Once the Clouds Have Gone

by KE Payne

  “I was thinking about Blair.”

  “Oh.” Tag paused. “Of course.”

  “And you.” God knows, Freddie had thought of nothing else.

  “You were thinking about me?” Tag laughed. “That’s nice.”

  “I’ve been worried about you,” Freddie said. She rested a hip against the sink. “Wondering how you’re coping up there.”

  “I’ve been thinking about you too,” Tag said. “Wanting to call you all day. Wanting to get away for five minutes so I could just hear your voice.”

  Freddie’s heart hammered. “Me too.” She hesitated. “To hear your voice, I mean.” She squeezed her eyes tight shut. Tell her you miss her. Tell her you want to see her. Give in to it.

  “Magnus just turned up.”

  Freddie sensed the pull in Tag’s voice.

  “I’ll let you go,” Freddie said, knowing that was the last thing she wanted to do.

  “I’m sorry,” Tag said. “Kid’s all over the place right now. I better go and talk to him.”

  “Of course.” Freddie smiled. Like she’d deny Tag her time with Magnus? “Go to him.”

  “I’ll try and ring you later,” Tag offered. “If you want me to, that is?”

  Freddie’s answer was instant. “I want you to, yes.”

  Then Tag was gone. Freddie pictured her, comforting Magnus. She wanted to be there too, to see at first-hand Tag’s compassion. But it was more than that. She wanted to be there for Tag, to show her she cared. But the wall she’d built for herself was still just that little bit too high to climb over. Too risky. Freddie tapped her phone against her bottom lip, deep in thought. What if she fell? What if what was on the other side of the wall hurt her when she fell?

  “You’re lurking in here, are you?” Pete appeared in the kitchen. “Leaving the finishing touches of Skye’s palace to us.” He moved past her and pulled a roll of parcel tape from a drawer. “Can’t say I blame you. Who knew building royal residences out of an old box could take so long to finish to madam’s satisfaction?” He nodded his head towards Skye, still in the lounge.

  “Blair’s better.” Freddie motioned to her phone. “Tag told me.”

  “Are they still up there?” Pete asked. “At the hospital?”

  “Yes,” Freddie replied. “Blair’s staying in tonight for more tests just to be sure, apparently.”

  “You wanna go up there?” Pete flicked his eyes to her, then back to the roll of tape. “I can take you.”

  “No, it’s fine.”

  “Sure?”

  “No.” Freddie laughed. “I’m not sure.”

  “Remember what we talked about the other day?” Pete discreetly peered at his tape. “The world isn’t going to stop turning just because Tag called.”

  “I like it,” Freddie confessed. “I get this feeling, here”—she dug her fingers into her midriff—“when my phone buzzes and it’s her.”

  “Shows you’re human,” Pete said. “Welcome to the world.”

  “But it’s the same feeling I used to get with Charlotte,” Freddie said, “and it makes me scared.” She picked up her phone and scrolled down through their messages, then held it up to Pete. “I’ve started putting kisses after my texts. She’s putting them after hers.”

  “Are we going to start analysing text kisses now?”

  “I can’t stop myself.” Freddie placed the phone back down on the table and pushed it away a little. “One kiss after a message signifies friendliness, right? But five? Six? I should stop, but I can’t.”

  “Kisses at the end of a message mean nothing.” Pete shrugged. “It’s what people do. Tag won’t read anything into it. I reckon she’s got way more important things to be thinking about than kisses after a text.”

  “I guess.” Freddie stood.

  “Go and see them,” Pete said. “Rather than sitting down here tying yourself up in knots over texts and kisses and God knows what else.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “You’re reading too much into stuff.” Pete walked back to the door. “Stop thinking. Just do what your heart’s telling you to do.” He called from the lounge. “And I reckon it’s telling you to go up to see them all.”

  Freddie walked to the sink. Perhaps Pete was right. She was reading way too much into things. She stared into the plughole. She’d got carried away, that was all, carried away by the attention, as usual. She stopped dead when she heard her phone buzz. It was Tag again. She looked back at it and watched it as it buzzed for a second time, creeping across the top of the kitchen table with each vibration. Unless Freddie stopped replying to every one of Tag’s messages, she’d not stop texting her. So that’s all she had to do—cut her off and not reply. Walk away.

  But she couldn’t walk away.

  Freddie blinked. She stared back at her phone and fumed with herself. She snatched her phone up and swiped her finger across the screen. She was being stupid, she knew. Analysing replies and how and when to text when all she had to do was read the damn thing. Her heart jumped when she read Tag’s message: Been thinking about you a lot. Really, REALLY want to see you tomorrow. No…NEED to see you. Can you escape? T xxxx

  Freddie closed her eyes.

  Damn.

  *

  “Dude.” Magnus slung an arm around Tag’s shoulder. “Wasn’t expecting to see you here until later.”

  “I finished early.” Tag twisted round. She fist-bumped him. “How was school?”

  It was the next afternoon and Blair was still in hospital, still wired up to incessantly beeping machines because the doctors wanted to make absolutely sure, bearing in mind Adam’s death, that Blair wasn’t heading the same way.

  But everyone’s mood was lighter now that the immediate danger to Blair was over, and she and Magnus made plans to catch some air on the mountain on Saturday if the snow cooperated, then hunkered down to discuss a project that Magnus was working on at school and which he wanted Tag to look at for him because he didn’t quite understand the question.

  “Tag.” Blair called her, his voice groggy but stronger. “Listen up.” He motioned to her to come closer.

  “You want something?” Tag was at his bedside instantly. “Drink? Something to eat?”

  He shook his head. “Go back to Four Winds,” he said. “Pack your stuff and come stay with us.”

  “At Glenside?” Tag’s stomach twinged. “With you guys?”

  “I’m going to be good for nothing for a while…” Blair paused as if revising what he wanted to say. His brows squeezed together. “I’d like you to come and stay for the rest of your time here,” he said firmly. “Have you around more.”

  Magnus’s eyes drifted from Tag’s to Blair’s and back again, as if willing Tag to answer. She could deny him nothing. And maybe this was her second chance.

  “If you’re sure?” Tag began.

  “Positive,” Blair said. “You can have the room next to Magnus’s.”

  Magnus gave a quiet fist pump, subtle enough not to be noticed by his father, but seen perfectly well by Tag. She grinned inwardly.

  “I better go say my goodbyes to Connie then, hadn’t I?” Tag’s face was calm. Inside she was jumping.

  “Okay, scat.” Blair waved a hand. “I’m going to need all the sleep I can now you’re coming to stay.”

  He settled back, and Tag didn’t miss the fleeting smile that crossed his face. The first one she’d glimpsed since she’d returned home.

  *

  “So how’s it going, big man?” Tag put her phone back into her pocket. Despite her previous misgivings, and even though Freddie hadn’t replied to her last text telling her she wanted to see her, Tag had just sent another text off to her. Not about Blair or the hospital. Just a run-of-the-mill message telling her she was still at the hospital and hungry. It was contact with her, sustained contact. Where was the harm in that? Tag shifted along the bench as Magnus sat down next to her outside. “Warm enough in there for you?” She jerked her head towards the hospital.


  “You will come and stay, won’t you?” He looked worried.

  “Once we’re done here,” Tag said, “I’ll be straight over to Four Winds to pack up. I promise.”

  “I’m glad you’ll be closer.” He avoided eye contact.

  “Me too, bud.” She lightly punched his leg, laughing when he comically clutched at it.

  “Maybe Dad will be less angry with you closer too,” Magnus said slowly.

  “Angry, how?”

  “Angry with me,” Magnus replied. “Like, all the time.”

  “And your mum?”

  “She’s okay.” Magnus pulled at his lip. “She tries to make him not shout at me, but it doesn’t always work.”

  “You know why he gets angry with you, don’t you?” Tag pulled Magnus’s hand away from his lip and patted it.

  “Yeah, yeah. Because I don’t do what he wants me to.”

  “Which is?”

  “Study and shit.”

  “Don’t say shit.”

  “Study, then,” Magnus repeated. “I told you. He wants me to be a replica of him. He wants me to get my exams then go to agricultural college when I’m sixteen.”

  “And you don’t want to?” Tag asked. She pulled her phone from her pocket and looked at it. No reply from Freddie yet.

  “And be stuck doing what he does for the rest of my life?” Magnus looked at her. “No fear.”

  “What does your mum say about college?”

  “Not much.” Magnus paused. “When I tell him I don’t want to end up working at the mill, he says it’s like history repeating itself,” he said, “and then that’s when he gets angry.”

  “Is that what you were arguing about in the kitchen yesterday?” Tag chose to ignore the stabbing feeling elicited by Magnus’s history repeating itself comment. “Your mum and I heard you.”

  Magnus scuffed his foot harder into the grass, leaving a muddy groove in it. “Yup,” he finally said. “I brought a letter home from school. He went ape about it. That’s when he collapsed.”

  “What did the letter say?”

  “Same old shi—sorry, stuff.” Magnus smiled sheepishly. “Just that I wasn’t putting enough effort into my work, that I was a daydreamer, that I was lazy. Blah-blah-blah.” He brought his hand to his lips and made a mouthing motion with his fingers.

  The door to the quadrangle opened. Ellen poked her head out and looked round, nodding when Tag caught her eye. Ellen seemed to take in the pair of them sitting on the bench, and then she pulled back in, closing the door again.

  “Do you think you’re a daydreamer?” Tag asked. “What do you think about at school when you’re supposed to be working?”

  Magnus shuffled on the bench. “This and that,” he said. “I mainly just think about when I can get home and be left alone to do my drawings.”

  “Or trying to get your score up on Perdition so it can be as awesome as my score, you mean?” Tag suggested.

  “Something like that.” Magnus grinned. “I’m good at what I do. The drawings, you know?” He threw her a look. “I like doing them.”

  “Yet you still won’t tell them about it?” Tag pressed. “Might save a lot of arguments if you explained stuff to him.”

  “He’ll just say it’s a waste of time,” Magnus said. “He’ll just say being an artist won’t help the mill.” He picked up a small pebble and inspected it. “Because that’s all he ever thinks about these days. The mill.”

  “Just like your granddad,” Tag said.

  “I miss Granddad.” Magnus frowned. “Sometimes it was good to go see him when things were heavy at home.”

  “Bet he never told you you were a daydreamer, did he?” Tag threaded an arm across Magnus’s shoulder and drew him to her. “Granddads never see any wrong in their grandkids.” Unlike their own kids, she wanted to add.

  “Do you miss him?” Magnus asked.

  “I do.” Tag nodded. “Very much.”

  “Why did you go?”

  “Oh, for so many reasons.” She removed her arm from his shoulder. “Far too many to talk about now. I was stressed and felt under pressure here.”

  “People stress far too much about stuff.” Magnus tipped his head back and yawned. “I mean, please! You stressed about Granddad when you lived here, Dad worries that I’m going to end up a waster. Sonny’s always moaning ’cos Izzy MacIntyre won’t even look at him. Freddie up at the cafe constantly stresses about her kid. Tim up there goes on about how he can’t afford another car.” He grimaced. “Seriously. You guys just all need to chill.”

  “Freddie worries about Skye?” Her image washed over her.

  “Is that the kid’s name?” Magnus yawned again. “Yeah, constantly. I hear Mum telling Dad. She’s terrified something might happen to her. I think she’s had problems before, you know, when her girlfriend left her,” he said matter-of-factly. “And I’ve told Sonny that he needs to tell Izzy he likes her. But he won’t and it does my head in.”

  “Right.” Skye was vulnerable. Tag got that. But the thought that Freddie worried about her all the time nearly broke her heart. A wave of fierce protection washed over her. She wanted to be there for Freddie—and for Skye. She didn’t want Freddie to have to shoulder all her worries—about Skye, about the mill—alone. If Tag could show her she was responsible, then maybe she and Freddie could have something? Tag drummed her fingers on her thigh. She was moving out of Four Winds and back to Glenside. That had a sense of permanency. Blair needed her. The mill needed her. Tag stole a look to Magnus. He featured in her plans too. But what about the Branson contract back in Liverpool? Could Anna do without her? Her drumming got faster as a plan gathered speed in her head. Anna would have to do without her for now; her family needed her here. Tag wasn’t expected back for another couple of weeks still yet. She could extend that further, couldn’t she?

  “Seriously.” Magnus’s voice filtered through her thoughts. “I don’t get why Sonny stresses over Izzy. You have to go with your gut instinct, right? If you like someone, you tell them. Life’s too short to be holding back.”

  “Magnus”—she slapped his leg—“you’ve really helped.”

  “I have?” Magnus looked bemused. “Cool.”

  “And you’re right.” Tag picked up her phone. “Life is too short to stress about anything. Full stop.”

  *

  Freddie glanced into the lounge. Buckingham Palace was finally finished. She looked at the clock on the wall. Five thirty. The hospital was fifteen minutes away.

  She dialled Tag’s number. Tag answered on the second ring.

  “How’s it going?”

  “Hey.” The pleasure in Tag’s voice was evident. “I was just going to ring you.”

  “Were you?” Freddie asked. “Well I was just ringing…” She frowned. Why was she ringing? “To see how Blair is.” Sounded plausible enough.

  “Well, he’s still wired up to an ECG,” Tag said, “and having a few more tests. Just to make sure there’s nothing else causing the low blood pressure.”

  “I bet you haven’t eaten or drunk much all day, have you?” Freddie asked. “I mean, you, Ellen, and Magnus.”

  “We’ve hardly left Blair’s side since he came in.” The pull in Tag’s voice was heartbreaking. “It’s been a rough few days.”

  Freddie shot a look to the lounge again. Skye was fine. In fact, Skye was more than fine. Skye was now wearing a crown made of cardboard, the word Heinz just about visible above her left eye. Pete was sorting through a pile of DVDs, evidently choosing one for her. Should Freddie go? Or should she just leave them to it?

  Freddie closed her eyes. Fuck it.

  “I’m coming over,” she said.

  “When I said I really wanted to see you in my text before,” Tag said, “I didn’t mean I was expecting you to—”

  “I know.”

  “You don’t have to come all the way up here if it’s—”

  “I know I don’t have to.” Freddie was already walking from the kitchen. “But I�
��m sure a bit of moral support won’t go amiss right now.”

  “Well, if you’re sure?”

  “Never been surer.” Freddie stood in the lounge door and motioned to Pete. “I’ll bring sandwiches and a flask of coffee over,” she said to Tag. “I’m sure you’ll all feel better for it.”

  She rested the phone in the crook of her neck while she pulled her coat from a hook in the hallway, her heart already pounding.

  “Besides,” she said, shrugging her coat on, “hospital food tastes like shit.”

  *

  “Who was that?” Magnus asked when Tag had finished her call.

  “Freddie.” She handed him her phone.

  “Freddie from the cafe that I was talking about before?”

  “The very same.”

  “What did she want?” Magnus asked.

  “Nosy.”

  “Just asking.”

  “She was ringing to see how your dad was.”

  “Nice of her.”

  “Yeah.” Because that’s what Freddie was: nice. “Want to practise Perdition now?” Tag asked. Freddie had finally called. She was coming over. It would be safe to relinquish her phone for five minutes. Magnus wouldn’t look at her texts, would he?

  “For real?” Magnus gripped her phone. “You rock.”

  “I know.” Tag stood. “Straight to the games though,” she said. “No snooping at my messages.”

  “Yeah, right.” Magnus looked up at her and rolled his eyes. “Like you wouldn’t do the same?”

  “You’re smart,” Tag said, walking away from him.

  “Like my auntie,” he called out to her. “Love you, O favourite aunt of mine,” he added in a silly voice.

  Tag stopped in her tracks and turned to look at him. Magnus already had his head bowed over her phone, his fingers a blur across the screen.

  “Yeah, just like your auntie.” She made to go. “Love you too,” she murmured, walking away again.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Hospitals, Freddie thought as she stood in the foyer, were designed purely to confuse. She ran her eye over the coloured signs directing visitors to each department: Physiotherapy. Obstetrics. Maternity. Nope, she was pretty sure Blair was in Cardiology. Definitely not in Maternity. But where was the cardiology department? She looked up. Blue sign. Follow signs for Dermatology, then turn left at Vascular. Helpful.