Her Name Was Rose

by Claire Allan

  ‘I’d better go,’ I said.

  ‘I’ve asked too much of you,’ he said softly. ‘I’ve said too much.’

  I shook my head, slipped my feet back into my heels and started looking in my bag for my mobile to call a taxi. Anything that would have me looking in a direction that was not at him. ‘It’s not that at all,’ I said. ‘You haven’t asked too much of me. I believe you.’ I turned to look at him. ‘I believe in you.’

  ‘Don’t go,’ he said. ‘Stay with me, please.’

  I looked at him. I wondered whether he’d been drinking before I arrived. He certainly hadn’t drunk enough over dinner to have him making silly propositions. ‘I’m not sure,’ I said, although that damn gut and that damned heart of mine, as well as that coiled spring deep inside me, was screaming at me to say yes. ‘It’s late, and you’re emotional. It’s been a difficult time.’

  ‘There’s a spare room,’ he said. ‘It would just be nice to know you’re here. I’ve hated waking up alone. I can get you something to sleep in. I can drive you home in the morning.’

  Ah, just friends. I felt a mixture of relief and disappointment but the thought of being close to him was so appealing and my head was still aching.

  ‘Please,’ he said, taking my mobile from my hand and slipping it back into my bag. ‘It would mean a lot to me.’

  I nodded, found my voice and said ‘okay’ and was rewarded with a smile.

  ‘I know this seems strange,’ he said, as he topped up my wine glass, his mood suddenly elevated, ‘but nothing about the last two months hasn’t been strange so I’ve learned to just go with it. My instincts tell me you’re a good person to have in my corner.’

  I wondered as he drained his own glass and poured another if his instincts were as intrinsically messed up as mine.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  It was still dark when I woke. I lifted my phone, prayed the battery hadn’t run down, and checked the time. It was just after 7am. I had 10% left of battery life. Enough to last while I got up, dressed and called a taxi.

  It felt strange now, in the morning, and not necessarily good strange. I had slept relatively well – an extra glass of wine followed by a shot or two (or was it three?) of finest Scotch ensured that. I had kept my wits about me though – steered the conversation back to the everyday. Or was it Cian that had steered the conversation away from the big issues?

  It had become a bit hazy. I remembered him playing music through his iPad on a fancy Bluetooth sound system that probably cost more than I earned in a month. He had said it was the first time since Rose died that he could see what normal was – feel what normal was.

  He had pulled me to my feet and we had danced and sung, probably too loudly, to ‘Wonderwall’ by Oasis. Jack woke up, fussed a bit. Cian had gone upstairs and settled him, singing the lyrics to him as he drifted back to sleep and I remembered my heart swelling with affection for him.

  I had been sat on the sofa, finishing my drink, suddenly beyond tired and feeling my eyes start to droop. The room had been warm. I was buzzing on the alcohol. Content. My earlier concerns that anything about this was strange were gone – because we were just two lonely people spending time together. Two broken people. Of course, he didn’t know I was broken – but I was. Although then, in that blissfully hazy moment, I was hopeful I might finally be on my way to getting healed.

  My eyes had jolted open when I felt his hands on my shoulder. ‘Sleepyhead,’ he’d said. ‘Maybe we should call it a night? I think we made it through the full Oasis back catalogue anyway – at least the songs that were worth remembering.’

  I had smiled, nodded. The thought of sleep exquisite. ‘That would be good,’ I’d said, standing up, carrying my glass to the sink and rinsing it.

  ‘It’s the second door on the right upstairs,’ Cian had said. ‘There’s an en-suite bathroom and fresh towels. There’s even a spare toothbrush in the bathroom cabinet. Rose always liked to be prepared for guests. She was renowned for her hospitality. Had to have everything just so.’

  ‘She sounds like a great woman,’ I’d said.

  ‘Yes,’ he had replied. ‘She was. If you go on up, I’ll bring you a T-shirt to sleep in.’

  Then I had nodded, padded up the stairs to the second room on the right. There was no doubt Rose had exquisite taste. The room was decked out in classic black and white – spotless, clean. A cream carpet, cream walls. A dressing table complete with sample-sized creams and potions. Almost like a hotel room.

  The bathroom was no less hotel-like. The end of the toilet paper had even been folded to a neat triangle. This was much nicer than my flat could ever be. In fact it was nicer than most of the hotels I had ever stayed in. I had washed my face – a little terrified of Cian seeing me without my make-up but more terrified of leaving make-up stains on the pristine white Egyptian cotton bedding on the guest bed. Then I had taken one of the three new toothbrushes in the bathroom cabinet and brushed my teeth. I was just finishing when I’d heard a knock on the bedroom door.

  In the soft lamplight of the guest room, Cian Grahame had looked even more handsome than he ever had before – more dishevelled than he had been earlier – but it was a look that worked well on him. His T-shirt was creased and had come untucked from his jeans in one section. The thought of slipping my hand under the cool cotton and touching him flashed across my mind. I pushed it back.

  ‘I brought these for you,’ he’d said, holding out a T-shirt towards me with one hand and a glass of iced water with the other. ‘You might get thirsty in the night.’. There should be some aspirin in the bathroom cabinet if you feel a headache coming on.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I’d said, taking both from him. ‘You think of everything.’

  ‘It’s important to get the details right.’ He had smiled, his eyes fixed on mine. We were stood a foot apart, maybe two at most. The urge to feel the roughness of his beard on my hand again had almost overwhelmed me. In fact, I had swooned – actually swooned – when he’d leant over and kissed me softly on the cheek, whispering in my ear that he hoped I slept well. I couldn’t find my voice to say anything in response, so I nodded and it was only after he had closed the door and I could hear him walking away, presumably to his room – the room he had shared with Rose – that I’d realised I had been holding my breath.

  I was used to waking during the night but I was not used to hearing footsteps in my room. Drowsy, my eyes and limbs heavy with the weight of a sleep brought on by wine, I had struggled to pull myself into consciousness as the footsteps moved ever closer. I had heard breathing, deep and low, and could make out a shadow in the darkness. Croaking a hello, I’d forced myself to sit up, pulling the duvet around me. My heart had been racing, my brain fuzzy. Fear – first of all. A gut response. Years of waiting for revenge to hit me. Sleeping with one eye always open. The footsteps had been heavy, my brain was struggling to focus. To remember I wasn’t in my flat. I was with Cian. Cian – at the very thought my eyes pinged open and there he had been at the bottom of the bed, looking at me.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he had whispered. ‘I just thought …’

  I had pulled the duvet tighter but while I knew I should feel scared, I didn’t. My eyes instead had been drawn to him. Standing just feet from me, wearing only a pair of low slung pyjama bottoms. His chest was toned, with a light smattering of dark hair that looked as though it would be soft and warm to touch, but which, even in the darkness, I could see ran down his abdomen until it disappeared under the waistband of his pyjama bottoms. I had felt my breath quicken. I couldn’t speak, so I just looked at him.

  ‘I’m lonely, Emily. I’m so lonely and I just thought … well, I thought you might be lonely too. And you might allow me to hold you?’

  I had nodded. Of course I would allow him to hold me. It had been such a long time since anyone held me. And this was Cian Grahame, handsome, talented, loving and in pain, and he needed human contact. He had moved to the side of the bed and climbed in; I lay down and allowed h
im to spoon against me – his arms wrapped around my waist. The warmth of his body against mine. The feel of his breath on my neck. The rhythm of his breathing. The calmness of this room with the weight of a man’s arm – Cian’s arm, on my waist. I had felt my breathing fall in with his and I drifted off to sleep.

  When I woke at seven, even though it was still dark, I could sense immediately that he was gone. I wondered if I had dreamt it – but when I turned around the imprint of him was there on the other side of the bed. I reached my hand over, could feel the indentation of where his head had been. I lay there for a moment, thinking how strange it had been. Lovely at the time – but strange. To have him come in and hold me, sleep beside me, and then disappear. I couldn’t hear another noise in the house – I wondered was he still asleep, having crawled back into his own bed? Perhaps guilt-ridden. Was that what I was feeling? Guilt? Did I feel I had betrayed Rose? All I knew was that I wanted to leave.

  If I got dressed quickly and quietly, I was sure I could sneak downstairs and out the front door – where I could call a taxi from the end of the street. Of course it would still be a walk of shame of sorts, but I reminded myself I hadn’t done anything wrong. We were just friends. Even the dancing and the drinking and the way he had kissed my cheek before I went to sleep. Even the spooning.

  I kept my heels off so that I could creep downstairs and across the marble hall without making too much noise. I was two steps from the bottom when I heard Cian walk down the hall.

  ‘Morning, sunshine,’ he said with a smile, before glancing at my shoes in my hand and my bag slung over my shoulder. ‘You weren’t leaving, were you?’

  ‘Erm,’ I muttered, ‘I didn’t want to wake you so I thought I would just sneak out. I have plans with my parents today.’ I was lying, of course, but he didn’t need to know that.

  ‘Oh, we’re always up early here. Young Jack makes sure no one sleeps after 6am. Please don’t rush out – I have coffee,’ he said, nodding in the direction of the kitchen. ‘And freshly baked croissants – I mean, not that I actually baked them myself but I have some par-baked ones that will be fully baked in a few minutes. Jack and I won’t get through them just the two of us – please, stay for breakfast at least?’

  He turned his back, assuming I was following I suppose, and well, the smell of the croissants baking, mixed with the smell of freshly brewed coffee and the noise of Jack chattering and laughing to himself in the kitchen was all very alluring. Cian, in his jeans, a white shirt rolled up at the sleeves, and with the top two buttons undone, was also alluring.

  Jack smiled at me as I walked into the room, waved his chubby hands at me from where he sat in his high chair. The room was pristine – all traces of dinner and drinks the night before gone. Clearly Cian wasn’t a man to lie down under a hangover. Then again, he was so organised he had probably drunk the recommended pint of water before bed and taken his aspirin as a precaution – a move I wish I had pulled myself.

  ‘I would have helped you clean up,’ I offered, tickling Jack under the chin and sitting down at the kitchen island.

  ‘Before or after you sneaked out?’ he said with a smile.

  I had the good grace to blush. ‘Sorry – I just thought it would be easier to leave you to your day.’

  ‘It’s easier to start the day with someone other than just Jack here,’ he said, opening the fridge and taking out a bottle of fresh orange juice. Suddenly I was very thirsty and when he offered me a glass I nodded and gulped it down – it tasted so good.

  ‘You didn’t drink your water last night, did you?’ he laughed.

  I shook my head. ‘I was so tired, I think I passed out.’

  ‘Good thing you didn’t get a taxi home then. I would have worried about you being in a taxi on your own that late at night. There are bad people out there, Emily. As we both know. Besides, it was nice to have you here.’

  ‘All’s well that ends well,’ I said as he topped up my orange juice before taking the croissants, flaky and crispy, from the oven.

  ‘Thankfully,’ he said and smiled.

  We ate breakfast together over the course of an hour, neither of us mentioning his middle-of-the-night visit, and then he drove me home.

  At that stage I probably could have been talked into spending the rest of the day with him – but I could hardly admit that I had lied about going to see my parents, could I?

  When he left me at my apartment – on his way to take Jack to the park – he told me he would be in touch. He thanked me for listening. For helping him feel like him again. Then he kissed me, on the cheek again. But it lingered just a second or two longer than before. I was sure I heard him take a deep breath as he pulled away from me – and I was sure, well, almost sure – I saw a certain longing in his eyes before he turned his head away from mine.

  *

  I couldn’t look at Owen the same way when I went back to work on Monday morning. I couldn’t get what Cian had told me out of my head. An obsessive who had become angry because Rose didn’t love him? That she was telling him she was going to leave? That Cian believed he could have possibly paid Kevin McDaid to hurt her? It was beyond comprehension. Then again, Ben had fooled so many people; it was hardly beyond the realm of possibility that Owen could as well.

  I messaged Cian in my lunch break – told him I was finding it hard to even look at Owen, knowing what I knew.

  ‘He’s not worth your anxiety,’ Cian had messaged me back. ‘But if you need to de-stress, come over after work. Jack will be with Rose’s family tonight. If I’m honest, I could use a bit of company to get through it.’

  The pull was strong. I knew before I’d even finished reading the message that I would go.

  That was the reason, as I walked home from the surgery, mentally planning what I would wear and how I would fix my hair, that I was smiling. That was until I heard someone call my name and I looked around to see Ingrid Devlin hot on my heels again.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  I turned my back on her as soon as I saw her and walked off. I had nothing I wanted or needed to say to her. The further she was from me, the better, as far as I was concerned.

  ‘Emily!’ she called again. ‘Emily, hang on. Please, let me explain.’

  ‘There’s nothing to explain,’ I called over my shoulder, still walking. ‘I’ve you figured out and I don’t want anything to do with you.’

  I could hear her footsteps get closer. She was persistent as hell. ‘You don’t want anything to do with me? Is that because you’re trying to protect Cian Grahame? You and he seem very cosy these days?’

  I stopped, my heart thumping and turned to find her just a few feet behind me. ‘I don’t know what you think you’re talking about but you have no idea about Cian Grahame. Or me, for that matter.’

  ‘I would think someone who left his house early on a Sunday morning would have some sort of a notion about Cian Grahame,’ she said, shrugging her shoulders.

  ‘That’s none of your business,’ I stammered, while part of me wondered how she knew.

  ‘Maybe – but our readers would still be interested in hearing how the grieving widower of Rose Grahame was sleeping with the woman who took over her job? It’s tabloid gold. And that’s before we even throw in the police investigation.’

  When I first saw Ingrid Devlin I thought her an attractive woman – composed, measured, professional. Now all I could see was ugly, snide and sneaky.

  ‘How would you know about people leaving Cian Grahame’s house? That’s a bit scumbag reporter isn’t it?’ I bit back.

  ‘You say that like it would offend me,’ she said, moving a step closer, dangerously close to invading my personal space. I could feel my pulse quicken and the sheen of a cool sweat break out across my forehead. ‘But what you call acting like a scumbag, I call uncovering news.’

  ‘Well you uncovered it wrong. We’re just friends, that’s all.’

  ‘With benefits,’ she snorted.

  ‘It’s not like that at all,’ I sai
d, aware that I wanted it to be like that. Or even more than that. That I had been walking home thinking about my underwear choice for tonight. ‘And you’ve no right to be spying on ordinary people going about their business. How dare you?’

  ‘You are awfully touchy,’ she said. ‘Look, Emily—’

  ‘That’s another thing,’ I interrupted her. ‘How do you know my name? I didn’t tell you my name last time.’

  ‘Facebook is a great thing,’ she said, ‘and I’d make for a pretty rubbish journalist if I couldn’t use it to suss out your name. Facebook friends with Cian too, I noticed. But that’s by the by – Emily, I’m not trying to catch you out. I’m not saying Cian is the bad guy in all this, but I was being honest when I told you I needed a fresh line on this story. Something no one else can get – and I know you can help me get it. You can be my in to Cian. He has turned down all requests from the media so far – each and every one. Perhaps you could get him to talk to me?’ She raised one perfectly plucked and shaped eyebrow and waited for my response. For a second I was gobsmacked. Could she really be serious?

  ‘Why on earth do you think I would help you?’ I asked. ‘You’ve lied to me, stalked me, chased after me in the street! Why would I talk to you?’

  “Well the thing is, Emily, it’s quite funny you mention all that lying and stalking and chasing – because it’s usually you doing that sort of thing, isn’t it? At least according to your ex. A formal caution and a non-molestation order, isn’t that how it ended? I uncovered that too – maybe in a scumbag way, as you would put it. But you really wouldn’t want people up here – away from all that nastiness – finding out about that, would you?’

  I felt the air rush from my lungs. It was as though I crumpled, folded in on myself – every ounce of shame and embarrassment and humiliation washing over me. She’d spoken to Ben? Ben who hadn’t responded to my email? ‘You’ve no right to nosy into my personal life …’ I whispered, with not even half enough conviction.