by Dani Atkins
‘I want to thank you all for coming tonight. I know how much it would have meant to Lisa to see you all here.’ He paused, his eyes drawn to the far corner of the room. ‘Even those of you she never got to meet.’
The words were catching in his throat, and all around the room tissues were being surreptitiously tugged from pockets and handbags. It was time for him to stop.
After a hesitant pause, a small ripple of applause travelled the room like an uncertain Mexican wave. As Alex wove through the clusters of people, he was buoyed by the comforting hands patting his shoulder or squeezing his arm. It carried him across the room to the one group he hadn’t spent enough time with that evening – the ones who could only be here because his late wife could not.
But when he reached them, he saw with dismay that Barbara was already putting on her coat. Molly was holding her walking stick and had her own black coat draped over her arm. Alex had left it too late, he’d taken too long worrying about finding the right words to say to them, and now they were about to leave with still so much left unsaid.
‘That was a really good speech,’ Mac said. Alex smiled tightly, recognising a lie when he heard one.
He looked at each of them in turn, hoping the desperation he was suddenly feeling wouldn’t be heard in his voice. ‘You’re going? Already?’
Guilt jumped from one face to the next.
‘It’s past my bedtime,’ Barbara explained, reaching out to capture one of Alex’s hands between both of hers. ‘And my cats start to fret when I’m away too long.’
‘Of course,’ he said, trying but failing to stop his eyes from settling on Molly as he asked, ‘Do you all have to go now?’ He noted their hesitation and pushed harder than he should have. ‘I’m sorry. Perhaps tonight wasn’t the best time to meet all of you. I feel like I still haven’t got to know you properly.’
‘You already know us, mate, from our letters. And we can still carry on writing, if you like?’
Alex nodded at Jamie’s suggestion, like a drowning man being thrown a life ring he already knew wouldn’t keep him afloat.
‘And maybe we could meet up again, sometime in the future,’ Molly offered, looking a little taken aback at her own suggestion, as though someone else had made it for her.
Alex turned to her, and the gratitude on his face wiped the uncertainty from hers. ‘Yes. I’d really like that.’
‘Well, we’ve all exchanged numbers tonight,’ Mac revealed, ‘so fixing something up shouldn’t be too difficult.’
Alex forced himself to accept their need to leave right now. He was surprised they’d swapped numbers, for it was hard to imagine a more unlikely quartet of friends. But of course they had something very unique in common. Did they feel it too, he wondered, that connection that ran so deep and defied all logical explanation?
‘Thank you all for coming. I really hope we see each other again soon.’
Alex entered a cloud of lily of the valley when he bent down to brush his lips against Barbara’s cheek. He felt the rise of a flush on her skin and wondered if there were still people in her life to kiss her hello and goodbye. He really hoped so, because she was too nice a lady to have no one but a family of cats to lavish her love on.
For the second time that night he shook Mac’s hand, which felt staid and middle-aged compared to the complicated handshake routine Jamie instigated. This involved slapping, fist bumping and several other moves Alex couldn’t keep up with. You’re not very street, my love, he heard Lisa laughingly observe in his head.
Alex hesitated as he turned to Molly. He was still deliberating between a kiss and a handshake when she took the decision from him. Very lightly placing her hands on his shoulders, she reached up and pressed her lips against the bristle on his cheek. The softness of her breath scorched him like fire, but he schooled his features to remain impassive.
‘Goodnight, Alex. You did a really nice thing for your wife tonight,’ she whispered into his ear, as though confiding a secret.
Alex watched all four of them slip silently from the room, already knowing that Molly’s parting words would stay with him for a very long time.
16
Molly
‘Are you sure I can’t offer anyone a lift?’
I paused in the hunt for my collapsible umbrella. This was the first question Mac had directed my way since he’d discovered who I was. I wasn’t usually over-sensitive, but it was glaringly obvious that although he’d been perfectly happy chatting away to Barbara and Jamie all night, he’d barely said two words to me.
‘Oh, that’s so sweet of you, Mac,’ said Barbara, answering before I had a chance to. ‘But my next-door neighbour is coming to pick me up. Oh, I think that’s him parked over there,’ she said, sounding suddenly flustered.
It was hard not to admire the way Mac immediately took her elbow and stepped out from beneath the planetarium’s canopy into the pouring rain. He saw Barbara safely across the forecourt to the waiting car before trotting back, weaving past the deep puddles that had pooled in pot holes. He was looking considerably less polished by the time he re-joined us. His hair and face were dripping wet, as though he’d just taken part in an enthusiastic round of apple bobbing, although I couldn’t imagine anyone less likely to play that particular Halloween game.
‘How about you, Jamie? Can I drop you somewhere?’ The youngest member of our group had mentioned earlier that he still hadn’t received the all-clear to drive yet. ‘Which is a bloody waste when I’ve got a practically new Beemer sitting waiting for me in the garage,’ he’d grumbled. I’d been so busy explaining to Barbara what a Beemer was, I hadn’t stopped to wonder how someone as young as Jamie could afford to own such a vehicle. It had taken me several years of teaching before I’d been able to upgrade my own car from a tired old jalopy.
‘I’m gonna pass, if you don’t mind, Mac. I’ve arranged to meet up with some mates at a pub not far from here.’ Jamie gave a wink that managed to look both devilish and endearing. ‘There’s still plenty of life left in the night, if you know what I mean.’
Mac nodded as though he understood perfectly, while all I could think about was a hot cup of tea and finally slipping off the toe-pinching sandals that had seemed such a good idea a few hours ago. Perhaps Kyra was right and I was more than halfway to becoming a bone fide shut-in, which strangely didn’t worry me nearly as much as it should have.
Finally, with no one left to ask, Mac turned to me.
‘Thanks, but I’m good. I’ve booked a cab to pick me up,’ I assured him as I fumbled with the button on the telescopic umbrella that I’d finally unearthed from the bottom of my bag. With an unexpected whoosh, the umbrella shot open, its spokes coming perilously close to his eyes. I felt genuinely sick at the near miss and the way he’d been forced to take an instinctive step backwards. There was an unreadable expression on Mac’s face as he looked at me, but if I had to take a guess, it would be something like: You really are a disaster waiting to happen, a total liability.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I gasped.
And although Mac politely dismissed it as nothing, I couldn’t help noticing that he reached for his dark glasses and slipped them back on.
Apparently unaware of any tension in the air, Jamie headed off into the rain with a cheerful ‘See ya,’ leaving Mac and me alone beneath the planetarium canopy, which was proving to be not quite as waterproof as it had first appeared. Mac turned up the collar of his coat as a few enterprising raindrops found gaps in the canvas and trickled down the back of his neck. Why doesn’t he just go to his car, I thought, knowing this was the point where I probably ought to be inviting him to share my umbrella, and yet I was reluctant to invite him into my personal space.
‘Look, you really don’t need to wait here with me,’ I said, which sounded every bit as ungrateful as I’d feared it would. I tried again. ‘What I mean is that there’s no point both of us getting wet, and I’m perfectly okay about waiting alone.’ The dark glasses made it impossible to see his eyes, bu
t I was pretty sure they were narrowed as he looked at me. ‘I’ll probably go back inside until my taxi gets here,’ I added, glancing over my shoulder at the invitingly dry foyer.
‘Well, if you’re absolutely sure,’ Mac said, giving a very eloquent ‘it’s up to you’ shrug before delving into his pocket for his keys.
‘I am. So, goodnight then,’ I said in a rush, juggling handbag and umbrella to free my hand and extend it towards him.
His fingers were warm, and his grip lingered a second or two longer than I was expecting. Then without a word he turned and headed off into the torrential downpour.
Ten very long and wet minutes later, with still no cab in sight, I finally had to admit that my taxi was a no-show. I was thoroughly cold and wet, and annoyed with myself for having rejected Mac’s offer of a lift for no good reason. He’d done nothing to deserve the prickly way I seemed to act in his company, and I truly couldn’t work out what it was about him that bothered me so much. ‘Bothered’ wasn’t quite the right word, but it was the closest I could manage.
I doubt I’ll ever see him again, so it’s hardly worth worrying about, I told myself as I turned back towards the planetarium’s entrance. It looked as though I was going to have to call for a new taxi, and there was little point standing out in the rain while I did so. But before I could take a step towards the door, I saw that the entrance lobby had filled with several departing guests. Standing among them, bidding people farewell, were Alex and Todd.
My stomach flipped in a way that was surely physically impossible, but it was enough to stop me in my tracks. Had they looked up, the Stevens brothers would have spotted me staring in at them through the window, but they were deeply absorbed in conversation. Alex said something and gave a sad shrug, which crazily made me want to abandon all good sense and dash straight back in to join them. It was an idiotic impulse, but I couldn’t deny there was an almost magnetic pull tugging me towards these virtual strangers that left me confused and unsettled. What the hell was the matter with me tonight?
From the forecourt behind me I heard the crunch of gravel and a car’s engine slowing down from a roar to a purr. The planetarium’s window reflected the outline of a low sedan that had just pulled up alongside the stone steps. Through the steadily drumming rain came the unmistakable whirr of an electric window sliding down.
‘Molly?’
Mac called out to me at the exact same moment that Alex looked up and noticed me. Through the glass I saw his lips form my name. For what seemed like an age, I hesitated, but something in Alex’s eyes scared me. It made me want to run, and I didn’t know if that was towards or away from him. With no conscious thought, I spun around and dashed through the rain towards the passenger side of Mac’s car. Without saying a word, I climbed in.
*
‘And then what happened?’ Kyra asked, leaning so far forward on the uncomfortable plastic chair, she looked in danger of falling off.
‘Shhh…’ hissed a woman in the row in front of ours, twisting around to give us a particularly pointed glare.
‘Sorry,’ Kyra mouthed, pulling an irreverent face as soon as the woman had turned back to face the stage.
The next guest speaker was already at the lectern, shuffling her notes while colliding them clumsily against the microphone. A screech of feedback ricocheted around the school hall. Everyone winced. I had a feeling it was going to be a very long morning. Consortium training days were a necessary evil in our job, but I’d yet to meet a teacher who genuinely enjoyed attending them. Except, perhaps, the woman sitting in front of us.
As the speaker introduced herself to the room full of teachers, Kyra reached for the notepad balanced on her knees. Well??!! she scribbled in bold strokes across the top of the page. There were an excessive amount of question and exclamation marks following the word.
With a wry smile I reached for my own pad to reply. We were a cliché, the two disruptive kids at the back of the classroom passing notes to each other instead of paying attention.
Nothing happened, I scribbled back, and because she was a self-confessed stickybeak, I added for extra emphasis, Nothing at all. Mac drove me home. End of story.
Except, of course, it wasn’t.
*
Mac’s car had the kind of leather seats that probably didn’t come as standard. I only hoped the upgraded spec also meant they were water-resistant, because I appeared to be depositing an awful lot of raindrops on them. The car even smelt expensive, in comparison to mine, which exuded a permanent odour of forgotten damp gym towels and well-worn trainers.
I was still clicking the seatbelt into place when Mac spotted a gap in the flow of traffic and pulled swiftly and wordlessly onto the road.
‘Thank you for this,’ I said.
His attention was on the traffic, so perhaps that explained the single nod he gave in reply. Not everyone appreciates chatty passengers when they’re concentrating on their driving, so I kept quiet, waiting for him to ask why I’d changed my mind or even what had happened to my taxi. But he was either the least curious person on the planet or simply not interested enough to enquire. I had a feeling it might be the latter.
Although I usually enjoyed sitting in silence, as many people who spend their entire day in the company of six-year-olds tend to, this one was stretching uncomfortably. It was as though we were playing a game of chicken to see which of us would break it first.
He won.
‘This is really kind of you, Mac, but I must be taking you out of your way.’
‘Actually, until you tell me where you live, that’s hard to say for sure.’
There it was again, that dry, teasing humour that was clearly his trademark. We were stopped at a junction, allowing him to swivel in his seat as he waited for directions. The dark glasses were off again and even in the ambient glow of the dashboard lights, the colour of his eyes was arresting. I blinked a couple of times, not quite a rabbit in the headlights, but more dazzled than I had reason to be.
I tore my gaze away to look out the passenger window. ‘Look, it’s quite a drive from here, so why don’t you just pull over and I’ll call an Uber.’
‘Absolutely not,’ Mac said emphatically. His foot pressed down a little harder on the accelerator, further blurring my view from the passenger window. But even with the rain and the poorly lit streets, I glimpsed a figure I was sure I recognised studying a timetable beneath the canopy of a bus stop. I cupped my hands against the glass to form a pair of makeshift binoculars, but we’d already left the bus stop far behind us. Common sense told me it couldn’t possibly have been Jamie, who’d set off in the opposite direction to meet up with his friends almost half an hour earlier. It was just someone wearing the same kind of clothes. But even so, the resemblance had been uncanny.
‘Is something wrong?’ Mac asked, his foot already moving to cover the brake.
‘No. Nothing,’ I replied, turning away from the side streets to study the man who seemed determined to take me home, regardless of whether I wanted him to or not.
‘I like driving,’ he admitted, after I’d finally conceded defeat and told him where I lived. ‘The novelty of being able to do it again still hasn’t worn off.’
I smiled, suddenly understanding him a little better. Perhaps this wasn’t such an imposition after all.
‘Whenever I can’t sleep at night – which is pretty often these days – I grab my car keys and just drive around. Sometimes for hours.’
I almost shared that I was also a new member of the insomniacs’ club, but then thought better of it. ‘So where do you go when you’re driving for hours in the middle of the night?’
Illuminated by the headlights of an oncoming car, I saw a slightly embarrassed look flicker over his face. ‘Anywhere. Nowhere. Although I seem to end up at the coast more times than I can count. And I’ve no idea why. It’s like something keeps pulling me there.’
‘Well, that’s not creepy. That’s not creepy at all.’
Mac’s laughter seemed to
catch him by surprise, as though he hadn’t known I could be funny. Which of course he hadn’t. It was weird how I kept forgetting that everyone I’d met that evening was a complete stranger.
‘I guess I must have really missed driving,’ Mac confessed.
‘What else did you miss? Were there other things?’ I was suddenly curious about his life before he’d been ill. All I knew of him was his age – thirty-six – and that until he’d lost his sight he’d been a successful architect.
‘There were other things too. Obviously.’ His voice was tight, as though he’d pulled down an invisible shutter on his previous life.
I hadn’t just stepped on a nerve, I’d practically annihilated it. I got the impression Mac didn’t talk about his condition very often, which made me even more curious. ‘Always trying to fix everyone,’ Tom used to say – lovingly in the early days, and then with a bite of irritation by the time we started to fall apart. Ironically, by then the only thing that was truly beyond fixing was us.
But this wasn’t simply interfering. Mac’s life had been dramatically altered, just as mine had. Once by disease, and then by the woman who’d given us both a second chance. It led us naturally to finally mention the elephant in the car, the one who’d followed us all the way back from the planetarium.
‘It was kind of weird tonight, wasn’t it? I mean, I think I understand why Alex wanted us all there, but the only reason we were there was because his wife couldn’t be.’
‘We’re not responsible for the train crash, Molly,’ Mac said gently, so in tune with my thoughts, it was a little scary.
‘I know that. But it’s still so odd to feel this guilty and grateful at the same time. Do you think the guilt ever goes away?’
Mac made a soft whistling sound. ‘God, I hope so. I’d hate to think it would always feel like this.’
He took his eyes off the road briefly and an understanding I hadn’t been expecting travelled between us.
‘I wasn’t sure about coming tonight,’ he admitted.
