Chapter 24
CLARK
She won’t come tonight. I know that. I sit up anyway, listening to music in the dark, staring across Hyde Park, waiting for the sun to rise.
What could I have said? What could I have done to convince her?
At six thirty, I pull on my jogging bottoms and a T-shirt and head out for a run. On Sunday mornings, the streets of London are quiet. Partygoers are in bed. Professionals have left the city for the weekend. Tourists aren’t awake. I pound the streets, music drumming in my ears.
The way she looked at me. She’s fighting herself. She’s in turmoil. She wants nothing to do with my family. But I think she might want me.
By ten thirty, I’m showered and dressed with nowhere to go. Nowhere I want to go. So I wait for her. A call. A buzz on the door.
At two o’clock, I make pasta. At two thirty, I eat pasta, watching rugby re-runs. By 4 p.m., I’m thinking she won’t come today.
When the hour hand strikes six on my kitchen clock, I think about doing something constructive. Like considering what in the hell I’m going to do with the rest of my life now that I don’t have a job.
Five minutes later, I give in. The only thing I can think about is her. I can’t see a future without her in it.
Kathryn FaceTimes me around eight, and I speak to Izzie because she refuses to go to sleep until I’ve spoken to her.
A delaying tactic if ever I heard one. When I hang up, I wonder if I could use the two-year-old’s plan on Dayna.
Perhaps I should call her and tell her I can’t sleep until I’ve spoken to her.
I also contemplate my next move with my family.
I want to get everything out there, tell them everything they ought to know.
And I think maybe I want to go to the authorities and blow the whistle on what really happened the night Little Princess exploded, no matter the consequences.
Even if it turns out that Dayna is right and there isn’t enough evidence for a conviction, at least the world would learn the truth.
It’s fair to the Cross family. Her. And justice for the lives lost that night.
At quarter past ten, I stand under the shower, my hands braced on the tiles in front of me, my head down, watching soap swirl away from my feet towards the plug.
At midnight, I’m still lying awake on top of my bed sheets, thinking about Connie and how the thought of leaving her made me sad, but it never made me feel like a slow and painful death would be better than being without her.
Dayna didn’t come.
* * *
For the first time since I can remember, I’m woken on a Monday morning by the light of day, instead of an alarm clock. The fact amplifies the question lingering in the back of my mind. What on earth am I going to do? About my parents, the explosion, my career, Dayna.
I check my phone. Nothing. I look out of the window, as if she’ll be walking towards my apartment block. She’s not.
I drink a protein shake, pack a bag and head to the gym.
Sam is training with a kid, maybe nineteen or twenty, probably at uni.
Sam holds up pads as the kid lands three punches, right-left-right.
I strip down to shorts, lace up my boots and strap up my hands, ready to go on the bags, then I watch the kid.
Jealous. University was easy. If I could go back and tell my teenage self just how easy it was, I would.
I’d also tell myself to go travelling, get away, break free of Harold Layton, never step foot in Layton Oil.
Then it hits me. If I told my teenage self that, I’d have never come across Dayna. And I’d take the lows, all of them, to have been with her for any length of time.
‘You on leave?’ Sam asks, patting the kid on the back and ducking between the ropes to slip out of the ring.
‘We could call it permanent leave, yeah. I quit.’
Sam looks over me, rubbing glistening sweat from his forehead. ‘Wanna go a round?’
No questions. No judgement.
He gestures towards the ring. ‘Let me get a drink and we’ll go.’
I bounce from foot to foot and swing my head from side to side, limbering up.
Sam climbs into the ring and lets rip. He comes at me full throttle, landing blows, accepting mine.
He’s a machine, and I have a lot of steam to let off.
So we go until I’m spent. My T-shirt is saturated; sweat runs down my arms and legs and into my eyes.
* * *
Day six.
Maybe I didn’t understand her at all.
I’m beginning to fester. I haven’t put my mind to my next career move. I’ve given up on shaving, and the only place I go is the gym. And once to the local store to stock up on carbs.
The chair in the lounge has a dint, as if it’s fed up of seeing my arse for ten hours a day. My phone rings just before six, and Jay’s name flashes up on the screen.
‘Clark, get your sorry arse ready and come out. Don’t give me bullshit. It’s a couple of pints after work. I’m in Clock Tower. Get here, loser.’
He doesn’t give me a chance to respond before hanging up. I walk to the bathroom and stare at the growth around my chin. I probably should get out. I shave around my lip but leave the rest, then shower and pull on jeans and a jumper and head out to meet Jay.
I walk through Clock Tower, acknowledging people I know as I pass them. The place is packed, more so than on a usual Friday, because of all the Christmas parties. I find Jay, Teddy and a couple of Jay’s work mates standing at one end of the bar.
‘You look rough, man,’ Jay says.
‘Yeah, cheers.’
My first drink of the week goes down easily, and I trade the empty glass for a second pint. I listen to the conversation, but mostly just look around the bar, as if I might see her in a place I don’t think she’s ever been.
‘Clark, I thought that was you.’ Amanda – a tall, leggy blonde who I slept with once a few years back after a drunken night out.
I lean in to kiss her cheek as the other men gawp at her chest in her tight white shirt that should probably be buttoned up an extra one. ‘Nice to see you, Amanda. How are you?’
She speaks to me but I hardly listen. It’s mindless crap about her day trading commodities. Maybe that’s something I could do.
Jay buys her a drink in our next round. I could kick him. I just want rid of her, but Jay can’t take his eyes off her pert arse in her pencil skirt.
‘I’d love to get out of these work clothes,’ she says into my ear. ‘It’s been a long day. How do you fancy coming back to my place where we can chill out a little?’
She leans into my side, pressing her tits against my arm. In the past, I might have been interested, but even as she rubs herself against me and grips my thigh, all I can think is that Dayna wouldn’t behave like that.
‘Sorry, Amanda, I’ve got to be up early tomorrow.’ I shout over to Jay, ‘Hey Jay! Get Amanda another drink, bud?’
He comes over, taking the hint. ‘What would you like, Amanda? You look like a Cosmopolitan woman to me.’
She giggles and slaps him on the arm. I pat Teddy on the back and slope out of the bar.
* * *
Day nine.
I’m standing in the kitchen finishing a bowl of porridge when I get a call from a contact I met at an industry event in North Dakota last year. He’s heard on the grapevine that I’ve stepped down from Layton Oil and offers to meet with me to discuss an opportunity.
Even as I accept a coffee date, I know I don’t want whatever he has to offer. I have no idea where to go from here. I know my savings won’t last forever. But I don’t want to be in oil any more. I want to do something I enjoy, with people I respect. Even if I have no idea what that looks like.
I’m… lost.
And she’s not coming.
I head to the gym and train with Sam. After that, I help him out, taking kids for one-on-one training sessions.
The gym is packed with testosterone-fuelled teens.
Term has finished at schools and universities, and Sam’s gym has a solid name, so a load of rich kids who want to blow off steam and sharpen their pecs for picking up women flood the place.
It kind of makes me smile. I used to be one of those rich kids. Helping out feels sort of good.
It’s already dark outside when Jay comes into the gym.
I’ve worked out enough for the day, but Sam still has energy so spars with Jay.
I watch, talking to Jay when he takes two minutes out.
We avoid talking about Connie, for now. It’s still early days, and I’d like to think we’ll all get to a point where we could be comfortable to hang out together again, but any time soon would be pushing it.
We leave the gym together and pick up a pack of twelve Buds on the way back to my place.
Snow must have started falling while we were in the gym because it already lightly covers the ground.
Huge, soft flakes continue to fall, and as pretty as they are, we’re in gym gear, not winter gear, so we jump the gate and cut through Hyde Park because it’s quicker than walking around.
We’re close to my front door when I stop dead in my tracks. Jay follows my gaze to Dayna.
She’s wrapped in a big blue coat with a fur hood and wears a cream wool hat to match her gloves. The hair that falls across her shoulders is sprinkled with snow. Her cheeks and nose are pink from the cold’s bite.
‘It’s snowing,’ I say, not moving from the spot.
She laughs and sniffs, rubbing her nose. ‘I know.’
‘How long have you been out here?’
‘A while.’
Jay takes the box of Bud from under my arm. ‘Catch you later, man.’
I don’t respond as he walks away. I focus on putting one foot in front of the other and getting to Dayna. I can’t resist reaching out and turning her hair in my fingers, just to make sure I’m not imagining her standing in front of me.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘I was wondering whether you have any plans for Christmas?’
Is this a test? Or does she know I really have disowned my parents? ‘I don’t have any plans for Christmas.’
‘Okay. Me neither. I thought maybe we could keep each other company.’
When my lungs remember how to breathe, I take a huge inhale. ‘What changed your mind?’
Her lips curl into a lopsided smile, and she looks up at me through her lashes. She’s stunning. ‘A very expensive therapist. I paid her hundreds of pounds to tell me I’m fucked up, and in her professional opinion, you’re pretty screwed up, too.’
I chuckle and move my fingertips from her hair to her cheek. Even in the cold, her skin feels like silk.
She closes her eyes and presses back against my hand. ‘She said we were both wounded, and we might not be perfect individually but…’ She opens her eyes. ‘Maybe we could bleed together.’
I take hold of her face in both my hands and drop my forehead to hers, breathing her in. Vanilla. Home. The only real home I’ve known.
‘I don’t know how to fix things, Clark. I’m lost. All I know is that we’ve both been lied to. I feel as if my whole world has crashed down around me. And you’re the only thing that’s true. You’re the only truth and the only thing that seems real.’
‘I don’t know what to do either, Dayna.’
‘I want to smile again. I want to stop doing things because I feel obliged to do them. I want to do something that I want to do, and mostly, I want to be happy. The last time I remember feeling completely, truly happy was when we were together.’
My heart beats faster than it has in weeks, my pulse higher than I’d get it sparring with Sam. There’s every chance I’ll mess this up. I know it, and I’m terrified. But holding her now, I feel like I can finally release the breath I’ve been holding for four years.
‘Say you love me,’ I whisper against her lips. ‘Tell me you love me and I’ll keep fighting for us, Dayna. I’ll fight for the rest of my life.’
‘I do.’
‘Say it.’
‘I love you, Clark. I never stopped.’
‘I love you, too. So much.’ I close my eyes and press my lips to hers, pulling her waist into mine, kissing the last woman I’ll ever kiss.