Always You and Me

Chapter Thirty Five

The café door opened with a jangle from the overhead bell, and I was instantly enveloped in a waft of fried food and warm bodies. I breathed in, practically tasting the calories in the air and an underlying tang of testosterone. The place was packed with its regular clientele: van drivers, cabbies, and builders from the nearby construction site. Every Formica-topped table was occupied, and there was the usual queue at the counter waiting to be served by the café’s cantankerous owner, Fred.

I’d introduced Raegan to this place shortly after she’d taken the job, promising that it made the best sausage sandwiches in the entire world.

‘Bold claim,’ she’d said sceptically.

The fact that we still treated ourselves to a takeaway breakfast from Fred’s at least once a week proved me right. We also went there whenever we were hungover, under the weather or needed cheering up.

Raegan had clearly thought me in need of a curative sandwich today after checking out my pasty complexion and the twin dark smudges beneath my eyes.

‘You still look pretty awful,’ she’d observed with her usual lack of filter.

‘Thanks.’

She gave an ‘I call it like I see it’ shrug.

‘Are you sure it’s only a cold? Do you think you should take another test?’

I already had, but it wasn’t the kind that told you whether you’d got Covid.

‘I did, this morning. It was negative.’ That at least wasn’t a lie.

‘Then there’s only one thing for it,’ Raegan said, reaching for her purse.

But I got to mine first. ‘Good idea, but let me go – the fresh air will do me good.’

That too was true. My head was so full of cobwebs it felt like a theme-park haunted mansion. That’s what happens when you only get a couple of hours’ sleep each night, because the rest of it has been spent conducting one-sided conversations with the person who used to share the other half of the double divan.

As hard as I’d tried, I was still struggling to process everything and understand why Adam had kept the biggest secret of all time from me, only to drop it like a bomb when he’d known I could no longer ask him why he’d done it. I’d thought we were better than that, closer than that, and I hated the way I was now questioning ‘us’ in a way I’d never done before. I was holding up every precious memory to the light, checking it for fault lines or cracks.

A brisk walk across the industrial estate, which was home to both Cupcakes and Rainbows and Fred’s, restored a splash of colour to my cheeks, and what the fresh air failed to cure could be fixed by a doorstep-sized sandwich.

I took my place in the queue behind a guy who’d just placed an order that made me fear for his arteries. His waistline suggested that he too was a regular customer.

Unconsciously I ran a hand over my perfectly flat stomach, feeling a twinge of sadness as I realised that, for now at least, that was the way it was going to stay.

It had been far too early to start taking pregnancy tests. Buying one would have been bad enough, but I’d single-handedly cleared my local supermarket’s shelves of kits over the past week. My good intentions to wait the full fourteen days before testing had gone out the window after Claire’s unexpected visit, leaving me with a burning urgency to find out if my first round of IUI had worked. Somehow a pregnancy test had found its way into my shopping trolley the very next day. It had nestled there between a carton of eggs and a bag of Fletcher’s kibble, almost daring me to return it to the shelf. I bundled it through the self-service checkout with the speed of a teenage Saturday worker at quitting time.

I hadn’t been surprised the result had been negative. It was, after all, still nine days too early to test. Despite what I’d read on the forums I was suddenly addicted to, there’s a good reason why you should hold fire and do as the medics recommend. Which made it even more bizarre that I continued to test every single morning after that, until today, Magic Day Fourteen, when it had felt all kinds of different as I waited for the two-minute timer on my phone to tell me I could now check the result.

My hands had been trembling as I’d turned over the stick from its face-down position beside the bath and read the words I’d seen every single morning for the last week. Not pregnant . I’d deliberately chosen the kind of test that actually spelled it out in words, as though I couldn’t trust my ability to count the number of vertical lines in a tiny plastic window.

A clicking sound snagged my attention back to the here and now. Fred was leaning across the counter, literally snapping his fingers just inches from my nose, like a hypnotist waking someone from a trance.

‘Not got all day, you know,’ he said in his usual brusque manner.

I flushed, giving my cheeks some much-needed colour.

‘Sorry, Fred. I was miles away.’

‘So I could tell. The usual?’

I nodded, pulling a tenner from my purse. At least Fred allowed me to pay for my sandwiches these days. For the first couple of months after Adam died, he’d pushed the notes I’d be attempting to give him back across the counter. ‘It’s on me,’ he would say gruffly. He’d never once said he was sorry for my loss, or offered me his condolences; he’d just kept paying for my sandwiches, until one day he’d finally started charging me again and I’d realised my period of mourning, at least as far as Fred was concerned, was officially over.

He prepared the two rounds of thickly cut sandwiches of my order with a speed that always made me fear for his fingers, and yet at the last count he still appeared to have all ten. He had a habit of looking straight at customers while he sliced their order, which frankly was as terrifying as it was astonishing.

‘You need to get on to site management again about getting your signposts better positioned. I had another pillock wasting my time again this morning asking me for directions to your place.’

The clatter of cutlery on plates and the hum of conversation seemed to fade away. I swallowed because my mouth suddenly felt impossibly dry.

‘Someone was asking how to find me?’

‘Someone is always asking how to find you. The bloody signpost is misleading. Everyone ends up here.’

‘Was this . . .’ My voice had a parrot-like squawk; I cleared my throat and tried again. ‘Was it this morning?’

‘I said so, didn’t I?’ Fred replied.

Actually he hadn’t, but I didn’t bother pointing that out as he tugged the ten-pound note from my fingers when I made no move to release it.

The customer behind me shuffled forward, clearly impatient to be served. It forced me to fast-forward to the question I really wanted to ask.

‘This person. Was he tall?’

‘Everyone’s tall compared to me.’

This was true. Fred was a small man, except for his attitude. That was huge. I rephrased my question.

‘Did this man have dark hair and deep brown eyes?’

Fred paused in counting out my change, and I know if it had been anyone else asking that question, there would have been some snarky retort along the lines that he had better things to do all day than stare into customers’ eyes. But this was me, and although he’d never said a word – and would probably deny it on a stack of bibles – I knew he had a soft spot for me.

‘No. He had bright red hair, a broken front tooth, and tattoos up both arms from his fingers to his neck.’

‘Not really distinctive then?’ I said, pleased with myself for managing to crack a halfway-decent joke.

Fred shot me a grin that was faster than a camera flash. If you weren’t looking hard, you could easily have missed it.

‘No. Not at all.’

‘You have to stop this,’ I told myself firmly as I strode along the rain-speckled pavements to the workshop. Ever since Claire had accidentally on purpose ruined the surprise element of Josh’s impending visit, I’d been catching glimpses of him everywhere. Except it was never him. I’d followed a total stranger who walked like Josh did down the aisles of a grocery superstore, waved at another with the exact same shade of hair who was climbing out of a taxi, and overenthusiastically greeted a broad-shouldered DHL delivery driver seen through the fuzzy pixels of my video doorbell.

To be fair to Claire – something which didn’t always come naturally to me – she’d never said when Josh planned on visiting. I’d just assumed it would be soon. It could be ten minutes or ten months from now. I might be pregnant, or even have a baby in my arms by then. I paused for a moment, despite the soft drizzle, because that thought still had the power to stop me in my tracks. It might not have happened for me this first time around, and maybe it wouldn’t the next either, but whatever my feelings were about the lie Adam had told Josh, the dream of having my husband’s baby was as strong as ever, and I would do everything I could to make it come true.

I jogged the last section of the journey, splashing through puddles in the small parking area which we shared with three adjacent units. It was always busy, usually with customers from the shutter company who were our closest neighbours. Today was no exception, although I noticed with a frisson of irritation that one of their customers had parked directly outside our entrance doors, ignoring the ‘Reserved for Cupcakes and Rainbows’ signpost.

‘Some numpty has parked in our bay again,’ I called out as I walked through the doorway, pulling the damp beanie from my head and shaking out the droplets of rain that had still managed to settle on my hair.

Raegan stepped into my field of vision, her features contorting in a weird pantomime of expressions. Her eyes swivelled sharply to the left and her eyebrows did their best to follow.

‘I think that numpty must be me,’ said Josh, reaching for a set of car keys on the counter and gently dislodging Fletcher’s head from where it had been resting adoringly on his knee. ‘I’ll move it.’

‘You’re here,’ I cried stupidly, as though my thoughts about his visit had somehow magicked him into being. ‘ Why are you here? Shouldn’t you be up in your forest, making stuff?’

His smile was as familiar to me as my own.

‘I am allowed out for good behaviour every now and then. It’s kind of like parole.’

My mouth was opening and closing like a goldfish’s. Not my most attractive look, I imagine. ‘You never said you were coming.’

In truth, apart from a single text informing him I’d made it home safely, we hadn’t communicated at all since I’d left his cabin. Josh was under no obligation to inform me about his plans, but I was still feeling wrong-footed, despite Claire’s advance warning.

‘It was a last-minute decision,’ he said, looking closer to flushing than I’d seen in a long time. ‘There’s a consignment of oak I’m thinking of buying in France, so . . .’ He looked down at his feet as though the script for what he really wanted to say was written on his boots. ‘I thought I might stay in the area for a few days first, you know, catch up with family and . . .’ He hesitated, and I could see him searching for a descriptor that would fit me. Good luck with that one , I thought, because I had no idea what we were to each other. Not anymore. ‘Old friends,’ he settled with.

‘Can I offer you anything? A drink, I mean, like a tea or a coffee or something?’

I could hear myself babbling, and from the corner of my eye I saw Raegan was getting far too much amusement out of my discomfort. I shot her a glare, but she deflected it with an innocent smile.

‘Your business partner very kindly made me a coffee,’ Josh said, nodding towards an almost empty mug on the counter.

‘Employee,’ I corrected, throwing Raegan a meaningful ‘don’t you have something you ought to be getting on with’ look. In response she pulled up a stool and settled herself down at the counter, with the anticipation of someone about to watch an episode of their favourite show.

‘Do I get a hello hug?’ asked Josh, taking a step towards me and opening his arms in invitation. It was a huge struggle not to launch into them, but I made my feet take it slowly and sedately. I had no such control over my heart, which began beating twice as fast as normal the moment Josh’s arms tightened around me. Mine went around his waist. We both held on for a moment too long for ‘just friends’, but only someone who was studying us intently would have been able to read anything from that. I suspected Raegan was one such person.

‘When did you get down here?’ I asked, stepping out of his hold, which immediately made breathing easier.

‘This morning,’ Josh said, perching casually back on the stool he’d just vacated. ‘I drove through the night.’

‘You must be exhausted,’ I declared, spotting the tell-tale signs of tiredness in the grooved lines fanning out from the corners of his eyes.

‘In a bit of hurry to get here, were you?’ Raegan probed.

‘You could say that,’ Josh replied easily.

‘Don’t you have somewhere else you should be?’ I saw Josh about to reply, but I lifted a hand to silence him. ‘That one was for Raegan.’

‘Nah, I’m good,’ she replied happily.

I twisted, turning my body towards Josh, which deliberately blocked my friend’s view.

‘Where are you staying? With Claire?’ I remembered from conversations we’d had in the forest that was what usually happened when work brought him to the area.

For the first time since I’d walked in, Josh looked slightly awkward. ‘Erm, no, I’m not actually. I’ve got an Airbnb this time.’

Interesting . I didn’t want it to be so, but damn, it was.

Josh gave a yawn that he tried valiantly to stifle and snuck a quick glance at his watch. ‘I came straight here on the off chance you might be free for lunch.’ His eyes went to the carrier bag with the sausage sandwiches that had filled the unit with the most delightful aroma. ‘But it looks like you’ve already got that covered.’

‘Oh no, they’re just elevenses. She’ll still have room for lunch,’ piped up my clearly match-making friend.

‘ She is standing right here,’ I said, turning once again to Josh, my voice softer now, ‘and as much as I’d really like to catch up, we’ve got a big order that we have to get finished before the courier gets here this afternoon.’

Josh looked satisfyingly disappointed at being turned down, which I knew would play on repeat in my head for the rest of the morning. Another yawn made me remember just how exhausting the drive down must have been in one hit.

‘Besides, what I think you need most right now is to go straight to bed.’

I didn’t even need to turn around to know that Raegan’s eyebrows would be waggling in delight. ‘To sleep,’ I added with emphasis.

Josh got to his feet, unable to suppress a roll of his shoulders. They were probably stiff from so many hours behind the wheel, and if he stayed in the workshop a minute longer, Raegan would likely volunteer my services as a masseuse.

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Then how about dinner tonight? If you’re free, that is.’

‘She is.’

This time the look I gave Raegan wasn’t quite so amiable.

‘She is,’ I repeated, turning back to the man I was about to send on his way.

‘Great,’ Josh said, bending to ruffle Fletcher’s ears. My dog’s tail thumped delightedly against the floor tiles in response.

‘I’ll walk you out,’ I said meaningfully, and this time Raegan knew better than to say anything at all.

Josh waited until we were standing just outside the door, in the softly falling rain, and looked at me with the kind of expression that friends simply don’t use with each other.

‘We have a lot to talk about, I think,’ he said hesitantly, dipping his toe into the swirling waters Claire’s visit had muddied up.

‘We do,’ I agreed solemnly. ‘One hell of a lot.’

We agreed on a place and time to meet, and I was glad to see him climbing back into the car for all kinds of reasons. One of which was that he clearly needed to get some rest.

He tugged on the seat belt, but before snapping it into position his eyebrows drew closer together.

‘Why did your . . . employee . . . ask me if I was the “infamous mountain man” when I got here today?’ His lips were twitching once more, and it was very hard for mine not to do the same.

‘ Ex -employee,’ I corrected. ‘She’s working out her notice. She just doesn’t know it yet.’

It was good to hear Josh laugh, and I locked the memory of the sound away for no other reason than I hadn’t been entirely sure I would ever hear it again.