Chapter 21

Aidan was puzzled when his news about Julie wiped the smile from Vicky’s face.

“Come with me,” she said seriously. “There’s something I want you to see.”

Vicky took Aidan to her office, sat him in front of her desk and called up her email server, found the correspondence and turned the screen towards him.

“I got a surprise last night at home,” she said grimly. “Read these.”

He read, his brow furrowing as the import of what was written became clear.

“Sam? She’s in London? Working in London? Since the Summer? And what’s this? She came in October while we were in London. Nobody said.”

“Hang on, I’ll go and ask,” and Vicky left the room.

Aidan read over the emails again and again while she was gone. There was something there that he was missing.

“No one remembers Sam coming to the office,” Vicky said on her return, “and they would have remembered – hell, they would have said at the time. So if no one told her in the office, Aidan, how did she know you were in London?”

Now Aidan saw what he was missing. “And how did she ‘know’ I was with Julie? In October we were sleeping a lot at my place, but there was no commitment.”

There was a pause. Then Vicky muttered, “Shit! I think I know.”

“Go on!”

“Who was house sitting for you while you were in London for that fortnight? I’ll bet Sam went to the flat and Julie told her where you were.”

“I asked her if anyone had been, and she said no one.”

“Well, she would, wouldn’t she? Sam is one hell of a threat to her ambition to get you back.”

“And I’ve just invited her to live with me for a six month trial!” Aidan said morosely.

Suddenly, Vicky sat up. “Aidan, go and see Sam.”

Aidan was uncertain. “She’s with someone else now Vicky. She says she’s dating this Lawrence bloke.”

“Aidan, she came here to see you, even though you told her not to contact you, and by the way, there’s something you don’t know about that as well.”

Aidan’s head jerked up.

“She never had a boyfriend in Vancouver, her mother made a mistake,” Vicky told him.

“So why didn’t she tell me?”

“What did you do with her emails, Aidan?”

His spirits dropped.

“Yes, Aidan. After you told her not to contact you, and when you didn’t write back, she told her mother not to ring you. She said it was better for you to believe she had a boyfriend and had deceived you: it would help you to get over her faster, She was right: it did.”

Aidan sagged in despair.

“You knew?” he accused her.

“She asked me to keep the confidence and I kept it. She was in Vancouver and you were here.”

“But you knew she was working in London. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I only knew last night. This email was the first I knew about it. I thought she was in Vancouver, and asked for her address to send her a wedding invitation. I got the shock of my life when she sent the London address. I’ve told you now as soon as I knew. Now will you get off your backside and get a train to London and see her. Go on!”

“But the office?”

“Aidan, we can cope! Go!“

He leaned over and kissed her soundly, and drove back to the flat, collected enough clothes and toiletries for an overnight stay, and wrote a note for Julie. He was tempted to berate her for what she’d done, but wiser counsels prevailed.

Urgent appointment in London. Should be back tomorrow afternoon. Aidan.

The note was terse and devoid of affection. It was how he felt. He could not believe Julie would have deceived him like that. He called a taxi and was on his way.

It was four o’clock when he arrived at Euston, and he lost no time in taking a taxi to the block of flats where Sam lived. It was an uninspiring building, he thought, but he knew about the price of property in the capital.

There was an intercom at the front door, but someone had left the door open and so he walked in, up the stairs and arrived at the top of the building opposite Flat 12. He rang the bell, but there was no reply.

Of course, he thought, it was Friday, she would be at work. He wondered what to do, and decided to wait it out. He took a novel out of his bag, sat on the top step of the stairs and began to read.

His reading was interrupted by a thought. What had he actually come for? What reason could he adduce for being there? He had to admit that he didn’t know, except that he wanted to see Sam more than anything in the world. She had come to see him the previous October, so she must want to see him, or at least did want to until she met her new boyfriend. This could be very awkward if Sam and the man came home together.

He began to see the whole thing of him coming to London as a very bad idea, and he was about to get up and go home, when there were steps on the stairs, and a small thin girl rose into view.

“Hello?” she said. “Were you waiting for someone?”

“I was hoping to see Sam Grogan,” he replied, standing up so that she could pass.

“Oh, I’m sorry, she’s out for the night with Lawrence. I think they’re celebrating becoming an item, as they say.”

“Oh.” He must have looked woebegone, for she looked sadly at him.

“Are you from her works?” she asked. “Do you know Lawrence? Didn’t you know they were going out?”

“No, I’m not from her office. We met some time ago, and she gave me to understand by her behaviour that she wanted to see me. I’ll be off back home now. I don’t want to interfere in her life.”

“Whom shall I say called?”

“It doesn’t matter,” and he began to descend the stairs.

“Yes, it does,” she called after him. “If missing her means so much to you, it might mean as much to her. Come on, give me a name for her.”

Aidan sighed. “OK, tell her I didn’t know she was in England until this morning, and until today I didn’t know she’d been to see me in October and missed me. The message she left was not passed on. Tell her Aidan called to see her. Aidan Redmond.”

With that he clattered on down the stairs as he heard her shout, “Wait, you’re her Aidan from Manchester. Her Edinburgh Aidan?”

“That’s right!” he shouted back and left the building.

She ran down the stairs after him, but by the time she reached the outer door, he was getting into a taxi and it drove away.

“Shit!” she swore. “Fucking bloody shit! No wonder he was so miserable knowing about Lawrence. Well, I won’t be going out tonight. She needs to know.”

She tried Sam’s mobile, but there was no answer and it went to voice mail. She texted.

Aidan Redmond came looking for you tonight. You’ve missed him. Come home. Megan.

Aidan felt numb while in the taxi, idly watching bits of London pass by. Then he was busy finding a train and a reasonably priced ticket. His train was to leave at nine, and so he had time for a meal in the restaurant. He was hungry, and realised he had not eaten a meal since breakfast.

Once on the train, he sat in the quiet coach, turning off his mobile. He did not want to have to talk to anyone. His feelings were bleak, and the thought that Sam was now definitely with someone else was more upsetting than he expected. Yes, he was jealous. He berated himself for rushing down to London like an infatuated schoolboy, only to have all his hopes wrenched away, and that only added to his melancholy and gloom.

He only had himself to blame, he thought, hadn’t Sam’s email to Vicky said she was dating a new boyfriend whom she would bring to Vicky’s wedding? What a fool he’d been! What was Vicky thinking, pushing him to go to find her?

Then his thoughts turned to Julie. She had betrayed him again, and this time there was certainly no way back. The treachery of keeping Sam’s visit from him, especially since he suspected Sam was single in October rankled. According to Vicky Sam had been free ever since she left these shores. Julie had deprived him of any possibility of making some sort of relationship with Sam, and now he was sure Julie had deprived herself of any future with him. He felt pure cold anger.

Then he remembered she was supposed to be moving in with him the next day. That would not happen, he thought grimly. He saw then that he had taken the easy way out of his loneliness by allowing her back into his life. He should have known that she was trouble. She might be his sister-in-law, but now she was out of his life for good. No more chances, no more sob stories from his brother about her.

The emptiness returned, and a depression settled on him. He closed the novel and his eyes, and within seconds was sleeping the light semi-sleep of the rail traveller. The train’s only stop after Milton Keynes, Stoke on Trent, woke him, and the sadness returned with consciousness.

After the quiet train, the raucous cheerfulness of some of the passengers on the late bus home did nothing for his spirits, and he was in a foul mood when he arrived at the flat. It was empty, for which he was very grateful. Julie must have gone back to her place, probably to pack.