Chapter 10
? Awkward farewell
We stayed at Tom’s mum’s place for another hour or so after the tree
had been fully adorned and illuminated. But the start of Antiques
Roadshow – which Jo said she watched every week in the hope that
she’d spot something from one of her many collections – gave us a
natural moment to leave.
‘Could you remind me where we’re heading?’ Tom asked, as he fastened his seatbelt.
‘Sure, here you go, Tom. Or should that be Thomas?’ I handed him my phone with the postcode.
‘You know, she’s never called me Tom in her entire life.’ He checked my phone and chuckled. ‘You’re staying right next to The Star! Think I can manage to find my way there – not been for a while, mind. Have you been in to say hello?’
I didn’t tell him that I’d only arrived earlier that evening, or ask why he thought it’d be appropriate for me to announce myself to a drinking establishment I hadn’t stepped foot in since body glitter was all the rage.
Anything to give off the air of someone who knew precisely what they were doing here.
Which, I was beginning to realise, I absolutely didn’t.
‘Umm, not yet. But I’m heading there for dinner tomorrow night.’
I wasn’t looking forward to dining alone, but hopefully the food would be marginally fancier than tonight’s Pot Noodle plan. Plus, I was hoping to shoehorn in some subtle Christmas movie trope-ticking while I was there.
‘Ah, nice. The food’s brilliant. They’ll be chuffed to see you.’
I could only assume that the pub wasn’t exactly popular if they were likely to be excited about an early evening booking for a solo diner.
A thought crept in. Should I…? No. Of course I shouldn’t bloody ask him if he fancied joining me there.
As if he wouldn’t have better things to do.
I changed the subject to prevent the irrelevant thought from lingering.
‘Have you got a busy week coming up?’ I asked.
‘Yeah, always busy at this time of year. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great that business is booming, but my days just end up being filled with endless meetings.
And it doesn’t help that the venue we’d booked for our Christmas party later this week has cancelled on us and I’ve got a couple of days to sort a plan B. ’
‘Yikes! But think of it this way: plan Bs sometimes end up being better anyway.’
Tom puffed his cheeks and blew out the air slowly. ‘I appreciate the positive spin, Mally, but finding a decent venue for twenty people at this time of year? Tough gig.’
‘Ha, yeah, Good luck.’
Silence. Shit, Mally, say something.
‘Your mum’s so great! Funny story, though: I always thought her actual name was Mrs Bee – as in “bumblebee”.’
Oh God, there was that all-over grin again. The shape of his head seemed to alter entirely when he broke into it. I’d never seen a smile so face-changingly wonderful before. And I couldn’t get enough of the fact that something I’d said had caused it.
‘Of course you did!’
‘What does that mean?’
‘I… just like the way your brain works, that’s all.’
I had absolutely no idea what to say to that. So I carried on talking as if he hadn’t said it at all.
‘And your mum’s home is lovely. Believe it or not, I’d never even seen that part of Scarnbrook before.’
I noticed his knuckles blanch slightly as he tightened his grip on the steering wheel.
‘I mean, why would you have done? None of your mates lived on the estate, did they?’
Oh dear. The nerve I’d unwittingly brushed up against earlier when I mentioned his decision to stay in Scarnbrook seemed to be getting closer to the surface of Tom’s skin. How to make it clear that none of this was intended as a dig at him?
‘Well, I didn’t really have that many friends. Mainly just Elle, in fact, especially after Year Nine when—’
He interrupted me – mouth smiling, but his face not changing its angles at all. ‘Mally, you really don’t have to explain. I’m just saying – we had pretty different upbringings, that’s all.’
Shit, did he think me and my family were, like, wealthy or something back then?
‘You reckon? I don’t think they could have been that different, since we went to the same school and lived in an almost identical postcode.’
‘Can we just, er, change the subject? Those days weren’t exactly, well, the happiest of times for me and my mum.’
Not even a mouth-only smile this time. Accidentally triggering my secret teenage crush’s childhood trauma definitely hadn’t been part of today’s plan. Mind you, neither had accidentally decorating a Christmas tree with him and his mum.
‘Oh, God, I’m so sorry, Tom, I didn’t mean to—’
He interrupted me again, talking quickly as if the words themselves were in charge.
‘It’s fine. It’s just that my life wasn’t like yours when we were at school.
Even before Mum got diagnosed, I never got to do the family package holidays or French exchange trips or swimming lessons at dawn.
And then my dad just upped and left us one day because he couldn’t be arsed to deal with Mum’s MS any more.
That’s why I had to drop out of sixth form – I had no choice but to go out and start earning money at seventeen.
I couldn’t just swan off to uni with my best mate and land on my feet in London. ’
Pain pierced through my chest as I processed his words.
I thought we were having a nice evening.
But now it felt wrong. Every millimetre of my skin prickled with discomfort, my heart racing with adrenalin as I tried to think of a way to defuse this increasingly tense situation.
I just wanted to be back in my Hither Green flat, on my sofa, under a blanket, watching a Christmas movie on Channel 5.
Not here with someone who I was fast realising I barely knew – and who barely knew me.
I had to steer this conversation back to safe ground again.
‘That’s… not an accurate description of my life, Tom.’
‘Fuck. I’m so sorry, Mally, of course it isn’t.’
‘Yeah, I never went swimming at dawn. What maniac would choose swimming lessons over an extra two hours in bed? Well, except for my robotic brother, obviously.’
I caught a glimpse of Tom’s dimples reappearing, which I hoped was a safe sign.
‘It all just poured right out of me, didn’t it?’ he said. ‘I’m so sorry. Are you okay?’
I looked down at my hands and picked at a piece of dirt that had lodged itself beneath my thumbnail.
‘Yeah, I’m just a bit tired. It’s been a long day.’
The silence stretched out. And this time I didn’t have the energy to fill it, to change the subject, to act like I wasn’t wounded. Tom eventually spoke.
‘Mally, I’m really sorry about suggesting your life has been easy. That was so, so shit of me.’
‘Yeah, it was a bit.’
Tom pounded the inside of his wrist against the steering wheel once, muttering, ‘Fuck, I’m such an insensitive twat,’ as he did so.
‘You’re not. Not for the most part anyway.
’ I caught his eye and nudged his gearstick-clutching arm gently to make it clear this was a joke.
‘And I can see how my life must’ve looked that way to you – at one stage, anyway.
But privilege comes in all shapes and forms, you know?
Sometimes it’s not about money, but all the other ways people feel comfortable without even realising it. ’
Neither of us broke the silence that followed this time. I noticed we were practically at the house anyway.
‘Okay, yeah it’s just down this lane.’
Tom pulled into the narrow private road and cleared his throat before speaking.
‘There was uproar when the developers put the planning application in for these new-builds, you know? Do you remember there used to be allotments here?’
Gosh, I did. My grampy had had one. He’d practically lived on it after my nan had died.
I wondered if Mum knew they’d been tarmacked over – the allotments had been a special place for her, too.
But it’s not like I could just drop her a casual message to ask.
It would be the equivalent of an atomic bomb for her.
‘That was here?’
‘Yeah, it was a sad day when they got flattened.’
Tom helped carry my shopping to the performative porch as I searched my handbag for the key, not easy with shaking hands.
‘I’d better be off, Mally. I’ve got a long day tomorrow and need to get my own shopping in the fridge so…’
‘Yeah, of course, of course.’
I was still fumbling around my handbag for the key when I remembered it was in my coat pocket all along.
‘Aha! Got it. That really would’ve been the cherry on top of this evening.’
He flashed me a two-dimensional grin as he walked back towards his car.
I began to carry my shopping through to the kitchen. By the time I returned to the porch to fetch the final lot of bags, Tom Brinton and his shiny car had gone.