Family
Back at the Herald the next day, Claire had her head down typing up her ‘Magic Moments’ blog for Monday’s edition.
All night her mind had been buzzing with that email from ‘E’. She thought she’d put the whole thing to rest, but what if it really was him? But no, a cheating git wouldn’t try and contact the woman he’d had a fling with once she’d sussed him out. On the other hand, dammit, what if she had, after all, got the wrong end of the stick?
She typed up Mr Jones’s message of enduring love. Focused on that. She’d get herself a coffee soon; she was feeling bloody tired – hadn’t got a good night’s sleep at all. Why the hell was she allowing thoughts of Ed and Bamburgh to affect her? The race training was taking it out of her a bit too.
She vaguely heard the sound of the swing doors opening at the far end of the office – it happened all the time, so it hardly registered. A male voice, possibly Gary in Sport, said, ‘You’ll find her just down the far end on the right, mate.’ Then there was a weird hush over the office. The usual sounds of typing, chatting, had ceased.
Claire glanced up to see Emma’s head and ponytail swish in a turn. There was a mass swizzle of chairs. Then Andrea’s face popped up over the dividing screen just across from Claire, her eyes wide. Why the hell was everyone in the office looking her way?
A deep mellow voice with a hint of Scottish lilt. ‘I’m looking for Claire?’
As she turned, he stopped.
‘Hi, Claire.’ He stood, looking rather awkward, in front of her. As tall and handsome as ever. Dark-blond tousled hair. He gave her a nervous smile.
Oh My God!
‘Hi.’ She just about squeaked the word, stunned. ‘Ed.’ She seemed to be incapable of normal speech.
‘Hi,’ he replied. He didn’t seem to know what to say next either. It didn’t help that the whole office was staring at the pair of them.
They stayed a polite metre or so apart, Claire still sitting in her office chair, Ed standing before her. Ed who she’d kissed, had sex with, whose body she’d seen every inch of. Her colleagues were gawping. Andrea’s eyes were still peeping over the top of the partition, entranced, as if she was thinking ‘Who the hell is that!’
‘I’m sorry to just turn up like this. How are you?’ His voice melted her like chocolate.
‘Fine,’ she managed to say, her tone all high-pitched. ‘And, it’s okay.’
‘It took me ages to find you.’
‘It did?’ So he’d been looking for her.
‘Well, after you’d stormed off that day … You never gave me the chance to explain.’ A furrow crossed his brow.
Andrea’s face slid down behind the screen to give them the pretence of privacy, though she’d be earwigging on the far side of the partition, for sure.
To explain. So had she been the one to make the mistake? She suddenly felt very unsure of herself.
Ed scanned the office, looking uncomfortable. Most people’s eyes had shifted back down to their computers, their phones. Most people’s ears were probably still tuning in, though – this kind of thing didn’t happen every day. ‘Look, do you get a break or something? Can we maybe go for a coffee?’
‘Ah, yes – yes, of course.’
‘And … how are you, Ed?’ Claire returned the question.
‘Fine.’ He nodded slowly as if reassuring himself.
‘Okay then, I’ll just need to finish off here. But I could take my lunch hour a bit early, say in ten minutes. There’s a little coffee shop just over the road opposite the main entrance, Brooklyn’s. We could meet there.’
‘That sounds good. I’ll go and set myself up in there with a cappuccino or something. I’ll see you in a minute.’
He turned to walk away, the eyes of the office lifting again. Curiosity fizzed through the air like static. In her work environment he looked gorgeously out of place. Just as the swing doors closed on him, Andrea’s head popped up like a meerkat’s. ‘And who the fantastic fuck is that?’ She wiped her brow exaggeratedly ‘Hot or what!’
Claire stifled a giggle as Dave loomed out of his office doorway. ‘Okay, gang, enough of the side show. Back to work. Claire, my office.’
Oh shit, was she in trouble? It wasn’t as if she’d asked Ed to call in at work.
She saved the editorial she was working on, took a slow breath, and walked up the aisle to David’s door. Andrea gave her a small thumbs-up signal of encouragement from her desk.
She braced herself as she took a step inside.
‘Have you done the article on the old people’s home being threatened with closure yet?’
‘Yes, I finished that this morning. I was just going to give it a quick glance over, then forward it to you.’
‘Good, that’s fine then. Get it checked and into my inbox for three thirty. In the meantime, scarper. You can go. Believe it or not, I’m a bit of a romantic at heart. Go meet your man.’
Claire grinned. ‘Thanks.’
Though she wasn’t at all sure he was her man.
Her stomach was in knots as she put her computer into sleep mode and quickly neatened the paperwork on her desk. She grabbed her jacket and headed out of the office.
Why had he come? What was this really about? She was torn between elation and the fear of getting hurt yet again, the fear of learning something that she’d really rather not.
She walked down the two flights of stairs and out through the glass double doors at the front of the newspaper building.
He was there, sitting in the window of the coffee shop over the road. He hadn’t seen her yet. He lifted his head instinctively as she crossed.
Okay Claire, here goes. She tried out a smile, pushed open the coffee shop door. He was sat on a stool at a high table in the corner. He looked gorgeous, if somewhat apprehensive. And breathe.
‘Hey,’ was all he said, with a gentle smile.
‘Hi.’ A whole host of butterflies were jittering away in her stomach.
‘Come and sit down.’
‘So …’ She picked up the conversation they’d started in the office. ‘You found me.’
‘Yep. I did. Can I get you a coffee or anything?’
‘A latte would be great.’
He had a half-empty cup in front of him. ‘I’ll just be one sec.’ He headed over to the counter, spoke with the waitress and was soon back. ‘Right, well …’ He sat down on his stool across from her. They were close enough to touch, yet she felt a world apart. He took a slow breath as Claire held hers. ‘Claire, I didn’t want to leave things like that. With you thinking …’ he paused, looked out of the window for a second, then began rearranging the sugar sachets that were in a small white dish. ‘Ah, this is so hard to put into words. Sorry.’
‘Shall we make these a takeaway? There’s a nice park just along the road. We could walk a bit.’ Walk and talk, hopefully. She could do with some fresh air herself.
‘Yeah, that sounds good.’
The waitress was still making up her latte, so she asked for a takeaway cup and, after checking with him, another Americano for Ed.
She rejoined him, offering him his paper cup. ‘Have you been back to Bamburgh lately?’
It was two weeks since they’d both been there. Since she had dashed off, full of anger, accusing him of all sorts. She felt herself flush a little as she remembered.
‘Yes, last weekend.’
Of course. The bank holiday. ‘It’s such a beautiful place,’ she added.
‘It is.’ He smiled softly.
Beautiful, she mused, and full of memories. Shaken up right now like a kaleidoscope – the meal in his garden, the tea lights glowing, the taste of raspberries and cream, the smell of the sea, dancing barefoot on the beach … the gut-wrenching twist of betrayal, or so she thought … Despite the horrible ending to it all, the truth of which it seemed she was about to find out, she had missed it so much. And him.
‘Right, I’ll show you where this park is. I escape there sometimes on my lunch hour.’ Yes, she’d watch the children play, feel the sun on her face or the wind in her hair. It had been a really important place to her when she’d first gone back to work after her chemotherapy sessions. The park kind of grounded you. Reminded you that life was still carrying on, and that was a good thing.
They walked fairly close together, but not touching in any way. The unspoken was keeping a polite space between them. He might still be a shitty adulterer, for all she knew. But would you seek someone out to tell them that? Track someone down to say another goodbye? Too many questions were flitting in her mind. She took a sip of her latte as they entered the stone gates of the park and wandered along a leafy grove, dappled sunlight beaming across their path.
‘I’ve been reading more of your column. The magic moments.’
Curiosity burned. ‘Was it you?’
He quirked an eyebrow at her.
‘The “E” last week? Was that you? All those things about the beach. Our evening.’ Her voice faded, realizing she’d look a right idiot if it hadn’t been him. If she’d been clutching at similarities.
But he smiled broadly, showing white, even teeth. And his lips. Boy, she remembered those lips. ‘Might have been.’
She smiled back tentatively, the sensible part of her brain still keeping her in check.
‘Okay, I need to be honest with you. Yes, it was me.’
Her heart did a little skip.
‘Look, I didn’t want you to think – I don’t want you to think – that I didn’t care about you, Claire. Or that I used you in any way. It wasn’t like that.’
So here it was, the truth.
They stopped walking. There was no one in earshot. In the distance, there were some children on the swings, a toddler standing next to his dad feeding the ducks. She could hear them quacking animatedly.
‘So tell me.’
He took a long breath and looked at her. ‘That photo. It’s of my wife and child.’
Ah shit, the cheating dirt-bag. So she’d been right all-a-bloody-long. And there she’d been, getting all soppy again. She should have known better. She hardened her stare.
‘Sarah and James.’
She watched his Adam’s apple bob uncomfortably in his throat. Well, she didn’t want to hear how they were ‘taking a break’, how his wife ‘didn’t understand him’ or any of that bullshit.
Ed was biting his lip. She saw his hand tremble as he ruffled it through his hair.
‘They’re dead.’
Claire froze, registering his ashen face. ‘Oh my God. I’m so sorry, Ed. Both of them?’ Oh no, no, no. How could they both be dead? That cute little boy in the photo and his mum. Her eyes filled with tears. Fuck, poor Ed.
He nodded blankly. Yet she realized it wasn’t blank at all; it was as if pain riddled his whole body, making it useless.
Claire didn’t know whether to reach out for him, to hold him. But his body language was so stiff, so raw with grief, that it was as if he needed that space between them.
‘Oh, Ed. That’s so terrible.’ She was curious to know how his world had fallen apart so horrendously, but sensed not to ask just at that moment.
He started walking again slowly along the path. She kept time in silent support.
What the hell should she say now, after that?
As they reached a bench, he slowed and sat. She sat beside him, her leg gently propped beside his, and he looked down at her thigh, and then up, as though he’d only just realized she was still there with him.
‘How?’ her voice was soft.
A second or two passed. His voice came out broken. ‘A car accident last November.’ Then he looked right into her eyes. His pain so acute, it was almost hard to look back. ‘It was my fault. I was driving.’
Oh, fuck.
‘I was driving. It was an icy morning. I was meant to be dropping them off at her parents …’ He paused, staring across at the toddler and the man by the pond. ‘Spun off the road. Hit a tree. They never made it out of the car. Yet I walked away.’ His voice hardened. ‘Why the fuck did I get to walk away? It should have been me, not them. It should have been fucking me.’ His fist screwed into a punch, but there was only air to hit. ‘It should have been me,’ he repeated, softer now, his anger, his regret, tensing every limb, the muscles in his jaw tight.
‘Ed, I’m so sorry.’ She reached an arm around his taut shoulders, but it felt like he was a world away from her. She had no idea what to say next. What words could possibly help that pain? Are you okay? was so obviously not right. How could you ever be okay after that? She knew pain and fear and hurt, but she didn’t know this. This grief so raw. She just left her hand there on his shoulder, leaning in slightly against the warmth of his taut body, stayed silent.
It seemed like he was hardly registering her presence, lost in his nightmare world.
There were birds tweeting from the trees around them. Children laughing and playing. And a beautiful man with a heart full of hurt beside her. She felt her eyes misting, but that would be no good. If she could support him at all, she would, but she really didn’t know how.
She lay her hand over his where it rested on his thigh, gave it a small squeeze of support, of humanity. He didn’t withdraw his hand, let it be sheltered by hers. Yet it stayed perfectly still below hers. Time seemed to freeze around them. He finally lifted his head, looked out across the park and gave a low sigh of a breath.
‘So there you are. You know now.’
They walked back to the newspaper building, her hand having slipped away from his as they stood up from the bench. At least she could begin to understand now, had a grasp of the awfulness of the situation. But she really didn’t know where they could go from here. He seemed so very far away, trapped in his past. Too many hurts within him. And she was still healing herself. Yes, she was all clear from the cancer. The scars on her breast a reminder of the deeper scars within. But Christ, she was lucky, she had life, a future ahead. Ah sweet Jesus, Ed’s poor wife, his baby – never to grow up, never to have those chances. She felt sick for them, for him.
‘Thank you … for coming to explain.’ They were standing on the threshold to her office, a strange calm between them. ‘I really appreciate that. It couldn’t have been easy.’
‘It was just something I had to do. I didn’t want anyone else hurt, not by a misunderstanding.’ He tried a weak smile. Then took her into his arms and gave her a stiff brotherly hug. ‘No hard feelings.’
‘Of course not.’ She hugged him back, holding him close to her for an extra second. If only things had been different for them both. Then she stood back, giving him the space he needed. ‘Bye, Ed. Take care.’ She turned to climb the steps.
Life could change on the spin of a coin, a cluster of rogue cells, a bend in the road, a patch of black ice.
She knew he wasn’t going to ask to see her again. They had gone as far as they could go. She would only get hurt. She had hoped for more than he could ever give, she understood that now. It was best this way. She stopped and waved from the top step, then watched him walk away. There was a weird ache in her heart. And she knew he had come here to explain, not to love.