The Story of Us

by Dani Atkins

  I eyed the huge slabs of meat in amazement. ‘That has to be half a cow you have there.’

  ‘I’m an American,’ he reminded me with a smile. ‘Originally from a small town in Texas,’ he continued, his accent broadening, to make his point. ‘I can’t let you Brits claim all the clichés.’

  As I waited for the water, I held my chilled hands out to the radiant warmth of the range. My top still felt uncomfortably damp.

  ‘Let me go and find you something dry to put on,’ Jack offered, disappearing into the dark hallway. He was back a few minutes later with a soft grey sweatshirt, bearing the logo of Harvard University, which he held out for me. I ran my finger over the insignia and raised my eyebrows in admiration, ‘The Texas boy did good,’ I said with a smile.

  ‘I had supportive parents, and great teachers,’ he replied modestly, and I liked the way he didn’t claim credit for his academic success, even though I’m sure he had earned it.

  I shook open the sweatshirt and slipped it over my head, trying to ignore the fragrance of him, which lingered deep within the fabric.

  ‘I can turn around,’ he offered chivalrously, as I began to unbutton my wet top beneath the roomy sweatshirt.

  ‘No, that’s okay,’ I assured him, yanking reluctant buttons through holes that didn’t want them to leave. He watched with mild amusement as I proceeded to attempt to wriggle out of the shirt in a series of inelegant contortions, which involved diving down the neckline and up the copious sleeves of his top. I was getting a little hot and flustered, and there was every possibility that I was now stuck inside the stupid shirt.

  ‘Need some help?’ he offered politely, his lips twitching.

  ‘No. I’m fine,’ I insisted, and then winced as a muscle twanged painfully in my neck. I gritted my teeth in determination. ‘I saw this once in a film… it looked much easier than this.’ I also didn’t remember the actress grunting quite as much as I was doing.

  ‘Flashdance, I believe,’ he replied smoothly.

  I stopped my contortions for a second and looked up at him. ‘I’m impressed.’

  ‘I told you, I like movies.’ He had. I’d forgotten that. Finally I was free from my troublesome garment, and heaved a huge sigh of relief as I pulled the wet shirt out from beneath the Harvard top.

  ‘But, if I remember it correctly, the girl in the movie was actually taking off her bra,’ Jack stated.

  I gave a small satisfied smile, reached up my sleeve and pulled out the wet lace undergarment, like a magician producing a rabbit.

  ‘Now I’m impressed,’ he said.

  We sat at his small kitchen table sipping our tea in the dwindling light, and watching the storm as it raged around the cottage. It felt as though we were ensconced on a safe island or in a harbour, protected not just from the elements, but also from all other dangers and worries of the world outside these walls. Jack made me feel safe whenever I was in his company. That had to be tied up with him rescuing me, didn’t it? Yet that didn’t quite explain this curious feeling, as though I’d just found my way home after a really long journey.

  Sheridan. The name rang in my head like a tolling bell. His home was with her, not me. I put my mug back down on the table with a little more force than necessary, causing him to turn back from his study of the lightning to look at me.

  ‘Do you have storms like this in Texas?’ I asked, clumsily forcing the conversation to remind us both of his home and life elsewhere.

  ‘I don’t actually live in Texas any more. We moved to New York when I was a child.’

  ‘And is that where you live now?’ I asked artlessly, all pretence of subtlety thrown out of the window to join the storm. He studied me for a very long moment before answering, and I guessed he’d been interviewed by enough professional journalists to easily recognise a probing question when he heard one. And let’s face it, mine was hardly ingenuous.

  ‘I grew up in New York City and lived there for most of my adult life. Then, a few years ago, when the books started becoming successful, I bought a small ranch in upstate New York, and that’s where I live now.’

  It was rapidly growing too dark to see anything in the kitchen, so Jack pulled a box of candles from a cupboard beside the sink. I heard the scratch of a match, before he picked up our conversation. ‘And what about you? Do you and Richard plan on staying in this area after you’re married?’

  I swallowed a little uncomfortably at his question. Was there an implied criticism in it, or was I just being overly sensitive? ‘Yes, well, it’s where our families and friends live, it’s where we work.’

  He nodded, but again I thought I could see a glimmer of disappointment at my answer. It made me angry; he had no right to judge me, to judge us, for being provincial. There was nothing wrong in that.

  ‘So how long have you two been engaged?’

  ‘Just since Christmas.’

  He lifted a candle and positioned it on the window ledge by the sink, providing just enough illumination for me to see his look of surprise. ‘That recently? I somehow got the impression you two had been together for much longer.’

  ‘We’ve been together since we were teenagers, but we broke up for quite a while. I went away.’

  Jack continued the task of placing the lit candles at strategic points around the room. The flickering flames cast dancing shadows on the rough stone walls, making the room look like an enchanted grotto.

  ‘So where did you go when you were “away”?’ he asked, clearly no longer interested in discussing my relationship.

  ‘London to begin with, and then my job took me to Washington for eighteen months.’

  He turned to face me, with a look of surprise. ‘I take it you don’t mean your work at the bookshop?’

  I smiled at the thought. ‘No. I was in marketing. Am in marketing,’ I corrected, hating the way I had recently started to refer to my chosen profession in the past tense.

  He looked at me curiously, waiting for me to continue. ‘I’ve had to take a little… career break… a sabbatical, I suppose you’d call it.’ I paused, feeling, as always, uncomfortable when I had to explain this. ‘My mother hasn’t been very well recently, so I moved back home for a while to help my father look after her.’

  There was admiration and understanding in his eyes. ‘Until she gets better?’ he questioned.

  I paused at his words. ‘Actually no, until she gets worse. Or at least bad enough that my dad will finally be able to accept what is happening to her, and let her go.’ I looked up, trying hard not to let the tears spill over. My words might sound tough, but I certainly wasn’t, and never more so since the car accident. ‘It’s Alzheimer’s,’ I said, only the words were a bit muffled, because somehow – and I don’t remember how it happened – I was being comforted in his arms and my mouth was against the wall of his chest.

  He offered no words, and I was really glad that he hadn’t trolled out some well-meaning and ineffectual platitude. For a man who made his living using words, he certainly knew when they weren’t required. I really liked that. Eventually, feeling more than a little embarrassed, I pulled away.

  ‘So,’ I asked, with a false cheery smile and tear-stained cheeks, ‘do you still want me to have a go at cooking those steaks?’

  I rummaged around in the drawers of the range in search of a griddle pan, while he began to make a salad. We worked together in companionable silence, as though this was just one of many meals we had prepared together. That was the strangest thing: that none of this – as unfamiliar as it might be – felt strange at all. A couple of times I glanced up and caught him looking at me with an expression that was difficult to define, but the closest I could get to it was a kind of pleasantly surprised mystification. I felt the same.

  I wanted to ask him if he cooked at home with his wife, not because I was interested, but just because I thought one of us should at least acknowledge our absent partners, but somehow the right moment never identified itself. We ate at the kitchen table by the light of the c
andles. I had burned the steaks slightly, but Jack was way too polite to say anything other than that was just the way he liked his meat. He opened a bottle of wine, but I only had one small glass, saying that I would soon have to drive back home.

  ‘I don’t think you should leave until the storm dies down,’ Jack said solemnly. ‘The coastal road isn’t lit and it’s downright lethal in the rain.’

  An image came to mind of another darkened road we both had reason to remember well. Survivor and rescuer, we shared a long and meaningful look. ‘I can’t be back late,’ I said. ‘My parents are in permanent panic mode whenever I’m driving these days.’

  ‘That’s understandable. Couldn’t you call them?’

  ‘Richard will be phoning me from Austria later, and I don’t think he’d be too pleased to know I was still out.’ What I really meant was out with you, and I think Jack realised that.

  ‘But he wouldn’t want you driving when the roads weren’t safe?’

  ‘Of course not,’ I replied, springing to my fiancé’s defence. There was no polite way to say that Richard would probably think my safety was more in jeopardy in Jack’s company than on the roads. I was suddenly overwhelmed by a tidal wave of guilt.

  Jack must have sensed my discomfort, for he reached across the table and patted the back of my hand, the way you’d soothe a fretting child. ‘Don’t worry. We’ll get you back home, one way or another.’

  Then he seemed to suddenly remember something. ‘Earlier on, when you first got here, you said you’d brought me something,’ Jack suddenly remembered. ‘What was it?’ I quickly withdrew my hand from beneath his, as his words reminded me of the purpose of my visit. I felt like I’d just been doused with a bucket of ice-cold water.

  ‘I’ve left it in the car. I’ll just get it,’ I said, pushing away from the table and heading for the front door, before he had a chance to stop me. It was still raining, but nowhere near as ferociously as before. I was back in seconds, handing him the rain-speckled brown paper package, which I had loosely rewrapped. There was a smile of curiosity on his handsome face, which froze slowly when he saw his own jacket. Wordlessly he walked back to the kitchen, and by the light of the candles he read the note Amy’s mother had written. ‘Can you give me their address?’ he asked solemnly. ‘I’d like to write back.’

  ‘Of course.’

  He looked at the folded leather jacket and I wondered if, like the dress I had worn on that fateful night, his jacket was also destined to be discarded. Some objects remain for ever tainted, however well you manage to remove the surface stains from them.

  We were silent for a long time. When Jack next spoke, it was to ask a question. A question that, with hindsight, should have been preceded by a warning klaxon.

  ‘There’s something that’s been puzzling me about that night, something Amy said. What was it that she was referring to when she thanked you for forgiving her?’

  I frowned in genuine confusion at his words. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Don’t you remember,’ he said encouragingly, ‘just before the ambulances arrived, Amy thanked you for being a good friend and forgiving her. It seemed so important to her, that it made me curious.’

  ‘I… I don’t know,’ I said, slowly shaking my head from side to side. I’d forgotten her words until that moment, and something inside me clenched and tightened at the memory. I was aware Jack was still studying me. ‘I don’t think she knew what she was saying,’ I said, my voice not quite steady. ‘But that’s hardly surprising, is it? She was barely conscious, nothing she said made sense. They were just meaningless words.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ apologised Jack, as he saw my look of distress. Suddenly I was back there, kneeling on the wet tarmac, looking down at my horribly injured friend, holding her hand… not for a moment really believing that this was going to be the last conversation we ever had.

  For the second time that night Jack’s arms wrapped around me in comfort. The sob seemed to come from somewhere deep within me, from a well I had tried to seal – not very effectively, as it turned out. He held me gently while I cried, and there was a release in being able to be this way with him because, unlike with Richard or Caroline, I didn’t need to worry about his pain, his loss, or his feelings, I could just allow the tide of grief to take hold of me and wash me up when it was done. My hands were trapped between us, lying on his chest and I could feel the strong and steady beat of his heart against my palm. Still holding me against him, one hand moved up to my hair, gently smoothing it against the curve at the back of my neck. Gradually the torrent of tears slowed down to a trickle. I raised my head from his chest and the large damp patch I had left on his T-shirt. ‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered. Even my voice sounded broken and hurt.

  ‘Sshhh,’ he soothed, and then with no warning, no sign, or hint that it was about to happen, his head lowered and his lips gently brushed mine.

  We sprang apart as though we’d been electrocuted. My gasp of shock cleared all other emotions away as though a bush fire had seared through them. My eyes blazed with fury. Was that what this had all been about? Had he only been comforting me so he could take advantage of my vulnerability? How could I have misjudged him and the situation so badly?

  Then I looked at him properly. He looked as shocked by what he had done as I did, and almost as horrified. He held out a hand towards me in a gesture of someone trying to ward off something wicked. As though somehow all of this was my doing.

  ‘What the hell—?’ I shouted.

  ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do that. I don’t know what I was thinking.’ There was probably some sort of insult tied up in that, but I was too angry to pick up on it. ‘I wasn’t trying to take advantage of you, please believe that, Emma.’

  I shook my head, looking at him as though I had never seen him before, as though he was a stranger. Which, in reality, was pretty much exactly what he was. I looked around frantically for my bag and plucked it up.

  ‘Emma, please,’ Jack implored, his hand still outstretched and his face anguished. ‘I don’t even know how that happened. I didn’t want to kiss you. I don’t want to kiss you.’ Did he really think anything he was saying was making things better?

  ‘Good to know,’ I said bitterly, ‘but it doesn’t change a damn thing.’

  I spun on my heel and headed for the door.

  ‘Emma, wait,’ Jack cried. His hand fastened on my wrist, turning me back towards him. ‘Let me explain.’

  ‘Save it,’ I spat out. ‘I don’t know why you did that, and I don’t even care. But whatever this… this friendship was, you’ve just gone and ruined it.’

  There was a tight ball of pain in my chest, and I could feel it burning like a comet with anger as I looked at him. ‘I thought you understood me. I thought we were becoming friends, that I could trust you.’

  ‘I do, we are, and you can,’ he answered. I shook my head and saw that I was now at his front door without realising how I got there. But he was following close behind me, so that when I turned to deliver my parting words, I almost crashed into him. ‘I owe you a lot, Jack. I won’t ever deny that. But what you did just now… well that just crossed the line, as far as I’m concerned.’ If my words meant anything at all to him, he hid it well. ‘So thank you for saving my life, enjoy the rest of yours, and if you have any decency at all, why don’t you do us both a favour and stay as far away from me as possible.’

  I was out of the door by then. I could hear from the crunch of gravel that he was still following me. I jumped into my car, my heart hammering crazily as I risked one glance to where he stood, watching me with an agonised look on his face. My hand was shaking so much it took three attempts to finally slot the key into the ignition.

  Illuminated in the beam from my headlights, I saw the planes of his faces cast into shadowy relief. His eyes looked bleak as he ran his hand across his mouth, and my own lips tingled treacherously at the memory of the feel of it. Guilt rose like bile in my throat, bitter and acidic. I
thumped down hard on the button to lower my window. ‘Richard was right about you,’ I said through the gap. Jack winced as though I’d cut him. ‘What the hell were you thinking? You and your wife might go in for all that open relationship crap, but I certainly don’t!’

  I sped backwards down his drive, tearing up the turf beside it in my haste. I should have been paying better attention, but my eyes were fixed only on the stunned look of shock on his face.

  CHAPTER 7

  The good thing about rage, the kind of blind, blood-filled rage that I was feeling as I left Jack’s home, is that it gives you something tangible to focus on. And while you’re busy fuelling it and feeding it with all the clever and scathing things you should have said, if only you’d thought of them at the time, then you don’t have to worry about digging deeper and uncovering the thing that is really eating away at you.

  But, like the storm the night before, my anger could only last for so long before it burned itself out. And by the light of day when the red mist had lifted, I realised that much of my reaction to Jack’s touch had come from guilt. I’d allowed him to get close to me, confusing the debt I owed him with a fast pass to friendship and trust. And Richard’s own reaction to Jack had only made me stubbornly determined to prove him wrong. But aside from Jack’s heroism on the night of the accident, what did I really know about him? Nothing. I’d lied on the phone to Richard that night, and I couldn’t remember ever having done that before. I blamed a cold for the rasp in my voice, hearing my dishonesty buzzing down the phone lines between us like a malevolent mosquito. I didn’t mention visiting Jack. Of course, that was only a lie by omission, but I knew I was splitting hairs with that one.

  It was only when I began to unravel the scene in Jack’s kitchen, winding it up like a ball of unpicked yarn, that I realised everything had started to spiral out of control with his question about Amy. Such an inconsequential thing, but once voiced it could never be unasked, and it was going to keep nagging away at me until it was answered: What did Amy believe I had forgiven her for? I could think of absolutely nothing she had ever done that required an apology. And even more bewildering, why on earth did my good friend, with her generous spirit, open heart and joyful approach to life, think she’d done something to hurt me? Nothing was less likely to be true.