by Celia Hayes
“Oh…”
Ethan, dammit! He almost always makes me turn my phone off. We didn’t have reception. I hope it’s nothing serious.
“Unfortunately, I haven’t been well. I took a couple of days off. Has something happened?”
“No, nothing to worry about, fortunately” he explains hastily. “I hope you’re feeling better now.”
“Absolutely. Just a slight temperature. The climate here is a bit of a challenge.”
“Yes, I can imagine. It’s not that great here in London either. Some days it never stops raining.”
“What did you want to tell me?” I ask, betraying a little apprehension.
“Of course, I’m sorry.” He coughs. “As you may already know, we were looking for a key figure for the management of important financial transactions here at headquarters. Considering the wonderful work you’ve done in Turriff, we have decided by mutual agreement that we want you on our team. Congratulations!”
“Me?” I ask, in shock. “I mean… you chose me?”
“That’s right,” he says, laughing openly at my surprise. “When do you think you can come back? Do you think you could make it by tomorrow?”
I got the promotion.
“I’m sorry but I spoke to Rupert a few days ago and he asked me if I could stay here in Turriff for another two months.”
“Yes, it had been mentioned. Unfortunately, there was a bit of confusion with the communications. However, your promotion has been confirmed.”
“Who’ll take my place here?” I protest. “We can’t just leave the branch without a manager!”
“Choose a replacement from among the staff. We trust your judgment.”
“So you won’t send anyone?”
“No, we don’t think there’ll be any need. Just pick the new manager carefully. Consider their skills, and try and make sure it doesn’t create tension among the staff.”
“Okay.”
“Great. Are you sure you can leave tomorrow?” he asks.
“I… I think so. In two days, at the latest. Right, well… I’ll see you soon.”
We say goodbye and I hang up.
“Will you get a move on? They’re already going mad for that stupid souvenir photo,” I hear Mrs Cox yelling as she joins me on the pavement, holding the door open behind her. “These bloody modern contraptions! In my day, you took one picture a year, on Christmas Day. Now you’re always snapping away – I think you’re all mad,” she grumbles, but refrains from continuing when she notices from my darkened expression that something’s wrong.
She looks behind her, discreetly closes the door and walks over.
“Has something happened?”
“It was headquarters. I got the promotion. I have to leave for London tomorrow.”
“What wonderful news,” she says, in a tone more or less as euphoric as mine when I communicate the news.
“Yes…”
“Didn’t you say you couldn’t wait for this moment to come?”
“Yes. Yes I did.”
“But you’re not happy?”
“Of course I am,” I say, with a total lack of conviction.
“Hmm…”
“What do you mean, ‘hmmm’?”
“You know, there would be nothing wrong – absolutely nothing wrong – with you deciding to stay.”
Well never let it be said that she doesn’t speak her mind. She may well have every defect going, but she certainly doesn’t waste time in idle chatter.
“No, it’s true, but I don’t want to stay. I thought I’d been clear about that.”
“Yes, you were – but sometimes things change.”
“Not this!” I say categorically. “I’ve been waiting for this moment for years, and I’ve no intention of letting you spoil it for me. Look at your life. What have you done? You sacrificed your independence – and for what? To always be there for your husband and then find yourself all on your own judging cheese at the local produce fair! Do you think I want to end up like that?”
That was unfair, deeply unfair and I know it. By rights, she ought to tell me to piss off – she’d have every right to.
But she doesn’t. No. She sighs resignedly and comes a few steps closer to be sure that only I can hear her.
“Miss Watts,” she whispers, “I know it’s not easy. It never is, but don’t let it scare you.”
“I’m not scared.”
“You’re practically shitting yourself from fear,” she snaps. “Now pull yourself together and let’s go back inside – we have to take this damn picture,” she orders, before disappearing back through the door.
I decide not to mention it for the moment. I join the party, help clear the table and when everyone has left, I go home with Ethan, keeping the news to myself – due to my inability or maybe just my unwillingness to talk about it.
“I’m dying to sleep,” he murmurs, opening the door of his flat.
“The amount you managed to eat, I’m not surprised,” I say sarcastically, as I walk past the couch.
“Will you come here?”
It’s a request, true, but it’s anything but a question. As soon as I get closer, he pulls me down among the cushions, forcing me to sit between his legs.
“Ethan, will you stop? Can’t you see that I’m busy?” I protest, pointing to the huge pile of clothes that I’ve left at his these last few days and which I now need to take back to mine immediately, since I have less than eight hours to pack. I’ve booked a flight for tomorrow at two in the afternoon. I’ll just have time to go into the office and inform the staff. With all I have to do, wasting time on the sofa doesn’t seem a wise choice. The problem is that I haven’t told Ethan yet, so I can’t blame him for thinking that he has the entire afternoon with me.
“Later!” he says, hushing me and pulling something from his pocket. “I’ve got you something.”
He looks amused as he hands me a little packet.
This is… worrying.
“It’s not… it’s not…?” I sputter in agony.
“No, you idiot!” he chuckles. “It’s not a ring, don’t worry. I’m still in possession of my mental faculties. Open it.”
“What is it?”
“You lost your keyring. I got you a new one,” he explains, giving me a kiss on the forehead. “So?”
My keyring! And for a moment I…
“I’ll open it later, I’m busy now,” I say, killing his enthusiasm and struggling to get back up. He grumbles, but he already knows that when it comes to tidying up, if he doesn’t help me, he has no chance of getting favours of any kind. He snorts, curses the day he allowed a woman to re-organize his shoe rack, then gets up and goes to the table, taking one of the two bags in which I put the washed clothes, all folded and ironed. “Okay, I’ll take them upstairs. Why don’t you make a coffee in the meantime?”
“No, don’t worry. I’ll go. I have other things to do upstairs.”
“Now? Can’t you wait until I’m gone?”
“No, I can’t.”
I change mood, I change expression, I change tone of voice. He senses it, and his mood darkens too. He puts the bag back, puts his hands in the pockets of his jeans and leans against the table, pulling a crumpled pack of cigarettes from his pocket.
“What aren’t you telling me?” he asks, lighting a Marlboro without looking me in the face.
“They called me from London,” I confess and I look down too. “I got that promotion.” I attempt a smile. “You know, I wasn’t even expecting it any more. They’ve been trying to contact me for two days, but couldn’t get hold of me.”
“And? What did you say?” he asks, his face impenetrable.
“What did you expect me to say?” I blurt. “You know what I said.”
The problem is that I just can’t repeat it.
“When were you planning on telling me?”
“I’m telling you now.”
Please, don’t pick a fight. I can’t handle an argument now. Not now! I beg him i
nside myself – but I don’t need to worry, because he doesn’t react. He just stands there, leaning against the table in silence, perhaps waiting for me to add something.
“Ethan, we both knew it was going to happen. I told you. You knew it…”
“When are you leaving?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow…” he murmurs, taking one last drag before putting out his half smoked cigarette in the ashtray on the table. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Okay,” he nods.
“And… And is that all you have to say?”
“Have a good trip.”
And he walks off, closing the bedroom door behind him.
Chapter 35
Absolutely. Pitch. Black.
“It’s going to be awful now that you’re leaving”
“That’s nice of you to say.”
“By the way, are you taking that wireless mouse with you?”
“I can’t believe you’re leaving.”
“Yes, you’ve already said that Miss Hunt, but unfortunately I am,” I repeat for the third and hopefully last time. I pick everything up from the desk and check the time – it’s nine fifteen, I’d better hurry!
“Make sure you give my notes to Mr Ward,” I remind her, giving her a sheet of A4 covered in writing.
“Sure…”
“What are you doing now? Crying?” I ask, finding her suddenly in floods of tears with her head bowed, trying to hide her wet cheeks behind a hand.
“Miss Hunt, stop it immediately! There’s nothing to cry about. This is a happy ending – you still have your job, I have my promotion,” I say, in an attempt to comfort her. I would really like to do something, but at the most I can manage is to reluctantly pat her a couple of times on the shoulder. “Now go and clean yourself up – I don’t want the customers seeing you in this state. I’m going out to the car,” I communicate hastily.
“Yes… Yes, of course.” She walks towards the door, but then stops and comes back, almost running towards me, and throws her arms around me. “Have a good journey, Miss Watts. Take care, and call us sometimes,” she whispers in my ear.
This is treason! It takes me off guard, and – would you believe it? – I hug her back… Look at what this lot make me do! And if that wasn’t enough, I nearly burst into tears.
Leaving the bank turns out to be a harrowing experience. So does leaving Turriff, and I find myself wondering whether it’s appropriate or not to go to the pub to say goodbye to Ethan. Since yesterday evening he’s been ignoring me. He has a point, but we can’t say goodbye like this just because, out of the blue, they asked me to go back.
A difficult decision, but I take it anyway, uncertain that I’m doing the right thing.
When I reach the pub, I park next to the entrance. I’ve never done that before. I park the car between two small lorries and, somehow, find the courage to walk in. At this time of day it’s closed to the public, but there’s always someone there in the morning because supplies are delivered then and they have to clean up.
I knock a few times, and hear quick steps reaching me, accompanied by various curses. Lucas, Ethan’s partner, opens. He looks agitated.
“Oh, it’s you! I thought it was that idiot traffic warden again. We’ve been arguing for over an hour. Every time they come to deliver anything he makes such a fuss. Where the heck does he want them to park?” he says, moving aside to let me in. “Come in, I’ll get you a drink. Are you leaving?”
Who snitched?
“Yes, everything’s in the car. I just came round to say goodbye quickly. Is Ethan here?”
“No, he hasn’t been in,” he answers, going behind the bar. “Predictably.” He takes out a bottle from the fridge. “Fruit juice?”
“Why not?” I let myself be enticed, and take a stool.
“Anyway, wow! I wasn’t expecting that. It must have been a surprise for you, too.”
“Yes, I didn’t think it would happen. I never thought I’d get it, but apparently my lucky star has decided to return to duty,” I say, fiddling with a sachet of sugar.
He listens silently while he prepares two glasses.
“What flavour is it?”
“Blueberry. That’s all we’ve got.”
“It’ll do.”
“We’ll miss you,” he murmurs, passing me a glass.
“I’ll miss you too.”
My last admission seems to give him the courage to say something that, I realize now, he was keeping to himself so as not to seem intrusive. He’s uncomfortable, but he forces himself to express his feelings on the subject. Which subject? Which do you think – the unmentionable one.
I suspected it would happen.
“Look, I don’t like to stick my nose in but I think you should go and see him.”
“No, it’s late. I’d risk missing my flight. And I don’t want to bother him. Popping in to see him here was one thing, going to his house is another.”
“Trudy, what are you talking about? Bother him? Are you kidding? He’ll be devastated if you don’t go.”
“It won’t help any if I go. You know how he is. He’ll start shouting, he’ll tell me to piss off—”
“I don’t think so.”
“Lucas, look, we all know the reality. It was a thing. We spent some time together. For goodness sake, it was nice, but we have to go back to our lives. Ethan isn’t the type for serious relationships, I’m too wound up in my career. Sure, I’d have preferred to say goodbye with a nice handshake, but if the alternative is having him slam the door in my face, then I’d rather just leave. Tell him I came by,” I suggest, sipping my juice. “Tell him I said goodbye.”
“Whatever you want, but he’ll be really upset,” he repeats, as if I hadn’t grasped it yet.
“It’s late!” I say, checking the time. “I have to go. Thanks so much for everything, Lucas, and give all the others a kiss from me. I haven’t got time.”
“Give us a hug,” he says affectionately. “And remember, call every once in a while, you’ve got my number.”
“Of course I will, count on it,” I lie.
I know I won’t. When I get home I will just want to forget everything. It would be too painful to remember. I just want to start over and, this time, everything will be different, I can feel it. My trip to Turriff wasn’t in vain: I’ve rediscovered a part of myself that I thought was dead and buried, I found other parts I didn’t even know existed, but the most important thing is that it opened my eyes about my life and about what I was becoming, and now I have the opportunity to change and to build myself a little corner of happiness.
I trot off toward the door, wave goodbye one last time and get in the car. When I start it, however, I find Lucas’ hands on the windscreen and I almost have a heart attack.
“A little souvenir from Turriff, Miss Watts!” he says, and passes me a paper bag.
“What is it?” I ask.
“What do you mean, what is it?! It’s one of those horrible, greasy donuts you pretend to hate but that I always see you devouring during your break.”
I nod.
“You’re incorrigible! If I wasn’t in such a rush, I’d give you a good talking to,” I joke, placing the bag on the seat next to me.
“Trudy…”
“Yes?”
“He loves you. He loves you very much. Don’t leave without saying goodbye.”
“If he did, he would have said so,” I answer, betraying all the emotion that this unexpected confession unleashes inside me.
“Who? Ethan? Have you really not understood him yet? He makes out he’s this tough guy who never has to ask anyone for anything, and all the time he’s in agony inside. At least think about it… okay?”
“Okay,” I agree, with the sole aim of ending this ridiculous conversation. Ethan doesn’t give a damn about my departure or me. It’s only his hurt pride that makes him react like that. If he really cared, he’d have asked me to stay yesterday. If he really cared, he wouldn’t have been
indifferent when I told him I’d be staying in Turriff for another two months. We would have talked about it then, when we had time, but nothing happened. With the problem filed away, he carried on acting as though everything was the same. And now I have to leave and he’s acting like he’s in the right, and treating me as if what happened was a crime and not just the consequence of both of our choices.
Oh no, he doesn’t care! If he cared, he wouldn’t have slammed the door in my face.
I open my bag, get a cigarette, light it and sit there in the car park, smoking and swearing at people, from my junior school teacher to my father, who complains because I never call him but who is never there when I do.
I put down my phone, stick the keys in the ignition and start the car – and then I see a bow sticking out from the junk inside my handbag and slump back into the seat, oblivious to the second hand of my watch ticking away. I turn off the engine, pull out the little envelope and study it carefully.
I never opened it, thinking it was just a key ring, too far down in the evolutionary ladder to be the remedy for my disastrous life, but now I’m not really in the mood for driving and one excuse is as good as another to waste time.
I open it and… what leaves me most astonished isn’t the horrible fluffy toy gorilla staring up at me with sad eyes, his hands clasped, but the keys attached to him. Keys, I would say at a guess, that look remarkably like those Ethan uses to open his door.
He… He gave me his house keys.
He gave me the keys to his house along with a gorilla that was clearly praying and which looks as though it’s about to burst into tears!
I’ve already told you not to… I don’t…
And I lose my temper.
“You idiot!”
Why, why couldn’t he tell me? Why? Oh no, his excellency, the Pumpkin King, just couldn’t waste his breath on such trifling issues as our stupid relationship. No! He slams the door and sends me to hell. Really mature behaviour. Just ideal for starting a serious relationship…
“Sorry, too late!” I bark, throwing the gorilla in the bag.
There are some people you’re better off without. I was really lucky. If it hadn’t been for the promotion, perhaps in two months time I would be there fiddling around his house, hoping he’d decide to make me an honest woman like Cookie.