We head out and Chris leads me to the Lower Terminus in Central before we board the tram that leads up to The Peak. Clasping hands we stare fondly back over the city which falls away below us as the tram climbs up the mountain, the city transforming before our very eyes as we imprint the image of the Hong Kong skyline to memory. As another day ends, an orange hue splits the sky as the sun slips behind the horizon giving way to the neon landscape punctuated by whirring strobe lights that shine upwards into space, like WWII search lights seeking out enemy bombers.
The more altitude we gain the more spectacular the views become, reaching across Victoria Harbour as far as the New Territories. As we rise up above the lights, I reflect back on our time here and how we’d originally observed the contrasts of this city during our first taxi ride from the airport. Our own experience of Hong Kong has also been one of contrasts, as if the city has brought out both the best and the worst in Chris and I.
In one week there have been moments when my heart has swelled to capacity with an overwhelming love for Chris, when I’ve wanted to sink into him and be completely consumed by him. Times when we have collapsed in fits of giggles and laughter as we’ve teased and taunted each other in good humour, like our day spent at Ocean Park. And I’ve also felt the effects of that smallest of cracks in our relationship. A tiny fissure between our two souls that even if the initial acute pain has been rinsed away yet, the wound remains. Like a physical scar in a rock.
The lights continue to shimmer and glow below giving the city a seemingly magical quality, even the chaos and noise of the city from this great height, softens into a soft distant hum. It’s absolutely breath-taking and I can’t believe Chris has been so thoughtful. He hugs me from behind, his chin on my shoulder as we look out from the observation deck at the top of the mountain and my heart swells with love once again.
“Oh Chris, it’s so beautiful. Thank you for bringing us here on our last night. This is how I want to remember our week here.”
“This isn’t the surprise, Vicky. Come,” he commands, reaching for my hand before leading me inside to the restaurant, where reserved specifically for us, is a private table with the best view of the city.
I know from having attempted to book this location many times for my business clients in the past, that it’s virtually impossible and usually booked up months in advance, so Chris must have pulled some major strings to be able to have organised this. Waiting for us is a bottle of champagne on ice and lying on the table is a single red rose with a note attached. I glance up at him and smile as he holds out the back of my chair and I take my seat.
I pick up the rose and read the label, which says simply, ‘I love you’. He leans over to grab my hand, having now taken his own seat on the opposite side of the table. Is this the moment he’s going to apologise for all his behaviour from earlier in the week, or at least offer me an explanation?
“I just wanted to make our last night really special and one for us to remember, Vicky,” he says sincerely. It’s not the explanation I was hoping for, but I feel immensely loved in this moment nonetheless.
“Well you certainly have, Chris. Thank you,” I reply. “I love you so very very much,” feeling the prickle of happy tears wanting to escape from my eyes.
“I love you too,” he says without hesitation as we hold each other’s hands over the table, lost in each other’s gaze and in no rush to open our menus.
The veil around my heart may not have dissipated completely, but at least for tonight, I feel it has become slightly less dense and a little more transparent, allowing Chris’s love, if not to penetrate my heart completely, little by little to touch its surface once again. I decide that I will leave the events of Hong Kong behind us and give him another chance. I will open my heart fully to him again and hope that the tiger within him never rears its ugly head again.
A day later and back in the UK, Mike collects us from the airport again, so we can retrieve our car from his house before driving back home to Wootton Bassett. Once we arrive we only have time to unload our luggage, before heading off again in tandem down to Tilbury docks. Chris’s last car, a special edition black sports Mercedes, is being loaded tomorrow, the final piece of his shipment that’s about to leave for New Zealand. We finally arrive home, for the second time that day at 10pm, absolutely exhausted.
There’s a note on the fridge from Mel saying she hopes we had a good time and that she’s gone to the Gray’s for the weekend and that she won’t be home, instead heading straight into the office in the morning. Chris puts the kettle on as I listen to the answerphone and look through the notepad next to the phone for any other messages Mel may have written down for us during the week.
I hit play, and after a couple of messages from my mum hoping we’ve had a good time, and a couple of other friends, we hear one from Michelle.
“Hi kids,” she always refers to her brother and I as ‘the kids’, “I hope you’ve had a lovely time in Hong Kong and you’ve arrived home safely. Give me a buzz sometime this week. I want you both to come up to mine this weekend, I have something to tell you both. We can go out for dinner on Saturday and you guys stay over.”
Chris, who’s just walked back into the room carrying cups of tea for us both, looks across at me, one eyebrow raised. “I wonder what all that is about?” he asks.
“I have no idea, but it sounds very much like a summons, so it must be something fairly major,” I reply. “I can’t imagine she’s about to announce she’s moving back to New Zealand since she’s only been in her new flat a matter of weeks.”
Michelle has recently moved from Richmond up into the centre of London having purchased a two-bed flat in Russell Square. It’s prime real estate and I can only imagine how much it must have cost but property in London will never lose its value, so I suspect she was at an age when she wanted to put her money into something, plus it has reduced her commuting time down into the City by over an hour each way.
“Maybe David and her are going to get hitched, or maybe they already have?” Chris visibly baulks at the thought.
“Perhaps they’ve just come back from Gretna Green and they are just ‘fessing up now,” I surmise.
“Nah, can’t see it,” he says, “I know they seem very close, but Michelle is so fiercely independent I just can’t see her settling down and becoming someone’s wife. Well, I suppose we’ll find out next weekend, won’t we? We don’t have anything else planned, do we?” he asks.
“Nope. I don’t care what we do, as long as we do it together. I want to soak up every second I have left with you before you have to leave.” I feel emotionally wrung out after the highs and lows of this past week, the long flight back to the UK, followed by an immediate 300-mile round road trip to deliver the Merc to Tilbury and I feel the familiar prickle of tears stinging at the back of my eyes.
“I know,” he says, putting down his cup of tea and wrapping his arms around me, giving me the comfort I crave. I lean my head on his shoulder, my vision blurring as the tears spill over, tumbling down my cheek like a silent waterfall. He continues, “But I promise it will be right, Vicky. I will come back to you, cross my heart and hope to die.” He crosses himself before lifting my chin and planting a soft kiss on my lips. “Come on, sweetheart, we need sleep. Time for bed.”
He takes the cup from my hand, expertly holding both our mugs in one of his. He reaches for my hand with his other as he leads me out of the room and up the stairs. I love it when he’s this masterful, I find it unbelievably sexy and it reminds me of the very first night when he came for me, claiming what he wanted. There are times of course, like the feisty woman I know I am, when I don’t want to be bossed around or told what to do and I will push back and rebel, and then there are other times when I just want him to step up and take control as he’s doing now, and in those moments I’ll yield willing.
I suppose the challenge for him is knowing when I wish to be led and when I don’t. Tonight I’m so travel weary that I’m grateful he’s in c
ontrol and once in bed we fall asleep quickly locked in each other’s embrace and for once I feel close to him even though he hasn’t expected us to make love first. I suspect because he is also worn out. Even so, it’s nice to be held in a ‘safe cuddle’, one that I know won’t lead any further.
***
“So, what’s the ‘big’ news then, sis?” Chris asks his sister as the three of us sit around the table of a recently opened new French restaurant in Russell Square. Chris is tearing into his bread as I pour the wine. I reach over to fill up Michelle’s glass, but she quickly puts her hand over the top.
“Not for me, thanks. I think I’ll just have water tonight.”
I instantly stop what I’m doing and look up, quizzing her with my eyes. I study Michelle’s features, woman to woman as telepathically she knows I’ve worked out her secret. She smiles warmly at me and nods her head. I leap up out of my chair like an absolute lunatic almost crushing her, as I lunge across to where she’s seated, screaming incoherent yelps of delight.
“Is someone going to tell me what the hell is going on?” Chris asks looking completely bemused as Michelle and I hug and cry like babies. “What am I missing?” he asks, catching his head in his hand, his elbow banging on the table in front of him with a loud thump.
“Do you want to tell him, or shall I?” I ask Michelle, my arms still around her.
“You tell him,” she says warmly.
“Your sister is going to have a baby, Chris. You’re going to be an uncle.” I can’t hide the delight and joy from my voice.
Now it’s Chris’s turn to jump up out of his chair and embrace his sister. “Oh, my gawd Mich, how did that happen?”
“What do you mean, how did it happen? Don’t tell me I have to teach you about the birds and the bees, my dear brother. Well, one day when a man and a woman love each other very, very much and they have a special cuddle,” she’s teasing him now.
“Yeah, yeah, very funny, sis.”
“How far on are you? When is the baby due? Do you know what you’re having? Have you thought of any names yet?” My questions coming thick and fast.
“Whoa there. One question at a time, Victoria. I’m not quite three months pregnant, so not out of the danger zone yet. David and I go for our first scan in a couple of weeks, but I’m so excited. I wanted you guys to be some of the first to know.”
“And how does David feel about it? I’m assuming this isn’t just a happy accident,” I use air quotes to emphasise the word accident.
“No, no, not an accident. Well you don’t get to our age and not have worked out that A plus B does actually make a baby. Let’s just say we weren’t actively trying to get pregnant, but we weren’t actively trying not to either. He is pretty chuffed though. Strutting round like a peacock at the moment.”
“Oh, I’m so, so happy for you Michelle. You and David of course. It really is wonderful news. God your mum must be past herself. Oh, a new baby. How fabulous.” I clap my hands together like a deliriously happy child on Christmas morning.
“Calm down, Victoria. There’s a long way to go yet. Baby will not be here until the end of the summer, by which point I’ll have grown into a huge fat heffalump so I’ll be expecting everyone, you guys included, to be waiting on me hand and foot.”
“No problem,” I reply without hesitation. “I’ll be your number one slave when you need me to be. It’ll be my absolute honour, Michelle.”
This baby is not the first grandchild to be born into Chris’s family. His brother, Dean, already has two children but they live in the North Island, so even when Chris was living in Christchurch he didn’t have his young niece and nephew in close proximity, and this will be the first of Chris’s siblings to give birth to a child in the UK.
However, this baby potentially means even more to me. I’ve grown so close to Chris’s sisters in the years we’ve all known each other, it’s easy to forget that I knew both of them long before even meeting Chris, so much so that I consider them my family too. As an only child myself, the only chance I ever have of becoming an aunt and helping raise nieces and nephews would be via my partner’s siblings, so although I’m not officially an aunt - Chris and I are not married - with Michelle’s announcement I instantly feel like one, like this new baby also belongs to me.
As happy as I am for Michelle and David, the thought of having my own child or being pregnant myself is absolutely terrifying. That would just be the worst situation ever. How on earth would Chris and I cope? We’re far too young and irresponsible. We haven’t even found a way to live permanently in the same hemisphere, let alone think about anything as massively responsible as having a kid together, which is why the opportunity to become an honorary aunt to someone in his family is just so perfect. Thankfully my period just arrived this morning - five days late! So after days of secretly holding my breath and crossing my fingers, I put it down to the stress on my body of our recent travels together and our big row while we were away. It would appear my body also now feels that it is all in the past.
A couple of weeks later, back in Wootton Bassett, Chris and I are at our kitchen table sharing breakfast, when Melanie walks in, snapping us out of our morning chit-chat. She pours the now re-boiled kettle over the teabag she’s just put into her cup.
“Morning, love-birds.” She smiles over in our direction. “Sleep well last night?”
Chris and I snigger like naughty schoolkids as we nibble on our toast, sharing our own private but very obvious joke. Mel just rolls her eyes, turning her attention back to the teabag in her mug. These days it’s an old joke, the three of us having lived fairly harmoniously under the same roof for the past eight months.
“Got any plans for this weekend, you two?” she asks turning round to lean her back against the kitchen sink as she talks towards us at the kitchen table.
“I think we’re planning to stay close to home, it’s our last weekend before I leave. What about you, sis?” Chris asks, avoiding looking at me, knowing that locking eye contact is guaranteed to start my waterworks again. He knows I’m dealing with his imminent departure by refusing to acknowledge how close it now is.
“I think I’ll pop down to the Gray’s. I fancy a bit of homecooked grub, wrapped up with lots of hugs and mugs of tea, and it’ll mean you guys can have the place to yourselves for your last weekend together.”
“That’s very kind of you, Mel, but don’t leave on our behalf you can still chill out here if you want,” I say across to Melanie. Chris and I have always agreed that just because we became involved, Melanie should never be made to feel uncomfortable or unwelcome in her own home, and although none of us know how things will pan out in the coming weeks and months, I think the three of us have tried hard to make our domestic arrangements work. In fact, it’s been an absolute riot and we’ve had lots of fun.
“Don’t worry, I’m not leaving to avoid you both. I was thinking of going anyway. Margaret is involved in some village fête thing this weekend and I said I would lend a hand. I’ll still be chilling out, just round her kitchen table, rather than here.”
I wonder if she’s really going to help out at Margaret’s village fete, or whether it’s just an excuse to see John, her long-term on-off boyfriend. Neither Chris or I are really sure what’s going on there. She never brings him up in conversation and he never comes to spend time with her outside of his village or his life on his farm. Her relationship with him just seems to trundle along, not really going anywhere. We’re wondering if she’s reached a point where she’s looking for more commitment and he’s just not willing, (or able) to give it. He doesn’t appear to be involved with anyone else, that we know of at least, he just seems to be the kind of guy who is very attached to his bachelor lifestyle but is happy to have female company, as long as it remains at arm's length. From the few stories she shares, he seems to enjoy her company when they are together but doesn’t appear to make any effort when they’re apart. She’s doing all of the chasing, if you can even call it that. More like, if
she didn’t contact him and tell him she was coming down, he would make no effort at all and there would be no relationship of any kind to report. I worry that she’ll wake up in five years’ time realising he’s not willing to give her what she wants or needs, and she’ll never get those five years back. Like everyone, she deserves to be happy.
“I’m looking forward to our first commitment-free weekend for ages, Mel,” I say, “it’s been a bit full on lately. I think Saturday will be a designated pyjama day. What do you think, Chris?” I ask, picturing a full day indulgently slobbing out in our PJs, eating junk food, drinking whatever we have in the house, watching films on VHS and making lots and lots of pure sweet love.
“Definitely. I plan to slob out, drink lots of wine, watch lots of telly and avoid packing for as long as I possibly can,” Chris replies with an exaggerated sad face.
“Oh, don’t remind me,” I say forlornly, looking up at the calendar on the kitchen wall and the date that’s been circled with a red marker. Both of us are dreading being parted again. Last time it felt like my heart had been ripped out and I’d lost a limb, but if Chris is to return to me, first he must leave, even if we have no idea when we will be reunited again.
Chapter 15
Chris
“I’m sorry I can’t come into work today. I’ve been up all night with a sickness bug and I’ve had no sleep at all.” I hear Vicky on the telephone, calling Mark at her office with a fictitious illness.
She’s not completely lying about being ill, she was so upset last night she spent most of it in tears and as a result we hardly got any sleep. Her grief came in waves, washing over her, racking her body in wretched sobs. It was horrible to witness. I feel thoroughly miserable too, knowing I have to leave her in less than 24 hours, but for her sake I held it together, so I could comfort her. However just as she started to calm down, her emotions would rise up again, consuming her, and the cycle would continue.
Belonging: Two hearts, two continents, one all-consuming passion. (Victoria in Love Book 1) Page 22
