Chapter Thirty-Four
Ally can’t quite shake the thought of the stranger from the train station as she arrives at the airport.
She’d wanted, so much, to say yes to coffee – and today of all days should be a reminder to take life by the horns.
But her mum had come with her to the station – had actually come with her – and hadn’t brought up the date once.
So she couldn’t just abandon her plan on a whim, all because of a weird spark she’d felt when she looked at him.
She can’t even explain why she’d felt that spark. It was to do with his eyes. Not the colour or anything like that, but the way he looked at her. The way one corner of his mouth quirked up, the gesture strangely familiar.
If she’d said yes, though, she’d have missed her plane.
And she knows, if she thinks logically, that rather than trying to live up to a filmic meet-cute, the plane is where she needs to be.
Because she did it. The thing she’s been striving towards since choosing her A levels at school – she’s now finally on her way.
Still. She can’t quite let it go. The image of him standing there, watching her as she walked away.
A weird sense of loss – like she’s leaving something behind.
‘Ow!’ She’s not looking where she’s going as she heads out of security – which maybe explains the massive fuckoffspike that impales itself into her toe.
Or okay, not quite into. But it bloody feels like it.
‘Ow,’ she says again, practically hopping when the stiletto is removed, accompanied by a woman’s ‘Shit, sorry!’
Ally whimpers in pain and hops to the side, so that countless other people can move out of security and towards duty-free. She thinks she can feel blood coating her sock inside her trainer. She perches on a bench, reaching to pull off the shoe she literally just put on again.
‘I’m so sorry.’ She looks up to see a woman – fifties, sixties maybe? – peering down at her. ‘I didn’t see you there.’
She glances down at the woman’s feet. Fucking red stilettos. Who wears those to an airport?
She ignores the woman, continuing the removal of her shoe, then her sock. It might be broken, she thinks. Of course it’s bloody broken. Don’t you break a bone in your toe every time you step down too hard or something?
It might be seriously broken, though.
Get a fucking grip, Ally.
‘Are you okay?’ the woman is asking.
Ally is too busy inspecting the injured toe to reply. It already looks bruised – though there is no blood, so she was clearly imagining that.
‘I wasn’t looking where I was going,’ the woman says unnecessarily, still hovering over her.
She makes a face at the sight of the bruise.
Then she clicks her fingers. ‘Here,’ she says, fumbling in her handbag, ‘I went to Boots just before we came through. I have a plaster.’ She pulls out a box, keeps fumbling.
‘And does it hurt? I have paracetamol. A bandage, maybe?’
Ally raises her eyebrows. ‘Handy, aren’t you?’
‘Oh sure,’ the woman says mildly. ‘Just call me Dr D.’
Ally frowns. ‘Like a supervillain?’
The woman stops rooting in her bag and stares at her. It’s such an odd look that Ally immediately wonders if she’s somehow offended her. Though to be fair, she’s the one who drove a stiletto through Ally’s foot, not the other way around.
‘What?’ Ally asks.
‘Nothing. Sorry.’ The woman hands over the pack of plasters.
Because it feels impolite not to, Ally takes it, pulls out a toe-sized one. ‘Thanks.’ She offers the pack back, but the woman shakes her head.
‘Keep it. You never know when someone else might be wielding a lethal shoe around you.’
Ally snorts and slips the plasters into her own bag – again, because it seems easier not to argue.
‘Are you accosting strangers now, love?’ A man with salt-and-pepper hair and a kind smile approaches them.
‘Well, my shoe is.’ The woman looks back to Ally. ‘Are you sure you’re—’
‘I’m fine,’ Ally says firmly, slipping her shoe back on and putting weight on her foot. She’s proud of herself, actually. This is something that not so long ago might have caused a panic attack. Turns out therapy actually is helpful.
‘This is Aaron,’ the woman is saying. ‘My husband.’
‘Hi, Aaron. I’m Ally. Your wife’s shoe took issue with my toe.’
‘Or maybe, to be fair, your toe took issue with my shoe. After all, a shoe is inanimate.’
Ally cocks her head. ‘Whereas a toe can think for itself?’
The woman snorts. ‘I’m Darcy.’
Ally smiles. ‘Nice to meet you, Darcy. I think.’
They gather their stuff – and of course they are all heading the same way, into duty-free, meaning it’s that awkward kind of situation where unless one of you thinks of an excuse quickly enough, you end up walking together.
‘So where are you off to?’ Ally asks out of politeness.
‘Oh, we’re going to see one of my best friends, Mia, and her wife, Lottie.
They live in New York and it’s our turn to go to them.
We always get together at this time of year.
’ Aaron squeezes Darcy’s hand, and the two of them exchange a look.
It’s not much, but Ally recognises that look. So, they lost someone too.
‘What about you?’ Darcy asks.
‘I’m actually starting a new job in Massachusetts.’ A combination of nerves and excitement pulses through her gut as she says it.
‘Are you? Well congratulations. You know, they say that when a shoe impales your foot before you start a new job, you’re bound to be promoted within the year.’
Ally snorts again. ‘Do they actually say that, though?’
Darcy shrugs. ‘Probably. Makes more sense than the bird-shit thing, doesn’t it?’
Aaron gives a cough that sounds like ‘debatable’, and Ally laughs. She likes them, she decides.
‘So what’s the job?’ Darcy asks.
‘I’m working as a kind of … counsellor at this kids’ camp.’ Counsellor for want of a better word, because she’s not qualified. Yet.
‘Like a holiday camp?’ Darcy asks.
‘Sort of. It’s for kids who have experienced grief of some kind.
The camp does all these activities, and there are sessions aimed at dealing with bereavement.
We give the parents advice if they want it, but it’s also a chance for the parents to have a break and …
What?’ Because Darcy is looking at her a little strangely.
‘Nothing,’ Darcy says again, smoothing out her expression. ‘Sorry. It’s just … you’re giving me déjà vu. So. Massachusetts.’ They pass one of the restaurants on the upper floor of the airport, head towards the escalators.
‘They do them all over the place,’ Ally says. ‘I applied to loads and this one said yes.’ And it feels good, to be moving somewhere completely different. She wants to be away from everything that has defined her for all these years, and she is finally being brave enough to do exactly that.
‘Any particular reason you applied for the job?’ It’s asked with just a touch too much innocence – something Darcy’s husband seems to clock too, from the look he gives her.
She could just say no. But her sister is on her mind today – and this friendly couple have lost someone too.
‘My sister died when I was little,’ she says as they get on the escalator – and by now she’s perfected the art of not quite looking at people as she says this, adopting the right tone so as not to make them too uncomfortable.
‘It was an accident, but I …’ She shakes her head, smiles brightly.
‘Anyway. You don’t need my life story.’ But it’s why she wants this job – why she’s so nervous.
Because she knows what it’s like to be a child unable to process grief, unable to turn to the adults around you because they can’t deal with theirs ether. Blaming yourself for what happened.
Abruptly, at the bottom of the escalator, Darcy turns to her and takes both her hands. It happens so suddenly that Ally doesn’t have time to move out of the way to avoid it, and behind them, someone gives a loud, disapproving tut as they have to navigate around them.
‘Can I ask you some questions?’ Darcy says, gaze scarily intense.
‘Er … I guess?’ Ally tries to gently extract her hands, but Darcy holds firm. She glances around for the nearest security guard – the woman doesn’t exactly seem dangerous, but you never know.
‘They’re going to seem a bit random,’ Darcy caveats.
‘Okay …’
‘Are you afraid of water?’
Ally starts, and her hands still. ‘I actually used to be.’ She frowns. ‘Well, I still am, I suppose. I’ve been working on it.’ And the dreams that have never made sense, where she wakes with her lungs burning, choking on water that was never there, have lessened.
Darcy nods like that proves a point. ‘Do you believe in past lives?’
‘Ah …’ Okay, we’re back to crazy. ‘I guess I’ve never really thought about it.’
Darcy purses her lips. Ally can see Aaron looking at his wife curiously, but he doesn’t intervene. ‘Okay,’ Darcy says. ‘One more thing.’ She takes a breath. ‘Is there anyone on the scene at the moment – romantically, I mean?’
‘Umm … no?’ She doesn’t mean it as a question, she just thinks it’s a bit of an invasion of privacy.
She was in a relationship, but she broke it off recently, figuring out, with the help of her therapist, that she needed to sort her own shit out before she could commit to someone else.
And then the job came along. The last person to ask her out was approximately two hours ago – and she walked away from him.
‘Okay. Good.’ Darcy lets go of her hands, only to cup her face. Seriously – has this woman been drinking or something? A nervous flier? ‘You make sure you choose yourself, okay? Fix whatever needs to be fixed, come to terms with whatever you need to come to terms with. Do all that first, okay?’
Ally frowns at her – at this very strange advice – and Darcy drops her hands.
‘Darce, I think you’re scaring her,’ Aaron says, laying a hand on his wife’s arm. ‘Come to think of it, you’re scaring me too.’
Darcy waves him away. ‘She’ll get it, if I’m right. If I’m wrong, no one’s got anything to lose, have they?’
‘Ah …’ Ally still isn’t following. Another person glares at them as they wheel past a small suitcase – bottom of an escalator not the ideal place to stand, apparently.
‘Just,’ Darcy insists, ‘don’t choose love until you’re definitely ready to.’
That is pretty much the opposite of the usual rhetoric, but Ally gives a nod-shrug, wanting Darcy to stop the alarmingly intense stuff. ‘Sure. Okay.’
‘Are you trying to tell me something here?’ Aaron pipes up. Then he turns to Ally. ‘Sorry, she’s not usually like this. Or actually, maybe sometimes, but only with people we know.’
‘Ally doesn’t mind, do you, Ally?’ Darcy says breezily. Ally doesn’t really feel she can say no to this, so stays silent. ‘Right,’ Darcy starts to walk again, ‘I think we should get a drink. Ally, you like gin and tonic, don’t you?’
‘I do,’ Ally agrees – then realises, too late, that this looks like she’s agreeing to said drink.
Darcy gives Aaron a pointed look. Aaron huffs. ‘That doesn’t prove anything. Most of the bloody country likes gin.’
‘You don’t,’ Darcy says. She steers them towards a bar in a way that leaves little room for argument.
Ally tries to think of a reason not to join them.
But her flight isn’t for an hour, and she knows that if left to her own devices, the nerves will mount.
Besides, she weirdly quite likes this woman.
Like she reminds her of a childhood friend.
So she doesn’t argue as Darcy finds them a table, orders a round of drinks.
And she has this feeling, just for a moment. A rush of certainty, punching through her gut. Like right now this is exactly where she’s supposed to be.