by K. L. Slater
‘They don’t!’
‘They do!’ She smirked, her eyes narrowing. ‘That’s why nobody ever picks you for their netball side and why you always have to stand on your own in the playground after lunch.’
Present day
Louise has always known how to put me down.
I turn now and walk out of the lounge, towards my bedroom.
I don’t know where that memory came from, but I know that in twenty years, the feeling hasn’t changed.
In my sister’s eyes, I will never quite measure up.
CHAPTER FIVE
LOUISE
As she bundled Archie and his bags out of the apartment block, Louise reflected that it had been one hell of a day.
The new Hilton Hotel campaign was taking so much of her time and yet she still had to somehow pull in the draft marketing plan for New Pages Press, the small publishing press the CEO’s daughter had just created, hot on the heels of her wedding planning business that had started up and then folded within a record eight-month period.
It was high pressure and almost impossible to do well in the time available. And yet Louise had to admit she’d been attracted to go for the promotion to senior marketing manager for precisely that reason.
Her job as assistant marketing manager had become laborious. She wasn’t utilising her innovation skills at all, and that was largely due to Meryl Corner, her boss, refusing to delegate or allow her any space to breathe in her own role. Every day was a drag and dampened any creativity.
Happily, when Meryl had reluctantly retired three months ago at the age of sixty-seven, Louise felt her chance had finally come. She’d put everything she had into the application, and the CEO had finally given her the opportunity to shine.
But right now, that well-known cautionary phrase, ‘Be careful what you wish for’ came to mind.
Louise was struggling, and it wasn’t just the job. But she wouldn’t, and couldn’t, let anyone know that.
She’d find a way to get through the bad times and emerge calm and capable. That was how she’d always dealt with her problems, and this would be no exception.
Of course, it would be far easier to focus on the job in hand if everything else didn’t seem to be disintegrating around her ears.
Archie’s deteriorating behaviour was really beginning to get out of hand, and she felt increasingly ill equipped to cope with him. At times, he seemed to actively seek to wind her up to snapping point. To her shame, he had succeeded on one or two recent occasions.
She had to admit that Alice, whom she’d written off as an irredeemable shadow of her former self, had been a star since Louise had accepted the new job. She’d stepped in at the eleventh hour on a number of occasions to mind Archie while Louise had to work… at least that was what Louise had told her when she had to be elsewhere for reasons she intended to keep to herself. For now.
It was a battle to get Archie up to the apartment, though; he always kicked back against going.
‘It’s boring there. She doesn’t know anything about gaming and there’s nothing else to talk about,’ he’d said before tonight’s visit.
‘Auntie Alice, not she,’ Louise corrected him.
Archie had a point, though, Alice was out of touch with young people. She’d often make caustic comments about the amount of time Archie spent on the computer, or piously point out that he ate too much junk food. This, from someone who barely went out and whose only friend was a cat.
It was easy for Alice to get on her soapbox and pass judgement; she wasn’t desperately trying to keep her head above water.
Louise considered the Xbox and fast food a godsend when it came to juggling her son and all her other, increasingly demanding hats.
Professional working woman, mother, wife, sister… the list went on. She knew she wasn’t alone; it was what was expected these days, wasn’t it? A sign of women taking back power by being bloody fantastic at everything and having it all.
Except it wasn’t working… for her, at least.
Sometimes, probably like half the female population, she dreamed about leaving the house one morning, getting on a train and then a plane and never coming back. That was how bad things felt right now.
She would never admit it to anyone else, but for the past twelve months, it had felt as if she and Darren were wading through knee-high mud. And not holding hands, either.
She supposed lots of couples could say the same, but it was a complete reversal of how it had felt when they’d first married. That was only four years ago, but back then they’d had far less money and less impressive careers and yet every day had felt as if they were skipping through life and making time to smell the roses and just be a family.
Since then, life had somehow beaten them down, slowly turned them into different people altogether, until now she didn’t recognise the man who’d inspired and excited her at all.
It was sad and troubling and she wasn’t quite sure what to do about it. Louise acknowledged she probably wasn’t dealing with it in the right way, but she was a living, breathing woman with her own needs. And if he wasn’t meeting them, then he deserved everything he got.
When Alice complained about her low energy because of some condition Louise couldn’t even remember the name of, or simply the fact that she had to leave the flat to do an errand, it made Louise’s blood boil.
She tried hard not to show it, tried not to take her own frustrations out on her sister, but then the occasional caustic comment would slip out of her mouth before she could bite it back.
It was certainly true that Alice had shouldered the brunt of their mother’s care during the last eighteen months of Lily’s life. Louise had been grateful for that, and had told her sister so. She couldn’t claim she’d nursed Mum with care like Alice had, but she’d done the best she could at the time.
Alice could be a bit of a martyr at times, and often failed to acknowledge that she’d been more than happy to hide herself away from the world. After all, closeted away up there on the third floor, there was no one to answer to about what she had done to Jack.
And now, over a year after their mother had passed away, Alice was still clinging onto the flat and, subsequently, Louise’s half of the inheritance.
Worse still, she’d told Louise that she’d taken a shine to some guy who caught the tram past her apartment block each morning. She’d gone on and on about him, as though she was fostering some kind of weird and ridiculous obsession about what might happen between them in the future. Louise suspected this might mean her digging her heels in even harder about moving to a smaller property.
But things had changed. Louise had no choice but to make Alice see sense now and sell up, because her own options were fast running out.
She was entitled to that money, and somehow she had to get her hands on it quickly.
Whatever it took, she had vowed to herself that she would somehow make it happen, because the alternative was unthinkable.
CHAPTER SIX
ALICE
On Monday morning, I open my eyes and a sober realisation hits me. These days, I seem to have just one reason to get out of bed, and pathetically, that is to get myself to the lounge window in time for the 8.16 tram.
Technically, the man on the tram is still a stranger. But a few weeks after my initial sighting, something happened that I definitely counted as progress.
That morning, when the tram stopped, he slipped his phone in his pocket and stared directly up at my window. It wasn’t an accidental thing, like he’d been looking around and settled on my face. It was a definite, bold stare that immediately grabbed me.
I took a sharp intake of breath when my eyes met his and that’s when the similarity to Jack hit me.
I immediately dodged behind the curtain, heart pounding, and stayed there until the tram moved off again.
It’s not him, I kept telling myself. It’s not Jack.
Of course, on a logical level I knew full well that that was the case, but that didn’t
stop it raking up and magnifying all the emotions I felt about Jack. The clutching, desperate hope in my throat that it was him and the terrible crushing guilt in my chest of knowing it couldn’t be. What I’d done had made sure of that.
The rest of that day, I fretted terribly. Illogically.
Had the man on the tram seen me at the window before and wondered why I was staring at him like that?
What if he’d seen me dart away behind the curtain and thought me unfriendly?
Surely he couldn’t know I’d been watching him every morning for weeks. He certainly hadn’t given any sign he’d noticed.
Anyway, even if he had spotted me, he couldn’t be certain it was him I was looking at. There were so many other people around, I might just be watching out for a friend each morning, or waving someone off.
Perhaps I’d imagined the whole thing and he wasn’t staring at me at all.
But then the next morning, as soon as the tram arrived, he quite deliberately twisted in his seat and looked directly up at my window again with no hesitation at all.
This time, I didn’t dash behind the curtain. I forced myself to stay put.
I felt my cheeks burning like red-hot coals, but I reasoned he was far enough away that he wouldn’t spot the extent of my embarrassment.
I considered my impression of his face. His features were softer than I’d imagined from his more angular profile, which had such a resemblance to Jack’s.
He wore a striped wool scarf in a trendy fashion, tied like a student might. He pulled at it until it loosened, and I caught a glimpse of something beneath it: the dark knot of a tie nestling on a white collar.
A professional job, then.
I held his gaze, saw the ghost of a smile that played on his lips, but I couldn’t bring myself to respond with a similar gesture. My features felt frozen in place.
When all the remaining passengers had boarded and the tram moved off at last, I felt a curious mixture of relief and disappointment.
I leaned back in the chair, relaxed my shoulders and gulped in air. I hadn’t even realised I’d been holding my breath.
Here I was, just turned thirty years old, and trapped in a monotonous life that had sapped me of any energy or enthusiasm. Worse still, there was no sign of anything changing.
I’d quietly accepted my lot for so long, but now I wondered, did this always have to be the case? Was a normal life still within my grasp?
I felt a sudden longing for the person I used to be… bright and confident. I knew what I wanted and felt well able to achieve it. When I’d first met Jack, I honestly thought there was a strong chance we’d settle down, have kids, the whole shebang.
But life had had something else in store for me, something I had no chance of controlling.
Added to this, the time looking after Mum had taken its toll, and when I finally emerged on the other side, it felt like all that I had left to work with was the husk of the woman I used to be.
So on my birthday, seeing this guy who looked so much like Jack, who just happened to be absorbed in one of my favourite books of all time… it might sound crazy, but it was as if someone had lit a touch paper, and I felt a warm glow inside me again despite everything I’d promised myself.
This was my chance.
Had the universe smiled on me and given me a way out if I was brave enough to take it? Call me desperate, deluded or just plain stupid, but that was how it felt and that was what I chose to believe.
I couldn’t just let the opportunity to get to know him pass me by.
I knew then that I had to work out a way I could find out more about him.
Easing my legs out of bed, I press my bare feet into the fluffy rug that I bought to cover the worn, flattened carpet. I close my eyes, but if anything, it makes my thumping head feel even worse.
I’m not a great sleeper at the best of times, but last night I had help in staying awake.
Between one and three a.m., an infuriating buzz sounded periodically above my head. At first, I thought it was a trapped wasp or a bee, but then I realised it was a phone.
Buzz, buzz, buzz. It seemed like every few minutes, then a pacing around, right above my head.
Someone was obviously picking it up on occasion and dropping it back onto the floor again, evidenced by a regular single thud.
If you want to take calls and texts all night long, I thought, seething at the blatant selfishness, at least turn the ruddy vibration off.
I stretch my neck side to side in an effort to ease the tension. It doesn’t work.
A short burst of weak sunlight filters through the dusty glass of the bedroom window, and I close my eyes, willing it to warm my face for a few seconds before it fades.
Even when I’m not kept up half the night, on mornings like this, when my energy dips low, sometimes I haven’t even got the strength to negotiate the shower.
I wash my face and hands at the sink. As I brush my hair and watch myself in the mirror, I wonder how it is a person can slip so far in so short a time. I used to actually have a life.
I get dressed in stretchy garments that slide over my neglected body with the minimum of effort, and manage to get everything done to enable me to be in position with my coffee and cereal by the window in good time.
I sit down at the small wooden table and look up across the rooftops. The clouds are heavy and grey this morning. The earlier sparse rays of sunlight are probably the last I’ll see today. The flat feels cool but the heating makes me snuffly and a bit irritable.
I push away the bowl of cornflakes and pull the mug of coffee towards me.
Today, I count twelve people waiting at the tram stop. They are all strangers to each other this morning, no friends or colleagues chatting together. Some stare expectantly down the road, watching for the flash of the metal, the searing electrical glide, the squeaking brakes. Others flick through their phones, stamp their feet, while their breath putters out in frosty clouds.
I sip my coffee and wonder what it feels like to be one of those souls: miserable to be going to work, but leaving in the full knowledge that your partner, your kids… your life… will be there when you return home later.
I put down my mug and notice that my forearms prickle as the tram approaches and slows to a halt. One or two people get off, and then the line begins to shuffle forward.
My eyes flutter along to the second carriage and stop at the beige mac, the glare of a phone screen and a sandy-haired head bent over it.
And then he looks up.
He looks right at me.
CHAPTER SEVEN
I stare out of the window, unblinking. My lips morph into a soft line that’s not quite a smile but is friendlier than a straightforward stare.
We hold a look for a beat or two, and then the light on his phone screen dims and he leans over to one side to put it in his pocket. My heart is racing, boom, boom, boom.
Tentatively, he smiles. Then he raises one arm and waves, and before I even register what I’m doing, I wave right back at him.
Time stands still for a second or two before the tram pulls away again, and then I sit staring at the dull, empty tracks that I know can gleam like chrome brushstrokes on the charcoal asphalt when the light changes.
My heart rate slows, the black cloud moves back over my head and the spell is broken.
It will be a full twenty-four hours before I see him again. Another day of trying to convince myself that my life will somehow improve though I have nowhere to go, nothing to do.
The acknowledgement of this settles on my chest like a millstone.
I don’t know how many minutes pass while I’m steeped in my own misery, but suddenly I lurch from my seat as a shrill and unexpected ringing starts up next to me. My phone shudders, vibrating on the spot as the screen announces Louise as the caller.
Usually, I might ignore it, call her back when I feel up to it, but it’s almost like she knows what I’ve been doing, smiling and waving at a complete stranger, and I snatch the handse
t up and answer it like a guilty party.
‘Alice? It’s me, have you got a moment?’
I look down at the spot the tram was in just a few minutes earlier. He was right there, with his muscular jaw and dark eyes, looking up here at plain, ordinary me.
‘Alice?’ Louise says again.
‘Yes,’ I say quickly. ‘I’m here.’
‘Sorry, have I caught you in the middle of something?’
‘No, no. It’s fine, I was just making my breakfast.’
‘Alice…’ My ears prick up. It’s not very often that Louise hesitates. ‘I… need a favour.’
Another one?
‘I’m sorry to have to ask,’ she continues, back to her brisk self now. ‘You know I wouldn’t ask unless I really needed to, right?’
I ignore her rhetorical question. ‘What is it?’
She takes a sharp breath at the end of the line and then pushes out all the words, one after the other, without any punctuating gaps.
‘I know you don’t like going out unless absolutely necessary these days but I really need you to take Archie to school. It’s just for a few mornings.’ She clears her throat. ‘But he has to be there early, I’m afraid, for the start of his breakfast club. I have to book and pay for a place in advance, you see.’
I close my eyes and move the phone away from my ear a touch as if that might put a little more space between us. My silence doesn’t deter her.
‘I could drop him off at yours at seven each morning, and school’s only about a fifteen-minute walk from your place… I can’t tell you how grateful I’d be.’
I want to help her out, but this is a big commitment to ask of someone who barely leaves the house, and at the very time of day I can do without it, too.
I pick up my mug and take a swig of coffee to alleviate the dryness in my mouth. It’s cold, and I wince. ‘Can’t Darren do it?’
I’m not putting up much of a fight asking a question that I already know the answer to, but the thought of taking on this massive task is currently eclipsing all other thoughts in my head.
