Chapter 25
TWENTY-FIVE
RORY
She looks so different. It’s been less than a week since I last saw her, but she already looks altered.
Her clothes are smart and businesslike, her hair carefully pinned back.
She’s carrying a leather bag, and wearing heels.
I suppose I caught her at work, and she’s come straight from there.
Her face, though, the look in her eyes – that’s what’s changed the most. Despite the professional image, she looks tired, scared even.
Ten years older, her arms wrapped around herself protectively as she stares at me.
Her hands fly up to her hair, tidying it, as though suddenly self-conscious.
I don’t care what she looks like at all – I’m just relieved that she is here.
I arrived half an hour ago, and have spent the last thirty minutes convinced that history was going to repeat itself.
That I was yet again going to be the loser boy mooning after a girl who wasn’t coming.
She walks hesitantly towards me, and I stop myself from running towards her.
I want to wrap her in my arms, kiss away that uncertainty.
Erase the worry that she is clearly carrying.
I don’t, because I can tell she doesn’t want me to.
And because I’m also still angry, deep down.
About the last time I was left standing here like an idiot, about the intervening years, and about the way she left me in Bonnie Bay.
She might not have been responsible for the first time, but our most recent fiasco?
That was down to her. No matter how complicated things might have seemed, she shouldn’t have done it like that.
I deserved more than a note on my pillow and a few terse conversations since.
She shut me out, and that wasn’t fair. If nothing else, I need an explanation.
‘Hi,’ she says quietly, stopping a few feet away, out of arms’ reach. Closer up, I see the dark circles beneath her eyes, the signs of fatigue. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Moira made me come,’ I reply simply. She just nods. Anybody who has ever met Moira would realise that makes perfect sense.
‘How is she?’
‘She’s good. Doing well. She says you message her every now and then. She appreciates it, but said to tell you it’s time to get yourself home. To Bonnie Bay.’
Jane smiles sadly, but makes no comment.
I wonder how Moira would deal with this version of Jane – polite, distant, unreachable.
I’d sat with my friend in the bookshop the night before, discussing her health and her plans, drinking a very small tot of whisky and toasting the future.
Then she’d told me to stop feeling sorry for myself and go get her back.
When I’d dared to protest, to explain that I’d tried – that I’d called, left voicemails, written messages – she’d just pulled a face and dismissed me.
‘That’s not trying, laddie! If Romeo was fighting for Juliet, would he have settled for a text message, d’ye think?’
‘Yeah. He was a teenager.’
‘Well you’re not. Get yourself off and talk to her, I’ve fair had enough of your moping around, Rory Callaghan.’
And just like that I had my instructions – and I knew that they were right. I needed to see her again, even if it was to say goodbye. Now, looking at her, desperate to touch her, I’m not so sure it was right after all.
‘Do you want to go to the park?’ she finally asks, then looks embarrassed. ‘No, of course not. Stupid idea. We’re not kids any more.’
‘I’d love to,’ I say quickly, before she can talk herself out of it.
It’s not far away, and was one of our favourite places when we were younger.
We’d spend hours there, lying on the grass holding hands, gazing into each other’s eyes.
Down by the river bank, sketching, reading, planning our glorious future.
The one we were cheated of, but maybe we can still salvage?
Maybe not, but I do at least need to try.
She asks me questions about the village as we walk, inquiring about the grant funding, the latest events at the bookshop, how baby Alice is coming along.
In return, I ask about Beth, and her new job.
It’s horribly civilised, like two people who bumped into each other in the supermarket, catching up over trolleys full of toilet roll and hummus.
It’s only when we sit, on a bench near the river, that the surface-level talk dries up. It’s a pleasant evening, the sun still warm on our skin, the place full of families and young people. I smile as a couple of teenagers pass us by, hand in hand, only eyes for each other.
‘I’m sorry,’ she suddenly says, watching them disappear off along the riverside path. ‘For leaving the way I did. That was unfair of me. I should have stayed and talked to you.’
‘Yes, you should. You didn’t give me the chance to explain. You didn’t give us a chance. It hurt, Jane, it really hurt. It felt like it was all happening again, you know? Just when I’d started to trust life a little, you took off. You ran.’
I’m trying to keep the anger out of my voice, but I can tell I’m not entirely successful.
She glances at me, and nods. ‘I know. There’s not much I can say except I’m sorry.
I wish I’d handled it differently. But I meant what I told you on the phone after, Rory.
I’m not ready. I do love you, none of that was a lie, but it’s not that simple. ’
‘Why isn’t it?’ I ask, hating the distance she’s put between us, both physical and emotional. ‘Is it because of Beth, your work? Because I’ve told you – I’ll come here. Anything you need, you’ve got it.’
Do I sound desperate? Yes, I think I do. But I don’t care – I am desperate. Seeing her again has made me realise that I don’t want to live without her in my world, and if that has to be on her terms, then so be it.
She smiles, but her eyes are shining with tears. ‘It’s not those things, Rory. They’re logistics. They’re problems that can be solved.’
‘So what is it? Tell me, Jane. Please.’
‘Are you sure you want to know?’ There’s a pleading tone to her voice, almost as though she hopes I’ll say no. What the hell is going on here?
I nod. ‘I do, yes.’
She sucks in a deep breath. ‘Okay. I suppose the problem that is harder to solve is… well, it’s me I suppose. You remember the summer it all happened – the summer they broke us apart, and I got taken to France?’
I nod again. How could I ever forget?
‘Well, it turned out I was pregnant, Rory. I didn’t know at the time, and when I realised, I… well, I didn’t tell them. My parents. I knew they’d make me get rid of it, and even though you’d dumped me, I couldn’t bear the thought.’
She’s making a huge effort to keep her voice even, to not let those tears fall.
Her fingers are clenched up into fists, and she’s not looking at me.
I’m glad, because I’m not doing so well on the tears front.
She was pregnant, and alone, and believed as I did that she’d been abandoned. That I’d left her.
‘What happened?’ I ask, watching her try to control her emotions. ‘To you – to the baby?’
‘I happened. I wasn’t looking after myself.
I was barely eating. I wasn’t washing, or leaving my room, or functioning in any real way at all…
I was broken. There were all kinds of things I should have been doing.
Getting medical care, taking vitamins, having check-ups.
But I was a child myself, and I knew none of that – I just knew that part of you was still with me.
That part of you would always be mine. Until it wasn’t. ’
I close the gap between us, take her hands in mine. She lets me, and her head lolls against my shoulder. The tears are coming now, and I wonder how long it’s been since she talked about any of this – if she ever really has.
‘It was horrendous, Rory, all of it. I went to hospital, on my own, because I was in pain and bleeding. I didn’t let them tell anyone, and they had to respect that, because I was technically an adult.
I was maybe four months along, and I still don’t really know why I lost the baby.
Like I said, I wasn’t looking after myself.
They told me, in the hospital, that it wasn’t my fault…
that sometimes these things just happen, especially in a very young mum, but I never quite believed them.
Even when I was older and researched it myself and saw that they were right, I think I still blamed myself. ’
‘You were eighteen, and your heart was broken. None of it was your fault.’
Jesus, I am so angry now – at my own mother, at the three dead adults who assumed they were doing the right thing, interfering with our lives. What would have happened if they hadn’t? If we’d run away together to Bonnie Bay?
I have no clue, but really, it couldn’t possibly have turned out as badly as it did.
Especially for her – for this incredible woman, who has carried this pain inside her for so very long.
No wonder she wasn’t ready to just jump straight in.
No wonder she overreacted when she saw Catrina and assumed the worst – it was the most sensitive of subjects.
The one thing likely to cause her the most suffering.
I’ve been angry with her about a note on a pillow, when she’s had to deal with all of this?
‘I’m so sorry, Rory,’ she mumbles, choked with emotion. I draw back, hold her face between my hands. Kiss away her tears.
‘There’s nothing for you to be sorry for, Jane. Nothing.’
‘But I am sorry! It was your baby too. It was your loss, even though you knew nothing about it…’