Chapter 30
Cassie climbed the steps up from her apartment block car park with a leaden feeling in her gut. When crossing the foyer, a flash of movement from outside caught her eye. She did a double take but the view through the code-protected glass door was empty. No, she hadn’t imagined it – she glanced back quickly and this time there was no mistaking it. Someone was loitering at the edge of the outer door. Her heart quickened; had the security man seen them? She whipped out her phone to dial the number, when the figure lurched into full view: battered leather jacket, narrow scarf, pork-pie hat .?.?.
‘Gav?’
The shape raised his arm in a gesture reminiscent of Antarctic explorers glimpsing long-awaited rescue.
‘Cassie. Let me in.’
His Glasgow accent sounded so familiar. Oh, for fuck’s sake. A couple of possibilities occurred to her, but only one stuck: I can’t leave him out there. She keyed in the code, and he staggered in the door and theatrically sank to his knees.
‘First things first, I don’t know what to say,’ he proclaimed, which was clearly untrue. ‘I owe you an apology. I am .?.?. beyond sorry.’
She gazed at him in disbelief.
‘Get up off the fucking floor, Gav. Sorry for which bit? For dumping me by text after fifteen years? For wasting my life?’
‘All of it. I know .?.?. you’re absolutely right.’
There was a pause as he rolled a cigarette with supreme attention.
‘You can’t smoke that here,’ she said. How were they even talking about smoking? This was ludicrous.
‘Nice place, by the way. Classy.’
He looked mildly wretched. She sighed. It all felt so familiar. Teflon Gav.
‘You’d better come on up.’ Oh no, was she going to regret this?
‘I can’t bear the idea of putting you out .?.?.’ He looked sheepish but definitely not crushed.
‘Bit late for that I would’ve thought.’
They traipsed upstairs, and after closing the door behind them, she took in the incongruous sight of Gavin mooching in Ramona’s apartment.
‘Gav, you stink. I’m not even going to talk to you till you’ve had a shower.’
‘Honeybee, you read my mind. I came overland, you see.’
‘Second on the left, and don’t call me that.’
Gav was cocky but he knew when not to push his luck. While he was in there, she contemplated what looked like a hurriedly cobbled-together tangle of his belongings in a holdall on the floor. God only knew where the rest of them were. At the same time, she was having the surreal experience that he’d never actually been gone. They’d never had an actual row; she’d never even received an explanation, apart from that last weird cryptic text about him staying with his mate. And now here he was, back, as though the intervening months had only been a bizarre hallucination. But this was reality. She didn’t even know where he’d got her address from.
Don’t , she warned herself. Don’t get sucked back into this . It’d be all too easy. Dear God, after her broadside from Samantha, which was already feeling like light years ago, was there any more that life could hurl at her this evening? She wandered into the kitchen, opened a bottle of Sauvignon from the fridge and poured herself a glass. Gav looked like he’d a few on board already. Of course, it wasn’t good to self-medicate in times of stress but, on the other hand, screw that. In the hierarchy of needs, this was the very moment for a glass of wine. She longed to phone Josie but it was after midnight, so whatever happened, she’d have to deal with it herself.
She heard some scuffling from the hallway and a few minutes later Gav appeared, clean-shaven and wearing a T-shirt she didn’t recognise and a pair of combat trousers which she did. She poured him a glass and pushed it across the table.
‘Mmmm, lovely, cheers. What’re you sewing?’
‘Cow.’
‘Nice. You’re looking well, Cass, I’m really proud of you.’
There was always this wonderful ease with Gav, but bloody hell, he really had some neck.
‘Honeybee, I hate to ask but I’m starving. You couldn’t rustle me up a little pasta carbonara?’
She looked at him in disbelief.
‘If that’s too much, plain tomato sauce would be lovely.’
This was exactly how he’d evaded every attempt at big conversations. Marriage, kids. And in fairness, maybe she’d let him.
‘Gav, what the hell are you doing here? And don’t do me the indignity of trying to justify yourself.’
‘I should have come ages ago. I realised that as I was crossing the Irish Sea.’
‘Really? That soon?’
‘Now, now .?.?. I had to come. I realised that when .?.?. OK, I’ll explain. Right, Kirsty’s parents arrived down from Scotland. Very nice people and all that, but then the three of them started having this .?.?. conversation about combining the wedding and the christening. Can you imagine?’
‘ What? Wait. Stop. Did you say christening ? She’s fucking pregnant as well? I do not believe this.’
She felt herself involuntarily standing up and pacing around the room.
‘Oh, right. Did you not know?’
‘No, Gavin, I did not. I only knew about the wedding. And that was a big enough shock. How could you do this to me? Turn up here and tell me she’s pregnant?’
She felt a huge lump in her chest, making its way upwards.
‘But it wasn’t planned, honeybee, it just happened. The whole thing.’
‘But Gav, things don’t just happen. They didn’t happen for us. Why was that? Was it me?’
‘No, honey, never. Maybe it just wasn’t the right time.’
‘That’s bullshit. It could’ve been.’
‘I know and I never meant to hurt you.’
Which was true; he probably never gave it the slightest thought.
‘Cassie, how can I make it up to you?’
‘Is that supposed to be a joke? Have you got a time machine so I can go back fifteen years, get out and dump you?’
‘Now, now, we had lovely times. I can’t let you trash what we had together. They’re precious memories. I just don’t think I valued you enough.’
‘You reckon?’ There was such a note of nostalgia in his voice that, in spite of herself, she felt her anger ebbing away.
‘Absolutely, we had some special times. Here, give me a hug.’
And that’s exactly how Gav tried to work his magic. ‘No.’
‘Just .?.?. hear me out .?.?. This whole wedding palaver is a total mind-fuck, Cassie. All the table plans, and the bride and groom fucking fruit cake .?.?. It all feels so bloody bourgeois.’
Cassie thought of Mam and Eric. ‘That’s weddings for you.’
‘You understand, Cass. I felt .?.?. trapped. It wasn’t .?.?. like us. That’s why I’m here. I knew you’d get that.’
She could feel herself being reeled in: suddenly, she was the only person who understood him.
‘Gav, she’s due her baby .?.?. when?’
‘On 20 th July, I believe.’
He made that sound like the baby of a distant acquaintance.
‘Why did you do it?’
‘I mean .?.?. she was young, gorgeous, I was flattered – what man wouldn’t be?’
‘Gav, you’re an idiot.’
‘I realise that. She’s twenty years younger, for God’s sake. She doesn’t know my music, she doesn’t get my references, my jokes, and her friends are kids. I mean, they’re a pain in the arse. But then .?.?. obviously, there’s the baby.’
When Josie had broken the news about the wedding to her, she’d imagined it as a massive occasion of joy and triumph. Evidently, real life didn’t quite match up.
‘What’ll I do, Cass? You were always my rock, you were always the one with the sense.’
That wasn’t saying much, she thought.
‘Last Tuesday I made the decision to call off that .?.?. travesty of a wedding. I emailed everyone, it was awful, I won’t lie to you. People were pissed off with me. I just knew I had to get away, go somewhere .?.?. and I said to myself, where’s the safest place? Where’s the one place in the world I want to be? And it hit me: I need to get to Dublin, to Cassie . And I took a taxi to Euston station. I can’t explain it, I didn’t want to fly, I needed to be on the ground.’
‘Oh, Gav.’
‘Cass, d’you think there’s any hope for us to get back what we had? It was good. I was too stupid to recognise how good.’
She should be feeling vindicated and all sorts of yummy feelings, she reflected, but all she could feel was tired.
‘I think once you’ve cracked an egg, Gav, there’s really no way to stick it back together.’
‘Leaving you was the biggest mistake of my life.’
‘The time to say all of this was last October. Oh, sorry, by my calculation that’s right about the time your young lady was getting knocked up. How could you dump me by text, Gav? You didn’t even face me.’
‘I know. I’m a shit. Hands up, I admit it. I felt claustrophobic. I needed a change. How d’you put that into words?’
‘Well, you know what I think? I think you should go straight back to Kirsty and try a bit harder.’
He looked crushed. ‘That’s it? That’s all you’ve got for me?’
‘So fucking what if your music is different? So what if you don’t like her friends? You’re not living with them, or her family. Man up, for God’s sake.’
‘Cass, we really had something. You’ll always be the one that got away.’
‘Funny, that’s not quite how I remember it. You can sleep on the sofa tonight, but you’ll have to go tomorrow. I can’t have you staying here.’
He seemed to accept this. ‘You’ve really come on, Cassie, I’m really proud of you.’
‘I’ll get you a duvet. And a pillow.’
Lying in bed later, she half-expected the door to creak open – would she have secretly welcomed that? Everything she’d dreamed of in the months after he left. It was all coming to pass. Gav begging for forgiveness, her being the one after all. But the baby. He was going to be a father with some young one, and all he wanted to do was run. If it had been herself in that position, he’d have done exactly the same thing. Gav was an emotional magpie. He simply couldn’t resist the next shiny thing. Even if she took him back, she would inevitably become part of his past again.
It occurred to her that she’d tried to be the solution to enough people’s problems and, always, it seemed at her own expense. She was just drifting off to sleep when a text flashed up on her phone. Finn.
Feel awful ’bout this evening. Need to talk tomorrow
Oh God, she thought, why couldn’t everyone just leave her alone to sew her cow costume in peace?
*?*?*
The next morning was a Saturday. Cassie woke early to a halo of sun pouring in around the curtains. She came to and lay there for a couple of minutes, reconstructing the events of the previous night. Oh no. Gav. Here.
It was 8.50 a.m. She knew Josie and Pal were early risers, so she shot off a text:
You round for quick vid call? Won’t believe it .?.?.
The reply came back instantly.
Hell, yes.
Josie looked puffy and tired, and Cassie felt guilty for hassling her.
‘Well, guess who turned up last night? Gav.’
‘Shit, no way. Can you believe his pure cheek? We got a garbled email from him. To be honest it looked like a circular to say the wedding was off.’
‘And you won’t believe what else. She’s pregnant.’
‘Pregnant? No. You’re shitting me. Are you OK?’
Josie took a moment to relay the information to Pal, who she could hear whisking eggs off-camera.
‘Pal says he half-expected him to turn up at ours. Look, Cassie, she was going to get pregnant at one stage or another. She’s twenty-six. That’s what twenty-six-year-olds do. Pal says you dodged a bullet.’
‘Tell him thanks.’
Cassie felt a surge of love towards her friends, who were always there when she needed them most.
‘I’ve told him to get his arse back to that poor girl. I know I should be raging but, honestly, with every hour that passes I’m counting my blessings that things worked out the way they did between us.’
Josie laughed. Just then Cassie heard the buzzer. There was only one person it could be. Oh, God, this couldn’t be happening .?.?.
‘Jos, I’m so sorry, I’ve got to go .?.?. I’ll explain later.’
Even as she was ending the call, she could hear Gav’s voice answering the intercom. She scrambled into a pair of zebra-print leggings under her T-shirt and made for the bedroom door just in time to see Gav cordially welcoming Finn as a guest at the door, as though he owned the place. She could see the confusion on Finn’s face and could only imagine the horror on her own. Gav, however, seemed perfectly relaxed, as though he’d lived there all his life and was entirely expecting Finn. He volunteered to make a pot of coffee that would be very pleasant to drink out on the balcony, given the rare blast of Mediterranean weather. And the weird thing was, unless she kept reminding herself that Gav was wildly spinning his own version of things, she found herself almost being sucked in. Time to take charge.
‘Finn, this is Gavin. He turned up unexpectedly late last night.’
‘And I was very kindly taken care of, I might add. Nice leggings, by the way.’
Bastard. He was deliberately trying to muddy the waters.
‘No, he wasn’t,’ she broke in.
‘Er .?.?. maybe I should come back later?’ Finn was looking as uneasy as she’d ever seen him.
‘No, no no, not at all, sit down .?.?. take a load off,’ insisted Gav, exuding largesse.
‘Gav, shut up. Finn and I have been seeing each other since January.’
‘Well, you little dark horse, you .?.?.’
‘Actually, I’ve heard a lot about you,’ said Finn.
‘Well, word does get around.’ Gav was in his most ebullient form, but Finn was having none of it.
‘It actually seems that you’re a bit of an arsehole and I’d say the last thing Cassie needs is you landing in on top of her. So, the best thing you could do right now is not prevail on her good nature any longer and get the fuck out of here.’
Cassie felt a mixture of gratitude and unease.
‘Well, excuse me, the last thing I’d want to do is step on any toes .?.?.’
Finn’s face was implacable. ‘There’s a sailing from Dublin port at two o’clock, you’ll be in plenty of time for it.’
Cassie couldn’t help feeling a pang of regret. ‘Let’s have breakfast first, at least.’
Finn glared at her. Oh well, she’d put up with enough from his side.
After they made coffee and warmed the croissants brought by Finn, they sat around a small wrought-iron table on the balcony as Gav lit a roll-up to celebrate the mini-heatwave and leaned back, exhaling smoke as though he owned the place. Viewing Gav through someone else’s eyes was actually very enlightening. He was highly persuasive, and that was to someone who’d been on the receiving end of his misdemeanours. No wonder as a naive young woman she’d been bewitched. She felt a wave of sympathy for the kid she’d been, the little piglet in the house of straw – no match for the charming wolf who’d blagged his way in.
Gav was engaging Finn in a conversation about the well-known bands he’d worked with. She had to admit he was very impressive, very good at his job of organising difficult people, often with massive egos, inveigling them to do what was needed. Once you saw past that, it was just him doing his job. For the first time since she’d met him, she didn’t feel the lesser one.
Thankfully, by eleven Finn stood up and offered to drive Gav to the boat.
‘You’re a gentleman, sir. I won’t forget it.’
He would, of course – instantly – but that still didn’t stop you feeling good when he said it. Standing in the hallway with his miscellaneous baggage assembled about his person and a faint whiff of tragedy in his manner, he hugged Cassie warmly as though they were long-lost friends.
‘Maybe the two of you can come over and visit us, when the baby arrives?’ he said in all sincerity. Evidently, he’d reimagined his future once again.
An hour later Finn reappeared, looking exasperated.
‘Well?’
‘Oh, we’re best friends. He actually suggested that I buy a return ticket so I could come with him and have a “bit of a hooley” on the boat.’
Cassie burst out laughing. ‘That’s about the least “you” thing I could ever imagine.’
‘I don’t know, for a moment I was tempted. A part of me thinks I should do a bit more of it.’
‘Now you’re scaring me.’
She filled another cafetière, heated some milk, filled two oversized cups and sat down.
‘I’m sure you feel like a relaxing coffee after your mercy dash.’ She was picking up that he didn’t look relaxed at all. ‘Actually, there was something I wanted to ask you. Would you like to come to Mam and Eric’s wedding as my plus one?’
Finn winced.
‘Look, Cassie, I need to talk to you .?.?.’
There’d been a tension in his manner ever since he’d arrived this morning, she’d just been too distracted to notice.
‘I was speaking to Samantha .?.?. She came in to talk after you left last night.’
This did not sound like good news.
‘She’s very upset about us. And that’s without—’
‘Even hearing about Marisha and the baby, I can imagine.’
‘The thing is .?.?. I don’t think I can do it to her. She’s been through enough. It’s not that I want to, believe me.’
A wave of exasperation engulfed Cassie.
‘She’s manipulating you, forcing you to choose her or me, and you’re giving her that power.’
‘As a parent, I have to put my kids first. I’m sorry if that’s hard for you to understand.’
Ouch.
‘Well, fuck you for saying that. You do know it’s only Samantha who feels like this? She’s competing with me. The younger two were perfectly fine.’
But even as she said the words, she knew she’d already lost the battle. It was obvious some things went way beyond a convincing argument.
‘It’s not what I want.’
‘No, but it’s what you’re getting, Finn. Maybe I’m delusional, that is entirely possible. But from where I’m standing, this is not good. It’s not good for a fourteen-year-old to be given that much power. Whatever she looks like, she’s still a kid. I know, I’ve been a fourteen-year-old girl. I didn’t merit being given everything I demanded. Looking back, I know I needed to be protected from some of my own convictions. Not that I’d have taken a blind bit of notice at the time. But, OK, forget about me. Think .?.?. What about the next person who comes along in your life, and the next? Is she going to block everyone? You’re going to end up resenting her.’
Finn looked uneasy; she could see a twitch in his jaw under the pale, freckled skin.
‘I’m not going to be looking for anyone else. Look, I’m so sorry, I saw a future for us. I really did. But that’s just how it is, I can’t see any other way round it.’
With that, he put down his half-drunk coffee, stood up and left without another word.
Cassie was shell-shocked. It all felt so final. This couldn’t be happening.
It seemed that no matter which path she chose, her happiness was doomed.
*?*?*
‘That’s bull and you know it.’ Josie was eyeballing her as best she could through puffy eyelids. Apparently, the high pollen count was causing a devastating allergy, and because she couldn’t take antihistamine, it was running riot and she was blowing her nose constantly.
‘Well, that’s all I can see in it.’
‘He was bullied by his wife, now he’s being bullied by his daughter .?.?. it couldn’t be plainer.’
‘Samantha called me the wicked stepmother, Josie, and all I ever did was try and help. You know something, that whole stepmother thing is a pile of shite. Most of the time it’s just a woman in a bloody difficult situation doing the best she can.’
‘Hear, hear. I’m sorry, Cassie. I know you really liked him, but it was just so complicated.’
There was something about Josie talking in the past tense that stung her more than anything.
‘If I’d known what was coming, I mightn’t have given Gavin the bum’s rush so fast. He actually asked me if there was any hope for us, said that he hadn’t ever realised how good we’d been—’
‘ Stop! Cass, I can’t believe I’m hearing this. No, just no .’
‘I can’t hate him.’
‘No one can hate him, he’s Gav. That’s how he can cajole crews and manage tours all over the world. It still doesn’t mean you should get back with him. You’re in shock, that’s what’s wrong. Just don’t make any sudden moves.’
‘I don’t think I’m capable of making any moves right now.’
Josie had to go then to help Pal put up a blind in the baby’s room but agreed to chat later in the week. Cassie gazed around the apartment that up to a couple of hours ago had felt full of life and possibilities. Now it was as empty as though the tide had gone out, leaving her like a beached jellyfish drying in the sun.
She sat watching the happy figures bustling up and down Ballsbridge – everyone busy, everyone with somewhere important to be and friends to meet. It was only herself that was so alone, so directionless. She picked up the cow costume, examined it from every angle and then started sewing again from where she’d left off.