Eight Perfect Hours: The hotly-anticipated love story everyone is falling for in 2021!

by Lia Louis

  ‘I didn’t know how to say,’ Ed says woundedly. ‘It’s complicated, Nell.’

  I laugh – it’s a titter, just like Helen’s. ‘Ed, even for you that is––’

  ‘We were engaged.’

  The words land, as if right there, on the grass between us. Three little grenades.

  ‘We’re not at the moment. And she isn’t here. Claudia …’ Claudia. She looks like a Claudia. A Claudia, I think, as I look in through the Georgian double doors into the warm, high-ceilinged living room, would fit right in, in there. ‘And I don’t want to lie. I never did. But it isn’t over, Nell. We’re taking some time. She was offered a job at the same time as me, but in another state, in Virginia and––’

  ‘She’s a doctor?’

  He nods, almost embarrassedly. As if he expects me to make fun, to call him predictable. A cliché. ‘Oncologist,’ he says. ‘And I know I should’ve told you. But it all sort of went wrong, you know?’

  I shrug, say nothing.

  ‘Things happened all at once,’ Ed carries on. ‘We had an engagement party, she started booking stuff, then her dad, he gave me his mum and dad’s wedding bands and it all suddenly felt really real and – then Tom called me about the job. About coming home. And she didn’t want me to go, but I didn’t want to go to Virginia and so we sort of broke it off. A break, I guess. Then I came home, and I saw you, and everything was …’

  ‘The same,’ I add.

  ‘Yeah. And it was easy, in every way. To pretend that I never left. That things never got complicated, that things were how they’d always been. For a moment, I even thought maybe we could – I don’t know. Pick up where we left off.’

  Raucous laughter bursts from the house and we both look over at it, looming and grand, behind us, watching us how it has so many times over the years, in this garden.

  ‘I don’t think we could ever do that,’ I say to Ed sadly. ‘Not really.’

  ‘No,’ says Ed. ‘No, I know.’

  Because you don’t love who I am, I want to say. You love who I could be. The Noelle who leaves her mum behind, who doesn’t care deeply, who wants to study business, make loads of money, who wants to move away from this little town and buy big homes and work through that checklist. And I want to see the world, yes of course I do, and I want adventures, and I want my hobby to be my job. But I don’t want to leave my family behind. I don’t want to leave this town completely.

  ‘Is that why you never accepted me on Instagram?’

  Ed looks at his feet, then at me, his face tipped to one side. His eyes close again, and he nods. ‘There’s a lot of photos on there. Of us.’

  And it hurts. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t. And I don’t want to be with Ed. But regardless of how ‘done’ a relationship is, there’ll always be a small part of you – a small, whimsical part – that wonders what would’ve happened if things had been different. Would his Instagram be full of me, if I’d gone with him? Or would we have ended up here anyway, regardless, in this cold, dark back garden.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Nell,’ says Ed. ‘I should’ve been honest, when you asked me. But I saw your face in that moment and––’

  ‘I know you well enough to know that there was something.’ The fountain sloshes in the darkness, and the distant sound of cutlery chinks from the kitchen. ‘I just didn’t know what. And I don’t think I wanted to believe it. I’d missed you too much. And then there you were.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘It was almost too easy.’

  Neither of us speak for a while, and we both stand silently, our breath making clouds in the dark night. Then Ed gently takes my hands in his. ‘For what it’s worth,’ he says, ‘I loved you, Noelle. I was a goner, when I met you. I loved you instantly. That smile. That mad curly hair …’

  Warm tears bud in my eyes as he twirls the end of a curl in his fingers and drops it. ‘And I loved you too.’

  ‘God, I know, Nell,’ he says softly. ‘I know you did. And we were good. For such a long time, we were so good.’

  ‘Were,’ I repeat, and Ed nods, and brings my hands to his mouth. He kisses them, one each. ‘Were,’ he says.

  Music grows louder inside the house and laughter floats out from the open kitchen door. I see Theo’s silhouette, waiting in the kitchen, zipping up his coat.

  I lean and kiss Ed’s cheek for the last time. ‘You better go in.’

  Ed swallows, and doesn’t say another word. I wipe my tears quickly on the back of my hand. I don’t tell him I’ll text him this time. I don’t tell him I’ll meet him, maybe, for coffee by the station, after he finishes work. I don’t even ask him if he’ll be at the rescheduled reunion next week. Instead, I release his hands.

  ‘Bye, Ed,’ I say, and I walk away. I leave him there on the grass – my past, and my comfort blanket, the dark, starry sky above our heads our only witness.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  When I arrive at Frank’s with a bag of food and hot drinks from Starbucks, he’s sitting on his armchair amongst boxes, like a fort. He smiles at me. The man fucking well smiles.

  ‘Morning, Frank,’ I say. ‘I bought you a tea. Just in case the kettle was packed.’

  ‘It wasn’t,’ he says. ‘But George over there packed the mugs.’

  George, Ian’s squash partner, appears in the doorway from the kitchen, a barrel of a man. ‘Sorry,’ he says, a vape cigarette in his sausage hand. ‘My fault.’ He grins at me. ‘It’s lovely to meet you at last. What a job you’ve done here. Ian said you’d be a dream and he wasn’t wrong.’

  ‘Ah. Thank you.’

  Frank says nothing, but he nods, and I like to think he agrees. George ducks out into the kitchen. ‘I’ll get back to disconnecting the washing machine,’ he says. ‘Bloody thing won’t budge.’

  Frank’s moving day has come around quickly and you’d hardly know that the flat I found when I knocked on 178A that day, that day at the start of summer, the one Sam showed me around, awks as fuck, is the same one we sit in now. I feel proud of myself, really, for the job that I’ve done. But mostly I feel proud to be part of this. This is a new start for Frank – the moment he walks away from something he’s frightened to let go of. And I hope, in some way, I’ve helped him feel able to.

  ‘Sam’s going to be late back,’ he says gruffly. ‘Can’t make today. Said he’ll get in on Saturday instead, which is no bloody help to me, but George is here. And his daughter said she’d help. So.’

  My heart stops. ‘So he is coming back?’

  It was over a week ago, that Sam and Jenna were to meet. On their anniversary. I keep imagining it, taunting myself with it, a big stick over the head. Sam, windblown and handsome, some beautiful, grinning, long-haired beauty running up to him, throwing her arms around him, Sam spinning her around, the cameras panning out, sodding Bon Jovi ballads playing––

  ‘He’ll be back, as far as I know, love,’ he says, and we both sip at our teas slowly, a mirror image. ‘And I should thank you,’ says Frank, easily, as if the kind words have been there, waiting, all along. ‘For all your hard work.’

  I soften, like ice cream in the sun. ‘Are you sure you mean that?’ I tease. ‘And you’re welcome.’

  ‘Sam said you were a blessing, but – well, I thought you were a bloody nuisance, to be honest. All that chatting.’

  ‘To myself thanks to you.’ I laugh. ‘Nuisance. That’s mild though. I was sure you wanted me dead at one point.’

  Frank laughs huskily, then sits back in his chair and looks at me, knobbly hands wrapping around his takeaway cup. ‘He likes you, my Sam. I mean, Christ, I don’t know much. But I know that.’

  My heart thrums in my ears. ‘Well, I like him too––’

  ‘No, I mean he really does. He changes, when you’re here. Sort of … ’ Frank opens a hand on his lap. ‘Opens up.’ He looks up at me. ‘Sticks around. Makes plans. He sort of just wanders about, otherwise, you know. Lost.’

  ‘Really? Sam doesn’t really seem lost to me.’


  ‘Mm,’ considers Frank, swallowing a mouthful of tea. ‘He never quite got over it. Losing Bradley. His cousin. You know.’

  I nod.

  ‘He was only a kid but … things that happen when you’re young – I think it does something to you. Mucks with your blueprint. Keeps you stuck.’ He takes another long, shaky sip. ‘But then again, none of us have been the same since. I don’t even see my brother any more, Bradley’s dad. Did he tell you that?’

  ‘No.’ I shake my head. ‘No, he didn’t.’ There’s an ache in my chest as Frank speaks. I was stuck. I have been stuck. And it sounds like Frank has been too. He’s lonely. Without his nephew, his brother, and a lot of the time, Sam too. All of them separated by this one awful event. And when you’re lonely, I suppose it’s easy to be sad and jaded with the world.

  ‘What actually happened?’ I ask, pressing a stray piece of brown parcel tape down on a box beside me labelled ‘DVDs’.

  ‘He hasn’t told you,’ says Frank, but it isn’t a question. He seems unsurprised. ‘No, he doesn’t talk about it.’

  I think of Daisy, and how I rarely say it all out loud either. For so many years, I worried that if I said it out loud, people would be judging me – thinking that I might’ve been able to stop it, that it could’ve been me, that they’d want the details – the gossip. People do love a tragedy. I’d also worry too, that somehow, if I said it aloud, that something out there would get wind that I was still here, still alive, come back and fix it.

  Frank looks down at his tea, then at me. ‘I always sort of blame myself. He was wild, and my Sam was so sensible, so strong and kind. Still is. And – well, his cousin, he looked up to him. And when Sam’d come over, we’d get him to chaperone, keep an eye on him, and looking back that was such bloody pressure to put on him. He was a kid. Wise before his years but a teenager. And that’s when it happened. Sam left him alone – split second, really––’

  ‘God, that’s awful.’

  ‘Happened on his watch, I suppose you’d say. He’d just got out of hospital. We thought he’d be fine, once he got home, settled.’

  I think back to the day I got home from hospital after I lost my way, and Mum, I think, had been shocked at how far from ‘normal’ and better I was. I felt unsafe at home, wobbly, too free. I think she expected me to get home, sleep in my own bed, and wake up, fighting fit, just like you do after the flu. Poor Sam. Poor Bradley. He went home too soon. ‘That’s so terrible. Sam must’ve––’

  ‘Yes,’ says Frank. ‘He had a terrible time, did Sam, for a while. Blamed himself.’

  My heart aches in my chest. Sam must’ve carried such a heavy load around. And I know it so well. Because I slip so easily into blame. For Daisy. Because of the times I went over and over in my head what I could’ve done, to save her. And because of Mum. Did I cause the stroke, that time I lost myself? All that pressure I put on her, all that worry. I wish he was here. I wish I could tell him I understand. That he doesn’t need to run, just as much as I don’t need to hide.

  ‘Anyway.’ Frank breathes in deeply, puffing a breath out of his veiny cheeks. ‘I think he comes back … for you.’

  ‘For me?’

  ‘Yes. For you.’

  Frank chuckles, a deep, throaty smoker’s chuckle. ‘It ain’t for me, darlin’,’ he laughs. ‘I don’t suppose we’ll ever be poster boys for father and son. I’ve made my mistakes, I know I have. But Sam – he comes back for you. I know that much.’

  I look around Frank’s empty flat, the TV mumbling, the soulless woodchip, the lack of photos, of ornaments and collectables. I can almost feel the ghost of teenage Sam loping about this flat, never feeling like he quite fit in. And now it’s an almost clean slate for someone else.

  ‘What about Jenna?’ I ask.

  ‘Oh.’ Frank rubs a hand over his thin mouth. ‘Well, Jenna’s … Jenna’s a good girl. Nice. Sensible. She sort of scooped him up and nursed him back to life. But they shouldn’t be together, though. No, not now. But that’s the thing. I think they feel they’re tied – that they owe something to each other.’

  I nod. ‘I know what that’s like,’ I say to Frank.

  ‘You and me both, darlin’.’

  Frank and I drink in silence for a while, no sound except for the television and George on the balcony, chatting on the phone.

  ‘If you want my opinion,’ he says, ‘I think he’s scared.’

  ‘But Sam doesn’t strike me as someone who gets scared. He climbs mountains. Icy mountains. With lions.’

  Frank shrugs. ‘Safer to climb a mountain than to risk getting your heart broken.’

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  As I descend the stairs, the house is deathly silent. It’s been almost two weeks since I saw Ed at his parents’ house, and tonight is the rescheduled time capsule event. There is no silk dress tonight. Just jeans and a jumper and as many layers as I can pile onto my body. My phone is fully charged, my car is stocked with snacks, and is it bad – and I asked Charlie this, this morning – if I’m hoping it snows more than it ever has tonight, and Sam, who flies in today, gets stuck next to me again. Weirder things have happened, especially where we’re concerned. Because I miss him. God, I really miss him, and every day, since Edinburgh, I’ve missed him and thought about him, over and over, like a tape, stuck on a loop, until my head and my heart ache all at once.

  I reach the bottom of the stairs and turn, and stop dead. Mum, Dilly and Ian are all sitting at the kitchen table. Mum’s eyes are rimmed red, Dilly’s too, and Ian looks up at me and smiles sadly.

  ‘Oh my God.’ I pause. ‘Oh my God, what’s happened?’

  ‘Nothing to be concerned about,’ says Ian gently.

  ‘Come and sit down, darling,’ says Mum, her words thick. She pats the flat of the table with her dainty hand. ‘Come on. Next to Dilly.’

  I don’t even remember or register the steps to the table. One minute I’m at the bottom of the stairs, one minute I’m at the table. Shit. Someone is ill. Someone has something to tell me and it’s going to be––

  ‘Ian took me to the doctor today.’

  Bile sloshes in my stomach. ‘Oh my God. Mum––’

  ‘No, no, I’m fine,’ she says. ‘I’m fine, I’m not ill. I’m OK.’ Mum reaches over the table and squeezes my fingers with cold, clammy hands. ‘But – well, I’m not, am I, Noelle? Not really. Living like I do. It’s not OK, how things are.’

  Tears spring to my eyes. I don’t think it’d take a lot to tip me into floods of tears tonight. I’m already a big ball of fit-to-burst emotion, thinking about going back to the college tonight for the last time, to pick up Daisy’s camera, to take a final walk around the grounds where I feel like I left a part of myself, all those years ago. But hearing these words come from Mum’s mouth – the tears fall easily. Melted waxwork face, all over again.

  ‘So, Ian and I. We went today, to see the doctor. And I’ve been given these …’ She pushes a white box across the table. ‘And … I’ve signed up to this thing. A group therapy? Local, it is. There’s a long waiting list, but in the meantime, Ian knows someone at the squash club. A counsellor. And we saw her today too, didn’t we, Ian? And he says he’ll help with the cost. If we need it.’ Mum beams at him, tearfully, and Ian gives a stiff, proud nod.

  ‘She says we start small,’ he says. ‘Not to think of a return to normal life, to life before the stroke, even. But a new normal. To move forward and find what that new normal is for her. And for all of you.’

  Dilly puts his bandy arm around me and squeezes me into him. I cry into his shoulder, turning the fabric of his thin, pink t-shirt damp. ‘Oh, snot. Great. Cheers for that.’

  ‘You smell like Jammie Dodgers,’ I cry into his shoulder. ‘Like, really strongly.’

  ‘Get fucked, Elle,’ he laughs, but when I pull back to look up at him, his eyes are watery too, and it makes me want to cry even more.

  ‘I saw the wedding,’ he says. ‘On your Instagram. Elle. And you have to go for
it. You fucking killed it, it looked amazing.’

  ‘I want to, Dill,’ I say. ‘I do want to.’

  Ian clears his throat behind a fist. ‘And that’s why I’m moving back next door.’

  ‘What?’

  Ian’s pale face glows pink now and he entwines his fingers together. ‘The rental agreement is almost up and they don’t want to stay. And frankly, I missed all of you. I missed Belinda – your mother – more. More than I could ever say, in fact.’ Mum smiles at him, tears glittering at the edges of her eyes. ‘And I know I’m not in any way family. I know I’m just your neighbour and what I think really is irrelevant, I suppose. But …’ He looks down at the tablecloth, presses a finger onto one of the polka dots. ‘I would very much like to see you happy, Noelle.’

  Rain thrums against the window and the fridge whirs, and tears fall, one after the other onto the table like little puddles.

  ‘And you …’ Mum says, squeezing my hand again. ‘You have been my shining light. But it’s not fair, Noelle. It’s not fair that I’m holding you back. There have been times in the last few months that I’ve really seen it. You … so happy, so different. And I worry you’re letting your life pass you by, for someone else, and … at the cost of you.’

  ‘Mum I––’

  My phone buzzes. A reminder of the reunion, as if I was ever going to miss it or forget it.

  ‘I – I’m so sorry, I have to go. I’ve got the bloody college reunion thing and – I don’t even have to go, really, I can just stay here with you––’

  ‘No. You go.’ Mum smiles a watery smile. ‘We’ll talk more tomorrow. That’s if I haven’t grown two heads on these new meds.’ She looks at me, pulls a face and laughs. ‘I’m joking.’

  Ian reaches behind him on the kitchen counter and puts an envelope on the table.

  ‘Oh, and I meant to give you this. Your final week’s wages. From Frank. George passed it on.’ He slides it across the table. ‘Frank was ever so pleased apparently. Loves the new ground floor maisonette. He said you made it feel like home.’