by T. M. Logan
I studied him, nodding in understanding. This was uncomfortable territory and I hadn’t been prepared for it. Not at all. I had expected to pursue my quarry up onto the moors, to watch him meet Danielle White, to take pictures of them together and confront them if it came to that. But not this.
I took my hand off the knife. ‘It is a spectacular place, isn’t it? I love the fresh air.’
Ryan looked at his watch, then at the sky. ‘Tell you what, there’s a great spot a little way up there.’ He gestured to the north, where a smaller track curved deeper into the gorse. ‘It was Mum’s favourite, best view in the whole of the Dark Peak. Do you want to see it? We’ve got time.’
I glanced around, getting my bearings. There were a couple of walkers further up the path, a few more scattered on the ridge along the valley side. It was broad daylight, I was armed, I could walk behind Ryan and keep an eye on him every step of the way. And if Danielle White was close, she still might appear – even if Ryan had tried to warn her off.
‘Why not?’ I said.
Ryan took a bar of Kendal Mint Cake from a thigh pocket, snapping off a piece and putting it in his mouth.
‘Always used to share one of these with Mum, on our walks,’ he said, handing the blue and white packet to me. ‘Whenever I have it now, it reminds me of her. It’s good for a little energy boost, too.’
I nodded my thanks and snapped off a square of the sugary white bar for myself. It was waxy and hard, the mint sharp on my tongue. We set off, weaving our way through waist-high gorse as we gradually climbed up towards the highest point of the moor. Ryan pointed out distant peaks and points of interest along the way, the gritstone outcrops at Wool Packs and Pym’s Chair, the rocky spur of Ringing Roger and the tumble of boulders up Grindsbrook Clough. The route was narrow and we hiked in single file, Ryan occasionally slowing and checking over his shoulder that I was keeping up. I could feel the burn in my thighs and calves but refused to slacken my pace or ask for a break. I would walk as long as Ryan kept on walking, showing that I could keep up with him no matter what.
‘Glad we’ve got a chance to talk actually,’ Ryan said. ‘Just the two of us. I know we’ve not got off on the best foot, Ed, but I wanted to speak to you, to tell you how much I’ve loved becoming part of the family.’ He paused. ‘I know in the past a couple of Abbie’s other boyfriends have been . . .’
‘Idiots,’ I finished.
‘Yeah,’ Ryan smiled. ‘Idiots. But I just want to say, for the record, that’s not me. I totally get why you’re protective of Abbie and I would absolutely be the same in your shoes. She’s the most wonderful girl and all I want to do is make her happy.’
‘Glad to hear it, Ryan.’
‘You know, this is one of my favourite places in the world. I’d love to bring Abbie up here.’
‘She’s never been much of a walker,’ I said, puffing slightly.
‘If I can get her into running,’ Ryan grinned, ‘walking should be easy.’
‘True.’
He thought for a minute. ‘Daniel Defoe called the Dark Peak “the most desolate, wild and abandoned country in England.” I think I agree with him.’
I looked at him in surprise. ‘Didn’t have you pegged as a poetry fan.’
Ryan smiled, staring out at the green expanse before us and reciting lines from memory.
Alone far in the wilds and mountains I hunt,
Wandering amazed at my own lightness and glee,
In the late afternoon choosing a safe spot to pass the night,
Kindling a fire and falling asleep on the gather’d leaves.
‘Walt Whitman.’ I smiled in recognition. ‘That’s one of my favourite poems of all time.’
Ryan nodded. ‘You have very good taste, Mr Collier.’
He climbed a final slope and up onto a flattened area, one of the little peaks on this part of the moor. They were slightly elevated from the land around, in a little depression perhaps fifteen yards from side to side, almost like a giant fist had pounded a dip into the ground, a shallow lip on the south side and boulders scattered to the north.
‘Well, here we are,’ Ryan spread his arms. ‘Mum’s special place.’
I stood beside him, breathing hard from the climb, surveying the scenery. Mile after mile of dark green heather and gorse, the black of gritstone rock jutting in between. To the west, a buzzard circled high above us on currents of air, wings flickering as it scanned the land below.
‘That,’ I said, ‘is a wonderful view.’
Ryan shrugged off his backpack and set it down against a rock.
‘Mum loved it up here. We’d bring a picnic and spend all day in our special place, playing hide and seek, making dens and stuff. No mobile phone signal. No one to bother you, just the moors and the heather and the wind. This place always reminds me of her. I always feel like she’s here with me.’
He turned away, but not before I glimpsed a tear spilling onto his cheek.
The sheer awkwardness of the moment – two men who didn’t know each other very well, one crying in front of the other – made me take a step away and fix my eyes on a distant peak across the valley. I didn’t know whether to say something, or stay silent. In the end I opted for the latter.
‘Sorry,’ Ryan said eventually, his voice thick. ‘God, what am I like? Sorry.’
‘It’s OK,’ I said, clearing my throat. ‘It’s perfectly understandable.’
‘I’m not normally like this. But sometimes it still takes me by surprise.’
I reached into my pocket and handed Ryan a tissue. He took it with a grateful nod, wiping his eyes hastily.
‘Ah, thanks.’ He gave a little embarrassed laugh. ‘I’m sorry.’
I put a hand on his shoulder, gave it a little squeeze. ‘Nothing to be sorry for, Ryan.’
The clouds parted and for the first time, we were bathed in brilliant sunlight.
Standing there, looking out over the moorlands while Ryan composed himself, I felt something lifting, like a curtain being opened to let the morning in. Like finally being given permission to put down the heavy burden that had been dragging me down. I had been nurturing my suspicion for so long, feeding and watering it, like a delicate plant, that it came as a shock to feel a genuine connection with the man beside me.
Men like us, like Ryan and me, do not cry in front of other men. Not if we can possibly avoid it.
I felt sorry for Ryan in that moment, the rush of emotion that had clearly taken him by surprise. I pulled a breath deep into my lungs, filling my chest with cold, clean moorland air. My headache – the one I seemed to have had every day for the past few weeks – was finally gone. I felt refreshed, renewed, as if the change of scenery had shifted the black cloud that had been hanging over me.
And it was all suddenly so clear.
52
Ryan was just a normal guy, I realised.
Flawed and emotional, perhaps. Holding on to his secret grief, clearly. But what if he was? Join the club. I remembered the look of fright on his face, holding out the yellow umbrella when I had surprised him in his home last week. Ryan’s first instinct had been to call the police.
God, Ed. You nearly gave me a heart attack.
Watching Ryan and Abbie in the rowing boat, splashing and playing.
I can’t remember ever seeing her so happy.
Abbie’s face when she showed me the engagement ring, her eyes shining.
Isn’t it just amazing! I can’t stop looking at it!
Claire pleading with me to give Ryan a chance.
It’s not about him, Ed, it’s about you.
I knew then that I had been projecting my own fears and insecurities onto this man, this younger version of myself, because I feared losing Abbie. Feared that day when she stepped outside the protective cordon I had built.
I had been wrong about Forest Road West, about the hospice.
I had been wrong about his house, it was perfectly ordinary.
I had been wrong about Dani,
about Ryan coming out here to meet a lover.
I had been wrong about everything.
She’s the most wonderful girl I’ve ever met and all I want to do is make her happy.
Ryan was not, after all, a bad guy. He missed his mother terribly and still grieved for her, that was the darkness that lay behind his eyes. I knew what it was like to carry that grief around inside, like a tumour. I had let my own grief and guilt blind me to the truth, convinced that I had to protect Abbie from everyone and everything, lest she suffer the way Claire and I had. Was it that, though? Or could it be something deeper, darker: that I couldn’t let her have something that Joshua, her brother, had never had? Was that it?
Whatever it was, I had been blind. But now I could see.
I put the packet of tissues back into my pocket, my hand brushing against the knife. God, I had been an idiot.
I thought about what I would say to Abbie, how I would make it up to her. The thought of us being friends again filled me with a rush of love, a warm buzz of paternal joy that had been missing from my life these last few weeks. I would apologise, and admit that I had been wrong, and ask for her forgiveness. And she would give it – because she was her mother’s daughter.
I would call her tonight, as soon I got home.
‘It’s so beautiful here.’ I said. We were sitting down on an outcropping of dark gritstone, looking out over the moorland. I took a breath. ‘Ryan, I have a confession to make.’
Ryan gave an embarrassed little laugh. ‘You’ve never seen a grown man cry before?’
‘It’s not a coincidence that we met today. I knew you were coming here.’
‘You knew?’
‘I’d convinced myself that you were meeting another woman, that you were . . . that you had something else going on behind Abbie’s back. So I drove up this morning and waited for you to arrive.’
Ryan stared out at the distant peaks. ‘I’m glad to be able to disappoint you, Ed.’
‘I’m glad to be disappointed.’ I cleared my throat. ‘Who’s Dani, by the way?’
‘Dani?’ Ryan looked confused.
‘That’s who I thought you were meeting up here.’
‘Oh, right,’ Ryan said. ‘Danielle from the regiment. She came out of the army last year. I’ve been mentoring her through her first job, got her a role with a company in Bradford. We meet up for a walk and a chat once in a while. The Peak District is sort of halfway between the two of us. Sometimes her wife comes too.’
I turned to look at him. ‘Her wife?’
‘Marie,’ Ryan said. ‘But she’s never been a big walker so it’s normally just the two of us.’
I smiled and shook my head.
‘I guess I was mistaken on that count as well.’ I marvelled at my own ability to get the wrong end of the stick, to put two and two together and make five. ‘I got a lot of things wrong, Ryan, I’m sorry. I can see now that I may not have given you a proper chance, but I’m going to put that right.’
The buzzard continued to circle high above us, gliding and turning on the updrafts as it sought out its prey.
‘Actually, you weren’t wrong,’ Ryan said. ‘Not entirely.’
‘Really?’
Ryan looked past me, across the moors to the south. ‘I did come up here to meet someone.’
‘Oh?’ I turned to follow his gaze but saw no one. Just the bleak landscape, dark green and brown, rolling away into the distance. ‘Who are you meeting?’
When I turned back, Ryan was smiling.
PART III
THE HUSBAND
53
Abbie
Abbie pinned the last of the posters to the classroom wall and stood back to check her work, blowing her fringe off her forehead.
Tomorrow was Ocean Life Day for class 1B and they would be spending the morning on a range of stories, games and activities themed around whales, dolphins, sealions and sharks. To engage the children individually she had spent the weekend – and many of her evenings over the last week – creating a little ocean poster for each pupil, complete with their own photo and individual sea animal. My name is Junaid. My animal is a blue whale. The blue whale is twenty-five metres long and its heart weighs as much as a car. Now the posters covered an entire wall of the classroom, ready for her pupils to find a mass of sea life and smiling faces on a background of deep blue crêpe paper, crimped like ocean waves. She wanted her five and six-year-olds to be excited about the subject from the moment they walked in on Tuesday morning.
Abbie was the youngest teacher in the school by at least five years, and aware that some of her older colleagues regarded her as a little too naïve and keen for her own good, still desperate to make a good impression in her second year of teaching. She didn’t let it bother her.
She checked her phone again. Still nothing from Ryan.
A figure appeared in the open doorway.
‘Oh this is faaaabulous, Abbie.’
She turned to see Patricia Woodruff, the headteacher, leaning against the doorframe. Like all good teachers, Patricia was a big believer in the power of positive reinforcement and so everything was ‘wonderful and ‘fabulous’. Some of the teachers had taken to calling her ‘Pats’ after the character in Absolutely Fabulous, though never to her face, of course.
‘D’you think so?’ Abbie blushed. ‘I was starting to go a bit cross-eyed thinking I’d missed someone out.’
Patricia admired the poster of a hammerhead shark by the door, complete with a picture of six-year-old Sophie Tetlow.
‘Your class are going to absolutely love it.’ The headteacher jangled her car keys in one hand. ‘Nearly done for the day?’
‘Nearly.’
‘Perfect. And how’s married life treating you?’
Not heard from my husband today actually, Abbie thought. We normally text every day, a few times, but the last twenty-four hours have been a blank. She didn’t like to bother him too much though. He let her have space when she needed it, and she did the same for him. And anyway, they both had jobs and responsibilities and it just wasn’t practical to be in touch with each other ten times a day.
But she couldn’t remember him being out of contact for this long before.
‘It’s perfect,’ Abbie said, summoning a smile. ‘I’m loving it.’
‘And you’re planning a big party for next year, are you?’
‘Next summer,’ she said. ‘We’re still looking at venues, I really like Risley Hall but everything gets booked up so far in advance it’s crazy if you don’t want to wait too long.’
‘I’m sure you’ll find somewhere lovely.’ She checked her watch. ‘Must dash – don’t forget to let Mr Overden know you’re the last one in the building.’
Fifteen minutes later, Abbie gave her work a final check before gathering up her bags and coat. She switched off the classroom lights and walked out via the main reception, saying goodbye to the caretaker as she headed to her car. Before turning the key in the ignition she looked at her phone again, checking her texts in case one had somehow dropped in without her noticing. She tried again to think of any day while they’d been together when Ryan hadn’t texted her at least once; there must have been a day like that, but she couldn’t think when it was. Just her own three unanswered messages stacked one on top of the other.
For the first time, she felt a stir of unease in her stomach.
Ryan was reliable, punctual, effortlessly efficient – traits that always appealed to her. He wouldn’t be late, forgetful or unpredictable.
He wouldn’t want her to worry.
54
Claire
Claire heard it before she’d even put her key into the front door. An extremely loud, plaintive meowing that was half-outraged and half-pitiful. The wailing grew louder as Claire pushed the door open, rising to a frenzied pitch. Tilly pushed her sleek grey face through the gap, instantly rubbing against Claire’s shins, limping a little from the cast on her back leg and meowing all the while.
‘Nice
to see you too, Tilly,’ Claire said, hauling her suitcase over the threshold. ‘Well that is a lovely welcome home.’
She picked up the post from the mat and idly flicked through envelopes and junk mail as Tilly’s cries grew louder and more indignant.
‘I know what you’re after,’ Claire said to the cat, bending over to scratch her behind the ears. ‘But it’s not supper time yet, is it? You don’t get fed every time someone comes through the front door.’
The cat meowed her disagreement, still rubbing up against Claire’s legs.
She checked her watch. It was just gone 6 p.m.
‘Ed?’ she called.
The house was silent.
‘I’m home,’ she said.
Maybe he was down the garden, or in Abbie’s old bedroom, up on the second floor. Not much noise reached there from the ground floor.
It occurred to her that he might also be punishing her after their last argument, deliberately making sure that he was out when she got home, just to make a point. Perhaps he would roll in later after eating at the pub, pretending it was no big deal. Or maybe – the thought took her suddenly and by complete surprise – maybe he had left. Moved out. Decided he’d had enough of the arguments over Ryan and made a clean break of it while she was out of the country. Followed Jason’s lead into a bachelor lifestyle.
No. That was ridiculous. He had texted only the other day that he would make her favourite dish – spaghetti carbonara – to welcome her home from Ireland. She parked her suitcase at the bottom of the stairs and hung her jacket on the banister.
‘Hello?’ she said again.
No answer.
The lounge was a mess, books and papers on every surface, empty mugs, empty wine bottles scattered here and there. Ed normally did a better job than this of looking after the house when she was away, although she suspected that he let things slide until the last day, living like a teenager while he was on his own, before moving around the house like a whirlwind the day before she was due to return, cleaning and washing and tidying up. She had caught him out like that a couple of times, when she had returned a day early.
