But you chose this, she reminded herself, squeezing the teabag against the side of the mug. You couldn’t have carried on the way things were.
Hope took her tea to the front window and peered down at the street below. A woman about the same age as her had just parked her car across the road by the post office, and was now trying to juggle a large stack of parcels wrapped in brown paper. Hope noted her neat, set curls and her smart coat, all buttoned up against the chilly December wind.
She wondered if the woman had got all dressed up just for this single errand, as Hope would once have done. For a while, she had channelled all her energy into looking her very best for just two hours a week, then slowly it became four, then six. Now she got up early every single morning to brush her hair and apply make-up. Today she was wearing a beautiful green dress with a plunging neckline – something she would once upon a time have saved for a special occasion, but now felt able to wear whenever she wanted.
She should really go out today, head over to the Arndale Centre and pick up some bits for Christmas, perhaps get her nails done and treat herself to a mulled wine at the open-air market. It would be a lot more fun with a friend, but she wasn’t sure if any of them would even want to hear from her. It was so awkward, this sort of thing, and Hope didn’t really blame them, but she did wince inwardly as an awful sense of loneliness crept through her.
The tea had gone cold, so Hope poured it down the sink then washed up the mug, dried it, and put it back in the cupboard. The clock above the draining board ticked round to eleven a.m., and Hope heard the front door downstairs open and close, followed by the sound of feet on the stairs.
He still gave her butterflies.
‘Hello, gorgeous.’
Charlie crossed the living room and pulled Hope into his arms, kissing the tip of her nose and gazing into her eyes.
‘I still can’t believe you’re here,’ he said, his eyes never leaving hers.
Hope felt the wonderful warmth that had become so addictive ooze through her, as if the tips of Charlie’s fingers were open faucets, affection pouring out from them into every part of her body, filling her up with love. When he took her in his arms like this, all the hurt and confusion that was plaguing her would miraculously melt away – it was no wonder that she could never get enough of him.
‘Well, I am.’ She smiled up at him.
Charlie kissed her again, on the lips this time. He was wearing a bright red woolly hat, which clashed with the pink of his cheeks.
Hope dipped her head and rested it shyly against his chest. It was ridiculous, really; a woman of her age being reduced to a blushing teenager.
Charlie was now looking at her like a teenage boy might if he’d just been given a year’s subscription to Playboy magazine and a Manchester United season ticket. All he had to do was look at her like this, and Hope felt better about everything. If Charlie said that everything would be okay, then she believed him. It had always been that way between them right from the very first day they met. Finding Charlie had been like opening a window in a stuffy room – she had been drowning, and now she was floating free.
‘I thought you had lessons all day?’ she asked him now, rearranging the front of her dress where it had become entangled in the buttons of his coat. Charlie was a driving instructor – and a very in-demand one at that.
‘Mr Ahmed cancelled at the last minute, but I wanted to pop back anyway,’ he went on. ‘I have a surprise for you.’
She pulled a face.
‘Don’t be like that.’ He followed her into the kitchen, where she switched the kettle on again. ‘We didn’t get to celebrate your birthday properly, and I thought you could use a treat.’
Hope thought back to her birthday celebrations two months ago, when she had still been living in the other house. A horrible, stilted dinner with barely any conversation and even less joy. Even the cake had looked embarrassed to be there.
‘What kind of treat are we talking about?’ she asked.
‘Wait here!’
The flat was so small that it only took Charlie a few seconds to dart across the landing into the bedroom and back, an envelope clutched in his hand, and his hat, which he still hadn’t taken off, sitting at a very jaunty angle.
‘Open it.’
Hope put down the teaspoon she’d been using to shovel sugar into Charlie’s coffee – three heaps per cup, it was a wonder the man had any of his own teeth left – and slid a timid finger under the flap. There were two bits of folded paper inside, one detailing flights and the other a hotel booking.
‘Prague?’ she gasped, looking from the paper in her hands to him and back again.
‘Please tell me you’ve never been?’ he said, putting his hands together in mock prayer.
She shook her head. The only place other than the UK that Hope had ever been was Majorca. They had gone every year – same resort, same hotel, same unappetising buffet.
‘I went a few years ago for Alan’s son’s stag,’ he told her. ‘We spent most of the time boozing, of course, but it looked like an amazing place. I’ve always wanted to go back and explore with someone special.’
‘You are so sweet,’ Hope smiled, feeling overwhelmed.
Charlie took a step forward and picked up her hands, the paper crinkling slightly beneath his fingers.
‘I know these past few weeks have been hard for you,’ he said, shaking his head as she went to disagree. ‘It’s okay to be sad, you know. I understand what a big upheaval all this has been. And all the stuff with Annette …’ He tailed off as the mention of her name caused Hope’s face to crumple.
‘I just thought it would do you good to get out of Manchester for a few days. It will do both of us some good.’
Hope nodded mutely, unable to articulate the tumble of emotions she was feeling.
‘This is so wonderful,’ she managed at last, letting him pull her against his chest. ‘Thank you.’
Charlie reached over her shoulder to retrieve his coffee and took a sip, grinning at her over the rim.
‘I love seeing you smile,’ he said. ‘That’s my job now, to make you smile like this, every single day.’
For so many years, Hope felt like she had barely smiled. Her grins were all reserved for when Annette came home from school, and later, work. Her friends used to encourage her to try harder, to be positive and start each day afresh, to forget the grievances she’d felt as she went to sleep the night before. And Hope had tried to be happy – she’d stood in front of the tiny mirror in the bathroom and smiled until her jaw ached – but it didn’t work. In the end it just became easier to accept what was happening. Being fake was exhausting, and Hope didn’t feel as if she had the energy to keep up the pretence. She had accepted that happiness wasn’t something she would ever really feel again. And then she met Charlie.
‘I am happy,’ she told him now, forcing a note of warmth into her voice.
They smiled at each other as Charlie gulped down the last of his coffee and reached for his keys.
‘What are you up to for the rest of the day?’ he asked, pulling on his jacket.
Hope told him her shopping, nails and wine plan and he gave her a thumbs up.
‘Treat yourself to something nice to wear in Prague, too,’ he told her. ‘Something warm – I hear it’s freezing over there.’
Hope waited for him to leave before she allowed herself to look again at the exciting bits of paper on the kitchen counter. Prague: a place she had never really even thought about before, but now, suddenly, somewhere she was going to experience with the man that she loved – the man that loved her.
She was going to make sure it was a trip that neither of them would ever forget.
3
‘Hey, this is Robin – either I can’t get to the phone right now, or I saw your number come up and assumed you were calling about PPI. If you are the latter, you’d better get used to this message, because it’s the closest you’re ever gonna get to me!’
Sophie ended h
er call and smiled, her ears warmed by the sound of her fiancé’s voice on the recorded message. Typical Robin, always the joker. She felt a big explosion of love go off in her chest and affection swarmed deliciously inside her. Even after ten years, she still felt a thrill whenever she thought about him.
But this wouldn’t do; she was supposed to be packing. Her train up to London left in a few hours and she hadn’t even started. This time tomorrow, she would be in Prague. The thought made her smile all over again. It was their place, hers and Robin’s – the place where it had all started and the place they always went back to. And there was no better time to visit than now, in the weeks leading up to Christmas, when the city was transformed by the falling snow into a scene straight from a fairy tale, all domed rooftops dusted white, glistening cobbles and crunchy frost. A time when you could scurry from one warm tavern to the next, sipping hot cups of mead sweetened with honey and gobbling up plate after plate of goulash and dumplings. It was just what they needed, and Sophie couldn’t wait to be back there.
Reaching into the wardrobe to fetch her favourite dress, she caught sight of her battered old rucksack nestled in the far corner. It had fallen pretty much to pieces years ago now – which wasn’t surprising given the number of miles it had travelled – but Sophie had never been able to bring herself to throw it away. The front was festooned with little fabric flags of the countries she had visited, all sewn on by Sophie herself during a long bus or train journey between one place and another. There was Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Russia, Chile, Australia, Canada, Bali, Thailand and many more, all of which held such wonderful memories. She and Robin had spent the best part of three years making their way around the world, doing whatever they had to in order to feed themselves and afford a roof over their heads. Some nights they found themselves with nothing, but those were often some of the best, because they inevitably led to a new adventure.
Once they were forced to spend three nights sleeping on a kind stranger’s roof in Morocco, only to find out at five in the morning that it was the rainy season. Another time they had pitched a borrowed tent on what they thought was a patch of dry wasteland on the Greek island of Kos, only to be chased away in the dead of night by an enraged olive farmer wielding a pitchfork. Yep, they’d certainly had an eventful few years, herself and Robin.
It was a real credit to Prague that the Eastern European city had become the one place the two of them returned to every year without fail, even long after they’d hung up their respective tatty backpacks and settled down into life in Devon. Robin’s family lived in Cornwall, but after a few months of commuting along the coast and back to see each other, Robin had taken the plunge and moved in with Sophie at her parents’ sprawling farm, soon after winning his dream job as an instructor at the local surf school. Sophie knew it was a bit lame to still be living at home with your mum and dad at the age of twenty-eight, but the house was so big that it never felt overcrowded. If she and Robin fancied a night in alone, they simply stayed over in their side. And anyway, her parents loved Robin like a son-in-law right from the second they met him, so nobody felt as if they were stepping on anybody’s toes.
Sophie drew the zip slowly round the edge of her case, listening with pleasure as the metal clipped neatly together. The unique sound of a zip being fastened always meant travel, which meant adventure, which to Sophie also meant happiness. She’d travelled an awful lot, but never tired of the experience. She loved everything about it, even the tedious airport queues and the wait at baggage reclaim.
It must be awful to have to travel as part of your job, she thought. To become so blasé about the process – fed up, even. To board a plane and not feel that tingle of excitement in the tips of your fingers as you fastened your seatbelt. To touch down in an amazing city such as New York or Shanghai or Moscow, and be thinking only about the meeting you have to attend and the sales figures you have to reach. How depressing.
Nope, working in your parents’ farm shop might not be the most glamorous of jobs, but at least she still got to crouch in the starting gates of adventure, ready to set off at any minute.
Robin was an expert in sleeping on flights, a skill he’d developed over the years they’d spent on the road. During those first few exquisite months after they met and began travelling together, Sophie had liked to watch him as he slept. She loved the way his full lips sagged open on one side of his face, and how his long, blond lashes almost reached his cheekbones. Sometimes he would twitch a little, or emit a small snuffle, and she would gaze at him in adoration, wondering what he was dreaming about and if she was part of it. She wanted not only to know his every waking thought, but also those he had while asleep. It wasn’t that she was controlling or obsessive, more that she loved him so much that the conscious version wasn’t enough to sate her appetite – she never stopped wanting more of him, and that had never changed.
Sophie picked up her phone and opened the weather app. As she had hoped, the weather in Prague over the next week was reliably freezing, with snow forecast a few days from now. It was a bit frustrating that Robin couldn’t make the journey over there with her, but he would catch her up in a few days, and then they could celebrate their anniversary in style.
It was almost time to head to the station. Sophie looked at herself in the mirror as she shrugged her way into her coat. Her hair was so short that she looked like a boy from a distance – a young Prince Harry, according to her mum. Underneath this spiky ginger crop, Sophie’s startlingly large and wide-set emerald eyes appeared even bigger than usual. They were Robin’s most favourite thing about her, and he delighted in telling her how much she resembled an insect. He’d come up with the nickname ‘Bug’ just a few days after they first met, and had infuriatingly refused to drop it since. Sophie didn’t really mind, but she was looking forward to being able to hide her eyes behind her fringe again. It had seemed like such a great idea at the time, cutting off all her hair.
Grimacing slightly and turning away from the mirror, Sophie reached over and snatched up the floppy knitted bobble hat that she’d made for Robin years before and jammed it down over her short back and sides. It was so big on her minuscule head that it looked more like a tea cosy than a chic winter accessory, but Sophie couldn’t have cared less. She was the one heading to a cold country today, after all, so arguably she needed it more than Robin did. He wouldn’t mind anyway – he always said that whatever was his was also hers.
The journey into London went without a hitch, and although it was weird not having her fiancé by her side for the first time in what felt like forever, Sophie felt proud that she’d managed to navigate the Underground system without losing her temper. It wasn’t so much that it was confusing – quite the contrary, in fact – it was more the sheer number of people barging into her as if they owned the place. London had always made her squirm with revulsion – it wasn’t a city she had any time for whatsoever, and she was glad that Robin felt the same way. Like her, he craved the outdoors and, being a surfer, the sea. To take Robin away from the ocean would be to sever the main reason he had for getting up in the morning. Well, the sea and Sophie, of course.
When she’d arrived at the cheap hotel next to Heathrow Airport and was sitting on the hard, narrow bed gazing out over the light-splattered horizon, Sophie called Robin and laughed at his voicemail recording yet again.
Her flight was first thing the next morning, but sleep was being an evasive little devil this evening. As she lay under the over-washed sheets, the thin pillow crackling uncomfortably under her head, Sophie allowed her thoughts to drift – as they always did nowadays when she couldn’t seem to drop off – to the wedding.
They would have the reception at the farm, that much was certain. Silly to pay an extortionate fee to hire a venue when they had so much space freely available. Her dad would rope in the darts team from the pub to help get the marquee up, then she and her mum would enlist the help of their assorted friends and family to decorate the inside with fairy lights, flower
s and bunting. They could hang up photos of herself and Robin, too, and people could write messages in a guest book. It would be charming and pretty and full of warmth.
In the evening, they’d light candles in a circle around the edge of the dance floor, and she and Robin would have their first waltz as husband and wife. People would cry and her dad would look fit to burst from pride. Then her mum would dance with Robin’s dad, and they’d all joke and laugh together, until the sun came up over the distant hills.
At some point, she and Robin would sneak off and make their way down to the beach, where he would pick her up in her dress and swirl her around and around, kissing her over and over and calling her by her new married name, Mrs Palmer. Then they would sit on the wet sand, not caring about her dress or his suit, and use a stick to spell out their names. Sophie would add hearts and Robin would joke that she was a soppy idiot, and then they would kiss again, on and on and on until they were out of breath with love for one another.
As Sophie finally slipped away into slumber, a smile of contentment playing on her lips, her phone lit up on the bedside table. A face surrounded by blond hair flashed up on the screen as the handset vibrated quietly across the surface, but she didn’t stir, lost as she was in the dreams of her future. Eventually, as the rain began and lashed at the window outside, the light from the phone went out.
4
‘Well, that’s a big bed.’
Megan looked sideways at Ollie.
‘I bet Sherlock Holmes is holding tight to his sleuth crown with you around,’ she drawled. He was right, though, it was a very big bed. And not only that, it was also a four-poster, with extravagant red and gold striped curtains and a matching bedspread – opulent didn’t even begin to cover it. Megan cursed herself for allowing Ollie to pick the hotel and for not checking the place out in more detail when he’d emailed her the link. They’d crashed out together on her sofa and at various house parties in the six months since she’d met him, but sharing a bed in a hotel room felt different. It was more intimate somehow.
A Year and a Day Page 2