Chapter 3 #2
My eyes snapped open. ‘You’ve got to stop sneaking up on me,’ I said, as Nick sat on the bench beside me. He lay a bag and what looked like a violin case carefully on the ground.
‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to.’
‘It’s okay. I was just doing some deep breathing.’
He nodded but didn’t say anything.
‘It’s good to see you,’ I said.
‘You too.’
He sounded distant, and I wondered whether he felt as guilty as me about us meeting. I didn’t know how to ask him.
‘How’s your week been?’
He shrugged. ‘Fine.’
‘Are you going to play today?’
‘Sorry?’
I nodded at the case beside him. ‘The violin.’
He stared at it as though surprised to see it there. ‘Right. Maybe in a bit.’
We fell into silence. Had I done something wrong, or upset him somehow? I couldn’t think how. Perhaps we should just call this a day now and—
‘Sorry, I’m a bit distracted today.’
‘You don’t need to explain anything to me.’
He shook his head. ‘I didn’t think about it when we arranged to meet. But today… it would have been Dawn’s birthday.’
‘Oh.’ I stood up, my bag snagging against my thigh. ‘I should leave you to be here alone. We can do this another day.’
‘No, please stay,’ he said.
I looked down at him. ‘I don’t want to intrude. I know how much this place means to you.’
‘Honestly it’s fine. I’d like you stay – if you want to?’
‘Sure,’ I said, lowering myself back down uncertainly.
He looked down at his feet, his trainers clean and unmarked. ‘I forgot.’
‘Sorry?’
He took a deep, shaky breath, his shoulders rising up and down slowly, and turned his head to look at me. ‘It’s her birthday today and I only remembered after we arranged to meet.’
I got it. The guilt you felt the first time you forgot an important date, or didn’t realise it straight away. ‘It doesn’t mean you’ve forgotten her, you know,’ I said, gently.
He shook his head. ‘I’m sorry. You don’t need this… this—’ He swept his hand in an arc as if indicating everything around him, then drew himself up so he was sitting straight. ‘We don’t need to do anything. I just wanted to take a minute.’
‘Hang on,’ I said. I’d had an idea. I rummaged in my bag and pulled out a little plastic bag and held it in the air.
He looked at it and frowned. ‘I know this sounds weird, and I promise I don’t usually carry candles around.
But it was someone’s birthday at work this week and these are some of the candles we didn’t put on his cake, and because I never clear my bag out they’re still here and…
’ Stop waffling, Emma. ‘Anyway, why don’t we light a candle for Dawn? For her birthday?’
He stared at me without saying anything and I worried I’d got it wrong. Was it completely inappropriate?
Finally he held out his hand and I gave him the bag. He studied it, then looked back at me.
‘Thank you,’ he said.
He took the box of matches out of the bag as well as two candles, and handed one to me.
I held it as he lit it, then lit his own.
They both burned quickly, and I kept hold of mine until it was about to scorch my fingers, then threw it into the floor where it sizzled out. Seconds later, Nick did the same.
A woman walking past gave me a strange look and I smiled at her.
‘They burned quicker than I expected,’ I said.
‘It was a lovely thought. Thank you.’
‘We can do another one if you like?’
He shook his head.
‘Do you want to tell me about her?’
He shook his head again.
‘I think it’s time I started talking about something else,’ he said.
‘Do you want to talk about something else?’
He closed his eyes briefly, then fixed me with a look. ‘Yes. I actually think I do.’
‘Well then. What do you want to talk about, Nick Flynn?’
He tucked his hands under his thighs and leaned forward. ‘I don’t know. Tell me something about yourself.’
‘What, like my job, my date of birth? My star sign? My inside leg measurement?’ A smile flitted across his lips and I found myself smiling back.
‘If you like.’
‘Fine. But I warn you, I work in HR and it’s unendingly dull. And I don’t believe in star signs.’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘What, you don’t think that a twelfth of the population of the world is going to experience the same thing this month? That’s shocking.’
‘I know right. How could I?’
His eyes sparkled as he looked at me, and I had to look away. I hoped he didn’t notice my face flaming.
‘Okay, come on. What else? Where would you most like to go in the world?’
‘That’s easy. Australia.’
He nodded. ‘Good choice.’
‘What about you?’
He screwed his face up. ‘I don’t know. New York maybe.’
‘You’ve never been to New York?’
He shook his head. ‘Nope. I didn’t get on a plane until I was twenty-four and even that was only to go on a trip to Germany with the kids from school.’
‘Sounds horrendous.’
‘Ah they’re okay really. Most of them anyway.’ He blew air out through his lips, his cheeks puffing out. ‘Teenagers get a bad rap most of the time.’
‘Yeah, you’re probably right. I mean, we were all teenagers once right?’
‘Exactly.’
‘What about your family?’ I said.
‘Ah, now you’re asking.’ He rubbed his hand over his face.
‘Andy’s the best. He’s four minutes older than me but it feels like a lifetime.
He’s always been there for me, would put his life on the line for me, if need be.
I’d do the same for him, of course.’ He stopped, gathering himself.
‘Mum’s okay.’ I waited, while he took a deep breath.
‘But I can’t forgive her for always sticking up for my father over me or Andy. ’
‘Is he still around, your father?’
He gave a tense nod. ‘Yeah. Which is why I don’t really see either of them any more.’ He looked at me. ‘He’s just not a very nice man.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, not wanting to push for more details, and he shook his head and looked away again.
We sat in silence for a moment. I was surprised to find that I wanted to keep talking to him, to dig deeper into what made this man tick.
What did he like to eat, what was his favourite film, what music did he listen to, what football team did he support?
But before I could ask any of those things, he asked me something.
‘What’s the best thing that’s ever happened to you, Emma Vickers?’ My heart stopped and I turned to look at him. I wanted to say ‘meeting you’ but I knew that would sound ridiculous. Besides, what about Greg?
So instead I looked away and shrugged. ‘I’m not sure,’ I said.
I could feel him still watching me, but I kept my gaze trained on the ground.
‘What about the worst thing then?’ His voice was soft and it made something in me open up, suddenly want to tell him things.
Before I could think about it too much, I found myself telling him about Greg, and how it had felt when he’d died.
How I’d been empty and numb for months, but that the worst part of it was that I would spend nights lying in bed imagining him lying at the bottom of the tree, in pain, unable to move.
How I pictured him calling for me, and knowing he wasn’t going to make it out of there alive.
‘I tortured myself about that for months,’ I said.
‘How did you stop?’
‘I’m not sure I ever did. Although Rachel helped. And counselling.’
‘Ah, counselling. Andy thinks I should have that.’
I looked at him sharply. ‘You haven’t had any?’
He shook his head. ‘I didn’t really see the point.
I mean, Dawn got ill, she had treatment but it didn’t work, and then she died.
I don’t really blame myself or anything, because there was nothing either of us could have done to change it.
I just feel sad, and there’s nothing anyone else can do about that either. ’
‘But…’ I started, but didn’t know how to carry on.
‘What?’ he said, a frown creasing his forehead.
‘I just…’ I sighed. ‘I don’t know. I just think it’s important to have someone neutral to talk to, to process your feelings.’ I was a fine one to talk.
‘I did process them. What else is there to say?’
‘What about the baby stuff? Don’t you think it would have been good to talk about that, at least?’
He froze and I wondered whether I’d overstepped the mark. I mean, I didn’t really know this man very well. How would I feel if the situation was reversed and he was pushing me like this? I was about to apologise when I realised he was saying something. I leaned in closer to hear him.
‘I have dreams sometimes,’ he said. His voice cracked and he cleared his throat and looked up at the roof.
‘I wake up in a sweat in the middle of the night and realise I’ve been dreaming about a baby crying, and I couldn’t get to it, and I’d been shouting for Dawn to come and she wasn’t there.
’ He swallowed, and looked down at his hands in his lap.
‘I’ll never stop feeling guilty for not realising that something was wrong with Dawn earlier, rather than being so sure the symptoms she was experiencing were because she was pregnant. ’
I didn’t know what to say. Telling him it wasn’t his fault, that he isn’t a doctor, that he wasn’t supposed to know what the symptoms of ovarian cancer were, wouldn’t help, because I knew that he wouldn’t believe it.
Why would he, when I didn’t believe people when they told me I shouldn’t feel guilty about Greg’s death?
When I tortured myself that he fell from that tree because he was upset about what I’d said to him as he’d left that day, that he was distracted?
So instead I put my hand on the bench between us, and our fingers touched in a spark of electricity. ‘I’m sorry you couldn’t have a baby,’ I said, simply.
‘Me too,’ he whispered.
I had no idea know how long we talked for, but by the time we’d covered the fact that he’d been mildly bullied at school for playing the violin and that subtitled films were his favourite ‘but not for any pretentious reasons’, it was starting to get dark. I shivered, goosebumps prickling my skin.
‘So what’s next?’ he said, as I rummaged in my bag for my cardigan and tugged it over my arms.
‘Next?’ I said.