Since You've Been Gone

by Anouska Knight

  “It’s no’ like ma son to talk to me of women, least of all lovely young ladies like yourself, with their own husbands to love.” Fergal’s eyes were like black ice under the seriousness of his eyebrows. “You do love your husband, don’t you, lass?”

  I held Fergal’s eyes with my own. “Every day,” I replied.

  Fergal nodded. “Aye. That’s what I thought. It hurts, no?” he asked, offering me another nip.

  “Every day.” I smiled.

  “Well, be glad, lass. Some poor beggars go their whole lives not knowing what love feels like. We might never find it again, but at least we know what to look for.”

  I sat back next to him and looked out onto the water. It was so quiet here—not quite as calm as the hillside back home, though. The waters were still there.

  “And does Ciaran know what to look for?” The question fell from my mouth.

  “He thought he did. He was engaged to a lass we all thought loved him. But all Clara ever taught Ciaran was what not to look for.”

  “What not to look for? As in nutcases, widows...?”

  “As in women who are only interested in what they can gain from him. Women who will turn their back on him as soon as something better calls. Women who will parade themselves as the genuine article while they squeeze him for information they can pass on to Daddy.”

  “I’m sorry, Fergal. That must have been hurtful for him,” I said quietly.

  “Well, she had us all fooled. It wasn’t really her fault. Some girls are raised to think of men that way, like a selection in a vending machine. They’re trained to love the money before the man who earns it. But Clara ruined my boy. Changed the way he looked at women, until he forgot how wonderful they could be.”

  Fergal turned as Ciaran reached the bench. “Sorry, Holly. I had to make a call. I hope he hasn’t been boring you to death?”

  “No, no. We were just taking in the views,” I said.

  “Are you cold out here? Mary’s cleared the kitchen, so I thought I’d show off my sandwich-making skills?”

  Fergal was watching me but Ciaran couldn’t see it. The smallest nod, and we had an understanding.

  “Okay, chef, but I draw the line at eel.” I laughed.

  * * *

  The rest of the day was more than enjoyable. We spoke about everything—school days, childhood memories, favourite films, embarrassing parents. As the day wore on, the distance between us grew narrower in every way. There had been lots of opportunities for Ciaran to see if I was as ready to be kissed as I had been in the forest. All day we traded subtle touches and knowing looks, accompanied with a hankering for just one of them to flourish into another elusive kiss.

  But nothing happened.

  And that’s how the day went until much later. As we walked across the silent courtyard towards Ciaran’s car, his fingers finally slipped deftly through mine.

  I stopped. I couldn’t help it, and looked up at him, at the hair in every shade of brown falling forward in that same place, at the cut healing over solemn brows, and the abyssal brown eyes watching me taking it all in. This was it—he was going to kiss me again. My heart quickened, my breathing became shallow and then—

  Boom!

  Ciaran crouched as I did the same, my hands shooting up over my ears. Overhead a flock of birds shot screeching from the trees around us and an alarm somewhere on the property started to wail.

  “Bloody hell, Fergal!” Ciaran cried.

  “What was that?” I asked, not daring to move.

  “It’s all right. Sounds like Fergal’s got the elephant gun out.”

  “Elephant gun?”

  A ripple of nervous laughter rumbled through me. Ciaran joined in, too. He had a good laugh, a laugh that reached right down into my tummy and filled me up. “Come on,” he said, “I have a surprise for you.”

  chapter 26

  Ciaran’s laughter had resonated to new heights on the way home. Fergal’s eccentricity had kicked off some childlike thread of amusement between us that seemed to pick up pace with every snicker and rasp we traded with each other. We laughed so much that he was going to have to pull over if we didn’t get it together soon. It felt good.

  My eyes were still streaming when I popped the car door open outside the cottage.

  “Are you coming in?” I said with an assumptive smile.

  “You go on ahead. I just need to make a call.” He smiled back.

  “Okay. I’ll put the kettle on,” I said, digging the keys from my pocket, feeling for the right one for the door. When I fed it into the keyhole, it wouldn’t turn over. I tried it the other way and felt the lock click into place. Dave was going crazy in the kitchen as I fumbled my way into the cottage, scratching forcefully at the kitchen door.

  “Dave, what’s the matter?”

  Dave shunted past me, sniffing and snorting the hallway floor. I didn’t register what had set him off at first. He left the hall for the main lounge while I realised what it was that had changed.

  I let my eyes move slowly, but still I couldn’t understand what they told me.

  The hallway was blue.

  From the lounge, Dave woofed and sniffed, ignoring me as I walked slowly in after him. My lounge, that had this morning been a cold stark storeroom of furniture, looked like...someone else’s house. The oak timber over the fireplace had been lightened. Vases I hadn’t seen since our flat sat on top, their reflection held in the large unfamiliar mirror hanging there.

  The tan chesterfield had moved, now sitting central to the room on top of a rug I’d never bought. A new coffee table tied in with the oak mantel, and my mother’s tall dresser was in a new place along the far wall.

  What the—?

  The mock-antler heads Charlie had made out of sticks hung on either side of the fire over shelves stocked with my university books, and a chandelier of twigs hung over the coffee table.

  Martha hadn’t done this. She was good, but this was... I’d never seen a room so beautiful, so well suited to us. Everything tied in—the warm tones of timbers and leather, the soft greens of the cushions and the colours on the walls. The walls where Charlie’s paint samples had been forever erased.

  My chest tightened.

  I ran through to his snug, where he’d slept when we’d fought, and found it untouched. But the relief was momentary.

  Dave got under my feet as I scrambled back to the hall.

  The timber looked unchanged, but was it? Or had it been ruined in some other way? I tried to slow my eyes enough to search the newel post thoroughly for the tiny pencil marks Charlie had left there, bursting into tears when I found them.

  * * *

  I sat there for a while, my face in my hands, sobbing at the unexplained invasion around me. Dave spent a few moments sniffing the new pinstriped carpet beneath me, before lending me his head to hold. He started to whimper. He’d been stuck here all day while strange people did strange things in the rooms next to him.

  The saltiness of a tear made the gauntlet to my mouth. I sat there and sniffed against my feebleness. I traipsed through to the back doors, Dave slipping through them as soon as I opened them, and I followed him out into the cool air.

  Orange leaves tumbled indifferently past me as I sat on the damp grass and looked out over the reservoir. How was it that a day could change so quickly? How was it that I was still surprised when they did?

  He didn’t mean to upset you, I told myself. But the words wouldn’t bed down. I tried to will myself to be happier for what Ciaran had tried to do for me. To be grateful. But I wasn’t ready for this. I wasn’t ready.

  Was he still even here? Or had he left...after he’d realised I wasn’t coming—elated with my new home, liberated from its moroseness.

  There was movement behind me.

  “
I wasn’t sure green was your colour,” he said uncertainly, holding back behind me, “but then, you loved the forests so much and...the designer said it was this year’s colour, or something like that....” He trailed off.

  I took a deep shuddering breath, fostered in me by the crying, and kept watching the movement of the leaves.

  “I like green,” I said quietly. “But you can’t just come into my life and paper over the cracks, Ciaran.”

  He was only trying to do something good for me. I knew that...but he’d just crossed the line. This was Charlie’s territory. I was Charlie’s territory.

  “They haven’t set foot further than the landing,” he reassured me, coming to stand in front of me. “I thought I was helping you, Holly. That you didn’t have the time to finish the work. You said that was the reason you hadn’t.” He was right; I had.

  A deep sigh helped me collect my thoughts. “I know I led you to believe that. And I know you’ve tried to do something thoughtful for me, but... But I never thought that you’d come in here with a task force, Ciaran. This is our home.”

  “Was, Holly,” he said gently. “It was yours and Charlie’s home. Now you live here alone.”

  “Ciaran, don’t. I don’t want this conversation.”

  “I just wanted you to have somewhere warm to relax, Holly, instead of hiding in one corner of your house like some timid little mouse.”

  “I don’t hide!” I said, my hackles rising.

  “Don’t you? I don’t like to think of you like that,” he said.

  “So don’t! Don’t think of me like anything!” My voice was climbing.

  “I can’t help it, Holly,” he whispered, his eyes darkening. “I can’t stop thinking about you.”

  My chest was growing tighter again. What did he want from me? What did he want me to say?

  “I...I...do not hide in my house, Ciaran.” Yes. That’s what I needed to say. I was sick of hearing that this week. “Normal people don’t do a DIY SOS on someone else’s home!”

  “Normal people? And do normal people live alone in the house that time forgot, with only an obscenely scary-looking dog for company?” he said.

  I was on my feet now, angry enough that I might just cry again, damn it.

  “You still live with your father! At least I stand on my own two feet!” I snapped.

  “You can’t just bury your head in the sand, Holly, and expect the rest of the world to go away.”

  “And you can’t just throw money at a problem, Ciaran, and expect it to go away!”

  “That’s not what I was trying to do, Holly. It was a gesture. A stupid gesture that I didn’t think through.”

  I didn’t know what to do. What to say to him! “I’m sorry, Ciaran. But I’d like you to leave.”

  He held his palms out to me. “Holly. Come on.”

  But it was too late.

  “I wasn’t sure what was happening here, Ciaran. New feelings I hadn’t felt for a long time were...confusing me. I thought I could do this, but I’m sorry. I can’t. I can’t...betray him.”

  “Betray Charlie? No one’s asking you to betray anyone.”

  “But that’s what I’m doing, Ciaran! Pushing him to one side to make room for another.”

  A look of utter incredulity fell over him. “I haven’t expected you to push Charlie anywhere. I’ve never made you feel that you couldn’t include Charlie in conversation. I don’t want you to feel that way.” He was nearly shouting.

  “I’m sorry, Ciaran. I can’t. I love him.”

  I could feel myself shutting down. Folding in on myself until I was far away from the surface. Ciaran’s hands found the tops of my arms.

  “Of course you do. I know that, Holly. But did he love you?”

  “What?”

  “I said, did he love you, Holly?”

  “Yes, he loved me!” Do not cry. Do not cry.

  “And was he a good man?” Ciaran looked dark again, as he had in the back of the car, bruised and bleeding as we’d left the city. “Was he a good man?” he asked again, urgency in his voice.

  “Yes. He was a good man. He was the best man I’ve ever known.” The tears were burning, burning to run over like lava from a volcano.

  “Then if he loved you, and if he was half the man you say he was, he would want you to be happy again, Holly!”

  Too late. The heat coursed over my cheeks.

  “I want you to be happy, Holly. I believe I could make you happy.”

  I watched through blurry eyes as Ciaran’s face softened, but I was too far gone, tumbling back down into the black hole.

  “How?” I smiled through feeble lips. “By keeping me in cake orders and decorating my house? How are you going to make me happy, Ciaran? You buy everything you have!” I loosened myself from his grasp and wiped my face on my sleeve. “I’m sorry.... I can’t be bought.”

  “Holly! Where are you going?” he called after me.

  “Work. Unless you’ve had the painters in there, too?” I snivelled.

  “Holly. Please. The shop’s closed now!” he yelled after me. “Holly!”

  I carried on stalking through the house.

  “You’re running, Holly. Like a little mouse.” The frustration in his voice bounced around the kitchen as he followed me.

  I left the front door open behind me. It had been open all damned day anyway.

  “You’re being a coward, Holly,” Ciaran said, falling behind as I stormed in furious silence to the van.

  He lingered there, watchful in the dust, as I spluttered out of the yard.

  Who did he think he was? Interfering with my home?

  The van stuttered as I shifted the spindly gear stick into fourth. The engine groaned in protestation but it could shake to pieces around me for all I cared. The adrenaline was coursing through my veins. I hadn’t shouted at anyone like that for a long time. I dismissed any thoughts that I’d been unfair to him, that his intentions were good. I wanted the anger, but an ache had started to grow in my head.

  Just get to the shop. Get busy.

  My breathing had begun to level out when a streamline shine of black appeared in my rear view.

  I pushed down on the pedal, flat to the floor. Nothing changed. I was already flat out at just under fifty when Ciaran glided past me. I watched him slide back in front of me, then disappear off around the sweeping bend. By the time I’d driven around it, his car was already gone.

  “Jerk. Your car’s faster than mine—good for you,” I muttered. And again, I ignored the whispers of unfairness.

  When I screeched to a halt outside the shop, the last few pockets of activity on the high street were dwindling as all the stores were locking up for the day. Across the road, Ciaran stepped out of his space rocket. One of the golden girls was taking in the menu board from the pavement, and stood admiring him as he sauntered towards me. I turned my back to them all, digging at the lock.

  “Did you take a detour?” he asked nonchalantly. He was goading me. Good. That would make things easier.

  “We don’t all have a rich dad, Ciaran. Some of us have to buy our own cars and we can’t all have one of those.”

  He laughed next to me, but it was a hollow laugh.

  “So you think Fergal pays my way?”

  Over his shoulder both of the golden girls were brazenly watching us. I pushed into the shop.

  “It doesn’t really matter, Ciaran. You have enough women keeping an eye on you. Ask them what they think.”

  “I know what they think. I want to know what you think.”

  The truth was, I didn’t know what I thought when I was around him. My brain didn’t work properly. I turned at the counter and faced him, trying to uphold my umbrage. But he looked like he belonged on display somewhere, in a gallery where he
could be gazed upon, striking with his dark features and fairer hair. So serious, so wounded. Wasted here with me.

  “I think you’re used to getting what you want.” I swallowed.

  “And what do I want, Holly?” he said quietly, closing the space between us. His hand moved over mine on the counter, and my breathing hitched again.

  He came closer still, so that I could smell the sweetness of him.

  “I don’t know...” I muttered, searching. “To try something else? Something dowdy?” Penny’s words sat heavy in my head, and I hated that I couldn’t purge them.

  “Dowdy? Holly...you’re beautiful.”

  I swallowed again, and slipped my hand from under his.

  “Holly,” he said, behind me as I moved into the bakery, “would you stand still for a minute?”

  “I can’t, Ciaran!” I blurted. “Don’t you understand? I just can’t!”

  Jess had made a start on the fondant roses, lined in rows of fuchsia pink, egg-yellow and clementine on the central worktop. They’d do. I’d make some of those. Ciaran watched as I heaved the tubs of colourant from the far shelf.

  “Have you always been so stubborn? Or did you just find that you liked to wallow in self-pity when Charlie died?”

  I stopped throwing the lids I’d ripped from the tubs on the side. “What did you say?”

  “People experience tragedy every day, Holly. You aren’t the only one. You’re just one of the few who are prepared to take it lying down.”

  “Lying down! You don’t know me! I get up every day and push on with it, Ciaran. Trying not to envy my parents for their long marriage, or...or Jesse for his rampant sex life, or my sister for the baby that kicks inside her!”

  “So you want those things?” he asked, moving closer.

  “Yes, I want them!” I turned back to start scooping globs of sticky pink paste onto the mound of fondant I’d opened.

  I felt him behind me.

  “But still you choose to live like Cora? To accept your loneliness,” he said quietly.

  I moved to the counter by Jess’s roses. I knew I was going to cry again. I picked the nearest rose, and began to clumsily dust the edges of the petals with the blossom tints Jess had left there.