A Year and a Day

by Isabelle Broom

‘That looks like fun.’

  Charlie was standing in the doorway, one side of his face crushed by sleep.

  ‘I was just about to get out, actually,’ she said, wondering as she did so why she was lying.

  ‘Shall I help you to wash your hair first?’ Charlie asked, sounding less sure of himself than he had a few seconds ago.

  Without waiting for an answer, he sat on the downturned toilet seat and ran his fingers into her damp hair, massaging her scalp in strong, circular motions. It felt absolutely heavenly, and Hope told him so as he reached for her shampoo.

  ‘Why are you being so nice to me?’ she asked, her toes curling as his fingers rotated.

  ‘Does there have to be a reason?’

  ‘I suppose not.’ She smiled and arched her back so he could rinse out the suds.

  ‘I’d say you could return the favour.’ He paused, waiting for her to re-emerge from under the water. ‘But there wouldn’t be much point.’

  Hope had always felt sorry for men who lost their hair. Dave still had a fairly decent thatch, but Charlie had barely a strand. Then again, she’d never known him to be anything other than bald, so she didn’t have any basis for comparison.

  She closed her eyes again as Charlie combed the conditioner through her hair with his fingers, and thought back to the first time they’d kissed.

  It was her sixteenth lesson with him, and he’d instructed her to drive out of town to a large industrial estate. There had once been a supermarket out there but it had closed down the previous winter, and Charlie explained that the vacant car park was a perfect place to practise manoeuvres without getting in anyone’s way.

  What had started off being simply friendly chat between the two of them had blossomed over the weeks into a teasing flirtation. Hope had started to look forward to her twice-weekly lessons perhaps more than she strictly should have. Charlie was so easy to talk to, and he made her laugh more than she had in years. When she attempted to discuss anything topical with Dave, he’d barely move an eyelash in response, but Charlie seemed enthralled by her opinions. They talked about everything from politics to reality TV shows to relationships, and over time Hope began to bring up the subject of her own marriage. Charlie was always sympathetic, but very careful never to criticise Dave – even though Hope realised later that he must have wanted to air his views on the matter.

  Fifteen lessons equated to thirty hours spent in each other’s company, and they had spent at least the last five of those growing increasingly bold. Hope knew that she liked Charlie a lot and had an inkling that he felt the same way, but neither of them had crossed that forbidden but invisible line. On this particular day, Hope had been wearing a new pair of over-the-knee boots, which Annette had urged her to order from a catalogue, and they kept catching on the edge of her seat.

  ‘Are you going somewhere nice after this?’ Charlie asked, as she stalled for the third time during a three-point turn.

  ‘No.’ She shook her head and tried in vain to roll the boot down out of the way.

  ‘You look …’ Charlie paused as he filtered through his mind for the appropriate word. ‘Really nice. Sorry, I know it’s not my place to say.’

  ‘Don’t apologise,’ she told him, glancing around. ‘It’s your place just as much as anyone else’s.’

  Charlie seemed to consider this as she attempted the manoeuvre again, this time managing to stop her foot from slipping off the pedal.

  ‘Bravo!’ He clapped as she triumphantly yanked up the handbrake. ‘If you can drive in those things, you can drive in anything.’

  ‘They probably weren’t the best idea.’ She grinned, taking her hands off the wheel and clasping them shyly in her lap.

  ‘Don’t apologise,’ he said, imitating her earlier retort. His voice was soft and Hope sensed a shift in the atmosphere, as if someone had dimmed the lights for them.

  ‘Hope, I …’ Charlie’s cheeks were brushed pink as he looked at her, and her heartbeat quickened.

  ‘I really want to kiss you,’ he finished at last. He looked almost sorry, as if he’d said something unforgivable. ‘I know, I know!’ He shook his head. ‘It’s completely ridiculous – and I shouldn’t have said anything. I’m sorry, I’m really sorry, I will ne—’

  She’d silenced him with a kiss, her body moving across the space between them before she realised what was happening. It was timid at first, each of them afraid that they were heading in a direction that a few moments ago had been nothing but a shared fantasy. In the end it was Hope, not Charlie, who took things further, sliding her hand across and along his thigh.

  She forced herself not to think about Dave, but she could never shut out Annette. Her daughter was always there in the wings when she kissed Charlie, but even that wasn’t enough of a reason to stop. Time with Charlie was like a drug that Hope couldn’t get enough of, the thing that got her out of bed in the morning. For the first time since Annette was born, she felt loved, understood, cherished and desirable – but she was still ashamed even now to admit just how much she’d relished those feelings.

  Hope kept her eyes closed as Charlie’s hands continued to massage her head.

  That strong connection was still there between them now, as much as it had ever been, but since that night, since she’d seen that look of disgust on her daughter’s face, it was tinged with guilt, too. Hope couldn’t let herself go in the way that she felt she should. The betrayal she’d been responsible for was making her relationship with Charlie seem seedy and cheap; at times it felt purely physical rather than an act founded on real love. She had been trying to switch her mind off from the incessant niggles since they arrived in Prague, but she wasn’t having any luck, and now, as Charlie’s fingers crept lower and she heard his towel slither to the floor, Hope felt herself completely tense up.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Charlie said, rocking backwards on to his heels as she sat bolt upright, spilling a good portion of water over the side of the tub.

  ‘My head was spinning,’ she lied, gripping his arm as if to illustrate the point.

  ‘It is very hot in here,’ he agreed, but he sounded puzzled.

  ‘And I’m hungry,’ she added, moving away from him and yanking out the plug. ‘Shall we go out for dinner?’

  ‘Okay.’ Charlie’s whole body seemed to droop at her words, and Hope kissed the top of his shiny head as she gathered up her towel.

  ‘We could go back to the place we found earlier, with the honey cake?’

  ‘Whatever you say.’

  He seemed worried that he’d done something wrong now, but Hope wasn’t sure how to put his mind at rest. The uncomfortable truth was that she was starting to question how she really felt about this relationship. Charlie was a decent man and deserved better than what she was currently able to offer. The problem was, she’d spent so much of her life putting a man’s needs in front of her own that to do it again with Charlie now seemed like a mistake.

  He was so willing to support her and look after her, but Hope was beginning to realise that both those jobs belonged not to Charlie – or to any man, for that matter. They belonged solely to her.

  21

  A small, crescent-shaped crowd had gathered in the Old Town Square to watch a group of musicians, and Sophie stood on the very edge, a cup of hot wine clutched in her hands.

  The band was made up of four men, all over the age of fifty, each with their own instrument. One held a clarinet, one a huge double bass, the third a banjo and the lead singer, whose voice was providing Sophie with even more goosebumps than the plummeting temperatures, had a ribbed wooden board hanging around his neck, two small cymbals fixed to its base. He played it simply by scraping or tapping with his fingers, most of which were adorned with thick silver rings.

  Gershwin’s ‘Summertime’ was the song of choice, and Sophie let the slow jazz melody creep its way through her senses. Everyone seemed entranced by the haunting lyrics and the gravelly voice of the singer, and Sophie watched as couples leaned into one ano
ther. Taking a sip of wine, she swayed gently from side to side, closing her eyes momentarily as the music continued to cast its slow spell.

  The snow that had fallen in the days before she arrived had been swept into large piles around the edges of the square, and the mounds looked almost purple in the fading light. The band had set themselves up far enough away from the Christmas Market so as not to be competing with the shrieks of laughter coming from the beer hut or the music churning out of the merry-go-round. Each musician was wrapped up against the cold of the evening in a woolly hat and thick coat, but Sophie could see how pink their fingers were as they teased out note after delicious note from their instruments.

  Robin had started to learn the guitar, but he was a terrible singer. The first time she’d heard him warbling away in the shower, Sophie had actually felt relieved. Finally, she had found a chink in his perfect armour, a reason to believe that he was a human being, just like her, and not some godlike creature sent down from the heavens, or more likely, she would tell him, an alien being from another planet. In the first few weeks after they met, Sophie had been in awe of Robin, of just how gorgeous, passionate, smart and funny he was. She’d put him up on a pedestal so high that she feared he was vanishing from sight, so hearing him sing that Elvis song completely wrong and totally out of tune had made her feel a lot better.

  Robin had predictably found the entire situation baffling, telling her that she was completely mental to think all those lovely things about him, and that if anyone was punching above their weight in their relationship, then it was him. She was perfect, he told her, like a lone star in a dark night sky. She was extraordinary and remarkable and he was … Well, he was just Robin Palmer, scruffy surfer from Cornwall with only seven GCSEs to his name. Sophie hadn’t told him so at the time, but what she’d been thinking was that he was far more than just himself – he was the half of her that she’d been searching for all her life without even realising it. He was her missing piece, her soulmate, her everything.

  ‘Sophie?’

  She swung around in surprise at the sound of a male voice, expecting to miraculously find Robin standing behind her, then immediately felt like a fool. Ollie grinned down at her, the lenses of his glasses half-covered with condensation. Megan was beside him, and she smiled at Sophie, too, nodding her head towards where the four men were still playing.

  ‘They’re amazing,’ she said in a low voice, and Sophie could see the lights from the market reflected in her eyes. ‘We’ve been standing here for ages watching them, then Ollie spotted you so we thought we’d come and say hi. Have you had a good day?’

  Sophie nodded. She waited until the song came to an end before turning to address the two of them properly. ‘I have, thanks – how about you two?’

  ‘We discovered the Mirror Maze,’ Ollie told her. ‘Although we had to wade through a ton of snow to get there.’

  ‘Hardly a ton!’ Megan chided, rolling her eyes for Sophie’s benefit. ‘This one decided not to bring any boots to Prague, in the depths of winter,’ she added, looking down at Ollie’s big wet trainers.

  Sophie grinned and pulled a sympathetic face at Megan’s tall companion, who was now stamping his feet on the spot and complaining that he hadn’t been able to feel his toes since lunchtime.

  ‘We went to the Strahov Monastery, too,’ Megan was now telling her. ‘It’s amazing up there – you can see the whole city spread out below you.’

  Sophie nodded. ‘It’s great, isn’t it?’

  ‘I’d love to come back in the summer,’ Megan went on. ‘I’d like to see how it contrasts to this time of year.’

  ‘It’s stunning at every time of year,’ Sophie assured her. ‘But the snow does give it that something special.’

  ‘Freezing feet is what it gives you,’ put in Ollie, making both girls laugh.

  ‘Are you heading back to the hotel?’ Megan asked Sophie now. The band were taking a well-earned break and Ollie had just nipped off to throw some coins into their box.

  ‘I guess so.’ Sophie shrugged. ‘I didn’t really have any plans set in stone.’

  ‘Us neither,’ Megan admitted.

  She was very pretty, Sophie thought, with those golden curls snaking out from under her hat to frame her face. Megan’s nose was small and upturned slightly at the end, and her lashes were long enough not to need any mascara to enhance them. Ollie must have a huge crush on her. In fact now that she considered it, Sophie realised that she could almost hear the air crackling between them, and wondered why she hadn’t noticed it sooner.

  ‘Did you take many photos today?’ she asked, motioning to the camera that was hanging around Megan’s neck.

  ‘So many.’ Megan grinned broadly at her. ‘I haven’t felt this inspired in a long time, to be honest. Coming to Prague feels like someone’s flicked a switch on in my head. And the light when the sun’s out … I mean, just wow.’

  ‘Talking about me again?’ quipped Ollie. He’d come back laden with three of the CDs that the band were selling, and he presented one to each of them.

  ‘Oh, you shouldn’t have,’ Sophie said, immediately blushing.

  ‘Oh, I should.’ He shrugged. ‘I think we all felt something special listening to them, so why not take a bit of that feeling home with us?’

  Sophie thought privately that it was impossible to ever leave Prague without taking some new feelings away with you – it was just that kind of place – but instead she merely smiled and slipped the CD into her bag.

  ‘Ollie’s offered to buy me dinner tonight,’ Megan told her as they moved away from the square and headed in the direction of the hotel. ‘I don’t suppose you know where the most expensive restaurant in Prague is, do you?’

  ‘Great friend, isn’t she?’ Ollie deadpanned, winking at Sophie as she looked at each of them in turn. His easy banter reminded her of Robin.

  ‘I know a few,’ she replied, happy to play along. ‘But to be honest, the best places are the ones more tucked away. The further out of the centre you go, the better the food becomes.’

  ‘I haven’t even tried any goulash yet,’ Ollie said, sniffing the air appreciatively as they passed a traditional Czech restaurant.

  ‘You know, most Czech people don’t actually eat that much goulash or onion soup,’ Sophie told them. ‘They go mad for Italian food, believe it or not. You’re much more likely to find a Prague family at a pizza parlour than you are in one of these taverns.’

  ‘I think they’re crazy,’ Megan said, kicking a lump of slushy snow in Ollie’s direction as they crossed the cobbled street. ‘I love all that meat and dumplings and potatoes.’

  ‘Nothing better than a girl who loves her me—’ began Ollie, only to have his hat pulled down right over his face by an indignant Megan.

  ‘You two are hilarious,’ Sophie told them, laughing as Ollie staggered about pretending to be blind. ‘You’re like an old married couple.’

  ‘Oi!’ Ollie reappeared and pushed his glasses back up on to his nose. ‘Less of the old. I turned thirty-five not long ago and I’m feeling very sensitive about my impending old age.’

  ‘Thirty-five isn’t old,’ Sophie told him, deciding as she did so that she liked Ollie very much. ‘My mother would tell you that you’re in your prime.’

  ‘Is she single?’ He laughed at his own joke and Sophie joined in, shaking her head from side to side in an apology.

  ‘Sorry, no – she’s very much spoken for.’

  ‘Another one bites the dust,’ Ollie sighed, sneaking a glance at Megan.

  There was definitely something going on between these two, Sophie decided, watching smudges of colour emerge on Ollie’s cheeks as Megan returned his smile.

  ‘Is that Hope and Charlie?’ Megan suddenly said, pointing across the street to where a couple were picking their way carefully through the puddles, her arm firmly linked through his. Sophie and Ollie watched as she bounded over to greet them, following suit as soon as they heard Hope’s delighted cry of recognition.r />
  ‘We’re off to dinner at this lovely little place behind the church,’ Hope told them after everyone had shaken hands or hugged. ‘Why don’t we all go together?’

  ‘Fine by me,’ Megan was quick to reply, and Ollie nodded, presumably happy to go along with whatever she wanted.

  Sophie hesitated. Her phone was almost out of battery and her charger was back at the hotel. Then again, dinner did sound like a nice idea, and far more fun than sitting in her room on her own. A day spent completely alone had left her feeling uneasy, and her sensible side was urging her to go ahead. Company would be a good thing, a distraction. It would make the evening pass by more quickly, and the date of Robin’s arrival draw closer.

  That decided it.

  22

  As soon as they’d made their way into the little café-cum-restaurant behind the church in the Old Town Square, Megan excused herself and nipped off to the ladies. She’d been wearing a woolly hat pulled right down over her ears all day and she just knew that her long blonde hair would have tangled into a solid lump beneath it. If it was just herself and Ollie, she’d have brushed it out at the table, but she thought she’d better not be quite so casual now that they had company.

  ‘Owwwww,’ she cried, grimacing at her reflection in the mirror as her fold-up brush became caught in a particularly matted chunk of hair and stuck fast to the strands.

  ‘Do you need some help?’

  It was Sophie. She’d just pushed the door open and was grimacing almost as much as Megan as she took in the scene of carnage.

  ‘I used to have this problem all the time,’ she told her, stepping forward and slipping her tiny fingers around the plastic brush. ‘My hair was long enough to sit on, once upon a time.’

  ‘Wow.’ Megan’s eyes widened in the mirror. ‘It’s so short now – it must have been a big deal when you cut it all off.’

  Sophie had taken her own enormous striped beanie hat off already, and her pixie crop was sticking up in all directions. Rather than look messy, however, the haphazard style lent her a sort of vulnerability, and Megan felt herself soften as she watched her new friend gently ease the bristles from her hair.