"Do you think he’ll be back, the surviving vampire?" I was worried and a little guilty about going back home and leaving Mickey to deal with this alone.
"I don’t know, maybe. If it was me, I’d want to come back for revenge, but I guess that they don’t think like us, don’t feel like us. If someone hurt my brother or a friend, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to punish them; it wouldn’t matter what Sean had done to deserve it." There was an edge to his tone and I knew he meant every word.
"Let’s hope they don’t have your sense of loyalty."
"So when is your flight?"
"Six in the morning, we have to be out of the hotel by three. We’ve got a taxi booked, but I’m not looking forward to an early start".
"So you won’t be here for long tonight then?" Mickey looked down at his feet, avoiding eye contact. He wasn't the only one putting on a brave face. I looked down at my hands. We’d managed to weave our fingers into each other’s without even noticing it. It felt like home.
"No. We’ll need to get back to the hotel soon, pack our things and get some sleep." He squeezed my hand before lifting it up to his mouth and gently kissing it. "You will stay in touch, won’t you Soph?" he asked.
"Absolutely."
I nestled my head into his shoulder until it was time to leave.
CHAPTER 13
Although I was relieved to be going home, where to the best of my knowledge vampires didn’t want to kill me, there was a huge part of me that didn’t want to leave Antwerp. Tracy hadn’t really understood why I cried so intensely when I said goodbye to Maggie and Sean. She probably assumed that it was just an overspill of emotion from my prolonged farewells to Mickey. She couldn’t have known that I was worried about their welfare and safety. I was unsettled through the entire wait at the airport in Brussels, fidgeted throughout the entire flight and had my mobile switched on by the time the seat belt sign went off.
Walking to baggage claim, I flicked through the menu options on my phone, checking for messages from Mickey. Part of me felt cowardly for returning home, for leaving him and the others behind to pick up any fallout, the rest of me just missed him. I wasn’t ready for our yet undefined relationship to end and I was delighted to see a little yellow envelope icon pop up on my screen to notify me I had a text message.
‘HOPE YOU HAD SAFE FLIGHT. ALL OK HERE.MISS YOU’
Even Tracy noticed my change in demeanour, commenting that she was glad to see that I’d finally perked up, the "mardy mare" that I'd been. Perhaps things weren’t going to turn out so badly after all.
During the drive from the airport, I informed Tracy that she may not see me for the rest of the week, as I was planning on spending the rest of it off catching up on some chores around the house and would probably go back to Wales for a few days. If I saw her, I’d have to pretend that I still had the wound on my neck and knowing that I wasn’t a very good liar I thought avoidance was the best tactic to employ.
I wasn’t prepared to talk to anyone else about vampires yet, and if I was, she wouldn’t have been the person I would have picked. If I was going to tell anyone, it would have been my Mum, and I definitely wasn’t ready for that. She’d be hurt, upset, worried, and afraid for my sanity rather than believe actual vampires were walking the streets. Perhaps that would be preferable to having her believe they're real, having her half-scared to death, living in perpetual fear about the creatures she may never even come face to face with. No, I needed time to get my own head around this first.
Tracy didn’t ask many questions on the return trip. We were both tired and happy to just be on the way back to our respective beds, especially Tracy, who had to be up early for work the following day. I decided that I wasn’t going to tell my Mum about my plans yet though; I wanted to see how the following few days panned out, get some much needed rest and spend a bit of time with Charlie, a guaranteed method for keeping me centred. More importantly, I needed time to compose myself and decide what, if anything, I would tell her about the trip.
As soon as I was in my own flat, I ripped the dressing from my neck and bathed off the residual adhesive from the area. It left an unpleasant red patch in its wake. Still, at least I’m alive, I told myself.
After he ignored me for an hour, Charlie finally decided that he forgave me for leaving him and curled up on my lap on the sofa. I stared at the TV for a long while, not really watching anything in particular. Eventually, we fell asleep, both comforted by our reunion.
By the time I woke up, I had missed most of the day and was thankful for it. After a supper of cereal and long life milk, which I kept in the cupboard for emergencies, I lifted my suitcase from my bed and crawled under the duvet. Charlie jumped up and nuzzled into the warmth of my lap for a while before I heard his small feet pitter-patter towards the kitchen for an evening snack of his own. I slept the sleep of the just, without a dream or nightmare, and felt all the better for it. I was home, safe.
Over the course of the following days, I caught up on laundry, ironing and the other domestic chores which I’d let pile up before my holiday. My TV had recorded a large library of films and programmes, which I enjoyed watching every morning over breakfast. They constituted good background noise as I went about my business. It seemed very decadent to stay in my nightwear until lunchtime, but I did it for the first few days. Hell, I deserved it, didn't I?
I enjoyed the solitude and assumed safety of my apartment and left it rarely. Even then, it was only to briefly pop out to the supermarket to get fresh milk or a newspaper. It was unusual for me, as I usually can’t help but feel guilty if I'm not industrious in some way. Even one of my neighbours, Roy in the apartment opposite, came knocking on my door to check in on me. He was concerned at my new found reclusiveness and wondered if I was okay. I probably gave him more cause for concern when I opened the door in my vest top and pyjama bottoms, revealing a patchwork of green and black bruising on my arms. The worst of their tenderness had gone, so I had almost forgotten about them. Poor Roy, he probably didn’t know what to think.
The highlight of my days would usually come either in the mid-afternoon or late in the night, when Mickey would grab a few moments between shifts to drop me a text or an email. I was glad that we had swapped contact information and I hoped that our contact would continue, even if it were only a friendship from a distance.
It would have been better to speak to him, but I knew that he couldn’t have been earning a lot of money as a barman so I didn’t expect a costly phone call. Besides, there was always a risk of someone overhearing us, and some of the comments we wanted to exchange were of a delicate nature. Neither of us wanted the world to know what had happened to us.
Our exchanges ranged from the mundane, simple sharing the banalities of that day, to picking apart what we knew or didn’t know about our supernatural ‘friends’. Mickey usually provided an update on the local news stories that he’d been following, and which might be relevant, although nothing really was. The killers of the family, murdered when I had been over there, were still at large. Although we wondered if vampires had been responsible, we had no evidence either way. There didn’t seem to be any sign of further bodies turning up, including our dispatched vampires or other serious violent crimes. That didn’t offer much comfort though; it was entirely possible that the Antwerp vampires were still around, just feeding more discretely.
Mickey had tried to coax some more information from Maggie, but she knew little more than that she’d previously shared and was keen for us to drop the issue. If we were lucky then we'd be able to carry on with our lives as she had done. She had a point; if it wasn't for us, she would never have stumbled across another vampire. I felt a pang of guilt over that. I still do.
The lovely thing about our exchanges was that each message from Mickey contained wording which let me know that he was thinking about me and that he cared. I ensured that my replies were the same – although it wasn’t anything that I needed to think that much about. Liking him came easy and I w
as happy to sign off my messages with a "take care" or a "thinking of you" without it feeling contrived or awkward.
By the end of the week, the bruising on my arms and neck were showing significant improvement and I felt mobile enough to dare the long drive home. On a good day, it would take about two hours to get to Bethel and a further half an hour onto Bethesda. Given that I’d be travelling on a weekday, I hoped that I'd make good time, particularly if I avoided the rush hour. It had been a while since I’d last been back to Wales and I knew that a short stay on my home turf would recharge my emotional batteries. I rang my Mum to tell her I‘d be down over the weekend, which pleased her, and I felt a pang of guilt that I’d left it for so long. I usually went back to visit every few weekends, but it had been around a month since I had done so. I hadn’t wanted to go down when I was upset over my break up with Jason. I'd have ended up crying and she'd have got upset, worried. Stupid really, her calming, composed company was probably exactly what I needed.
It was lovely to be home. Mum and I stayed local for most of the weekend, with the exception of a short shopping trip in Cardiff. Although Bethel was a decent town by our standards, and indeed all of our businesses were based there, it didn't offer much in the way of high-end fashion and Mum was on the hunt for a new pair of shoes and a few other bits. The capital's only a forty-minute drive away from Bethesda, so it wasn't a great inconvenience.
Other than that, we only had to drop off some paperwork to the letting agent in Bethel. The company managed our properties for a small fee, which was ridiculous really, but it took a lot of stress off Mum, who was busy enough with the shops.
I also had to show my face at the shops, as Mum took great joy in showing me off despite me now being twenty-three. Most of the staff had known me since I was a toddler and it was nice to catch up with everyone.
We spent the evenings in watching movies, and on one night we had a takeaway from the one Indian restaurant Bethel offered. Mum noticed the ghosts of bruises on my wrist, but I was successful in persuading her that they were from a drunken fall on holiday. My watch must have been too tight, I told her, caused the contusions when I hit the ground. I was surprised how convincing my story was.
For a while, the world seemed reassuringly normal. Despite reverting to the security of old, familiar ways, I continued to keep my phone at hand and regularly checked for messages from Mickey. When he sent me a particularly humorous joke, I giggled, but was cautious about telling my Mum who the message was from. I knew that the subject of holiday romances wasn’t one which would go down well. In some ways, though, I was bursting to tell all, to blurt out everything had happened, how I survived, how brave I’d been, how I’d met a wonderful woman who had come to my rescue, how she’d like Maggie, and most of all about Mickey, my brave new friend who I couldn’t stop thinking about. I felt like a demon-hunting Bridget Jones with considerably more appropriate work wear.
As the weekend came to a close, and following our traditional Sunday lunch, I packed up the few pieces of clothing I’d brought with me, kissed my Mum goodbye and loaded up my car. Unable to let me go empty-handed, she had bought me a new dressing gown in Cardiff, a packet of my favourite biscuits and an additional chicken which she roasted along with the one we ate for our lunch. I loaded them into the boot and the smell of poultry filled the car. Although I’d been effectively been living on my own for four years, my mother was still not convinced that I could be left to cope on my own. Funny when you think she was a mother of a four-year-old at my age.
As she gave me one final hug, she felt my phone vibrate in my pocket. "You be careful," she ordered, releasing me from her embrace, but holding my upper arms in her hands.
"I always am," I answered. "Honestly, people on the roads should be more scared of me than the other way around." I grinned mischievously, guessing her true meaning.
"That’s not what I mean young lady and you know it," she snapped, half in jest. There was regret in her eye as she warned me against getting involved with the wrong men. After all, what good would come of carrying on with someone in a different country? I nodded, not disclosing that I'd been online to look at the cost of fares to Derry. Mickey wasn't like my father. He wasn't going to disappear overnight and leave me to deal with a massive thing, like a baby or vampires, on my own. Not all men are like my Dad, Mum.
"I'll be sensible," I assured her," and anyway, there are more dangerous things in the world than men."
"No lovely," she muttered, stroking my hair, "there really isn’t".
Her words rang in my ears for the entire journey back.
Getting up for work the following day was horrible. The prospect of sitting at a desk, listening to people babble about their career aspirations seemed decidedly insignificant. The reality was no better. After a week off, I had more than three hundred emails to work through, most from eager job seekers randomly applying to any job vaguely connected to what they were looking for. I usually felt compassion, but now I found it difficult to care. It was worse when I had to cover the phones at lunchtime, taking call after call of pay queries or problems. If only they knew what real problems are, I told myself. That and I wonder how many vampires, I'd unknowingly placed into employment over the past two years. I may have been managing to get through my days without having a breakdown, but I was definitely not firing on all cylinders yet.
At lunchtime, Tracy and I grabbed a hot pork roll from a stall in the shopping precinct and ate it on a bench in the street. It was far from continental dining, but it beat sitting at my desk. We rarely had the chance to take a full lunch break, but today I needed it, especially as I had to take it late and I was hungry. Tracy had been out to visit a client and had bumped into me on her way back from the car park. She could see that I was in need of a break.
"So how’s the first day back going?" she asked.
"Don’t ask. I hate everyone." I grunted. I was tired, emotional and hacked off in about a million different ways.
"That’s not like you, anything in particular or just having to come back after a week off?"
"The latter."
She offered me her complimentary lollipop which the barista had thrown into her meal deal bag. I gratefully accepted.
"Do you fancy going out for Chinese tonight, cheer you up? There’s a new place that’s opened up opposite the train station and they’ve got an offer on. I know you like a bargain," she beamed.
"Sure, why not, anything to get me through the day, but can we go straight from work? There are a few things I need to get done tonight."
"Yeah, anything exciting?"
"Not especially," I muttered, slipping my sweeties into my handbag and gathering up my lunch wrappers into the paper carryout bag. I was blushing.
"Not especially? What do you mean by not especially? Sophie Morgan you bloody well tell me what’s going on?"
Under my breath, I mumbled that I was planning to phone Mickey later that night. The emails and messages weren't enough. I'd text him to that effect and I was going to do it. I'm not sure why I was so sheepish about it.
Taking a pause from the hot roll that she was devouring at record speed, Tracy turned and looked at me.
“Oh, okay", she said as if it was perfectly reasonable and commonplace for me to chase boys. But, as we walked back to the office, hurling our rubbish into a litter bin on the way, she cheerfully hummed to herself, as if pleased to be living vicariously through me. The tune sounded suspiciously like "Love is in The Air".
One Kung Po chicken and a Tsing Tao later, I was making the short walk back to my flat. I used to avoid using the car whenever I could, partly for the environment and partly for the exercise. I wouldn't be able to do it for much longer; the nights were drawing in. I didn't want to put myself in any vulnerable situations where possible. As soon as it got dark, I didn't drive anywhere, but as there was nothing to indicate that vampires came out in daylight, and I was prepared to accept that as fact for now, I was saving money on fuel and burning calories. The
alternative would be locking myself in my flat and never leaving, which seemed both hysterical and impractical. On this occasion, the stroll home would also give me the opportunity to practice what I was going to say to Mickey.
I took three deep breaths before I picked up the phone and dialled the number. I used the landline in my living room, as my mobile phone had erratic reception on the first floor and I didn’t want to lose the call at any point. I also shut Charlie in my bedroom so he wouldn’t try and head butt the phone as he usually did, sat down on my sofa with the TV off and a glass of water on the side table. It felt like an eternity for the phone to connect and for Mickey to pick up. It was just about to go the voicemail when I heard his voice, he sounded in a panic.
"Are you alright?" I asked.
"Grand, just rushing to find my phone, "he replied breathlessly," I changed earlier and left it in my other jeans. Sorry about that, how are you?"
"Good, getting back into the swing of work. How are things with you? Any news from your side of the water?"
"Not really, it’s been pretty quiet. Maggie is pretending that nothing’s happened, carrying on with business as usual. Sean hasn’t figured out that anything is wrong at all. I’ve argued that we go back home - that it’s time to move on. I’m hoping that we can get out of here pretty soon."
"How did he take it?" I asked, relieved at the thought that he’d be getting away from the drama, hopefully, to a safer place.
"Not so bad, I don’t think travelling is turning out to be as much fun as he’d thought. If you’re working out here pulling pints, you may as well be pulling pints somewhere at home. We need to pull together the money for the flights though, so I think we’ll need to leave it till the end of next month. Besides, I don’t want to leave Maggie in the lurch; it’ll give her time to replace us."
Sophie Morgan (Book 1): Relative Strangers (A Modern Vampire Story) Page 13
