Chapter 7 John
John
It’s always a welcome change to have the family up at the house.
He always appreciates the disruption to otherwise predictable days, the continual hustle and bustle.
It definitely beats his regular routine of selecting yet another book from the library and curling up in an armchair that he can’t quite feel.
Striding down to the gardener’s cottage, he avoids the stone walkway that leads to the back of the cottage and suppresses a shudder.
No need to revisit that place. Without much effort, he can still recall the decidedly odd sensation of standing beside his mortal body lying there on the path, watching himself take his last breath.
It was deeply troubling, and is not something he cares to relive with any regularity.
Instead, he lets himself into the cottage, calling out what he hopes is a cheery hello.
‘I’m upstairs,’ Mia calls out.
‘Mind if I join you?’
‘Be my guest.’
John takes the stairs two at a time. He’s always liked doing that. Perks of having long legs.
‘So, you really are real,’ Mia muses. ‘Not a figment of my imagination. Or—’ she pauses, scrunching up her forehead. ‘Am I imagining things now?’
‘Like it or not,’ John assures her, ‘I’m really and truly here.
Unlike your brother’s girlfriend, who I’m honestly not sure even exists.
Have you actually met Molly?’ Mia shakes her head.
‘That’s what I thought.’ He looks at Mia.
She is sprawled across the top of the bed, hair in disarray, pyjamas rumpled.
There is a smattering of crumbs across the coverlet.
‘So, the pity party is still in full swing, I take it.’
Mia sticks her tongue out at him and returns her attention to the ancient magazine she’s flipping through.
‘I’m curious. What’s the plan, exactly? You’re going to hide out here all week and then sneak back to London?’
‘Basically,’ Mia mutters, without even looking up.
‘And who, exactly, are we avoiding?’
Mia purses her lips. ‘Well, Mum and Dad have decorated every inch of that house. You can’t turn a corner without bumping into a garland or a bauble or a candy cane. It’s oppressively festive. Down here I can breathe.’
‘Are you saying you don’t like Christmas?’
She lets the magazine fall closed. ‘I’m twenty-eight, you know.’
John clicks his tongue in what he hopes is a sympathetic way. ‘Far too old for Christmas magic. So that’s why you’ve become a borderline hermit. What are you even eating down here? I imagine the cupboards are pretty barren.’
‘Yes, well, I found some crackers. And tuna.’
John grimaces. ‘Rumour has it you cooked an amazing soup yesterday. Could have put Gordon Ramsay to shame. And yet, here you are, eating crackers and canned fish in your jammies.’
‘At least I’m not having to make casual conversation with Sam.’ Mia swipes the crumbs on to the floor. ‘Is there a broom around here?’
‘Downstairs by the back door.’ John settles himself on the dormer window seat. When Mia returns, he studies her body language as she sweeps. ‘This Sam has you all tied up in knots.’
‘He’s not supposed to be here,’ she mutters, contorting her body to reach the broom under the bed.
‘He seems nice enough,’ John ventures. He’s wildly curious to find out the reason Mia hates Sam so much. And he has a hunch that if he pushes just the right amount, she’ll spill the tea.
‘That’s how he does it,’ Mia returns bitterly. ‘He’s a handsome, silver-tongued devil.’
John guffaws. ‘How intriguing. Care to share more?’
‘You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.’
‘She says to the ghost that only she can see.’
This garners a small smile from the angry one. She sobers quickly. ‘He humiliated me.’
John folds his hands on his lap and leans back. Mia twists her lips from side to side, and then, finally, gives a quick nod.
‘Sam and I knew each other all throughout school. We’d all gone to the same secondary school – Charlie, Sam and I.
Sam and Charlie both played tennis and hit it off right away.
Charlie was never the kind of brother who was annoyed by his little sister hanging around, so I knew all his friends.
He also wasn’t that popular with the girls – that’s the Robinson genes for you – but Sam was a different story.
He’s unbelievably hot, you know? Perfectly brown hair that falls over his head in that clichéd way.
Warm eyes that draw you in, make you feel like you’re his whole world.
I’ve always preferred blue eyes, but Sam’s are so inviting.
Plus, he had this clear, smooth skin, as though he wasn’t a teenager like the rest of us.
Every girl at school was drooling over him. ’
John can’t wait for her to go on. ‘Did you two date in school?’
Mia shakes her head. ‘No, Sam was focused on getting good marks, and playing tennis, of course. He was nice to everyone, but never really dated. But then the boys finished and went to university. I moved on, to some degree. I wanted to take a gap year to travel around the world after school, explore some of my culinary interests. But my parents were adamant that I go to uni like Charlie. It took me by surprise that they felt so strongly about it, so I just gave in. I have my whole life to travel, you know?’
John only nods, not wanting to interrupt.
‘Anyway, we all ended up at university together. That’s where I met Lucy, gem that she is.
She was in the room next to me. I loved living in halls.
Sam and Charlie were in halls too, even though they were older, because Charlie had long labs to get through and Sam was so devoted to tennis.
It was just easier to live right there.’ Mia sighs.
‘And even though I thought I’d put Sam behind me after he left school, I fell right back into the crush once he was living so close to me.
I really, really fell for him that year.
He could make my day by just saying hello.
Or walking me to my lectures. I’d be on cloud nine the rest of the day.
We just got along so well. I’d come and watch him practise, and we’d make small talk during warm-up and cooldown.
It was just … magical. I never took Sam for a player, but in the end, that’s who he was. ’
John frowns. ‘Surely not.’
Mia shrugs. ‘I don’t know how else you could interpret it.
We spent loads of time together. He would say the nicest things to me, share the poems he’d written, things like that.
And then things started to shift. Lucy was dating this rugby player, and Charlie had a really heavy courseload that term, so Sam and I were spending more time alone together, and things were changing between us.
’ Mia looks off in the distance. ‘At first it was just the subtle stuff, you know? He’d brush against me.
Hold my hand. Hug me in celebration when he won a match.
But then there was that night in his halls … ’
John squirms in his seat. He doesn’t want to press Mia, but he’s dying to hear the rest of the story. He bites the inside of his cheek as he waits for her to continue.
‘I’d dreamed of that moment for months. At first we were just hanging out, but then he put an arm around me, and then—’ Mia’s voice hitches.
‘I kissed him first. He didn’t respond right away, and I worried that I’d misread the signals.
But then he kissed me back. And it was everything I ever dreamed of.
There was always so much chemistry between us.
It just … worked. Felt like the most natural thing in the world. ’
‘So you slept together?’ John asks.
‘Almost. Some idiot pulled the fire alarm and we all had to evacuate. By the time we got outside, Sam must have had second thoughts. He just gave me a sheepish grin and offered to walk me back to my hall. Obviously, I was disappointed, but then he reached out the next day and invited me to go swimming with him. His coach had got him access to the uni pool after hours so that he could get in some extra cardio. Something about the water being easier on his knees than running, I don’t know.
I told Lucy about it, and she was like, “This is your chance! It will be just the two of you, and you can finish what you started the night before!” And I thought that was a great idea.
‘Obviously, that late in the evening, we would have the pool all to ourselves. So, at that point I was trying to figure out which swimming costume to wear. It was between the red one piece that made my legs look amazing, and the blue halter top, with the little bow right between my boobs.
‘Sam called me that afternoon to make sure I was coming. It wasn’t a long conversation, but when we were hanging up, he said, “OK, see you tonight, love you, bye.”’
‘Wait,’ John holds up a hand. ‘He said he loved you?’
Mia nods. ‘He’d never said that to me before. And I was just … over the moon, you know? Like this was better than anything I could have imagined.’
John smiles, thinking of his own crushes and unrequited loves. Like that rangy boy in his maths set with the tiger eyes. ‘Indeed.’
‘I remember thinking that this time with Sam was going to entirely erase the memory of my disappointing encounter with Christopher Jones and his slimy fish-faced kisses. Lucy told me to bring both of my swimming costumes, and decide which to wear once I got there. Sam had texted me the code for the building, and it was completely deserted. We had the place to ourselves. But once I was there, looking out over the water, I had another idea. I dropped my clothes piece by piece on to the poolside bench, kicked off my slides and slipped into the water in nothing but my birthday suit.’
John nods. ‘I always had you pegged for the bold kind.’