Chapter 13
13
THIRTY YEARS AGO
Birthdays had always been a big thing in our family. No matter what day of the week it was, it had to be celebrated. Occasionally a night out was deferred until the weekend but a fuss was still made.
I didn’t feel like celebrating my twenty-third birthday. A meal out or a few drinks at The Hardy Herdwick didn’t really cut it when I should have been spending my birthday in Thailand with my boyfriend. Except Rowan Hawkins wasn’t my boyfriend anymore – he was back with his ex and she was in Thailand with him right now.
I hadn’t fallen in love with Rowan but I thought I’d miss his friendship when we broke up. The only thing I’d actually missed was the dream of Thailand. I’d spent hours poring over guidebooks and brochures, planning out the holiday of a lifetime, but somebody else was doing it in my place, which was why I’d declared that I’d rather forget about my birthday this year. Which, of course, Georgia wouldn’t accept.
‘We’ll make it small,’ she’d eventually conceded. ‘Just you, me and a few drinks at the pub.’
I was still living with Mum and Dad but Georgia and Mark had been renting a small house together in Keswick for the past two years. He dropped her off at Derwent Rise so we could walk round to The Hardy Herdwick together.
‘Still feeling down?’ Georgia asked, linking her arm through mine, as we set off down the drive after she’d said hello to our parents.
‘A bit.’
‘Missing Rowan?’
‘Nope. It’s the holiday I miss.’
‘There’ll be other holidays. You can go to Thailand with a friend or a future boyfriend.’
‘I know and I’ll get over it, but I should have been spending today at an elephant sanctuary. A day at work and a few drinks in the local isn’t quite the same so I can’t help feeling a little grumpy.’
‘I get it. I’d be miffed too.’
‘I’ll let my birthday slip by quietly this year and maybe I’ll spend it in Thailand next year or the year after.’
She squeezed my arm. ‘That’s the spirit.’
We arrived at the pub and, as we stepped inside, I jumped at a chorus of Surprise! Several tables on one side of the pub were filled with friends and family members and there was a large Dumbo helium balloon standing on the floor. Mark was there so he’d evidently dropped Georgia off then driven round to the pub before we got here. The door opened behind us and Mum and Dad appeared.
‘When it comes to birthdays, you know we never do understated in this family,’ Georgia said, hugging me.
As I joined the group, a drink was thrust into my hand followed by a gift bag containing a stack of elephant-themed items including a pair of silver stud earrings, a soft toy, a bar of soap, a notebook and a candle. Soon after, one of the staff appeared with the most amazing birthday cake of an elephant bathing in a bubble bath.
‘You couldn’t travel to bathe an elephant so we brought a bathing elephant to you,’ Georgia said after everyone sang the birthday song to me.
I’d genuinely thought that being surrounded by people was the last thing I wanted today but it was the best gift Georgia could have given me. The bag of presents and the cake were amazing but knowing that I had friends and family who cared enough to come out on a Wednesday night to cheer me up was priceless. I didn’t care that I didn’t have a boyfriend and it didn’t matter that I’d never been in love. It would hopefully happen to me one day when I least expected it.
The door opened and a group of eight men and one woman of varying ages from maybe mid-twenties to late-fifties made their way to the bar. One of the younger men caught my eye and I found my heart pounding – a reaction I’d never had at first sight before.
‘What are you looking… Oh! No need to answer that,’ Georgia said. ‘Not bad at all.’
‘I wasn’t looking at him.’
‘You keep telling yourself that.’
He was tall and broad with dark brown curly hair and a five o’clock shadow, but what really captivated me was his smile. It was so warm and friendly and I found myself wanting to be the person who made him smile like that.
‘I like his smile,’ I conceded, feeling my cheeks burning. This wasn’t like me at all.
At that moment, he glanced in my direction and his eyes rested on mine. His smile widened and I looked behind me, convinced he couldn’t possibly be smiling at me and must know one of my friends. But there was nobody looking in his direction. When I returned my gaze, he nodded and raised his glass towards me before returning his attention to his companions who were all toasting to the retirement of the oldest group member.
They pulled a couple of tables together at the other side of the pub and he sat down directly in my eyeline. As the evening progressed, we kept catching each other’s eye.
‘Just go up to him and introduce yourself,’ Georgia whispered.
‘In front of our parents? Are you having a laugh?’
They left a little later and Georgia repeated her suggestion.
‘Would you infiltrate a group of that size and introduce yourself?’ I asked.
‘No. Far too intimidating.’
‘Then why would you expect me to do it?’
‘Fair point. But what if he leaves without you even saying hello?’
That thought actually made me feel a little nauseous, but what could I do? What if I walked up to the group and it turned out that the woman was his wife or girlfriend? Or what if his wife or girlfriend wasn’t there but one of the men was related to her? Or what if there wasn’t a wife or girlfriend but he wasn’t interested in me, only smiling at me because I was smiling at him and it was the polite thing to do?
My group got smaller, as did his, but it was still too scary to walk up to his table. I nipped to the toilets and hoped that, if he was interested, he’d do the same and we could speak in the corridor. I even hung around for a couple of minutes but there was no sign of him. Returning to my friends, my heart sank as I spotted one of the bar staff clearing the empty glasses from his table. He’d gone and I’d lost my opportunity.
It was past nine but, with it being mid-week and everyone having work the next day, nobody was up for a late night. The last of our group finished their drinks and said goodbye, leaving Georgia, Mark and me to pack up my gifts while one of the staff wrapped the remnants of my birthday cake in some foil.
‘We’ll drop you home,’ Mark said.
‘No need. It’s out of your way and, besides, I could do with the fresh air.’
‘But you have stuff to carry,’ Georgia protested.
‘A gift bag, a balloon and some cake. I think I can manage. In fact…’ I removed the soft elephant from the bag, placed the balloon weight at the bottom, added my cake package to it, and rested Edgar the elephant on the top. ‘Now I only have one bag.’
‘Okay, I’ll let you off. At least it isn’t dark yet.’
‘Benefit of being born on the longest day of the year.’ I hugged my sister and Mark, thanking them for organising an amazing evening and pulling me out of my slump.
We headed outside together. Mark had parked in front of the nearby village hall so I placed the bag by my feet and waited on the corner to wave them off. I picked up the bag once more but the addition of the balloon weight and the cake had evidently been too heavy for the ribbon handles and they ripped through the paper. I cursed under my breath as the bag dropped to the ground and Edgar the elephant made a bid for freedom, rolling away from me.
I reached out for it and stopped as a voice said, ‘Here, let me.’
Heart pounding, I looked up into a pair of stunning green eyes and that dazzling smile.
‘I thought you’d gone,’ I said, my voice sounding husky.
‘I had, but I forgot something so I came back.’
‘Oh! I didn’t see anything on your table but they might have it behind the bar.’
That smile! It was doing the funniest things to my insides, making them feel like golden syrup being swirled around with a spoon.
‘It wasn’t an item,’ he said. ‘It was…’ He still had Edgar in his hands and was squidging him as though he was nervous. ‘I’m not very good at stuff like this. I erm… the thing I forgot… it was, erm… It was you. I mean, to say hello to you.’ He held Edgar over his face. ‘God! That sounded so much better in my head. Sorry.’
I placed my hands over his and lowered them and the elephant, touched by his show of vulnerability.
‘I think you’re doing a pretty good job at it, actually. Was it just the hello you forgot? Because hi.’
His smile returned. ‘Hi. I forgot an introduction too. I’m Flynn.’
‘Mel. Good to meet you. So that’s a hello and an introduction. Anything else?’
‘To ask if you’d like to go out for a drink with me sometime.’
‘I’d like that a lot. And as it’s still early and we’re stood right next to a pub, I’m thinking sometime could be now. What do you reckon?’
‘Is it your birthday today?’
I glanced at the balloon. ‘What could possibly have given it away?’
He laughed. ‘It’d be rude not to offer you a birthday drink.’ He seemed to realise that he was still holding my soft toy. ‘And it’d be rude not to return your elephant too.’
His fingers grazed mine as he passed me the toy and my heart raced faster as a zip of electricity shot through my body.
‘I’m spotting a theme,’ he added, picking up the broken bag for me. ‘Are elephants your thing?’
‘There’s a story behind that…’
* * *
Georgia had met Mark five years ago when she was twenty-one and I vividly remembered her bursting into my bedroom after their first date, giddy with excitement as she told me she’d met the man she was going to marry. She’d been right about that – the big day was coming up a week on Saturday.
On several occasions over the years, I’d asked Georgia how she could possibly have known with such certainty that Mark was right for her after only one date and she’d smiled and said it was for the same reason I could say with absolute certainty that the latest boyfriend I’d dumped wasn’t for me. You just knew.
I wished Georgia still lived at home as it would have been my turn to burst into her bedroom and declare that I now understood what she’d been talking about the night she met Mark because the same thing had just happened to me.