Half the World Away

by Rebecca Banks

  ‘Oh, I see the way you’re looking. We were quite the rebels back in the day, just you believe. Sisters in solidarity and all that. We wanted to make sure that the ones who wanted or needed the choice had it. It didn’t seem fair that we had a choice over here and the girls over the water didn’t.’

  Her dad stretched out his hand and put it on top of theirs. ‘That’s how I met her, you know, Abbie. I was walking with my friends down on the docks as we were off to watch a band in a local club, and I saw this stunner of a girl in a miniskirt offering out mugs of tea to girls getting off the ferry. I asked her out on the spot.’

  Frowning, Abbie spoke. ‘Dad, you told me you met Mum in a pub.’

  ‘Yeah, you were never quite as rebellious as me and your mam. We didn’t know how well it would go down finding out we met while she was campaigning for a cause, as it were.’

  Talking about something else had eased the tension running through Abbie, and her mother squeezed her hand as she began talking once again. ‘Did you talk to anyone after, love? Get some support? Because it can be a real help. Even if you were relieved and agreed with the decision you and Josh made in the end, it’s very common to still be carrying around guilt and sadness. And your situation is a bit more complicated because, from what you’ve said, I don’t think you’ve come to terms with the fact it wasn’t a hundred per cent your decision.’

  Abbie shook her head no. ‘Josh came with me, and we were in and out of there as quickly as they would let us. It was pretty awful as there were protesters outside the clinic yelling at me as I went in and came out. I didn’t ask for any help, and to be honest I didn’t know there was any kind of support. Once it was done, that was it, there weren’t any other appointments or follow-ups or anything. I was very often tearful for the first year, and even now I get like that every so often.’

  ‘I get it, love,’ her mother replied. ‘Lots of the girls who came here felt the same way. We kept in touch with them by letter. Back then, there really wasn’t any support and, of course, most of them had to keep it a big secret. But now there’s so much help available, and I think it would do you good to talk to someone. I’ll get you in with someone I know tomorrow, if you want? Everything you’ve felt and are going through is so normal. Let’s get you talking to someone experienced who can help you. But this time, I want it to be completely your decision.’

  At that, Abbie started crying. But they were tears of relief. Her wonderful, kind parents were absolute rocks. She couldn’t have imagined that they had a whole past she never knew about, and how gently they would deal with what happened to her.

  She leaped at the offer of help and, within an hour, she had an appointment set up for the following morning with a friend of her mother, who had also apparently also been part of the groundbreaking seventies support group Liverpool Operation for Valiant Endeavours (LOVE). She couldn’t wait to update Violet. She would be so proud.

  A week later, having had a session each day with the counsellor, Abbie was feeling like a different person. She wished now she had opened up to her parents much earlier, knowing that they wouldn’t have judged her and would have helped her heal faster. But she was dealing with everything head-on now and was already more relaxed having got things off her chest.

  She now understood that she hadn’t grieved her loss at the time, and had buried her sadness, so that sorrow kept resurfacing and affecting the way she felt about herself. She’d felt like she didn’t have a right to feel sad when she felt guilt at the same time. Guilt for the termination, and guilt later on for partly feeling relieved that she hadn’t had a child with Josh. The counselling had given her some crucial learning that had equipped her to start properly moving forwards.

  In fact, she was feeling so good that she’d let Lily, who was home visiting for the weekend, persuade her to go out into the city drinking with her and her friends. Abbie wasn’t entirely sure how a night on the tiles with a group of eighteen-year-olds was going to go, but she was up for the challenge.

  Her sister had deemed that none of Abbie’s clothes were appropriate for heading out – they apparently covered far too much skin – so had shoehorned her into a matching pinstripe crop top and shorts combo with skyscraper heels. Abbie had never worn anything like it in her life, and felt that she looked ridiculous. But Lily was so excited with her creation, and Abbie didn’t know anyone in Liverpool, so she decided to throw caution to the wind and to hell with the consequences. Those consequences might be pneumonia and a broken ankle, but at least she was in the UK so there was always the NHS to fall back on.

  Lily had been on the phone for the past twenty minutes to one of the girls they were about to spend the night with, talking vital clothing and pub route strategies, so Abbie sat waiting in the kitchen and thumbing through a newspaper. She nearly fell off her chair when she saw the headline on the back page: ‘RED CARD FOR SULLY AT LTFC’. She quickly scanned the article. John Sullivan was out of contract at London Town Football Club and her old boss was letting him go. The article alluded to a reputation he had built up of not being the most professional of players and noted that his prospects were looking less than good. Rumours suggested he was moving to Australia for a last-ditch opportunity there, which would surely be a fast track to retirement. Her eyes widened as she read the quote from the manager, Dave Jones.

  “To take this club to the next level I need a team of dedicated individuals who can work together to produce greatness. I need everyone pulling in the same direction and showing commitment and passion, and I’m looking at signing a couple of great players in the transfer window who I think could help towards our goals. We’re not talking to any players who are shortly to be out of contract.”

  Wow. That was a gut punch of a quote, and she couldn’t help feeling like some sort of justice had been served. It looked like John Sullivan would have to take a huge pay cut as well as move away from his hunting ground of skanky London nightclubs. She was proud of Dave and made a mental note to get in touch during the week.

  The doorbell rang, and she got up and tottered unsteadily to the door, wondering how she was going to last ten minutes on the heels, let alone an entire evening. She threw open the door, expecting her dad had forgotten his keys again. She nearly fell over and had to grab the doorframe when she came face to face with the last person she expected to see on her mum and dad’s doorstep nearly five thousand miles from home.

  ‘Kyle!’ she exclaimed, her eyes wide in shock.

  ‘England. What the hell are you wearing?’

  CHAPTER 27

  Having dispatched Lily out of the house to meet her friends, a still speechless Abbie changed into jeans and a t-shirt, the vertiginous heels gratefully ditched, and joined Kyle where she had left him in the kitchen.

  He had somehow found everything he needed to make them both a coffee and was sitting at the table, looking enormous in the compact room. It was strange to see him out of his normal environment and in her parents’ house, but he seemed to have made himself at home. He started talking as soon as she sat down opposite him.

  ‘I couldn’t reach you and I had to talk to you. I couldn’t let you think whatever you were thinking about me when you left.’

  She forced a tight smile. ‘I wasn’t really thinking anything. I was thinking that Hank gave me about four hours to pack all my stuff and get out of Dodge. So, there was that, and trying to figure out how I’d start again back here.’

  He frowned. ‘But Hank didn’t fire you. I’ve tried calling you, texting you, emailing you and I heard nothing. That’s why I had to come here.’

  ‘I dropped my American phone and my laptop back at my desk on the way to the airport. I knew I wouldn’t be going back, so how else would I return them? Hank didn’t technically fire me, but it was just semantics. That email made it clear I was gone.’

  Kyle shook his head. ‘You’re wrong. But I’ve been going crazy not being able to reach you. I was an idiot the last time I saw you.’

  ‘No, you wer
en’t,’ she said quietly. ‘You had every right to react the way you did. I’m okay with things now, and I don’t blame you for feeling the way you did.’

  He moved to the chair beside her and took her hand. She let him hold it but didn’t return the squeeze. She was feeling completely conflicted.

  ‘Again, you’re wrong,’ he said. ‘I didn’t think what you thought I did, I just handled it terribly. First of all, I shouldn’t have forced you to tell me such private information. I thought you had a child somewhere that I didn’t know about. My imagination ran wild and I panicked and strong-armed you into talking about something really personal.’

  Abbie went to interrupt but he put his other hand up in the air to quiet her.

  ‘I have to say this, Abbie. Secondly, I didn’t think badly of you when you did tell me. I genuinely didn’t know what to say. I was so upset that you’d gone through all that and I didn’t know what I could say to make it better. I’ve never had that kind of personal conversation with a partner before and I didn’t know how to handle it. In the heat of the moment, I thought it would be respectful to give you some time but then you were just gone, and I couldn’t contact you.’

  She turned and studied him, both of them looking at each other quietly and intently. Seeing he was telling the truth, she sighed out a long breath, her shoulders feeling lighter.

  ‘I meant what I said before,’ he continued, not letting go of the hand he was holding as if his life depended on it. ‘I want to be with you. The two weeks you’ve been gone, not knowing where you were, what you were thinking or if you were okay, has been the worst time I can remember. Sitting there wondering if you hated me and knowing I deserved it if you did. I had to fix it.’

  ‘You love to fix things, don’t you?’ she said.

  He threw her a sad smile. ‘If I didn’t mess things up to start with, they wouldn’t need fixing.’

  ‘You didn’t mess anything up, you were human,’ she said, feeling a need to comfort him. ‘And coming home has been brilliant for me.’

  She told him about what she’d been doing the last week with the counsellor. When she finished, he drew her into him and hugged her tight. She allowed her head to sink onto his chest.

  ‘How did you find me, anyway?’ she murmured from where she was nestled into his soft black jumper. ‘I asked Rose not to give you my contact details.’

  ‘I know, she told me. It was Violet.’

  She loosened her grip and sat straight in the chair to face him once again, looking at him in surprise. ‘She didn’t tell me she’d spoken to you.’

  ‘She didn’t speak to me. She shouted at me. Went absolutely ballistic in fact.’

  She scrunched her eyes closed in embarrassment. ‘Sorry, she gets quite protective.’

  ‘No, don’t apologise. It was what I needed. I sent her a message on Facebook trying to find out where you were because you weren’t answering me on there, and she asked for my number. Let’s just say I didn’t get a word in edgeways for about ten minutes, and I deserved everything she threw at me. And then she gave me your address. I’ve had it written on a piece of paper in my pocket for ten days, trying to build up the courage to come here and beg you to take me back.’

  Her heart sank. How could everything she wanted be in touching distance but, just as she nearly got there, it got pulled back out of reach?

  ‘I’m back in England now, Kyle,’ she said resignedly. ‘For good. Michael is scouting around for a job for me at the moment. The American dream is over.’

  He smiled. ‘You know what finally got me on the plane over here?’

  ‘Violet terrorising you? Promising torture? Did she threaten to key the side of the ’58 Chevy?’

  He laughed, and her heart lurched. She couldn’t remember the last time she heard him laugh.

  ‘Hank yelled at me and told me to get my ass to wherever the hell you were hiding, get you back to work, figure out my personal shit and sort it out with you, because if I didn’t, I was a fucking idiot. Exact words. Apparently, we weren’t as discreet as we thought we were.’

  She threw both her hands across her face in embarrassment and he prised them away, laughing again.

  She laughed back, but then shook her head, struggling to understand. ‘Why would Hank want me back, though? I messed two huge things up and he was so angry. I cost them so much money, and I made them look bad to the fans. I screwed up big time.’ She felt sick thinking about it all again.

  ‘No, you didn’t. Which, if you hadn’t been so defeatist and had brought your phone and computer back to England with you, you would have known.’

  ‘I don’t get it,’ she frowned.

  Kyle took a sip of his coffee. ‘I didn’t think any of it made sense. I was racking my brain but things didn’t add up, so I asked our external IT company to look for an email from that agent. Luckily, he finally sent it last week. When I read it, I knew straight away it wasn’t you – it wasn’t the way you normally talk. The spellings were American, when you still email me in your perfect little Queen’s English.’

  She raised her eyebrows in confusion and he continued.

  ‘I asked IT why you didn’t get the original reply acknowledging the cancellation. They looked and said that although all your other emails were still on the server, that one wasn’t. Which means it was deleted from the back-end system. There’s only one person at the club they taught how to do that. So, I took it all to Hank. I didn’t want to throw her under a bus, but she intentionally threw you under one.’

  ‘What are you talking about? Who?’ Abbie urged, getting frustrated.

  ‘It was Kitty,’ he said, anger flashing across his face.

  Abbie’s hand flew to her mouth. ‘I can’t believe it!’

  ‘I know. It’s crazy. Hank called her into the office and said she had two minutes to admit what she had done in her own words or the consequences would be even worse, because we had all the evidence. She started crying and apologising immediately. I asked Hank if he could leave me alone with her for a few minutes and he agreed. He said he needed some time away from her to calm down. Then she admitted everything.’

  ‘She cancelled the band? Why? Why would she try to destroy the club like that?’

  ‘She wasn’t trying to destroy the club. She was trying to destroy you. Well, maybe not destroy you, but she was trying to get you out of the picture. She was more jealous than we realised. She hoped that what she thought were clever little chess moves here and there would make you want to go back home, and she’d be rid of the competition. I told her proper sportspeople didn’t play dirty like that. I was so angry. And that’s not all.’

  ‘Oh god, what more could there be?’

  ‘I told her she’d better tell Hank she was jealous of your job rather than it having anything to do with me and you because the truth made her look even more of a crazy bitch. I didn’t pull any punches with her. So that’s what she said to him. And she apologised for cancelling the band and for not even filing the visa applications for the youth team trip.’

  ‘What?’ Abbie whispered. She could barely get a word out, she was so shocked.

  ‘Yeah. When we said we knew everything she thought we really did, so she ended up confessing to sabotaging both. I honestly thought Hank was going to kill her there and then. She’s been fired, Abbie. And Hank has been trying to get hold of you for days to tell you and to get you to come back.’

  ‘I can’t believe this,’ she exclaimed. ‘I know she’s always been a bit strange but I didn’t think she was capable of that.’

  ‘Neither did I. I escorted her out of the building myself. She broke down in tears again in the parking lot. She kept apologising, saying she couldn’t believe what she’d done. She said you were always nice to her and had introduced her to your friends, and if I had to be with someone, she was happy it was you. But it was too little too late for me. She knew exactly what she was doing when she tried to wreck your career. And she didn’t do it once and then feel bad. She did it
twice in quick succession. I don’t have any sympathy for her.’

  Abbie ran her hands through her hair. ‘Fucking hell, what a mess.’

  ‘Just a bit. And that’s when Hank told me to get my ass on a plane or I’d be fired too. I’m under strict instructions not to return without you. So, what do you say? Want to come back to the club? And to me?’ he added quietly.

  She paused for a while, watching his face turn from hopeful to uncertain. She swallowed and took a deep breath before answering.

  ‘I think I fell in love with Salt Lake City when I woke up on that first morning and went walking around the park, looking at the mountains. That was just before you knocked me flying, by the way. Then I kept falling in love with it more and more as you showed me different places and I built a life there. I loved working at the club, and I’ve missed it more than I can say the last couple of weeks. There’s some unfinished business and I should probably go back and carry on. But I need a couple more weeks here first. Talking to my mum’s counsellor friend has really helped me start to put to bed what happened with Josh and the pregnancy, and I want to work on that some more. It’s really important for me to be able to move forward without the feelings of guilt and everything else that was tied up with it.’

  ‘I get it. Do you want me to call Hank to explain?’

  ‘No, I’ll do it. I’ll call him tonight.’

  ‘And what about me? Will you come back to me?’ he asked, his eyes gentle as he looked at her.

  Her heart and her stomach fluttered. ‘I don’t know, Kyle. I’m sorry. Everything has been crazy these past few weeks, and I need to take it step by step. We’ve had two big issues already, caused by each of us keeping something important from the other, and I just don’t know if that means we’ve got a fundamental problem.’

  ‘No,’ he said, his voice low and sure and she felt herself weaken at the certainty in his voice. ‘That’s not it. We moved fast and we’re still getting to know each other. If it wasn’t for Kitty, we wouldn’t have had any problems at all. Don’t throw it all away because someone tried to ruin us.’