The Story of Us

by Dani Atkins

  ‘So, why did you give him your home address?’

  ‘I didn’t.’ Richard’s attitude was really beginning to rankle, and was ruining the small lift receiving the flowers had given me after such a terribly sad day.

  ‘So how did he know where to send them?’

  I stopped sliding the blooms into place and turned to look at him. ‘I have no idea,’ I replied in a tight voice, which really should have warned him against pursuing this any further. ‘He’s a writer, so maybe he’s just good at doing research? Surely you don’t have a problem with this?’

  Richard looked flustered at the challenging note and I could tell he might already be regretting everything he’d said since he had arrived. Unfortunately his next comment wasn’t much better. ‘Still, it’s kind of weird, isn’t it? Him tracking you down like this, and sending this expensive display? It’s all a bit stalker-ish, isn’t it?’

  I carefully laid down the sharp scissors I’d been using to snip the blooms before I answered. It’s never wise to get angry while holding sharp implements. ‘Well, I don’t know, Richard, let me think. First he comes along and rescues me from the accident, then he saves my life when the car explodes, and now he has the nerve to just go and send me flowers. D’you know what, I think you’re right. The guy’s clearly deranged. Perhaps I should get a restraining order?’

  ‘I was just saying—’ he began, but I was quick to interrupt.

  ‘Well don’t.’ I picked up the scissors and cut short a stem and the conversation in one decisive snip.

  Six blooms later, I realised I had been unnecessarily short with him. I looked up and saw him watching me carefully, unsure of whether the argument had run its course or was just taking a breather.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said, breaking the deadlock, ‘I may have overreacted.’

  ‘You reckon?’

  I felt the tension running away like raindrops down a windowpane.

  ‘And I might have been a jerk,’ he admitted, holding out his arms.

  ‘You reckon?’ I replied, slotting against him and feeling some more of the nerve-jangling tension ebb away as his hold around me tightened.

  ‘I’ve had such an awful day. It was so sad having to cancel everything for the wedding, and visiting Amy’s parents and seeing them so torn up just broke my heart,’ I confided into the soft fabric of his shirtfront. ‘But that’s no excuse to take it out on you. I’m sorry.’

  ‘That’s what I’m here for,’ he soothed against my hair.

  When I carried the vase with Jack’s flowers to the table, I could still make out a lingering look of distaste on Richard’s face as he surveyed the display.

  ‘What is it you don’t like – the fact that he sent me flowers, or him?’

  ‘Him.’

  His terse reply was really no surprise. ‘But why? You don’t even know him,’ I reasoned.

  Richard leaned back against the kitchen cupboards and gave a deep sigh. I noticed he didn’t quite manage to meet my eyes as he admitted, ‘I don’t like how he makes me feel.’

  Strangely, I felt exactly the opposite, but wisely didn’t share that thought. Instead I went to stand directly in front of him, forcing him to look at me as I took both his hands in mine. ‘What do you mean?’

  Richard now focused his gaze over the top of my head, so that he appeared to be talking to the coffee maker as he reluctantly replied, ‘He makes me feel guilty and inadequate. It should have been me; I should have been the one looking after you, rescuing you, comforting you, not some total stranger. But while the woman I love was going through the worst ordeal imaginable, where was I? What was I doing? Drinking, laughing, having a great old time.’

  ‘You weren’t to know. How could you? Can’t you just be grateful that someone came along? Surely it doesn’t matter who that someone was?’

  He gave a small ghost of a smile. ‘No, I guess not.’ He pulled me back into his arms, and I really don’t know if he intended me to hear the words he muttered softly into my hair. ‘I just wish it hadn’t been him.’

  It took me ten minutes to get out of my car, and a further five to summon up the courage to slide the key Amy’s parents had given me into the lock, and enter her flat. I’d volunteered for this task in order to spare her mother the pain of doing it, but I hadn’t considered how hard it was going to be, being the first one to cross the threshold since her death.

  I stepped on to a small scattering of post which had already begun to accumulate in the days since her death. I stooped to pick it up, noticing that most of it appeared to be credit card or store card statements. Despite the situation, I smiled. Amy’s philosophy on credit had always been that if they didn’t want her to have debt, the companies shouldn’t keep on giving her cards. I placed the stack of bills on the kitchen worktop, next to a coffee cup ring that hadn’t been wiped away. For some reason that struck me as incredibly sad, and I rubbed the brown circular ghost of the beverage away with my finger. The open plan kitchen and living area was quiet, except for the constant hum of the fridge in the corner of the room, and that’s what felt wrong: the silence. Amy was never quiet. There was always music playing, or a blaring television, or frequently both. She was an extrovert, with enough confidence for ten people, yet still she had always hated being alone, hated the silence of solitude. I visualised her now, lying on a cold aluminium table somewhere in the dark and the quiet, and felt a body-blow of grief rock through me.

  I looked around me at the one-bedroom apartment that was the very essence of Amy. There she was in the wall of framed movie posters, and the vivid mismatched scatter cushions on the settee, and of course she was easily found in the unwashed plates stacked up on the draining board and the pile of laundry heaped beside the washing machine. I looked sadly at the clothes that would never need to be washed, and it reminded me of the purpose of my visit. I grabbed a square of kitchen roll and furiously wiped at my eyes.

  Looking for an excuse to put off searching through Amy’s wardrobe, I set to work tidying up the kitchen, washing the dishes and wiping down the counter-tops with a thoroughness I suspected they rarely saw. This was all so much more Caroline’s area of expertise than mine, but I knew that the third member of our trio was only hanging on by her fingernails, and there was no one else to lift this weight from Amy’s parents, except me.

  ‘Oh Amy,’ I cried to the empty flat, loving her and hating her for leaving us in equal measure.

  I found a roll of black bin bags beneath the sink and unfurled one, taking it over to the fridge. Amy wasn’t one for eating at home, but even I was surprised at the scarcity of food. Aside from a punnet of grapes, some fancy-sounding cheese, whose name I couldn’t pronounce, and a carton of milk, there was nothing in the way of fresh produce that I needed to dispose of. Of course, the six bottles of wine chilling in readiness on the shelves hadn’t left her a great deal of room for actual food. I knew, without looking, that the freezer would be full of ready meals and the top drawer of the kitchen unit would be overflowing with takeaway menus. Caroline would have thrown her arms in the air in despair.

  Eventually I ran out of tasks to keep me in the kitchen and walked slowly towards Amy’s bedroom. The smell of her favourite perfume was detectable in the air the second I opened the door. I closed my eyes and savoured it; for an intoxicating moment it was almost as if she was there beside me. But when I stepped into the room the only reflection in the wall of mirrored wardrobe doors was my own.

  Amy’s shoes and accessories had spilled out of the wardrobe and each corner of the room held mini stacks of shoeboxes and plastic crates full of scarves, belts and handbags. I looked around me and felt a moment of despair. How on earth was I going to do this? Going through her drawers and cupboards was going to feel like a violation of her personal space and privacy. A sudden memory came to me, and it made me turn on my heel and return to the kitchen to unwind another bin bag from the roll. I was here to select an outfit for the funeral, but eventually Amy’s mum and dad would be coming here to so
rt through her belongings, and there was something I needed to take care of before that happened. There were some things no parent should have to see.

  I went to the bottom drawer of Amy’s bedside cabinet and pulled it out and off its runners. Keeping my eyes deliberately focused elsewhere, I upended the contents of the drawer into the bag, hearing the items fall upon each other in a muted cascade. I remembered the night she had shown me her latest purchase, pulling it out of the self-same drawer I had just emptied into the refuse bag. Amy had waited until Caroline was out of earshot to show me the item, but we were both still giggling like school children when she had come back into the bedroom with a fresh bottle of wine to replenish the glasses we had drained.

  ‘What’s the joke?’ she had asked, and instead of replying, Amy and I had just burst into another fit of adolescent giggles. She had looked at us both patiently, waiting for the laughter to subside, or for us to grow up, whichever was likely to happen sooner.

  Eventually, I had composed myself enough to reply, ‘Well, Caro, let’s put it like this. You know how your bottom drawer is full of designer linens and towels…’ Caroline nodded her head. ‘Well, Amy has got one too…’ Caroline began to smile in hopeful encouragement, until I finished, ‘Except most of the stuff in hers won’t work without batteries!’ We had dissolved into the kind of laughter that is out of all proportion to the humour of the situation, and even Caroline had joined in, as we flopped back on the double bed, tears streaming from our eyes.

  ‘You’re impossible,’ Caroline had chided Amy, only half joking. ‘Who is that stuff for? You don’t even have a regular boyfriend.’

  ‘Duh. That’s why I’ve got it,’ Amy had teased, knowing Caroline would blush to the roots of her hair at her words. She didn’t disappoint. ‘When I get myself all fixed up like you two, I’m going to give it all to a charity shop!’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure Help the Aged will be delighted!’ I declared, and that had set the three of us off all over again.

  I looked around the empty room as the echoes of the memory began to fade, and gave myself a mental shake. This was not getting the job done at all.

  Amy’s wardrobe was packed to capacity, with hangers forced together so tightly that each garment had to be forcibly plucked out to free it from its neighbours. There was no division of style or category, so skimpy playsuits were hung between sparkly evening wear and work clothes. At least it explained why it had always taken her so long to get ready; she must have spent most of her time just trying to find her chosen outfit!

  As I browsed through the rail, it began to occur to me that I might not find anything suitable. There were an awful lot of dresses and tops with quite low plunging necklines, or skirts so short that every time Amy bent over she was in danger of revealing the colour of her underwear. Only, there’d be no bending or moving in whatever I picked out that day. It was almost impossible to reconcile the idea of Amy, so vibrant and full of life in her sexy outfits, lying still and silent within a casket. I found the perfect dress and jacket squeezed in at the end of the rail. It was an outfit I didn’t recollect ever having seen her wear. I pulled it out to examine it more closely, knowing even before I removed the protective cellophane sleeve covering it that it was going to be the one I chose. I recognised the name on the elegantly stitched label. It was one that featured in glossy magazines and was definitely not for sale in the high street. Whichever credit card this one had gone on must have taken a major hit with the purchase. The dress was classy and elegant and yet still sexy. It was tightly fitted and the neckline, although low, wasn’t indecently plunging. The material was deep midnight blue, and I didn’t need to check the label to know it was made of real silk. The outfit included a small tailored bolero jacket. It was the sort of outfit you bought for an incredibly fancy wedding or a really special occasion. I wondered if she’d ever even worn it.

  It didn’t take as long as I had feared to locate a pair of shoes to match the dress and jacket. Unsure of just how much I needed to assemble, I also found a set of designer underwear and a necklace for her to wear. For some reason it felt really important that Amy should make her entrance into the next world looking as good as possible. With that thought in mind, I wondered if I should get the dress dry-cleaned before delivering it to the funeral home. I carried it on its hanger to the window, to check for marks or stains that would need taking care of. Maybe I could just have it professionally pressed, I considered, then I could collect it later on today and drop it off at the funeral home, as arranged?

  I ran my hand over the jacket, dipping into the two half pockets, to make sure they were empty. The first one was, but as my fingertips swept into the second one, I encountered a tiny square of folded paper, no bigger than a postage stamp. I pulled it out, and was about to toss it straight into the wastepaper bin when some curious instinct stopped me. Instead, I took hold of the tightly folded scrap and opened it. It was a piece of paper which looked as though it had been torn from the bottom of a notepad, for its edges were jagged and uneven. On the paper was a handwritten telephone number. A number I recognised.

  I carried on packing up the items for the funeral directors, even throwing in a cosmetic bag, into which I put both her favourite shade of lipstick and her signature perfume. Yet all the time I was wondering why my best friend had my fiancé’s work telephone number in her pocket. Why would she ever have had to call Richard at school? For a start, he was usually teaching, so it was virtually impossible to reach him. The number was a direct line to the Technology Faculty office Richard shared with his colleagues, and I usually had to leave a message with one of them and hope someone remembered to deliver it.

  All the way down to the car I could feel the small square of paper burning through the pocket of my jeans like an irritant. I wasn’t concerned that Amy had Richard’s work number in her possession, but I was puzzled. I was carefully reversing into a bay outside the dry cleaners when the answer came to me. That phone number wasn’t just Richard’s, it was used by all the members of his faculty. It hadn’t been my fiancé who Amy had wanted to contact at all.

  Caroline and I had spent much of the last year attempting to find Amy a new man. In Caroline’s case this mission had become little short of an obsession, as she set Amy up on a string of blind dates with colleagues from her estate agent office and Nick’s bank. Amy had gone on these dates good-naturedly enough, claiming that any man who wanted to buy her dinner was good enough company for an evening out. It wasn’t the attitude Caroline had been hoping for, but it was typically Amy. Although Caroline and I had essentially been with our partners since our teens (give or take the five years Richard and I spent apart), Amy had always had a very different attitude to dating. With her looks and personality she had never been short of offers, but I don’t think she’d had a single relationship that lasted longer than a couple of months. She claimed she got bored too easily, or felt too tied down, and in truth there was a moment you could recognise in each of her relationships, when the guy clearly wanted more of an emotional connection and commitment, and that was usually the point when she cut them loose. ‘Like a fisherman, throwing them back to be free in the ocean,’ she had described it, when Caroline and I had despaired after one really hopeful-looking relationship had ended the same way as all the others. ‘Being too damn picky is a more apt description,’ Caroline had moaned, and Amy had just given that charming little shrug of hers. ‘Anyway, he was kind of weird in bed,’ she confided, knowing how much Caroline would hate having that fact for ever in her mind whenever she had to socialise with the guy, who was one of Nick’s colleagues.

  Not to be outdone, I had tried to persuade Richard to set Amy up with some of the single teachers at his school, but he’d been obstinately resistant. ‘It’s just too embarrassing to be pimping for your friend,’ had been his excuse.

  ‘It’s hardly pimping,’ I had countered, ‘it’s more like matchmaking.’

  ‘Then that’s worse.’

  ‘How? Why?’
/>   ‘It just is.’

  And that had been the end of it, until a really good-looking teacher in his late twenties had joined the school last year. Richard’s new colleague had passed by our group when we’d all been out for a drink, and even Amy – who was hard to impress – had to admit he was jaw-droppingly gorgeous. After much badgering, Richard had reluctantly agreed to have a discreet word with him and sound out if he was remotely interested in being ‘treated like a bit of meat’ as he had scornfully put it.

  ‘Pot. Kettle. Black,’ Caroline had succinctly said in response.

  Now, having found the department’s phone number in the pocket of Amy’s fancy outfit, it looked as though something might actually have come of it after all. I wondered why she had never said anything about it, and what had happened. I realised, with incredible sadness, that I would never know.

  CHAPTER 5

  The church was packed to capacity, just as I knew it would be. We were in a pew not far from the front, and I was finding it extremely hard trying to look anywhere except at the waiting trestle stands positioned by the altar. It wasn’t much better looking at the blown-up portrait of Amy that was displayed on an easel directly beside them. I don’t know when the shot had been taken, but it was a lovely photograph, with Amy’s skin sporting a soft tan and her hair blowing around her face like a honey-gold cloud. She was laughing at the camera and her eyes were shining brightly, and whoever had taken the picture had captured her in a way that was so achingly familiar that looking at the image was an actual physical pain.

  It was inevitable, I knew, that the Travises would have picked this church for Amy’s funeral. It was the local church, closest to where they had once lived, and it was the one where Amy herself had been christened as a baby. It was also the one where, in three days’ time, Richard and I had planned to be married. I only hoped that my mother, who kept looking at Richard and me with such wistful sadness, would have enough restraint not to voice her regret at the cancellation to anyone today.