by Anna Bloom
Jennifer lowers her paper and gives me a pointed look. “No, Peter takes his work very seriously.”
I don’t catch Elijah’s eye, but he studies his muesli with great intensity.
With a tight smile sent in Jennifer’s direction, I decide that breakfast isn’t for me. I’ve never eaten a lot, but my intake of food has decreased dramatically since taking up residence at Bowsley. I now realise that’s why rich people are always so thin; it’s because the conversation at mealtimes is so awkward no one wants to eat.
“I’m going to go and prep the studio. I want it to be perfect.” God, I’m going to puke. In an hour people will be here watching me turn sand into glass. Let’s just hope I bloody can.
We’ve got the portable kilns all set up, so I need to get them ready. And I want to show people, if they are brave enough to have a go at glass blowing, so I need to make sure we have safe areas.
Why didn’t I do more yesterday? What have I been doing with my time?
I’m at the door when I turn and notice Tabitha and Elijah are flanking me. Ha, stick that up your arse Ice Queen.
We walk to the outhouses in companionable silence.
“While I hate to admit it, Gerard was right about my mixture.” I’d thought about it a lot on the night; it hasn’t helped my insomnia.
“Who’s Gerard?” Tabitha quizzes.
“A total tool,” I tell her, but even I have to laugh. The burn of shame from allowing myself to trust and be hurt is fading. And it’s the man dressed in jeans and a black T-shirt who’s making me forget and lower my defences.
We enter what’s going to be the glass studio and with no time to waste, I pick up the clear plastic packets of silica sand. I give them both a mask to put over their faces and Elijah chuckles.
“Why do I feel like I’m a surgeon about to enter theatre?”
“This is more fun.” I grin back at him from under my mask. “At least there’s no chance of you harming anyone here.”
“True.”
Both him and Tabitha lean over and watch as I tip the sand into a crucible. “This is where I messed up yesterday. I added too much calcium oxide.” I put in the calcium and some sodium carbonate.
Then I pick up the jar of cobalt oxide and tip it in with a heavy hand. I know the colour of blue I’m aiming for; it’s right in front of me. “So, you can add different chemicals to change the colour,” I explain. My eyes meet Elijah’s. “Then you melt it on the kiln and hey presto. Then we shape the glass and put it in the kiln to harden.”
Hey presto, I’ve made a mess… let’s hope not.
Elijah pulls off his mask and glares at his watch. “We haven’t got long. Actually, about fifteen minutes.”
I swallow hard as my stomach twists. I can do this.
“Maybe we should have started with pottery?” He offers me a wry smile.
“Nah, if we want people to come back, we need to go in big.”
He slides his hands into his jeans and the room seems to shrink. Tabitha may as well not be here.
“You still haven’t told me what you are going to do with the glass.” He wiggles his eyebrows. He knows exactly what happened to distract me from giving him a full explanation. Tabitha’s head swizzles between us.
“Well then, I guess you will be waiting.”
He chuckles and turns for the door. “I’m going to go and wait for the new arrivals. You ready?”
“No.” I shake my head. “No, I’m not ready for this.”
He hesitates, his eyes sliding to where his sister is standing innocently watching us. Hesitation ripples through the air, but then he gives me a small smile. “It’s going to be fun.”
I turn back and watch the sand start to dissolve. I think Elijah and I have a different idea of what’s fun.
I’m almost shaking when he returns half an hour later with a group of six teens. I’ve been letting Tabitha mix the liquid because I’m genuinely worried I’m going to knock it over and burn the hell out of us all with my shaking hands.
“Here she is.” Elijah’s smile lights onto my face and I don’t know what’s making me shake more. Them or his direct appraisal.
“Hi.” I give them a small wave; somehow making my fingers stop trembling through the sheer power of will alone.
Elijah doesn’t look nervous at all. His body is relaxed as he gestures them all into the studio. He’s grinning and smiling, putting everyone at their ease. “So, this is Faith, and she’s an enormously talented artist.”
God, my cheeks scorch red.
“I don’t know about that.”
Sort it out Faith. I don’t want to waste this opportunity. I have no idea what my future holds right now. I dig down deep and then turn my smile onto our students for the first day.
“Hey,” I start again. “I wasn’t always an artist, or a student at university.” This isn’t the time to add that I’m no longer a student at university. My gaze sweeps across the crowd.
“What do you mean?” One bright eyed blonde asks. She reminds me of Meg, but I decide to give her the benefit of the doubt.
“Well, before went to uni, I worked in a tattoo shop in Brighton.”
All of their eyes widen. One of the guys—he’s bigger than the others, his stare bold—sweeps his gaze along my arms. “You’ve got a lot of ink,” he says.
I meet his stare. “I sure do.”
“So, lets introduce ourselves.” I begin to warm up and take over from Elijah who shifts back a little to give me the floor. “I’m Faith, I’m twenty-four, and I’m two years into my degree. I like working with glass as you will see and try this week, but also ceramics. What I’m not good at is paint. Which is weird considering I draw on people’s skin.” I shrug, and people laugh a little. I relax even more.
I look at the girl with the blonde hair and perky demeanour. She doesn’t let me down and launches into an excited spiel about her desire to create museum-worthy sculptures. She introduces herself as Charlotte. I doubt I’ll remember their names, but I give it a good try out of politeness.
Dylan is the guy who likes the tatts. His eyes are on them more than the glass we are about to set.
Maisie is small and mousey, with an insanely loud giggle.
They are the only names I can remember. Well done, Faith.
“Okay, so we’ve made some liquid here that in a couple of hours is going to be glass. Does anyone know what makes glass?”
An emo boy at the back groans loudly from under his fringe, muttering something about this being worse than school.
I’m almost entirely sure his school have never let him play with burning hot liquids like this before. He’s gangly, at that awkward stage of development where boys suddenly become like Bambi as their limbs grow too quick.
“Up ya come, happiness.” I wave him forward, sensing Elijah’s smile.
I think the most enthusiastic student in the room is the man who arranged it all. He is watching the pot of liquid blue with eyes filled with amazement.
“So, if you grab the stick and stir the mixture, we will be able to check the density.”
The emo looks at me blankly. “You want me to touch that?”
“Preferably not with your fingers.”
Everyone shuffles forward and even the kids who’d been hanging back during the introductions lean forward to get a better look.
With a dubious look he lifts the spoon and stirs the liquid. It’s perfect. Runny, glossy, and as blue as delphiniums. To say I’m pleased with myself is an understatement.
I grab a metal tray and hold it out. “Now ladle some into here.”
“Like soup?” He asks.
I smile. “Kind of like soup, but we don’t want to be greedy. We are making a mosaic for the hallway. So the glass has got to be thick enough to hold shape and colour but delicate enough we can weave all the proceeds together to create something astonishing.”
Elijah’s stare weighs heavy and hot as he watches me, but I don’t meet it.
The you
ngster with the black hair and clothes looks between the empty tray and the crucible, then slowly and carefully ladles a spoonful. He grabs my hand as he tilts the tray to make the liquid run. “Sorry,” he mutters.
“You’ve got it.” Blue shimmering liquid glass spreads across the bottom of the tray, thin enough you can still see the bottom.
Everyone is huddled round. “What now?” Maisie asks.
“Now we bake it in the kiln, and you guys all get a go. Think of what colours we need. I thought it would be great to have a spectrum of colour going from light to dark.”
“So we need black,” emo boy says.
I chuckle. “Yes, we’ll need black.”
“Cool.”
I nod at Tabitha who pales nervously, but then pulls herself together with miraculous resolve. She moves to another bench where the dried sand is waiting. “Who wants to make their own glass?”
They all step up, apart from emo boy who is still holding his tray.
I wave him over and plan to show him the kiln.
My eyes can’t help themselves and search the small crowd for Elijah. I want to know he’s happy with what I’ve done and that I’ve done a good job. I want to see his eyes and see pride there. To see his handsome face and see it smile.
He’s not there, and my stomach lurches. Some support on my first morning.
Bloody great.
Chapter Seventeen
Seriously, I can’t believe it. Elijah didn’t come back. Tabitha and I did the whole morning session by ourselves. We then went and had an awkward-as-fuck lunch—which I couldn’t eat, because nerves were eating my stomach instead—with six teenagers, before taking Maisie and Dylan and that crew back in to make even more of a mess.
Fair to say we have a lot of glass sheets.
Fair to say Elijah Fairclough is in my black book of hell.
I’m exhausted and lying on my bed. I can’t move. I haven’t put in a day of work that hard since my last day in Al’s shop.
Thinking of Al, I reach over into the ornate shabby chic bedside table and pull out my phone. I haven’t had a chance to look at it all day.
Eli Jones: I’m sorry, I’ll explain later.
I scowl at my phone. He can kiss my damn arse later.
Ignoring my growing agitation, I tap on my contacts and dial Al. He answers after a few rings, but I struggle to hear him.
“Are you down a wind tunnel?” I ask.
There’s a vague chuckle, but it chills my stomach. “Cheeky cow. How’s Bowsley?”
I glower at the ceiling. “It was a good first day. We made glass. I think it’s going to look good.”
There’s a pause filled with some heavy breathing. “Of course it will. You did it.”
“How are you?”
“Cartwheeling in the garden.” He starts to cough, and irrepressible tears slide out of my eyes, running down my face. “Hey, you better not be crying there, Faith. You know how I feel about soggy displays of emotion.”
I chuckle and wipe my hand across my face. “No tears.”
“That’s a good girl.” He pauses, and I wait for the familiar sound of him lighting a cigarette. It doesn’t come, and it makes me want to cry even more. “So, tell me all about it.”
I settle back on my pillows and stare at the ceiling as I hold myself together and tell him about the kids and the hot glass, and how I was lucky I didn’t get someone burned, and myself sued. He laughs occasionally but is largely silent.
“You still awake?” I ask when I draw my day to a close.
“Yeah, who pissed you off?”
“What?”
“Who pissed you off?” I can hear the weak amusement in his voice.
“The Faircloughs are strange.”
“Of course they are…” He pauses for a wheeze… “Stranger than the Hitchins?”
I hesitate. No one is stranger than my fucked-up family. “Elijah said he wanted to be friends, but friends don’t just leave one another in the lurch like that.”
“Maybe something came up. You can’t keep judging people by your exacting high levels of trust.”
I scrunch my face, not that he can see it.
“I mean, come on, Faith, you need to have more than just Dan and Abi as friends. What sort of life is that going to be if it’s always just you?”
I sit up and dash my hands at the tears trickling down my face. “You know why I don’t trust anyone.”
“Yes, and it’s shit. It’s horrible, but you deserve much more than what you allow yourself to have.”
“Hey, I trusted that scumbag lecturer, and it turns out he was bloody married.”
“I’m not talking about sex, Faith. It’s got nothing to do with physical contact. It’s about trusting people who care about you enough to be there.”
“Well, Elijah’s already proven he’s crap at that today.”
Al goes to say more, “Your dad—” but then he starts to cough, and cough, and cough.
My chest aches and my stomach churns with every hoarse wheeze he makes. I’m helpless and useless on the other side of the phone.
“Al,” I shout. Shit, he’s almost struggling for breath.
“Faith,” Dan’s voice says.
I’m sobbing and manage to squeeze out, “Yes.”
“It’s okay, he needs to rest.”
“This is awful, Dan.”
“I know,” he whispers, and I want to wrap my arms around him tight and never let go. “I’ve got to go and sort him out.”
“I wish I was there.”
There’s a pause of silence. “Me too.”
The line disconnects, and I sob. Large droplets of water splatter the cotton of the duvet cover.
I don’t know what I’m going to do when cancer steals him away. He’s been here for every moment. From my earliest memories, through everything. Even when he didn’t know why I was acting out and covering myself in ink, he was still there. I still remember the look in his eyes when I told him.
“Hey.” Elijah pushes at my door, and his face drops in shock as he takes in my wet face and swollen eyes. “Shit, what’s the matter? Was it my bloody grandmother again? I’m going to nail that old woman into a box.”
I offer him a lame smile and brush at my cheeks. He perches on the bed and reaches fingers for my face. With a delicate touch, he sweeps at the trails of tears. “No.” Oh God, I sob all over again. I hate this weakness. Hate the way it makes me tangle into knots, leaves me aching and shuddering. “My uncle, he’s…” I can’t even say the word. I pull in a quivering breath, “sick.”
Elijah’s hand cups my cheek and he tilts my face to his. His eyes are deep pools of blue calm and I wish I could dive straight in and hide from the turmoil around me— from the loss I know is soon approaching. His thumb catches another tear. “I’m sorry.”
I shrug, still frozen under his touch. “That’s life.”
He frowns. “Why do you do that? Hide your feelings?”
He won’t let me move. His hand stays firm. “Because they aren’t to be trusted.”
Leaning forward, he presses his lips to my forehead and I battle another wave of tears. “That’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Where did you go?” I brush away my heartache for Al and focus on what I’m supposed to be doing now. Although I can’t get over him leaving like that. I push his hand away and this time he lets it fall to his lap.
“I had to make some calls.” His expression is frank and open.
“All day?” Jesus, either he’s the world’s best actor, or he made a hell of a lot of calls—right when he should have been helping me.
He sighs and his shoulders slump. I wiggle my fingers under my leg, so I won’t reach out and touch him. “It was a lot of calls, and then I was working on something.”
“You left me with all those kids, Elijah.”
“Sweet little things, weren’t they?” He chuckles, and I find myself softening a little. Damn that dimple and the blue eyes.
His smile warms my insides and I begin to liquefy at his close presence. My body shouts with a loud voice that it wants to be touched. Any connection, no matter how fleeting.
I stare at his face, his lips. The stubble on his cheeks.
I could drown in him and never surface.
He watches me in silence. Can he read my face again? Would it matter? It’s just sex. Just once. It could be done and dusted and then I could move on.
Then I remember him in the kitchen the other night. That sheer loneliness that radiated from deep within.
My mouth is dry and I lick my lips.
Friends. Trust.
Two things I don’t ever do. For good reason.
“What were your calls about?” How I get my vocal cords to untangle and work I don’t know.
“My case.” His eyes harden.
“Want to talk about it?”
He shakes his head. “No. Thank you, but no.”
We stare at one another again. The silence is tangible. A weight that presses us down, pushing us to places where darkness reigns.
“Want to talk about your uncle?”
I shake my head, a lump lodging in my throat.
“Faith.” My name is deep and rich from his tongue. “My life is so complicated.”
I go to move away. I don’t need him to reject me. I choose when and how, nobody else has that power.
“I don’t care what your life is. It’s your business not mine.”
He catches my fingers. “I want you to care, as wrong as that is.”
“Don’t friends care?”
He raises an eyebrow, his lips curving just a fraction. “Don’t friends trust?”
“That’s what I’ve been told.” I glare at him.
In one fluid movement he is off the bed holding his hand out to me. “Come on.”
“Where are we going? Are we going to stand under the sprinklers again so you can see my bra?”
His face splits with a huge grin. “No, but maybe later. The sprinklers don’t come on... he checks his watch, “for another four hours.”
“Four hours, that’s a long time to wait.”
“Are you throwing yourself at me?”
