Chapter Thirteen
The two things happened simultaneously.
The china slipped from her fingers, clattering down on to the countertop, where she could see instantly that at least one saucer was now cracked in two.
That wasn’t, however, what caused the breath to stop in her throat.
Aiden stood beaming widely with his hands on his hips, standing in her kitchen, next to none other than HCK.
‘You are . . .’
She stared at him, wondering how he had found her, how she might possibly explain the arrival of the stranger to these guests on this special day and, more importantly, what would she say to Aiden?
How, how could she justify the fact that this married man who she had met only briefly, and not by design, had found her home!
And was here! Here, at this of all moments!
But of course, no explanation was necessary as her brain caught up and it all became horribly, horribly clear. She said nothing, waiting to see how he reacted.
‘Dad!’ Iris rushed towards the man and pulled him into the kitchen. ‘This is Enya, Aiden’s mum.’
‘Enya.’ He held out his hand, the way he said it almost with a sigh as if he, like her, the night before she had found out his name, might have been trying to guess hers. He set the tone, clearly not revealing that they had met, once, and spoken briefly on the phone. ‘I’m Dominic.’
‘Dominic.’
This the first time she would say his name to his face.
She held his hand, and he shook it, gently.
It was a confusing moment of contact that was as warming as it was awkward.
She wondered if she were imagining the whole thing, the horror of holding his hand and feeling the visceral leap of want in her stomach, as his beautiful wife stood close by.
His beautiful wife to whom he was evidently still very much married. .. his duplicity sickened her.
A loud banging on the edge of the wall gave them all a start. They turned to spy the elderly woman with a face like thunder.
Maeve stood on her patio, staring in. Her neighbour didn’t wait for a greeting but launched into a loud and clearly considered monologue while they all stood transfixed by the septuagenarian with a litter tray in her hands.
‘I don’t know what’s going on with you lot at the moment, I really don’t. First I hear that Holly Hudson is having a breakdown, all because that wally of a son of yours has done the unthinkable—’
‘He’s not a wally.’ This Enya addressed to the parents of the girl who her son, the wally, was all set to marry.
Maeve carried on as if she hadn’t spoken.
‘Then the next thing I know, I hear a bang, and someone has thrown shit and this cat toilet into my garden! It landed on my patio. If you think I’m touching those turds, you’ve got another thing coming.
I like that cat, I do, but I’m not touching that!
Heartbroken she is, bloody heartbroken.’
‘The cat?’ Dominic, it seemed, was having trouble keeping up.
‘No, Holly Hudson.’ Enya had turned and spoken curtly to him over her shoulder, unable to control the intense thrill she felt at no more than the sight of him, a reaction as instinctive as it was unwelcome.
His married status put him firmly out of reach and she was now cloaked with remorse and guilt as his wife was none other than the beautifully coiffed and ever so slightly house-proud Trish.
He smiled at her, as if taking the opportunity to do so while the rest of the gang were focused on Maeve while she spun her cat turd tale.
Enya looked away, mortified, beyond mortified, and wishing she could run away.
‘You were always such pleasant neighbours, quiet. But since Jonathan died, God only knows what’s going on in here! It’s not the first time I’ve had to deal with her turds.’
‘Holly Hudson’s?’ Dominic inappropriately quipped.
‘No, the cat,’ Enya snapped before turning back to Maeve. ‘I’ll come and clean your patio. I am sorry, Maeve.’
‘Well, I’m glad you all find it so amusing.
’ Maeve thrust the litter tray into Enya’s hands.
‘And as for you, young man,’ she pointed a gnarled finger in Aiden’s direction, ‘you’ll regret it!
Mark my words, you’ll regret it and I hope that when you do, Holly has run off with someone who deserves her.
’ Maeve turned on the spongey heel of her slipper and made her way back down the path, muttering.
Enya couldn’t quite make it out but was sure it was something about the ability to ride a bike.
The fact that Maeve seemed to have joined Jenny and Phil in the chorus of disapproval was a blow, and she felt further weakened by the prospect of interacting with any of them, wanting in that moment to hide away in her ice den. Forever.
‘Are you okay?’ Aiden’s concerned tone was at once welcome and reassuring; suddenly, she didn’t feel quite so outnumbered, while inside she raged with loneliness and fretted that this might be her life from now on, her whole life, spent in this limbo, hiding in her quiet, cold place.
It was only when she turned that she realised her son was speaking to Iris, who he now held in a close embrace, clasping her pretty head under his chin as if she had been in mortal danger and not just slightly embarrassed by their ranting neighbour’s speech.
Enya fought the desire to cry. And in fairness to Maeve, no one should have to contend with patio turds, or any other kind of turds for that matter, launched into their garden on a summer’s day.
‘Do you know what I think?’ Trish asked loudly. ‘I think we all need a little drinkie!’
Enya smiled at the woman, who, judging by the gleam in her eye and the excited change in her demeanour, might think this was the answer to many of life’s curve balls.
‘That’s a very good idea.’ Enya could only agree.
Trying not to look at her grandmother’s broken saucer, fearful it could invoke further tears, another small part of her history destroyed, she went to the dresser where the wine glasses lived and hoped she might find five that matched.
She closed her eyes briefly as she reached into its confines, catching her breath while she tried to reconcile the fact that Dominic, the Handsome Car Klutz, was in her house and that he was to be Aiden’s father-in-law!
It was surreal and awful all at once. She felt grubby, dishonest, and disloyal.
He was Trish’s husband, and she was Jonathan’s wife, and she had chatted to him on the phone from her bed in a flirty manner.
She cringed and wished she could fast-forward to the time they all left her less-than-impressive cottage.
‘Everyone, please do go and sit in the lounge, get comfy! I’ll bring the wine in.’ She painted on a broad smile, wanting them gone from the room, needing a minute.
‘Do you have any glue?’ Dominic asked.
‘Glue?’ She stared, trying to see him only as Iris’s dad or, more specifically, as Trish’s husband.
‘For the saucer.’ He took the two halves into his hands and held them up for scrutiny. ‘It looks like a clean break. I’m rubbish with technology but good with my hands,’ he reminded her. ‘So, if you have glue, I can fix this. No one will ever know.’
I’ll know . . .
‘That’s very kind, thank you.’ She thought it a good idea to have him preoccupied with the task, out of the way, even if it were for mere minutes. ‘I think there’s some in the shed. Let me grab the key.’
‘Shall I take these through?’ Trish picked up the tray of blondies.
‘Oh, yes, please do.’
‘They look wonderful, are they home-made?’ It sounded like a challenge. Enya could of course answer with confidence.
‘Yes, yes, they are.’
‘Well, look at you, Mrs Bake Off! Could you give me the recipe?’ Trish inhaled their glorious scent.
Again, Enya answered with the truth. ‘I could.’
‘I never make anything if it doesn’t come wrapped in plastic, if it hasn’t called to me from a shelf in Waitrose then we aren’t eating it!
’ Trish’s pride at the fact was more than a little surprising.
‘I don’t really cook,’ she continued. ‘I have a white kitchen and the thought of getting it messy or spilling something that might stain...’ She pulled a face.
‘I went through a phase of only serving pale food to ensure no nasty marks on my counter or linen. Do you remember that, Dom?’ Trish fired a look at her husband, her tone a little challenging. It was uncomfortable, to say the least.
Dom... It was a witnessed intimacy that made Enya’s gut fold with guilt; how deftly he had woven threads of trust and bound her with them. His manner, his smile, his easy nature, his interest. It had been slick and in that moment it was repulsive to her. She felt foolish. She was a fool.
‘I do.’ He bit his lip.
Trish laughed. ‘We existed on a diet of rice, pasta, cauliflower, potatoes, cheese, milk, vanilla ice cream...’
Enya briefly caught Dominic’s eye and looked away.
The woman wasn’t nearly done.
‘Bananas, parsnips, onions, noodles, chips, chicken, bread, bread rolls, cream, coconut milk, coconut flesh, erm...’
‘We get the idea.’ Trish’s husband sounded slightly exasperated as he interrupted her flow.
‘Oh, pardon me for breathing!’ Trish narrowed her eyes at him.
Enya looked away. Not only did it feel intrusive to witness the exchange, but it was also quite alien to her.
She and Jonathan had never spoken to each other like that.
They were friends who loved each other and with that came a mutual and unquestionable respect.
The Sutherlands’ interaction was ugly and spoke of so much more than this brief irritation.
It was as Trish made her way towards the lounge that she stopped and turned, holding the tray of blondies higher.
‘Just one thing, do they have nuts in? I’m allergic to some nuts.’
‘Oh.’ Busted. ‘I can’t remember.’ She cringed.
‘You can’t remember if you put nuts into these home-made blondies?’ Trish now narrowed her eyes in her direction.
‘I can’t, but I’d say it’s not worth the risk. Let me go and find that glue!’
Trish took the tray into the lounge and, much to her mortification, Dominic followed her outside.
She felt flustered, complicit in something that was nothing, and at the same time cloaked in guilt at no more than letting a man, this man, into her husband’s place of refuge and where she still liked to picture him. A sacred space.
‘Gosh, it’s beautifully organised.’ Dominic admired the neat shelves that were stacked with clearly labelled boxes and tins, running his hand over the jars hanging beneath the shelves, whose lids had been screwed into the wood.
‘You can tell a lot about a man by the state of his shed.’ He smiled at her. ‘You must miss him.’
‘Why didn’t you say, Oh it’s you, Car Park Woman , when you arrived, why didn’t you mention it?’ She ignored his question, far from comfortable discussing Jonathan while standing in his shed.
‘I don’t know, CP. Why didn’t you?’ he countered.
Because I have felt flustered when I’ve thought about you, imagining you, wondering where you live, conjuring you in the early hours and this is not like me, not like me at all!
You are a married man, and it goes against all I stand for!
I’m struggling with how my son has hurt Holly, how can I have any legitimate stance on that if I do the same?
‘Not sure. I didn’t want to spoil the moment, I guess, everyone wrapped up with the kids’ engagement.’
‘Yes, that was it, same for me.’ He smiled, as if he hadn’t bought a word of it.
‘Amazing to think that on that day, just three weeks ago, in a heartbeat that neither could have envisaged, two people were going to meet, and it was going to change their whole lives in ways they could not have begun to imagine. Their plans disrupted, their thoughts hijacked, their routine disturbed, their needs altered, their focus shifted, and it started with no more than a glance, a brief exchange, a shared understanding that all the planets were aligned and the universe was sending them this incredible gift.’
‘How was it going to change their whole lives?’ she whispered, hardly daring to ask, feeling an unwelcome and uninvited tremble to her limbs at no more than the proximity of him.
‘Because they’re getting married!’ He smiled.
‘Oh yes, of course!’ She gave a small nod, understanding that he was talking about Iris and Aiden. This was what he did, wove a spell with his words, his manner. The skill was in not falling for it, keeping a level head.
‘Think about it, one minute they were trying to find their seats on a plane, the next they’re sharing an armrest and by the time they had landed in Rome, according to Iris, she knew.
Just like that!’ He clicked his fingers and she jumped.
‘Do you think it’s possible, to meet someone and fall, fall so hard that it leaves you with a kind of madness, with obsessive thoughts that take the rational you and leave you feeling hollowed out, exposed, vulnerable, but excited too, happy at the prospect of all that might lie ahead? ’ He stared right at her.
‘I think . . .’
Enya wasn’t sure if he was toying with her.
What did she think? That if he had been single and free she would have given in to the madness the very day she met him?
If, when she’d asked, he had replied, No, no I’m not married , she would have fallen so hard there would be no recovering from it?
Possibly. But it was, she knew, no more than physical attraction, an infatuation, much as she’d described to Aiden.
She opened a little drawer on Jonathan’s granny’s old bureau, which was splattered with paint.
Each colour told a story of a chapter in their life: the red of Aiden’s ride-on fire engine that now languished in the loft.
Pale blue that had been the colour of choice for their bathroom in the eighties, and droplets of the French grey that was actually closer to green with which her husband had painted the hall, stairs and landing when first diagnosed.
‘That should do you for a few years, one less thing for you to think about...’ he had stated, admitting to her, and possibly to himself, that all talk of recovery and plans for one more trip somewhere were lies.
She carefully removed the tube of glue and handed it to this man, a stranger who had certainly hijacked her thoughts and routine.
‘Yes.’ She held his gaze. ‘I do miss him. I miss him very much.’