The fact was, Dougie let her down a lot and there was no way Elise wouldn’t have noticed that, but perhaps out of respect, or perhaps because she thought her opinions about him might not be welcome, she’d never made a big deal about it to Emma. She’d comment and then Emma would make an excuse and they’d both let the moment pass without further discussion. Their dad, Noel, was a different matter – he had many words to say about Dougie and hardly any of them were complimentary. But then again, he had many scathing words to say about a lot of things so it wasn’t all that surprising.
Elise opened her mouth, looked as if she was struggling for a moment to get her brain in gear, and then was about to say what was on her mind when their dad joined them.
‘Where is he?’ he asked gruffly.
‘Running late,’ Emma repeated, having no need to ask who her dad meant.
‘Very late. Anyone would think he’s avoiding us.’
‘He’s not, Dad… why would he? He just got held up somewhere.’
Noel raised his eyebrows in disbelief. ‘Hmm, I can see how it might be murder at the fishing lake at this time of day – fish throwing themselves at your rod left, right and centre…’
‘Dad…’ Elise, even in her drunken state, seemed to sense the sudden increase of tension. ‘I’m sure he’ll be here when he can get here.’
‘Maybe,’ Noel said, though his tone made it clear he didn’t believe that for a second. ‘Although, it’s not like anyone’s missing him anyway.’
‘Dad, don’t,’ Emma said. ‘Not today please.’
‘I’m not going to start anything, but I’m your dad and you can’t expect me to say nothing because I care too much to do that.’
‘I know – but just not now, eh?’
As if he’d known he was being talked about, the garden gate now opened and Dougie strolled in. He was in grubby jeans and still wearing the jacket Emma knew he fished in, his shoulder-length hair pulled back low at his neck and tied with a band. The sight of him here, clearly not even having gone to clean himself up first, made Emma bristle. Ordinarily it didn’t bother her, and she’d once even liked that he had no airs and graces, but he knew what this party meant to her and she’d specifically asked him to make an effort. She’d asked him not to go fishing, but she’d suspected he would anyway. That was really OK too – as long as he was there when he’d promised he would be and arrived at her uncle and aunt’s house clean, she couldn’t really dictate his movements before then.
‘I’m just…’
Emma made a vague excuse and went to meet Dougie, intercepting him before there’d been time for anyone else to see he’d arrived. She shoved him towards the gate. ‘Back out – now!’
‘I know what you’re going to say, babes, and I’m sorry, I—’
‘Don’t!’ Emma put her hand up to halt the barrage of excuses that were coming. ‘Out – now!’
‘Look…’ He placed his hands on her shoulders and tried to move her aside, but she stood firm and glared at him. ‘If you’re going to roast me for this then I get it, feel free, but at least wait until the party is over, yeah?’
She wanted nothing more than to let rip, to tell him exactly how furious she was – if nothing else it would make her feel better. But galling as it was, she couldn’t deny that he had a point. Now wasn’t the time or place to make a scene.
‘Only because this is Elise’s special day,’ she said in a low voice, ‘I’m letting it go for now. But you’d better mingle and you’d better be charming. You also need to apologise to my aunt and uncle for all the work you were supposed to do that they had to do because you weren’t here. And to Elise for not being here earlier, and to my dad because right now he’s the only person here now who hates you more than I do…’
‘Babes…’ he began, but Emma didn’t wait to hear whatever pathetic excuse was coming. She didn’t want to know where he’d been or why he was late because it would probably only make her more furious than she already was.
Instead, making sure nobody was looking, she hurried into the house and took refuge in the spare room so she could cry in private and let all her frustration out. Then she went back to the party as if nothing had happened.
Chapter Two
As Elise wasn’t actually leaving until later that week, Emma bid her a brief farewell as the party wound up and promised to catch up with her before she left. She’d worn her smile well all afternoon, but it disappeared as soon as she and Dougie got into the taxi to go home. They sat side by side, stony-faced and silent the whole journey. Emma was desperate to vent her frustration but aware that the back of a cab probably wasn’t the place to do so.
But as soon as the front door had closed and they were safely in, she let rip.
‘How could you do that to me? To Elise? She’s leaving the country and you couldn’t even be bothered to come and say goodbye!’
‘I did come.’
Emma threw her bag onto the sofa and followed Dougie into the kitchen. ‘Hardly! How do you think it looked to everyone that you weren’t there?’
‘I’m sure they told you,’ he said carelessly.
‘They bloody well did! Doesn’t that bother you one bit?’
‘Why should it? I can’t do anything about what they think of me.’
‘Of course you can! Do you know what they say?’
‘I’m sure you’re going to tell me,’ he sighed as he sat on a chair.
‘They think you’re a waster who lives off me.’
‘We know that’s not true.’
‘That’s hardly the point – it makes me look foolish that I defend you all the time, that I’m giving my life to someone who gives nothing back! You may not care that they think you’re a waster but I do. You may not care that they think I’m an idiot to have you but I do—’
‘You care way too much about what other people think – that’s your problem.’
‘And you don’t worry enough about how other people feel! You might think it shouldn’t bother me or that it’s my problem that I let it, but the fact remains that it does and you’re supposed to love me, which means it should matter to you how I feel about it. But you don’t give a shit, and what am I supposed to make of that?’
She stood next to the table, too wired to sit down with him, and he got up and pushed past her to fetch a beer from the fridge.
‘I suppose you’re about to tell me,’ he said.
‘I shouldn’t have to tell you! I’ve told you so many times now you ought to know! If you cared one jot about me, Dougie, you’d get it!’
‘You know I care; I just don’t take things as seriously as you do. It’s not like Elise is going forever.’
‘That’s not the point! I asked you to be there and that should have been enough. I’d have done it for you. It’s not about Elise or how long she’ll be gone; it’s about you and me, how we treat each other…’ Emma’s voice faltered. ‘It’s about making each other happy and taking seriously the things the other thinks are important. You clearly don’t think I’m worth the effort at all.’
‘Jesus, I was late! You’re overreacting, as usual! OK – get this rant out of your system and then please let us get back to normal!’
‘That’s the problem, Dougie… I don’t know if our normal is enough for me anymore.’
‘What?’
‘I think… I don’t think I have the energy to carry this on.’
‘Good, because I’m sick of this argument.’
‘I don’t mean the argument. I mean us – I don’t think I can keep it up. I’m tired, and I’m sick of being the only one who makes an effort. I don’t think I can do it anymore and I don’t think I ought to.’
‘You can’t mean that?’
‘Why not?’
He slammed his beer onto the table and glared at her. ‘This is stupid!’
‘No, for once this is sense. Where has the past two years got us, Dougie?’
‘We live together.’
‘It’s my mortgage – that
’s hardly commitment.’
‘We’re engaged – what more commitment do you want?’
‘We’re only engaged because you were drunk enough one night to ask. We haven’t even set a date for the wedding.’
‘We said in a couple of years.’
‘No, you said in a couple of years. A couple of years – what does that even mean? It means nothing – there’s no real intention in it.’
‘Alright then, pick a date right now if that’s how you feel.’
Emma sighed and ran a hand through her hair. ‘It doesn’t work like that.’
‘Of course it does.’
‘No it doesn’t. Planning a wedding is supposed to be a joyous thing, full of anticipation and hope. It’s not supposed to be a solution just to get you off the hook after a row that you caused.’
Dougie moved towards her now and tried to take her in his arms but she shifted out of range.
‘You know me, babes,’ he said, his voice dropping to a more persuasive lilt. ‘I want to marry you, I do, but I need pushing along from time to time or I’ll never do anything.’
‘Dragging is more like it. And how do you think that feels?’
‘I have no idea,’ he said, the gentleness of his tone falling away again.
‘Like I’m forcing you to love me.’
‘Don’t be stupid.’
‘Well,’ Emma demanded, ‘how would it make you feel?’
‘I could say the same to you. You’re forcing me to change for you.’
‘I’m not asking you to change! Unless taking a second to consider someone else’s feelings is asking for change. Go fishing, go out with your mates, forget arrangements from time to time… I accepted those things about you a long time ago. I don’t want a lot; I just want to be able to count on you for the stuff that really matters. When the chips are down I only ask that you’re with me. Surely that’s not too much for someone you’re supposed to love?’
Dougie grabbed his beer again with a sigh. ‘It was just a party. I’ll see Elise again before she goes if that’s what you want.’
Emma pressed her lips together, but the sting had gone from the tail of her anger. She had no more energy left to feel anything but defeated.
‘Maybe you won’t.’
‘Won’t what?’
‘Maybe you won’t be here by then. If I can’t count on you for something like this then what can I count on you for? And if I can’t count on you for anything then what’s the point of any of it?’
‘God, it was just a party, Em! She’s only going for a year!’
‘She’s my sister! And you know what she means to me. It was more than just a party to me. I wanted to say goodbye properly to my best friend, to the girl I watched grow up without a mother and yet still achieve amazing things. It was supposed to be a celebration of all she’s overcome, of recognising that the tragedies of life don’t have to define you and that there’s always hope. That party meant things that I can’t put into words, and you know that.’
‘I didn’t know that. If you’d put it like that to me before—’
‘What?’ Emma folded her arms across her chest. Every muscle was taut. ‘You’d have made more of an effort? No you wouldn’t have, and even if you had that’s not the point. You shouldn’t have needed to hear it like that to do the decent thing; you should have been there because I’d asked you to, because you’d promised – it shouldn’t have to be anything bigger than that.’
‘What do you want me to do? I said I was sorry, I said you could pick a wedding date. I can’t do any more. I can’t turn back time and change it.’
‘No, and more’s the pity neither can I.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means if I could go back to that day in the park where we met, maybe I wouldn’t have sat on that bench to tie my shoe. Or maybe, when you’d started to talk to me, I would have walked away instead of giving you my number.’
‘Yeah? Well maybe that goes for both of us. It hasn’t been easy street for me either. I’ve lost count of the times you’ve flipped out on me over nothing.’
‘I don’t flip out over nothing! Yes, sometimes I ask you to put yourself out for me but isn’t that what couples do? I do things for you all the time.’
‘I don’t ask you to.’
‘You don’t need to ask when you please yourself either way.’
‘So I can’t have a life of my own now?’
‘I’m not saying we ought to be joined at the hip, just that there are some things we should pull together for.’
‘Well I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.’
Dougie grabbed his beer and stalked out of the room. A moment later, Emma heard the bedroom door slam shut and the sound of his games console being switched on.
She let out a long breath. Every time they had one of these arguments he said the same thing – It won’t happen again – but it always did. She had to wonder why she kept letting it.
Emma woke the next morning on the sofa, where she’d spent the night. The sound of the front door slamming had dragged her from a sleep she wasn’t sorry to see the back of because it had hardly been sleep at all. She’d tossed and turned for most of the night and the odd hour when she’d settled into something deeper had done nothing more than give her a nice crick in the neck.
She pushed herself up and off the sofa and padded through to the kitchen in bare feet. The kettle was cold, but Dougie’s Wellingtons were gone from their usual spot by the back door. An inspection of the lean-to revealed his fishing gear had gone from there too. So much for having a grown-up discussion once they’d both sobered up. He must have woken early and gone straight out. To avoid her? It was quite possible and she didn’t know whether to feel frustrated or sad about that. She could have phoned him but she suspected he wouldn’t pick up, and the way she felt she wasn’t altogether sure she wanted to talk to him anyway. It was certainly too early to call anyone else to get things off her chest, so she set about making a cup of tea.
She stared out of the window at a citrus-hued dawn, sunlight just beginning to slide across the rooftops of her street. Her head felt woolly, her thoughts sluggish, her eyes swollen from lack of sleep and the tears she’d shed the night before as she’d lain on the sofa and tried to drop off, knowing she was in for a bad night.
The hangover she had now was hardly helping. Before Dougie turned up she’d been determined to enjoy the party, and as the drink flowed she’d gladly taken her share. Then Dougie had arrived and, far from making things better, he’d made them worse, so she’d drunk to deaden the anger and frustration that had threatened to explode from her. At home after the party she’d carried on, unable to get any decent resolution from her argument with him. She’d decided to stop only when she’d realised she was so numb and dizzy she was likely to pass out with one more anyway. And, far from making her feel better, it seemed every glass was making her more miserable, so what was the point?
She was certainly paying for it this morning.
Once she’d made tea and a slice of toast she sat in the silent kitchen, her gaze once again drawn to the window. It was a beautiful morning now the frost had melted, the kind that would send waves of sunlight across sleepy fields where the hollows were still hidden by blankets of mist, through newly budding trees, vibrant green and bursting into life.
Dougie had probably gone to his usual spot to fish at a nearby pool. Even though he called it the fishing lake, in reality it was slap bang in the city centre and barely big enough to qualify as a lake at all, but it had everything he said he needed for a lazy day by the water. Usually he’d meet friends there; some of them worked and some – like Dougie who’d been made redundant the previous Christmas – didn’t. There was always someone for him to catch up with and it didn’t seem to matter to Dougie who it was.
Sometimes he’d smell suspicious when he came home but he would always reassure Emma that even though his friends might indulge in a little ‘herbal roll-up’ he didn’t. She
was never sure she believed him but didn’t see the point in airing her doubts. To her, the idea of sitting by a lake all day – and not even a particularly pretty or peaceful one as the sound of the traffic on the nearby road roared past, while just over the treetops you could see apartment buildings rising into the sky – was so dull she imagined the only way you could get through it was with the aid of a ‘herbal roll-up’, so she wouldn’t have been surprised to discover that Dougie did partake.
Taking a sip of her tea she grimaced, realising she’d been staring out of the window so long it had gone cold. Her toast hadn’t fared much better, but she forced herself to eat it anyway, washed it down with the last of her cold tea and went to get dressed.
The morning was cool but the sun was bright as Emma walked to Dougie’s fishing spot, certain she’d find him there. It was still spring and though they’d been blessed with unseasonably warm weather recently – prompting them to change Elise’s party from an indoor to outdoor event – the chill of the morning took a little time to burn away.
She hadn’t decided yet what she was going to do or say if she found Dougie there; it just seemed to her that activity of any sort was better than the dreadful inertia of sitting, pointlessly fuming alone in an empty house while he carried on as if nothing had happened. Something had happened. Something was broken – at least, it was for Emma – and she wasn’t even sure she wanted to fix it. Whether she did or didn’t, it still needed addressing. She’d been so afraid of life alone she’d indulged Dougie for far too long now, but when all was said and done, would life alone be worse than this? Their relationship was filled with uncertainty and a lack of real commitment or promise. Was it really worth fighting for when the battle was so exhausting and thankless?
Totally absorbed by her thoughts, she barely registered that there was a woman out for an early morning run, head down with EarPods in, making straight for her. At the last moment she looked up and stopped dead feet away, and, as their eyes met, she broke into a smile.
The Hotel at Honeymoon Station : A totally heartwarming romance about new beginnings Page 3
