by Dani Atkins
‘No, I’m not travelling anywhere,’ he replied, his eyes flicking up to the arrivals board, which still showed no update on its last message. ‘I’m here to meet someone, but their train’s been delayed.’
‘Same.’
He looked down at me and I could practically see the suggestion pop into his head like a thought bubble. ‘Do you fancy grabbing a coffee somewhere and keeping each other company while we wait?’
Say no. Say you have something else you need to do. Keep your distance, Molly Kendall. Your connection to this man is just too weird.
‘Yes, I’d love to.’
*
The coffee bar was heaving. They were clearly reaping the rewards of the transport chaos. With no tables free, I followed Mac to the counter, where he placed our order. He saw me fumbling in my bag for my purse and those eloquent eyebrows of his rose once again.
‘I’ll get these.’
‘Always split the bill,’ Kyra had a fondness for saying. ‘That way if the date’s a complete write-off, you’ve nothing to feel guilty about.’ Except this wasn’t a date, I reminded myself. It wasn’t even close.
Mac leant across the counter, speaking too low for me to hear what he’d said, and the barista immediately quadrupled our bill, even though we’d only ordered a couple of flat whites. She was smiling and thanking him, and I realised he must have put down some money for people who might come in but be unable to afford a hot drink. Warmth bloomed inside me as I realised I actually liked Mac much more than I’d first thought. I’d made some swift and sweeping assumptions about him when we’d met, but I wasn’t too proud to admit that most of them were turning out to be wrong.
He spotted a booth near the window that had just become vacant and we hurried over to claim it.
‘Whose train is it you’re meeting?’ he asked as he slid into the seat opposite me.
‘My mother’s,’ I replied. ‘She’s coming back today after a really long cruise. It’s the first holiday she’s allowed herself in years.’ Did he read the guilt on my face or simply hear it in my voice?
‘Your illness must have been very hard on her.’
I nodded, knowing better than to trust my voice right then. I was usually reluctant to talk about my condition, especially with people I didn’t know well. But Mac straddled every boundary wall I’d ever set up. Because of our unique link, because of Lisa, we were probably the most intimately connected strangers in the world.
‘Are you an only child?’ he asked.
‘Yes. It’s just Mum and me. We… We lost my dad a few years ago.’ As I suspected, it was still way too soon to speak those words without my voice cracking.
The touch of his fingers against the back of my hand was so unexpected, I almost pulled it away. His fingertips travelled over my knuckles. Blind people do this, I told myself. They touch, when they can’t see. I’d seen it in films, and on TV. And yes, Mac could see now – maybe every bit as well as I could – but perhaps it was a hard habit to lose?
‘Well, I’m here today to meet my best mate from uni,’ Mac continued, understanding I needed a moment or two to regain my composure. ‘Andi’s going to be staying with me for a while. There were eight of us who shared a student house in Edinburgh, and almost everyone else chose to stay up there after graduation.’
‘But not you?’
‘There were more job opportunities down here, and I had other… attachments at the time.’
He was closing down that topic, just when it was starting to get interesting, and it didn’t take a genius to work out he’d probably come back for a girl. Were they still together, or was he single now? I was itching to ask, but for once I listened to the voice in my head reminding me it was none of my business.
‘Can I ask you something? Why were you so curious before about the song I was playing?’
It was hardly a trick question, but it blindsided me. My hand jerked, spilling a sizeable amount of coffee onto the table as I set down my cup.
‘Oh God, I’m so sorry,’ I said, reaching for a wodge of serviettes to stem the encroaching tide of brown liquid heading his way. Mac was wearing a light-coloured jumper, the kind that would stain badly and would probably end up being pure cashmere if I had to replace it.
‘I’ll fetch you a fresh cup,’ he said, getting to his feet before I had the chance to tell him it wasn’t necessary.
While he queued at the counter, I finished swabbing the table and caught sight of my flushed reflection in the window. How would Mac react if I told him about the string of peculiar coincidences that had freaked me out, or the weird moon dreams? I could visualise him smiling politely before suddenly remembering there was somewhere else he had to be, right now. And who could blame him? No, far better to say nothing.
I nodded at my reflection, and the woman in the very unfashionable bobble hat nodded back. I gasped in embarrassment and pulled it from my head, horrified I hadn’t remembered I was still wearing it, and then even more horrified when it revealed a terrible case of hat hair.
I was still desperately trying to smooth it down with my hands when Mac returned carrying two more coffees and a couple of enormous muffins.
‘I took a guess that you’re a double-chocolate kind of girl,’ he said with a smile, sliding one of the plates in my direction.
As I sank my teeth into the soft sponge, I wondered if what he really meant was with curves like mine I looked like someone who couldn’t say no to anything related to a cocoa bean. I shrugged and gave myself permission to enjoy every last calorie. My illness had taught me well; life was too short to worry about stuff like that.
‘Are you going to the thing on Friday night?’ I asked, once all that was left of my muffin was a plateful of crumbs.
Mac looked back at me blankly, and I felt a sudden sinking sensation in the pit of my stomach, making the muffin stir unpleasantly. Please don’t say Alex hasn’t invited him, I willed. That would be beyond awkward – and also kind of deceitful of Alex, who I didn’t want to think badly of, for reasons too complicated to fathom.
‘What thing would that be?’
‘Erm… the Bonfire Night thing at Alex’s brother’s house.’
I was so relieved to see the light dawn in his eyes. He did know what I was talking about.
‘Ah, yes. Alex emailed me about it the other day.’ His lips twisted tellingly. ‘To be honest, I’m not sure if it’s such a good idea.’
‘You don’t think we should meet up with Alex again?’
Mac’s gaze was steady. The eyes that were now perfectly capable of boring into mine were doing so with unblinking intensity.
‘Do you?’
I flinched but held our eye contact. ‘I think Alex and Connor are both hurting and that, just maybe, seeing all of us might help them.’
‘Or make it even harder for them,’ Mac countered.
I’d considered that too, of course. ‘Maybe he’s looking to find some meaning in Lisa’s death. Maybe we’re that meaning.’
Mac shuddered. ‘God, I hope not.’
Before the conversation could take an even darker turn, Mac’s mobile began to vibrate on the table top. I thought I saw relief in his eyes as he read the message. ‘Ah. My friend’s train is about to get in.’
My own phone pinged too, with a similar message from my mum.
Someone else was playing the piano when we strode back out onto the main concourse. To my untrained ear, they weren’t a patch on the tall man walking beside me.
‘Is that something you do frequently?’ I asked, nodding in the direction of the piano. ‘Give impromptu recitals in public?’
He laughed, and I was glad that the tension of our last conversation seemed to have evaporated. ‘Playing is something I’ve only rediscovered fairly recently. For years I didn’t even own a piano, but then…’
‘You missed it?’ I guessed.
He shook his head, and there was regret in his smile. ‘It was one of the few things I still had left when my vision deteriorated.
Some of the best pianists in the world are blind, you know.’
He’d meant for it to sound amusing, or maybe self-deprecating, and in a way it did. But it also sounded incredibly sad. For a moment I saw not the successful man the rest of the world undoubtedly saw when they looked at him but a man who’d come back after almost losing everything. It didn’t seem to matter how much we fought it: Lisa and our individual illnesses were like a length of elastic that would always pull us back to a place and a time we’d never be able to leave behind.
Mac’s height was an obvious advantage in a crowd, and over the heads of the mass of commuters he lifted an arm and waved as he spotted his friend. His face lit up with pleasure, and for a crazy moment I wondered what it would be like to be on the receiving end of that look.
‘Thank you for keeping me company while we waited,’ he said genially, coming to a stop in front of me.
Anxious to avoid another clumsy to-kiss-or-not-to-kiss moment, I took the initiative and thrust out my right hand. ‘Thanks for the coffee and the muffin,’ I replied, my eyes dropping meaningfully to my gloved fingers, which he appeared to be ignoring.
‘It was my pleasure,’ he said, his eyes crinkling into a smile as he finally took the hint and clasped my hand in his.
There are probably etiquette books describing how long a handshake is meant to last, but this one sailed right past an acceptable length. Mac’s eyes were on mine, and I saw the moment when the amusement faded and confusion took its place. In hindsight, a kiss on the cheek would have been far less disturbing.
We severed the handshake as though coming out of trance.
‘I should go,’ he said dazedly.
‘Me too.’
But neither of us moved.
‘Goodbye, Molly Kendall,’ he said, the use of my surname making it sound much more final than a casual farewell.
‘Goodbye, Mac,’ I replied, but he was already gone, swallowed up by the crowd that buffeted against me as I stood motionless in the middle of the station concourse, trying to work out what had just happened.
22
Alex
‘You don’t get many for your money, do you?’
Alex straightened up from where he was building a bonfire on the lawn. ‘You say that every single year.’
‘Do I?’ Todd was peering into the box of fireworks in his arms with an expression that clearly said he felt the manufacturers had diddled him.
‘I’ve got a couple of extra boxes of sparklers in the car. The kids always love them best, anyway.’
And just like a lingering sparkler trail, a memory scorched its way across Alex’s thoughts. Only twelve months earlier, Lisa and Connor had stood side by side on this very spot, bundled up like polar explorers, drawing pictures with sparklers in the cold night air. While Connor was frantically trying to write the last letter of his name before the first one disappeared, Lisa had looked for Alex across the flames of the bonfire and daubed a message just for him. I ♥ U
‘I love you too, babe,’ Alex whispered to the memory.
‘Sorry? Did you say something?’ asked Todd, who was now busy transferring the fireworks into a sturdy metal toolbox.
‘No, nothing.’ Alex brushed tiny pieces of bark from his hands as he came to stand beside his brother.
Todd took fireworks safety very seriously, but Lisa had been the one to always insist on the bags of sand, the buckets of water and the emergency first-aid kit being present. It was overkill, and Todd had loved teasing her about it every year. When Alex had walked to the far end of the garden earlier to begin getting things ready, he’d stopped in his tracks at the sight in front of him. Beneath the table that would later hold the fireworks, there was a whole row of buckets neatly lined up, some filled with sand, others with water. It was Todd’s quiet way of acknowledging Lisa, his way of saying he missed her and that she was still very much with them. It had taken a good few minutes before Alex’s eyes were clear enough for him to see properly again.
‘I think I’ll go and ask if Connor wants to help me build the fire. What little kid doesn’t like burning stuff?’
His little kid didn’t, apparently. He found Connor sitting at one end of the kitchen table, his head bent over yet another drawing. Alex exchanged a meaningful look with Dee, who, with Maisie’s questionable assistance, was preparing plates of snacks for the party.
‘I did ask him if he’d like to help us,’ Dee mouthed silently above her daughter’s head. She shrugged and looked helpless, an expression she didn’t wear often.
Alex nodded his understanding and came to stand beside his son. The bones of Connor’s shoulder felt fragile beneath his hand, like a bird’s, a tiny broken bird’s.
‘Watcha doin’, big guy?’ he asked in that faux jovial voice he somehow couldn’t stop himself from using whenever he spoke to Connor.
Connor raised his head and absently wiped a crayon-smeared hand across his forehead, trying to brush his shaggy fringe from his eyes. Lisa would have had him at the hairdresser’s long before it had got to this length. Alex was failing at every single parenting task, even the basic ones, and could not seem to get anything right.
‘Drawing,’ Connor replied. Monosyllabic was now his son’s favourite method of communication. If there was a key that would release the chatty little boy he’d once been, Alex had no idea where to find it.
‘Do you feel like helping me stack the wood for the bonfire?’
Two big blue eyes, so achingly like Lisa’s, stared up at him for a long moment. ‘No thank you,’ he replied politely. ‘I want to finish my picture.’
The smile Alex found felt totally out of place on his face. ‘Oh, okay. Well, maybe later, then.’
Connor’s head was already bent over his drawing again.
‘I bet you two are really looking forward to the fireworks tonight?’ Alex asked gamely.
Maisie squealed her confirmation, her hands actually clapping together in glee, but Connor just looked at him sadly.
Alex was halfway to the back door when an unexpected full sentence from his son stopped him. ‘Mummy says the worst thing about Fireworks Night is that you can’t see the stars properly.’
Alex ignored the mule kick to his stomach and tried to remember if he’d ever heard Lisa say that. Maybe. It certainly sounded like the kind of comment she might have made.
‘You can remember her saying that?’ he asked, hoping he’d injected just the right amount of nonchalance into his voice.
‘She told me today,’ Connor said.
From the other side of the kitchen a very freaked-out-looking Dee was pretending not to be listening. Alex tried to remember what the counsellor had advised him to say at times like this, but his mind was a complete blank.
‘Did she?’ was the best he could come up with.
‘Yes,’ said Connor, suddenly sounding a lot less certain as he became aware that the eyes of both adults were focused on him. ‘She… She said it when I spoke to her on the phone.’ He finished in the voice of a child who knew they’d been caught out in a fib.
Alex could practically hear Dee’s sigh of relief. He glanced down at Lisa’s old iPhone, which was sitting in the top of Connor’s pencil case, among the crayons. If this was what his son needed, if this was the way Connor had found to cope, then Alex would rather cut off his own tongue than tell his grieving child that he didn’t believe him.
‘Well, if Mum said so, she’s bound to be right,’ he said solemnly. ‘She knows about these things.’
This time, Alex was fully aware he’d used the wrong tense. It was deliberate. For the briefest of moments, he thought he saw something in Connor’s face. It was too fleeting to catch, but it was enough to give him hope that one day they’d be able to find their way back to each other again. They just needed time.
*
‘Oh, I do hope they taste better than they look,’ Barbara said anxiously as she prised the lid off the cake tin she’d carefully cradled in the taxi from her house to Todd’s. ‘I’m
not sure what happened to the icing, it’s gone a rather strange colour.’
Alex employed all of his poker-playing skills as, along with Todd and Dee, he peered into the container. ‘They look absolutely delicious,’ he lied, deliberately not making eye contact with anyone as he surveyed the decidedly grey butterfly cakes.
‘That’s very sweet of you, Alex, my dear, but I do believe that’s what my Archie would have called “horse poo”.’
There was a moment of stunned silence when all three members of the Stevens family wondered if they’d heard correctly. It was finally broken by an embarrassed chortle from Barbara, whose cheeks were flushed. Alex’s burst of laughter was quickly joined by his brother’s, and he easily interpreted the look in Todd’s eye. Okay, this one I like, and I can see why you do too.
‘Oh, I hope the little ones didn’t hear that,’ Barbara said.
Alex patted her hand reassuringly, noting the fragility of the bones beneath the wrinkles.
As if on cue, Maisie trotted into the kitchen, with Connor a few subdued paces behind her. ‘Ooh, cakes,’ she exclaimed, clambering up onto a high chrome stool and peering into the tin. ‘They look like tiny moths.’
This time it was Dee who blushed, as she hurriedly apologised to their guest for her daughter’s words.
In the confusion, Alex was the only one who heard Connor’s softly spoken comment. ‘Mummy doesn’t like moths.’
*
Molly and Jamie arrived within about a minute of each other, and Alex, who’d been trying not to compulsively check his watch for the last twenty minutes, felt the knot of anxiety in his stomach slowly unravel.
Jamie was buckling slightly under the weight of two six-packs and looked a little hesitant as he passed them to Alex. ‘I wasn’t sure what to bring. I didn’t know what kind of party it was.’
Probably not the kind someone your age usually goes to, Alex thought as he greeted the young man with a hearty clap on the shoulder. Although to be fair, Jamie had sounded genuinely pleased to have been invited. Alex tried to imagine himself at twenty choosing to spend a Saturday night with a crowd of much older people he didn’t know instead of hanging out with his mates; he couldn’t picture it. But then twenty-year-old Alex hadn’t been through the life-changing experience that Jamie had endured. That had to have left its mark.