by Ashley Croft
The doorbell to the flat buzzed again.
She threw off the duvet and crept over to the window, shivering. Ewan was standing in the dying orange glow of a street light. Frost glittered on the grassy patch in front of the flats and dawn was streaking the azure sky with pink and red. On any other morning, it really would have been quite beautiful, yet everything she saw was tinged by guilt and regret.
Ewan caught sight of her. ‘Molly!’
‘Go away,’ she mouthed.
He obviously couldn’t hear and pointed to the tandem.
‘Go away!’ she shouted again.
Ewan put his hand behind his ear. Molly wasn’t sure whether he really couldn’t hear what she was saying, or was taking the piss. God, she didn’t have the energy for this. That row had drained her.
‘Bloody hell. Wait a minute,’ she mouthed and dropped the curtain. She shrugged on a big fluffy dressing gown and pressed the entrance button on her intercom to open the main street door. The thump of his boots echoed in the stairwell and probably woke up everyone in the building who hadn’t already been woken by his shouts. Molly lingered by the door, and as soon as she heard him outside, opened it.
‘Could you not have announced your presence a bit more loudly?’ she asked him as he stepped into the hallway.
‘If you’d been ready, I wouldn’t have had to wake you up. We’re behind schedule.’
‘Stuff the schedule. I’m not coming.’
Ewan suddenly seemed to notice her pink furry dressing gown. ‘Not coming? Are you ill?’
‘No, but I’m not going out on that thing.’
‘Oh.’ His brow creased in confusion. ‘Is everything all right?’
She already regretted letting him into the flat. ‘Yes. I mean no. I’ll be into work but I can’t face training this morning.’
‘I know it’s tough and I don’t want to sound like Pete, but if we don’t stick to the training plan, we might not make it to the finish. I admit it’s a bit chilly out there this morning but you’ll feel better once you get going.’ His tone softened.
‘Ewan. I won’t. Please shut up.’
Ewan peered at her. ‘Are you sure you’re not ill? Your eyes look puffy and red.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with me. I’ve had a big row about the bloody …’ Just in time Molly bit back the words she was going to say. She took a breath to try and calm down. ‘Sarah and I had a massive bust-up about Niall last night, that’s all, and I didn’t get much sleep last night.’
‘Oh. I see. I can see things must be very difficult for her, at the moment.’
She waited for him to offer to leave, already regretting saying as much as she had. She’d almost let slip about the Love Bug too, which made her come out in a cold sweat.
‘I suppose it won’t hurt to miss one session,’ he said in a softer tone. ‘You do look rough. Shall I make us a coffee?’
No, I want you to leave. I want to wallow in a pit of guilt and misery and work out how the hell I’m going to make things up with Sarah, my beloved sister who gave up her hopes and dreams to make sure I could have mine. And what did he mean “rough”? Molly caught sight of herself in the mirror on the hall table. Shit, her face was as lumpy and pink as her dressing gown but it wasn’t Ewan’s business to tell her.
‘I ought to get dressed,’ she said.
‘Good idea. I’ll put the kettle on.’
She dragged on her work uniform of jeans, sweater and sensible shoes and washed her face with cold water. Make-up would have to wait until her puffy eyes had calmed down. After a few calming breaths, she headed back to the sitting room where Ewan was waiting with two steaming mugs of coffee. The aroma revived her senses and she resolved to stay businesslike and get on with the day, while she tried to work out how to sort out the situation with Sarah.
Ewan, however, had other ideas. He wouldn’t take his eyes off her as she sipped the coffee, like she was one of his study subjects. Molly squirmed in her seat.
‘Bad row, was it?’ he said.
Well, there was no point hiding it now, thought Molly. Damage limitation was the only option. ‘Yeah. Look, I’m sorry about missing the training session.’
‘You’re close to her, aren’t you?’
Molly’s stomach flipped. Ewan wouldn’t be deflected. ‘Yes.’
‘You’re sisters. That’s understandable.’
She sat down on the sofa, cradling her coffee. ‘It’s more than that. Sarah’s the reason I’m here now.’
‘Here?’
‘I mean here here. In Cambridge. With you. At your lab.’
‘Why?’
‘As you know, our parents died in a car accident. I was almost fifteen and Sarah was eighteen. Our grandparents weren’t young and the other set live in Australia. They’d have given us a home but we didn’t want to have to move. Our auntie Carol would have had us too but she was going through a messy divorce and moved to a tiny flat. The authorities only let us stay together on our own because Sarah convinced them she could look after us both, with Carol’s support. Sarah gave up any idea of going to uni to study jewellery design and took a job on a bank training scheme. She worked all the hours she could, making her way up the ladder while looking after me.’
Ewan groaned. ‘God, I’m sorry. I knew you’d lost your parents in tragic circumstances but not the details. Even so, I have often thought about how terrible that must have been for you. I’m not a lump of granite but I’ve never discussed it with you because I’ve assumed you’d have mentioned it if you wanted to talk. And let’s face it, I didn’t know what to say about it. A few platitudes … sympathy. What can you say about a tragedy like that? But maybe, I should pay more attention to the welfare of my team.’
Molly had to smile. Ewan’s reaction was typical of many people’s. There was nothing to say about what had happened. Only Sarah could ever understand how she really felt. Only Sarah who she had hurt and driven away. ‘Don’t beat yourself up over it. I can’t cope with telling people to be honest. Their reaction …’ She smiled at Ewan to reassure him. That’s what she and Sarah often did: comforted other people who knew their story, when perhaps they might have expected things to be the opposite way around. At least it gave her some measure of control.
‘I can see why you’re so close to Sarah, now,’ Ewan said quietly.
‘Sarah … she was only a teenager herself really. She should have been out clubbing, getting drunk and sowing her wild oats. Instead she was trying to keep me on the straight and narrow. I wasn’t that easy to look after. I wasn’t doing drugs or anything but I was an awkward little cow at times. Morose … geeky … I drove her mad. Telling the teachers I knew more than they did. Telling Sarah I knew more than she did. Giving her a hard time.’ She winced. ‘God knows why she put up with me.’
‘Maybe because she loved you.’ Ewan smiled.
Her throat constricted. Ewan had hit the nail on the head with one simple statement. Sarah loved Molly. Molly adored Sarah. That was all either of them needed to know.
‘And she didn’t deserve me to throw it all back in her face. The things I said last night were so awful …’
‘Don’t beat yourself up.’
‘Sometimes we need to beat ourselves up. I do, this morning. I need to feel this bad to remind me of what she means to me and what I owe her.’
Ewan toyed with a stray coaster left on the table. It had a cartoon of Einstein on it. A jokey Christmas present from Sarah.
Ewan shifted in his seat, treating Molly to a great view of the muscles in his thighs. There was no hiding place in the Lycra, that was for sure. She felt guilty for lusting after him when she should have been feeling guilty but wasn’t that natural? People were ultimately selfish; trying to survive and perpetuate their own genes. Ewan glanced at a photo on the mantelpiece.
‘I won’t say how sorry I am because that’s obvious but it must have been terrible to lose them both at once,’ Ewan went on. ‘I can’t even begin to understand what you went t
hrough …’
‘I still can’t believe it’s real. Sometimes I still wake up and think they’re shouting at me to get out of bed and get ready for school.’
Ewan abandoned the coaster and reached across the table for her hand. His fingers, warmed by his mug, touched her cold ones. When she didn’t pull them away, he closed his hand around them. ‘I’m sorry for your loss, for the row with Sarah and for rocking up here at the crack of dawn like a bear with a sore head talking a load of crap about that fucking tandem when all you must want is to hide in a hole.’
His fingers applied just enough pressure to be comforting but not oppressive. His voice was like being rubbed with velvet. Now was the moment when, if it was ever going to happen, they would end up rolling around the bed and shagging each other’s brains out. And yet … that tingling feeling in her body wasn’t lust, that scratchy tickle in her throat was something far more uncontrollable.
She thought of making for the bathroom but it was too late. The tears were already pouring down her cheeks, not gentle weeping but huge snotty sobs.
‘It’s OK … It’s OK …’ Ewan held her. Her shoulders heaved and she could have died of embarrassment. She dragged her hand over her face and cringed when she saw the wet and snotty patch on his top.
She let go of him. ‘Oh God. Your cycle jersey. It’s the new one, isn’t it? I’ll wash it. Take it off.’
‘I can’t. I don’t have anything else to put on.’
Oh no, had she just asked her boss to take off his top in her flat? ‘No … um … I was only trying to help. I don’t know what came over me.’
‘It’s OK. I don’t mind. You had a big row with Sarah and it reminded you about your parents. Life dealt you the shittiest hand anyone can get. You’re allowed to have a meltdown every so often. We all are.’
Molly sprang further away from him and grabbed a tea towel drying on the radiator. ‘Here, use this to clean your top while I get some loo paper.’
She rushed to the bathroom and washed her face again. Layers of snotty bawling had made her skin look like a new-born baby’s: red and wrinkled. She wiped her nose and took the loo roll into the sitting room, where Ewan was looking at a photo on the window ledge.
‘Are these your parents?’ he asked. ‘If it upsets you too much, please feel free to ignore the question.’
‘Yes. That’s me and Sarah on holiday with them in Naxos. I didn’t want to go which is why I don’t look that happy. Sarah was eighteen so she was allowed to go to a bar with some friends she met but I had to stay with Mum and Dad.’
He smiled. ‘Bummer. How old were you? Thirteen? Fourteen?’
‘Fourteen … That was the last holiday we had before they died.’
He put the picture down. ‘How did it happen, if you don’t mind me asking?’
Molly sniffed but she knew she wouldn’t cry again.
‘Car accident. Our car versus a truck. We were on our way to our auntie’s. She was going to look after us while Mum and Dad had a weekend away to celebrate their silver wedding anniversary.’
‘You mean you were in the car when it happened?’
She nodded. She’d told the tale so often she now felt disassociated from it. She had the tale off pat, as if it was a story in a newspaper about something that had happened to somebody else. And the crying had been cathartic, either that or she had no more tears left. ‘Sarah and I were in the rear seats. A van pulled out in front of us, although I can’t remember seeing it. I only remember that Sarah and me, we were arguing in the back seat because we thought we were much too old to be babysat by Auntie Carol. We argued a lot but I loved Sarah to bits. We were only teenagers … It seems a long time ago now. Most of the time.’
‘My God, Molly. Were you hurt?’
‘Sarah broke her leg, her right arm and cut her head. There’s a scar under her hairline. The front of the car took the brunt of it. I was knocked unconscious or I blanked it all out. Dad was killed instantly and Mum died on the way to the hospital.’
Ewan appeared to swallow a lump in his throat.
‘I got off lightly. Lots of cuts and bruises, and some glass from the windows was embedded in my arm but the doctors dug that out.’
‘I’ve seen the scar in the summer but didn’t think anything. Everyone has scars,’ he said.
‘I’ve seen yours.’
‘My own fault. Climbing a tree, falling off some rocks on the beach when I was with my brother.’ He rolled his eyes. Her anger with him for turning up at the flat and seeing her cry had subsided. He was human, after all. There was hope; then she thought of the snot on his cycling jersey and cringed.
She threw him a smile. ‘I hope your top survives.’
‘It will.’ He glanced down at his hands, awkward again. Perhaps there wasn’t hope. He must regret getting so close to her, seeing her at a vulnerable, emotional moment. He was about to become the public Ewan again.
‘I suppose we’d both better go to work,’ she said, offering him a get-out, and stood up.
‘I cried at work once, you know.’
She turned to find Ewan staring at his hands.
‘What?’ she said.
‘When Anna left me. It was a month after I found out she’d been shagging the guy we worked with at a conference. I was conducting a meeting and without any warning – none whatsoever – wham, I burst into tears. It was possibly the worst moment of my life and I still want to die when I think about it.’
Finally, he met her eyes.
‘What did you do?’ she asked, still gobsmacked at him sharing such a personal moment. With her, too.
‘The human resources manager was in the meeting and he led me out of the room and told me to go home. I’ve never been so ashamed in my life and even though everyone was kind afterwards or just pretended it had never happened, I never got over it. I left in the end.’
‘Jesus.’
‘Yeah.’ Ewan stood up and wiped his hands on his tights. ‘I’d better go home and get changed.’
‘You don’t have to …’
Ewan swallowed hard. ‘I think I do. I have to.’ He spoke as if he was trying to convince himself as much as her. The moment between them had not simply gone, but vanished like dirty water down a drain. She felt freezing cold again.
‘Please, don’t worry about the top. I’ve had a lot worse. Will you be OK?’ he added gruffly, already on his way to the front door.
‘Course I will. Thanks for, um …’ Shit, she had no idea what to say. Everything had fallen apart, come together and fallen apart spectacularly again in the space of a few minutes. She went into professional mode. ‘Well, thanks and you needn’t worry. I’ll be into work and I’ll make the next training session.’
And he was gone, leaving her in the middle of the room, unable to move. In the space of a few hours, nothing had changed and yet everything had changed between her and Ewan, and between her and Sarah.
He’d shown a new and unexpected vulnerability to her. A caring side that she’d always suspected he had, but hadn’t expected him to reveal. She thought back to Sarah’s conversation with him in the church coffee shop all those weeks ago. Sarah had thought the sun shone out of his arse that day, after he’d helped her in the street.
He’d reminded her that blood was thicker than water and of how much Sarah loved her, and all the sacrifices she’d made for Molly to enjoy the life she had now.
‘And she didn’t deserve me to throw it all back in her face. The things I said last night were so awful …’ Molly groaned aloud, remembering her harsh words to her sister.
It was all very well, Ewan telling her not to beat herself up, but Molly did blame herself.
Sarah had made sacrifices to help Molly. It was time she showed Sarah how much she really cared about her. If that meant agreeing to use the Love Bug on Niall, then so be it.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Molly called round to Sarah’s house straight after work. She’d been terrified that her sister wouldn’t let her in and
had almost burst into tears of relief when the door opened before she’d even reached it.
‘OK. I’ll do it,’ she said, the moment she got inside the sitting room.
Sarah slumped down onto the sofa. ‘Really? You don’t have to do this out of some sense of pity. I’m not a basket case,’ she said.
‘It’s not pity, but I am sorry for the shitty things I said yesterday. Nothing hurts me more than hurting you.’
‘And I didn’t mean what I said about Ewan. I can tell it’s serious on your side and on his, I’m sure, deep down … but my judgement on men isn’t the greatest at the moment.’
The words “that’s an understatement” almost slipped out but Molly stopped in time. ‘I love you,’ she said instead, hugging Sarah tightly.
‘Let me and the bump breathe for a moment,’ Sarah joked as Molly squeezed her hard. ‘And I love you too, Mol, even though you drive me mad sometimes.’
‘Are you making something for the bump?’ Molly asked as they sat at the kitchen table with a drink. Sarah had obviously been knitting, judging by the balls of wool and needles on the table. ‘Trying to. There was a link to a pattern for some cute little bootees on Mumsnet.’
Molly picked up the needles with their tiny pale-yellow woollen square. ‘That is so sweet.’
‘I hope so … Mol, you’re not doing this out of pity for me, are you?’ Sarah asked.
‘No. I’m not sure I agree with you wanting Niall back but it’s your choice and I want you to be happy. If I can do anything to make you happy, then I will.’
‘I can’t tell you how much this means to me, Mol.’
Molly put the needles back down. ‘I must be out of my mind and if anyone finds out or it goes wrong, I could be sacked, arrested and maybe even jailed … It would be the end of my science career forever, possibly the end of any career.’ She smiled, but inside she was physically ill at the prospect of what she’d offered to do. ‘You have to swear you will never ever tell anyone. That’s if I can manage to do it, and without Ewan or anyone at the lab finding out.’
