by Holly Miller
We stare out at it for maybe twenty minutes more until silence finally descends and the sky falls back to sleep.
We’re about to climb down when a barn owl emerges from the shadows, its pale trajectory enchanting as snowfall. We watch it glide by before it banks steeply up, then vanishes like vapor behind the trees.
* * *
• • •
The following night, I get back to my flat after dinner at Esther’s to find a white cardboard box on the doormat. Inside, there is a slice of chocolate torte from the Sicilian pastry shop in town I love but can’t afford. And there’s a scribbled note.
Your story made me smile.
J
P.S. Wasn’t sure if it was my place to say this last night, but please have your own best interests at heart. Apply for that job.
18.
Joel
The chocolate torte was a mistake. I know that now. Going to the pastry shop, choosing the best-looking slice, watching them box it up. My heart was hopping so hard the whole time, I never even stopped to think.
I just want to do nice things for her. Bring a smile to her face, a small lift to her day. I’m not even sure why. But I’ve felt that way since we first met.
So I was disappointed when she didn’t answer her door. Felt a little bit crushed that I had to write a note.
I only acknowledged the truth minutes later, back in my flat. Reminded myself that if I had a single shred of decency I would throw whatever it is that’s unfolding between us up to the wind. Because nothing has changed since my mum died or Vicky left, or I broke up with Kate. And nothing ever will.
But the fact is, we’re separated solely by floorboards. And the following morning, just as I’m thinking I should try harder to keep my distance, there’s a knock on my door.
I stand in the middle of my living room, ready to answer. But then I remember all the reasons I shouldn’t and shut my eyes. Wait for her to leave.
* * *
• • •
Walking the dogs through the park midafternoon, I contact Dad to say I can’t make lunch this Sunday.
I feel a sting in my throat as I send him the message. One more relationship crumbling, because I know too much. Yet another moment I can never rewind.
I play it all back now in my mind. Picture his face as he said the words.
You’re not even my son! I’m not even your father!
Is that why I never quite saw eye-to-eye with him? Why I constantly felt I was a disappointment, somehow? It always seemed like Doug was the son he’d been waiting for, which for a while I put down to their shared passions. Everything from model trains and red meat to rugby and numbers (Doug took over the accountancy firm from Dad when he retired).
But maybe, for the first time, there’s an indication it ran deeper than that.
Would it not make a strange sort of sense if it were true? Even though that would bring with it another life-altering question: who, and where, is my real father?
19.
Callie
The morning after finding the chocolate torte, I make the mistake of mentioning it to Dot. She becomes animated with strategy, giddy with tactics, the self-appointed line commander of my love life.
But I don’t want to apply tactics to Joel. Tactics were what I needed to handle Piers, when even at the beginning time spent together always came with a flip side—like burning your tongue on something lovely, or trying on a gorgeous outfit only to feel slightly fat.
By contrast, being around Joel is always so straightforward, so enjoyable. He warms me through, rather than leaves me cold. Added to which, ever since that night I heard him with Melissa through the floorboards, I’ve been in no doubt as to just how hot I think he is.
I stopped at his flat on my way to work this morning, but when I knocked there was no response, or audible movement inside. So I slipped a note under the door.
It simply read:
That chocolate torte made me smile (a lot). Thank you.
C
P.S. I’ve applied for the job.
20.
Joel
Steve’s invited me to join him for some sort of healthy juice. He’s asked me three times now. Frankly, it’s the kind of invitation I’d usually decline, but I still feel guilty about how things turned out between us. So, a few days after Bonfire Night, I meet him in the café at the gym where he works. I expect this to be a form of atonement in itself.
I was right. A speaker above our heads discharges a migrainous throb of house music I’ve fled nightclubs in the past to escape. And that’s before Steve’s slid a juice across the table to me that looks worryingly like tomato soup.
“What’s in it?” I’m pretty tired today, and I’m hoping that, against all odds, it might contain some caffeine.
“Carrot and beetroot. Kale. Orange juice. It’s cleansing,” he says. Like that justifies the part where they liquidized raw vegetables and flogged him the output for nearly a fiver.
Still, atonement.
We catch up for ten minutes or so. He shows me photos of the new house on his phone. Reminds me Poppy turns one in the new year, tells me Hayley’s doing well back at work. It’s hard, as he talks, not to be distracted by his biceps. I see them twitching beneath his skin, like there’s only so long they can be parted from the dumbbell station.
I feel more than a bit out of place here, in my jeans, long sleeves, and boots.
Eventually he puts his phone away. “How’s Callie?”
I keep it neutral. “Great. Really nice neighbor. Seems like a good tenant.” I think about her note to me, propped up in my kitchen now. About how hard it’s been recently to think of her in purely platonic terms.
“All right,” Steve says, smiling wryly. “You can thank me later.”
I say nothing. Unfortunately this gives me no choice but to take another sip of pulverized vegetable.
“So how’s everything? You know—life, work, health.”
“No change, really.”
“Still no job?” he muses, like we’re talking about someone else. “You must be burning through your savings.”
I mumble acknowledgment. It’s a sore point, predominantly because I am. I lived like a monk to build them up in the first place, cashed in a small investment inherited from a great-aunt. I’m careful with it (trips to the coffee shop are my sole indulgence). And I’m lucky to have a financially illiterate landlord, who’s put my rent up once in ten years. But the money won’t last forever.
Steve’s never shied away from asking personal questions, which I mostly attribute to the confidence that must come with having a gladiator-grade physique. But he has a warmth about him too. Affability honed like an extra muscle from years of talking to clients, listening to their problems while they force out sit-ups and try not to spew.
Steve sets down his smoothie. Rubs at something that isn’t there on our table. And then, just like that, a hand grenade of a question. “Did I ever mention I have a master’s in neuropsychology?”
I manage to tell him no, he did not mention that.
“What I’m saying is . . . if you ever wanted to talk . . .” He opens the damn door and leaves it swinging by its hinges. But the landscape beyond looks cold and uncertain.
“Why? I mean, if you’re a neuropsychologist, why do you work here?”
“Does there have to be a reason?”
I look at Steve busting out of his vest in front of me. Then I try and fail to picture him wearing a white coat. “Yes,” I say, blinking. “There does, as it happens.”
A shrug. “I joined a gym to help me deal with the stress of studying, then realized my heart was more in this than that. So I started training people part-time during my PhD, and felt like I was born to do it.”
Jesus. A PhD. “You’re a doctor?” Why did his mail never reflect this, alert me to t
his code-red situation?
“Nah. Dropped out after three years. Though sometimes Hayley does like to call me Doctor—”
I raise a hand to cut him off, then lower it. “Why are you telling me this?”
“I thought you might like to know.”
“Know, as in avail myself of your services?”
From out of nowhere, my university GP sneers into my mind. I can still picture his face like he’s sitting right in front of me. The side-eye, the derision. The inexplicable irritation.
Steve’s shaking his head. “Not like that. I’m no counselor. But I suppose I just wanted to say that if you ever fancy a chat, I might understand more than you think. I don’t just lift weights.”
Can’t say I ever judged him before. But I wouldn’t necessarily have gone with brain specialist if I’d been asked to take a punt on his former career path. “You ever regret it?”
“Regret what?”
“Not pursuing it.”
“Never. I wouldn’t have met Hayley, and we wouldn’t have Poppy.” He looks around the café. “And this is loads better than a career in some anonymous lab. I still get to make a positive difference to people’s minds. Just in a more direct way.”
“How come you never invited me to train with you?” (I’m curious more than anything.)
“I guess you never really struck me as the working-out type.”
“I go walking,” I protest.
“No offense, Joel, but so does my nan.”
“Well, isn’t motivation part of the gig?” I’ve seen Steve in the park before, yelling at groaning boot-camp participants that pain is just weakness leaving the body.
“You’ve still got to want it.”
I look down at my half-drunk tomato soup. If Steve already senses me to be a lost cause, then this sorry orange mess can stay firmly in the glass where it belongs.
“Look, mate. I only wanted to say, if you ever need anything—”
“Actually, there is something you could do for me.” I’ve got a favor to ask him, to do with Callie.
I leave a short while later, disoriented and a little exposed. As if I’ve lost layers of myself to the wintry wind. Like a scarf whipped away I won’t ever get back.
All the way home, I think about what Steve’s told me. About heading down a certain path, before taking a chance on the one thing that made him happy.
And for me, that thing is knowing Callie. She makes me happy when I see her at home or at the café. I don’t want to stop spending time with her. She touches parts of me I’d forgotten were there.
Better to know her as a friend than not to know her at all. Even though, in another life, it might have been something more.
* * *
• • •
University. A time when intensive studying, a claustrophobic social scene, and periods of zero sleep were screwing with my already messy mind. I kept skipping lectures, or turning up to them exhausted. My degree seemed at risk when it had barely begun, and something had to change.
So, once I hit my second term, I decided to make a doctor’s appointment.
It took me a couple of months to work up to it. Luke’s accident and Mum’s death still loomed large, as if I feared I might be held retroactively responsible. Or maybe I’d be declared mentally ill, sectioned against my will. (I could only imagine the reaction of my dad, king of the stiff upper lip, if that were ever to happen.)
I’d not met my university GP before. He was old, which might have been reassuring if he hadn’t looked so impatient before I’d even sat down.
The consulting room was gloomy, enclosed by vertical blinds. It smelled clinical. Of disinfectant and disinterest.
“Insomnia” was his barked summation of the story I spent a breathless two minutes imparting to him. At that point I was giddy with hope, purely because I’d made it through the door. Surely, now, I’d get the help I was so desperate for. Perhaps he’d even know of a cure.
“Yes,” I replied. “Because of the dreams. My premonitions.”
He stopped typing then, narrowed his eyes. I guess he didn’t fancy logging that bit. A smile feathered his lips, which were flaky in a way I was sure there was a cream for. “Friends, Mr. Morgan?”
“Sorry?”
“Have you lots of friends here, or have you struggled? To fit in.”
The truth was I had always struggled. I withdrew from my peers at school, after what happened to Luke. Became something of a loner. My dreams took up the headspace I needed for socializing, so I could count the friends I’d made here on one hand. But that was the damn symptom, not the cause. Surely a doctor of all people should have been able to figure that out.
“Drugs?” he continued, when I didn’t respond.
“If there’s something that could work, I’ll try anything.”
A condescending smile. “No. I’m referring to recreational drugs. Do you take them?”
“Oh. No. Never.”
He disbelieved me by way of full eye contact. “And you’re not on medication.”
“No.” I tried again. “Look, I dreamed my mum was going to die. And then she did. She died of cancer.” I could have choked on those words.
“Fresh air,” he clipped, as if I hadn’t even spoken. “Get some exercise, stop drinking, take these.” He scribbled out a prescription and handed it to me.
“I do exercise, and I don’t drink much—”
“They’re for the insomnia. Make sure you read the leaflet.”
“But the insomnia . . .” I said shakily, “. . . isn’t really the problem. It’s more of a side effect.”
He shifted in his chair, cleared the clag from his throat. “Did you manage to get a seat in the waiting room just now, Mr. Morgan?”
“Yes, I—”
“Lucky you. Sometimes it’s standing-room only. Students are a sickly bunch.” He leaned forward, stabbed his jotter with a pen like he was angry. Like I’d deliberately flouted a rule that was clear to everyone except me. “I can only deal with one problem per appointment.” The expression on his face was total disdain. It ate into my gut like acid.
I don’t know what it was (bad day, personal problems), but something about my presence that afternoon had really irritated him. Out of nowhere, I was reminded of my dad.
A silence settled then, drawn out by the ticking of the clock on his desk. Cheap white plastic, a pharmaceutical-company logo emblazoned across it in purple.
But I had to try. One last time. It had taken so much for me to book the appointment, work up the courage to walk through the surgery door. Repeat the words I’d been practicing for days in my bathroom mirror.
“Is there anything neurological . . . Could there be something wrong with my brain? With the premonitions—”
I was cut off by his laugh. An actual laugh. One that, against all the odds, lit up his humorless face. “Well, you cannot predict the future, obviously. I don’t know if this is some sort of joke, or a dare you’ve been put up to, but you’re wasting my time. Get out of my surgery.”
21.
Callie
A week or so after Bonfire Night, when I see Joel first thing at the coffee shop, I know what I’m going to do. I’ve been practicing how to pitch it to him—but now my mouth’s gone dry and I’m wobbling slightly, which probably isn’t going to help.
I set down his double espresso, the cup twitching from my hand. “Morning.”
“Hey.” He looks up. Though his eyes are tired, his smile is warm.
My heart’s like a fist trying to break down my rib cage. “I . . . got an e-mail last night. They’ve invited me for an interview at Waterfen.”
His whole face lifts. “Wow, congratulations. That’s brilliant news.”
I rush into my next question. Don’t think about it, just do it. “So, that new Italian place by the river’s been get
ting rave reviews. Excellent spaghetti al pomodoro, apparently. Fancy trying it tonight, helping me prep?”
He looks slightly taken aback—though to be fair that’s maybe because it’s nine in the morning, there’s a queue at the counter for coffee to go, and I’m lingering by his table, waffling on about spaghetti.
Then, from out of nowhere, the woman at the next table leans over and chimes in. “I tried it last night. Top-notch. Definitely recommend.” She makes a chef’s kiss with her fingers.
I want to give her an actual kiss. But instead I simply smile, look back at Joel, and wait, stomach writhing in silent agony.
Finally, he swallows, gives me the answer I’ve been praying for. “Yeah, okay. Why not?”
* * *
• • •
As we wait to be shown to our table at the restaurant, Joel’s describing his afternoon dog walk.
“. . . so Tinkerbell—that’s the Maltese—makes a break for it by the bins. And I’m running after her, shouting her name, over and over . . .”
He does a quick impression. Already I’m laughing so hard there are tears in my eyes.
“She’s essentially a thug disguised as a mop. Very outward-ranging.”
“Outward-ranging?”
“Ah, that’s the technical term for Screw you, I’m off.”
“Well, you can hardly blame her.” I dab at my eyes with the corner of my scarf. “I mean, to Tinkerbell you’re probably just a booster vaccination on legs.”
He laughs too. “Fair point. Hadn’t thought of that.”
“I still can’t believe you walk people’s dogs for free. Are the owners really attractive, or something?”
