Learning to Love

by Sheryl Browne

  ‘No probs.’ Ryan nodded maturely and nodded David on.

  ‘So the insurers are definitely going to pay up?’ Andrea held Jonathan’s gaze, looking for signs he might still be spinning her a web of lies.

  ‘I can’t know that for certain, but I’ve had confirmation and I’ll keep chasing it, obviously,’ Jonathan promised. ‘I am sorry, truly, Andrea, for everything. I know there are no excuses for raising my voice the way I did. I …’ Jonathan trailed off, glancing down under Andrea’s astounded gaze.

  Raising his voice? Andrea stared hard at him. Had he any idea how much he’d terrified her? How upset the children had been?

  ‘I was stressed, Andy.’ Jonathan walked towards the window, having refused the offer of a seat.

  ‘You were stressed?’ Andrea said incredulously behind him.

  Jonathan sighed. Plunging his hands in his pockets, he looked pensively out at the night sky. ‘We all are, I know. I’m not trying to lay blame here, Andrea. It was my fault, no one else’s. I lost it. What can I say?’

  ‘Not a lot.’

  Jonathan sighed again, and nodded. ‘So,’ he said turning back with a shrug, ‘there’s nothing I can do to put things right, then?’

  Andrea looked him over. He looked terrible. His eyes were bloodshot. He’d lost weight. He seemed genuinely remorseful, but … even if he had a magic wand to wave, even if he could make their house rise from the ashes, make the hurt go away, the fear and the uncertainty, having shown his dark side, he couldn’t rekindle her love for him. She breathed in, bracing herself to say what needed to be said, possibly should have been said, before fate had so cruelly intervened. ‘I’m not sure there is, Jonathan. I think I need to be on my own, for now at least.’

  Jonathan nodded slowly again and looked at her, a long searching look. ‘Do you love him?’ he asked quietly.

  Andrea glanced down.

  ‘It’s not rocket science, Andrea!’ Jonathan shouted then, causing her to almost jump out of her skin. ‘It’s a yes or no answer. I said, do you—’ Jonathan stopped as the lounge door opened.

  ‘What’s he doing here?’ Sophie demanded, looking Jonathan up and down, an angry flush to her cheeks.

  Jonathan shook his head. ‘Nice to see you, too, Sophie,’ he said, smiling sardonically.

  Sophie ignored him. ‘Mum?’

  ‘We’re just talking, sweetie,’ Andrea assured her. ‘He won’t be here long.’

  Sophie shot her an admonishing glance. ‘Yeah, right, I’ve heard that one before.’

  ‘Sophie, he—’

  ‘I came to say goodbye,’ Jonathan interrupted. ‘Don’t worry, Sophie, I’ll soon be out of your hair.’

  Glancing at him quizzically, Andrea turned back to Sophie. ‘We won’t be long, I promise. Go on, go and keep an eye on your gran for me. I’ll be with you in a minute.’

  ‘Someone needs to keep an eye on her, that’s for sure,’ Jonathan muttered.

  Andrea’s jaw tightened, along with her resolve. She shouldn’t have let him in. No matter how plausible his apologies, no matter how puppy-dog-eyed and dishevelled he’d looked, once he’d relayed that the household insurers were finally going to pay up, she should have told him to leave. ‘And, Sophie,’ she stopped her daughter short as she backed out of the room, ‘don’t hesitate to dial 999 if you feel you need to.’

  Jonathan gawked at her, astounded. ‘Bloody, hell, Andrea?’

  Andrea folded her arms and said nothing.

  ‘That bad, hey?’ Jonathan smiled sadly.

  ‘That bad, Jonathan.’ Andrea’s gaze didn’t falter. ‘So, you’re leaving the area?’ She picked up on what he’d just said about saying his goodbyes, though she was only interested in what he did and where he went for the sake of his daughter.

  ‘Not a lot of point staying, is there?’ Jonathan shrugged. ‘I’m going tonight, so you can tell our charitable neighbour the coast is clear now, can’t you?’

  Andrea didn’t rise to the bait. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘London.’ Jonathan leant against the edge of the dining table, his attention now on whatever speck of dust he insisted on plucking from his clothing. ‘Just for a while, until I can sort myself out.’

  ‘What about your business?’

  Jonathan straightened up and turned to walk back over to the window. ‘Doesn’t much matter about the business any more, does it?’ He shrugged again, indifferently this time.

  If you say so, no. Andrea did likewise. ‘I need to get on,’ she said, not really wanting to listen if he was about to play the sympathy card.

  ‘I’m in a mess,’ Jonathan said as she turned to the door. ‘Financially,’ he went on as Andrea turned back. ‘Nothing major, just … a mess.’

  ‘Since when?’ Andrea furrowed her brow. Was that why he’d been so dead set against her doing something different? Oh no! Her eyes shot wide. Had David been right?

  ‘A while,’ Jonathan admitted. ‘That’s why I didn’t want you to give up your job. We might have managed on one salary, but … Anyway, it doesn’t matter now, does it?’ He faced her, smiling stoically. ‘I might be able to raise a bit of cash from my client portfolio. I’ll just sell up what business assets I have to another adviser and move on, as they say.’

  ‘But …’ Andrea looked at him, appalled, but more with herself than with him. Why hadn’t she realised? ‘Why on earth didn’t you say something?’

  ‘Would it have made a difference to where we are now?’

  ‘Yes! I … ’Andrea stopped, because the truth was, she didn’t know. If Jonathan hadn’t been so distracted, so seemingly disinterested, would her head still have been turned by the obvious charms of David? Andrea nipped on her bottom lip, feeling guiltier by the second. Had she been the distracted and disinterested one?

  ‘Pride, I suppose. I didn’t want to lose face.’ Jonathan glanced down and then back. ‘I didn’t want to lose you, Andrea, but I think I’ve succeeded on both counts now, haven’t I?’

  ‘Jonathan, I …’ Andrea shook her head. She didn’t know what to say.

  ‘Thought so. Right, well, I’ll just piss off out of the way, then.’ Jonathan smiled tightly, a flash of fury in his eyes. ‘Wouldn’t want to cramp Doctor Bleeding Heart’s style, after all, would I? I take it you’ve no objections this time to my seeing Chloe, before I go?’

  ‘She’s in bed, Jonathan.’ Andrea moved to block his way. With his tone back to aggressive, there was no way he was going anywhere but out of the front door. ‘I don’t want to wake her.’

  ‘She is my daughter, Andrea. I mean, I’ve gathered I’m surplus to requirements where you’re concerned, but I think I’m entitled to see my own child, don’t you?’

  Sophie turned from where she’d been listening outside the lounge door to tiptoe to the bedrooms. She had no idea what was going on, but she had a really bad feeling. Her gran might’ve sounded gaga, but the more she saw of Jonathan lately, the more she was wondering whether it was him who was mental. Whatever, she wanted Gran on her toes.

  ‘Gran,’ she whispered, going into the room her gran was sharing with her mum until they’d sorted out who was sleeping where. ‘Gran, are you awa— Gran?’ Pants.

  ‘Gran?’ Quickly, Sophie checked the bathroom, and then went back to the kitchen, where she noted the chicken and nut roast had been taken out of the oven, which meant her gran was up and about. God, silly old bat, where was she?

  Twirling around, Sophie checked the other rooms downstairs, then climbed over the baby gate and nipped deftly upstairs. No Gran in the upstairs bathroom, she checked her own room, the wardrobe, under her bed, then heaved herself up to strop back across the room.

  ‘Gran, you ought to know I’m getting seriously peed …’ Sophie stopped as she passed Chloe’s bed, and stepped back. ‘Oh, crap! Mum …?’

  ‘Mum!’ Her tummy doing a somersault inside her, Sophie thundered downstairs, almost falling over the gate, before bursting into the lounge.

  ‘Mum?’

>   ‘I just want to say goodbye to her,’ Jonathan was droning on. ‘I’ll be two minutes.’

  ‘Mum!’

  ‘Sophie, just wait a minute, will you?’ Jonathan snapped. ‘Your mum and I—’

  ‘She’s gone!’ Sophie’s screamed over him. ‘Gran, Chloe! They’ve gone!’

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  ‘Do I look dreadful?’ Sally asked, still groggy from the anaesthetic.

  ‘Yep, but beautiful nonetheless,’ David assured her.

  Sally’s mouth curved into the tiniest of smiles. ‘Flatterer,’ she mumbled.

  David smiled back, and squeezed her hand. He watched as Sally’s eyelids grew heavy. She’d drift in and out for a while, he guessed. The painkillers were obviously doing their job. She’d be sore, but she was alive, fortunately. The appendix had been gangrenous, dangerously close to bursting. Why she hadn’t called an ambulance before, he couldn’t fathom. Yes, he could, he realised, instinctively checking the drip before he left.

  Because she hadn’t wanted an ambulance pulling up to alert him to the fact that he wasn’t an expectant father, after all.

  David felt a pang of regret. Having again been reminded that life was too short, far from being furious with Sally, he now felt sorry for her. Sorry that he’d used her. Yes, it might have been mutual, but … Did he really imagine he was the only one in need of solace? That only he wanted someone to help him release the pent-up frustration that comes with loss of love, faith, life? Detached sex didn’t work, he’d learned that now. There was always baggage around it. Always consequences. She’d obviously been depressed, very, if she’d been on anti-depressants, which she’d admitted she had before she’d gone down for surgery. The consequences, he now realised, could actually have been a lot worse.

  ‘I’ll be back,’ he promised, leaving her to get some sleep. He’d collect some stuff for her, he decided, a nightdress, toiletries, etc. He hadn’t really got a clue what she might need, though. Andrea would be the best person to ask, he supposed, assuming she’d give him the time of day, which he very much doubted after his revelations about Eden. David fervently wished he’d kept his mouth shut. Andrea would have found out eventually just what kind of snake in the grass the guy was. But then, David’s concern had been about what might happen in the interim.

  Sighing, he headed off down the corridor, remembering he’d had a text alert as he did. Pulling his mobile from his pocket, he checked it as he walked and noted he’d actually had several texts, plus two missed calls – all from Ryan. Jake? Speed dialling Ryan back as he broke into a run, David banged through the exit doors and stopped dead.

  ‘Missing?’ He tried to make sense of what Ryan was saying. ‘What, Dee and Chloe? Shit! I’m on my way.’

  ‘Sophie, where are you going?’ Andrea shouted, berated herself for shouting, then tried to breathe past the tight knot in her chest.

  ‘To meet Ryan!’ Sophie shouted back, already half out of the door. ‘To look for them, Mum. Where d’y’think? There’s no point in us all standing around here.’

  Andrea closed her eyes. ‘Go.’ She nodded, trying to stay calm, to think rationally when all rational thought seemed to have deserted her. ‘But be careful!’

  ‘I will.’ Sophie headed off, down through the shop.

  ‘Phone me if you hear anything,’ Andrea called after her. ‘And keep your mobile switched on.’

  ‘It’s on,’ Sophie called back, and then she, too, was gone – into the dark night, and Andrea didn’t think she could bear to do this, not all over again. ‘Where are they?’ She turned back to Jonathan, panic gripping her stomach like a vice.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Jonathan said, looking as shocked as she felt. ‘I …’

  ‘The police?’ Andrea turned towards him, dragging her hands over her face, through her hair. ‘You said they were coming. They should be here by now, surely? Where are they?’

  ‘Andrea, I don’t know.’ Jonathan shrugged helplessly. ‘On their way probably.’

  ‘But why are they taking so long?’ Andrea checked her watch, where the last ten minutes had ticked heavily by like ten hours and two lifetimes. ‘We need to ring them again,’ she said, searching fruitlessly for her own mobile. ‘They shouldn’t be taking—’

  ‘I have, Andrea! I’ve rung them twice. They’ll be here soon.’ Jonathan came towards her, tried to wrap his arms around her.

  Andrea pulled away. ‘I have to go,’ she said.

  ‘Go … where?’

  ‘Sophie’s right. We have to look. Scour the streets. There’s no point—’

  ‘Andrea, wait,’ Jonathan said as she flew to the door. ‘I’m coming with you.’

  ‘No, you need to stay here. Someone needs to be here.’

  ‘She’s my daughter, Andrea.’ Jonathan caught up with her. ‘If anything’s happened to her because of that demented, old …’

  Andrea turned back, blind fury bubbling up in her chest. ‘She’s my daughter, too! And that’s my mother you’re talking about!’ She flailed a hand at him, uselessly. She had no strength. Nothing left. She couldn’t do this. Couldn’t.

  Jonathan caught her wrists. ‘Stop,’ he said firmly. ‘Breathe, Andrea. Come on. It’ll be all right. We’ll find them. The lights were still on at Tiny Tots. We’ll ask Beki to keep an eye on things here. Okay?’

  Andrea nodded and shook her head all at once, then hurried off ahead of him, impatient to go, to be doing something; anything.

  ‘We’ll go together. My car’s out front,’ Jonathan said behind her as Andrea hit the street. ‘You keep a lookout, I’ll drive.’

  Andrea caught the keys he tossed to her and climbed in the passenger side. She didn’t want to discuss it, didn’t want to talk. She just wanted to go. ‘Come on,’ she urged him as Jonathan tried to attract Beki’s attention through her shop window. She was obviously stocktaking, probably out back. ‘Hurry up. Please.’

  Where were they? Andrea gulped back another nauseating wave of panic as she waited. Where would her mother take Chloe at this time of night? It would be pitch black out of the village. There wasn’t even a moon. Where could she have …?

  Oh no, no … ‘She’s gone home,’ she said numbly as Jonathan climbed in the driver’s side. Fear settling like ice in her chest, Andrea pictured the little riverside cottage at the dead of night. It was under renovation; she recalled with sinking dread, building works beyond it – and two huge river locks only yards in front of it.

  Humping the car half on the pavement in his haste to park it, David banged out of the driver’s side. ‘Any news?’ he shouted to the group now gathered outside the shop.

  ‘Nothing,’ the girl from the Tiny Tots shop said. ‘They’re all out,’ she added as David ran towards the entrance to Andrea’s flat.

  ‘Searching,’ Eva said anxiously. ‘We were just organising a search group ourselves.’

  ‘Has someone notified the police?’ David asked, never more relieved to see a group of gossiping neighbours. Please, someone find them, and soon. Andrea would be insane with worry. What on earth had possessed the old woman to …?

  ‘Jonathan,’ the girl supplied. ‘He said he’d phoned them twice and asked me to wait here in case they came.’

  Eden? Cold foreboding washed over David. ‘Right,’ he said tightly, exchanging concerned glances with Eva.

  Dammit, what had he been thinking? He should have informed the police the old woman was living in fear of her life, instead of waiting around for the investment company to complete its bloody investigations; for the household insurers to pay out, which David had truly hoped they would, as it would have meant there were no suspicious circumstances around the cause of the fire. His gut told him differently but David would much prefer Eden had played no part in it, for Andrea’s sake. Maybe he hadn’t. Maybe he’d never intended his family any harm, possibly didn’t intend Dee any harm, but she had been worried about what lengths he might go to in trying to retrieve that document, that evidence of his fraudulence. That’s w
hy she’d taken off into the damp, dark night when Eden showed up. Why she’d taken Chloe though, David couldn’t understand.

  Unless … Had she thought Eden might take her? It was possible, absconding with his daughter seeming a better option than fighting for custody through the courts, particularly if his character turned out to be questionable.

  So what the hell did he do now? Search, David supposed, though with no streetlights beyond the village, it would be like searching for the proverbial needle in a haystack. At least he’d got Ryan with him, which might help in terms of possible locations. Jake was with them too. David would prefer he wasn’t, but he’d had no choices there. At least he’d be another set of eyes.

  ‘We’ll drive around,’ he said, offering Eva a reassuring smile. She looked worried to death, too. Her face was ashen. Whatever he was up to, that bastard Eden had got one hell of a lot to answer for. David swallowed back his anger as he turned back to his car.

  ‘Anything from Sophie yet?’ he asked Ryan, climbing inside.

  ‘Nothing,’ Ryan said, thumbing another text urgently into his phone.

  ‘Your mum?’

  ‘Nope.’ Ryan sighed.

  ‘She might have left her mobile upstairs,’ Jake suggested, nodding towards the shop. ‘If she was worried, I mean. She could’ve come out without it.’

  ‘Good thinking, Jake.’ David climbed out again. ‘I’ll be two minutes.’

  ‘I’ll try Jonathan,’ Ryan said behind him.

  It actually took David one minute to locate the missing phone. Ringing it as he let himself in with his spare set of keys, he’d walked straight over to where it had apparently fallen – into Jonathan’s overcoat pocket?

  Sophie hadn’t been sure what she was going to ask if there was anyone around. ‘Helloo, you haven’t seen a barmy old bat tripping along the towpath in her nightie, have you?’ she fancied might make her sound as loopy as her gran.

  The place was deserted though. Not a soul about, making it dead creepy. The old British Waterways cottage looked like it was empty, too. Apprehensively, Sophie tucked her mobile in her pocket and ducked under the scaffolding to try the front door. Locked. Pants.