Chapter 46
FORTY-SIX
LAUREL
I stepped through the glass doors into the hotel lobby, the red carpet soft beneath my feet.
Two liveried doormen stood on either side of the entrance, politely welcoming expressions on their faces; I returned their smiles but didn’t speak to them.
I was feeling as out of place as I had arriving at the luxury country hotel where I’d spent Valentine’s night with Gray – more so, because this time I wasn’t sure of the welcome I’d receive from the person I’d come to meet.
I’d made my approach to Joel Chamberlain cautiously and formally, using the email address I had found online for his agent and explaining that I’d known Nigel Graham, a former school friend of Joel’s, and would appreciate it if he could meet me to talk about him.
I hadn’t known what I’d do if my email was ignored or my request refused – but to my surprise I had woken to an email in response to mine, sent late the previous night.
Laurel,
My agent forwarded your message to me. I’d be glad to speak to you, but I am only in London until late morning tomorrow. Perhaps you could come to the hotel where I’m staying?
And he’d provided the address of this plushy, yet somehow generic, five-star hotel on Kensington High Street. It was the sort of place where well-heeled tourists might base themselves for a long weekend, or visitors from the Middle East planning a shopping spree at Harrods and Harvey Nichols.
It wasn’t the sort of place that had a computerised check-in system, like the Premier Inn where Gray and I had spent that handful of nights. But that was just as well, because I wasn’t checking in.
I approached the reception desk where more smiling, uniformed staff were greeting guests, and porters with trolleys were whisking vast suitcases off in the direction of the lifts.
‘How may I help you, Madam?’ asked a heavily made-up blonde woman.
I swallowed. ‘I’m here to see someone who’s staying here. Joel Chamberlain. My name’s Laurel Norton.’
‘One moment please.’
She lifted a telephone from its cradle, spoke briefly into it, then said, ‘Please take a seat.’
I took one – a red velvet armchair next to a varnished wood table holding an arrangement of lilies and copies of that day’s newspapers. The papers were too unspoiled and crisp for me to dare to pick one up, so I sat empty handed, my bag on my lap, watching the lift doors.
After a few minutes, Joel Chamberlain emerged.
He was recognisable from the photo I’d seen in the magazine and recognisable as the musician who’d captivated me on stage at the Royal Albert Hall a few days before – but also not.
The charisma that had illuminated him then was dimmed now – he was just a rangy, graceful man in jeans and a faded sweatshirt.
He approached the reception desk and said something to the blonde woman, who gestured. Then he turned and approached me, and I stood up, extending my hand to him.
‘Thank you for meeting me,’ I said. ‘I know this is kind of weird. I’m not a stalker, I promise. Although I saw you play the other night. It was wonderful.’
He looked down at me, his expression somewhere between curious and puzzled. ‘Thank you. I’m delighted you enjoyed it.’
‘I did. I… I’ve never heard anything like it before. I was only there because I hoped to talk to you about Nigel Graham.’
‘Nigel.’ He said the name slowly, as if he’d forgotten how to pronounce it and was remembering. ‘Of course. Are you… Is he here?’
His eyes left my face, glancing involuntarily around.
‘No,’ I said. Then I added gently, ‘He passed away four months ago. We were close. I wanted to find the person who he… To find you.’
The smile left his face, and he turned pale.
‘We should sit down,’ he said, and it looked to me as if he needed to sit. ‘Would you like something? A coffee?’
The cadence of his voice was familiar, and I realised it was a stronger version of the accent that had been almost imperceptible in Gray’s voice.
I shook my head. He led me through the lobby, away from the crowds to a sofa that faced away from the room, another glossy table holding newspapers in front of it. I sat down, and he joined me, close enough to touch.
‘This is totally weird,’ I said. ‘I’m so sorry to accost you like this. You must think I’m—’
‘Some kind of nutter?’ He smiled, and I felt immediately more at ease. ‘Maybe, at first, when I got your message. But you knew Nigel. It’s been a long time. I’m sorry to hear he passed away. What happened?’
I told him. It had been long enough, now, that I could talk about Gray without crying, but I still heard my breath catch when I said that his cancer had not been treatable.
When Joel heard that, his face became still.
‘I see,’ he said. ‘Because of what he did for me.’
I shook my head. ‘It’s not just that. Gray – Nigel – he told me that, before he met me, his health wasn’t the best. He didn’t look after himself. He was pre-diabetic. The damage that he did to his body wasn’t just because he had only one kidney.’
‘It can’t have helped, though.’
‘Well, perhaps not. But neither of you could have known.’
‘Still. I’m alive now and he’s not.’ He spoke with a kind of hesitancy, as if he was learning a foreign language. ‘If it wasn’t for what he did, it would likely be the other way around.’
Gently, I asked, ‘Are you able to tell me what led to it?’
He nodded. ‘I have a condition called Fabry disease. It’s—’
‘Alpha-galactosidase A deficiency,’ I said.
‘Nigel told you?’
‘No. He never really talked about it. But after – after his death, I wanted to find out more about… well, about you. I looked into it. I’m a nurse – I’m interested in stuff like that.’
‘Then you know it presents with a range of symptoms. I’m receiving chaperone therapy now – I’m perfectly well.
Treatment has advanced hugely. But twenty-five years ago, I wasn’t.
I was diagnosed relatively late, in my late teens.
By the time I was in my third year at university my kidneys were failing.
I thought it was a death sentence – that, or I’d need dialysis all my life. ’
‘Which wouldn’t exactly have been compatible with being a professional musician,’ I guessed.
‘Exactly. Hospital visits three times a week and spending months on tour internationally kind of don’t go well together. And that was what I always wanted. My dream.’
I could imagine it. Actually, I didn’t need to, because I’d seen it far too often: footballers’ careers shattered before they’d properly got started by injury.
Young women on the cusp of starting families having their lives derailed by a cancer diagnosis.
Little children surviving road accidents with life-changing injuries.
But that hadn’t happened to Joel. Joel was right here, living his dream.
‘And so Gray offered…?’ I hazarded.
‘He did. We’d lost touch, after we left school.
He made it pretty clear that he wanted to put that part of his life behind him, and that meant putting me behind him too.
It was – it hurt me. It came as a shock, because we had been the sort of friends you think you’ll be forever.
But at that time of life – leaving school, starting university – people move on and friendships change. So I accepted that.’
‘But you didn’t lose touch?’
He smiled, as if the memory brought him happiness. ‘We both went to London for uni, and although it’s a pretty big place, it wasn’t vanishingly improbable that we’d run into each other. And we did – one morning on the Tube.’
‘That’s quite a coincidence. What happened?’
‘It was – it was a dark time for me. Deafness is a symptom of Fabry disease, and I’d escaped that – I thought I was in the clear.
Then I found out my kidneys were failing.
I thought that would be it – thought there was no hope of me becoming a professional musician any more.
So I played every chance I got. I used to busk, down in the Underground.
Nigel was on his way somewhere and he recognised the sound of my fiddle. ’
‘So he came and spoke to you?’ I tried to imagine what that must have been like for Joel – meeting an old friend, what should have been a happy coincidence soured by the news he had to break.
He nodded. ‘We went for a coffee. I told him what was happening, and he made the offer to be a transplant donor, if we were compatible. Straight away.’
I smiled, thinking how like Gray that was. The impulsiveness, the generosity. Not thinking what consequences his actions might have.
‘And you were compatible.’
‘We were. Now that was vanishingly improbable, but it happened.’ He looked down at his hands – the long, elegant fingers – as if realising how lucky he was to have them.
‘I was grateful at the time, of course. But it all happened pretty fast. It’s only really since then – every birthday, every Christmas, every time I step on stage – that I realise how much I owe him. And now I can never tell him.’
Oh, Gray. You knew, didn’t you? Surely you knew what a wonderful, selfless thing you did?
‘He must have known how you felt.’ I could feel a lump building in my throat. ‘Surely. He said… I remember him saying something about it being payment of a debt. For a while I thought that might mean – you know. Something negative. But it obviously wasn’t.’
‘It wasn’t.’ Joel met my eyes, and I saw the clear blue I remembered from the photograph, before he looked back down at his hands. ‘It was the other kind of debt, I suppose. A debt of gratitude.’
‘What did you – I mean, you must have done something absolutely amazing for him to have felt that way. To have literally saved your life.’
‘It wasn’t so much me. I was just there – just a mate, when I guess he really needed a friend. It was more my mother he was grateful to. My dad too, I guess. We were a kind of second family to him, and I think that meant far more than I realised at the time.’
‘So what… I mean, Gray never talked to me about his family. Apart from’ – I felt colour rush to my cheeks – ‘his family here. His wife and his kids.’
He met my eyes again. ‘How did you know him, Laurel? Not that it’s any of my business. But you were close to him.’
I wanted to drop my eyes, but I didn’t. His clear, deep blue gaze held me almost mesmerised. He’d been so honest with me; it was the least I could do to reciprocate.
‘I met him quite randomly,’ I said. ‘Even more randomly than you busking, because we hadn’t known each other before. I knew he was married, right from the beginning. But it was just…’
I shrugged helplessly.
Joel smiled. There was something in his smile I couldn’t quite read – disappointment, maybe?
‘The heart wants what it wants,’ he said. ‘Nigel was always charming. People loved him.’
‘Yes.’ Now I felt the tears I’d been holding back begin to flow. ‘I loved him. I didn’t mean for that to happen, but it did.’
He reached out and took my hand, sandwiching it between his two warm palms. ‘I’m sorry. It must be hard to grieve in that situation.’
‘I guess that was partly why I wanted to find you,’ I said softly. ‘Not that I knew who you were, but to find the person who Gray had done that thing for – made that sacrifice for. To know there was a part of him that’s still here, and that it was worth it.’
Now he laughed – not a proper laugh, but a sad, almost bitter one. ‘And was it?’
I said, ‘Oh. Yes. I mean – hearing you play. Knowing that it’s because of Gray that you can do that. I’m sure it would have been worth it to him, and it is for me too.’
‘He was a good person,’ Joel said. ‘A damaged one, but good.’
I said, ‘I know. I’ve always known that.’
When I got up to leave, he stood too. We reached out to shake hands, but then, making the decision at the exact same time, we took a step closer and extended our arms, moving into a close embrace.
It felt like it lasted a long time. I could feel his breath on my hair and the steady beating of his heart through our clothes.
I almost expected to feel some sense of Gray in his body, as if Joel could spiritually channel him like Whoopi Goldberg in that scene from Ghost. But there was nothing of Gray there at all – only Joel.
Joel and me, together in a bland hotel lobby, holding each other like lovers before a long parting – or maybe like two people whose relationship was just beginning.