Chapter 27
27
ZAC
One Year Before…
Glasgow Airport – 2 January 2024
Getting through security had taken twice as long as normal – partly due to the usual crowds of people leaving Glasgow after the New Year Celebrations. All his life, Zac had been coming here at New Year, and he’d always loved the buzz of the airport almost as much as the buzz of the city. The return journey, however, was his least favourite part. Everyone exhausted. Hungover. Skint. Sad to be leaving the party. Unexcited about the prospect of twelve full months until they got to do it again.
This year he felt that more than ever. At the last minute, his mum had decided that she was going to stay behind in Glasgow with Audrey, and his dad had, of course, stayed too. Zac wasn’t completely surprised. His mum wouldn’t admit it, but he could see that the liver cancer she’d been fighting for the last couple of years had been causing her increasing pain over the last month or so, so it was only natural she’d want to stay with her sister a bit longer.
He’d have stayed too, but his mum had been adamant that he go. ‘For goodness’ sake, son, you need to take that concern right off your face. You’d think I was dying, the way you’re looking at me. I’m fine. I just need to get my meds increased a little. Now go get your flight, because you’ve got that case to prepare and I’m not having you being shite at your job on my conscience. Too many people depend on you.’
With that, she had gone up on her tiptoes, as she always did, and wrapped her arms around him, then kissed him on the cheeks. ‘Now, I know you’re a grown man, but do what your mother tells you, okay?’
He’d reluctantly agreed, mostly because Morag Corlan was the not the kind of woman who was easily contradicted.
He’d finished packing the few clothes he’d brought with him into his carry-on bag, and then sought out everyone else in the family, hugging them goodbye. By the time he’d got back to his mum, she was lying on the sofa. He’d told her not to get up, but she’d insisted. She’d put her arms around him for the second time that day, not an unusual thing at all. His mum was someone who loved fiercely and held on longest to every hug, kissed everyone twice and told him she loved him every time they spoke.
He’d kissed her goodbye, then picked up his bag. ‘Right, Mam, see you back in Dublin. I’ll put some bread and milk in the house for you if you give me a shout and tell me what day you decide to come back.’
She’d nodded, smiling. ‘I will do, son. Now you take care and don’t be talking to strangers.’ That always made him laugh. He was a fully-fledged adult, over six feet tall, a trained legal professional who’d lived on his own since he went to university at eighteen years old, and yet she was still worried that someone would steal him, or he’d fall into mortal danger by striking up a conversation in a check-in queue at the airport.
He’d now been in the airport for over two hours and had safely managed to avoid being kidnapped or murdered. He’d grabbed a coffee in Starbucks and was making his way down the long pier of gates that stopped with the British Airways hub at the end. His flight to Dublin was leaving from a gate about halfway down – a relief because the corridor was packed and he was dodging passengers who’d arrived at the BA hub and were coming in the opposite direction. Glasgow airport was one of those airports where departing and arriving passengers passed each other in the same walkways, so it was a collision course of bodies. If he managed to get to his gate without spilling his cappuccino, it would be a miracle. He was focusing intently on it, when…
‘Zac?’
He didn’t even have to look up to know who it was. Kara. The woman he’d met at the same airport on the same January day, years before. On that occasion she’d been travelling to LA for her best mate’s wedding, and he’d been going home. By some brilliant twist of fate, their flights had been cancelled, and they’d spent the night at an airport hotel, during which he’d laughed more than he had before or since. If she hadn’t already been in a serious relationship, he’d have been all in.
‘Kara! Were you just hanging out here, hoping I’d be here?’ he feigned suspicion, making her laugh.
‘Ah, shit – busted. I was hoping it wouldn’t be that obvious.’
Zac was aware that he was standing still, and they were staring at each other, grinning, while waves of people tutted and puffed their way around them.
‘Have you got time for a coffee?’ he asked, his own still in his hand. ‘I think there’s a coffee bar along at the BA gates?’
‘There is – I just passed it – and sure,’ she shrugged, making a lot of irate people happy when she stepped off to the side and followed him all the way back along to the very last gate.
‘You’re looking great,’ he told her honestly, as he put her coffee and two huge chocolate chip cookies down on the table she’d snagged while he waited in the queue for her drink.
‘Thank you. Fake tan and a decent haircut. Works wonders. Are you on your way home to Dublin?’
He took the lid off his coffee to let it cool. ‘I am. And you?’
She took a deep breath, and he suddenly remembered that she had a tendency to overshare. He’d loved that about her when he’d met her the first time, and now? He grinned as he settled down for the ride. ‘My friend who was getting married that last time we met? Ollie? Well, wait until I tell you – a few months later he landed the best job ever. A starring role on that Clansman TV show.’
‘I love that show!’
‘Me too. He plays Cam McGregor…’
Zac realised immediately who he was. Ollie Chiles. He’d shot to stardom as soon as the show aired a few years ago, and Zac was sure he had seen him on the cover of Rolling Stone last month – the top twenty hot young stars in Hollywood, or something like that. Zac had always thought he was excellent in the show – and his mum and Aunt Audrey adored him.
‘Check you out, with your famous friends,’ he teased her. ‘That’s amazing. He must be pretty chuffed that it’s going so well.’
Kara nodded. ‘He definitely is – he’s loving life. He’s shooting in Croatia right now, but his wife is in New York in a play there, so he was on his lonesome for New Year. Which is all my roundabout way of saying that I’m on my way back from Croatia because I spent New Year there with my pal.’
‘And your boyfriend didn’t mind?’
‘I forgot that bit. He’s been in Paris for the last five days with a big corporate client who was launching a new product on the Eiffel Tower at midnight on New Year’s Eve. They’re still there, although I suspect it’s now more of a jolly than work. Oh, and it’s more than boyfriend now.’ She held up her hand and he saw the large solitaire sparkling in the light. ‘Fiancé now.’
‘Congratulations.’
‘Thank you. We’re getting married next year in Hawaii. A double wedding with my sister.’
‘Congratulations again.’ His face was smiling, and his words sounded convincing, but both were masking a mighty pang of disappointment that was thumping the inside of his chest.
‘Thank you.’
He could end the conversation right there and go catch his plane. He could, but he didn’t want to. He’d thought back to the last time they’d met on a thousand occasions, and nothing else since had quite matched up. This felt… right. Natural. He’d met her twice and yet, clichéd as it was, he felt like he’d known her forever. So no, he didn’t go. Instead, he took a sip of his coffee and decided that the rest of the world could wait.
‘And how’s your work going?’ he asked her, and then settled back to listen as she chatted about her job, then asked about his, and an hour later their coffees were cold, the final call was made for his flight, and he realised that he didn’t want to go.
He made a split-second decision. ‘Can I ask you something?’
She didn’t hesitate. ‘Shoot.’
‘If I were to go and change my flight and catch the first one tomorrow morning, would you have dinner with me? Only I feel that we have several more conversations to get through. We haven’t even scratched on world peace or the history of the boy band.’
Her laugh was one of his favourite things about her. She didn’t even break eye contact and her smile widened as she answered his question with one of her own. ‘Can I ask you something?’
‘Shoot.’
‘Can we have dinner in exactly the same place, in exactly the same way that we did last time? Because I think that was one of my favourite nights ever.’
‘I think we can manage that,’ he agreed. ‘And for the record, it was one of mine too.’
Thankfully, he hadn’t checked any luggage in, so he just let a harassed gate attendant know that he was no longer taking the flight.
Less than an hour later, they were lying, fully clothed, on a bed in the hotel across from the airport, drinking beers, eating room service and chocolate from the minibar. They watched ten more episodes of Friends and Zac thought how he hadn’t laughed more in one night since the last time they’d done this.
It was almost midnight when she rolled on her side to face him. ‘I’m glad we got to do this again.’
‘Me too.’
‘You know, I never told a soul about the last time we met.’
That surprised him. She’d said she shared everything with her sister and her actor mate. ‘I didn’t either.’
‘I think it felt… special. And innocent. I didn’t want to let anyone make it something it wasn’t.’
‘I get that. Don’t get me wrong, if you didn’t have a boyfriend…’
‘I know,’ she said, and they didn’t have to say all the words in the sentence because they both knew what they were thinking.
He wasn’t sure who fell asleep first, but he remembered waking in the middle of the night, and they were spooning, and then waking in the morning and she was gone.
He glanced around for a note. Nothing. Just a Toblerone, sitting on the bedside table next to him. They hadn’t kissed. They had barely touched. He was sure he’d never see her again. Yet it had totally been worth it.
The shower beckoned, so he got up, spent twenty minutes under the jets, then, when he was dried and dressed, checked the flight app to see that his rescheduled midday flight was on time.
Pulling his bag up on to his shoulder, he was about to leave the room when his phone rang. Dad.
He answered the phone with a breezy, ‘Hey, how’s things?’
The reply was a choking sob. ‘Son, it’s your mum. She took a turn during the night and she’s in hospital. I don’t know how to tell you this…’
‘Don’t say it, Dad. What hospital?’
‘Glasgow Central. But I needed to tell you because there might not be enough time for you to get back here.’
Zac swallowed, trying to force his vocal cords to work. ‘Dad, I missed my flight.’ There was no need to explain the details. ‘I’m at a hotel at Glasgow airport. I’ll be there soon. Please, please tell her I’m coming.’
Half an hour later, he was at his mum’s bedside. She was slipping in and out of consciousness, and he felt immediately it was close to the end, but he got to say everything he wanted to tell her. At one point she squeezed his hand and whispered his name, and that’s when he knew with every beat of his heart and hers, that she’d heard it all. Shortly afterwards, she slipped into a coma, and three days later she passed away.
For the rest of his life, he’d be grateful to Kara McIntyre for giving him that time and that last conversation with his mum.
And he knew that he’d never again walk through an airport without checking the crowds to see if she was there.