Chapter 31
Chapter Thirty-One
TOM
Cara pulls back from the hug and wipes her eyes.
‘God. Sorry. I promised myself I wouldn’t cry.’
‘You’re allowed to cry.’
‘I’m not. I’m a professional. Professionals don’t cry when their business partners abandon them for Cornish women.’ She laughs, watery. ‘I’m happy for you, I am. Believe me, I wish I could be angry. It just…’
‘Hurts.’
‘Yeah.’ She shrugs. ‘But I’ll get over it. I always do.’
We stand there in the staff room, the remnants of my goodbye party scattered around us. Paper plates. Half-empty bottles. A banner that says GOOD LUCK TOM in letters that are already starting to droop.
‘I really didn’t intend to lead you on, Cara, I promise you that.’
Cara blinks up at my face. ‘Oh, I know. Tom Darcy is too honourable for that, and I respect you for it. I do.’
I sigh. I am so goddamn tired. ‘I tried.’ I don’t know if I mean that I tried to be honourable, or that I tried with her. I don’t think either statement will help the mess I’ve made of it all up here.
She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. I reach up and do it for her, because her hands are full of crumpled tissue and because she’s been kind to me and because after everything she deserves at least this – the small, useless gesture of a man who couldn’t love her back but isn’t made of stone.
‘When do you leave?’ she asks and she glances over my shoulder, through the window, a flicker in her gaze.
‘Tomorrow morning. Early.’
‘Of course.’ She nods. ‘Well. It’s been something, Tom Darcy.’ She reaches for my face, hands gentle.
‘It has.’
‘You’re a good vet. Cornwall’s lucky to have you back.’
‘And you’re a great vet. Scotland’s lucky you’re staying.’
‘Stop.’ But she’s smiling now. ‘Go home. Get some sleep. I’m going to stay with the others in the village. Probably for the best.’
‘I will.’
She walks me to the door of the staff room. The car park beyond the windows is dark, lit only by the security lights.
‘Oh, Tom.’ Cara stops. Her expression shifts, her gaze flickering over my face. ‘Did you know Nina was coming up here?’
I freeze. ‘What?’
‘Nina. Your Nina.’ Cara moves to the window, looking out at the car park. ‘I saw a car pulling out just now while we were hugging.’
‘That could be anyone’s—’
‘Pretty sure it’s the same one I saw parked outside the café. It’s got a yellow daisy sticker on the side, right?’
The floor drops out from under me.
‘She saw the hug,’ Cara says. ‘She saw me crying. She saw you—’ Her hand goes to her hair, to the place where my fingers tucked the strand behind her ear.
‘How long ago?’
‘Five minutes. Maybe less. She must have just—’
I’m already running. Damn it, why didn’t I pack the car ready to leave tonight? Why did I think I could stand one more night away from her.
I call her from the car. Engine on, headlights cutting through the dark, gravel spraying as I pull out of the car park and head back towards the cottage where my pitiful belongings are sitting in cardboard boxes ready for their return trip home. Home. The word echoes.
Ring. Ring. Ring. Voicemail.
Hi, this is Nina. Leave a message and I’ll call you back. Maybe. If I feel like it.
‘Nina. Pick up. Please. It’s not what you think. Whatever you saw – it’s not what you think. Call me back.’
I hang up. Call again. Voicemail.
‘Nina. I’m coming home. Right now. Just – please. Let me explain.’
Voicemail. Voicemail. Voicemail.
Once I’ve packed the car, still cursing myself for not doing it this morning, I throw the phone onto the passenger seat, start the engine, and press hard on the accelerator.
The roads are dark and empty. Scotland blurs past – hills and lochs and the endless grey. I should be tired. I’ve been awake since six, on my feet all day, emotionally wrung out from goodbyes and speeches and Cara crying on my shoulder.
But I’m not tired. I’m terrified.
She saw us hugging. She saw Cara’s face pressed against my shoulder. She saw me tuck a strand of hair behind Cara’s ear – a gesture of comfort, nothing more, the kind of thing you do for a colleague who’s crying, but through a window, from a car park, after driving eleven hours to surprise someone—
It would have looked like the only thing Nina has ever been afraid of. Me leaving when I’d promised her I’d be there.
I don’t know how long I’ve been driving; I don’t dare move my eyes from the road and glance at the clock. All I know is my fuel gauge is going down, and I don’t want to stop for fuel. My phone buzzes. I grab it.
Brynn.
‘What the hell is going on?’ Her voice is sharp, tight and bordering on assaultingly loud to my ears. ‘Nina just called me from a service station somewhere past Carlisle. She’s—’
‘I know. I know what she saw. It wasn’t—’
‘I don’t care what it wasn’t right now. She’s driving home in the middle of the night and she’s in no state to be behind a wheel. If she crashes—’
‘She’s still driving?’
‘She said she couldn’t stop again. Said if she stopped she’d have to think about it and she couldn’t think about it yet. Tom. What happened?’
‘Cara was saying goodbye. She was upset. I hugged her. That’s all. That is all.’ Like if I say it enough it really will become that is all.
‘The hair, Tom. She was blubbing about hair. What the actual hell?’
I close my eyes. Open them. The road.
‘I tucked Cara’s hair behind her ear, because she was crying and it was a reflex. It meant nothing. It meant less than nothing.’
‘I believe you. She doesn’t.’ Brynn’s voice drops. ‘How far behind her are you?’
‘A few hours. She left before me and I had to go and finish packing the car. She’s got a head start.’ I slam my hand against the steering wheel. ‘For fuck’s sake.’ I swear my right eyeball is throbbing.
‘I’ll keep calling her. I’ll try to get her to stop somewhere safe.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Don’t thank me. Just get here and fix this.’
She hangs up.
I drive.
The hours unspool in the headlights.
I try calling Nina every thirty minutes. Voicemail. Every time.
I leave two more messages. The second one is just: ‘I love you. I love you. I love you.’ My voice breaking on the third one.
Then I stop leaving messages because I can hear how they sound – desperate, panicked, the words of a man who might be lying – and I can’t do anything about any of it except drive.
The motorway is empty at this hour. Just lorries and the occasional car and the endless white lines flicking past. I stop for petrol somewhere in the Midlands, standing under strip lighting at four in the morning, the cold air sharp on my face, and I check my phone and there’s nothing, and I get back in the car and I drive.
Dawn breaks around Bristol. The sky turns grey, then pink, then gold. The world comes back into focus. My eyes are gritty. My hands ache from the wheel. The caffeine from three service-station coffees is doing nothing except making my heart rate match my anxiety – fast, jittery, wrong.
But I’m close. Two hours. Maybe less, but the satnav can get wanky the closer you get to Cornwall.
My phone rings, stuck on one of those magnetic holders on the dash, and I swipe the screen.
‘She’s home.’ Jude’s voice is rough with sleep. ‘Got back about an hour ago. Brynn’s with her.’
‘Is she okay?’
‘She’s… No. She’s not okay. She’s exhausted and she won’t talk to anyone. Just sits there.’
‘I’m almost there. Two hours.’
‘Tom.’ A pause. ‘She doesn’t want to see you.’
‘I don’t care.’
‘She told Brynn to tell you not to come.’
‘I don’t care, Jude.’
‘I’m just passing on the—’
‘I have driven through the night. I have called her forty-seven times. She can refuse to see me. She can slam the door in my face. But I’m coming.’
Silence on the line.
‘Okay,’ Jude says finally.
‘Thank you.’
‘Be gentle with her, yeah? She’s—’ He stops. ‘Just be gentle.’
‘I will.’
Sea Salt Bay appears around the headland at half past nine.
The village is awake. Boats in the harbour. Dot unlocking her shop. Bill setting up the fish shack. Normal life, carrying on, indifferent to the fact that everything I care about is falling apart behind a set of lavender shutters.
The café is closed. Shutters down. No fairy lights.
I park at the top of the harbour. Get out. My legs nearly buckle – eleven hours of driving, no sleep, the adrenaline finally hitting its wall.
Brynn meets me at the café door, bleary eyed. I’m guessing she’s been up all night too.
‘She’s upstairs.’ Her voice is flat. ‘She hasn’t slept. She won’t eat. She keeps saying she was stupid to believe any of it was real.’
‘It is real.’
‘I know that. You know that.’ Brynn holds my gaze. ‘She saw what she saw, Tom. You can’t unsee something. You can only replace it with a better truth. So whatever you say up there – make sure it’s better than what’s playing on a loop in her head.’
She steps aside.
I climb the stairs. Each step feels like wading through water. My heart is in my throat, in my ears, in the hands I can’t keep steady.
The door to the flat is open. I step inside.
She looks up when I come in. Her face closes.
‘Go away.’
‘No.’
‘I don’t want to see you.’
‘I know.’
‘Then why are you here?’
‘Because what you saw wasn’t what you think.’
‘I know what I saw.’
‘You saw a hug. A goodbye. Cara was crying because I was leaving and I held her because that’s what you do when someone you care about is upset.’ I take one step into the room. ‘That’s all it was.’
‘You tucked her hair behind her ear.’ Nina’s voice is flat. Exhausted. ‘I watched you do it. Through the window. Like it was the most natural thing in the world. And I know it seems silly, just hair, just an ear … but…’ she trails off, her gaze not meeting mine.
‘It’s not silly, Nina, and I understand why you are so upset, but it was a reflex. She was crying, her hands were full of tissue, her hair was in her face. I moved it. The way you’d move it for Brynn, or Isla, or anyone who was upset.’
‘I doubt she thought it was like that. You can’t compare them—’