by Bloom, Anna
Matthew leant in and kissed her cheek. “Boys been good?” he asked.
“Yes, yes. Assuming you don’t mind walking on Lego.”
“I’ll clean it up.” Matthew grinned and gave his mum an extra squeeze. He was a mama’s boy. Funny how I never knew that.
“Well come in, come in, people will be here soon.” She bustled us inside and instantly I became wrapped up in that cosy cotton wool feeling a warm house can provide. I shivered as I recalled the chill of Matthew’s bedroom. Then I shivered again when I remembered the heat of his hands against my cool skin.
Ooh. Highly inappropriate thoughts in front of his mum and children.
Rein it in, Ronnie.
“Thanks for making me welcome, Mrs Carling.”
Matthew shrugged me out of my coat and hung it on a hook near the door. There was a tweed flat cap hanging on the peg next to it.
“Oh, you look beautiful, what a gorgeous dress.” She touched the black material and then turned me so she could see the back which was cut away, possibly more than appropriate. “Please call me Lynn.”
I gave another shiver and Lynn shot Matthew a glare, scolding, “She’s freezing. Why didn’t you get here sooner?”
“Oh, that’s my fault.” I offered her a smile. I counted in my head so I didn’t focus on the tight band in my chest. Matthew nodded slightly, just like he used to, at the very edge of my peripheral vision. It was the same motion he used to make in lectures when I spoke to a lecturer. It was always comforting and reassuring to know that he stood there ready to cut in if I lost it, but gave me space to have a try anyway.
Stupid that one woman can struggle so much for words.
From my memories, I knew his hand would land gently on the bottom of my back, and despite his mother standing there, he didn’t disappoint.
“We’ve been having issues coming up with the perfect approach for the rebrand and relaunch.”
To my surprise Lynn rolled her eyes and then batted Matthew on the stomach. Quite hard. I wondered if her fingers hurt? “I hope he hasn’t been too much of a bore; he’s a bugger with those shops.”
“Boarish. I can’t lie.” I chuckled. Jack looked up at me with big round eyes.
Matthew clutched his chest. “You wound me. Right, where’s this Lego? I’ll get it sorted before anyone else comes. Heaven forbid Aunty Annie slips on a piece and breaks her hip.”
His body moved with tranquillity, so carefree, with his jumper pushed up at the elbows, his face alive with easy smiles and bright eyes. So very different to the man who sat in my office back in London.
So much of the old Matthew.
“Don’t be rude about your Aunty Annie,” Lynn scolded. “She can’t help the fact she can’t see properly.”
Matthew laughed. The sound tingled down my spine. Then he steered the two boys towards what I guessed must have been a front room. Lynn held her arm out, beckoning for me to follow her towards a room at the end of the hallway.
“Aunty Annie likes sherry a bit too much, and won’t admit that she’s drunk,” she said as we walked along. I tried to glance over my shoulder to see where Matthew had gone. He’d left me. Who would cut in when I had nothing to say?
Lynn carried on, her chuckle deep and throaty. “So she always says her eyesight is failing. It’s a family joke that she’s blind with sherry.” She cast a glance over me. “You have bonkers relatives I’m sure. Every family has them.”
I shrugged, already feeling like I failed. “Uh. Not really.” I wanted to fill the gap. “It’s my mother, my dad’s dead…” I trailed off. Why did we never see any of Dad’s family anymore? I’d never noticed.
“Oh.” She motioned to the kitchen table. “Well, not to worry, lass, you’ve got off lightly if you ask me. Too many busybodies in this family. They drive me mad always interfering. Would you like to have a drink while I finish a few things up here?”
“Can I help? I’d like to.” I pulled a face at myself which Lynn must have seen.
“Do you know how to layer a trifle?”
“Uh. Well, no.”
“I’ll talk you through it. Matthew will be a while with the boys, I think.”
I nodded. “They must miss him. London is a long way from here.”
“Terribly. Not helped by the fact their moth—” she cut herself off. “Sorry, I shouldn’t speak out of turn. Matty is always telling me off for sticking my nose in—guess I’m not unlike the other members of this family.”
I wanted to know what she was about to say as much as I wanted to know the cure to world hunger. What about their mother? What had she done? Why wasn’t she in any of the family pictures in his house?
“Where’s your husband? I’d love to talk about the rebrand with him. Matthew is obsessively protective over it. I guess I can understand though. It’s been in the family a long time, yes?”
Lynn looked at me blankly. “Ronnie, love. Matthew’s father is dead. Tonight is his memorial dinner.”
My face did nothing other than hang open in gaping surprise. Air rushed against my tongue; that’s how wide it flapped. “Oh. I’m so sorry. Bloody hell, Matthew didn’t say.”
I stared at the ceiling for a moment trying to pull myself together. Why didn’t he say anything?
“It’s hard, for him, always has been.” Lynn’s face softened. “They had such a strained relationship, and then towards the end Matthew tried to heal it, but time slipped away too fast before he could really achieve what he wanted.”
“Oh.” I had a thousand and one questions. My cheeks were hot. “I’m so, so sorry. I didn’t know.”
“Well you’re only working on the project, aren’t you? I guess there’s no reason for Matty to say everything.” She shot me a sharp glance. Jeez could all mother’s do that look?
“Uh, yes. I’m just hired for the rebrand, we haven’t got long left.” Oooh. I can’t breathe. “Not long left at all, just a few days.” My chest caved a little and I bent to ease the pain.
“Ronnie. Are you okay?”
“Yes.” I said, but it sounded like someone had their hands clasped around my neck.
“Here, have some water.” She stepped up to the old-fashioned porcelain butler sink and pulled the brass handle, splashing water into a glass she grabbed from the draining board.
“Thanks.” I sipped at it when she thrust it into my hand. “How long has it been since your husband passed away?”
“Today is fourteen years.”
Her gaze ran across my hand. “Oh. My husband died five years ago.” The way I said it, the way the words felt as they worked their way free was like I was talking about someone else. I was embarrassed for myself and filled with a revulsion that must have shown on my face because Lynn patted my hand.
Her kind face, with the warm eyes and the lips that curved like her son’s, crumpled. “Oh, Ronnie. I am so sorry. You are very young.”
I offered a rueful laugh. “Not that young anymore.”
“Age is nothing but a number that gets printed on birthday cards. It comes down to happiness, what you love and how you spend your time, the precious hours between life and death. That’s what ages you.”
“That explains why I feel a hundred and five.” I put the glass down on the table. I could breathe now. Lynn had that same easy way about her as Matthew. It’s like they created space around them, could provide oxygen in any situation. It was a rare gift.
“You said Matthew tried to heal the bridges with his dad?”
Her gaze shadowed and I realised too late my question had stepped beyond one of polite interest in a client.
“His dad said he had to take responsibility; that he shouldn’t mess around with people. If you’d committed to something, then you should see it through. Matthew struggled with that. He didn’t want to work in the shop. He was always the creative one out of them all. But then when Phil’s health started to fail, Matthew made sure the shop could keep running.”
“Julie’s dad offered to buy the business,
didn’t he?”
“Yes.” Getting up from the chair she’d sat on, she walked to the kitchen work surface and then came back with ingredients in her hand. She handed me a packet of sponge biscuits. “We’d better get this trifle into the fridge otherwise it won’t set firm.”
Distracted, I pulled at the edge of the wrapper, winding it around the sweet-smelling biscuits. “What happened then?”
“Carling Supersavers, with its small chain of shops, got swallowed up. Phil died and my son changed.” She paused, her gaze settling on a distant point of history. “Anyway, let’s get this done. The hoards will be here soon.”
I layered the biscuits in the bottom of a glass dish like she told me and then soaked them with sherry like I lubricated a fire with lighter fluid.
No wonder Aunty Annie couldn’t walk.
“Here, best drink it before it all goes.” Lynn stepped to a cupboard and grabbed out two small delicate glasses and filled them to the very top. “Cheers. To absent love.”
My breath caught. My own cheers sounded hollow in return.
My absent love was in the room just along. I had the most awful dawning realisation that there was more lingering under the surface to this story of him and I.
I downed the sherry.
Problem was, I wasn’t sure I was brave enough to find out.
He pressed a kiss to the back of my neck as he passed by and I shivered, hot and cold exploding at the spot his lips skimmed against my skin.
I was squirting cream on the trifle. More fun than I would have thought. I batted him away, quickly checking to see if his mum was still in the room.
Thank God she was gone. With a heart easing sigh, I wrapped my hands in his jumper and pulled him close, inhaling him with painful desperation.
I couldn’t shake the feeling this was a dream and I’d wake up soon.
The wake up would be the most hideous event of my life. The moment I realised that Matthew and I weren’t real.
My lips brushed his cheek, tasting the warmth of his skin. My palms slid up his chest and I gave a small smile as he sighed low.
“I can’t believe I’m here.” I screwed my eyes shut as I spoke.
His fingers touched my chin, tilting my mouth until I could feel the brush of his lips. “I can’t believe you haven’t been here before.” An empty resignation rang in his tone and I didn’t want to see the depths in the heaven and slate gaze. I’d take his kiss though and I did.
Another shiver exploded over my skin. His hand wrapped around the back of my head, holding me in a firm cradle as my lips opened and he pressed his warm mouth to mine.
Nothing existed apart from Matthew and the Kiss.
Not his children. Mother. Not even him and I. We were warm lips and hot breath.
Eventually I pulled away, dragging myself from his air-stealing mouth. “Matthew.” This hurt down on a basic level. “Why didn’t you tell me about your dad?”
He stilled, etching himself into a rock of sadness. Our gazes met and I trembled at the connection. “Sometimes I don’t have the words either.”
“You told me you didn’t marry her for her money.”
A deep hurt registered within the confines of heaven and slate. “I didn’t. I did it because it was the right thing to do.”
“For who?”
“Everyone.”
“But her dad bailed out your dad’s company. I thought you broke up with her that night you stood on my doorstep.”
His expression clouded. His hands came to my throat, slipping over my skin. I shivered in my slip of a black dress. “I was so angry with you. And…”
“And?”
“Dad said I needed to do the right thing. What sort of man was I to chase dreams? He said I needed something stable. He said you were a dream.” His lashes closed, resting on his cheeks.
“What then?” I whispered.
“I gave up dreaming.”
There was a space in his words, an echo.
“Ronnie… I…”
I pulled him in close, my nose trailing his skin, revelling in the warmth. Leaning into his ear, I pressed my mouth to the warm lobe, licking it with the tip of my tongue.
“Oh.” We both sprung apart at the sound from the doorway. Lynn’s expression morphed from shocked to sly in a split-second. “The doorbell rang, Matthew. Did you not hear it?”
“Ugh.” He grinned and the boyish glow made my knees weak. “I’ll get it.” I melted at the smile he sent me.
“Sorry.” I cringed in Lynn’s direction. “That’s a bit awkward.”
“Oh please. I’ve been waiting years to see that boy of mine smile.”
“Five years is a long time.” I nodded. I knew all about five years. Ten years. Fifteen years. A lifetime.
“Oh, sweetheart I’ve been waiting longer than that.” Another sly look. “So are you here as a colleague or girlfriend?”
“Ohh. Um. Colleague I think.”
Girlfriend isn’t a title I’d ever owned with Matthew. It always belonged to someone else.
“Perfect. Where did you say you were from again?”
“I didn’t. Surbiton, it’s a suburb outside the south of London.”
“Aye, Lassie, I know it.”
There was a loud shout from the hallway, and she gave me a smile that lifted her pretty rounded face and made it shine as bright as candlelight. “The Carlings are home.”
Panic mode commenced. “Okay.” I clung onto the table-top and breathed deep. Somehow, I had to keep myself together.
“MAAAM! Why’s the footie not on?” A deep voice thundered. I trembled down to my black shoes.
“It's okay, they don’t bite so much as shout a lot and eat all the food. Three boys; it’s just as well we owned a supermarket.”
I laughed, the tension ebbing a little.
“Nanny.” Jack ran in. “Uncle Ryan and Uncle Liam want a beer.”
She rolled her eyes and waved Jack away. “Sure they do.” She pointed to the corner of the kitchen where a small alcove led into a dark corner. “Fridge is there, do you want to put the trifle in and get some drinks? Matty will want one too.”
“Sure.” I turned my attention to the forgotten trifle and picked up the spoon, splurging another dollop of cream on the top. My first trifle. I wished Hannah could see it.
There was a loud burst of laughter from the hallway. Someone (not Matthew—there was no accompanying shiver down in my bones) shouted something about the fact the Rangers were going to freeze their fucking knackers off.
I tried to imagine anyone making this much noise in Ma’s house. F-bombs were on a par with Satanism.
My imagination failed me.
Turning, I went to the fridge and carefully slotted in my masterpiece on the middle shelf next to packets of cheese and cold meats, then I grabbed three beers and opened them using a bottle opener I found screwed into the wall.
Lynn pretended very hard not to watch me walk through the kitchen to the hallway with the beers in my hand.
“Who needed a beer?” My voice wavered. Two giant Scots were laughing in the hallway, but the chiming of their laughter stopped as I walked through. Behind them, also taking off coats and stamping their feet were two relatively normal-sized women and about five hundred children. Just as well the house was big on the reception area front.
“Guys, this is Ronnie.” Matthew waved me over and helped me with the bottles of beers, taking two in his hand and then brushing his spare along the base of my spine. I stood straighter, as tall as I could get, which meant he still towered over me with at least a foot to spare.
“Hi, Ronnie. Aye aye, everyone, Matthew has a new girlfriend.” The giant nearest to me with sandy hair and hazel eyes elbowed Matthew straight in the ribs. He winced and retaliated with a deft punch to his brother’s arm.
“Ah, you fu—”
“Liam!” One of the women behind the wall of men shouted, her voice sharp, accent as deep as hills. Liam shut his mouth.
“Ha, dickhead.
” Matthew punched him again for good measure before turning to me and grinning wide. He didn’t touch me again, but the air between us tingled. “Liam, is this red-headed idiot,” he lowered his voice to a mock whisper, “thinks he’s a bit part in Disney’s Brave. And this rugged and craggy git is Ryan.”
Both giants appraised me. I shrunk to about three foot four—which wasn’t saying much. “Hi?”
“Don’t bloody mind us, will you, Matthew?” One of the women elbowed around him. “Such a gentleman. I’m Lennie and this is Ruth.” We shook hands and I prayed that my palm wasn’t as sweaty as normal.
Ruth with her black hair and green eyes stepped around the brothers, although I wasn’t sure who belonged to whom. “Hope you don’t want to watch football? They don’t stop talking the whole way through it. Ruin every game they do gasbagging like old women.”
Matthew watched me, heaven and slate analysing everything.
I tested my chest, breathing in, surprised when my lungs filled easily with air. It must be Carling magic.
“UNCLE LIAM!!!” A voice hollered from the front room. The flicker of the television just visible through the open door showed a green pitch and chanting fans. “THEY’RE COMING OUT!!!”
“Do you mind?” Matthew looked uncertainly at me.
“Of course not.”
This was weird. I was at a family dinner. A family tradition to commemorate his dead father and I was being treated like a member of the family. I’d liken it to diving headfirst off a dark cliff and not knowing how far below the bottom of the sea sat.
“Come on. Let’s go to the kitchen and moan about Matthew’s ex.” Lennie grabbed me with a steely grip which made my elbow throb. “And you can tell us all about how you met.”
“Oh. I’m not—”
Dancing
“Lyyyynn.” Once Lennie had pulled me into the kitchen, she shut the door and leant into it, looking straight at Lynn. “Tell us everything? What did she look like?” Her gaze flicked to me with an apologetic smile. “Sorry, but I’ve been waiting hours to hear this.”
“Oh, Eleanor.” Lynn shook her head. “She was bright orange, love. Bright bloody orange. Like Irn-Bru.” Lynn went to the alcove containing the fridge and pulled out a bottle of wine. Ruth turned for the cupboard on the left and reached up into it, bringing down some glasses.