Chapter 31 #2
Hearing his name, the dog perked up, then seemed to realise he wasn’t about to get a treat. He settled back down, watching us with expressive chocolate-button eyes. I took a step away from Cooper, trying to still the trembling in my chest.
‘It’s fine, honestly – I mean it’s not like you drew me topless on a Harley,’ I joked, lamely. ‘I was just a bit surprised – it seemed like you were more of a landscapes guy.’
‘I am these days, yeah. Haven’t done a portrait since…’ He broke off and carefully added my picture to the pile, then made a frustrated noise before saying, overly brightly, ‘How about that tea then?’
‘Shouldn’t you be getting ready to leave?’ I asked, reluctantly. ‘Now that someone’s about to find you?’
‘Couldn’t even if I wanted to – boat broke down again as soon as I got back here. Like fucking fate,’ he muttered, then his shoulders slumped. ‘I suppose I should have known this wasn’t going to last forever.’
I didn’t push for more information. Cooper made the tea and we settled down. He took the slightly rickety stool and I sat on the bench beside Charlie, scratching at his ears. Cooper cupped his hands around his mug and cleared his throat.
‘I didn’t mean to snap at you that evening.
I was just… I panicked, quite frankly. I’ve felt awful about it ever since and I was too embarrassed to see you again.
Didn’t think you’d want to see me, to be honest. That car was exactly like Adelaide’s and I’m still not really sure if it was her or not.
But it freaked me out. I’m not ready to see her, or anyone else from my family.
But, Jesus… Addy’s going to kill me, she doesn’t deserve this. ’
Oh, my God, she was his wife. Or girlfriend. Something. Either way he wasn’t single.
‘I’ve been a shit brother,’ he sighed.
It should not have been as big a relief as it was.
But thank God. She was his sister. I couldn’t help but let out a sigh as the tension in my chest eased.
Even if, as it did so, I had to face just how much I’d wanted him to be single and not a cheating tosser…
because I really, really liked him. More than that, I wanted him.
‘Stepsister, technically. Her mum’s been in my life since I was two, I’ve never known anyone else. But Addy’s always been a good sister, just so pushy, which is part of the reason I…’ He cut himself off and huffed. ‘Jesus Christ, why is this so hard to talk about?’
I felt bad all over again and wanted to hug him. ‘You don’t have to—’
‘I want to,’ he said, cutting me off gently.
‘I want… you were honest with me that day about your ex and that jumper and I wanted to be as open with you. It probably would have helped but it’s just difficult to talk about.
I was never really encouraged to talk about this kind of thing.
It’s not something men do, is it? All this emotional… stuff.’
I could hear someone else’s voice in those words. Cooper wasn’t saying something he believed, it was something he’d been told. He was trying to get past it and struggling.
‘That’s okay, take your time,’ I said. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’ I really wasn’t. Nothing in the world could have moved me from that spot across from him.
The corner of his mouth lifted into a shy smile. ‘Okay… right, well, have you ever felt like… your family has your whole life planned out for you and, any time you make a decision for yourself, you’re just…’
‘Messing up their schedule?’ I said, and he nodded, face relaxing. ‘Yeah, I know the feeling. Intimately.’
‘It’s shit, isn’t it?’ Cooper huffed. ‘I’m over thirty and I’m still sick at the thought of letting my dad down. Which is what it feels like every time I do something other than what he wants. He’s sort of a strong personality.’
I thought of my parents. ‘I’m also familiar with that. Parents are… complicated.’
‘Aren’t they just?’ He laughed under his breath, then sobered.
‘The thing is… before the past few months I was someone else. Someone… who had a life I didn’t like very much.
If I had it my way, I’d have gone to art school, but the painting was always something I had to hide because…
well, it wasn’t what I was meant to be doing.
Not something that added any value to my future. ’
There it was again, that other voice. That had to be his father. He’d said at the library that he’d been trying to break out of living in his image. It seemed like it was deeply ingrained in him. The same way Mum’s desire for grandkids was imprinted on my brain.
Cooper sighed. ‘Recently I got back into art, to do a portrait for our parents’ wedding anniversary.
I’ve never painted professionally – I wanted to because, honestly, it’s the only thing I’ve ever been good at – but I never did – I just kept it up as a hobby really.
A sort of release, but Dad was very scathing.
’ He gritted his teeth for a second and then forced himself to relax.
‘He started laying into me at the party, that if I had time to be “messing around” with that stuff still, then I clearly wasn’t working hard enough and no wonder I wasn’t where he was at my age. ’
I frowned at him, trying to piece together the components of what he was saying. His dad sounded like a dick, but that didn’t seem like it would send most people running off in a dodgy old narrowboat. Cooper had obviously not finished, though.
‘I’m… I was a solicitor, like my dad. Like my grandfather.
It was what I was always meant to do, right from when I was little and Dad used to take me to work and show me round.
He had me doing Latin at GCSE, work experience at his office, multiple languages at A level, every advanced tutor and course he could get for me.
I worked my arse off to get my degree and become a fully-fledged solicitor…
and I hated it.’ He took a swallow of tea and hunched over further on the stool, hands rubbing over the soft arms of the jumper.
‘I wasn’t good at it, nothing about that life came easy to me.
It was like I was this animal forced into an unnatural environment. Like a fucking fish in an aviary.’
I laughed, then clapped a hand to my mouth. ‘I’m so sorry,’ I mumbled.
Cooper snorted. ‘It was a stupid analogy – I like making you laugh, though.’
‘So… you hated being a solicitor?’ I prompted, my insides fluttering pleasantly despite the seriousness of the conversation.
‘Oh, yeah, completely. The hours, the stress, the other people. I mean, the money was good but all I was spending it on was cleaners and ready meals. The rest was just piling up in my account because I had no life to spend it on. I couldn’t balance the job with having a life and the only other people I met were so into the work that we had nothing in common.
Um… the last time I actually dated someone was three years ago.
We met at work and she was so into it, you know?
But I felt like I was lying every time we planned for the future.
In the end I had to let her go. We weren’t right for each other, because I was pretending and she wasn’t. ’
I thought of Richard and swallowed a hard ball of guilt. On some level, I’d been pretending too, as I ignored all the ways in which we weren’t compatible.
Cooper took a breath. ‘I think the painting incident was the final straw, but it had been building for a while. I just… couldn’t cope. I wanted out. I needed it. Which in itself was humiliating. I was thirty-one and having a midlife crisis.’
He looked so ashamed that I went to reach out, then thought better of it and brought my hand to wrap around my mug. ‘That’s not your fault. You obviously gave it everything you had.’
He gave me a small smile. ‘It wasn’t enough.
I uh…’ he scoffed at himself, ‘I had a bit of a… mental thing. I don’t really know what to call it – “breakdown” sounds too dramatic for what it was.
I just stopped going to work, didn’t answer their calls.
It felt like, if I got fired, then at least I hadn’t quit, you know?
Like it was a loophole into getting out of that mess without making a decision.
I stayed home and just lay in bed, couldn’t make my mind up what I wanted to do so I just did nothing.
Then a week or so into that, I had to get out of there and I went for a drive, parked up in a random village and walked around for a bit.
I saw the advert for the boat on a bus shelter.
It was like being in a trance. I took the poster down and rang up about it and, a few hours later, I owned a boat.
I didn’t pack anything or even sell my car, I just went.
I didn’t tell anyone where I was going – not work, not my family…
I didn’t even leave a note. And then, by the time I was moored up for the night and sat here with about a million Dianas looking at me and thinking “what the hell have I done?” I couldn’t bring myself to tell anyone that I’d lost it.
Dad doesn’t really “do” mental health… it just seemed like it would be easier to never look back. ’
‘… and now Adelaide’s found out you’re staying here,’ I finished. ‘Oh, Cooper, she must be frantic. She obviously cares a lot about you.’
I immediately felt bad for adding to his misery. But it was too late to take it back now. Cooper nodded, like he was already thinking it anyway.
‘It’s my own stupid fault – I used my card when I was stranded at that pub and had to order that part online.
I hoped he wouldn’t but the landlord might have told her I came from here.
Or she’s found me from people online complaining about the boat.
I just don’t know what to say to her. To any of them,’ he muttered.
‘I felt like such a failure and then you…’ He stopped himself, clearly embarrassed.
‘Me? Me what?’ I said stupidly. ‘I nearly drowned and that reminded you that regrets are a waste of time?’
He laughed. ‘No, but… you did remind me what it’s like to be… passionate about something.’