by Fiona Harper
‘I don’t know what to do, Caz. I want her to stay, but I can’t give her what she wants. I don’t do love. Never have. I have no idea how to explain how I feel about her because I don’t even know how to define it. Would you stay for that?’
She pressed her lips together and thought for a moment.
‘Love is more than words, Noah.’
‘I know that.’
‘Do you?’ she said, looking him up and down. ‘Really?’
The ginger cat made a reappearance and started rubbing itself on his calf. He tried to shoo it away, not by kicking, more by just nudging with his leg. Caz returned her attention to her soup and, after she’d flung in a few herbs, she nodded to herself, turned down the heat and covered it with a lid. Then she stood with her large bottom cushioning her as she leaned against the kitchen cabinet and folded her arms.
‘What’s one of the most important things an aspiring writer needs to learn?’
He racked his brain. What had been his weaknesses?
‘Spelling?’ he said hopefully.
Caz threw her head back and laughed. He’d expected a witch’s cackle but it was light and melodious. ‘Dig deeper.’
Why was everybody so fixated on digging? It was driving him mad. He was about to ask her as much when one of his hunches hit him and he blurted a phrase out before his conscious brain had even had a chance to give it the once-over.
‘Show, don’t tell.’
Caz nodded and beamed at him the way a proud teacher would reward her star pupil. ‘Exactly. You think about that.’
She turned and put the kettle on and, while she made them both a cup of tea, Noah tried to think about show, don’t tell. He came up with exactly nothing.
As if she could tell he was struggling, Caz took a different tack.
‘Now you’re going to be a daddy, you need to think about how a parent loves their child.’
He thought of his parents and also came up blank. Then he thought about Grace and how she would sacrifice everything for Daisy. And, finally, he thought about his own child, the one growing inside Grace, the one he may only get to see on alternate weekends if his wife decided to leave. That pounding, primal, protective thing surged through him again.
Oh.
He looked up at Caz, his mouth open. ‘I love that baby already. Even though I haven’t met it. Even though I don’t know what it will be like.’
She smiled and nodded. ‘Of course you do. It won’t matter what that child does or says. You will always love it. Always.’
Of course. Unconditional love.
And then another zap hit him. Boy, those hunches were coming thick and fast today.
That was Karl’s problem. The girl—the double agent—Karl loves her like that. And he lets her do what she does, even though he knows she’ll betray him.
The ginger cat suddenly bounded onto his lap, purred and curled itself up into a ball.
‘Yes. That’s it,’ Caz said. ‘Even when it hurts. Even when you lose a little piece of yourself in the loving.’
He understood that much, but…
He looked up at Caz as she peeked into her soup pot. ‘But how does this relate to Grace? How can I stop her leaving?’
The feather in her hair fluttered to the floor as she shook her head. ‘That’s for you to work out. But I’ll tell you this…There was a reason I let you buy my coffee shop. And it wasn’t so you could hurt Grace.’
Grace wasn’t in when Noah got back that afternoon and he found a note letting him know she’d gone for a walk. She seemed to be doing a lot of that lately. Walking. Leaving the house to get away from him. He chucked his jacket over the back of the sofa and headed for his study.
Once there, he pulled a large pad of paper out of the drawer in his football-pitch-sized desk. It was time to make all these thoughts running round his head physical. Then they couldn’t shift and change, one second seeming one thing, the next another. And once he could see his thoughts in stark black ink, maybe he’d be able to make sense of them.
He flipped the pad open and stared at the vast white page. Plain paper had been a deliberate choice—no constricting lines or squares. His thoughts could flow where they needed, unhampered. When he’d finished, the page would be full of scribbled phrases and roughly drawn boxes with arrows sprouting out of them and words. Lots of words. Then he’d sit back and stare at it until he saw the pattern.
But the paper stayed blank. Empty.
Realising that he actually had feelings rather than just instincts had been a major breakthrough for him. But putting those feelings into vowels and consonants was still beyond him. He let out a dry laugh. He made his living creating something out of nothing, with words as his only tool. Why couldn’t he turn that skill on himself?
Maybe he could.
Maybe he just needed to take a step back and look at himself as he would one of his characters. Maybe he needed Post-it notes and coloured pens and index cards…He stood up and reached for the shelf that held all his supplies.
No.
That was just time-wasting. Procrastinating. Pen and paper would be enough.
He sat down again and wrote his name in the middle of the white space. Then he underlined it and drew a box round it, waiting for the ideas to start. When they did, he’d hardly be able to scrawl fast enough to keep up, but there was always a moment like this when he sat in the silence and he feared they would never bulge over the lip of his subconscious and begin to flow.
The moment stretched and elongated. Noah’s heart began to race. What if they never came, what if—
His pen began to move.
Like he had done with Karl, he started with his past. But, instead of building a history to explain who his character was today, he deconstructed. He pulled the layers away, using his pen as a scalpel, until he could see what had made him this way.
He saw his parents—people who abhorred emotional displays of any kind, who valued stoicism. And he saw the boy who had tried so desperately to win their approval by squashing himself into that mould, even if it was a painful fit. A boy who grew up to go into the army at nineteen, who literally saw friends die in front of him. A young man who couldn’t let himself grieve because, if he’d let it out there and then, he’d have been no use at all to his regiment. So he’d shoved it all in a big hole and built a trapdoor over it.
His hand flew over the paper now, his usually neat writing becoming more angular, less uniform.
He’d carried all of that with him into his post-army life, into his relationship with Sara. Wow. He saw it now. What she’d said. Why she’d left. His glass wall wasn’t a barrier keeping him out, stopping him feeling what everybody else felt. It was a shell. A glass shell. His method of self-protection had been the cause of a lot of his unhappiness. It was still causing Grace’s.
Grace. How did this all relate to Grace? Because that was what was important now, not his own self-knowledge.
Show, don’t tell.
Had his actions communicated more than his words, even his own thoughts?
How had he treated Grace in the last few months? He pushed his pad away and bit the end of his pen. Well, he’d practically manipulated her into marrying him for a start. It hadn’t been a conscious plan, but when he looked back on his actions now, it made him uncomfortable. Would she still have married him if she hadn’t been backed into a corner? What would she have done if she’d known, at the eleventh hour, he’d decided to try and negotiate for The Coffee Bean? He’d told himself he was doing it for her but, really, he’d done it for himself. Because he wanted Grace to marry him so badly he’d thought he needed a sweetener, something to keep her with him when the honeymoon was over—literally.
And what had he done after she’d pledged to join her life to his? He’d starved her of love and he’d drained her dry.
What else? What else have you done?
He’d tried to be a good husband, the best he knew how to be. It was a pity his knowledge on the subject had been so la
cking. He’d only done stupid little things like bringing her dry toast in the mornings when she felt sick, or always making sure he came home with a choice of three different dinners every night. If he’d heard a song on the radio he thought she’d like, he’d bought her the CD.
These were all little things, but in the world of show, don’t tell they added up to something bigger. Noah’s spirits began to lift.
For goodness’ sake, he’d bought her a patisserie! Not his brightest idea, it turned out, but you couldn’t fault him for trying to give her everything she’d ever dreamed of.
What did all those things say?
He still didn’t know. And it was all churning around inside his head, making him feel claustrophobic. He left the study and headed for the garden. As he passed through the kitchen, he was shocked to see it was almost six o’clock and that he’d been holed up in his study for hours.
It was one of those balmy summer evenings that the London suburbs did really well. The horizon was a gentle peach colour and a warm breeze made the trees whisper. His garden was large and rather beautiful, all clipped lawns and leafy trees. No credit to him; he’d inherited them from the previous owner—along with a rather cantankerous gardener who seemed to work different hours every week and had a habit of popping up unexpectedly and scaring the life out of him.
Noah walked across the patio and onto the lawn. There was a beautiful little bench just out of sight, tucked behind a large rhododendron, and he liked to sit there and stare out across the surrounding fields. However, when he got to the spot, he discovered the bench was occupied.
Grace was sitting in one corner. Not sprawled out, relaxing in the early evening sunshine, but hunched into an awkward shape, as if she was trying to physically keep herself together.
In that moment, before she turned and saw him, while a look of unbearable sadness passed across her features, Noah had the strongest hunch of his life. It hit him like an express train going full speed, and he stumbled with the impact of it.
He loved Grace.
With all his heart. With everything he had and everything he was.
That wasn’t a hunch, you dummy! It was a feeling. Just like all the other feelings you’ve been having, but your subconscious dressed them up in disguise and gave them another name so they were safe, so they were acceptable.
And, just like that, the trapdoor sprang open.
Memories and images and everything he’d pressed down and refused to feel for so many years tumbled into his brain. He ignored most of it and rummaged for things labelled Grace and marriage.
It wasn’t just a today thing either, this loving Grace. He’d loved her right from the moment he’d known she was going to be his wife. Maybe even before that. The realisation made him gasp.
Grace, who had apparently been unaware of his presence, jumped up and spun around. ‘Noah!’
She was looking at him and he couldn’t say a thing. This was the face of the woman he loved. He needed to explore it afresh with his eyes, each familiar curve and line. God, she was beautiful. Of course he’d always thought that, but now…it wasn’t just about cheekbones and lashes and lips. It was three-dimensional.
She knew something was different, he could tell. Her eyes held a question. And, since words were still nowhere to be found, he answered it the only way he knew how. He closed the distance between them, pulled her into his arms and kissed her. At first she hesitated, but it wasn’t long before the old chemistry started to fizz and she joined him in a deep, hungry, searching kiss.
They made it as far as the conservatory before their patience ran out and the clothes started to come off. A blouse on the wicker chair, a shoe in the kitchen, her skirt left on the stairs, his shirt on the landing…
It was as if he’d been making love in the dark for years and somebody had just turned the light on. No longer was it just about pure physical sensation and muffled feelings he refused to set free.
Afterwards, he lay back and stared at the ceiling. If he’d known it could be like this, that he could feel like this, he’d have started searching for Grace twenty years earlier. Why, oh, why had he wasted all this time?
Even then he couldn’t bear any distance between them. He curled round her, dragging her to him, and she intertwined her arms with his and pulled them into her body and kissed his knuckles, his fingers, his palms. At first he was jubilant, ready to leap up and down on the bed and declare his love for her, but then he started wondering why she’d let him make love to her in the first place, why she hadn’t shied away from him as she had done in recent days. There had been a poignant sweetness in her lovemaking today, almost a sadness.
As the truth struck home a small pearl of moisture appeared at the corner of his eye. This time together had not been about reconciliation, as he had hoped.
Grace had been saying goodbye.
For the next week, Noah almost buried himself in his study. He didn’t know how to fix what had happened between them. He did, however, know how to fix Karl. So he spent his time doing just that. And, as he did, he started to see what Grace had been talking about. He started to see himself, not Karl.
But now Karl loved his double agent girlfriend with true abandon, was willing to die rather than betray her, even if it meant letting her betray him. And, as he wove all of this into the story, the answers started to come to him.
Just telling Grace would not be enough. He was breaking her heart and sounds and syllables would not mend it. Suddenly, he could see so clearly what Caz had been talking about.
The night before they left for Paris, the plan finally clicked into place in his head. He hadn’t wanted to jump the gun, to try something and send her running away for ever if he got it wrong, but he was also aware that time was running out and that the hourglass was almost empty.
Paris was just as beautiful. Too beautiful, in fact. Last time she’d been here it had all been new and exciting, her relationship with Noah blossoming. Even she hadn’t guessed that in three short months it would all come to an end.
Reminders were everywhere. Places they’d eaten, streets they’d walked down. Noah had even brought them back to the same hotel, although—thank goodness—they occupied a different suite.
Noah was making it hard to let him go.
Harder since they’d made love that day. Every time he looked at her now, her heart did a silly little skip. One better suited to a fourteen-year-old at the beginning of a relationship. It had no place here as they untangled themselves from each other and prepared to go their separate ways.
Grace lay awake in bed early on their second morning there. Her alarm clock showed it was five-thirty but she refused to believe it.
She wished she had Daisy’s laptop with her so she could see if Marissa and Dani were online. It would be late in San Francisco, but probably only early evening in Sydney.
Hang on a minute. She could use Noah’s laptop. It was sitting in the lounge of their suite, all set up and ready to go. He’d shown her how to use it weeks ago, scoffing at Daisy’s outmoded bit of kit. He’d even offered to buy her a new one, but she’d got used to Daisy’s scruffy pink laptop and it felt homely, comfortably shabby in the midst of all Noah’s high-tech gadgets.
Noah was breathing softly on his side of the bed. He hadn’t even made an attempt to touch her again since they’d last made love. As if he’d silently agreed that they couldn’t top what had happened and should leave it as their last sweet memory of the one thing that had always worked in their relationship.
It was almost a relief not to have to wriggle out of his embrace. Almost. She threw the covers back, slid her feet onto the floor and stood up quietly and carefully. Being an early bird, Noah tended to sleep lightly at this time of the morning and it wouldn’t take much to rouse him to full consciousness. And she didn’t want that. She needed this time on her own.
When she was standing, she crept to the door, walking through the soles of her feet like a dancer. Even she could hardly hear her own footsteps.
Noah’s breathing stopped for a moment and she instantly became a statue. But then he started again and he didn’t sit up or make any sudden movements, so she finally made it to the door and released the breath that had been trapped in her chest.
Noah stared at the wall. He’d woken, having heard Grace—no, it was more as if he’d sensed her—creeping out of the room.
Every second of every day she was moving further and further away from him, retreating into herself. He knew he had to put his plan into action soon. But, at the same time, he didn’t want to manipulate her. When he asked her to stay it truly had to be her choice and not because he’d carefully and silently removed all her other options.
‘Shh!’ Grace clapped her hands over the laptop speaker as it merrily chimed, announcing with some self-satisfaction that it was booting up. She glanced at the bedroom door but no light came on and, after a few seconds, she relaxed.
Her fingers rapped out a familiar pattern on the keyboard as she logged onto Blinddatebrides.com, not even having to think about it. She sent out the invitation:
Englishcrumpet invites Kangagirl and Sanfrandani to a private IM conference.
Nothing happened. Oh, well. She’d known it was a long shot, but she’d been desperately hoping that one of them would be online. She was just about to creep back into the bedroom when the laptop pinged.
Kangagirl: Grace?
Englishcrumpet: Oh, thank goodness! I’m so glad you’re here.
Kangagirl: I was just about to leave the office. You just caught me.
Englishcrumpet: Have you got a few minutes?
Kangagirl: Always. Is this a Noah-related emergency?
Englishcrumpet: When isn’t it? If I ever get my love life sorted out we’ll have nothing left to talk about.
Kangagirl: (grin) We’ll just have to start on Dani’s, then!
Englishcrumpet: Won’t she love that?
Kangagirl: What’s up?
Englishcrumpet: I’m regretting saying I’d wait until after the Paris trip to leave. It’s just so hard!