Chapter 26
26
When Stephen and Joseph had been there, weekends always felt very similar to weekdays, except Joseph would normally be in and out of the house. A lot of the time, Stephen would head to the office to work – or had that been his excuse? Fiona wasn’t so sure any more – and she would use the time to catch up on the mountain of emails she received. With that task now substantially reduced, the upside of losing half her clients, she found herself at a bit of a loose end. The Stephen-induced cleaning spree, combined with the fact that there was no teenager making a mess, meant that a quick vacuum and wipe down in the bathrooms was all that was needed to get the house in order. She even called and cancelled the ironing lady, on account of the fact that most of it had consisted of Stephen’s things.
Her sense of cabin fever wasn’t helped by the fact that the rain, which had been threatening all morning, had well and truly settled in by the afternoon. Having initially dismissed Holly’s talk of flooding, she now felt that perhaps her friend had been more on the mark than she’d expected. She had learned over the years that the idea of being tucked up inside, while inclement weather raged outside, was far more appealing than it actually turned out to be.
Even now, with her diminished to-do list, she felt there were so many other things she should be spending her time doing. She picked up the current book she was reading, skimmed through it for a while, and then put it down again.
It had been a week since Martha had passed away. One week since the poor creature had met her undignified end, watched by crowds of photo-happy sightseers. Wondering if there might be any more updates, Fiona flicked on the news.
There were reports about the situations in Iran and Syria, along with a rail strike that was threatening to affect the Tube the next month, if the unions didn’t come to an agreement. The next channel offered the same headlines, along with additional coverage of the American presidential race and some divorcee who had just received the largest settlement in history, after being married for only two-and-a-half months. There was nothing on Martha at all. Frustration bubbled. She moved to her laptop, to check there. Martha sperm whale death, she searched, filtering her results to only those from the last twenty-four hours.
No Martha, but four more whales washed up on the shores of British Columbia, she learned. She scanned the article, a deep ache swelling in her chest, as she moved down to yet another on sperm whales.
There was a video clip attached to this news report, although the write up was scant.
Mother sperm whale dies attempting to rescue her baby from a fishing net, off the coast of Italy. Baby also dies.
She shook her head. It was unbelievable. How could that have happened, so soon after Martha? She had been world news. The photo of her in the Thames had been on the pages of newspapers all around the globe. Photos of her balloon had been there, too. And here she was, only a week later, reading that people had killed another mother, and her baby too. She clicked to the next article. Another sperm whale, dead in Thailand. Plastic bottles in its stomach. Next, Portugal: another grey whale. Emaciated. Early signs pointing to the same cause.
She closed her eyes. Her body temperature was inching upwards, second by second. It was happening again. Another panic attack, goddammit. At least she was on her own. Not standing in the street outside someone’s shop. She attempted to refocus her attention away from her body and onto the screen.
A stingray had been found with a camera in its stomach. A whole camera.
Still trying to control the hammering in her chest, she looked at the time on her computer. Three-fifteen. Rory was coming around at six, after he’d finished up in the shop. He was the only one in today, apparently. Three hours until he was due. Three hours until she didn’t have to be alone with these thoughts and nightmare images any longer. She could manage that, couldn’t she? Of course she could.
‘Screw you,’ she said and slammed her laptop shut.
She didn’t even notice the rain streaming down her face as she paced up and down the street waiting for her Uber.
Thunderclouds had transformed the sky and it could almost have been evening, as she climbed into the taxi, ignoring the driver’s gripes about how she was going to soak his seats and what the hell was wrong with her, had she never heard of an umbrella?
Ten minutes later, she was dripping on the tiled shop floor.
‘Fiona!’ Rory dashed towards her, grabbing a towel as he did so. ‘What’s happened? Are you all right?’
He wrapped the towel around her and tried to pull her against his chest, to rub her dry but she held him back and tilted her head up towards him, feeling a trickle of water running down her forehead. She could smell him, his earthiness, his warmth and, at that moment, it was all she needed.
‘You should know,’ she said, pushing herself up onto tiptoes, her lips brushing his. ‘I’m a terrible cook.’
A distant roll of thunder echoed, as he traced a line on her skin, from her elbow to her collarbone. ‘It was a good job I didn’t have any customers in the shop,’ he murmured, speaking the first full sentence since they’d arrived in the flat.
She laughed. The storm continued outside but, wrapped in his arms, she paid it no attention.
‘Just so you know, this wasn’t planned,’ she said, pulling the sheet further up over them.
‘No? Then what did you have in mind?’
‘To be honest, I’m not exactly sure.’
‘Don’t take this the wrong way,’ he pushed himself up onto one of his elbows, ‘but am I part of some midlife crisis you’re going through?’
‘Quite possibly. Yes. Or a complete mental breakdown.’
He laughed, stroking her cheek softly. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’ he asked.
She bit her lip.
‘You don’t have to,’ he reassured her. ‘Really you don’t. I just want you to know that you can, if you want. I’m here for you.’
Closing her eyes, she breathed in.
‘I think it’s probably time I told you,’ she said. ‘I think it’s time you knew the truth.’
‘Jesus, that’s a hell of a lot to go through. A hell of a lot,’ he said.
They were sitting up in bed. He had brought them both coffee before she started.
‘I don’t blame you for reacting like you have. Christ, what do you do when something like that happens? Jesus.’ Sensing that his reaction may have been a little too strong, he hurriedly tried to backtrack. ‘Of course, you don’t know it was yours. It’s more than likely it wasn’t. That supplier may have gone bust, but you know they’ll have sold hundreds of them in China or India or wherever they were made. The chances that that particular balloon was actually yours are miniscule.’
‘But there is still the possibility,’ she replied. ‘That it was mine. And I can’t ever do anything to get change that. All I can do is make sure that it’s not me again.’
He took her mug and placed it on the bedside table. ‘I know what you are saying, but you’re putting too much pressure on yourself too quickly. The sort of adjustments that you’re going through, that you are trying to make, they take time.’ He paused, studying her.
She looked away, a hot flush colouring her cheeks. ‘That’s enough about me,’ she said, her skin prickling from the attention. ‘Tell me about you.’
‘Didn’t I tell you everything about me the other night?’
‘No, you didn’t. You told me about food waste.’
‘I can talk about that a lot.’ He grinned.
‘I noticed. So, tell me something about you. Why did you set up the shop, for starters? And which came first, the shop or the café?’
‘Did I not cover that?’
‘No, you didn’t.’
He shifted over, creating a space beneath his arm for her to slide into.
‘It’s a terribly dull story. Are you sure you want to hear it?’
‘I’m sure.’
With the rain beating outside, she snuggled down against his chest and closed her eyes, her head rising and falling in time with the rhythm of his breathing.
‘There isn’t much to it. I’d reached a certain age, experienced a bit of life and started seeing what was going on in the world. It wasn’t like you. I didn’t have a sudden epiphany.’
‘Is that what I’ve had?’
‘Is it not?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Well, anyway, it just kept adding up, you know. There were so many things I couldn’t control.’
‘Like what?’
‘Life. So many things wrong with the world. So, I started up the shop, which is how I ended up learning about waste food, and then I decided to open up a café too, to try to do something about that as well.’
Everything he said was spoken with overwhelming ease and simplicity. She gazed up at him, wondering what it must be like to be able to approach life that way.
‘What do you think about this presentation for the professor?’ she asked, hoping to tap into his ability for calm and logic. ‘Do you think I should do it? Or would it be hypocritical?’
His brow furrowed. ‘Hypocritical? Why?’
‘Well because, you know, I’d be saying all this stuff is bad, and they shouldn’t be using all these plastics and yet I must have bought tonnes of it in the last few years alone.’
‘Are you still buying them now?’
Had she bought anything in the last week? Mainly she’d been living off Rory and coffee. ‘Not really.’
‘Then there you go.’
She mulled it over. It sounded so simple, but she still wasn’t convinced.
‘Look, this professor guy,’ Rory said. ‘He wouldn’t have asked you without a good reason. He must have thought you could make a difference. And I agree. If the press pick up on this, it could be just the sort of thing that strikes a chord with people who need that extra push.’
‘Okay,’ she said, nodding her head slowly.
‘So, you’re going to do it?’
‘I think I am.’
She imagined that he would be grinning now, the way he did when he knew that he was right about something, but she had her eyes shut and his lips were already closing in on hers.