Hubble Bubble

by Jane Lovering

  ‘Answers?’ He sucked in a deep breath. ‘I give the answers. That’s what I do, why I write, so that I can deal with the cryptic bastard of a crossword that the Universe has thrown at us all.’

  ‘Before you can let yourself have anything which might be long term you need to stop dealing with problems and let yourself find a solution.’

  ‘To what?’ His eyes had cooled now, they were hard and reflective like yellow diamond.

  I stood up and rested my hand against his chest. I could feel the convulsions shuddering inside, the emotions he was trying to hold down. ‘To who you are, Kai. Isn’t that why you’ve never really formed a relationship? Because you don’t know who you are, where you come from? You need to meet your mother.’

  ‘Shit.’ He folded down onto the bed, head bent. ‘Shit.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ I knelt down in front of him but he ducked, keeping his expression hidden.

  ‘No.’ The word was muffled. ‘You’re right. Of course you are. I need … some kind of closure before I can start living my life properly, I know that. I know that,’ he repeated, words tight as though his teeth were clenched. Then his head raised and two hell-bound eyes met mine. ‘But why does it have to be so fucking hard?’

  ‘Kai.’ I had to repeat his name twice more before he looked at me properly again. ‘It’s okay. You were right, I am starting to realise that all that one-night-stand stuff … it’s shallow and pointless and my way of avoiding the issue.’ I let my gaze wander away from him, across the room, taking in the grim coldness of the light, the mawkish sight of a soggy robin on the balcony rail. ‘I know it. Maybe I always did. And now even more so.’

  ‘Now that you know I’m stupendous in bed, you mean.’ Sharp humour, but something.

  ‘Yeah, now I know you’re hung like a stallion,’ I agreed. ‘Which is what matters, of course. But I’ll be there. If … when you decide to meet her.’

  He looked down again, quickly, letting his hair hide his face. Then he nodded, one short movement, dragged in a deep breath and blew it out. ‘I want to know that I’m not— That it wasn’t because of me. That’s all. No excuses, no reasons. I just want to know that I’m not—’ The merest trace of a sob, lost in sudden, violent movement as he leaped up and paced towards the window, fingers busy on the buttons of his shirt. ‘And I’m not the only one who needs closure, am I?’ He spoke with his back turned, body almost pressed against the glass.

  ‘Sorry?’

  Now he spun round, head tilted as though his world view needed adjustment. ‘You and Nicholas. You need to forgive him for not being the perfect big brother, Holly.’

  I found I was dragging at the bedcover, pulling it across my nakedness. Putting back that barrier that I’d kidded myself had come down. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘You need to think about it.’ Kai spoke gently, although his voice was still uneven. ‘I can’t make you see, Holly. I’m not in the right place myself to be dictating how anyone’s life goes. And besides …’ Again, that breaking note, ‘I’m not really the person to talk about forgiveness, am I?’ A quick, mood-changing flick of his head, a grin and he opened a drawer and threw me a shirt. ‘Here. Go prancing around the house in this. Although if Cerys asks for details, I hope you’ll have the decency to fudge over the anatomical stuff.’

  Okay, I thought to myself, well, I’m right behind that emotional flip. ‘I’m not sure fudge will cover it. I might have to toffee as well, possibly chocolate coating and a layer of coconut too. It is pretty big.’

  ‘Hey, what’s your best friend like?’

  I thought for a second, then threw a pillow at him.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Okay. This is different now. You’re so close that I can almost touch you and I’m putting up all these walls to keep you away from me, but I’m still … God, I’m still writing these letters. So part of me wants you to know me and the other part … the other part is fucking terrified. But now it’s not just us that’s different, it’s my whole life. For the first time I’m making room in my heart for someone. Or, I’m trying to. ’Course, there’s part of me that’s saying this is stupid, I should keep her away – it’s all going to end the way it always has ended, tears, recriminations, me pouring all the pain into my job and my writing. Never standing still long enough to feel anything. But she …

  The prospect of meeting you isn’t about you. It’s about me. I want to know you, or … I want to know who you are but really I want to know me. Where I came from, how I came to be. And I want it straight, no justifications, no excuses. No hiding. I just want to know. And then it’s over, this whole life I’ve built on sand, because I shall know. Whether I’m from doctor or digger stock. No more late-night fantasies. You’ll be tearing away the plaster that’s lain over an old, old wound, ripping it off and letting the air get to it, get to me, show me who I am. Then I can go on with life, I can start to settle.

  And I want that. Holly is … for the first time, she’s the woman I want to be with. I don’t know how it happened, suddenly she was here, touching my heart. When she listened, just sat there and listened to me talk, about you, about the past … and she saw. She watched me open up for the first time in my life, talk about what all this meant to me – all the shit that I’ve kept hidden, kept away from the other women, the ones that just wanted the image … And it makes me cry, over and over again, the fact that I couldn’t live, couldn’t be who I was, because I had to protect myself from their pity. Had to be in control of it all. Never let anyone in, never let anyone see that at the heart of me was this big, empty nothingness, because how could I know what lay inside me, when I didn’t even know who I was?

  Now I’m ready to share myself with someone else. But first I have to understand …

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  I stood on the edge of the field and watched Megan chasing after Rufus. He was treating it like a game, waiting for her and then dodging away just when she thought she’d got close enough to snap his lead on. ‘You could help, Holly,’ she said crossly, sprinting past me for the third time. ‘Head him off.’

  ‘Nicholas, head him off.’

  ‘She asked you. And anyway, it might wake Zac.’ He jiggled the buggy containing a sleeping baby.

  ‘I thought that was Freya?’ I looked at the bundle, double-wrapped against the chilly wind and wearing a pink knitted hat.

  ‘Cerys wants to avoid gender stereotyping. Don’t you?’ He called over his shoulder to Cerys, who was sitting gingerly on a bench, rocking a rainbow of blanket, bootees and mittens.

  ‘Yeah. Plus he’s been sick on everything else.’

  I went and sat next to her, blatantly ignoring Megan’s increasingly desperate accelerations. ‘So, you’re off tomorrow.’

  ‘Mmm.’ Cerys wiped her face with a gloved hand. ‘I’m going to miss you. Please come and visit as soon as you can. I need to go now, I can’t stay forever, I’d cramp your style too much.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  A snotty giggle. ‘Oh come on. You and Kai carefully keeping your hands to yourselves. Half the time I needn’t be there when you come over, you spend the whole time looking at him like you want to eat him. I don’t know why you don’t just fuck it out of your systems.’ She winced. ‘Ow. It even hurts to mention sex. That can’t be right, surely.’

  A quick, bright blush crept up my face. ‘I don’t, do I?’

  She nodded. ‘Yep. What are you waiting for? Move in with him, Holly, he needs you. Well, he will when I’m gone; how are you at ironing?’

  ‘I don’t iron.’

  ‘Oh. Oh well, I’m sure you have other talents.’ Cerys nudged me. ‘Did he appreciate them the other day?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’ The blush had reached my hairline where it clashed almost audibly with my hair.

  ‘Holly, you came in to talk to me wearing Kai’s shirt and no bra. You’d either just got out of his bed or you’d decided to let your inner slut run free. And he was singing all morning and
, while I don’t usually appreciate karaoke Muse, it was great to hear him so happy. But since then you’ve been all hands-off.’

  Almost, I thought, and the blush deepened. ‘We want things to go slowly. Not to rush anything.’ And besides, collectively we had more issues than The Times.

  ‘Bollocks to that.’ Cerys didn’t seem to have anything to follow up with, so we sat in quiet contemplation for a moment, appreciating the comedy potential of a small, chunky brunette chasing a huge athletic dog.

  Eventually Nick, being a gentleman, gave in. He got up and went over towards Rufus, clicked his fingers and then patted the dog’s head. Rufus sniffed at his hand for a moment then stood, stock still, with a look of incredulity on his face.

  ‘How did you do that?’ Megan snapped the lead on and Rufus, instantly contrite, plodded alongside her rolling his eyes and trying to look at his own teeth.

  ‘I gave him a toffee. It’s all right, it was a vegetarian one.’

  Rufus crouched down and tried to shove his paws in his mouth. ‘Well, at least it worked. We’re supposed to be going over to see Vivienne this afternoon, and I didn’t want to have to cry off because I couldn’t catch my dog.’

  ‘Are we?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘It’s not another “commune with the mother earth in the hopes that some idiot bloke tops himself” is it? Or are we still trying to find men for Isobel and Eve?’

  ‘I’m not sure. She says there’s news, not sure if it’s good or bad, but we ought to go and express our solidarity.’

  ‘And we ought to get back and finish packing.’ Cerys wound her arm through Nick’s. He’d already been mistaken for the twins’ father twice, which he quite enjoyed even though it made Cerys laugh until she was nearly sick. ‘Kai is keen to get rid of us as early as he can tomorrow. I can’t think why.’ She rolled her head towards me. ‘Can you, Holly?’

  ‘Can’t imagine.’

  ‘It’s going to be great. Just think, Peterborough.’

  My heart raced at the thought of him being so far away, but I kept my voice light, didn’t want to scare him. Couldn’t really believe that he’d go, not like this, not really go … ‘Er, Nicky, you do know that Peterborough isn’t the same as Los Angeles, don’t you?’

  ‘Don’t care. It’s somewhere new. Somewhere different.’

  ‘Come on then Holly. Let’s take Rufus home and then we’d better go in your car to Vivienne’s. He did something nasty in the boot of mine yesterday and I can’t get the smell out.’

  ‘Yeah, all right.’ I kissed Cerys, hugged Nick and touched the twins’ cheeks. ‘I’ll come over and see you tomorrow. Before you … go.’

  ‘Making sure we leave the premises,’ Cerys began pushing Freya’s buggy over the muddy field. ‘Doesn’t want us hiding round the back and sneaking in when she’s deep in a bit of literal how’s-your-father.’

  ‘That whole wishing thing has really worked out for you, hasn’t it?’ Megan sounded a bit forlorn. ‘Your “excitement”. Is he really … you know … exciting?’

  ‘He’s a lovely man. A bit confused about things, but lovely.’

  ‘Better than Aiden?’

  ‘Meg, the Creature from the Black Lagoon would be better than Aiden. Kai is … something else. On a completely different scale. Totally … just wow.’

  ‘I always thought … one day, you and Aiden …’

  ‘… and Aiden’s friend and his friend, and his friend’s girlfriend. No, Megan, I was never going to end up with Aiden.’ We walked back to Megan’s little flat with a docile Rufus striding along between us.

  ‘Take no notice, I’m just jealous it didn’t work for me.’ She reached down to fuss Rufus’s head, although she didn’t have to reach very far. He turned his eyes up to her.

  ‘But it did.’

  ‘Oh yeah, I’m being worshipped by invisible men. Just my luck.’

  ‘Meg, look at him.’ I pointed to Rufus. He was still staring at her face, ears rising and falling like a comedy puppet’s. The string tail wagged when she glanced down. ‘If he isn’t worshipping you like a goddess, then I don’t know what it looks like. He’s devoted to you.’

  ‘But …’

  ‘Did you specify it should be a man?’

  ‘Can’t remember,’ she said sulkily.

  ‘He adores you utterly. You can do no wrong. Even when you shout at him, he won’t leave your side. To him you are God.’

  ‘I wanted a man.’ But her fingers curled around the knobbled top of the dog’s head and ruffled his ears. He beamed.

  ‘And I was kind of inclining more towards winning the Lottery. I think, maybe, we should have been more specific.’

  ‘Next time,’ Megan began, but I stopped walking and put my fingers in my ears.

  ‘No, no, no, lalalalala, I can’t hear you. No next time. Never, ever again am I doing anything as stupid as a wishing spell.’

  ‘Not even if the others want to? Okay, maybe you’re right, maybe Rufus is my wish come true.’ He looked up at the mention of his name and his dark eyes were ablaze with love. ‘But nothing seems to be happening for the others. They might want a rerun.’

  ‘Count me out.’

  ‘Isn’t that a bit selfish?’

  I turned to her. Her brown eyes were wide and childlike, she was cute and innocent and guileless. ‘Pissfuckingwank.’ I said, and strode off towards my car, not caring whether she joined me or not.

  After a further brief tussle with Rufus to get him to go into the flat alone, she came and sat in the passenger seat. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean it. I know you’re the least selfish person there is.’

  ‘Huh. We’d better hope that there’s some breaking news on the wishing front then, because selfish or not, I am never again going anywhere near anything more magical than the Harry Potter films. And even then I’m going to watch from inside some kind of protective circle.’

  Vivienne opened the front door to us, and as usual we were the last of the group to arrive. ‘Holly and Megan!’ She sounded as though she were announcing the Queen and Prince Philip. ‘How wonderful that you’re here.’

  ‘Well, you did ask us to come.’ Megan draped her coat over the sofa next to Eve. Eve herself looked a little smarter today. She’d had her hair cut and coloured so that it curled softly around her face. I thought her clothes looked new too, but didn’t like to mention it.

  ‘Oh yes, things are definitely starting to happen.’ Vivienne clasped her hands to her lack of bosom, twisting them around one another like someone trying to squeeze the last toothpaste out of the tube. She looked perkier too. She’d lost the grey roots under a new scarlet tint, her skin was less pallid and her make-up seemed to have been done with a surer hand.

  I wondered if the local hairdresser had a two-for-one offer on.

  ‘He’s lost everything!’ Vivienne announced proudly. ‘The business, the company car, all those little perks associated with the job. Isn’t it wonderful? We’ll see how Miss Busty from Accounts likes him now, when there’s no sporty little Audi for her to show her breasts off in!’

  Eve made a face. ‘But what about your lovely cottage?’ She waved a hand around. ‘All your beautiful things?’

  ‘Maybe the cats will get repossessed,’ Isobel whispered in my ear. She hadn’t sneezed once since we’d come in, so perhaps they already had been.

  ‘Oh, they can’t touch anything here, it’s all in my name,’ Vivienne airily shook her head. ‘But Richard is losing everything, which was the point of the spell. Soon he’ll be forced … I mean, he’ll see no other way out. Once the tax people start looking into his affairs, asking all those wretched questions …’ She tailed off, a rather sinister little smile shuffling its way across her mouth. ‘I think we’ll have biscuits today. I have a packet of Belgian Chocolate cookies put away for just such an occasion.’

  ‘She keeps biscuits for the day her husband is driven into penury?’ I sat next to Eve. Isobel and Megan went to help in the kitchen. At least
, Isobel went to help, Megan would go anywhere if there was a Belgian Chocolate cookie at the end of it.

  ‘Ah well. She’s taking it as a sign that the spell is starting to work for her.’ Eve moved her well-upholstered bottom further along to make more room for me. ‘And I have a little news in that direction myself.’

  ‘Eve, you dark horse!’ I stared at her in amazement. ‘The man of your dreams?’

  She nodded, then looked down shyly at her swollen feet. ‘Oh, but it’s such early days yet, I hardly want to say anything in case it all goes wrong.’

  ‘I thought you had a bit of sparkle to you,’ I said admiringly. ‘Well, good on you, Eve. What’s he like? What does he do? Or is he a retired millionaire who can keep you in luxury?’ I surprised myself by hoping that this was the case.

  ‘My lips are sealed.’ Eve did the statutory mime.

  ‘Well, I hope we get to meet him.’

  ‘Oh, I hope so too. Maybe, in a while.’

  ‘What’s his name?’

  But Eve shook her head and did the ‘lip-zip’ mime again. But her eyes shone with humour and anticipation, so whoever he was, he was doing her good.

  That only left Isobel. ‘I hope Aiden wasn’t horrible to you the other day,’ I said as she came in laden with a tea tray. ‘Thanks for letting him out.’

  ‘No, he was a perfect gentleman.’ Isobel poured tea and Megan put a rather depleted looking plate of biscuits on the table. ‘Quite sweet, really. Very cute too, Holly. You certainly have a good taste in men.’

  ‘So, any news from you? Any men hell bent on making you the centre of their world?’

  She did comedy-disappointment-face. ‘Sadly, no. But it’s all right, like I said. I’m coming to think that I’m better off without one. Mum and Dad are talking about making the house over to me and going off to live in Australia when Dad retires next year, and between work and redecorating, I don’t think there’ll be time for a man.’

  ‘They’re not like horses, you know. They can manage to do most things for themselves, men.’