Chapter 31
Eliza
‘Sorry about that,’ I say to Angus as I deliver his third cup of coffee of the evening.
My boss has been getting increasingly impatient with the amount of time I’ve been spending at this side of the room.
‘Is your boyfriend going to sit there all night?’ was his last grumble. We’re not even busy. It’s not like they need the table.
I asked Angus to come here so I could tell him about my meeting with Mum earlier. I had hoped my boss might let me leave early tonight – we had no reservations or big groups – but he’s being a bit of an arse about it.
‘Don’t wait any longer for me,’ I tell Angus downheartedly. ‘I’ll be here until ten thirty, eleven, I reckon.’
He shakes his head and offers me a small smile. ‘I’m happy.’
‘Eliza!’ That’s my boss again. I barely conceal my irritation as I turn away and head back over to him.
‘Take Table 9’s coffee order and then you can go.’
‘Really?’ I ask with delight.
‘Quick before I change my mind.’
After the awkwardness of Monday night, Angus and I don’t go back to my apartment and neither, of course, do we go back to his.
‘I can’t believe I haven’t even seen where you live, yet,’ I complain as we slide into a booth seat in a nearby pub.
He doesn’t reply and the message is clear. Until Rose and I sort out our differences, I’m not going to.
It’s an added incentive, I have to admit, but I’m still in no rush to come clean to my sister about Angus and face her wrath.
He wraps his arm around me and pulls me close so the whole right-hand side of my body is flush to his left. I drape my arm across his stomach and rest my face against his chest. It feels intimate, being here like this with him, never mind that we’re in public. I tilt my face up and press a kiss to his neck. He holds me tighter in turn.
I wonder if he will ever feel like he’s mine. Completely mine. How long will it take? Years, certainly. He was Phoebe’s for almost a decade. How long before I can wipe clean the memory of the two of them together?
As soon as the thought occurs to me, I feel poisonous. And then I realise that I’m kidding myself, anyway. I’ll never be able to forget that he should be with her.
Will it ever stop hurting, though?
‘What are you thinking?’ Angus asks quietly, with that uncanny knack of his.
‘Do you still cry about her?’ I don’t know why, but this is the question that spills from my lips and I feel his flat stomach contract under my palm as a result.
‘Sometimes,’ he admits.
‘Do you feel guilty being with me?’
‘A little.’ Again with honesty.
I break our contact, edging away from him.
‘Don’t go,’ he says sadly.
The side of my body feels cold, where before it was warm.
‘She would hate this,’ I say, my voice wavering.
He shakes his head. ‘I disagree. I think she’d want us to be happy.’
‘Come on! She would hate us being together,’ I say fervently.
‘Liza, please don’t,’ he begs, reaching for my hand.
I let him take it, but it’s limp.
My head is spinning with questions. I know the answers will drive me crazy and will only drum up more questions, but I need to ask them nonetheless.
‘How many children did you want to have?’
Angus stares at me with dismay and, after a moment, his beautiful eyes fill with tears.
‘She always wanted two when we were younger,’ I tell him, not waiting any longer for his reply. ‘A boy first and then a girl, three years later. Is that what she told you?’
He averts his gaze and nods.
I continue. ‘She didn’t want three. She wanted the boy to get her full attention and then she’d have a baby girl around the time her son went to nursery, so the new baby would have her at least some of the time. She had it all mapped out.’
To my surprise, he smiles slightly. ‘She did,’ he agrees, brushing away a tear. ‘But you can’t plan that sort of stuff.’
‘No.’ I nod, returning his shaky smile. ‘You could have ended up with triplets, for all she knew.’
‘Or two sets of twins.’
I laugh. ‘When were you going to start trying for a baby?’
His smile drops from his face.
‘Straight away,’ I answer for him, sensing the truth.
He nods once and I feel a wave of nausea.
‘Was that why she agreed to move back here? She was going to leave her job soon anyway?’ I knew she wanted to write a book, so getting pregnant would have fallen in nicely with those plans.
He nods again. I let go of his hand.
‘Why are you doing this to us?’ he asks gravely.
‘I can’t help it,’ I whisper. ‘I need to know.’
‘It’s going to consume you.’
‘But I need to know,’ I reiterate. ‘I need to know what your plans were, where you’d be. If we hadn’t lost her, she could be expecting your son right now.’
‘Stop it,’ he begs.
I fall silent, but it’s a momentary respite, because ‘They’ by Jem starts to play over the pub’s sound system.
‘Phoebe loved this song. She played this album relentlessly the year she met you.’ My tone takes on a flippant edge.
‘I remember,’ he says, staring ahead in a daze.
‘She used to be into dreamy, girlie stuff. Who did she like towards the end?’
‘Mumford and Sons,’ he replies dully. ‘She played their second album on repeat.’
‘I didn’t even know she liked their first album,’ I say. Phoebe and I had different taste in music. ‘I really didn’t know her that well, did I?’
‘She still liked dreamy, girlie stuff, too,’ he says.
But I’m not even listening. ‘We’d grown apart over the years.’
He looks absolutely miserable as he hunches over the table and wraps his hands around his pint. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says.
‘Yes, it was because of you,’ I reply. ‘And I was going to leave Manchester because of you, too.’
He doesn’t even ask me to stop. He knows that I won’t.
‘If I could choose between having Phoebe here or being with you, I would choose Phoebe.’
‘I know that!’ Now he sounds angry as he stares at me, his eyes flashing. ‘But for fuck’s sake,’ he hisses, ‘she’s not here. So why are you ruining this for us? You think that I wouldn’t have found someone else eventually?’
I gawp at him, but he’s not done.
‘My life isn’t over because Phoebe’s gone. And neither is yours. I don’t for a minute think that you wouldn’t have gone off with some other guy sooner or later. And yeah, maybe you wouldn’t have had this guilt with him, but if you think you could be happier with someone else, then what the hell are you doing here with me?’
It’s a moment before I can speak. ‘But isn’t your guilt worse because you’re with me rather than someone who never knew Phoebe?’
‘No,’ he snaps. ‘Not really.’ He shoves his hair back, still angry and frustrated. ‘Most people want to know about their partner’s past. And any girl I went out with might have been upset to hear I’d be married right now if my fiancée hadn’t been killed doing Christ knows what up a mountain with some other guy!’
A cold flush comes over me. ‘What are you talking about?’ I ask.
‘Phoebe!’ he exclaims, not even bothering to lower his voice any more. ‘What was she doing going rock climbing with someone who she used to be in love with?’
‘Who?’ I don’t understand.
‘Remy!’
‘Phoebe was up the mountain with Remy? The same Remy from when she was eighteen?’
‘Yes.’ He looks anguished.
‘I had no idea she was still in touch with him.’
‘She wasn’t.’ He looks downcast. ‘She bumped into him the night before she died and decided to go up the mountain on a whim. She hadn’t climbed in years! Why would she do that?’ He shakes his head, bewildered. ‘She obviously still had feelings for him.’
‘God,’ I murmur.
‘Was she having doubts?’ I can see how confused he is. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be talking to you about this.’ He shakes his head again, but it doesn’t hurt as much as it should, witnessing his anguish over my sister. It’s just as well, because he hasn’t finished. ‘I wanted to tell Rose about us tonight. I was going to convince you it was the right thing to do. But now I don’t know. If you and I can’t...’
My blood runs cold and his eyes well up again as he continues.
‘Well, what would be the point of upsetting everyone for nothing?’