I filled the kettle and switched it on. I would have gone ahead and made the tea but I didn’t want to go snooping through the cupboards for tea bags and cups. So instead I opened the fold-down box they had given me at Primrose and rearranged the sandwiches and pastries that were in it. They looked delicious, but my appetite had left me. A knot of tension sat in the pit of my stomach. I was in Rose’s house.
Any second now her husband would come back downstairs, and we would sit, most likely at this kitchen island, and drink tea and talk. I would comfort him. I may touch his arm gently again. My skin tingled at the thought and immediately I felt guilty. I shouldn’t allow myself to feel attracted to this gorgeous, vulnerable man, but there was a part of me that knew I was already lost and it was his very vulnerability that pulled me to him. I related to it.
I looked around. For a man on his own – a man struggling with the weight of grief – he kept the place remarkably tidy. The worktops were clear except for the kettle, a coffee machine, and toaster. The granite was smear-free. The floor clean. The walls, painted a very pale grey, had no trace of mucky toddler handprints. There was no overflowing laundry basket. No unwashed dishes. No finger paintings pinned to the large, American-style fridge. A family portrait in black and white hung on the far wall above a large, squishy sofa with loose white covers – a grey chenille throw hung over the back of it. The picture was one I had seen on Rose’s Facebook page – Rose and Cian, in white T-shirts, jeans, barefoot, sitting close together – and baby Jack, perhaps only six months old, propped between them. A picture of happiness, wide smiles all round. Rose Grahame staring back down at me again.
Apart from the picture on the wall, the only hint to the unknowing eye that a child lived here was a small wicker basket, filled with brightly coloured wooden toys in the corner of the room. I wondered whether Cian sat on the floor with his son and played with them. Or had Rose been the more hands-on parent? Perhaps it had been a joint endeavour between them?
I heard footsteps on the stairs and I looked around as Cian walked into the room. He looked a little brighter. His sleeves were rolled up further and the edges of his hair slightly wet. I imagined he had splashed his face with water, freshened up. Settled himself.
‘I didn’t know where anything was to make the tea so I just boiled the kettle,’ I said as he moved across the kitchen, opened a cupboard and took out two mugs.
‘Thanks,’ he said, setting about making the tea. With his back to me he said: ‘I feel a little foolish now. Crying like that. In public. What must you think of me?’
What did I think of him? I took a breath. ‘I think you’re a man who has suffered a great loss in the worst circumstances possible and it would be wrong if you didn’t have an occasional breakdown. I think anyone would understand.’
‘Except for those who think I had something to do with it …’ He turned towards me, his green eyes looking straight at me, almost as if he could see everything about me. ‘I’ve seen the comments on Facebook. I’ve seen people laughing and making snide comments. I’ve had messages you know – people saying I killed her. Can you imagine that? Can you imagine how that feels?’
‘I’m sure anyone who knows you, knows you had nothing to do with it. It’s clear you loved Rose very much.’
‘I still love her,’ he said softly, lifting the two mugs and carrying them to the kitchen island. ‘I always will.’
‘Of course,’ I said, once again a flash of jealousy pinging at me. I chided myself. Of course he would always love her. Of course he still did. What did I think? That less than two months after her death he would fall in love with me? I almost laughed at the ridiculousness of it all – almost.
He rubbed his beard, sighed and sipped from his teacup. ‘And Owen? The other girls in Scott’s? Have they been chatting about me behind my back? I couldn’t help but feel that Owen was off with me when I called in with Jack.’
‘Everyone seems very fond of you. I think with Owen, he just felt a bit thrown seeing you. The other girls say Rose’s death hit him hard. That he relied on her to keep that place running smoothly. I didn’t know him before … you know … but he, well all of them, I suppose, they really miss her. You coming in probably just added as a further reminder that she was gone.’
‘She was very dedicated to her job. To him. To all the staff there. They were all good friends too. Always wanting to go out together – laughing and giggling,’ he said. ‘I suppose sometimes I forget I don’t have a monopoly on grief for her.’
‘I think you have more right than most,’ I said softly, taking a small sip from my cup. It was scalding hot, burned the back of my throat, and I felt tears prick at my eyes as I waited for the sensation to pass.
‘Are you okay?’ Cian asked, looking straight at me in that all-seeing way again.
‘Can I get a drink of water?’ I croaked.
‘Oh God, did I make it too hot for you?’ he asked, jumping up and pulling a glass from the cupboard. ‘Rose always used to tell me off. Said not everyone liked to have the mouth burned off them the way I did.’
He handed me the glass and I sipped from it, fighting the urge to gulp it down. The pain started to ease. ‘It’s okay,’ I offered but he looked bereft.
‘See, I can’t do anything right.’
I reached out and touched his forearm, the bare skin warm beneath my touch. I fought the urge to close my eyes and breathe in the moment as a fizz of something – lust maybe – shot right to my core. ‘You can,’ I said softly. ‘You are doing things right every day – keeping going, caring for Jack. I see how you are with him, how he looks at you. That’s the most important thing you can do, and you do it well.’
I didn’t move my hand; I liked how solid and real he felt. Then he placed his hand on top of mine, covering it completely. Making me want to feel him cover me entirely. To consume me.
‘Thank you, Emily. You don’t know how much that means to me. You really don’t,’ he said, jolting me back into the moment. Back to the reality that having those kinds of feelings for him was not appropriate. Back to wondering if he felt a little shiver of it too.
*
I felt light and, dare I say it, happy when I went home that evening. I was proud, if that’s the right word, that Cian had confided in me. That he had sat with me, in his kitchen, and we had drunk several cups of tea and talked while Jack slept upstairs. He had spoken about Rose, of course, and his grief. He spoke of his love for his son. And he spoke of his life – his writing. How he feared he would never be able to put pen to paper again.
‘Isn’t it strange? To write about all the complexities of life, the intricacies of the human condition having led a relatively sheltered life? Then something like this happens, something that brings every emotion you ever experienced to the front of your consciousness – raw, real, more visceral than anything I could ever even think to write – and I feel paralysed by it? Christ, my last book was about a man terrified of losing all he held dear and I realise now it was bullshit. It was contrived nonsense. I don’t have the words to express this hell. I don’t have the ability to accurately depict what this feels like. It’s beyond me. So if I can’t write about it – about the reality of what this means, how this feels – I don’t think I want to write again.’
He had looked stricken at the thought. I’d wanted to tell him I had started reading From Darkness Comes Light and felt connected to him by it. But maybe that would be weird. Still, when I went home I started reading again and I allowed myself to indulge in a little fantasy. The kind where his hand would rest on mine every day. The kind where I would help him learn how to smile again. The kind where I would help him find his voice again – start to write again. He would love me for it. He would move me into his grand house and my pictures would slowly start to replace those of Rose in the hall. Our family portrait, he, Jack, me and perhaps a baby of our own, would hang above the sofa. We’d make sure Jack never forgot his mother of course. We’d speak fondly of her. We’d keep her picture by his bedside. She would be his mother, always. But he would have a new family around him. I would have a family around me. I allowed myself to think about that for a short time before I shook myself out of my reverie – reminded myself just how much he loved her. Would it be possible for him to ever love anyone like that again? Would he ever love me?