by Angel Devlin
“If we have jobs that require an electrician, we’ll just check your availability and if you’re not free we’ll set up a database with other trustworthy sparkies. Why not go and be independent, son? It’s time you all spread your wings.”
“Who’d have thought when Violet moved in last year that she’d set us all off in new directions?” I mused.
“I'm sure we’d have got there eventually, but yeah, when Milo got his girl it was certainly a wake-up call to me that you’re all grown ups and should be moving on with your lives. So this is encouraging, Callum. I know you’ll be a success. Before you know it, you’ll be hiring and moving away from being based at the yard I’m sure.”
I decided to get braver.
“I’m thinking I might move out at some point too.”
“Hoo-fucking-ray.” My father did a little jig. “That’ll be three down, three to go."
After saying goodnight to my dad, I walked up to my room while my mind whirled with ideas and possibilities. New house. New business. New opportunities.
As I climbed under my covers, I felt a deep sense of satisfaction and a flutter in my stomach of excitement.
When I dreamt, it was of a new house, with a large garden. I walked into the garden and Laurel was playing there, digging in a sandpit, being helped by Becca. As she saw me, Becca stood up and turned, and I saw her stomach was blossoming. She was having our baby. I walked up and kissed her cheek, stroking my hand down her bump and Laurel looked up beaming with happiness. I heard her say, “Daddy, I built you a sandcastle.”
I woke, utterly content until I realised sleep was a cruel hostage taker, and then tears streamed down my cheeks, because no matter what new opportunities came my way, someone having my baby would never be part of it.
Chapter Twenty
Cal
Heading down for breakfast, I found Jules staring into a bowl of cornflakes. "Everything okay, Sis?"
She looked up and yawned. "Yep, just feel like a need a hundred coffees today. You?"
"Everyone else gone?" I asked.
"Yeeaaaasss." She looked me over. "Hmmm, brother wants to talk. Doesn't seem anxious, that's a good sign. Upset, no. But not happy either. Okay, I can't get a read on what the fuck's up with you, so get me another coffee, get what you're having, and let's talk."
And this was why I enjoyed talking things through with my sister. Because she didn't fuck around. If she thought you were being an idiot, you got told straight.
I made us both a drink and I sat near her.
"Do you remember months ago when you thought I might like Becca and I said I didn't know whether it was pity or whether I did like her?"
Jules sat up straighter, looking instantly more awake. "Oooh, colour me intrigued. Yes, I remember. Carry on. The tale of the mysterious widow."
"Honestly, you need to get out more."
"No, actually, I need to get out less, because everywhere I go, that toolbag seems to follow me."
I raised a brow. "And by toolbag you mean Quinn?"
She blew over the top of her drink. "Quinn. Toolbag. Dickhead. They're interchangeable."
Quinn lived at the other side of Milo and Violet. He was a gardener and he seemed to have a keen eye for a pretty flower, like my sister. He kept asking her out. She kept saying no.
"The house I'm working on now. Quinn's doing the garden. He seems to find a lot of excuses to come into the house."
"Just go out with the man once. Show him what a nightmare you are, and he'll be put off forever."
"Hmm."
"You're actually considering it?"
"Maybe, one day, if this carries on. Anyway, back to you. Talk to me. What's happening?"
"I bumped into Becca yesterday, outside the counselling offices of all places and I asked her to get a sandwich with me. I wanted to know what had been happening. Why she'd disappeared without keeping in touch."
"And?"
"And she said she'd just felt it was for the best. That she realised she missed you guys a lot, but that Willowfield held such bad memories, she'd thought it best to just forget the place existed."
"Yeah, nice of her to forget all the people who helped when it counted."
I stared at her.
"I know. I know. She had bigger issues than keeping in touch with Jules Waite. Still, I liked Becca and I missed her. You know, I don't have many female friends, or friends at all for that matter."
"Well she seemed a lot more settled. She'd just moved into a place with her and Laurel and she'd even been out for a coffee with a single dad."
I felt my body posture tighten as I said it.
"And you didn't like hearing that because you like her?"
I nodded my head. "I do, but I can't pursue it, can I? What if it's still too early or what if she doesn't like me back?"
Jules took a sip of her drink while she mulled things over.
"Well, how did you leave it after the lunch? Did you just say goodbye? Because if you did, I think that's a solid signal that she still doesn't want anything to do with us."
"She invited me for tea and asked me to price up fitting extra sockets in her house."
Jules smirked. "Oh, I think she likes you, Cal boy."
I took a deep breath. "You think?"
"Not only did she invite you for tea, she asked you to price up a job meaning that you'd have to go back again. There are plenty of electricians where she lives, Cal. And even then, if she just wanted your electrical expertise, she didn't need to provide a meal."
"I don't know what to do. What do I do?"
"You realise who you're asking for dating advice, right? The person who hasn't had a proper boyfriend, ever."
"I still want your advice."
"Okay, so if I did ever date, these are my thoughts. Go and do the job she wants you to do. When is that?"
"Tomorrow."
"Okay. Go do that and just chat and see how you get on. Try to listen to what she's saying. Is she asking about you specifically when she talks, and showing more than a polite interest, or is she just making polite conversation. Or is it Violet and me she misses and that's who she asks about."
"Fuck, this is complicated. I feel like there should be an exam to pass first."
"Love is complicated, which is why I try to avoid it. Anything for a simple life, that's me. Anyway, don't mention anything else until the job's done because you don't want anything awkward to happen where you end up wanting to leave and the work isn't finished. You need to wait until it's almost time to go home and then see if she makes an excuse to try to get you back again. If she does, she is very interested. Okay?"
"Okay."
"Or of course she might just have thought of something else she needs doing. Can't be one hundred per cent."
I placed my forehead in my hand. "I think you've helped. Hard to be sure."
"You're welcome."
"So what are you plastering at the moment. Sounds a busy house if Quinn is there too."
"It's a decent sized house. The couple are having it modernised before they move in."
"I'm thinking of getting my own place."
"Seriously? Wow."
"I could do what that couple are doing. Buy somewhere that needs a little work and renovate it before I move into it. Call on all my siblings to help."
"Yeah, there's nothing we'd like better than to spend our spare time doing what we do in our working hours." Jules said sarcastically.
"Shit, I didn't think of it that way." I finished my drink.
"I'm joking, Cal. Of course we'd all come and help you. That's what family does, and if we can't help each other when we're all so supremely talented, then it'd be a waste. I'm in to plaster any walls. It's not like I have a life anyway."
"Go out with Quinn."
"Focus on your own love life." Jules seemed to be thinking of something. She opened her mouth, but then didn't say anything.
"You got something to add?" I asked.
"It's good to see that you're thinking
of the future. I know I've already said it but I'm proud of you for going to see someone. Really proud. Do you finally think you've gained the closure you needed about Tali?"
I stood and got myself another cup of tea, before sitting back down.
"I can live with it as it is." I answered truthfully. "I can't know whether it would have been better to talk to her or not, but the chances are it wouldn't have solved anything as ultimately we aren’t each other's future. I loved her. Deeply loved her. But the cracks that had shown before the wedding would have meant we'd have split up eventually if we'd gone through with it. I truly believe that. Like I said to you all before, she wanted her own children." I'd told them everything just after Becca had left. Decided to let the rest of my family in on what had happened in my past.
Jules chewed on her bottom lip. "So if I said she would like to talk to you, would you want to go to see her?"
I put my cup down on the table so hard, tea splashed over the edges.
"What's going on, Jules?"
She looked up at me. "The house I'm plastering. It's Tali and her fiance's. I know for a fact that the reason she employed me was as a route to get to you. Her fiancé knows I'm your sister and he doesn't care. He's called Hugh. He's nice."
Jules was working on Tali's house? I couldn't get my head around it. "Where's the house?"
"Danesford. On the next street to her parents' house."
"Figures."
"She knows that something doesn't add up, Cal. She said to me that the Cal she knew wouldn't have left her at the altar. That he loved her too much to do that. She said now her anger has gone and she's found love again, she feels that more than ever there was more to it and she wants to talk to you. She asked me if you would be willing to go and speak to her."
I just sat there, no doubt looking like I didn't know what I should do with this information.
"When she asked, I said I doubted you'd want to, but after this conversation, I think you'd both benefit from it. I think you should talk to her, Cal. I really do. Finish this thing once and for all."
"It's not as simple as that though, is it? If I tell her about her father, he might send his people after you again."
"Her father had a stroke a few months ago. He's in a care home and unlikely to regain his power of speech."
My jaw dropped.
"You get to tell your story with no comeback, Cal. To me it's a no brainer. Go get closure."
Could I do this? Could I go see my past and tell her the truth? Maybe we owed it to each other to clear the past away. She could go and happily marry her new fiancé, and I could… what?
Be a free man, Cal. Truly.
"Give me her number. I'll arrange to see her next week." I said.
Jules took out her mobile phone and read me the digits off and I put them into my own phone. Fuck, there it was just like old times. The name Tali and her number.
Only now she was no longer mine, but someone else's.
And I felt totally okay with that, as I was no longer hers.
I was beginning to see that my heart had maybe never wholly belonged to her at all. It seemed a little tiny corner of it had stayed in an Indian restaurant years ago.
Chapter Twenty-One
Becca
All the way through Callum being at my house yesterday, the same question had been running through my mind. Was Callum just a friend, or did I see him in another way entirely?
After he'd left, and I'd got Laurel settled and in bed, I'd sat on my sofa with a glass of wine and replayed the evening in my head. I'd already spent the time before he came for dinner replaying every piece of conversation from our lunch over and over, and now I had another couple of hours of conversation to try to decipher too. I'd never been very good at this dating lark to start with. It was why my friend had set me up on the blind date with Rob in the first place. She'd felt I'd needed a helping hand.
My whole thought processes were pointless. I had absolutely no clue whether Callum liked me in anything other than a friend way. Plus, was I really ready to embark on dating and a potential relationship anyway? I just got Laurel and I set up in our new home and maybe right now that was enough. But conversely—and this was why I was giving myself a headache—everything with Rob still made me feel that life was short and if you'd got an opportunity for happiness you should seize it with both hands. In other words, I didn't have a fucking clue what to do.
It was times like these that I missed having Violet in my life and regretted my decision to cut off contact with her. Don't get me wrong, I had made some new friends amongst the mothers at nursery and occasionally I met them for coffee. But conversation always revolved around the kids. No one had the guts to raise a conversation with a widow and ask her if she was thinking of dating again. Oh I was sure they wanted to know the answer, but it appeared the residents of Hill Green were extremely polite. Even Todd, the single dad who I'd had a coffee with, had made it clear that he was asking me as a friend and respected the fact I was a widow. I wondered what he would have said if I'd have demanded he fucked me over the café's table?
I wasn't someone who dithered. I was someone who sledgehammered my way through to getting what I wanted and needed. It had been six months. Six goddam months! Even frikking longer if you thought about the fact that my husband hadn't been sexually interested in me at all in the months before he died, given that I was obviously too freaking old for him. Yes, I could even have a little laugh with myself now about the past. God only knows I'd needed it.
So I was going to spend Saturday seeing how Callum and I got along and somehow I would test out the waters to see whether he might want to take me out some time. Fuck it, I thought to myself. If not, he lived a thirty minute drive away from Hill Green. I'd probably never have to see him again.
And yet the next morning, while Laurel sat on the landing playing with her favourite toys, the stairgate safely closing her off from danger, I was in the bathroom defuzzing bits that had not been defuzzed for a long, long time, and telling myself that it had absolutely nothing to do with a certain Waite brother coming around the next day. But the truth was, the electrician coming tomorrow was sparking feelings in me I could no longer deny.
By the time Saturday came around I was beside myself with nervous energy. I’d hardly slept, and when Laurel had woken me at six am, instead of cursing the early start, I'd leapt out of bed, got her up and breakfasted and then went and put on the outfit I'd selected to wear: a pair of skinny jeans that I hoped showed my legs and butt to their best advantage and a soft cream Cashmere jumper that came to my waist, therefore not covering my butt and hopefully clinging nicely over my boobs. Then I put on some light make-up that I hoped highlighted my best features: my eyes and lips.
When the doorbell eventually went at nine am, it was a race to the door as Laurel had spotted Cal walking up the driveway from the window where she'd been playing with her dolls.
"Cal, you came back!" She said, smiling away.
I wished him a good morning and asked him to come in, but my daughter wouldn't leave his side and so any other conversation between us was lost for a time as she chattered away about everything and anything.
"I'm sorry, she can really talk." I said to Cal as I passed him a drink of tea.
"Yeah, I'm noticing." He laughed. "Don't worry about it. I'll be busy soon and then she'll get bored."
"Don't bet on it."
"You two going out anyway?"
"Sorry?"
He nodded at my clothing. "You look dressed up. I thought you must be going somewhere."
"Oh, no. I just—"
Cal's face paled. "Oh God, sorry, Becca. I forgot you always look clean, tidy, and presentable. I'm used to my own family. We permanently look like a group of vagrants."
Clean, tidy, and presentable. I felt like he'd kicked me in the gut.
Clean.
Tidy,
And fucking presentable.
What? Like I was going to a job interview? Like I looked like
a bloody librarian?
For a moment I wished I had a black PVC catsuit in my wardrobe and then I'd bloody show him about clean, tidy, and presentable.
"You okay, Becca?"
"Huh?"
"You're staring into space."
"Oh, sorry, was miles away then. Right, I'd better leave you to it. We'll try to keep out of your way. You remembered to not bring any lunch? I've made us something. Laurel got all excited about the idea of an indoor picnic."
"Sounds fab. Now not to be cheeky, but have you got any of those biscuits you spoke about on Thursday?" Cal winked.
I wished that wink had been received in response to my efforts to look nice.
Fuck my life.
And then Laurel decided she didn't like the noise the drill made in the wall and so we had to camp upstairs in my bedroom, so I didn't get to say another word to him. He ended up having to make his own drinks after the first time I tried to leave Laurel and she clung to my leg screaming.
Finally, lunchtime came around and Cal downed tools and came and sat in the kitchen at our table.
"Noooooo." Laurel wouldn't let me pick her up, her arms going around her waist. "Picnic."
"Yes, we're having the picnic, Laurel. You need to sit at the table so we can eat."
"Noooooo."
Exasperated, I looked over to Cal. "I'm sorry, I don't know what's wrong with her today."
"I think I do." Cal said. "Give me a couple of minutes."
He went into the living room and I heard the front door open. A few minutes later he was back.
"Okay, come through. Is this what you want, Laurel?"
Laurel ran off into the room and I heard her shout, "Picnic," before I saw her sit down on a blanket I'd never seen before.
"I keep it in the back of the van. Do you need any help carrying things through? I guessed Laurel wanted a proper picnic, where you sit on a blanket."
"God, I feel stupid for not figuring that out myself. Everything is in a basket if you'd carry that in and then I'll just bring the orange juice. I'll make us a hot drink to go with dessert as that's still in the fridge."
