by Ali Harris
I look at the screen. My unsent status is blinking accusingly at me. I’m torn because although part of me is desperate to make contact with the outside world, to pour my heart out with apologies, I also know that Cal’s right.
Why is it that every decision I try to make is always the wrong one?
Suddenly I’m aware of a doorbell piercing the silence. In a panic, I look at Loni.
She comes over, strokes my hair and kisses my forehead. ‘Let Loni deal with it.’
As she walks out of the kitchen, I pick up my phone and rush back upstairs. I run down the corridor that is painted a lurid purple and covered with photo montages of Cal and me. Dozens of them are packed into various clip frames. In every single one we are outside, on beaches, in pine forests, in the garden. Our skin is nut-brown, our noses covered with freckles, the sunlight shining through the lens in a warm filtered glow that comes from happy memories. There are a lot of Cal standing, hands on hips, dimpled chin stuck out, proudly wearing one of his Superhero costumes. I remember the Christmas after Dad left. Cal was five and he dressed up as Superman every day of the school holiday. It became a standing joke – not so funny when you realised his reason for it. Outfit aside, I think it’s what he’s been pretending to be ever since.
I pause at the end of the corridor in front of a display of recent family shots. There are more of Lucy, Cal and their kids than of Adam and me, mainly because – as Cal and Loni have never failed to remind me – we hardly ever come, came, past tense, home.
I can hear a faint murmuring of voices downstairs, but I can’t even make out who it is. I stare at the one photo of Adam and me and I remember it was taken six months ago. We’re sitting in the garden leaning into each other, my arms threaded around Adam’s neck, his lips resting on my cheek and eyes smiling into the camera. We’d just got engaged, and he’d insisted we drive to Norfolk and tell Loni and Cal in person. We were so happy. We look so perfect together. No one could ever have guessed that just six months later, on our wedding day, it would all have fallen to pieces.
The front door slams shut and footsteps sound on the stairs. I dart behind my door and lean against it. Just then my phone begins to vibrate and buzz with message after message, one voicemail after another. It must be a weird Wifi hotspot. I stare blindly as they keep coming and then, without listening to a single one of them, I switch the phone off and slump down to the floor.
Chapter 12
Bea Hudson: is off to gay Paris! With Adam Hudson.
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‘Come ON, mon grand hunk of jambon, stop being ze slowcoach!’ I grab the sleeve of Adam’s jacket and attempt to drag him down the platform at St Pancras. I glance at the clock and see we have just a few minutes to board our train. He’s being as cool, calm and collected as ever. Nothing ruffles Adam. He glides through life as if everyone and everything will just wait for him. Which, to be honest, they kind of do.
‘ALLEZ ALLEZ ALLEZ!’ I grab his hand and try to run down the platform. But he merely strides alongside me, every step of his matching several of mine. He is smiling wryly, eyes on his phone.
I pull him harder, but he’s too busy tapping away at his phone to respond. If that’s a work email I’ll kill him. It’ll be like an Agatha Christie novel: Death on the Eurostar.
‘Don’t worry, Bea. We’ve got plenty of time.’ I automatically relax and slow down. If he says so, it must be true. Adam never panics. He expects everything to work out his way. It’s not his fault. He had everything bestowed on him as a kid and so is unpractised in the art of disappointment. I am so lucky that he didn’t take no for an answer with me. I told him so last night as we were lying in each other’s arms, limbs entwined, breath mingling, hearts pounding against each other.
‘Didn’t you ever tire of waiting?’ I asked, curling my fingers through the criss-cross of dark hair on his chest, marvelling at how perfect my engagement ring and my wedding ring looked on my finger.
He’d leaned up on his elbow and gazed at me as he shook his head; a sexy, teasing smile had danced across his lips. ‘I didn’t mind when you came to your senses,’ he’d replied, ‘I just knew that you would . . . eventually.’
‘Oh, the arrogance of the man! Always so sure of yourself, huh?’ I’d teased.
‘No,’ he’d corrected me as he laid a meaningful kiss on my lips. ‘I’ve always been sure of us.’
Adam picks up his stride and so do I, and I realise that he’s right.
Adam and I were meant to be. Who cares that my dad wasn’t at the wedding and that Kieran was? Adam is my destiny. He has been from the moment I met him. I’d just lost faith in my ability to make the right decision. That wasn’t Adam’s fault, or a sign of a bad relationship, it was just another consequence of what had happened after Elliot died.
Thankfully, it’s all about the future now. Mine and Adam’s.
Adam leads me into the first-class carriage, puts our luggage up on the rack and then sits opposite me and smiles as two glasses of champagne appear, brought by a member of staff who has clearly been tipped off that there is a honeymoon couple aboard. She congratulates us as she places them on our table, I thank her and am about to lift my glass in a toast with Adam but he’s too occupied with pulling his buzzing phone out of his pocket and staring at it with a harassed expression.
‘Just give me a second to reply to this email. Some client meltdown that no one else can deal with.’ He bends his head, his brows locked in concentration. I stare at him for a moment, taking the opportunity to marvel at the fact that the man I’m looking at is actually my husband. It is a strange sensation to look at someone you have been with for seven years and yet feel like it’s the first time you’ve really seen them. I look at him as a stranger might, taking in his sleek black hair, serious grey eyes, carved jawline with an added shadow that tells me he’s on holiday, but yet doesn’t lessen his air of authority. Then I glance down and take in my going away outfit that Milly chose for me. A cream dress with capped sleeves, nude heels and navy blazer. I think how my dark hair is blow-dried and tied loosely at the nape of my neck, softly curled tendrils float around my face. I’m wearing diamond earrings Adam bought me for my thirtieth and a simple gold watch on one wrist and a gold bangle on the other.
From the admiring glances we got when we stepped onto the train, I know we look right together. I tug at my skirt and wipe my hands on my blazer.
The only problem is, when I’m dressed like this I just don’t feel like me.
Adam smiles at me apologetically as his phone starts ringing. ‘Dad?’ he says as I hear a series of demands fired down the phone. ‘Yeah, but I’m off on honeymoon, remember? Yes, of course I’m committed. Yes, I know that there’s no such thing as a holiday when you have your own business. Of course I want the responsibility . . . yes, I appreciate how lucky I am . . . I just . . . Fine. OK. I’ll deal with it . . .’
Adam rubs his forehead as the call is ended. I stretch my hand across the table to his and he takes it. ‘You OK?’
He nods. ‘Sorry about that . . .’
‘You need to be stronger with your dad.’
‘Easier said than done. No one says no to George Hudson,’ he says wearily.
‘And as of yesterday, no one says no to you, remember?’ I say, waving my left hand at him. His eyes crinkle into a smile and I know he’s back. Adam takes his champagne glass, leans across the little table and links his arm through mine so that we are glass to glass, lip to lip, eye to eye.
‘Here’s to our future, Mrs Hudson,’ he murmurs. ‘Thank you for making me the happiest man on the planet.’ We clink glasses and kiss softly and then I settle back, my fingers curled through Adam’s, squeezing them tightly like I’m scared to let him go. My engagement ring and my wedding ring glitter in the light of the sunshine streaming through the carriage window as we speed out of the city and make our way towards Paris. I can’t help but think, if life is two sides of a coin, I’ve most definitely landed heads up.
Chapter 13
Bea Bishop: Cal Bishop is trying (and failing) to amuse me at Wells-next-the-Sea.
Cal has brought me to the arcades at this cute little seaside town not far from Loni’s place in Holt and one of our favourite childhood haunts. I know why he’s brought me here and I find myself imagining the Facebook update I’d post if I hadn’t sworn off social media. We used to come here all the time as kids. Then, when we got older, we’d hang out in French’s, the fish and chip shop, and play the slot machines after going for runs together on the beach. Running was something Loni encouraged us to do when we were both under pressure studying for our exams and I was having a particularly bad bout of anxiety and self-doubt – I was doing my A levels, Cal his GCSEs. There was something about running side by side – usually in total silence – that made me feel connected to my little brother in a way I sometimes struggled to. He was always so sorted, so together, but when we ran it made me realise that sometimes he too needed to de-stress, clear his head and take time to work out where his life was going.
Today he looks tired, of course, with the strain of worrying about his pathetic big sister alongside everything else, but at the age of twenty-eight my little brother usually has the assured air of someone much older. I smile as Cal bounds over with a bag of two-pence coins and a gigantic grin and I feel grateful that he’s trying so hard to cheer me up. He makes for the slot machines and waves me over like I’m one of his two-year-old twins. ‘Come on, sis!’ Cal says as he hands me the bag of copper coins. ‘It’s OK to take a gamble for once in your life!’
‘Like I tried to on marriage?’ I say wryly.
Cal’s smile fades. ‘Adam wasn’t a risk, Bea. You know he was the most stable thing you’ve ever had in your life.’ He rubs his hand over his forehead and across the crown of his springy hair.
‘I know.’
‘So why leave him then?’ he says in exasperation. ‘It doesn’t make any sense!’ He pauses and glances down at the bag of coins. Then he takes one out and flips it. ‘Except, of course, because of Kieran Blake . . .’ He slams the coin onto his hand and looks up at me confrontationally. ‘Heads or tails? Kieran or Adam . . . was that it?’
‘It wasn’t like that, Cal. You have to believe me when I say that! I had no idea he’d be there. None at all!’ He stares at me and I crumble. ‘OK! I admit seeing him threw me but you know I’d been having doubts long before that. I just . . . I just . . . don’t think I’m cut out for marriage. You must understand that?’ I look at Cal pointedly. He’s been with Lucy for nearly ten years, they have two kids together and they’ve never got married. We always joke that Dad’s leaving didn’t make us commitment phobes, just marriage phobes. That seems even truer now.
‘I suppose so,’ he concedes. ‘But I didn’t leave Lucy standing at the end of the aisle like an idiot.’
‘Well, maybe you haven’t spent most of your life hoping that Dad would be there to give you away on your wedding day!’
‘Oh sis,’ Cal slides his arm around me and rests his head on mine. ‘When will you accept that he’s never coming back?’
I bite my lip. I feed two-pence pieces into the machine and watch as each drops onto the shelf and disappears. ‘Don’t you ever feel like there’s something missing? A big part of you that means you’ll never feel complete until you find it?’
Cal shakes his head. ‘No, I don’t. I have everything I need in Loni, you, Lucy and the kids. Why should I spare a second thinking about some stranger who walked out on us without a backward glance?’
‘But Loni was the one who told him to leave!’
‘But he was the weak, pathetic man who accepted it and never came back! He didn’t exactly fight for us, did he?’ Cal slams the side of the machine with his hand, making me jump. ‘Come on, Bea, is this really what yesterday was all about? Our dad who left over twenty years ago?’
My eyes are brimming with tears as I persist with my line of questioning. ‘But surely you’ve wondered if we’re like him?’
‘I bloody well hope not,’ Cal says vehemently.
Cal and I have always had an opposing stance on the decisions our parents made. I have always – not exactly blamed Loni – but certainly accepted her admission that she was totally responsible for Dad leaving. Apparently, he made it clear that he wanted her to be a traditional wife and mother. He couldn’t handle her desire for a career and a life outside the home. She soon realised they wanted very different things out of life. So she told him to leave.
‘Maybe I’ve always been more like Dad than you, maybe I was destined to leave my family too . . .’
‘Don’t be ridic—’ Cal begins but I carry on.
‘. . . but I did it before anyone could get really hurt. Adam will get over yesterday. He’ll move on,’ I say dully, feeling a shard of pain even as I say the words. ‘I guarantee he’ll have a new girlfriend before the year is out. But if we’d got married, had kids, well . . . history often repeats itself, doesn’t it? I’ve just accepted my destiny a bit earlier than Dad did . . .’
‘You’d never have left your family, Bea,’ Cal says quietly. ‘I know you.’
‘Then you know why I think I’m better off alone,’ I say. ‘People like me always are.’
Cal grasps my arms and stares into my eyes. ‘You know what I think? I think you’re a better person than you think you are. I think you’re capable of loving and being loved. I think you can feel secure in a relationship and not scared. Because that’s what I think really happened yesterday. You got scared that history would repeat itself – not that you would leave, like you believe, but that Adam would leave you, just like Kieran and Dad did . . .’ He stops as he sees my expression crumple. ‘I’m right, aren’t I?’ he murmurs. ‘That’s what it was all about! Oh Bea, Adam’s a good man, a great one, he loves you, he’d do anything for you! All you had to do was take a leap of faith . . . why couldn’t you, eh?’
I don’t reply. I don’t know what to say.
Cal is watching me play whack-a-mole, intermittently shouting encouragement. ‘That one’s for Dad leaving us! That one is for Adam’s mum taking over your entire wedding!’ I give it several hits. ‘Now do a whack for every time Loni has embarrassed you!’
I give him a sideways glance. ‘I’ll need a new arm!’
‘So what now?’ he asks as I continue thumping moles on the head with a toy hammer. I must look ridiculous but it is cathartic. I haven’t told Cal but the only person I’m imagining bashing on the head is me.
‘I don’t KNOW.’ SMACK.
I hate the fact that I don’t know. I feel the self-flagellation descend quickly like mist over the sea.
THWACK.
That one was for me. I could do with a bloody good push in the right direction. Like those two-pence coins.
WHACK! I pause, my mallet in mid-air. ‘Go back to the flat to get my STUFF?’ I say, hitting the target with a certainty I do not feel. Then I spot another mole and bring the mallet down with an almighty thud. ‘HA! Got you!’
Cal eyes me warily. ‘I’d offer you our sofa but number one, you’re scaring me. In fact, I’m starting to think Adam got off lightly . . .’ I turn to him and raise the mallet menacingly and he laughs and holds up his hands in truce. ‘And number two, the twins still aren’t sleeping, so I’m currently on the sofa myself! Have been for weeks, in fact!’ I look at him sympathetically. I want to ask him more but just then my phone starts buzzing in my pocket and I pull it out and look at it nervously.
‘It’s Milly,’ I say. ‘I’d better take this. I can’t avoid everyone forever.’
I hand Cal the hammer and go outside. I stand by the icecream counter, and stare out at the boats moored in the harbour, their masts piercing the sky like great white needles, brightly coloured bunting flapping beside them. Every sense is being invaded by memories, the salty brine of the sea air mixed with the smell of fish and chips from French’s (the irony that I should be in France on my honeymoon right now is not lost on me), the sweet famil
iar smell of ice cream and candy floss. I can almost see Kieran’s bright yellow VW camper van speeding down the street, me in his passenger seat, bare, nut-brown feet resting on the dashboard, my head thrown back in laughter as Kieran sings at the top of his voice. I focus instead on the view beyond the boats of the salt marshes and the beach with the brightly coloured huts I used to dream about owning with Kieran. It’s as if the day he crashed my wedding, he also broke down my walls. I can’t get him out of my head now, even though I’d managed to for the seven years I spent with Adam.
Except did I? Did I really forget him, or was he the reason I was never willing to fully commit to Adam?
I just don’t know any more.
I put the phone to my ear reluctantly and try to muster up the strength to talk to my best friend.
‘Hi Milly,’ I say.
‘At sodding last! Where are you? How are you? When are you coming back? Are you OK? Hang on.’ I hear a muffled sound as she puts her hand over the receiver. ‘I’m OK, thanks, Loni, I’m not actually a big fan of rosehip tea . . . or nettles.’
The line clears again. ‘I’m at your mum’s . . .’ She lowers her voice. ‘Please come back soon and save me, she wants me to chant with her. But I’d do it, I’m not leaving here until I’ve seen you, and you know how stubborn and strong-willed I am.’
‘I do.’
‘Unusual choice of words, Bea,’ she says lightly. ‘Shame you didn’t use them yesterday, eh?’
‘Don’t, Milly, please, I—’
‘I know, I know, I’m sorry,’ she interrupts. ‘I promised myself I wouldn’t be judgemental. Or start shouting at you. I just want to know if you’re OK. And,’ she adds, ‘I know I said I’d wait here as long as it takes to see you, but it is possible Loni may break me. She’s been reading passages of her new book to me for the past half an hour.’