Miranda #2
Miranda prided herself on being a vagrant, roaming from one friend’s hospitality to the next.
But Betty had made her feel part of the family, integral to the home.
She hadn’t felt like that since her childhood, since before her mother’s accident.
And without knowing what was happening, she began wondering what it would be like to have a proper home, a place where she could live forever.
But wasn’t that how she’d felt about Jack, their home in Connecticut? The day she’d left was still clear as a bell, the overwhelming grief as she saw him in every corner, at every door, how she’d thrown some clothes into a suitcase and left, not even stopping to tell her father.
And she’d been running ever since.
‘What is it?’ he said, smiling as his eyes met hers. ‘You look a million miles away.’
And just like that, she snapped out of it, stepping back, away from him, reminding herself that she needed to stay focused.
The past was long gone, and she couldn’t have Sinclair distract her from her journalism, from her independent life.
Jack’s death had nearly wiped her out for good. She had to put herself first.
But when she looked up, she saw Sinclair watching her, trying to read her thoughts. Then he said, ‘Do you know, I think I win.’
Baffled, she enquired, ‘What do you mean?’
‘My story.’ He nodded at her. ‘Maybe my sorry tale beats yours.’
He’d hinted at something gone awry, and now Miranda’s curiosity was piqued. ‘What is this sorry tale, then?’
He drew a deep breath. ‘My fiancée called it off the night before our wedding.’
‘Oh, goodness!’ Without thinking, she put a hand on his arm. ‘What happened?’
He laughed at her bluntness. ‘I’ve asked myself that very question numerous times. My conclusions range from my own stupidity to her treachery.’ He frowned. ‘It was probably somewhere in the middle, a graph with two lines converging in the centre.’
Miranda frowned as she tried to picture it. ‘Was there someone else?’
‘A so-called friend of mine.’
‘That sounds complicated.’
‘Precisely,’ he said with a sigh. ‘It was astonishing how much everyone else seemed to know while I was completely oblivious.’
‘Didn’t you suspect anything?’
He shook his head. ‘I was working abroad a lot, but if I’m honest, I was burying my head in the sand, hoping the clues didn’t add up.’
‘You were lucky to escape.’
‘Yes, but it was humiliating, and I was heartbroken – although perhaps not as much as I would have been if not for the affair.’ He shrugged it off with a small laugh. ‘That’s why I’m looking forward to my new posting in Rome. I can finally move to another city, put her and London behind me.’
Even though she wanted to be sympathetic, Miranda was unable to stop herself from saying, ‘At least you can move away, move on. With death, it follows you wherever you go. Believe me, I’ve tried.’
She expected him to peel away, find an excuse and take his leave – perhaps she even wanted him to – but he softened, moving even closer to her as they walked out into the night.
‘I can’t begin to imagine how it must feel.’
Miranda shook her head, trying to erase the thought. ‘Nothing makes you feel so powerless as death. It’s as if nothing actually matters at all, only staying alive, staying one step ahead of it as it follows you around.’
Gently, he asked, ‘Was it long ago?’
She looked into the park, dim in the streetlamps. ‘It was during the war. He was on a naval ship in Borneo.’
It had been a while since she’d said it out loud. It always felt like she was picking off an old scab, and she winced as the pinprick of pain came to the surface. She drew to a halt as she tried to maintain her composure.
‘This is precisely why I don’t like talking about it.’ She tried to pull herself together.
He stepped towards her, close enough to feel his warmth without actually touching, and she was suddenly desperate for him to put his arms around her, bring her back to life, to kiss her, hold her, love her.
For a moment, they looked into each other’s eyes, and she thought she could sense him measuring it up in his mind, whether she was the right woman for him.
Yet how could she be the right woman for anyone?
The only man she’d ever loved was dead.
Hastily, she took a step back. ‘It’s getting late. I have to go.’
‘Miranda, please stay. I know it must have been hard, becoming a widow so young.’
‘That’s what everyone says, as if I’m to be pitied, or I’m some kind of anomaly.’ She stood apart. ‘Grief is the same, though, however old you are, whatever the circumstances.’
‘It must have been terrible. No wonder you’re so . . .’ He stopped himself.
‘So what?’ She spun around to look at him. ‘So demanding, so unconventional? So unruly?’
‘So focused on your work,’ he said gently.
She straightened her coat. ‘I need to be independent, and I’m completely fine on my own.’
But Sinclair reached his hand forward. ‘No, you’re not.
You’re a beautiful, intriguing woman, Miranda, but you’ve closed yourself off.
You should be launching yourself into life, enjoying it, but you’re standing on the edge laughing at everyone else, thinking you’re above it all, when actually you’re just missing out. ’
‘You’re talking nonsense.’ She chuckled, but it sounded clunky and chaotic.
‘Maybe a little, but you are clever and beautiful, and unbelievably capable, too. I’m not saying hard work is bad – it’s good, great in fact. But a woman like you needs to live life, get out and enjoy yourself, maybe find someone new.’
She smirked. ‘And what about you? It doesn’t seem like you’ve kissed a lot of girls since you were left.’
He shrugged, but there was a defensive edge to his voice. ‘I have to travel a lot. It’s not easy to meet someone. In any case, it hasn’t been so long for me. For you it’s been eight years.’
With a brisk shake of her head, she muttered, ‘Why does everyone want to put a time on it?’
He frowned, looking her in the eyes with sympathy. ‘I can’t imagine how awful his death must have been for you.’
‘He didn’t deserve to die.’ She heard her voice catch. ‘It was nonsensical that a man so full of life was destined to be killed when he had barely become an adult.’
Tentatively, he took her hand into his, a gesture of friendship, perhaps? Only then it felt childish, and then it suddenly felt wrong and treacherous, and she pulled her hand away.
For a moment, they both looked at each other, a million questions hanging in the air.
He, too, had been hurt, after all, and for a moment she realized how hard it must have been for him.
Miranda was always dismissive of other people’s grievances – surely hers trumped everyone else’s?
– yet betrayal was something she’d never experienced.
Quietly and carefully, he said, ‘I wondered if there might be something between us, and I think you might feel that, too.’
She was grounded by panic.
Suddenly, she longed to run away, put Sinclair behind her, regardless of her decision to keep him keen. No, she had to move on to the next place, the next guest room in the next city.
Instinctively, she took a step back. ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she muttered. ‘It was a mistake, what almost happened in the closet.’ She donned her usual blasé laugh. ‘It was just a little fun, wasn’t it?’
He pulled back, hurt. ‘A little fun?’
She began walking again, continuing to the Underground station. ‘If it was anything at all, which it wasn’t, was it? After all, we barely know each other, and after the coronation, you’ll be in Rome, and I’ll be, well, who knows where I’ll be.’ She chuckled. ‘We’re both independent nomads.’
‘Are we, though?’ He reached for her arm to try to get her to slow down, but she just kept on striding ahead. ‘What if we give it a chance, have a little trust in each other?’
Something about the word trust made her wince.
Was it losing Jack, or was it the brutal newspaper world of Manhattan, the culture that thrived on one key principle: ‘I never trust anyone,’ she said, her mantra since Jack’s death.
‘And I recommend the same for you – although I’d have thought you were smart enough to know that already. ’
‘Has it ever crossed your mind that people can do better than that, that they can be better together?’
She put her arms out to gesticulate, to explain, but how could she begin – where even was the beginning, the place where it had started?
Instead she muttered an exasperated huff and sped up. ‘I’m fine by myself.’
He caught up with her. ‘If you don’t mind me saying, you’re not all that fine, Miranda.
You’ve never given yourself a chance. I can’t imagine how dreadful it must feel to go through what you have, but you need to open up about it, start living.
No one’s going to judge you – except perhaps yourself. ’
But she couldn’t tell him the secret that now hid like a ghoul in her heart, that she wasn’t who she said she was, but an imposter, there to bring them down. And as she felt herself peer into the abyss, she knew she had to get away from him.
She spun around. ‘How dare you? I thought maybe you were becoming a friend, but now I see that you’re just another ridiculous man who thinks he knows best.’ She looked at the street that led to the Underground. ‘I have to go.’
She expected him to climb down, to apologize, but he must have been stung by her words, as he only replied, ‘If you want to leave, then go ahead.’
Unsure, she began to turn away from him. ‘Well, if that’s all you have to say . . .’ Then, throwing him a final scowl, she strode towards the Underground.
She felt his eyes watching her as she walked across the street, hard and fast in the glimmering car lights, half expecting him to call after her.
But when she reached the corner and glanced back, he’d gone, vanished into the crowd.
Her mind was a jumble of anger and anxiety, her heart pounding as she stood alone, arms folded over her chest, engulfed with the unfamiliar sear of regret.
And as she felt the downward tug of emotion, she pulled herself together, took out her notebook, and marched to the nearest telephone box.
After all, the only reason she was in London was to report on the coronation. Sinclair and Betty and the others, well, they were just there to help dig out the details.
It was O’Hara who was counting on her. At least she had the details of the route this time. That should keep him happy for now.
But instead of feeling pleased to have done the job well, the only thing on her mind was how much she loathed sneaking around, how much her palace friends would hate her if they knew.
And how that vile newspaperman would always be there, breathing down her neck, whether she gave him the top scoops or not.