Chapter 2: How Could You?

If I’m honest, I wasn’t in any particular hurry to go back home. Not so much because I didn’t want to be there, but more that I didn’t want to be alone there. I’d spent so much time there with... her. And then afterwards, all that time there without ... her. Being there alone now would only remind me and that would kind of defeat the whole point of my trip.

So I was quite happy to sit with Emily and Lisa, chatting about their lives at university, while my sister’s girlfriend (that’d take some getting used to) supplied us with drinks and nibbles as she got the dining room ready and Vicky prepared the kitchen for the lunchtime service. They didn’t kick us out when they opened for lunch either, but that might have been because I decided I was hungry and wanted to see if this new restaurant of Vicky’s was worth my patronage in the future. She hit me when I said that and told me I should know damn well it was good enough. She was right too. The food was fabulous. The company wasn’t bad either.

Only once did one of the girls ask about my trip. Lisa tossed out a “tell us what you got up to on your trip then,” which I returned with a casual, “Maybe later, I want to hear more about this Robert.” Robert was someone who seemed to have caught Lisa’s eye. I hoped he realised how lucky he was.

After we’d eaten, Vicky really did throw us out, saying she had to clean up ready for the evening service, and she couldn’t do that with us cluttering up the place. I suppose I needed to unpack my stuff and get it washed ready to take to university anyway. We gave Lisa a lift home on the way. She sat in the back for some reason, and since Emily had a three-door hot-hatch, I had to get out when we pulled up outside her house to let her get out.

“It was good to see you,” she said as she hugged me. Then pulling away she added, “I thought I might not get the chance. I’m going back to Cambridge on Thursday.”

I smiled. “Maybe I’d have come up and said hi.”

She shook her head. “No, you wouldn’t. From what I hear, you’ll be way too busy.” Her eyes darted to Emily, still sitting in the driver’s seat.

I raised my eyebrows and silently mouthed, “Emily?”

Lisa smiled and shrugged. Then she added, “Look, we should get together for lunch or something before I head back.”

“Sure. Tomorrow? Wednesday?”

“Wednesday would be good. Lauren has a day off tomorrow and we’d planned to go shopping in London. Unless you want to join us for that?”

“Not on your life. Girls and shopping. Not my thing.”

“Okay. Wednesday then. Give me a call in the morning to tell me what time you’re picking me up.”

She went inside, and I got back in the car. Emily smiled at me before driving back to my house. I might have been reading her wrong, but there was something in that smile. I’m sure there was. No. I must have been mistaken. I was reading too much into it. It was Emily. Ems. My friend. Truth be told, my best friend. She wouldn’t want anything like that. Would she? No, of course, she wouldn’t. Not Ems.

She helped me carry my bags up to my room, where I dumped everything on the bed.

“You’re not unpacking.”

I shrugged.

“The longer you leave it, the worse it’ll get.”

“It’s just unpacking. All I’ve got to do is throw a few things in the wash. Most of what’s in there is going with me to Westmouth anyway, so it’ll only have to be packed again on Friday.”

“But it’ll be all creased if you leave it in there all week. And what are you going to wear in the meantime?”

I shrugged again.

She made an exasperated noise. “Oh, you are such a man!”

We went downstairs and she said, “Well, I ... er ... I suppose I should go. You know ... leave you to get settled in.”

“I don’t plan on settling too much. I’m only here for a week. Remember? It’s like I’m still in America.”

She gave me a funny little smile. Not as dazzling as one of... hers ... and not as cutely lopsided as Lisa’s. It was an Emily smile. “So, when are you going to tell me what you’ve been up to over there? Yes, I know where you’ve been, but I want to know what you did. I’ll bet you’ve got some interesting stories.”

“Not really. I just travelled about a bit. You know? Never in one place too long.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Seriously, Ems, drop it, okay? I went to clear my head. It’s been cleared. Now I want to move on, you know? Next chapter and all that.”

“But there must have—”

“Just drop it, Ems, okay?” I snapped. I hadn’t meant to shout. Honestly. But didn’t she understand I didn’t want to talk about it? She looked shocked. Hurt. I realised I’d probably been a bit harsh on her, so I added, in as calm a voice as I could manage, “Some other time. Maybe. Just not right now. Okay?”

She nodded. “Okay.”

After a few moments, she said, “Do you want me to come with you when you go and see Clarissa? Or would you rather be alone? It’s fine either way—”

“I’m not going.”

“You’re not? But why?”

“I’m just not, okay.”

“No, it’s not okay! Paul, you haven’t been to see her at all since—”

“Since what? Since they stuffed her in a box and dropped her in a hole in the ground? I wonder why?”

“It’s not like that. It feels right to go and—”

“And what? Talk to her? Talk to a grave? No thanks!” I could feel my anger rising so I took a deep breath and counted to five in my head. “Look, Ems, do you know what it says on my parents’ headstone?”

She shook her head.

“It says that to live in the hearts of the ones you love is to never die.”

“That’s beautiful.”

I nodded. “Know what it means? It means we don’t need to go look at a headstone because the people we love are always with us. And I loved her, Ems. I loved her, and now she’s always with me. No matter where I go, or what I do, she’s always with me.” And you have no idea just how true that is, I added silently.

“Oh. Okay. I never thought of it like that.” We stood awkwardly for a few moments before she said, “I, er ... I guess I should go.” She headed for the door, and I followed to see her out. Before she left, she said, “Give me a call if you want to do anything tonight, all right? Even if it’s just watching TV or something.”

I nodded. “We’ll see.”

She acknowledged my response with a small nod, smiled and went down the path to her car. Before she got in, she said, “I’m glad you’re back, Paul.”

I stayed to watch her drive off then went up to my room. I shoved the bags off the bed and lay down, staring at the ceiling.

I was home. Only, I wasn’t sure I really wanted to be. Not that I wanted to be back in America particularly either. I guess I didn’t really know what I wanted. I looked around the room. It was exactly the same as I’d left it. The Chloe Goodman poster was still on the wall. I remembered the first time... she ... had been in my room. She’d sat on my bed and stared at that poster. We hadn’t been together very long at that point. Later, after our non-break up and subsequent reunion, I’d offered to take it down one time. We’d just made love and were cuddling, and I noticed her looking at the poster. I offered to take it down and she just smiled one of those smiles of hers and told me not to be silly. Then she’d said that one day she’d like me to take a photo of her on that beach. I’d said I didn’t even know which beach it was but she’d said that didn’t matter—any sun-kissed beach at sunset would do.

I got up from the bed and walked over to the poster. I stared at it. Studied it. Then with a guttural roar, I tore it from the wall. The corners ripped, clinging to the Blu-Tack that held it up, but that didn’t matter since I scrunched the poster up into a ball anyway. I screwed it up, growling and grunting as I did, and then hurled it across the room.

I looked around, still angry. I didn’t know why I was angry, but I was angry. I wanted to hurl something else across the room. Throwing things felt good. But before I picked something up, I heard a noise from outside—from the front of the house. A banging. A rhythmic banging. As if someone was hammering something.

As good as throwing things felt, shouting at some fucker and getting them to shut the fuck up, would feel even better.

I stomped down the stairs, flung the front door open and barged outside. And I came to a complete stop when I saw a man hammering an estate agent’s “For Sale” sign into the front lawn.

“What the fuck!” I strode towards the man. “What the fuck are you doing?”

He shrugged. “What does it look like?”

“It looks like you’re putting my house up for sale.”

“Yep.”

“Well?”

“Well? Do I look like I want to sell my house?”

He shrugged again. It was annoying. “This is number 5, right?”

“Yes.”