Hannah is like you, I think.” He still stood near my bunk, leaning against it, his face thoughtful.

  “I’m sorry about her thinking she knew you. She likes to go on about things.”

  He hesitated, his beautiful mouth parted a whisper. God, I wanted to kiss those lips. I wouldn’t though.

  Kissing hurt.

  This thing with Matthew hurt. It always hurt.

  His chest fell, his shoulders dropping, and his sigh could have washed me out to sea.

  “I guess you should ring and tell Amanda there was a mistake with the booking. She might be funny about us bunking together.” I scrutinised him from under my lashes.

  “Why would I do that?” His brows pulled together.

  “She doesn’t strike me as a woman who doesn’t like to be in the know.”

  “She’s a pain in my arse and make no mistake.”

  “Quite.” Gah, this hurt right down in the depths of my stomach. Every moment with him suspended between heaven and hell. I turned on my side and faced the wall of the cabin. “I’m going to sleep.”

  “I mean,” he continued, “families are a nightmare anyway, but having your cousin trailing you and bossing you around all the time is a total ball-ache.”

  His what?”

  I turned back. “Matty?”

  “She’s called me that since I was five and she realised it made me angry.”

  “Mother?”

  “She’s my dad’s sister’s daughter, but her and Mum are very close. Annoyingly so.”

  “Not your girlfriend?”

  His lips curved. “Still trying to get rid of a wife. I don’t need a girlfriend too.”

  Quite. Right.

  “Dinner? Please, Ronnie? I am sorry.”

  “I think it’s best we don’t.”

  The blue of his eyes hardened with icy depths. “Fine.”

  “Okay, fine.”

  He shot me one last laser intense glance and then walked back to the door, opening it and then swinging it shut behind him without another word.