Chapter Thirty-One
Sunday 18th December, The Glyn, 9am
I’ve never come here in the morning. It’s a very different place. Nurses wheeling patients to and from bathrooms, trollies full of medication, the din of breakfast trays being cleared.
The games lounge is empty so I go to Bill’s room directly. He’s dressed and sitting in his armchair reading a long letter and looking very serious. He glances up and his face registers surprise to see me.
“Leonie? Why are you here – what’s happened?”
I’ve been numb since Raff left, walking through the morning as if in a trance, all feelings frozen. But the caring look on my grandfather’s face, the way he drops his paperwork and holds his arms out to me breaks the dam. Before I can speak, my tears flow.
“Oh my dear, my dear.” He pushes himself up from his chair and comes to hug me. “Tell me.”
Not since Dad passed away has anyone comforted me like this. He made it so easy to just sit on the edge of his tidy bed as it all comes spilling out. For an hour, we sit together and talk about Raff, about the unfairness of the world, and about Christmas.
At the end he says, “you go home now and make sure you take it easy for the rest of today. I’ll tell the others.”
It’s such a relief because I don’t think I could have made myself deliver the news again, watch everyone’s surprise and disappointment.
He kisses me on the forehead and waves me goodbye. On my way to the main doors, I catch a glimpse of Jack in a wheelchair being pushed by a nurse. He’s still in his pyjamas, a thick blanket covers him. It feels wrong for me to see him like this when he’s not dressed up. Fortunately, I’m almost at the front door and slip out before he can notice me.
The minibus Raff used to drive is parked outside. Empty and cold. More than anything, it proves he’s gone. Before I start crying again, I hurry into my car and drive home.
Kendric House is too empty. There might be twenty people running back and forth, builders and helpers. Shouting, calling instructions, carrying dusty things out, but still the house feels silent without Raff. I catch my eyes searching for him.
So, I go to the one place where I might find comfort. The one thing that will take my mind away. Baking.
Haneen is in the kitchen setting Henrietta a colouring book to keep her busy. She watches me mix flour, sugar and butter to make enough shortbread to feed the nation.
A little later she says, “I didn’t know you’re supposed to add lemon zest.”
“You’re not. I’m just experimenting.” I am also trying. With all my strength trying not to think that Raff won’t get to taste these. It’s one o’clock. He’ll be boarding the flight now. Buckling his seat belt. They’ll have messengered him the screenplay. He’ll leaf through it to take his mind of the people he left behind.
Deep, slow breath. Slow, long exhale. Release the memory. Don’t cry.
An instant later I feel Haneen at my back, soft arms around my waist and her head resting on my shoulder. “Goodbyes are hard. I know.”
Wiping the back of my hand over my eyes. “Sorry, it’s pathetic. I’ve always been a crier.”
“It’s not pathetic at all.”
“How did I fall so hard? It was always on the cards that we’d go our separate ways. It was never supposed to get serious. We were together less than four weeks, for God’s sake. It takes more than four weeks to fall for someone.”
“Oh, sweetheart,” Haneen comes round to stand beside me and takes half of the mixture to help me roll it out. “Last year, I fell in Love with Evan much faster than that. I convinced myself it was a one-week fling. I even called it a Christmas bubble. And when the week was over I broke up with him and in the process broke both of our hearts.”
In spite of myself, the story captures my curiosity. “When I look at the two of you. It’s as if you’ve been together for years. You seem so…so…like a real couple. Like a family.”
She smiles, looking down at the pastry, her entire face glows with happiness. “Actually, tomorrow will be the one-year anniversary of the first time we met.” She sets the rolling pin aside. “How do you want these cut? Squares or fingers?”
“Anything.” I’m using a cup to cut discs then decorate the edges with a fork.
She cuts the shortbread into triangles. “What I’m trying to say is that there are no rules about how fast you fall in love. You can tell yourself it’s only temporary but your heart doesn’t always listen.”
No, it doesn’t. “What happened after you broke up?” I ask to move the subject away from me and Raff.
“He was furious with me and didn’t even want to stay friends but…” She pauses, and not only because she needs to focus on cutting pastry. A memory seems to pray on her mind because her smile fades.
She lines the baking trays with parchment paper and helps me transfer the shortbreads to the tray. When both are in the oven, I rest my bum against the butcher block, sip my tea, and wait for her to continue the story.
She hesitates, then speaks quickly and matter of fact. “I was preparing to move into the village. It would have been the end of our story.” She too pours herself a cup of yea from the pot I made earlier. “But you see, because he was here. I mean we were both in Kendric Park, he happened to be nearby when I got in trouble. He found me and helped…it just brought us back together.”
There’s clearly a lot more story which she isn’t telling me. With a big breath and a new smile she concludes. “So, you see? Even when you think it’s over, circumstances can bring you back together.”
If this story was supposed to distract me from my situation with Raff, well, it’s failed very badly.
She catches my expression. “What’s wrong?”
“Circumstances brought you back together because you were both here in Kendrick Park. But that’s not us. He’s in the African Sahara, filming. I would have to be in a hell of a lot of trouble for him to hear about it all the way there.”
“Your paths can still cross. You’re both actors.”
I am saved from answering when little Henrietta arrives with her colouring book and Haneen is distracted helping her sit at a table and start on a picture of reindeer flying through the snowy sky.
Haneen is a very positive person, she can’t help looking for the silver lining. But I know better that Raff and I will probably never meet again. We might both be actors, but he’s in one of the most successful series. He’ll go from that to something else even bigger. If our paths even crossed professionally, it would when he’s the star in a movie where I play a blonde girl in the crowd. We wouldn’t even be filming on the same day.
A niggling question at the back of my mind, a question I really don’t want to answer, or even ask. But it now raises its voice, it’s ugly nagging voice.
Why didn’t he offer to get me a job on his show?
Of course, he’s only an actor and not a casting director; it’s not his place to give jobs to people, I know that. But…Couldn’t he have tried to put in a word for me? Clan has a cast of hundreds, surely they might have found something for me?
In this business it’s who you know. So why not? Surely he can see that all I need is a little push, a role that allows me to show my acting talent.
And that’s when the other nagging doubt, the really ugly one, the one, shoves everything out of its way and moves centre stage.
Maybe he tried, and they said no and he didn’t want to tell me. Maybe they looked me up and decided I wasn’t good enough. Maybe my agent sent them my info years ago when they started casting the show and considered every actor in the country. Did they watch my show-reel and weren’t impressed?
Is it possible that the reason I never get the good parts is because I’m just not good enough?
My insides flinch as if from an electrified wire. Everything in me recoils from that thought.
“What are you baking?” The voice of the professor wakes me from my miserable thoughts. He and Alex have come into the kitchen.
“Just an experiment.” With utter relief, I turn my mind to happier thoughts. “It’ll be ready in ten minutes.” Shortbread biscuits are easy, they don’t torment me with horrible self-doubt.
Alex ruffles Henrietta’s curly hair. He watches her colouring, then bends closer and offers her another pen. “Try doing blue next to yellow.”
The little girl looks up at him, happy, then takes the pencil he offers her without speaking. Haneen told me before that her daughter is a selective mute; it takes time for her to trust people, especially men. I wonder if this has something to do with the trouble she alluded to before. But the way the little girl grins at Alex makes it clear she trusts him and feels comfortable even with the professor sitting at the table to drink the tea I just put before him.
This house is a family, they trust and support one another. And in times of trouble, they all pull in together, like a family should.
“Does this mean you need us to be guinea pigs again?” Alex sniffs the air. The smell of lemony shortbread fills the kitchen. “I don’t mind hard labour if it comes with a hot cup of tea and your baking.”
And I don’t mind making a hundred cups of tea and baking all day if it puts such smiles on everyone’s faces. This kitchen has been my happy place for the last few weeks. I’ve learnt new recipes and imagined how to make wonderful afternoon parties, I’ve even enjoyed making breakfast porridge for everyone.
Suddenly, Raff’s words come back to me. Are you happy?
Answer: I don’t know. I love the craft, the drama, the plays. Being able to bring a story to life on stage. I love that.
On the other hand, I’ve hated the nothing roles offered to me, I’ve hated the way directors treated me. I’ve hated the friendships that end with the play, the temporary families that forget me as soon as they move to another theatre.
No director or actor who worked with me then and went on to better things ever offered to take me with them. I’ve feared what that might mean. Because it might mean they didn’t think me any good. And I’d have hated knowing that.
Now, it all comes at once, like at the end of a great play when someone in the audience stands up and applauds, Bravo! And others do the same until everyone is on their feet shouting and clapping.
In the kitchen in Kendric House, the truth, all the truths stand up and shout.
It seems so obvious now. I haven’t been happy for ages.
“I wish I could bake and make sandwiches every day,” I say turning around to check the oven.