Then and Always

by Dani Atkins

  WHY WAS CATHY calling Matt? My hand crept toward the small device, but some instinct stayed me from taking the call. Several diners from nearby tables had turned around at the ringing. I met their gazes with an apologetic smile but still didn’t answer the phone. Eventually it stopped.

  A minute or two later Matt returned, carrying my coat. Now was the time to tell him about the missed call. To ask why Cathy, whom he claimed he hadn’t seen in years until the night of my accident, was phoning him on his mobile phone, the number of which I clearly recalled him saying was only given out to his closest friends and family. But I didn’t ask.

  It rang again on the way home. We were stationary at traffic lights and he smoothly extracted the phone from his pocket to check the display. An unreadable expression crossed his features as his fingers moved rapidly to disconnect the call without answering it. Intuition told me it was Cathy again, even before I heard the lie in his voice.

  “Who was that?”

  “Just someone from work. It can wait until tomorrow.”

  The lights were still on downstairs when we returned, so Matt took advantage of our last moments of privacy on the doorstep as I hunted in my bag for my key.

  “I had a very nice time tonight, Miss Wiltshire.”

  I tried to smile but all I could think about was the strange look that had been on his face when the phone had rung in the car.

  “Do you think your dad will come after me with a shotgun if I try for a goodnight kiss on the doorstep?”

  And without waiting for my reply, he pulled me against him firmly and gave the sort of kiss that in other circumstances might have left me weak at the knees. His eyes were dark with desire when we drew apart, and he didn’t appear to have noticed that my mind had been on other things during the embrace.

  I reached into my bag and extracted the key. Walking close behind me as we entered the hall to greet my father, Matt whispered mischievously in my ear. “Don’t forget what I said earlier about your bedroom door.”

  I DIDN’T REALIZE the huge knot of tension I had been holding in my body all day until I was finally alone in my room. I kicked off my shoes and sank down heavily upon the old single bed. Then, alone for the first time since my disastrous night with Jimmy, I could feel the edges of the seal begin to weaken. The thoughts and feelings I had tried to bury so deeply in the vault of my mind now refused to be silenced. But there was so much to deal with, so many conflicting emotions, that I literally felt overwhelmed by the deluge. Having to launch straight from the pain and humiliation of Jimmy’s rejection to fending off Matt, who was understandably bewildered at my tepid response, was too much for me to cope with.

  To quiet my chaotic thoughts, I began to straighten and tidy my room and belongings, finally bending to pick up the case I had taken to London the night before. I unzipped the holdall and allowed the contents to fall in an untidy heap upon the bedcovers.

  It took only moments to put away the smaller items, which left just the cotton nightdress I had worn at the hotel. I reached out for the garment, intending to wear it to bed, but the moment I touched the soft fabric, a vivid image filled my vision. I could no longer see my own bedroom and was suddenly transported back to the hotel. I could feel the heat of Jimmy’s lips on mine, feel them as strongly as if he were there in front of me. I had never believed in psychometry—didn’t believe in anything psychic really—but the sensation of Jimmy tugging the nightdress slowly from my body was replayed in excruciatingly exquisite detail. My fingers held tightly on to the folds of cotton, reliving the moment when I had finally opened my heart to a truth I had denied for so long.

  I gave an angry cry and threw the nightdress away across the bed. It lay in a crumpled heap, an innocuous scrap of material, but I could almost see the heat of Jimmy’s fingerprints burned into the fabric. To me the garment would be forever branded and I knew I could not wear it, not with my fiancé sleeping fifteen feet away down the corridor. I didn’t think I’d ever be able to wear it again.

  I dreamt vividly again that night, my subconscious still in as much turmoil as my waking mind. In my dream I was asleep—not in my childhood bedroom, but somewhere strange I didn’t recognize. But my dad was there too, close enough for me to hear his voice, but not so near that I could make out the words. And in my dream I knew I had an important appointment to keep. The nature of the assignation wasn’t clear—it might have been with the amnesia specialist, or it could have been something else altogether—all I knew was that my dream was filled with a dire foreboding that I would oversleep and miss the vital meeting.

  I had had similar dreams before, when something important was looming, like examinations or a holiday, and while this dream was similar to those, it felt far more urgent.

  It was imperative that I not oversleep. In my dream I knew that there would be catastrophic consequences to missing the appointment, that this was not something that could merely be rescheduled for another date. Endorsing this, I could hear my father whispering to my dreaming self:

  “Time to wake up, Rachel, it’s time to wake up now.”

  I wanted to answer him, to let him know I was awake, but sleep held me in its grip and I couldn’t shake off the manacles of slumber to reply. The impotence of not waking up and getting to the appointment on time was beginning to frighten me now, and I could feel my heart start to quicken in frustration.

  The beeping began slowly, filtering into the dream like small sharp stabs from a needle. It pierced through the mists of sleep, its sharp insistent tone commanding that it not be ignored. What was that sound? In my dream I could hear it really clearly, and as the fetters of sleep began to loosen, I realized it was an alarm. As I blinked myself awake I could still hear the beeping. Dazed, I reached out my hand to the bedside table. It must be an alarm clock, which I had inadvertently set before going to sleep. But my groping hand found no such clock beside the bed.

  I lifted my head from the pillows. The fog lifted a little more and I realized the beeping was getting fainter and fainter and a moment later was gone. I blinked stupidly in the darkness, confused by the dream, and then I caught the familiar odor of my father’s favorite aftershave. That woke me more than even the imaginary alarm clock had done. It wasn’t the first time I had detected this fragrance in the night, but as my father had assured me he wasn’t checking on me during the night, what did it mean? Was it even possible to hallucinate a smell?

  My jumbled thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a small noise coming from the corridor. I froze, straining my ears to catch the sound. After a moment I heard it again: the faint creak of old floorboards giving up the presence of an intruder. I dismissed the notion of “burglar” almost instantly. Another creak, one further footstep on the betraying beams, and then, in the moonlight filtering through the flimsy curtains, I saw the handle of my bedroom door depress slowly. The door groaned softly as weight was gently applied to it. The door resisted. The handle was released and depressed again, and this time enough force was applied to make the door grind against its hinges in protest. Still the lock held.

  I waited, my breath stilling in my lungs. Scared to stir upon the mattress in case my movements could be heard from the hallway, I bit my lip nervously, wondering how many more times he would try and how sturdy the lock was. It was crazy to feel it might actually have been preferable if it really was a thief invading the house, instead of my fiancé.

  “Rachel?” Matt’s voice was a low whisper, spoken close to the hinge of the door. “Rachel, are you awake? Rachel?”

  He waited, and time was suspended. I couldn’t hold my breath for much longer, and if he didn’t abandon his quest soon, he would surely hear the loud expulsion when I either drew breath or passed out from lack of oxygen. Fortunately, neither of those events occurred. After another anxious minute I heard the retreat of his footsteps down the hallway back to the guest room.

  HE WAS DRESSED and seated at the kitchen table when I went down the following morning. An empty coffee cup and an open newsp
aper were before him.

  “Good morning,” I greeted him lightly, in what I hoped was the appropriate tone for a woman who had locked her fiancé out of her room the night before. For good measure, I bent to place a grazing kiss upon his cheek.

  “Sleep well?” he inquired politely. My back was to him as I poured a large cup of coffee. I was glad he couldn’t see my face as I replied.

  “Yes. Really, really well, in fact. I went out like a light, dead to the world the minute my head touched the pillow.”

  Stop, Rachel, a little voice inside me cautioned; that was way too much emphasis to sound believable.

  Apparently he thought so too. “So you didn’t hear me at your door in the night?”

  I didn’t turn around, and concentrated on stirring my coffee so vigorously I was in danger of removing the ceramic from the cup.

  “No. Why, was there something wrong?”

  He was silent for so long, he forced me to look up. “I came to be with you.”

  “Oh.” And when he seemed to want more from me than that, I added, “I thought you were only joking when you said that.”

  Clearly not the right response. His silence forced me to say more.

  “But we couldn’t do anything. Not here. Not with my father just in the next room.”

  “That never stopped us before.”

  He was right. I could recall several teenage trips down the corridor, when the risk-taking and fear of getting caught only added to our excitement.

  “Well, it’s different now. We’re older. And besides, you know things are still very mixed up for me right now. You said you understood. You said you’d be patient.”

  If he’d looked just a little abashed then, I would probably have softened my tone. After all, he didn’t know for sure that I was awake when he came knocking at my door. He took up the paper, folding it neatly in half before continuing.

  “I think I’m being extremely patient, Rachel. But I’m only human. One minute we have a full and complete adult relationship, and the next you don’t remember anything about us and you’re hiding in the dark from me behind a locked door.”

  Damn. He had known I was awake. And he’d still let me walk right into his trap, letting me make a complete fool out of myself. I was suddenly angry.

  “Well, I’m very sorry that my getting mugged has been such a terrible inconvenience to your life plan. It certainly wasn’t my intention. Do you want me to apologize for the amnesia too, while I’m at it, or should I just say sorry for not wanting to have sex with someone it feels like I just met a few days ago?”

  The realization that he still felt like a stranger to me was what finally got through to him. A spasm of pain and remorse scored his handsome face. He came to me then, and I let him put his arms around me, but I didn’t relax in his hold; I let him feel the tension in me.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered into my hair. “It’s just so hard, seeing you, loving you and wanting you and knowing you just don’t feel the same way.”

  He sounded so genuine that I felt most of my anger wash away on a tide of remorse. I didn’t remember loving him as a grown woman, but that wasn’t his fault. Quite unbidden, the image of the two of us taken at the Eiffel Tower flashed into my mind. I might not remember the feeling, but there could be no doubt that at the moment that photograph had been taken, I had been completely and utterly in love with him. I groaned softly and allowed my body to relax against him, even putting my arms about his steely torso to hold him close.

  “I’m sorry, Matt. I will try harder. Really I will. Just give me a little longer. Just give me time to get … well again.” My heart began to beat like a trip hammer. I had almost said to get over Jimmy!

  He lifted my chin, holding my face toward his in a way I remembered from long ago.

  “Just don’t take too long, huh?”

  And then he kissed me, long and passionately, as if to show me what I was missing. And I kissed him back, because I felt guilty, because I used to love him very much, and because … and because he was Matt.

  He dropped his bombshell a few minutes after my father walked into the kitchen with a small “Hrrumph.”

  Matt pulled away and looked at me apologetically. “I’m really sorry, Rachel, but I’m going to have to head back to London today instead of tomorrow.”

  I was still feeling guilty about how I had reacted, so I sounded genuinely regretful when I replied, “Do you have to? I thought we were planning to spend the day together.”

  His look was remorseful but his determination didn’t waver.

  “I’m sorry, something important has come up at work and I have to sort it out today.”

  “On a Sunday?”

  “You know I often have to work at weekends.”

  “Actually, I don’t know that. Amnesia. Remember?”

  I could have dropped it then but something in his eyes tripped the wire of my feminine intuition.

  “Does it have something to do with that call you got from work last night?”

  For a moment he looked blank, then in quick succession another expression fell across his handsome face, followed swiftly by a look of regret.

  “Yes, it does actually. There’s some crisis I have to deal with that just can’t wait until Monday. You just have a relaxing day with your dad and I’ll call you tonight, okay?”

  He left ten minutes later, kissing me goodbye in the hall and shaking my father’s hand. We stood at the open doorway watching his car pull away from the curb in a gleam of chrome and a squeal of rubber.

  “What a shame he had to leave so soon,” said my father at last, when the car had finally disappeared from sight. I knew he wasn’t sorry at all and gave him a long look. But it did make me wonder how many more lies I was going to be told that day.

  THE REST OF the day passed uneventfully enough. I spent an hour or so trying to get my father’s cat to like me, another hour wondering what urgent Cathy-related crisis had suddenly required Matt’s presence in London, and the rest of the time trying very hard not to think about Jimmy at all. The only bright point of the day was an unexpected telephone call from Sarah, who had just returned from her honeymoon. She and David were spending the night with her parents, but we made arrangements to meet for lunch the following day before she and her new husband returned to Harrogate.

  I fell asleep that night with something pleasant to look forward to and, for once, was not disturbed by dreams.

  9

  We’d arranged to meet by a small bistro in the high street, and as usual I was there long before Sarah arrived. The weather had turned even colder overnight, and although warmed by a thick scarf and gloves, I could feel the December air, heavy with the threat of snow, taking vicious swipes at my face and legs.

  And then Sarah arrived, spilling out of the taxi in a tumble of warmth and sunshine that instantly transported me back to memories of our youth. She enveloped me in the most rib-breaking hug, quite a feat for someone a good six inches smaller than me, and it was some time before either of us felt able to break apart.

  When we did, the tears that were in my eyes matched those sparkling in her own, and we both erupted into laughter, which was the only way we could stop ourselves from crying.

  “How are you, my lovely?”

  It took a while to reply, for the old greeting had brought a huge lump to my throat, and my face was still buried in her shoulder. We were getting some pretty curious stares from passersby too, but neither of us could care less about that.

  “Still alive, but slightly insane.” I felt that was a pretty accurate précis of my current situation.

  “No change at all there then,” she replied, linking her arm into mine and steering us toward the restaurant. “Let’s get out of the cold and you can tell me all about it.” Adding impishly as we went, “Do you know, it’s really much colder here than it is in Saint Lucia at the moment?”

  We waited until we were seated and had ordered drinks before speaking properly. And then, when we did, we bo
th began at once.

  “So how are things really, have you got your memory back yet?”

  “So tell me all about your honeymoon.”

  We both laughed and waited for the other to back down.

  “I’m sorry,” said Sarah, “I do believe my head-wound-and-amnesia inquiry trumps your honeymoon trivia.”

  “Okay,” I said with a smile. “What do you want to hear about first? The mugging I don’t remember or all the juicy stuff that came next?”

  Sarah’s suntanned face lit up with delight. “The juicy stuff, obviously.” But before I could commence, she changed her mind. “You know what, I want to hear it all, every last detail.”

  “That might take some time,” I cautioned. “Don’t you and David have a train to catch this afternoon?”

  She gave a shrug, as though such a trifling detail was of no importance.

  “If I’m not there, he’ll just have to leave without me. We’ve only been married for five minutes—he probably won’t even miss me!”

  I doubted that very much but took a long and steadying sip of wine before I began to fill her in on what had happened to me since the night of her hen party.

  She listened intently as I spoke, taking it all in, interrupting now and then when she wanted further clarification. She was also much more fascinated than anyone else had previously been by my alternate reality.

  “So what am I like in your other past? Please say I’m tall, thin, and beautiful. Oh no, better yet, please tell me that Cathy has got fat and ugly. Now, that really would be something.”

  I laughed. “Sorry to disappoint you, but Cathy was even more gorgeous than she’d been when we were younger. Although a good deal nastier, I have to say.”