Chapter 14 Echoes #2
I tried to check in from time to time, but my calls were fielded by her new boyfriend, Jack Willoughby.
He was the same age as Natalie, four years younger than me.
I’d introduced them after he begged me to.
It had seemed harmless at the time, until he wedged himself between us.
How perverse it was, to call her number, only to hear his voice telling me she was unavailable, or that I’d ‘just missed her’.
Did she even know I called?
Did she know I still cared?
It might have made a difference if she did.
“I kept debating whether it was a good idea to fly out to see her, right up until the day it was too late,” I say.
My ears roar with static, memory dragging me back to the moment that broke me.
“Oh, Brandon…” Lily-Anne touches my shoulder briefly.
“I learned of her death the same way everyone else did—her face plastered across every newsstand. We’d been separated a year, but it tore me apart to see her used up by a machine that only wanted her voice for profit. They never saw who she truly was.”
“That must’ve been awful. I can’t imagine how you must have felt. How you still feel…”
“Well, I don’t usually think about it anymore. Tonight was bad timing.”
The café pulses at the far end of the courtyard, but it’s a different song now, another artist. The last of the fire in my chest gutters out, leaving a hollow ache. I sniff, pushing drenched hair off my forehead.
“Thank you,” I say.
As the rain slackens we make our way back to the cottage instead, both of us eager for dry clothes.
Inside the hallway, we kick off our shoes, water dripping from us onto the carpet runner.
Her teeth chatter as she removes her cardigan, the sodden mass so heavy it stretches. The paisley shirt clings to her, its pattern now muted. Beneath the hem of her shorts, her tanned legs have paled and prickled with goose bumps.
What have I dragged this poor Australian woman into? Was this what I meant when I suggested a trip to England for a change of scenery—a trip down misery lane with me?
And what in the world was I thinking when I nearly kissed her?
“Brandon?” she murmurs.
She’s said my name a few times, I realise, though I’ve been lost in thought.
“Sorry. Yes?”
She presses her lips together, and I look at her properly, catching details in a new light. Her soulful brown eyes draw me in, uncertain yet sincere.
“I know I’m younger than you,” she begins, “and I can’t pretend to understand everything you went through when you lost Nova, or how painful that must have been…
but I know how grief can stay with someone.
When I lost my dad, I lost myself too, and I’ve been waiting ever since to feel whole again.
That’s what they say, isn’t it—that time heals all? ”
“They do say that,” I agree.
“But it doesn’t,” she continues with a note of sadness. “Not really. Not enough. It just dulls, gets easier to live with. But the colour doesn’t come back.”
“A few days ago, I might have agreed with you.”
“But not anymore?”
I’ve backed myself into a corner. A little colour has started to return since that first email she sent, but I can hardly say that.
“Perhaps time alone is not enough,” I say, voicing another truth. “Perhaps we need change.”
Silence swells between us, broken only by the intermittent patter of rain outside. I should let it end there. But I say hoarsely, “You know, I have met you in person before.”
Her eyebrows shoot up.
“At your father’s funeral,” I admit. “You fainted during the service. You were meant to say a few words and sing a song, I believe. And I was meant to speak after you. But when you fell—”
“That was you?” she gasps. “I knew you were there, but…you were the one who caught me?”
I nod, discomfort prickling beneath my wet shirt collar.
I’d been standing near the podium, waiting for my turn to speak, when I noticed how pale Jeremy’s youngest daughter looked—her skin almost grey, the silence deafening as the packed church held its breath.
I sensed something was wrong. Before I was aware of moving, I crossed the space, just in time. She crumpled, and I caught her.
In the next breath, her family were there, arms reaching, voices rising, as relatives closed around her. I stepped back at once. It was their place, not mine.
She quickly came to, but she was too overcome to speak or sing. She stayed in the church, surrounded by her family, and I took her place on stage. Touched by her grief, I gave my eulogy with great difficulty.
“We never spoke. I wasn’t even sure whether to mention it.”
“No, I’m glad you did,” Lily-Anne says at once, though she worries her lip in a way that makes me wish I said nothing at all. “I don’t remember much from that day—or you, I’m afraid.”
We say a strained goodnight, but she pauses at the stairs to rummage in her pocket. “Oh, and before I forget, this is yours.” She presses the blue kazoo into my palm with a small smile. “I look forward to our next jam session.”
“Me too.” I’m struck not just by the absurdity of it, but by how much joy it brought us both. I haven’t laughed so freely in a long time.
There’s an awkward pause, and I know her mind, like mine, is drifting to the alleyway. It already feels half-dream, half-memory.
“Thank you for everything today,” she says.
“And you.”
We exchange hesitant smiles before she retreats upstairs. A moment before the door clicks shut, I hear a sneeze echo down, and I curse under my breath.
Brilliant. I kept her standing around, shivering and catching cold while I waxed lyrical about grief. I should have done what any respectable Englishman would have done: put the kettle on.
Neither time nor tea can heal all, but they both certainly help. Dredging up the past, however, does not. I should know that by now. Yet, I don’t regret opening up to her. It feels, at last, as though the past has loosened its hold.
Her footsteps creak across the floorboards above, a faint reminder that she’s here, under my roof. I linger in the kitchen and fill the kettle for tomorrow.
In the morning, I’ll brew a pot for us.
Suddenly, I realise two things: one, that I’m assuming she’ll come down to have breakfast with me; and two, that I very much hope she will.