by Bloom, Anna
My legs shook and a baffled silence settled around us. Like the beat of my universe—my heart—was the only sound in existence. “All these years I’ve blamed myself. I’ve felt so guilty that I never loved Paul with all my heart, that when he died it actually felt something close to relief. I never would have lived that lie if you’d walked through the door. Why didn’t you?”
“My dad found me, and I told him everything. Told him I thought I loved you, that you filled my head with every single thought I had. That I couldn’t get married because I knew it would be a mistake.” Matthew hiked in a breath. I wished I could turn to see what his family’s faces looked like, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from his face. “He told me I needed to do what I thought was right. I could forget you and save everything that Carlings were. Or I could…” He stopped.
“So the next day you got married knowing you were in love with me?”
“Didn’t you get married loving me?”
“No! You fucking idiot. I got married trying to bloody forget you.” I pressed my palms against the sockets of my eyes. “And I failed.”
Shit. I needed to go. My life morphed into spinning teacups at a fairground and I couldn’t stop it from turning.
I’d been such a bloody fool.
I got myself to move, my legs mechanical. The silence in the room, the dropped conversations, drowned out the sound of the cheesy music we’d been dancing to.
Oh God.
It was all a dream.
A youthful fancy.
I headed into the hallway and found my coat, slipping it on and shivering as the silky lining brushed my skin.
Lynn was in their kitchen, so I quickly walked over and said goodbye.
“You can’t go out there now; it’s starting to snow.” Her face was etched with sympathy. She must have known about Matthew’s drunken trip to London all those years ago and the fact he returned and went straight to church.
She must have known who I was as soon as I walked through the door.
“I will help your family business, Lynn, I promise.”
“Honestly, Ronnie, it’s never meant that much to me. A stupid price for my husband’s health and son’s happiness. But the fools could never see it.”
My tears burned against my lashes. “It’s been lovely meeting you. At last.”
She grabbed my face, strangely maternal, and it made my tears a little hotter. “He never stopped talking about you.”
“I never talked about him enough. I think that says it all.”
Wiping at my face, I headed out to the front door. Lynn was right, snow had begun to come down in big blobby chunks. Not nice fluffy white stuff, but wet and cold; dollops of disappointment to land on my cheeks.
“Ronnie,” he called as I reached the bottom step. I breathed in deep not knowing if I had the strength to turn.
Rings
“Please don’t leave like this.” It strummed all minor chords and it hurt my heart.
I glanced up and down the street looking for a taxi that could get me to the station. I might have been able to get on a returning sleeper train.
“Matthew, I need to go.”
“Where are you going?”
“Home.”
“Why?”
He stepped closer, his thumb wiping my face.
“Because I don’t belong here with you. This is your life, and I really need to get back to mine.”
“I’m sorry, Ronnie. Do you know how the memory of standing outside the pub has burned me all this time?”
“Angela was right. You are just set to break my heart.” I shook my head. “She’s told me so many times. Even a couple of weeks ago after that stupid reunion she told me.”
His hand pushed through his hair, his face torn. “Angela? She’s the one who always told me you weren’t interested.” His face hardened.
“Shut up, Matthew. Don’t try and turn this.”
“It’s the truth. She hated the fact we were friends and was always trying to get you to go out with other people. On the day of that Freshers ball she tried to stop me chasing after you, but I ignored her. Even at the reunion…” He groaned and pulled at his hair.
“What? You danced with all the women. I guess I wasn’t there to keep them at bay anymore. A Matthew free for all. For the first time you were officially single. I get that.”
His mouth fell open. “What are you talking about?”
I didn’t have time for this. “I can’t believe you are turning this around. Angela has been my friend through everything. She was the one who sat by my side after Paul died. What did you do? You were drawing up divorce agreements and rowing about money, trying to save your father’s business just to save your face.”
“That’s not true.” His shoulders slumped. “You have no idea how untrue that is.”
“Matthew. I’m sorry. I wish I’d never come here.” God, my chest hurt. It scorched raw, enough to cripple me.
“Really?” He stepped closer. “You’re sorry about this morning? Because—”
“Matthew, stop.” My breath hiked, ragged and uneven. “This is nothing more than a dream. It’s a foolish fancy that two children dreamed up when they didn’t know any better.” I filled my lungs with icy, snow-melted air. “I need to get back to my life, because I realise now that I haven’t been living it. I’ve been so bloody stupid. All the anger at Paul. All the disappointment in myself. Living with my Ma, doing what everyone expects. Hell, keeping a business running because I think it would be wrong to fail. I’ve been dreaming. Still stuck in that moment on the doorstep when I didn’t know what to say.” The truth lightened the tightness in my chest until I almost laughed. “Oh God, I see it all now. The reason I didn’t know what to say was because you didn’t ever actually ask. You wanted me to tell you it would be okay to let your family down, to disappoint everyone, but I could never say that because you’d never told me what was going on. You never let me in. All the nights we sat in silence it wasn’t me not talking, it was you. You were the chicken shit out of the two of us, not me.”
“That’s not true.” His fingers reached for mine. “You don’t know what it was like. You were a safe haven for me. You don’t understand how much I wanted you, but Dad was always going on about being honourable, doing the right thing. Every time I came home at the weekend it felt like I couldn’t hold on to the dream of you. Then that night I knocked on your door I just needed you to speak for me, to give me anything that would tell me I didn’t have to go home, that I didn’t have to be that Matthew Carling anymore, that I could just be your Matthew.”
I shuddered a sob, my shoulders shaking.
“You could have been. You should have told me what was going on. You could have stayed with me; even Ma would have let you stay on the couch if you’d nowhere else to go. You weren’t alone. I would have been there. You should have asked me, explained.”
His lips flickered.
“Let’s get back inside, Ronnie. My brothers are staring out of the window like idiots. Stay tonight and then if you want to go in the morning, I will take you to the station.”
I looked up into his face, heaven and slate, beauty and pride. The thought of staying the night, the deep fall into this arms and soul, teased me until I nearly undid. But then I thought of what I needed to get home for. “I’m going to go.”
“But, your stuff…”
“It’s okay. I don’t need any of it.”
It was so true. There wasn’t a single thing, not one possession that I needed. I just had to get home to Hannah and tell her not to be like me. Had to beg her to never doubt herself.
“Goodbye, Matthew.”
“I will always regret this.” His eyebrows pulled together, his beautiful lips turning down at the edges.
Reaching up on my tiptoes, I kissed his cool cheek, inhaling that scent clinging to his coat one last time. “We can’t regret the things we didn’t do, Matthew. Just live the life you have now.”
His fingers caught my chi
n, turning me so I had to meet his gaze. His lips pressed against mine, hard and sure, and for the sake of all the things that were never meant to be, I kissed him back.
I shivered uncontrollably at the ticket office in the train station. Relieved I only had half an hour until the next train, I went and grabbed a coffee and then huddled on a bench to wait out the time.
Stupidly, every so often I glanced along the station concourse, hoping to see him march along, his coat tails flapping behind him. He didn’t.
What a twenty-four hours.
Watching my breath mist in front of my face I knew every minute had been a dream.
Matthew Carling and I were nothing more than a page in a forgotten history.
Friends weren’t meant to be lovers. Friends were supposed to stay friends without blurring the lines.
Once you began erasing the lines no one knew where they stood anymore.
God, I just wanted to get home.
Scotland was cold and miserable. Why was it so cold? It was March for God’s sake. In London we’d be waiting for the first blossoms of spring. Scotland was still in the depths of winter. Pulling my hand away from the heat of the cup, I held my palm up to the sky and watched as snow settled in my grasp.
Like the snow that dragged Paul away, it melted in my hand. An icy burn, a bitter memory.
A new slither of pain edged its way into the surface of my heart.
I got my phone out and shot a text to Ange. On my way home. Let's not talk about it.
There was no answer and I sipped at my coffee until the train was ready to board and then with one last look at the station I slipped into my seat and shut my eyes.
I didn’t get to unlock the front door until six the following morning. The house was quiet. Neat and perfect.
The same as always. Everything had been tidied like the previous evening hadn’t happened.
I almost snuck up to my room just so I could lie face down on my bed. I couldn’t do that though.
I needed to keep going. If I stopped now, I’d battle the memories of yesterday morning in Matthew’s purple house.
How had he stood on the other side of the pub window? I’d gone over and over it all night on the train. He’d come all the way to London, left his own stag party in a bid to see me, but then hadn’t spoken a word.
Silence.
It was all silence.
My life was one long never-ending stretch of echoing silence.
Well, not anymore.
In the kitchen I switched on the radio and turned it up and then I flicked on the kettle. I’d need caffeine; lots of it, until it oozed out of my pores.
When I’d got coffee and toast and changed into jeans and a sweatshirt, I pulled out the notes I’d made at Lynn’s kitchen table. Before history went sideways.
I owed it to Matthew and his family to help them. If I could help him save that company, it would make everything seem so much more worthwhile.
I’d got a clear idea of how we could bridge the past and the present. Not for me—I knew no bridge could span that far—but for the shop a vision had taken shape. Now I just had to get it onto paper.
“Oh, you’re home early, darling.” Ma walked in, already immaculate in pale trousers and a wool blend jumper.
“I needed to get back.”
“What are you working on?” She peered at the drawings in front of me. “Is that the rebrand?”
“Ma, can I ask a question?”
“Can I have my morning coffee first?”
“No. Well, you can be making it but I’m going to ask. When Matthew Carling turned up, you recognised him, didn’t you?”
“That tall man with the dark hair?” She inspected a mug looking for dirt that didn’t exist.
I raised an eyebrow. “Did you have many men here that evening?”
“Erm, no.”
“Ma! Please!”
She sighed and spent a million years stirring her coffee; the bash of the teaspoon against the china ringing and grating on my nerves. Finally, she blew her coffee, spreading steam in front of her face. Then she turned with her face set. “Yes. You’d gone out on a date with Paul. He knocked at the door. Of course, I recognised him from when he used to walk you home and you used to loiter at the end of the road thinking I didn’t know you were there.” She shook her head. “Stand out there like riff-raff for hours you used to. Anyway.” She smoothed herself down. “I told him where you were, and he left.”
“Why were you watching me walking down the road on the way home from class?” I met her gaze and made it clear with a glare I wouldn’t be letting her escape my questioning.
“I just liked to know where you were. It was easier for me to keep the house organised and run smoothly if I knew where you were. Your dad liked things just so.”
I cocked my head, my attention falling onto the paper in front of me. “Did he though? Or is that just you? Do you just need everything the way you like it?”
I made a stroke on the paper as I worded my next question in my head before blasting it at her, “Why did you want me to move back in here after Dad died?”
“It made sense, didn’t it? For us to just have one house to run between us.”
“But I don’t run the house do I, Ma? It’s still just your house. It’s always been your house.”
“I’ve helped you though, haven’t I? You wouldn’t have been able to run this silly business of yours if you and Hannah hadn’t been here. You needed me. Like your dad always needed me.”
“Need and want are very different things though, aren’t they?”
The clock on the wall of the kitchen ticked louder than I’d ever heard it before.
Want.
Need.
Things that sound the same but are anything but. You want someone to live with to give you company, to love; you need someone to live with you to fill your life with purpose.
You want someone you don’t think you can ever have, but you need someone to be brave enough to need you back.
Want and need. Two forms of desire a universe apart.
Just like that everything made crystal clear sense. “Ma, why don’t we see any of Dad’s relatives, those that are left? There must be nieces, nephews?”
Ma’s mouth worked silently until she pulled herself together. “Well, it’s just complicated isn’t it, keeping in touch with people.” She waved her fingers. “You know, then you have to meet up, make small talk.”
The same reasons I never made it to a reunion.
“Ma.”
Her face closed and I stopped my words. She and I, we were the same. Hannah too. Ma found it easy to tell me the ‘right’ way to do things, but that didn’t mean she could do them herself. She was the queen of her castle, her home, much like I was the queen bee of my work. A safe zone I’d created.
I tried to think of something to say. But I couldn't. The irony wasn’t lost on me, not at all.
So instead of questioning her, pushing us into that uncomfortable zone of truth and recriminations—let’s be honest I’d had enough of those in the last twenty-four hours—I said, “Thanks, Ma, for helping me when I needed it.”
I waited for her to say thank you to me, thank you for giving her what she’d needed too, but she just sipped her coffee. Oh, it all made so much more sense.
“So what happened in Scotland?”
“Long story. Listen, I’ve got to get this all done today. I want it all finalised by tomorrow morning so we can hand it over to the client.”
“Oh, don’t worry. I can look after Hannah.”
I met Ma’s gaze and a little tingle in my spine made me sit up straighter. “I know you can, Ma, and I appreciate it. But she can look after herself; she’s a big girl now.”
“You mean, Ange will be taking her out again all hours like yesterday?”
“No. What I mean is that Hannah is fine, she doesn’t need to be babysat anymore.” I stood from the chair and pushed it back. “And you really don’t need to worry about me eith
er.”
“Oh, Ronnie. Don’t be silly. It’s just your grief talking. You’ve always been so angry.”
“I’m not grieving, Ma. I’ve always been angry because I felt I made bad choices, but I see that now they were just choices. Maybe you should start making some for yourself. There’s a whole lot of life still out there you know?”
I turned and left her sitting at the kitchen table, her fine bone china mug in her hand and an unspoken five syllable ‘tsk’ on her tongue and then I ran up the stairs.
I needed to get to work.
Supersaver Foods needed to be saved today so tomorrow I could move on.
The door to Hannah’s room stood ajar. Her hair spread across the pillow in knotted waves and curls. I almost left her, but then thought better of it.
Words instead of silence. That had to be my new thing.
I walked in and then lowered into a crouch by her bed. She was beautiful all the time, but with her eyes closed and the fight within her snoozing, it was so much easier to see the little girl I once knew.
“Hannah, my love.”
She blinked and then bashed at me with her hand. “Too early.”
Chuckling, I leant in and gave her a kiss. “I know. I’ve got to go to work early. You get yourself to school today, okay? I trust you.”
She made a sound like a sleeping dragon.
“Love you, Hannah.”
“Bet you didn’t tell him,’ she sleep-slurred.
I rocked back on my knees. “Tell who what?”
She’d slipped back to sleep again, and I watched her until my knees began to burn.
I pulled her door shut and then headed back to my room. The same room I lived in all my childhood; same room I lived in through uni. Matthew was right about one thing. It wasn’t the master bedroom.
I ached all over as a thought of him stole its way into my head.
All my make-up still sat on the pine dresser I remembered my dad building for me when I was twelve. Ma had nagged him to death the whole time. I’d sat in the lounge in the end, desperate to be away from the constant tutting and sighing.