Chapter 2 #2
Most days when I walked to the bandstand, I was buried so deep inside my memories of Dawn that I barely saw my surroundings.
But today, despite low-lying clouds and a hint of damp in the air, I noticed the kids on skateboards, the couple walking hand in hand ahead of me, the dog barking at a pigeon.
Blossom had begun to sprinkle the branches of the trees with colour, and snowdrops and daffodils bowed their heads along the edges of the paths.
I felt lighter, as though a darkness had lifted and shown me the world again.
Just before I saw the bandstand I stopped dead. My legs felt weak and my belly squirmed with nerves. Would she be there? I closed my eyes, tipped my head up to the clouds, and took a deep breath. This was it, the moment of truth.
I turned the corner.
It was empty.
I knew it had been a possibility that she wouldn’t come, but now that it had come to pass, I didn’t quite know what to do.
I glanced around. I was a couple of minutes late, but perhaps she was later.
I cast my gaze across the park, hoping I’d spot her scurrying towards me, bag banging against her hip. But there was no sign of her.
I reached the bandstand and lowered myself onto the bench. The trees above my head rustled in the breeze and a leaf blew in and skittered around my feet. And then—
‘Hello,’ a voice said.
‘Oh, I didn’t see you coming!’
‘I’m so sorry I’m late, I had to finish something for tomorrow and it took longer than expected,’ she said, sweeping towards me in a cloud of musky perfume and sitting on the other end of the bench.
‘It’s fine. I’m glad you’re here.’
‘Of course,’ she said. I looked at her, her hair wild around her face, her cheeks flushed, and the first word that came into my head was radiant. I looked away.
‘How was your weekend?’
She shrugged. ‘You know. The usual. Theatre with Rachel on Thursday night, sat on my own with a glass of wine and Spin the Wheel on Saturday, farmers’ market on Sunday. Mediocre.’ She looked up. ‘Lonely.’
My belly fizzed. ‘I know what you mean,’ I said. ‘Pretty much the same for me apart from the TV show. Jonathan Creek for me.’
She frowned. ‘God, I haven’t seen that in years. I didn’t even know it was still on.’
I looked out across the park, watching as a young couple struggled with the rain cover on their pram. I hadn’t even realised it had started to rain.
‘So,’ Emma said.
‘So?’
‘What do you want to talk about?’
‘Oh, I…’ I stopped. What did you talk about with a woman you’d only just met, who you didn’t know, and who you felt guilty about being wildly attracted to?
‘Want to talk about your sugar addiction?’
‘What?’
She smiled, her face lighting up again. ‘The pick n mix.’
‘Oh yes.’ I smiled back. ‘I am partial to a fizzy cola bottle.’
‘Well you’re in luck because I’ve brought the snacks today.
’ She opened the bag on her lap and dug around inside, then pulled out several packets of sweets, one at a time, laying them on the bench between us.
‘Tangfastics, Fruit Pastilles, Maltesers and…’ she pulled the last one out with a flourish ‘…blackcurrant and liquorice in case you want something a bit more grown up.’
‘Blimey, you don’t do things by halves do you?’ I said, picking up the Tangfastics. ‘Can I open these?’
‘Go for it,’ she said with a wave. I opened the packet and held them out to her. ‘You choose first,’ she said. I pulled out a few then handed them to her, and we both sat quietly chewing for a few moments. It was strangely relaxing.
‘So, you said this place was a special to you,’ she said, finally.
‘It is.’
‘Want to tell me about it?’
Did I? Usually I hated talking about Dawn to anyone who’d never met her. Nothing I said ever conveyed how much she’d meant to me, how much we’d shaped each other.
‘This was the place I met Dawn,’ I said, tipping my head back and fixing my gaze on the peeling paint of the ceiling.
‘We were only sixteen, just babies, and we went to different schools. But we used to come here and hang out in the evenings, me and my mates, and one night she was here with some of her friends and – well, that was it. I couldn’t see anyone else.
It was all about her.’ I stopped, remembering the moment I first saw her.
The way she consumed my thoughts from the moment I laid eyes on her; the way she shone.
Could it be something about this place, some sort of supernatural force surrounding it, that meant it would always be the place where magic happened? I shook my head. Don’t be so ridiculous.
I turned to look at Emma. ‘Dawn was the love of my life and I haven’t really felt alive since she died.’ Until now, I wanted to say, but it was too much too soon.
She raised her eyes to meet mine. ‘What happened?’
‘She had ovarian cancer. We thought she was pregnant. We were trying to get pregnant, had talked about nothing else for months and months. We’d even picked out names and colours for the nursery, had talked about what our future child might be like.
Would they have my eyes or Dawn’s? Would they be tall, short, skinny, blonde, or dark?
It was all we could think about and we couldn’t wait to be parents.
But then… well, Dawn was unwell for quite a while, it turned out the bloating and the sickness were not, in fact, to do with forming a new life, but taking one away. ’
‘I’m so sorry.’
I nodded, my words stuck in my throat.
Emma looked back out at the park again and I did the same. The dampness had turned to a light drizzle. ‘Greg died in an accident at work.’ Her voice was quieter than before, and I had to lean close to hear her properly. ‘He was a tree surgeon and fell from his harness. He… he died on impact.’
‘Oh, that’s horrendous,’ I said.
She gave a little shake of her head as if to say, I don’t want to talk about it.
‘It was bad enough coming to terms with that, but in the first few weeks after his death I tortured myself with the words I’d said to him as he left that morning.
“Maybe I should find someone who gives a shit about having a baby with me, then.”’
She sniffed and wiped her hand across her cheek. ‘Sorry. I don’t talk about this very often.’
‘You don’t need to apologise for anything.’
She shook her head. ‘Anyway. This house is my fresh start. I thought I wanted to stay in the house where we’d lived together, but in the end it was too hard, seeing all the places that reminded me of him.’
‘I still live in the house where Dawn died.’ I looked up at her. ‘Do you think that’s maudlin?’
‘Not in the slightest. It’s whatever works for you.’
A shout from the park distracted me and I looked away to watch a group of children on bikes passing. I waited until they’d gone before I spoke again. ‘They remind me of me when I was that age.’
‘Who does?’
I nodded towards the park. ‘Those kids.’
She looked out across the grass and a frown flitted across her forehead. ‘It’s a nice place to hang out.’
‘It is. Although this rickety old thing has seen better days.’
Emma looked round her. ‘I don’t know. I think it looks pretty good.’
‘I’m particularly fond of the graffiti down there that says, “If you can read this, fuck off.” Very eloquent I feel.’
‘Almost Shakespearean.’ She grinned and picked up the Haribos. ‘More sugar?’
‘Love some, thanks.’
We sat silently chewing for a while longer. The rain had stopped now but the low cloud made it feel chilly and I shivered.
‘Would you prefer to go somewhere warmer?’ I said.
‘Are you cold?’
‘A bit.’
‘Oh, that reminds me,’ she said. She leaned down and pulled something out of her bag and presented it to me. ‘Your jumper. Thank you for lending it to me.’
‘Oh thanks.’ I’d forgotten I’d lent it to her, and it smelt of the outdoors, a flowery, heady scent. I pulled it over my head and felt instantly better.
‘You said you’re lonely?’ I said.
‘Sometimes.’ She didn’t look me in the eye.
‘I see my friends, but it’s little things.
You know, when you’re watching something together and laugh at the same things, or want to ask the other person a question and you forget they’re no longer there until the question has almost formed on your lips.
’ She traced her finger over the worn grain of the wood.
‘Sometimes I wake up in the morning and for a few minutes I forget that Greg is no longer there and I roll over and see the empty side of the bed and it makes my stomach lurch.’ She looked up at me. ‘Do you know what I mean?’
I nodded, a lump in my throat. ‘I do.’ I swallowed. ‘Perhaps you’ve got the right idea, moving to a new home. Because sometimes being in the same room as we were together makes it even harder when a memory comes crashing in.’
A bolt of something jolted through me then, my entire body fizzing. When I looked down at the space between us, her hand was resting on top of mine.
It was only there for a few seconds, but when she pulled her hand away, I felt odd. Almost empty, as though she’d taken a part of my soul with her.
What the hell was that?
‘So have you seen anyone else, since Dawn died?’
I shook my head. ‘No. Andy – my brother – thinks I should. And a couple of mates have tried to set me up with friends, but I just haven’t been ready. I was starting to think I never would be.’
She smiled sadly. ‘Same here. Rachel even set me up a profile on Tinder but I haven’t looked at it since.’
‘What’s that?’
‘What’s what?’
‘Tindle, or whatever you said.’
She gave me a strange look, small creases lining her forehead. ‘Are you teasing me?’
I shook my head.
‘You really don’t know what Tinder is?’
‘I really have no idea.’
It was her turn to shake her head now. ‘Wow, I didn’t think there was anyone left in the world who hadn’t heard of Tinder.
It’s a dating app. You know, where you put your details in, say what sort of person you’re looking for, what you’re like, and hopefully someone you like the look of likes the look of you too.
’ She pulled back a bit and squinted at me. ‘Is this really not ringing any bells?’
I held my hands out and shrugged. ‘What can I say? I’m an old-fashioned kind of guy.’
‘You really are. A relic almost.’ She smiled. ‘It’s nice. So what else do you like doing, apart from eating sweets and moping around this place?’ she said.
‘I play the violin,’ I said.
‘Are you any good?’
I shrugged, suddenly shy. ‘I’m not bad. I’ve played here before.’ She looked round her at the run-down space, her eyes wide. ‘Believe it or not it was actually used for concerts, years ago.’
‘That’s pretty cool.’ She reached her hand out and pressed it against the cool metal strut. ‘It’s almost as though the notes and songs are trapped somewhere in the fabric of this place, waiting for someone to hear them again.’
‘That’s a nice way to look at it,’ I said.
‘Will you play for me one day?’ Her face reddened, as though she realised what she’d just said a fraction too late.
‘I’d love to,’ I said. Dawn had always loved listening to me play, and the thought of playing for someone else made me feel strange.
As though I was cheating on Dawn, perhaps.
But Dawn wasn’t coming back, and I had to at least try to move on, to make a new life for myself.
Not to mention that the thought of seeing Emma again filled me with a feeling of hope, and excitement. ‘I’ll bring it with me next time.’
‘Will we meet here again next time?’
Next time.
‘It seems as good a place as any, don’t you think?’
She nodded. ‘I do.’
It was getting dark again now, and even the jumper Emma had returned to me wasn’t quite enough to keep the chill away.
‘Do you want to go for a quick drink?’ I said, before I could change my mind about asking.
‘Oh. I’d love to, but I’ve actually got to get back tonight,’ she said.
I tried to ignore the disappointment that settled in my belly like a stone. Was she fobbing me off, or did she genuinely have to go?
‘No worries.’
‘Honestly, I do,’ she said, as if she could read my mind. ‘But it’s been really lovely to see you again. Are you free on Thursday?’
‘I…’ I hesitated. Thursday was sacred, mine and Andy’s curry night. And even though I knew he’d be happy to forgo it if it meant I was meeting a woman, I wasn’t sure.
‘Can you make Wednesday instead?’ I said.
‘Wednesday it is.’
She got up then, and I did the same. We stood facing each other, eyes locked. I didn’t know what to do. Should I hold out my hand? Would she expect a hug? Before I could agonise any longer, she leaned forward, pecked my cheek and smiled.
‘See you Wednesday,’ she said. I held my hand to my burning cheek as she turned and left. It wasn’t until she disappeared into the darkness of the park that I realised I should have offered to walk her home.