‘Sorry!’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean to startle you…’
‘Dodie?’
‘Hey.’
‘What are you doing here?’
‘I could ask you the same thing. We seem to be making a habit of being in the same place at the same time. I come down here a lot to sit and think. Didn’t expect to find you doing the same.’
‘I used to do it at home,’ he said. ‘Blackpool, I mean. I used to go down to the beach at night. The tide used to come in a lot further than it does here, so sometimes you had to scarper pretty quick if you didn’t want to get wet…’
Dodie laughed. ‘I’ll remember that if I ever go there.’
‘It’s the first time I’ve been down here though. After you brought me down here the other night I wanted to get a better look.’
‘Mind if I sit with you?’ she asked, already settling on the sand beside him.
‘Help yourself.’
It was then that she noticed he had a blanket over his knees. Unfolding it, he spread it so that it covered hers too. It was warm and smelled like his house, bringing sharply to her mind the memory of that first meeting in his hallway.
‘Thanks,’ she said.
‘It can get a bit parky out here.’
‘Wimp.’
‘I know,’ he chuckled. ‘So much for being a hardened soldier.’ He looked across at her. ‘So, does it help?’
‘What?’
‘Coming down here to think? Do you find the answers?’
‘That all sounds very grasshopper.’ She put on a spooky voice. ‘Do I find the answers I seek on my path to spiritual enlightenment…?’
‘I wouldn’t go that far,’ he said with a wry smile. ‘Did anyone ever tell you you’re daft?’
‘Weird is the word they usually use.’
‘I wouldn’t; I’d use daft. A good kind of daft though.’
‘I think that’s a compliment.’
‘It is. I like daft.’
‘Have you found your answers?’
He shook his head. ‘I’m not sure I even know what the questions are yet.’
‘That does rather put you at a disadvantage to begin with. Something you want to talk through? I’m a good listener.’
‘I don’t doubt it.’ There was a faint sigh, like he was trying to contain it. ‘I wouldn’t know where to begin.’
A wind came from nowhere, picking up sand as it swept over the beach and making Dodie shiver slightly. Ed pulled the blanket further around her. She could feel the heat of his thigh as he pressed in.
‘I’m OK,’ she said, suddenly conscious of a new emotion at the edges of her awareness, of a sensation she hadn’t expected from his proximity. It would have been better to move away, but something was stopping her.
‘No, you’re not,’ he said, putting an arm around her and rubbing her shoulder, which only made the sensation more acute and more confusing, filling her with a strange mix of guilt and desire and anger at her weakness. ‘I’m only trying to keep you warm because I don’t want to administer first aid later.’
‘I’m warm,’ she said. ‘Can you even do first aid?’
‘Of course. What do you think they teach in the army?’
‘How to shoot guns and get shouted at?’
‘That, yes… And sometimes other stuff. I learned to cook too, and to speak French.’
‘In the army?’
He nodded.
‘Wow. I had no idea. I wouldn’t have thought you’d have time with all that fighting.’
‘A lot of time we sat around waiting for the fighting. You needed as much as you could find to take your mind off the prospect of your last day lurking around every corner.’
‘Oh, God… I didn’t mean… I’m so sorry, that was a stupid joke, so insensitive—’
‘Forget about it,’ he said. ‘That’s what I’m trying to do.’
‘It was that bad?’
‘Not all the time. In fact, hardly ever because you got used to it. But this one day…’ He shifted position, the movement releasing the scent of his cologne from beneath the blanket. ‘Well, it changed everything.’
There was silence for a moment. Dodie wanted to ask what that day had brought, what could have been so bad that it had changed his life. Putting the pieces together, there were only a few conclusions she could possibly draw from his statement, and that was he’d killed someone, or witnessed someone close to him being killed. Part of her wasn’t sure she wanted to know, but her curiosity wouldn’t leave her alone.
‘Are you allowed to talk about it? To people who aren’t in the army, I mean?’
‘I am, but I don’t know that I want to. I’m trying to put that and lots of other things behind me. That’s why I came to live here.’
‘On the whim of a pin in a map?’ Dodie raised her eyebrows.
He hesitated before replying. It was a split second but it wasn’t lost on Dodie.
‘Exactly,’ he said. ‘It didn’t turn out too badly, on reflection. For a start, I got to meet you.’
‘I’d hardly call that a result.’
‘I would…’ He turned to her, and though his face was in shadow, Dodie could see that his expression was suddenly earnest.
‘I’m sorry about your text,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘Your text from earlier. I’m sorry I didn’t reply, but I had some stuff going on with my gran and—’
‘It doesn’t matter now. I phoned Sally and she just managed to pull it in time.’
‘So you won’t be in the write-up?’
‘No.’ He was still holding her in that earnest gaze, as though she was a complex puzzle he was trying to work out. Or perhaps he was the puzzle and he was trying to work himself out. But then he spoke again, and it was not what she’d been expecting.
‘Dodie Bright… what would you do if I said I wanted to kiss you?’
Instinctively, she backed away an inch so they were no longer touching. ‘I’d say you can’t. I mean, I have a boyfriend…’
Ed couldn’t have looked more wounded if Dodie had stuck a knife in his chest. Instantly she regretted her response. He’d probably agonised over that sentence, struggled with the need to say it, and she’d cut him down without so much as a second thought for his fragile heart. Why the hell had she issued such a terse reply? It was even partly her fault – she’d seen it coming, unconsciously almost willed it – and now he was paying the price. This had been coming, and she hadn’t done a thing to stop it. But she wasn’t free to kiss him, and that was all there was to it.
‘You’re right,’ he said quietly, his gaze cast onto the ground. ‘It’s a dirty trick and your boyfriend doesn’t deserve it.’
‘Oh, Ed, I didn’t mean…’
He got up and brushed the sand from his trousers. ‘You’ll be alright getting back? You won’t stay out too late by yourself?’
Dodie jumped to her feet too. ‘Why, where are you going?’
‘I have to go home.’
‘Why?’
He caught her in a pained gaze. ‘Do I really have to spell it out? Please… just leave me alone. Don’t call, don’t come to my house. I wish you all the luck in the world, I really do, but just please stay away.’
‘As I recall…’ she called stubbornly after him as he began to walk away, ‘it was you hassling me! You came to my shop! And you came to the brass band concert! You stay away from me!’
He didn’t look round, just carried on walking, head down. Dodie dropped to the sand, overwhelmed by tears of rage and frustration. How dare he blame her? How dare he make her out to be the villain of the piece? How dare he try to steal her from Ryan when he knew from bitter experience how hurtful that was? How dare he be so… so… so gorgeous… Lovely and kind, chivalrous and considerate, deep and interesting and everything she’d ever wanted in a man. Her very own Jimmy Stewart. That’s a mean trick, fate. How cruel to throw him to her now, when it was too late, when she’d have to break more than one heart to act
on her desires. Ryan didn’t deserve that kind of treatment, and it wouldn’t happen, not by her hand, not ever.
When she looked up again she couldn’t see Ed, his figure already swallowed by the dark. She sat for a moment, the waves rolling in a gentle rhythm like a baby’s sleeping breaths, the sand soft beneath her, the sky sparkling above her, and the world should have been perfect. But suddenly it felt very big, and very empty, and the truth knocked the wind from her like plunging into freezing water. With the Echo’s involvement she’d been ready for the possibility that her search for George and Margaret would soon come to an end, and she’d been strangely sad about that. But it wasn’t simply about the hole the end of the quest would leave in her life, but about the hole not having a reason to see Ed any more would leave. Only now, as he walked away from her, could she see it clearly. From the moment they’d walked the street together knocking on the doors of Wessex Road, she’d been falling, and she’d been too stupid and too stubborn to see it. He’d blown hot and cold and he’d muddled the truth of her emotions, and now she saw that it was because he’d been falling for her too. He’d fought it, knowing that she wasn’t free to love him back, knowing that it was wrong, not wanting to be the man who inflicted the same pain he’d felt when his ex-girlfriend ran off with his friend. It only went to dig the knife in further, because it proved just what an incredible man she’d lost. The fact that he was never hers to lose in the first place did nothing to make her feel better, though she tried to focus on that now as she dried her eyes on her sleeve and tipped her face to the stars.
One thing was certain as she pulled herself together, it had been one hell of a day. Had it really only been twelve hours ago since she’d sat in her pyjamas on the sofa with her nose in a book, thinking she was about to spend her Sunday in slobby boredom?
It might have been ten minutes she’d been sitting alone on the beach, or it might have been an hour. Suddenly, time had stopped making sense, but she’d grown cold as she’d sat there. It was then that she noticed Ed’s blanket on the sand. He was long gone so there was no point trying to find him. Pulling it around her shoulders, she breathed in the scent and fresh tears blurred her vision. Stupid, stupid girl, she told herself, you get what you deserve. But if she was feeling this wretched, how bad would Ed be feeling right now? Hadn’t he already been through enough without her making things worse?
Chapter Twelve
In any other job, Dodie could have feigned sickness and had a day under the blankets at home, hiding from life until it stopped screwing her over. But there was only her to open the shop, and the moment she started to take unscheduled days off she’d be on the slippery slope to failure. She’d messed enough things up, and her business was not going to go the same way. So, despite very little sleep and the fact that her face looked as if it had been mistaken for some dough pummelled into a bread tin, it was business as usual – smiling and small talk for the customers. And as usual, when she felt least able to cope with a busy shop, she got one.
At lunchtime her mother had called, incandescent with rage over Gran’s plans to marry a virtual stranger, and with all her other drama, Dodie hadn’t even had time to give that particular situation any more thought. All she could do was listen and make noises of agreement, but when her mum decided that they’d have to do something to stop it, Dodie gently reminded her that Gran was about as adult as it got and as such she was perfectly entitled to marry whoever she liked, regardless of their disapproval. Dodie was very much of the opinion that things would work themselves out, and if they didn’t, then everyone would just have to live with it. Her mum said that Dodie ought to care more, but the fact was that Dodie was clean out of caring these days, and what she really wanted was for everything to just go away so she could get on with the business of being happy again. Fat chance with a text from Ryan asking her whether she’d got room for his entire collection of sporting DVDs at her place, another from Sally Chandra telling her that the story was going to feature in the following night’s edition of the Echo and reminding her forcefully about Ed by mentioning how lovely he was despite his reluctance to be in the paper, and then another from Isla letting her know that she’d be over at eight and was really scared about her decision. For now, Dodie would have to be all things to all people, when all she really wanted was to be a nobody for a while until she fitted all the pieces of her own life back together again. And she had a feeling that when the chips were down the only person who really needed her was Ed – the one person she couldn’t help and definitely shouldn’t see.
Isla arrived bang on time, a bunch of flowers and a bottle of wine in her arms as Dodie let her in.
‘For you,’ she said.
‘Me?’
‘You’ve been such a rock over the last week or so. It’s to say thank you.’
‘I haven’t really done anything,’ Dodie replied, taking them from her. ‘But thank you.’
She led the way up to the flat and Isla followed.
‘I’ll get these in some water,’ Dodie said, veering off into the tiny kitchen. Isla sat at the table and watched her closely as she rummaged in the cupboards for a suitable vase.
‘Is everything OK?’ Isla said after a few silent moments.
Dodie nodded shortly. ‘Why shouldn’t it be?’
‘I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me?’
‘Everything’s fine. I’m tired, that’s all.’
‘I’ve seen you tired plenty of times. I’ve seen you after all-night parties and you haven’t looked like this.’
Dodie threw her a tight smile. ‘It’s been a long time since we went to an all-night party and I’m older now – I can’t cope with a lack of sleep the way I used to.’
‘Bollocks!’ Isla patted the chair beside her. ‘Sit down. I know when there’s something wrong and you’re going to spill. I can’t go off to France knowing things aren’t right here.’
‘Honestly,’ Dodie said, taking the wine to the fridge, ‘there’s nothing to worry about. You came to get things off your chest – remember? Let’s focus here.’
‘I came to see my best friend before I went,’ Isla said. ‘The getting-things-off-my-chest bit is just a distraction from the main event. Anyway, it’s only me complaining about the fact that I’m shitting myself. I was never going to change my mind about going.’
‘You’re bound to be nervous,’ Dodie said briskly, pulling a stack of takeaway menus from a drawer and dumping them in front of Isla. ‘It’s only natural. It’s not every day you get to hook up with your long-lost father.’ She nodded at the menus. ‘What are we having?’
‘Chinese?’ Isla said, flicking a menu at Dodie as she took a seat alongside her.
‘We always have Chinese.’
‘That’s because we like it.’
‘Don’t you want something different?’
‘I’m going to have enough different tomorrow. Today I need comforting routine. Please indulge me and let me be not different.’
Dodie smiled briefly. ‘Chinese it is then,’ she said, opening the menu and then closing it again. ‘I suppose you’re going to have your usual too and I probably don’t even need to bother reading this.’
‘Why waste time reading when we can order and then you can tell me what’s eating you?’
Dodie dropped the menu back onto the pile and looked up at her friend. ‘It would be easier to tell you what’s not eating me. I sound like a pointless, whining bag, though, and when I put it all into context and remember that other people have actual real problems, I realise I have nothing to complain about so I’m not going to.’
‘Pretend for a minute that nobody else has actual real problems, and pretend for a minute that I’m entertained by pointless whining, and tell me anyway.’
‘I don’t know if I want Ryan to move in.’
‘Well, that’s not completely unexpected.’
‘It isn’t?’
‘Anyone with eyes could have seen that coming. Casual sex and nights in front of the
telly are one thing, but making a commitment like that… Dodie, you already know what I think. I’ve never made any secret of the fact that I think you’re about as well matched as Lady Gaga and Pope Francis.’
‘So what do I do? If he doesn’t move in then that’s the end of the line, isn’t it? For us as a couple, I mean. Moving in would be the next logical step in our relationship, and if we don’t make it then, effectively, there is no relationship. At least not one that’s going anywhere.’
‘It sounds like you’ve already decided that.’
‘I haven’t, though. I don’t want him to move in, but I do like him. I don’t want to dump him.’
‘Is that true love talking or guilt? Because I know you do guilt rather well.’
‘And then there’s my gran, who’s suddenly decided she’s getting married to a man she met about two weeks ago at darts… Don’t even ask what she was doing at darts because I have no idea. The point is, it’s mental!’
‘Well, it does explain a lot…’ Isla arched an eyebrow.
‘What?’
‘She’s eccentric. And, well, you’re a bit eccentric…’
‘I’m not!’ Dodie squeaked.
‘What are you going to do?’ Isla asked, ignoring Dodie’s expression of outrage.
‘There’s not a lot we can do, is there? I mean, she’s bloody seventy whatever she is… she might even be eighty. I forget. The point is we can hardly stop her.’
‘Then you can’t worry about it. Move on, concentrate on what you can fix – what’s next?’
‘That’s it,’ Dodie said.
‘I thought you said there was a huge pile of things? It would be easier to tell me what’s not wrong? I counted just two there, and one of those is only half a thing when you really look at it. Quit holding out on me.’
Dodie let out a heavy sigh. ‘There’s Ed.’
‘Ed? Who the hell is Ed?’
‘You know – Wessex Road Ed. Letter Ed. Helping me look for George and Margaret Ed.’
‘Oh… Ed. OK, so what’s he done?’
‘It might be more about what I’ve done.’
‘Please don’t tell me you’ve shagged him.’
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