Chapter Twenty-Six #4
‘All right, Miss Marple, that’s enough,’ Desi said, pushing up the sleeves of her jumper. ‘Me and you, outside, right now.’
‘Gladly.’
Elsie threw off her coat, swishing it like a matador, glaring at my friend like she was a prize bull. Lizzie gasped and Shiv groaned, Derek moving to position himself between the two women and very nearly losing an eye to the zip on Elsie’s wax jacket for his trouble.
‘I’m moving to Paris,’ Callum announced abruptly.
The tableau froze. Elsie and Desi’s hands in mid-air, moments away from slapping each other silly, Shiv staring at him open-mouthed, Lizzie clutching at her throat and Derek scrunching up his face in confusion. Apparently Rory was the only McClay who still had the power of speech.
‘What?’ he said. ‘You’re moving to Paris?’
‘On Sunday,’ Callum nodded. ‘I got into the Escoffier culinary institute and I’m moving to Paris.’
‘You’re going to do that cooking course?’ Shiv said, her beautiful face a picture of surprise. ‘You told me you weren’t going to apply.’
‘Well, I did,’ he replied. ‘I never thought I’d get in, they only take a handful of applicants and thousands of people apply every year, but yeah. I applied, they accepted me and I’m moving to Paris. So I won’t be moving back home any time soon and I won’t be taking over the farm, ever.’
‘Paris?’ Lizzie went next. ‘Is Caroline going with you?’
‘There is no Caroline!’ Elsie yelled and everyone in the room jumped. ‘Caroline does not exist!’
Their mother looked down at me and I wrapped my hand around the McClay family locket.
‘In that case, would you like to tell me who she is?’
She.
From a member of the family to the cat’s mother in under ten minutes. I felt my lips quiver but I couldn’t find the words to defend myself.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Callum muttered, one hand in his hair, the other on his hip. ‘Leave her out of it.’
‘It matters to me!’ Lizzie replied, indignant. ‘I’d like to know exactly who I invited into my home. Is she even your girlfriend?’
He tipped his head back and sighed, loud and frustrated.
‘Is she even a vegan?’ a curious Derek asked before he could answer.
‘No,’ Desi and Joel replied in unison.
‘Then who the bloody hell is she?!’ Lizzie exploded.
I held my breath, eyes locked on Callum.
Say it, I willed silently, tell them who I am. Laura Pearce, trainee neurosurgeon. Lover of Loch Ness and rare steaks and Christmas ornaments, who can’t hold her whisky and has feet like blocks of ice and you’re so glad you met me.
‘She’s no one. Just a random girl.’
All four chambers of my heart tore apart.
‘And you’re just some random wanker.’ Desi shoved Callum out the way and pulled me up to my feet. ‘Come on, Lau, we’re leaving.’
Nodding, I let her lead me through the crowd of McClays. When we reached the door, I stopped, let go of Desi’s hand and unfastened the chain around my neck.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you,’ I said to Lizzie. The hurt that dragged her fine features down was too much for me to bear. ‘Well, actually, I did but not like this.’
‘Your son will explain,’ Desi added, wrenching my arm almost out the socket as she yanked me through the door. ‘Joel, go and get our stuff, we’ll be in the car.’
It felt like I was underwater. Everyone found their voices at the same time but I couldn’t make out individual words, only distorted sounds and shapes.
All I was sure of was Desi’s hand clinging to mine, holding me down, keeping me grounded, and the knowledge I needed to put one foot in front of the other until I was out of this enormous house and this absurd situation.
‘Laura, wait!’ Callum followed us down the hallway, his long stride no match for Desi’s quickened pace. ‘Where are you going?’
‘Home,’ I replied with a vacant, glassy stare. It hurt too much to bring him into focus.
‘Don’t go.’
He reached out to catch my wrist but I pulled away before he could make contact. I didn’t want to touch his hand if I couldn’t touch all of him.
‘We’re done here, Callum,’ Desi said, still marching onward. ‘Go back to your super spy sister and her little friend with the ugly shoes.’
‘They were not ugly, they were comfortable!’
A sudden burst of volume from Shiv stopped us all in our tracks and snapped me out my trance.
‘Who wears Birkenstocks to a wedding?’ Desi thundered back. ‘It is a formal occasion, show some respect!’
‘So you do remember her?’ I asked, the two of them staring each other down in the hallway. Desi nodded.
‘I do now. Honest, Lau, they were godawful. Come on.’ She spoke more softly this time and wrapped a protective arm around my shoulders, a barrier between myself and the others.
‘Don’t go like this,’ Callum begged when we turned to walk away. ‘Give me a minute to straighten it all out—’
‘A minute?’ Desi said, hooting with laughter. ‘Did Father Christmas leave you one of those Men in Black mind-wiper things?’
‘Half an hour then, an hour, whatever. There’s no need for you to leave like this. You’re not going to drive all the way back to London on Christmas Day.’
‘Traffic’ll be a dream,’ she purred. ‘We’ll be home by teatime.’
With an exasperated explosion of a sigh, Callum positioned himself between me, Desi and the door, blocking our exit.
‘You can’t run off like this,’ he declared as though it were a fact, written in stone somewhere simply because he said so. ‘Laura, talk to me.’
But I couldn’t.
Pain, embarrassment, heartache. They all stimulated similar physical responses in the body, many of the same fight-or-flight reactions.
There were studies that showed how emotional pain lit up the same areas of the brain as physical pain.
The cortisol spiking in my blood told my muscles to swell as my sympathetic nervous system ramped up its efforts.
My neck tightened and my chest felt like it was being crushed.
But where I’d been foggy and lost only a moment ago, I suddenly felt razor-sharp and words flew out my mouth, slicing him like scalpels.
I was a surgeon after all, I knew exactly where to cut to inflict the most damage. My body chose to fight.
‘And say what?’ I replied, colder than the icy waters of Loch Ness. ‘You don’t need to worry about me, worry about fixing things with your family. This was all about them, remember, not me. Either way, it was all over tomorrow anyway, isn’t that what you said?’
It did hurt, saying those things, but in the same way it hurt to press on a bruise after it had already turned purple, or to poke at a loose tooth. The damage was done, at least I was in control of my own agony now.
‘Forget about the flat,’ I told him as Desi and I separated to walk around him across the foyer. ‘I’ll find somewhere else. Sorry to leave you in the lurch without a tenant at the last minute.’
Callum stopped at the foot of the stairs and we were almost at the door, almost out of the house.
‘Is this about last night?’
My spine stiffened, ramrod straight, and my internal switch flipped so hard, everything went blank. It didn’t hurt. I wouldn’t cry. This was nothing. He was nothing.
‘Are you OK?’ Desi whispered, one hand on the doorknob.
‘I’m OK,’ I nodded before turning back to face Callum.
‘Laura?’
He gave me a look, as though he was the victim.
‘You’re the one who said you only wanted to have fun,’ he said. ‘This whole thing was your idea. Last night, this week, all of it.’
‘From start to finish,’ I agreed, my heart a steady drum, keeping time with my measured words.
‘And I take full responsibility. I’m sorry if you feel bad, I’m sorry if this week made things worse with your parents, but I don’t hate myself enough to stay here a second longer than I have to.
You’ve got a lot of explaining to do so I’m sure you won’t mind if we leave, after all.
’ I opened the door and shot him one last agonised glance. ‘I’m no one, just a random girl.’
And when I walked out the door, he didn’t make a single move to stop me.