The place soon fills up and Emma and I circulate the room taking drinks and food orders whilst Joe mans the bar. I don’t know how Emma wears heels all night; my feet are already aching, and I’m in ballet pumps. What I love about this place is how central it is to life in town. I always know everything that’s going on. Of course, it can be negative when you’re one of the news items, but apart from some extra warm smiles and sympathetic looks when I serve people, which I used to get a lot, the conversation is easy and light.
The group of tourists quickly start to cause annoyance, though. They are drinking quickly and heavily and getting louder and more obnoxious with each round.
I reluctantly go over to clear their table when they’ve finished eating.
‘You live here then, darling?’ one of them asks. He’s about my age with short hair and is wearing a white shirt, open to show off his chest hair. He half lunges at me as he speaks but the drink has made him too uncoordinated to reach me.
Then his friend nudges him. ‘I wouldn’t bother, check out her rings,’ he says, slurring his words. They all gawp at my left hand. I follow their gaze; my fingers tightening around the glass in my hand and making my knuckles turn white.
Then I shake my head. ‘Because you’d have really been in with a chance otherwise.’
‘Ha ha, mate, she’s got you there,’ another one of them cries out with loud laughter. They continue their tasteless banter as I empty the table and hurry away. Emma is beside me in an instant, taking one of the glasses from me even though I can carry six without breaking into a sweat.
‘They tried it on with me earlier too,’ she says, propelling me into the kitchen and sweeping the glasses from me, crouching down to put them in the dishwasher, whilst I lean against the counter and take a deep breath. ‘Can you imagine what John would have said if he’d been here?’
Emma’s husband John is the most good-natured person I know. I squeeze my eyes shut for a second then open them. ‘Take her off my hands?’
Emma stands up and beams at me. ‘Precisely. But are you okay?’ Her eyes sweep over me as if checking for signs of hurt. She has always done this. We met at primary school when she sat next to me on the first day and stared at me for a full minute before telling me I had weird hair. She tugged on one of my bunches then laughed. ‘I like it that you’re not cool,’ she said matter-of-factly, then pulled her hair into bunches too. We’ve been best friends ever since. I watch her take in my long, blond hair pulled into a topknot as usual when I’m at work, my blue eyes which have dark circles under them thanks to my restless nights, and my tall, lean figure which has got a hell of a lot leaner these past two years. She frowns slightly and I wonder how much of the girl she used to know has faded away.
‘I’ll be fine,’ I promise, looking away and shifting my feet, uncomfortable with her assessment. I used to just stare back when she did this, confident that she’d find nothing wanting, but now I fear the study because I know how different I am.
Everything I’ve experienced since Lucas’s passing has changed me.
‘I’ll serve them for the rest of the night,’ she says with a wave of her hand which always means no arguments. ‘Take five.’ She breezes out through the double doors, a true force of nature. Logical and forthright in comparison to my head-in-the-clouds creativity. A perfect team, she always said, but lately our dynamic has become skewed as my creativity has become a burnt-out flame.
I follow her out five minutes later, annoyed that I let those jerks get to me. I sweep the bar for more empties and when I glance at their table I see that they’re getting up, ready to leave. I breathe an inward sigh of relief. I’m proud of my comeback but I dread the questions of strangers. At least I don’t have to explain anything to the people who live here, a perk of small-town life. It’s the worst moment when you have to tell someone what happened. You look into their eyes and you just see one thing overwhelm them.
Pity.
It still hasn’t got any easier to deal with seeing that.
The guys take their time in leaving. They are completely wasted and even pulling on their coats is a massive effort, but finally they make it to the door, calling out thanks and goodbyes to the whole place, which are met with eye rolls and shaking of heads. I check their table as I usually do when a group leaves to make sure they have taken everything, and I look up as the door starts to close on them. That’s when my eyes focus on something in one of their hands. A flash of silver and black. A glint of light.
I’ve only experienced this sensation twice in my life. A cocktail of sudden heat and ice-cold washing over me. Feeling like my heart has stopped beating. Time standing still. Horror sinking in with reality.
Car keys. Seeing them in his hands sends me straight back to that night.
Hearing a knock at the door and opening it to PC Thomas. I’ve known him all my life too. I remembered the talks he had given at my school showing us pictures of the damage drugs could do to you. I had never done anything to warrant his attention apart from serving him drinks in the bar on his nights off, so I was confused when he appeared at my door, but not unduly concerned. Until I saw the look on his face. And I knew then that something terrible had happened.
This time though I might actually be able to do something. I shake off the memory of the worst night of my life and take off at a run. My legs move automatically as I push through the door and try frantically to find out where they are. I hear someone call my name but all I can think about is stopping them. My heart in my throat, I spot them across the road opening the car doors, laughing and talking loudly, utterly oblivious to the danger they are about to put themselves, and others, into.
This is my fear coming true. Ever since the night PC Thomas told me what had happened, I have dreaded being confronted with this. I thought about leaving the bar. Emma and John thought I should. But I needed the money to supplement the income I made from painting, and jobs in Talting are hard to come by, plus I couldn’t cope with any more change. When your world is ripped apart, you cling to familiarity. Right now, though, I feel like I made a huge mistake.
‘Stop,’ I yell, anger boiling up under my skin at their stupidity. I was safe with people in town; they would never even consider it after what happened. But this bunch of idiots haven’t got a clue about what kind of damage they could do. They look over but just laugh. I move closer to them and hear footsteps behind me. Emma calls my name but I continue moving into the road.
‘Did we forget something?’ the one who tried to flirt with me before asks, looking confused.
I grab hold of the car door so he can’t shut it. ‘Yeah, how much you’ve drunk.’
He laughs. ‘Oh, I’m fine, I always do this.’
‘You selfish prick. You could kill yourself or your friends but you could also kill an innocent person,’ I shout at him. In my head I’m screaming at someone else, I realise that, but I couldn’t stop him and I can stop this.
‘Let’s just go,’ one of them says.
‘You are drunk, you can’t drive,’ I tell him, planting myself closer to the car. They can run me over for all I care.
‘This is getting boring, get lost,’ the driver says, starting to raise his voice back at me.
Then we’re not alone. Emma and Joe arrive with a couple of other men.
One of them steps forward. ‘She’s right,’ he says in a cool, deep voice. I glance at him and recognise him from the corner seat in the bar. He had been nursing a beer all night. I haven’t seen him here before.
‘She’s crazy,’ the guy says to him.
‘Give me your keys.’
‘No way.’
The guy grabs them from his hand. The man starts to protest but Joe steps in between them. ‘Enough. There’s no way I’m letting you drive after what I’ve seen you drink tonight. You can walk to the Inn from here.’
‘Walk
?’
‘You have two legs, use them,’ Emma says, putting her arm through mine.
‘I’m staying there too, come on. You can pick up your car in the morning,’ the guy from the bar says, pulling one of them by the sleeve of his coat. They look at one another, then their drunken good humour returns and they shrug and laugh and set off with him. He tucks the keys in his pocket and glances back, lifting his hand in a quick wave to the rest of us before turning the corner and disappearing from sight.
I slump against Emma. ‘Jesus.’
Joe sighs. ‘I knew they’d be trouble, bloody bankers. I’d ban them all if I could.’
‘You girls okay?’ the other guy asks, who I now see is Steve the postman.
‘We’re okay,’ Emma says, pulling me closer. ‘I think we should call it a night, though.’ I see her exchange a look with her uncle.
‘Definitely. Home now, both of you. And well done.’ He briefly touches my arm before nodding to Steve. They both walk back inside the bar. I let out a shaky breath.
‘You did good,’ Emma says. ‘I didn’t even think . . . I’m glad you were here.’
I touch my wet cheeks. I didn’t even know I was crying. ‘I just can’t believe they thought they were okay.’ Just like I couldn’t believe PC Thomas telling me about a man called Jeremy Green. A drunk driver who ripped my world in two. It only takes a second to make a bad choice but the consequences of his choice that night will be with me forever. ‘I’m glad I was here,’ I say, thinking about what she just said. That had been hard, but if I saved someone else . . .
‘You want to stay over tonight?’
‘I just want to sleep.’ I let her walk me home as I sense there’s no point in arguing with her about it. I stayed with Emma and John after it happened as I couldn’t bear to be in our house without Lucas. To be honest I stayed with them too long. I’ll never be able to repay their kindness to me. They never once even hinted that I should look for somewhere else and were both shocked when I said I was going to move out on my own a few months ago. But it was time. I needed to start to build some kind of life for myself alone. I needed a fresh start. A place I could find myself again.
I was also hoping it would become a place I could paint in again. But that hasn’t happened yet.
‘Ring me if you need me,’ Emma says, giving me a hug outside my front door, lingering a little as if she wants to say something else but isn’t sure what or how.
‘I will,’ I promise, just to get her to leave, and watch her walk away. I let myself in to my cottage, weariness enveloping me from head to toe. It was like I had a burst of adrenaline and now it’s all seeped away, leaving me drained.
Walking upstairs in the dark, I ignore the closed door of the second bedroom. It’s the room I set up to paint in. I thought having a room just for painting would awaken my muse, but the door has remained shut so far.
In my bedroom, I climb on to the bed in my clothes, too exhausted to get undressed. I curl up into a ball and press my face into the cool pillow. There are moments now when I don’t think about it constantly, moments when I can smile and live in the present, when happiness feels within touching distance, then something happens to bring it all back so vividly, so painfully, it’s like it happened yesterday.
Tonight has done that. I’m right back there.
When there was a knock on my door. When I was told that my husband Lucas had been in a car crash. When I discovered that a drunk driver had hit his car head on. When I learned that the man I thought I’d be with forever had been killed. He had died instantly.
Two years ago, when I lost the man I loved, my childhood sweetheart, my everything.
I lost myself and, without him, I have no idea how to get me back.
Chapter Two
I wake up at three A.M. to the sound of my heartbeat racing in the dark, silent cottage. I realise it’s been a few weeks since I last awoke like this. After the accident, I could barely sleep at all. The bed felt so empty. When I moved in with Emma and John I hoped being somewhere else would help, but I would still roll over, reaching out to touch Lucas, clutching only the sheet in my fist. The ache of being alone felt so piercingly strong it was a struggle to breathe, let alone sleep.
I sit up, trying not to think about my dream. Lucas had been there, walking across the sand and heading out towards the sea, and I was behind him, running, trying to catch up, but I couldn’t. I’d called his name but he didn’t hear me and he was getting closer and closer to the water before I woke up. I don’t think I ever used to have significant dreams, they were all just silly or mundane, easily forgotten, but dreams about Lucas stay with me for days.
I look at the clock, wondering if there will come a time when I don’t regularly see three A.M. I won’t miss it. I lie back down on my pillow and look up at the ceiling.
I wrap my fingers around my engagement and wedding rings, holding on to them, and to Lucas, for dear life, wondering if it will ever feel possible to move on from the love we had.
It’s mid-morning when I finally emerge into the fresh air, catching the scent of the sea in the distance. I glance back at the small white cottage that I bought after leaving Emma and John’s. I lived close to the beach in a town house with Lucas, as he loved having a sea view, but I had to sell it. The only way I could contemplate living without him was to find somewhere completely different to the home we had together. Somewhere that was just mine.
It’s set back from a quiet road, and you can only just see it through a gap in the oak trees that surround it. I like how private it is. My garden is full of rose bushes and the cottage has a mock thatched roof, making me feel like I live in another time.
It’s the kind of place I would have painted in the past. I think Lucas would say it suited an artist. He would be shocked, though, at how tidy it is. It was a standing joke between us that I was the messy one and he was the neat freak. I think it was because when faced with two prospects, painting or housework, painting always won. Now I have a lot of time to clean.
I pretty much always knew Lucas. For years he was just another annoying boy at school, but when we were fourteen we were sat next to one another in art. Lucas couldn’t draw. Not even stick people. I looked over at his attempt at a tree one day and burst out laughing. He leaned over to look at my picture, ready to mock me right back, but instead he looked up at me with his big blue eyes and grinned. ‘One day you’re going to draw a building and I’m going to build it and we’re going to grow old there.’
How does a fourteen-year-old girl respond to such a lofty claim? ‘You want to build an old people’s home?’
Then it was his turn to laugh. ‘Not what I meant exactly.’ I remember blushing at missing his point and we lapsed into embarrassed silence, but we started sitting at the same lunch table and Emma became his friend too, and Lucas’s friends became mine.
It was at the park one night that we kissed for the first time. I’d like to say it was special, but we were tipsy on cheap cider an older boy had bought for us, surrounded by half the school, and there was far too much tongue involved, but he asked me to be his girlfriend and I said yes without really knowing what it meant to be someone’s girlfriend. And I never found out because I was only ever his girlfriend. That’s the worst part. I only know how to be with Lucas. We were a pair for so long, I never learned how to be on my own.
A group of seagulls fly overhead, bringing me back to the present. I’m walking towards Talting Inn, where I’m meeting Emma for a late breakfast before we head over to start setting everything up for the Fair. I pass the long line of multi-coloured beach huts which are flung open to sell food, drinks and all sorts of wares to visitors. I slow down to peep inside Mrs Morris’s café at the painters carrying out the refurbishment. The walls are being painted cream and look bare without my paintings hung up there. It feels like the end of an era.
Mrs
Morris spots me and comes out to the front door. She always wears a long skirt and blouse, her neat grey hair tucked behind her ears and a long beaded necklace hanging around her neck. ‘Rose, dear, are you going to the Inn? I’ve heard there’s an art collector staying there; he’s come to town just for your sale.’
‘Really?’ I’m a bit stunned – my work has been popular with tourists wanting to take home a piece of Cornwall with them, but I’ve never been sought out before. ‘Are you sure?’
‘He told Mick he’s here just for your work; he saw that horrible article in the paper by all accounts.’ There’s no point my asking how she knows all of this; nothing that happens here escapes her notice. She leans closer and drops her voice to a conspiratorial level. ‘Apparently he’s very well spoken and polite, good-looking too . . .’ She ducks back inside then and I hear her shout at one of the painters.
I shake my head and carry on walking to the seafront. I can’t really understand why an art collector would be here for my sale; probably he’s just interested in art and happened to be coming here for a visit. Still, at least that newspaper article has drummed up some publicity.
I’ve always liked to draw and paint. My mum was talented and encouraged me, saying I would be better than she ever could be. She was a teacher and taught me every chance she got. We used to sit at our kitchen table painting to music. Sometimes Lucas would come round to watch us. He was always amazed at my ability to create things.
My mum told me I should go to art school in London but I didn’t want to leave our home or Lucas, and then she got cancer. I was only sixteen when my mum died. I never knew my dad. He was just passing through town one summer.
It has never got easier, missing my mum, but I feel as if she’s always with me. We shared so much and we were so close, just the two of us together.
The Second Love of My Life Page 2
