CHAPTER FOUR
I woke slowly next morning from a dream in which Mark was alive and we were at the beach on a bright spring day.
I was barefoot, daring to paddle even though the lace-tipped waves rushing in felt like ice against my toes, and I was teasing Mark for not being brave enough to join me.
When I complained that my feet were actually numb, he made me sit on the sand while he dried them with his hoodie, laughingly telling me what an idiot I was.
‘But you’re my idiot,’ he murmured, discarding the hoodie on the sand and throwing himself down next to me. He wrapped his arms around me to warm me up and I snuggled happily into him, loving how safe and secure and complete I always felt in Mark’s warm embrace.
It was one of those perfect, precious moments that you’d like to stay in forever...
But my smile, as I stretched lazily and then reached for Mark in the bed next to me, was swiftly followed by that crushing hollow feeling as cold reality intruded and I realised it had been just a delicious dream.
I lay there as thoughts past and present tumbled around inside my head.
It was hard to believe that more than a year had passed since Mark died. How was I still living while the love of my life was gone? None of it made sense, even now...
If things had been different, I’d still have our old friends around me. I’d still be living in the Brighton house Mark and I were sharing when we’d found to our complete delight that we were having a baby.
But that was a whole other existence.
Our life – Amelie’s and mine – was here now, in Surrey, in a little village I’d chosen partly because it was near where I’d grown up and I desperately needed the familiarity of it.
But mainly it was because I’d heard from Mum – who knew I was desperate to move back to Surrey – that Maeve and John, old family friends, were looking for a new tenant.
They’d rented out their little house in Risley Common to the same woman for years, but she’d bought a place with her boyfriend.
‘Maeve was saying they really don’t want the hassle of trying to find another suitable tenant and they know you’ll look after the place really well,’ Mum had told me.
I said that of course I would, and when Mum mentioned the very reasonable rent they’d be asking, I felt more than ever that this was the right move for us.
I knew Mum was puzzled as to why I wanted to move away from my friends and everything familiar.
But I just told her that however much I’d enjoyed my university days in Brighton and the years I’d spent with Mark there afterwards, Surrey would always mean ‘home’ to me, and now that I had Amelie and Mark was gone, it felt right somehow to be moving back there.
I knew she couldn’t quite understand the urgency, but the last thing I needed was for Mum to find out the real reason I desperately needed to leave Brighton.
Now, lying in bed, cuddling a pillow for comfort, a tear leaked out as I recalled how happy and carefree I’d been when I’d first arrived in the beachfront city, a fresh-faced student on the brink of a new and exciting adventure...
*****
There were five of us sharing that first house.
I’d first met Jackie at a University of Brighton open day and we’d hit it off straight away.
We were both applying to study business management and, finding we lived not too far away from each other – she in Chichester, West Sussex and me over the border in Surrey – we’d kept in touch and texted each other on the day we received acceptances from Brighton, first choice for both of us.
We met up for a coffee a week or so later, and Jackie mentioned that she and her twin brother, Mark, had found a house to share with a couple of their friends.
‘We’re looking for a fifth person to share the bills,’ she’d said. ‘Fancy moving in with us?’
I’d already signed up for a single room in a hall of residence. But I was thrilled at the thought of a house-share – particularly as I already knew Jackie. So I said yes, cancelled my single room, and prepared to start the next phase of my life, moving into 3 Rustic Place, Brighton.
That decision changed my life in so many amazing ways.
On moving-in day, Jackie introduced me to her best friend, Clare, who was studying geography and archaeology, and Mark’s friend Danny. But I didn’t actually meet Mark for a week or so after that. He missed most of freshers’ week because he was on holiday in Greece with his girlfriend, Elsa.
I’d been a little nervous that I might not like the others as much as Jackie.
But while Clare was a little stand-offish, I thought, not giving much away to begin with, Danny was open, funny and helpful, spending time unsticking the painted-shut window in my bedroom, while Mum and Malcolm helped me move my stuff in.
At first, I wondered if Clare slightly resented that Jackie and I got along so well.
But that was just because of her initial spikiness.
After a week or so into the house-share – and a lot of effort on my part to be friendly towards her – Clare clearly decided she liked me and we were friends.
I was never as close to Clare as I was to Jackie, though, and I did still wonder if that initial resentment was still there, lingering in the background.
We were house-share buddies, though, and Clare helped to shape my experience of university just as the others did.
Particularly Mark.
He finally arrived in a whirlwind of activity and – amid much laughter and bantering with the others – he moved his stuff in.
Tanned after his holiday, his reddish hair was flecked with strands of summer-kissed gold.
Jackie – a red-head just like her twin – introduced us, and whenever Mark flashed his arresting light grey eyes in my direction, I felt something flutter inside me.
But Mark had a long-term girlfriend. Elsa had gone off to start her uni course in Manchester after their Greek holiday together, and I got the feeling he was missing her already, the way he talked about her.
So I shrugged philosophically and accepted that although I was attracted to him, it just wasn’t to be. And that was fine. Life was exciting and full of possibilities, and I was meeting new people every day...
For the longest time, Mark and I were just really good friends – members of the ‘Famous Five’ as Clare insisted on calling us.
(This was often followed by cheerful groans at the awful cliché or Danny doing a fake Psycho stabbing behind Clare’s back, smiling innocently at her when she turned around.
She eventually started saying it just to make us laugh and Danny act the fool.)
We shared that rambling Rustic Place house during our second year as well. But then the landlord sold up, wanting to turn it into flats, so we had to find other accommodation for our final year.
Clare began commuting to uni from her parents’ house which was an easy bus ride away and I moved into a tiny, two-bed flat with Jackie close to the centre of Brighton.
Mark had arranged a flat-share with some friends from his course, but it fell through at the last minute, so he ended up sleeping on our sofa for the first few weeks of that term.
During that time, Mark and I often found ourselves alone together in the flat in the evenings, while Jackie was out with her boyfriend or staying over at his place.
And that’s when we got to know each other on an emotionally deeper level.
He shared with me his despair at where his life was heading in the wake of his break-up with Elsa soon after the start of our final year, and we drank wine and put the world to rights many a night.
I could feel myself falling in love with Mark and I knew I was in danger because there had never been any hint from him that he looked upon me as more than a friend.
When a room became free at the flat Danny was living in, he moved out.
I missed him a lot, but I told myself it was definitely for the best.
The five of us remained a tight-knit group and we enjoyed many a riotous night out in the stressful run up to final exams, Clare generally staying the night at our flat afterwards rather than travelling back to her parents’ house.
They’d helped make my uni experience so rich and enjoyable.
I loved them all.
But in the end – at the graduation ball – it was Mark who really changed my life...