Chapter 23
23
‘So… have you decided?’
‘About what?’ Laura looked up from an opened box on the kitchen table of her mother’s cottage. ‘You know I have a million things that I’m deciding about at the moment, Mam. Like’ – she gestured at the pile of neatly folded small garments beside the box – ‘does Ellie really want me to use all Jack’s baby things that we stored in the attic?’
‘Aye, I’m sure she does.’ Jeannie stroked a small jumper she had knitted herself. ‘It’s like a gift from her baby to yours. Let’s pack them away again for now, hen. It’s time for dinner.’
Laura lifted the box only to find something beneath it. ‘What’s this?’
‘Oh…’ Jeannie had an odd expression on her face. ‘I found it in the attic when I went up to get the baby clothes.’
‘Is it one of Ellie’s?’ Laura picked up the sketch pad, which looked like the ones her sister had been using ever since she’d discovered her passion for art as a child.
‘No…’ Jeannie took the pad from Laura’s hands and flipped through the pages. ‘It was something your father did as a hobby. I wanted to show you this.’
It was a pencil sketch of moor-covered hills.
‘I remember him drawing,’ Laura said quietly. ‘That looks like the Campsie Fells.’
‘But look…’ Jeannie touched the heavy paper.
‘It’s a stone cottage. Or the ruins of one.’
‘What does it remind you of?’ Jeannie broke the silence before Laura could say anything. ‘Do you remember the painting in the wee house in France?’
‘Oh, Mam… it’s just a stone building. They all look like that.’
Jeannie closed the pad and put it on top of the box. ‘Aye… you’re right. It’s a coincidence, nothing more. And it’s past time we should we eating our dinner.’
Laura picked up the box, put it on the floor in the corner of the room and then rubbed her lower back, which was aching more than usual. ‘It smells delicious. What is it? Sausage stovies? Shepherd’s pie?’
‘Aye… Shepherd’s pie. It was always your favourite, wasn’t it? Are you hungry?’
‘I’m always hungry these days. Could be because there’s not so much room for food in there now. I have to carry snacks with me wherever I go.’
‘It could be that you’re doing too much.’ Jeannie clicked her tongue as she opened the oven, took out a very-well-worn ceramic dish and put it onto a metal trivet in the centre of the kitchen table. The cheese on top of the mashed potato was crispy and brown. All around the edge, from beneath the potato, bubbles of the rich, tomatoey sauce that the meat and vegetables had cooked in were escaping. Jeannie poked a serving spoon through the crisp topping and fragrant steam billowed out.
‘Sit yourself down while I get the plates,’ she ordered. ‘And you haven’t answered my question yet – about whether you’ve made a decision.’
‘Hmm…’ Laura knew exactly what decision her mother was referring to, but it was becoming automatic to back away from trying to find an answer – for her mother or herself. ‘I decided not to repaint the living room in my apartment,’ she offered, hoping Jeannie would take the hint. ‘It’s fine the way it is and I want to get it on the market by next week. It’s taken longer than I thought it would to declutter and give it a deep clean. There was way more to do in the office than I expected, too, to get ready to take maternity leave.’
‘You should be on maternity leave already.’ Jeannie spooned some of the shepherd’s pie onto Laura’s plate. ‘You’re running out of time if you do decide you want to live in that beautiful house. And have your baby born in France.’
‘I’ve got a few weeks left.’
The look from Jeannie was enough of a reprimand to make her pause, her fork halfway to her mouth. Laura sighed.
‘No, I haven’t decided and I know I’m running out of time. I won’t be able to fly soon. I really want to go and live in Vence. In that house… with Noah…’ She put her fork back down on her plate. ‘But maybe I want it too much to make a rational decision.’
‘Because you’re in love with Noah?’
‘Aye…’
‘And you don’t think he feels the same way you do?’
‘I know he doesn’t. He can’t. He won’t let himself.’
Jeannie’s expression was thoughtful as she ate a mouthful of the pie. ‘Maybe he won’t be able to help himself when you’re a part of his life. When his bairn is there as well.’
Which was exactly what Laura was dreaming might happen. She knew that Noah was capable of truly loving someone. Loving them deeply enough to keep him going back, year after year, even though they were gone, to put a small stone heart into a bowl. She ate in silence for a minute, barely tasting what had always been a favourite childhood meal, maybe precisely because of the memories it was invoking.
‘But what if he doesn’t?’ she asked quietly.
That fear was what kept her pushing the decision to the back of her mind. She would never be able to stop loving Noah but how could she live with him, or even near him, if he was never able to love her back in the same way? How could she live like that? It would be a sentence of lifelong heartbreak that would destroy her in the end. Slowly, piece by piece, but very, very surely.
‘What if things go wrong?’ The words came out in a whisper. ‘Like they did for Ellie with Liam?’ She swallowed hard, her gaze shifting towards the box in the corner of the room with the sketch pad lying on top of it. ‘Like they did for you with Dada…?’
It was Jeannie’s turn to put down her fork. ‘I never told you this, hinny, but I was pregnant with you when I married your dad. We barely knew each other but we were madly in love and… and mebbe Gordon was just doing the right thing at the time but he fell in love with you the moment you were born. He adored every one of his children. And me…’
Laura heard the faintest echo of a deep, male voice.
‘I love you, Lulu…’
She swallowed hard. ‘But that’s what scares me. What if I find out that Noah’s not who he seems? That he might be a monster?’
‘Your father was never a monster,’ Jeannie said, a sharp note in her voice. Then it softened. ‘He was a wonderful husband and father until…’ She cleared her throat. ‘…whatever it was that went wrong. Gordon wasn’t a violent person. For all those years he was a gentle giant of a man and I adored him. I wanted him to go to a doctor but he wouldn’t. I thought something would happen and he’d end up in hospital or jail and then he’d have to get help but something did happen and… he was just gone…’
‘Oh… Mam …’ Awkwardly, Laura got off her chair and went to wrap her arms around her mother, who was wiping away tears. ‘I’m so sorry…’
Jeannie sniffed and then fished in the pocket of her apron for a hanky. ‘Don’t be sorry,’ she said. ‘I have my three beautiful daughters and I’m about to be a granny again, thanks to you. And I’m so happy for Ellie. She’d been brave enough to try again and look at how happy she is.’ She blew her nose and picked up her fork again, signalling that the upset was over and done with and Laura could stop hugging her now. ‘If you go and live in Vence, you’ll be close to her and I can come and stay in that lovely wee house and visit with you all. I believe that things will come right for Fiona one of these days, too, and that might even start when she comes to meet her new niece and…’ She waited until Laura was sitting down again. ‘I’m thinking that what we were talking about on Christmas Day really will happen. That we’ll all be together next Christmas.’
Laura poked at her food, trying to find an appetite that seemed to have vanished. She remembered her mother’s other hope – that Ellie might even be pregnant again by then.
‘You’re right about our Ellie,’ she said. ‘I think she might have been lucky enough to have found the secret to happiness.’
‘It’s no’ really a secret,’ Jeannie said, with a smile. ‘There’s certainly some luck involved but we all know what it is, deep down.’
‘Do we?’
‘Of course. It’s love. Pure and simple. Now’ – she pointed her fork at Laura’s plate – ‘eat up. And make your decision soon. You’re keeping that man of yours waiting and that’s not really fair, is it?’
* * *
‘ Merci, mon ami. à bient?t .’
Noah ended the call, dropped his phone onto his desk and opened the top drawer. A half-full pack of cigarettes had been in there for weeks now, ever since he’d decided to stop smoking – in case he was going to be living in the same house as a baby.
He put a cigarette between his lips and reached for the lighter that was in the same drawer. Living with a baby – his baby – was not going to happen now so there was no point in giving up one of life’s pleasures, was there?
That was what the phone call he’d just made had been about. He’d rung his acquaintance who owned the house in Vence that he had taken Laura to view, thanked him for giving him a personal first refusal, apologised for having taken so long and then delivered the news that he was not going to purchase the property after all and would now put it on the open market.
It had been an awkward call to make.
Embarrassing.
But those feelings were nothing in comparison to how the call from Laura had left him feeling.
He’d been shocked by that.
Angry…?
Yes… Noah flicked the lighter and held the flame to the end of his cigarette. Of course he was angry. He was as angry as he had been when he’d discovered that Laura was pregnant and she hadn’t had the courtesy to tell him or allow him any input into choices being made. He drew in the smoke and then blew it out in a dismissive kind of huff. She hadn’t even had the decency to call him last night. She’d left an audio message instead. Something he could only listen to and not say a word.
Noah lifted his hand to take another puff of his cigarette but his hand stopped before it reached his lips. Instead, he stubbed it out in the ashtray on his desk and reached for his phone. Maybe he should have let the message be automatically deleted but something had made him tap the ‘keep’ option as he’d stared, stunned, at the empty screen long after the recording had ended.
Laura’s voice, with its lilting Scottish accent, sounded as if she was actually in his office when he tapped the Play button. Like she had been the very first time he’d laid eyes on her.
‘I’m so sorry this has taken so long, Noah, and I’m sorry to be just leaving a message, but I would never be able to say everything I need to say if I heard your voice.’
Her voice wobbled.
‘The first thing I want to say is thank you. Thank you for wanting me to live with you in Vence and finding that beautiful house that would be so perfect for a family. I wanted to say yes from the moment you said you wanted to take care of me and the baby and that we could raise her together, but something stopped me and I finally realised what it was.’
There was a moment’s silence then, as if Laura was taking a slow, deep breath.
‘I wanted to say yes so much, but it wasn’t so much that I wanted you to be a part of your daughter’s life, it was because I wanted you to be a part of mine. Because… I love you, Noah. I know you won’t want to hear this but I’m completely in love with you. Maybe you’ve guessed that already. I know you don’t feel the same way. That you can’t feel the same way. And I understand why, I really do. And I know how big this offer of living together is for you.’
He could hear the intake of a new breath this time.
‘The problem is that, for me, loving someone who can’t love me back would be only living half a life and it would be too hard. I don’t want our daughter to live like that, either. She deserves more than that. I deserve more than that and… and so do you, Noah. It breaks my heart that you can’t take the risk of letting yourself get close enough to someone to accept this kind of love or be able to return it. Maybe, one day, you will, but I can’t make the biggest decisions of my life based on nothing more than hope. Because this isn’t just about me.’
Another silence, but it was a kind of sound – the sound of an imaginary door closing?
‘I put my apartment on the market two weeks ago and it sold remarkably quickly. I’m going to stay with my mother when the baby is born, but I’m trying to find a house to buy that I’ll be able to move into very soon.’
Her voice wobbled again.
‘I’ll let you know as soon as it looks like something’s happening. I would be okay with you being present for the birth if you want to be. Or to have you visit as soon as you can afterwards. I really want you to be part of our lives, Noah, and I hope we can always be friends, but… it’s best for all of us if we keep our lives the way they were.’
A tiny silence suggested there was nothing more to say.
‘ à bient?t . I hope…’
The call ended on something that sounded like a stifled sob.
A sound that had to be ignored.
He wasn’t going to allow sympathy for Laura to override what was happening. He was still angry. Buying that house and taking all the responsibility of being a father and partner had been the only real choice he’d been able to make and it had been rejected.
He had been rejected.
It was just as well he’d kept enough control to protect his own heart. It had been a mistake to think they could be that close. It was back to plan A. He really didn’t need to feel guilty that he was not a part of that child’s life on a daily basis, which could have become a deeply meaningful level, because Laura had made the choice to exclude him.
He would do what he was allowed to do in the way of financial support and he would be a father to his child.
From a safe distance.
Just the way he liked all of his personal relationships to be.
He reached for the packet of cigarettes again but then he stared at the box. Making a kind of growling sound deep in his throat, he crushed the packet in his hand and hurled it into the wastepaper basket.
He was done.
* * *
A week or so later and Noah knew he would never smoke again. He wasn’t even remotely tempted to because he knew it would not provide any pleasure. Not that many things were providing pleasure recently, and some things that used to be a pleasure were, in fact, unpleasant.
Like showing a potential purchaser through that house in Vence this afternoon. The house that could have been his.
And Laura’s.
The sooner it was sold, the better. Perhaps that would help him get back to his old life and not feel so…
Noah let his breath out in a sigh. He didn’t have a word to describe how he was feeling, but it was pushing at protective walls that were there for a good reason, so it was better to not even try to analyse how he was feeling.
Maybe all he needed was some good company and he had that lined up for tonight with a rendezvous with Julien and Christophe to taste what was, apparently, a particularly good red wine from a small appellation in Bordeaux.
It wasn’t so good that Julien was hosting the evening, however, but Noah couldn’t let the link to Laura interfere with what was becoming a valued friendship. Even when Ellie pulled him aside almost as soon as he arrived chez Rousseau.
‘Not long now,’ she said. ‘I’m sad that Laura decided not to come back to have the baby in France but I’m holding my breath to hear that she’s in labour. It could be any day now. She told me she’s hoping you might be able to be there for the birth?’
Noah shrugged. His response was just as noncommittal. ‘It remains to be seen whether that’s possible.’
‘Just in case it is, can I give you this?’ Ellie was holding something in her hands. Something small and brown. ‘She left it in La Maisonette. Maybe on purpose, because she thought she was coming back. It’s a little teddy bear rattle, see?’ She held up the soft toy and shook it. Then she pressed it into Noah’s hand. ‘Thank you…’ Her smile was bright. ‘And please excuse me. Theo’s waiting for me to read his bedtime story. Enjoy your wine.’
Noah wanted to enjoy his wine, which was, as promised, excellent.
He wanted to enjoy the company as well. Julien and Christophe were on good form, putting the world to rights as well as discussing the merits of this wine, like the notes of black cherries and spices.
Right now they were discussing an unseasonably severe storm that might brush western France before barrelling towards the UK and Ireland, particularly Scotland. Noah was listening but not saying anything – even when the others glanced in his direction at the mention of Scotland. He could feel the lump of the small teddy bear, having been shoved into the back pocket of his jeans. He was thinking of Laura, getting ready to have the baby any day now. The thought that a storm might be heading in her direction was disconcerting – an external factor being added to a very internal tension that had suddenly been unleashed.
Because Noah had suddenly realised what the word was for how he’d been feeling ever since he’d received that voice message from Laura. The pressure of trying to shore up those protective barriers had become too much and they had crumbled.
Invisible, that’s what the word was.
Exactly the way he’d felt after Elise had died.
Because she’d been the only person he’d really mattered to.
The only person who had loved him as much as he’d loved her.
Like Laura loved him?
Was that why he’d felt so different in her company? Why it had felt so different to make love to her?
Why he’d started feeling invisible again because that voice message had told him that she was gone from his life in any truly meaningful way? They would be living in separate countries. He might never get any time alone with her ever again. Worse… she was being forced to give up on loving him because he couldn’t love her back, and that made it too hard.
He had kept himself shut away and, by doing so, he had hurt Laura.
How remarkable was it that he could hold his glass up without his hand shaking? He could swirl the ruby-red wine around inside the glass and admire the larmes as the drops ran down from the rim like tears. He could even take a small mouthful and hold it in his mouth as if he was trying to taste every note.
When he wasn’t aware of any of them.
What he could really taste, perhaps because it was totally filling his head – and his heart – was the knowledge that whatever barrier had held that word back from him had also been hiding the truth that had been there all along.
He loved Laura Gilchrist just as much as she loved him.
He was in love with her. Maybe he had been all along, ever since the first moment he’d seen her.
And she was about to give birth to their baby.
What the hell was he doing here ?
‘ Excusez-moi, les amis ,’ he said to Julien and Christophe. ‘ Mais je dois partir. J’ai vraiment besoin d’être ailleurs .’
He really did need to be somewhere else.
But could he get there in time?