Two Metres From You

by Heidi Stephens

  It was another beautifully designed space, albeit much more functional than the apartment above. Just inside the entrance was a utility room with a toilet and shower, alongside a washing machine and tumble dryer. Presumably the former allowed him to avoid trailing sawdust upstairs, and the latter didn’t fit elsewhere. The rest of the space was completely open, with shelf-lined walls for storing timber, tools and carefully labelled storage boxes full of screws and other hardware. The central area had a concrete floor and a large workbench that was currently home to six carefully cut and sanded wooden planks around two metres in length. Gemma ran her hands along one of the smooth surfaces; the heavy wood was almost white, and she could follow the swirls and knots of the grain with her fingers.

  ‘It’s an oak dining table, or at least it will be,’ said Matthew, moving closer and cupping the edge of the wood in his hands. ‘I need to make a couple of benches too. It’s for a family in Bath. The wood cost a fortune, English oak is much more expensive than French, but that’s what they wanted.’ Gemma stared at his hand, and her skin began to prickle. She felt about thirteen, waiting for a boy to ask her to dance at a school disco. She forced herself to meet his gaze. ‘It’s going to be fabulous.’

  Neither of them spoke; Gemma could feel the tension hanging in the air, mingling with the heady cocktail of sawdust and glue and oil. They looked at each other for a few seconds, both of their cheeks flushing in the half-light. Matthew broke eye contact first, putting his bottle down on the workbench with unnecessary force and snapping Gemma back into the real world as he turned to the door. ‘You forgot your books. I’ll get them for you.’

  Gemma stood alone in the silence of the workshop, breathless and confused. What had just happened? Did she imagine that? Was she supposed to follow? Or did he want her to leave? She placed her bottle carefully next to his, her brain flipping through a whole spectrum of emotions, until she heard Matthew’s footsteps crunching back through the gravel. He poked his head around the door and waved the three books in her direction. ‘Got them. I’ll walk you back.’

  It seemed ridiculous to Gemma to be escorted a whole 15 metres, but picking her way along the path in the dark gave her a chance to organise her thoughts. It was clear that Matthew acknowledged the chemistry between them, but for whatever reason didn’t want to act on it. At the beginning of the evening she had felt the same way, so she could hardly blame him for not being as reckless and impulsive as she was – Gemma had to admit that in the moment she would have happily ravaged him right there on the workbench, with no thought for the consequences. At least one of them wasn’t a total idiot.

  Matthew handed her the books at the kitchen door, then immediately tucked his hands under his armpits as he shivered in the cold air. Gemma opened the door and put the books on the kitchen counter, turning to mirror his body-hugging stance. ‘Thank you for the books, and for the pizza. Your place is amazing.’

  He smiled weakly in return, shifting his weight awkwardly from foot to foot. ‘You’re welcome, it’s nice to cook for someone. I’ll pick up Mabel tomorrow afternoon as usual.’

  Gemma took the hint and gave him a small wave before heading inside, closing the door gently behind her. She stared silently at the pile of books for a minute, her mind racing; the top one was The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes. She opened the door again and peered out into the gloom, but Matthew was gone.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Thursday, 9 April

  To Do

  Write more lockdown nonsense

  Faff around in the garden

  Call Joe

  Go running

  Try to enjoy running

  By 11 a.m. the temperature had climbed enough for Gemma to think about working outside – it was a gorgeous spring day, and it seemed a shame to be stuck indoors. She’d read on the news earlier that the government was worried about people breaking lockdown rules over the upcoming Easter weekend, since for most of the country the weekend forecast was glorious. But with a garden like this, Gemma didn’t feel the need to go anywhere; she was looking forward to a weekend of reading, sunbathing and pottering about doing nothing much.

  Other than checking the weather, she’d also been catching up on the news. It felt strange to think of the Prime Minister being in the thick of the virus, like something out of a film with an implausible plot. On Sunday she had watched the Queen make an address to the nation, which ended with ‘Better days will return: we will be with our friends again; we will be with our families again; we will meet again.’ Vera Lynn references aside, it had made Gemma quite emotional; right now her friends and family felt like they were on a different planet.

  All the thoughts of family made her long to talk to Louise, who would be off work with her kids this week. Gemma called but got her voicemail, and was feeling a little bereft when her phone pinged to announce the arrival of a WhatsApp message.

  Can’t talk, up to my neck in kid shit.

  Gemma hoped this was metaphorical for Louise’s sake and tapped out a reply. No problem. Shall I tell you another joke?

  She knew that Louise would be grinning right now. Oh God. Go on then.

  Gemma thought for a minute, looking at the wooden coat and hat rack by the front door.

  What’s a hat maker’s favourite gameshow?

  This is going to be awful isn’t it? Go on.

  WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLINER.

  Fucking hell. Go away.

  Louise finished her message with a row of laughing emojis, and Gemma felt her mood lift. Maybe today was going to be OK after all.

  In the five days since dinner with Matthew, Gemma had got her head into work, pitching a few more article ideas to various publications and scoring a couple of wins, including one she needed to finish today. She’d even called her mother for a proper catch-up, being careful not to mention Matthew’s name even in passing; the Lockwood women had a radar for gossip and her mother would be on her like a hawk. She’d taken Mabel for long walks across the fields, and on Tuesday she’d decided to start running again.

  Gemma had never really thought of herself as a runner – her boobs were too big and she had a weirdly short stride, which made her running look like more of a wobbly shuffle. Fraser had once told her she ran like she was taking part in a school sack race, then made a hilarious joke about being happy to get her in the sack any day. Fraser considered himself something of a comedian, but always finished a joke by looking around triumphantly, like he was waiting for someone to appear in a puff of smoke and give him a one-man show at the Edinburgh Fringe.

  Not long before she’d left London, Gemma had completed a Couch to 5k programme and had been trying to get into the habit of running for half an hour or so three times a week. Now seemed like a good opportunity to get back into it, so on Tuesday she had dug out her most robust sports bra and hustled Mabel on to the lane outside the cottage. Mostly she discovered that half an hour feels like several years when there’s nothing to look at but fields and woods, but she had pushed through to the end and today she needed to go again.

  Sightings of Matthew had been few and far between this week, other than him popping his head in the door after Mabel’s walk on Sunday to ask if he could switch to mornings for a while, so he could put in a solid day’s work afterwards. In the warmer weather Mabel had taken to dozing on the patio outside the kitchen door in the mornings, so Matthew often took her lead off the hook by the door and walked her without Gemma even noticing that she was gone. He had a canny knack of coming over while she was in the shower; Gemma suspected this might be on purpose, but she didn’t push it. He clearly wasn’t interested in anything more than a neighbourly friendship, and she wasn’t going to make an idiot of herself over him.

  She took the stiff broom from the tool shed and walked to the decked area at the end of the garden, where a purple clematis rambled over the wooden pergola. It was just coming into full flower, so it created a lovely dappled shade on the wooden deckboards. She quickly swept the area clean, then ca
rried the bistro table and one of the folding chairs from the gravel at the bottom of Matthew’s steps. She was sure he wouldn’t mind, and she didn’t want to disturb him to ask. The small table and lone chair looked a bit forlorn on a deck designed for large al fresco parties, but it was the best she could do. She returned to the house and grabbed her notebook, phone and laptop – the battery was fairly new and would be fine for a few hours.

  She settled into the chair and organised everything on her makeshift desk, as Mabel plodded over from her favourite spot under the apple tree and flumped down at her feet. For the first time in a few days, Gemma felt a sense of peace – it was a beautiful day, she had work to occupy her mind, and the horrors of the spreading pandemic felt a million miles away. With the UK’s daily death toll rising swiftly, she felt glad to be physically and emotionally out of London, even if she’d give her right arm for a Pret crayfish and avocado salad and a decent coffee right now.

  Twenty minutes later, Gemma heard the doors of Matthew’s workshop roll open; clearly it was getting warm in there, and he needed to let some air in. She heard faint music coming from inside, and by the time it reached ‘Rehab’ by Amy Winehouse she realised it was a noughties playlist that was one of her Spotify favourites. It took her back to the Friday-night drive home in Aunt Laura’s car, when Gemma was allowed to put her Now That’s What I Call Music CD into the car stereo. Aunt Laura had occasionally joined in with Gemma’s singing; in 2002 they had both loved ‘Whenever, Wherever’ by Shakira and ‘Get the Party Started’ by Pink, while 2003 had been all about Beyoncé’s ‘Crazy in Love’ and Busted’s ‘Year 3000’. Neither of them could sing for toffee, but as Gemma got further away from school and closer to the sanctuary of 22 Church Street, belting out Shakira felt like a celebration of freedom, even if it was only for forty-eight hours.

  Humming along to Gnarls Barkley’s ‘Crazy’, Gemma realised that the WiFi was better here, presumably because she was so much closer to the barn. She video-called Joe and was immediately uplifted by the sight of his grinning face on the sunny balcony of his flat in Camberwell, wearing nothing but shorts and a baseball cap. His London party lifestyle had been significantly curtailed by the lockdown, so for the first time it was Gemma’s Adventures in Farmerland that held the potential for excitement and intrigue. Joe couldn’t hide his disappointment at Gemma’s reports of domesticity and solitary runs, none of which ended in her being swept on to a horse by a country squire with strong thighs and a sex dungeon. He’d definitely read too much Jilly Cooper.

  As with her mother, Gemma didn’t say anything about Matthew, but after she blew Joe a kiss and ended the call she realised her mistake. Joe would speak to Caro, Caro would ask if Gemma had mentioned her friend Matthew, and the fact that she had not, even in passing, would be picked apart for its hidden implications. The three of them had shared a flat at university for two years and nobody knew Gemma better; by bedtime Joe and Caro would have assembled all the evidence and confrontation wouldn’t be far away. She should have kept it light and casual – There’s a guy next door, friend of Caro’s, seems nice but don’t see much of him. Massive schoolgirl error.

  At 1 p.m. Gemma took a break for lunch – a tin of tomato soup with a cheese sandwich to dip into it. It had been a weekend favourite at Aunt Laura’s, and was still Gemma’s go-to lunchtime snack when comfort was needed. Fraser had hated it – he called it ‘duck food’, a term that applied to any combination of dry food and liquid. The idea of dunking a biscuit into tea made him heave, and he ate his roast dinners dry, spurning any kind of gravy or sauce. He was also the same about hot and cold food on the same plate – a meal like fish, chips and salad was served with the salad in a separate bowl, which Fraser would eat afterwards, like a lettuce-based pudding. Gemma never could understand his love of Thai food when there were only a handful of dishes on the menu that were dry enough for him to eat.

  While Gemma swished her sandwich in her soup, her mind drifted back to Aunt Laura, wondering what she would have made of her current situation. With a pang Gemma realised that she would never have been in Crowthorpe if circumstances had been different; on the night she’d needed to escape London, she’d have headed for Church Street instead. Gemma, Aunt Laura and Mabel would have weathered this storm together, eating tinned soup, reading books and making little dolls of Fraser to stick pins in.

  After lunch she hung out some laundry and mowed the lawn, a much quicker job since Matthew had hacked through the jungly growth the previous week. She pulled a few weeds and trimmed the shrubs, noticing for the first time a vine on the back of the house that was coming into leaf. She wondered if it would produce grapes, then reminded herself that firstly she wouldn’t be around long enough to find out, and secondly she hated grapes unless they were squashed, fermented and bottled. After an hour of needless clipping and faffing about, Gemma was forced to admit to herself that she was hanging around outside in the hope that Matthew would come out of his barn. She could hear the whine and grind of saws and power tools, interspersed with the occasional thud of timber being moved around, but he hadn’t left the workshop for hours.

  She stood on the path with her hands on her hips, chewing her lip and watching a snail making its leisurely way across the path, its little rubbery horns alert for a dog in the mood for an exotic snack. Stop this shit, Gemma. Either she needed to go to the workshop and talk to him, or stop hanging around the garden like a schoolgirl with a crush, waiting to be noticed.

  Her mouth formed a hard line as she reached a decision. She quickly put away all the garden tools and headed back into the house to change. It was time to go running.

  Gemma pushed through the first ten minutes to a point where her legs no longer felt like lead and her lungs stopped pretending she smoked forty a day. Running was inarguably hideous, and it was no wonder so many people gave it up in favour of baking or knitting or masturbation. She left the cottage and the village behind, Mabel trotting at her heels and occasionally veering off into the verge to forage for litter or fox poo. Gemma supposed she should put her on a lead since the lane was technically a road, but in nearly three weeks she hadn’t seen a single vehicle other than bikes and horses. There was a large livery stables about half a mile out of the village, and at least twice a day she would hear horses clopping by. It was something she never heard or saw in London, and she found the sound rather restful.

  A bell sounded in her ears, and the voice told her she was halfway through today’s run and should turn around and head for home. What does home even mean? she thought. If it was just the place where she lived, she didn’t have enough toes and fingers to count thirty-two years of homes. What defined the difference between the place where you lived, and the place that was home? Right now she had no answer, and she was too sweaty for big philosophical questions.

  She thought for a while about the last eighteen days she’d spent in Crowthorpe. It had gone so fast, and yet in a weird way it felt like she’d been stuck here for ever. She’d settled into her new routine, waking up with the sun and the pigeons on the roof. She was eating better – the village shop was heavy on fresh local produce and very light on ready meals and junk food. She was also carefully monitoring her news intake so as not to overload her brain with things that she couldn’t control; it felt like a twenty-four-hour barrage at the moment, and if you were so inclined you could watch a continuous news feed of unfolding global horrors and never sleep again.

  After forty minutes of dragging her feet around the lanes, Gemma headed indoors for a shower and a change of clothes; any kind of shaving and underwired bras were a distant memory, but there was no need to go entirely feral. For the rest of the day she stayed away from the garden and Matthew’s barn, instead working in the dining room while Mabel dozed by the window, her fur glowing in the afternoon sun. A few days before, she’d created a Word document entitled ‘Aunt Laura’, and had started writing down anecdotes and stories whenever she remembered them. The tuneless singing in the car, making cupcakes o
n a Saturday afternoon, the smell of oils and turps and dusty cloths in the unused art studio, the outrageous stories Aunt Laura used to tell about her old days in the theatre (most of which seemed to involve nudity or drugs), Uncle Clive’s monogrammed handkerchiefs. Gemma laughed and sobbed and howled as she tapped them all into her laptop, and felt the grief she’d been hauling around for months gently dissipate with every paragraph.

  At 8 p.m. she was emotionally and physically drained, but she dragged herself out of the front door to lean on the white gate and join in with another Clap for Carers. Partly it was about being an active part of the Crowthorpe community, but it was also about connecting with something that felt much bigger and more important. She had seen social media videos from her friends that showed the wave of noise sweeping across London, with people shouting and letting off fireworks. Here the initial enthusiasm had settled into something more like polite clapping at a local cricket match, but it was uplifting nonetheless; it felt good to remind herself that her tiny dramas were insignificant in the scheme of things; that people were putting their lives at risk to battle this virus every day.

  As the clapping died away, Gemma waved and smiled at her neighbours as they drifted back to their homes. She stayed by the gate for a minute to watch the dying embers of the sunset cast a warm glow over the fields. A movement to her left caught her eye, and she noticed Matthew watching her from the side gate. Gemma wondered how long he’d been there, and whether it would have killed her to pencil her eyebrows and put some lipstick on earlier.

  ‘Hello.’ He took a few steps back and leaned on the wall that separated the side path from her tiny front garden. Mabel bounded over and put her paws up on the wall, demanding a head pat. Her tongue lolled about in drooling excitement as she tried to reach him, but the wall was too high so she settled for frantic tail wagging instead.

  ‘Hey.’ Gemma’s throat had dried up at the sight of him, and now she didn’t trust herself to say anything in case she also started drooling with her tongue out.