Learning to Love

by Sheryl Browne

  She reached for the doorknob. ‘Ryan, I’ll be back shortly,’ she shouted, out of necessity. The boys were hard at raucous tug-of-war in the lounge with Dougal – and one of David’s socks.

  ‘Need some company?’ David asked, retrieving a once again abandoned Igglepiggle from the floor.

  ‘No!’ Andrea said quickly, and then, her shoulders slumping, she at last looked at him properly. ‘I’m sorry, David.’ She sighed down to her charity boots, which were actually too big, and which she’d filled out with woollen walking socks – his. ‘I’m just … confused.’ She searched his face, and smiled, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes.

  You and me both, David thought, hands in pockets and his heart heavy as he watched her head purposefully towards her car. He didn’t know where she was going. She hadn’t said, and nor should she, he supposed. She was probably off to meet up with Jonathan, who he’d insisted on rubbishing in her eyes. At least that’s how it must look.

  He watched on as Andrea slowed at the end of the drive, looking towards the empty shell of her house with its boarded, soulless windows. Swiping at what David assumed was a tear on her cheek, she then turned the car towards the High Street and drove on, leaving David wishing he hadn’t said anything about Eden. Hadn’t kissed her, though every fibre of him had wanted to, wanted her. All he’d succeeded in doing was complicating her situation further. Hadn’t she already had heartbreak enough?

  Checking Jonathan’s car wasn’t there, Andrea parked in the car park and went around the front of the building to let herself into his office with the spare key on her ring. She seriously hoped Jonathan didn’t suddenly decide to ‘do a couple of extra hours at the office’ today, as he often did at weekends, and find her there, rummaging through his things like some thief in the night.

  ‘Two minutes, sweetie,’ she said, leading Chloe in, who was quite content now she had learned that Ronald was no longer poorly and McDonald’s was on the menu for lunch.

  ‘Dougal!’ Chloe exclaimed delightedly as Andrea turned to close the inner office door.

  ‘No, sweetie,’ Andrea whispered, alarmed at how Chloe’s shrill tones seemed to resonate around the walls. ‘Dougal’s at home with …’ Andrea turned around and the words died in her throat. Astonished, she looked from the little dog’s dish by the wall to the dog’s bed parked next to Jonathan’s filing cabinet. What on earth …? He’d been keeping Dougal here? Why? And for how long? And where the bloody hell had he really found him?

  Not the park, that was for sure. David had been right. Dougal hadn’t looked at all bedraggled and, apart from the dog’s hairs he’d been so fastidiously plucking from his coat, there hadn’t been a hair out of place on Jonathan. Even his shoes had been clean, hadn’t they? She tried to recall. The boys’ trainers had been covered in mud, caked into the rubber soles and treading all over the kitchen floor. David’s, too; he’d even apologised for the mess he’d made in his own house, for goodness’ sake. She hadn’t noticed Jonathan leaving a trail behind him.

  Nipping worriedly on her lower lip, she turned back to Chloe. ‘That’s right, darling. That’s Dougal’s bed,’ she said, in the best cheery tone she could muster.

  ‘Dougal’s bed,’ Chloe repeated happily, and toddled over to tuck herself and Igglepiggle up in it.

  Just in case she decided to go the whole hog and lap water from the dog’s dish, Andrea retrieved Chloe’s baby beaker from her bag and handed it to her, then headed for Jonathan’s desk to rifle through papers, searching for anything that might resemble household insurance documents. Nothing jumped out at her. She wasn’t even sure why she wanted them, other than to phone the insurance company and hear from the horse’s mouth what the situation was regarding their claim, which actually she should know. David was right about that, too.

  It was all surely just forgetfulness on Jonathan’s part, though. Hadn’t he been through a huge trauma, too? He was bound to be as stressed as she was. Did David take that into account when he was casting aspersions, for whatever reason?

  Agitatedly puffing her fringe from her eyes, Andrea tried to stay loyal to Jonathan, though she couldn’t possibly, she realised, guilt tugging again at her conscience, because she’d already been totally disloyal. And she hated herself for it. But she didn’t, absolutely didn’t hate David. Every nerve in her body had come alive at his touch, his kiss, which seemed to reach down into the very core of her. She felt safe in his arms, wanted, as she was: a sensual, sexual woman in her own skin, rather than tarted up in some breath-restricting, ridiculous bodycon dress.

  She’d imagined him a cold-hearted, arrogant pig, but David was far from it. He’d shown himself to be sensitive, caring and completely understanding. Whereas Jonathan … Andrea sighed. He’d been distracted and distant way before the fire, she reminded herself. She thought she’d known him. She’d thought she’d loved him. Had that love dwindled and died when she’d thought he’d deserted her on the night of the fire? Or had it faded before then, as Jonathan’s love for her seemed to have done. Their lovemaking had been infrequent to non-existent. There was no passion in Jonathan’s embrace, in his eyes, as there had been in David’s.

  Was she searching for reasons, though, to excuse her own unforgivable behaviour? No. David’s kiss had ignited something inside her, but he wasn’t the cause of her troubling thoughts about Jonathan, of that much Andrea was sure.

  Swallowing back her guilt, she set about straightening the paperwork, attempting to leave it somewhere near how she’d found it, then stopped dead, her eyes falling on a Post-it note parked next to the phone. Assessors. Fri. 3.00 pm, she read. They’d been? But … Jonathan hadn’t said a single word.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Andrea felt a cold chill run through her as she stood outside the ruins of her home. A home the heart had been ripped out of. Her stomach twisting inside her, she surveyed the outside, having taken Chloe back to David’s before coming across. The patio windows were intact. The paint on the metal frames blistered and bubbled. She traced the scorched surface with her fingertips, and then clamped her eyes shut on an image of what such heat might have done to baby-soft skin.

  Surprised that the buckled back door yielded so easily, she held her breath and stepped inside. It smelled different now, like the forgotten ashes of the bonfire gone cold in the garden. Suppressing a shiver as the ghosts of her past gathered around her, she walked over to her restored farmhouse table, which had witnessed so many family mealtimes. It certainly appeared to have been in the wars now. It seemed skeletal, dead wood without a soul, as if the flesh had been torn away leaving only the bones. Broken, brittle bones. No magnets adorning the fridge. Hand paintings pinned haphazardly to walls now charred wisps of paper.

  Careless of the acrid taste in the back of her throat, Andrea gulped back hard then, treading through glass and debris that crackled under her feet she made her way to the cooker, beyond which the wall was marked, as if flames like hot vipers’ tongues had seared it darkest blood-black. The ceiling above it too.

  Dee? Had she left a pan on? Andrea couldn’t recall.

  Listlessly, she trailed to the sink. The potato saucepan was still there, perched upside-down on the drainer, a sooty thick film on its base.

  That would need some cleaning.

  She hadn’t left a pan on. They’d had potatoes that night.

  Dragging a hand under her nose, trying and failing to make some sense of the chaos, Andrea glimpsed out of the window. The washing was still on the line, she almost laughed. She’d have to bring it in, she thought nonsensically, then tugged in a breath and held it until she thought her chest would explode – and her heart along with it.

  It should have been Jonathan behind her, there for her, holding her. Andrea didn’t care that it wasn’t; that, once again, it was David who eventually pulled her into his arms, cradled her head against his shoulder and let her cry like a baby. She didn’t stop him when he brushed her hair from her face, kissed away the hot tears from her cheeks, held her s
o close she could feel his heart beating.

  ‘Okay?’ he asked, after what might have been a minute or an hour.

  Easing her head up, Andrea nodded, emitting a sigh that came from her soul. She didn’t seem to have the energy to formulate actual words.

  David cupped her face in his hands, gently tracing the tracks of her tears with his thumbs. ‘Daft question really, isn’t it?’ He didn’t wait for an answer. Dropping a soft kiss to her forehead, he held her impossibly closer for a second, and then, gently coaxing her, he steered her away from the broken remnants of her home and back towards his.

  ‘Oh, yes, and where have you two been?’ Sophie asked suspiciously, glancing up from her latest tea-making efforts as David steered Andrea into the kitchen.

  ‘Just over the road,’ David supplied.

  ‘Rrrright, and Mum’s suddenly so decrepit she needs help crossing back over it, I suppose?’ Turning from the work surface, Sophie stopped, and blinked. ‘Mum?’ she said worriedly, her eyes pinging wide with unbridled surprise.

  She glanced questioningly from her mum’s sooty, tearstained face to David’s.

  ‘It’s okay.’ He gave her a reassuring smile as he guided Andrea towards a chair at the table. ‘You might like to put an extra teabag in there, though,’ he suggested nodding at the teapot, then turning to scoop up Chloe as she launched herself at her mother.

  ‘And extra sugar?’ Sophie asked, a tremulous edge to her voice now.

  ‘Good idea,’ David said, heaving Chloe higher in his arms, then glancing up sharply as there was a thunderous crash from upstairs and the ceiling threatened to cave in.

  ‘I’d better go and see what they’re up to.’ David rolled his eyes heavenwards. ‘Can you, er …?’ He indicated Chloe who now had him in a neck hold and had obviously decided she adored him, judging by the sloppy wet kiss she slapped on his cheek.

  ‘’Course. I usually do, don’t I?’ Sophie said, maturity in her tone, rather than with her usual put upon groan. ‘Come on, munchkin,’ she said, easing Chloe away from him. ‘Let’s go and wash Mummy’s face and make her some proper tea, shall we … while David strangles Ryan, with a bit of luck.’

  ‘Choclat,’ Chloe said, now deciding she adored her big sister, too, and not at all perturbed by the fact that big brother might be about to be strangled.

  ‘Yeah, and choclat.’ Sophie sighed good-naturedly, amazingly.

  Catching Andrea’s eye, David smiled, and felt his heart lift when she smiled back, albeit a bit shakily. ‘Back in a minute,’ he said, turning for the door.

  ‘You look like a panda,’ Sophie addressed Andrea behind him, pulling up a chair to park herself next to her mum.

  ‘But a very cute one.’ David gave Andrea a wink over his shoulder, which in retrospect he probably shouldn’t have done.

  Leaving Sophie gawking after him, David headed swiftly for the hall, taking the stairs two at a time to see what chaos the boys were creating.

  Foregoing the ‘knock before entering’ rule, he squeaked Jake’s door open to find Ryan and Jake sitting on the bed, faces the picture of innocence.

  ‘It was Dougal,’ Ryan said, nodding towards the midget sized dog sitting at his feet, tongue hanging out, and also looking the picture of innocence. Which begged the question, who, precisely, booted the football at the ceiling, dislodging light bulb, plus light fitting, plus half the plaster?

  ‘Right.’ David eyed the damage then the two angels perched on the bed despairingly. ‘Well, you’d better help Dougal clean up the mess then, hadn’t you?’ He caught Jake’s smirk and was hard pushed not to smile, which really wouldn’t communicate assertive parent very well. The truth was, though, seeing Jake doing normal boy stuff made up for any amount of missing plaster.

  ‘Now, Jake,’ he instructed, wearing his best no-nonsense look.

  ‘Come on, small-fry.’ Ryan sighed theatrically and heaved himself off the bed. ‘The old man’s right. Better clear it up, before Dougal cuts his paws.’

  Making sure to maintain his not overly-impressed expression, David gave Ryan a nod of thanks, made a mental note to call an electrician, and closed the door, unfortunately almost on Dougal.

  ‘Hell.’ Wincing as the dog yelped, David turned to follow Dougal’s skitter along the landing – but was hindered somewhat by Dee cannoning into him from the bathroom.

  ‘Have you been in my pot?’ she asked, planting her hands on her hips and looking him distrustfully up and down.

  David knitted his brow, clueless. ‘Sorry?’

  ‘My pot,’ Dee repeated, now eyeing him with slit-eyed suspicion. David could see where Sophie got it from. ‘Someone has. I put Sellotape on the cistern.’

  ‘Right. Er …?’ Now totally confused, David glanced past her in hope of escape.

  ‘And now it’s broken,’ Dee went on, with a determined little nod. ‘So if you’ve been in there, Doctor Adams, you might as well own up.’

  Ahhh. She was talking about Eva’s floating policy document. David was getting the drift. He gauged Dee carefully, wondering whether the old lady wasn’t half as muddled as she sometimes seemed to be. Her accusations about Eden might be extreme, but there had to be some foundation to them, at least in Dee’s mind. Some reason she’d gone to such pains to hide that document.

  ‘So you’ll do something about it?’ Dee gauged him equally as carefully.

  David debated. He had no evidence anything underhand was going on, but if there was …

  ‘I fully intend to,’ he assured her.

  ‘Good,’ Dee said, apparently satisfied as she about-faced to the main bedroom.

  ‘But, Dee …’ David made to follow her. ‘Why did you hide the—’

  ‘Shhhh.’ Dee turned back, gesturing him away from the boys’ room. ‘Because he knows I have it, and Eva doesn’t,’ she whispered.

  ‘Er,’ David shook his head, puzzled, ‘not sure I’m following, Dee.’

  Dee sighed expansively. ‘Eva kept asking him about it,’ she elaborated, ‘out of earshot of Andrea, I might add. She insisted she’d given it to Jonathan for safekeeping, but he said it was missing, but it wasn’t missing because it was in his pocket. But obviously it is missing now, because it’s in my pot.’

  ‘I see.’ David nodded. ‘I think I’ve lost the plot.’

  ‘Doctor Adams, for an intelligent man, you can be very dense.’ Dee gave him a withering glance.

  David smiled flatly. ‘Obviously.’

  ‘Eva thought it was lost,’ Dee enunciated slowly then paused, presumably to give his dense brain time to catch up, ‘but it obviously wasn’t because Jonathan had it.’

  David followed, thus far. ‘Okay, I’ve got that bit. And?’

  ‘And now I suspect he knows I have it.’ Dee poked herself in the chest. ‘He’s a worried man, Doctor Adams, you mark my words.’

  So saying, Dee turned back to the bedroom leaving David with a prickle of apprehension running the length of his spine.

  So Jonathan had been poking about in Eva’s house trying to establish Eva hadn’t retrieved the document somehow. Or got a copy of it, maybe? David mused as he went back down to suggest they go out for pizza for dinner. And he was poking about in her house, without her knowledge. Eva had been covering for him. There was no doubt of that in David’s mind. But why had Eden held onto it in the first place? Assuming what Dee had told him was right, why did Eden want to hang on to it? Why not just give it back to Eva, unless … the document itself was evidence of something?

  David sighed. He really had no clue what was going on, but gut instinct told him something was. There was no way Eden could have been unaware of Eva’s fall. And, whatever cock and bull story he’d given Andrea about his whereabouts on the night of the fire, as far as David was concerned, it was just that. Bullshit. Concussed? The man would have to have been unconscious not to have had some inkling his bloody house had burned down. Even if he hadn’t been able to get hold of Andrea, there was no way, in David’s mind, he wouldn’t have run
g one of the kids on their mobiles, the neighbours, the local pub; anyone who might have been able to pass a message on to Andrea about why he was on the missing list.

  Plus, there was no visible damage to his car, and David distinctly remembered him saying he’d been run into. Wouldn’t he have said run over or knocked down if it wasn’t a vehicle collision? It didn’t add up. It was as simple as that. David was going to have to make some calls tomorrow. Assuming Eden had been taken to a local hospital and not one in the Outer Hebrides by flying pigs, David could soon check out that part of his story. As for the mystery of the policy document … if he couldn’t bluff his way into getting information out of the investment company, at least he could alert them to the fact that something dodgy might be going on and prompt an investigation.

  ‘Penny for them?’ Andrea asked him as he walked into the kitchen.

  David looked over to where she was perched on the chair, being titivated by Sophie with her coveted Armani cosmetics and a smile curved his mouth. She was looking better, more like her sunny self. That was good. ‘Nothing exciting. I was thinking about pizza,’ he said.

  ‘Ooh, well, now that sounds quite—’

  ‘Oh, Mu-um.’ Sophie blew out a despairing sigh. ‘Will you please stop moving your mouth.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Andrea said ventriloquist-like and dutifully pursed her lips for application of lipstick.

  ‘Thought you might fancy going out for something cheap and cheerful for dinner,’ David suggested, ‘assuming Jonathan’s not due to make an appearance, that is?’ A very rare appearance, he didn’t add.

  Makeover complete, Andrea dropped her gaze, her buoyancy obviously deflating at the mention of Eden. ‘I’ve no idea. He didn’t say.’ She shrugged, and then brightened. ‘So, yes, as we’re all dressed up, we’d love to go out for pizza, wouldn’t we, girls?’

  ‘Yeth,’ said Chloe, looking up from her drawing endeavours, her rosy cheeks a shade rosier, David noted, and her eyelids blobbed with blue. ‘Wiv chips,’ she added, with a decisive nod.