by Celia Hayes
I close my bag, put out the cigarette and start the car again.
This time I’m furious, and I head swiftly for the nearest motorway exit.
Farewell Turriff.
Farewell Ethan.
Farewell Scotland.
Three words to describe my mood?
Absolutely.
Pitch.
Black.
Chapter 36
Easy, Right?
“What do you want?”
“Er… I just happened to be passing by.”
I screech to a halt and sit staring at the dashboard with a heavy lump in my stomach which has been forcing me to gasp for oxygen ever since I left.
Ok. Good. Here I am. And now?
I don’t have many alternatives. I get out and I walk towards the gate, go through it, go down the path and stand in front of the door. I check the time – if I leave now and I call the travel agent, maybe I can change my ticket for the next flight.
I put my index finger on the doorbell.
Hang on. Think about this. Don’t be hasty. Let’s just take a moment. Are we really sure that this is the best choice?
I knock.
I hate it when I don’t listen to myself!
Silence.
I wait.
Nothing.
See? He’s not here! I can go.
Epic about turn. I’ve never spun around so quickly – I almost fall down, but somehow manage to recover my balance and stagger back to the car, my dignity, and the future that awaits me.
“Trudy.”
His voice behind me stops me in my tracks. Caught red-handed, I turn round guiltily.
He’s right there in the doorway, with his usual bare feet and crumpled jeans.
“Ah… You’re here. Hello, I…” I stutter, taken aback.
All that way and I can’t think of anything more intelligent to say than that?
To avoid looking even more ridiculous, I wait for him to do something, but he doesn’t seem willing to co-operate. He crosses his arms defiantly and leans to one side, merely raising an eyebrow.
Is that it?
Right – at this point, I’d say it’s my turn.
I try and play it cool, but when our eyes meet my mouth goes dry and I lose my nerve.
Everything’s fine, I can do this.
In an attempt to regain control of the situation, I smile, but he doesn’t move an inch.
My mood starts to darken.
Maybe I should go.
I fucked up, let’s face it. But who hasn’t? Okay, I fucked up big time, but fortunately I’m still in time. I’ll say goodbye, I’ll get on the first plane and go back to London.
Easy, right?
Exactly.
But I’m still here.
I don’t move an inch.
My body won’t let me.
I honestly don’t know what’s happening to me.
My palms are sweaty, I’m gasping for breath and that annoying pain in my left arm doesn’t bode well – could it be the beginnings of a heart attack?
I instinctively feel my pulse for a few seconds and I seem to recognize the rhythm of Flight of the Bumblebee running through my arteries.
“Okay…” I start eventually. “I was here by chance, in the sense that… But if I’m disturbing you I’ll go. I could come back another time.”
He doesn’t react.
“Ermm…” I sigh, scratching my forehead. “Awful weather, isn’t it?” And I gesture vaguely to the sky above.
“Did you come to talk to me about the weather?” he asks me incredulously.
“No – no, I didn’t,” I admit, shaking my head.
“Then what do you want?”
He’s not going to make things easy for me.
I hedge. “It’s that I was about to take the motorway when… There was nobody about… All in all, in two hours… but… You know those days that… And then it started to rain, so I thought… What then, finally, I wondered, what am I doing here?”
My ramblings rebound against a wall of total indifference.
I decide to try again.
“And all that rain that kept falling down. I didn’t want to, but…”
And I carry on spouting out random nonsense to total impassivity, totally at the mercy of something I can’t control and which slowly re-emerges from among my memories, repressed emotions and unacknowledged fears.
“Then I thought… So I turned the car round and… I don’t… It wasn’t easy though…”
I scratch my forehead.
“And in the end I’m here… But… it’s not that I came because I wanted you… No! Of course not! I’m not the type. You know. It was just that…”
I look elsewhere. I look at him. I look elsewhere again.
“Because it’s you, you know? It’s not fair! You can’t just walk into my life like that. No one asked you to! And now? I mean, do you realize? I couldn’t even… I couldn’t even find a reason to leave…” I pause for a moment, and then start again. “What future do I have here? And what about my job? I earned that position! All my life I’ve been dreaming about that bloody position. And yet… And yet I find myself in front of your door and I don’t even know how I got here and I don’t… I can’t stop thinking that I could…”
God, if you’re up there listening to me, strike me down with a bolt of lightning or something!
“In the end, I’m here… Do you follow me? I mean… I’m here saying ‘hello’, here I am… And I was wondering if…”
I can’t do it! I can’t do it! I can’t do it!
I stamp my foot.
“The fact is that I swore to myself that it wouldn’t happen again. I… After all that… I had promised myself something… like ‘Get on with your life and don’t care about everything else,” something like that and… And it was working, but then you came along and… And you’re… well, you’re you… You never get enough. You always want more. It’s like a battle! I don’t…”
Why doesn’t he say anything?
“And then I don’t know what happened but… But now I can’t… I can’t go away without asking you if… Well, maybe to you… It’s not that…”
One last effort, Trudy!
“Do you think that maybe, not immediately, thinking about it, there is a very small, minimal, infinitesimal part of you that maybe thinks that we could have a… a future. I mean… I mean together. You and I. Us.”
I don’t believe it. What have I done?
“Oh, my God,” I murmur, hiding my face in my hands. “There, I’ve said it and… Oh, damn it! Do you realize that I haven’t felt like this since I was sixteen?” I say, gesticulating in disbelief. “And stop looking at me like that!” I sigh. “So?” I ask timidly when I realize there is no turning back, but he doesn’t seem to want to answer. He just stares at me with the same grim expression as before and doesn’t move an inch. He doesn’t do… well, he doesn’t do anything at all.
Pathetic. That’s what I am. Stupid and pathetic.
“Okay.” I give up. “Sorry. I… I’m sorry. I’ll go.”
I beat a retreat, slipping my hands in my jacket pockets. I don’t even have the courage to look him in the eyes. “I have a… I have a plane to catch. Sorry again,” I whisper with the last breath I have left.
It ends here.
Yeah – a long drive for nothing.
Doesn’t it always end this way?
With legs that barely support me and my poor heart in shreds, I say ‘goodbye’ with a nod and start to turn round.
“Where are you going?” he asks.
I can’t answer.
He approaches, still looking at me with an indignant expression.
“That was the most pathetic declaration of love I’ve ever heard.”
“But I…”
“Shut up!”
“Ethan, look I…”
“I told you to shut up.”
I fall silent.
He approaches again.
“You
were leaving, weren’t you? You were leaving without even saying goodbye.”
“Ethan…”
“Trudy, shut up!”
“Okay, I get it, I’ll shut up,” I whisper guiltily.
“And then you show up here, as if nothing has happened, and…”
“I asked you to forgive me… I was just leaving.”
I’m about to cry, I can feel it.
“So tell me, what am I supposed to do now?” he asks.
“I…”
And then he kisses me.
I can’t say anything else because I feel his hands in my hair and my words get lost between his lips.
And as soon as I close my eyes everything stops mattering and fades away – work, the plane, the storm that’s about to burst, my phone in the car, which doesn’t seem to want to stop ringing. With my heart bursting, I abandon myself to his arms and let him tear off my jacket, scarf and shirt. Oblivious to the stares of the passers by, to the door we forget to close, to the table I inadvertently bump into or to the step I stumble on before finding myself naked on the kitchen table as he covers me with kisses while trying to remove his jeans.
Epilogue
Would you believe it? I’m still here in Turriff.
What’s even more surprising, Ethan and I have started living almost peacefully. It really isn’t easy. Our relationship is a succession of ups and downs. One minute you’re on cloud nine, the next moment I’m threatening to pack my bags and leave for London. There’s never a quiet moment and that doesn’t help much with my performance at work, but that’s just the way Ethan is. For him there are no nuances, no priorities.
If he’s not happy about something he expects me to drop everything and argue it out – even the most ridiculous things. And if he’s happy, he ditches the pub, grabs his jacket and comes to take me off somewhere, convinced that I can’t wait to contemplate the immensity of the universe from inside a musty tent clad in a horrible fleece. For some – me included – it’s crazy. I still don’t have a relationship that can be defined conventional. If we go out, I spend my time trying to make him understand that he can’t kiss me in public just because he likes my lipstick. I know, I could change my lipstick, but I’ll deal with that another time, for the moment I want to go on about how impossible my life is with Ethan. Because we can’t even walk peacefully. I’m obliged to hold his hand all the time, otherwise he threatens to confiscate my iPad, computer and smartphone for a week.
And the worst thing is that he really does it!
Our typical day starts with him ripping my pyjamas off while I’m sleeping quietly. He continues while I’m at work, clogging my phone with stupid little messages which – I swear! – I only answer to be polite. And it ends with dinner, bickering on the couch, closing the damn door of the bathroom, no, stop, put me down immediately and then having the most stratospheric early evening sex that I’ve ever experienced.
Generally, we don’t talk much – hardly at all, in fact. Most of the time we tease each other, we tickle each other, joke, stick our tongues out at each other. If we have a problem we practically tear down the house, and if I’m honest, I’m starting to get used to it. I don’t think I could tolerate anything else. And my hormones are going berserk too. Dammit, I have the hottest guy in town and I can throw him on the bed whenever I want. Our relationship is passionate, unpredictable – and even, in some ways, controversial.
Okay, maybe I have to take it back. Love at first sight does exist. Maybe you don’t notice it right away, but I can guarantee it exists. I’m the living proof. And it’s terrifying!
You don’t understand anything, you’re no longer the master of your own destiny, your mind is elsewhere, you miss appointments, leave your phone ringing for hours.
Here he comes now! Today’s Sunday and they’re down at the pub re-painting it. They’re not re-opening until Wednesday.
When Ethan has nothing to do he becomes a pain in the neck and starts bothering me about everything. He’s no longer even capable of finding his socks without giving me the third degree. I’ve come to take refuge here, in the bedroom, in the hope of finally getting a chance to read the latest eBook I’ve downloaded: Uncontrollable Passions.
The title’s promising! I’ve had it on my tablet for the last three days – and for the last three days, I haven’t managed to get beyond the cover.
Hoping that he’s just popping home – for the fifteenth time in twenty minutes – I pretend not to have seen him and lose myself in the prologue. He opens a couple of drawers and goes into the bathroom. He lets the water run, I don’t know why, then comes back in and lays down on the bed next to me, his head resting on my tummy. No point protesting, it would only make him push his chin deeper between my ribs.
He has something in his hand. From here I can’t see what. He fiddles with it, pretending to be thoughtful. I retaliate by ignoring him.
“Trudy…”
“Not now. I’m reading,” I say coldly, engrossed in the intriguing story of sadomasochism between a secretary and a powerful banker tormented by his past.
“There’s a surprise…”
“What?”
“I said there’s a surprise!” he repeats, sounding annoyed.
“Isn’t there any porn on TV for you to watch?” I exclaim in exasperation.
“I didn’t want to ask you to have sex,” he explains indignantly.
“Just as well, because I’m reading.” And I resume from the point where he, cruel and relentless, asks her to sell her body for money. He’ll save her aging grandfather from bankruptcy, but only on condition that she…
“Trudy…”
Dear God! Can you read like this?
“What? What? What? What do you want?”
“Are you busy on July the twelfth?”
“July the twelfth? Ethan, it’s April. I—”
Oh my God, what is he planning now? Another trip – this time through the northern swamps in search of the polka dot ibex?
“Why?” I ask. “What’s happening on July twelfth?”
A momentary pause.
He reflects a moment, then turns round, climbs on top of me and slips a ring onto my finger.
“I’m dragging you to church and marrying you!”
“What? Wa… Wait, the book! Let me at least save my page.”
Ours isn’t exactly a relationship that I would call ‘normal’. He’s always so terribly…
Dialogue, do you know what I mean? There’s no dialogue.
“Hold on a moment I’m taking it off!” I say, trying to stop him from ripping all the buttons off my blouse.
“Will you just shut up?”
Unbelievable – I’ve become someone I would never have imagined being.
I am where I would never have wanted to be.
I’m with someone I would never have imagined being with.
Three words to describe me?
I’m unashamedly happy.
*
And, barring any second thoughts,
THE END.
I bet you weren’t expecting that, were you?
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Acknowledgements
Thanks to me, myself and me alone. You don’t agree? Then I’ll just have to try and manage without your agreement!
P.S. Who wrote it? Come on, let’s hear it! Who went to bed every night at four in the morning for six months? Who? You? No – me!
P.P.S. It’s not true. I lied. This time a ‘thank you’ is really necessary. Three, in fact, al
l purely technical, because for all the others… Well, those who know me know that they’re automatically thanked, without distinction. Thanks to Raffaella for her advice and for taking a few hours from her well-deserved holiday to help me with the corrections. Thanks to Alessandra for the tremendous work she does every time and for the merciless cruelty with which she deletes all my beloved gerunds. And thanks to Dr Bertelli, Director of one of the branches of the Banco dell’Adriatico, who, with immense kindness and lots and lots of patience, solved all my editor’s doubts about the nonsense that – as usual – I had filled my last story with. I hadn’t even considered the many problems. Which should make you realize how much poor little old me needs a holiday.
About Celia Hayes
CELIA HAYES works as a restorer and lives in Naples. Between one restoration and another, she loves to write. Don't Marry Thomas Clark reached no. 1 in the Amazon Italian Ebook chart.
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Read on for a preview of Don’t Marry Thomas Clark:
Thomas Clark is a wealthy aristocrat. Sandy Price is from an ordinary family. They grew up spending their summer holidays on the same country estate, but Sandy couldn't stand Thomas and he hasn't crossed her mind since she was a kid and made herself a promise that she would never, ever marry him.
Years later, an unexpected turn of events brings him back into her life–whether she likes it or not. When Thomas's grandfather dies, his will is opened, and Thomas is faced with a shocking announcement…his grandfather has left him everything, but only on the condition that he settles down and gets married. And who to? The very same Sandy Price! Thomas must find a way to make this happen, otherwise the entire estate will go to charity.