Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Fifteen
Time had got away from them. He was surprised it hadn’t done before now.
Their fourth Sunday together and it felt like Christmas, only Ash hadn’t enjoyed Christmas after the age of twelve, when all the idyllic, rosy fantasies he had lived out, with two parents and a brother he adored, too much food and stockings hanging over the arms of the sofas, wrapping paper everywhere, had disintegrated, replaced by stretches of silence, his mum too heartbroken to make an effort, he and Dylan creating their own fun. He had felt responsible. It was his job to step up and make things OK, to make his mum and his brother smile again, even though he hadn’t known how to at that age. In lots of ways, he still didn’t.
No, being with Jess, kissing Jess, was better than Christmas. It made him feel as if he’d done something right in all of this, had found some impossibly bright spark that still felt too fragile to grab hold of, in case he crushed it in his palm.
He arrived at the gleaming white door out of breath, his heaving chest mirroring the chaos of his thoughts, the bliss replaced by the usual dread and regret, and also resentment that he’d had to leave her. They’d realised the time, had rushed back towards the market, laughing, their fingertips brushing, other people throwing them looks of consternation or curiosity as they literally held onto their hats. Making it back to No Vase Like Home, they’d hovered in the doorway, and he hadn’t known what to do.
Jess had, though. She’d stretched up and kissed his cheek, and he’d relished the feel of her lips against his skin again, brushing his Sunday stubble. She’d said, ‘Same time next week?’ He’d nodded, told her of course and then legged it, moving faster through the market than he’d done before.
‘Ash Faulkner, you’re cutting it fine,’ Peggy said, when he stepped inside and closed the door.
He glanced at his watch. It was three minutes past one. ‘Hardly,’ he puffed out.
‘Did you forget about today?’ Peggy scrutinised him. ‘Nice hat.’
‘Thanks.’ He put it on the chair beside him. ‘As if I could forget about this. No, Jess and I got... carried away.’
She raised an eyebrow. ‘No details, please. This is a family space.’ She gestured around the empty waiting room.
‘I didn’t mean...’ he started, then stopped. Because that kiss had felt like a prelude, and even though they had been in public, it had been a struggle not to pull her even closer, to whisper everything he wanted to do with her in her ear. She had matched his kiss, but maybe telling her how frantic she made him, how much closer he wanted to get, would have sent her jumping over the wall into the river just to get away from him.
‘Coffee?’ Peggy asked. ‘I’ll give you a moment to sort yourself out.’
He glanced down, but his shirt and jeans looked unruffled.
Peggy tapped her temple. ‘In here. I expect it’s a big switch, coming from Jess to here.’
‘That’s all I’ve ever done with Jess,’ he said. ‘Come straight from her to this place.’
‘I know. Let me get you that coffee. And,’ she called over her shoulder, ‘I’ve got one of my special sandwiches, as promised.’
Ash groaned, but his thoughts were already back with Jess. Was it right that she didn’t know where he came after seeing her? He was so desperate to keep her separate from this, but now that they’d kissed, now that their companionable hours were becoming more, should he tell her the truth?
Peggy brought over a cappuccino and a packet of Bourbon biscuits. ‘I couldn’t do it to you. My tuna and peanut butter masterpiece will have to wait until another time.’
‘Thanks.’ Ash took a biscuit.
‘No witty comeback?’
‘I kissed Jess.’
Peggy didn’t seem surprised. ‘A quick peck goodbye, or...’
‘More of an I really like you, hello kind of kiss.’
‘Oooh. And I’m guessing a “hellooooo” rather than a “hey”.’
Ash laughed. ‘Yep.’
‘Then you had to put her down and race over here. No wonder you’re all at sea.’
‘It’s fine – it’s not like I haven’t kissed a woman before.’ Why had he said that? He took a second Bourbon and bit straight into it, not even removing the top layer of biscuit with his teeth so he could scrape off the cream.
‘I don’t doubt it, you absolute cad,’ Peggy said indulgently. ‘You know I should get paid extra, as your therapist?’
‘I do know that,’ he said. ‘Sorry, Peg.’
‘Nonsense.’ She patted his knee. ‘But I do have some news for you, actually. And I’m here, however you want to take it: cry, use me as a punchbag, scream. If you try and run out of the door, though, I will block you.’
‘That sounds ominous.’ Ash’s muscles tensed, the knot that lived permanently between his shoulder blades tightening painfully.
Peggy gave him her gentlest smile, her tone matching when she said, ‘He’s awake.’
Ash stood in the doorway, looking at him.
He’d seen him last week, of course, and had been able to catalogue all the changes: how much his dark hair had thinned; how pale his face looked whereas, when Ash was a boy, there’d been no mistaking his Italian heritage; the way the skin on his forearms was loose and wrinkled now, lying on top of the blanket on the bed. It wasn’t the man he had worshipped growing up, and then come to hate. That had made it easier, somehow.
Now, however, he was sitting up against the pillows, the machines beeping in the background, monitoring or assisting various parts of his body.
His head turned slowly, and Ash watched his eyes widen. It was a small movement, as if he wasn’t thatsurprised, but Ash sensed that it was just that everything about him was smaller. He was no longer the gregarious, physical man Ash had grown up with. His cancer was in charge now.
‘Ash.’ His voice was barely there, but his strong Italian accent twisted the word into a name Ash hadn’t heard for years. He had stopped being that Ash the moment his dad had left them, and when his mum had reverted to her maiden name, he had too – becoming Ash Faulkner instead of Ash Lombardo. He hadn’t wanted anything to do with him, then. He didn’t feel a whole lot different now.
‘Hey, Dad,’ he said.
He felt a small, almost imperceptible nudge in his lower back. He turned, and Peggy nodded him forwards. He frowned, and she – she stuck her tongue out at him. He was outraged, comforted, calmed. He squeezed her wrist, then turned his attention back to the room that, with its large window and lush greenery outside, the earlier cloud thinning to reveal the blue of the afternoon beyond, was the real waiting room.
He sat in the chair next to the bed, squeezing his hands between his knees, and tried not to let panic overwhelm him. What could he say? Not how are you? Or How’s life been treating you? because both those things were obvious. He closed his eyes, casting about for a subject, and found one: something that would help him edge towards the end of this window of time, when he could see the man who should have meant everything to him, but had come to mean nothing. A voice whispered that it was a very complicatednothing, but he pushed it aside.
‘Dylan says hey,’ he said to Nico Lombardo.
‘He’s in Aukland?’ Nico scratched out.
‘With his wife Sadie and two boys, Zack and Eli. Your grandkids.’ He didn’t put any emphasis on the last words. His dad knew all the ways in which he was lacking.
‘What about you?’ Every word was a struggle, and Ash knew he would have to do the heavy lifting in the conversation.
‘I haven’t given you any grandkids,’ he said. ‘I work in the City as an occupational psychologist. I have a flat in Holborn, I play rugby out near St John’s Wood when I can get there. My neighbour, Mack, makes me get the Sunday paper for him, then rewards me with a coffee and a lecture about whatever outrageous headline is on the front page, as if I’m personally responsible for the state of the world.’
Did his dad’s lips twitch upwards? It was disconcerting that this whole, stilted exchange was happening againsta soundtrack of beeps. He couldn’t help thinking of it as acountdown.
‘Don’t shoot the messenger,’ Nico said.
‘I think that’s part of the fun for him,’ Ash said. ‘He called me a whippersnapper, once. Young and overconfident, which isn’t true. I’m not that young any more.’
‘Twenty-nine.’
‘Well done, Dad. Glad you’ve been keeping tabs.’ It was out before he could rein it in. He glanced guiltily at Nico, but he had his eyes closed. He wasn’t going to apologise.
‘How’s your mother?’
Ash gritted his teeth. Not fully put back together after you left her with two boys to bring up on her own. Too gracious for her own good. ‘She was the one who asked me to come and seeyou,’ he admitted. ‘She couldn’t face it herself, which I hope you understand, so she asked me to.’
‘And you – you wanted to?’ His voice was quieter, and one of the machines gave a quick, high beep, more attention-grabbing than the rest.
How unfair it was, Ash thought, that he couldn’t be honest; that he couldn’t shout and scream, fling all the rage and guilt and despair inside him at the man who was the root of it all, because you couldn’t do that to someone who was dying.
‘I wanted to come for her,’ he said, instead. ‘She asked me to, so here I am. And I’ll come back next week, and the one after, until...’ He stopped. This was worse than he’d imagined it could be.
‘Don’t worry,’ Nico said, his eyes closing again. They had been warm and full of humour when Ash was little, deep brown irises he used to wish he’d inherited. ‘It won’t be for too much longer.’ He went still, only the shitty, irritating beeps letting Ash know he was still alive.
Ash ran a hand over his mouth, then got up and turned away. He stood in front of the closed door, not sure he could face Peggy’s empathy and her soft, warming smiles. Right now, he didn’t think he deserved her kindness.
How was it that his dad had been the one to walk out on them, to disappear into a new life, barely stay in touch and then wind up here, in this expensive place – no doubt paid for by one of his few madcap schemes that had actually worked – and yet it was Ash who felt like the guilty one? Like he wasn’t a good enough son because he didn’t want to be here, and couldn’t hide it from Nico?
He pulled open the door and stepped into the corridor, sighing his relief when he saw it was empty. Today had been both his best and worst Sunday since he’d started coming to Greenwich, and while he was desperate to go back to the market and see Jess again, mostly to remind himself that she was real, that their kiss had happened, he couldn’t.
It was more important than ever that he didn’t tell her about this, that he kept his miraculous, stolen moments with her separate from the time he had to spend here. He had to hold on to the good things, and being with Jess was so good. The only problem was, it was always followed by one of the worst things he’d ever had to do.