A Thousand Small Explosions (21 page)

CHAPTER 64

NICK

Nick was slumped upon the floor of his city centre budget hotel room, propped up by a wardrobe and reeking of the mini-bar shorts he’d single-handedly finished off. He ignored the no-smoking sign, flicking his ash into the torn-off lid of a packet of Marlboro Lights.

The clothes he’d worn over the last three days were heaped in a bundle in the corner of his room. The television on the wall was turned on but muted.

Since he and Sally had met almost two and a half years ago, it had been the longest period they hadn’t communicated. Even when she took a detox holiday with her old university friends on a remote island off the Thai coast, she had still found a way to email him. But since, by mutual consent, Nick agreed to be the one to leave their flat, their contact had come to a sudden halt.

‘You need to go and decide what you’re doing before you fuck us up even more than you have already,’ Sally had told him. It wasn’t goodbye, neither was it an ultimatum. It was a statement of fact and Nick knew she was right.

Alex used the top of the chest of drawers to prise the lid from one of a six-pack of Foster’s bottles he’d brought with him and passed it to Nick.

‘How are you feeling about it now?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Nick replied. ‘A month ago I was planning my wedding and now I’m living in a hotel room and all I can think about is what I’ve done to Sally and how much I want to be with you. How did Mary react when you told her it was over?’

‘She was pretty aggro… she kept telling me how much she’d given up to go to New Zealand with me and how I was breaking her heart and shitting on her from a great height. And she was correct about everything. Then she slapped me round the face a couple of times, told me I was a bastard and that she hated me. But I think deep down she knew it was a war she couldn’t win. We’ve all read enough about a DNA Match to know once it’s there, it’s too powerful to fight.’

‘I think Sally feels the same. Doesn’t stop me feeling like crap though.’

‘I hear you.’ They clinked their bottles together.

Alex moved from his cross-legged position on the bed to join Nick on the floor. Both men stared ahead of them at the Andy Warhol reproduction print on the wall. The artist’s impression of the tin of Campbell’s soup made Nick’s empty stomach rumble.

‘There’s something we should probably discuss,’ Alex began carefully.

‘There’s probably a lot we need to discuss.’

‘Do you want to go first?’

‘No.’

‘Neither do I, but I will. You and I know that at the moment, this … whatever it is…’

‘… relationship. Of sorts.’

‘That this … relationship of sorts … has a time limit set on it. I’m booked to fly home a couple of months from now and until my old man passes on, I don’t know when I’m coming back. If I come back at all.’

It wasn’t news to Nick but regardless, he felt like the wind had been taken out of his sails. ‘And if I did return,’ Alex continued, ‘or if you came to see me, then that brings me to our next dilemma. Is it enough for us to just be together like we are now, or are we prepared to take it a step further.’

‘You mean physically?’

‘I guess that’s what I’m saying.’

Alex’s face began to redden and an awkward silence hung between them.

‘Is that what you want?’ Nick asked. ‘Don’t we have to be, like, sexually attracted to each other?’

‘That’s how it usually works, yes.’

‘And … are you?’

‘I’m not going to lie to you and say yes or no because I don’t know one way or the other, mate. This is unchartered territory for me, well both of us. I mean I like sex … well, to be honest, I bloody love sex and I believe it’s a huge part of a relationship. And if you and I aren’t doing that because we don’t fancy each other, then can we actually be together? Is what we have between us now enough for sex to not matter? Are we supposed to live like monks for the rest of our lives or do we get our rocks off somewhere else with someone else?’

‘That’s a lot of questions.’

‘Think what it’s like being in my head right now.’

‘I have a fair idea. What if we do, you know, try … it … and one of us finds we enjoy it but the other doesn’t? Then what happens?’

Alex rubbed his eyes, turned his head and shrugged. ‘This is so screwed up, isn’t it?’

‘You can say that again.’

Alex let out a long breath then ran his hands through his hair. ‘No,’ he said firmly.

‘No what?’

‘No, I’m not going to “say that again”. We’ve done enough talking to last us a lifetime.’

Alex was the first of the two men to tilt his head and slowly move it towards Nick’s mouth. Nick closed his eyes to reciprocate until they connected and slotted together like they’d been designed to do.

Alex’s lips were much softer and warmer than Nick had imagined a man’s to be, but his stubble was more prickly. Instinctively Nick moved his hand up to Alex’s face as they continued to silently kiss. He felt Alex’s hand on his thigh and pushed himself closer until their chests touched.

And in that moment, they felt each other’s hearts racing, but beating at exactly the same speed, as if they were two halves of a whole.

CHAPTER 65

ELLIE

It was at Tim’s suggestion the couple spent Christmas Day with Ellie’s family in Derbyshire.

She dreaded the thought of being stuck in slow Christmas traffic for much of the one hundred and thirty mile journey that separated London from her home town, so as a special treat, Andrei drove them to a private Elstree airfield where a waiting helicopter flew them to a school playing field close to her parents’ home.

For five years at least, Ellie had invented a variety of excuses not to spend the festive period with her family, concerned that after the initial flurry of excitement upon her arrival, they’d have little in common to chat about for longer than the first hour, and she hated awkward silences. Now she understood that to feel part of something she had to be part of it too.

Once their clothes were unpacked in Ellie’s old bedroom, they joined the rest of the family for Christmas Eve drinks at the local pub before celebrating Christmas Day at home. It was much like the Christmases she had enjoyed as a child, only now the family was extended with the addition of partners and excitable nieces, nephews and grandchildren. And it was a far cry from Ellie’s last Christmas, when much of it had been spent in the office working her way through new growth strategy reports.

With a traditional lunch finished, the kids played a fighting game on a games console Ellie had bought them, while her parents were fast asleep on the sofa. Ellie cleared the table and carried the dirty dishes towards the kitchen. She paused for a moment under the architrave of the doorway and watched Tim and her sister Maggie washing dishes together and taking on the parts of Kirsty McColl and Shane McGowan as Fairytale of New York played on the radio.

She wished she hadn’t sidelined her family for so long, especially as Tim no longer had one of his own after losing his mother to cancer, his one and only relative. Ellie had a family she’d avoided while Tim’s mother never married and he hadn’t known his father. So she was more than happy to share her flesh and blood with the man she loved.

Ellie wasn’t sure if it was the warmth of the central heating or the platefuls of food in her stomach that made her feel like she was glowing, and she didn’t care to question it. For so long she’d wondered if it was possible to have it all, or even if she deserved it. And looking at the people she loved the most, now she knew the answer.

By the morning after Boxing Day, Tim and Ellie were strapped into their helicopter seats and on their way back to London. Tim had insisted they stay at her townhouse for a few days instead of his Leighton Buzzard home, but wouldn’t elaborate as to why.

‘Christ, if this place was any more sterile you’d be able to operate in it,’ he teased when they arrived.

              ‘What do you mean?’ Ellie replied defensively.

              ‘Look around; you don’t have any photographs on the walls, no knick-knacks on window sills, no dinky little ornaments, no nothing. It’s utterly immaculate but soul-less.’

‘That’s a strong word but I’m not like you, I’m not really one for clutter. I don’t need to keep every football trophy I won as a child or CD I bought as a teenager. But you have to admit, the Christmas decorations look pretty.’

‘Ells, when I suggested we put some up, I meant that you and I go out and buy them. Instead, you commissioned some stylist to go to Liberty and bring home a massive fake tree and a ton of baubles which she then put up instead of us.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realise that’s what you meant.’

‘I bet you haven’t even read the books on that case, have you?’ he continued, perusing the titles on eight chunky floor-to-ceiling shelves.

‘Um, some of them I have.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

Ellie perched in front of the case with her hands on her hips defiantly, her eyes darting back and forth to take in the titles one by one, desperately searching for a familiar story to prove him wrong. One spine caught her attention – it was titled “Ellie & Tim.” She looked at Tim puzzled, and he beckoned her to take a closer look. She picked it up and read aloud.

‘”Ninety-five things I love about Ellie Stanford”.’

‘Come and sit down,’ Tim suggested as she carried the book over to the sofa where he sat.

‘What’s this?’ she asked, grinning.

‘Open it and have a look.’

Inside, on each colourful page was a hand-written reason why Tim loved her, along with a photograph of something relating to it.

‘”Number one - I love the way you clear your throat when you’re pretending not to cry at The Notebook and The Fault In Our Stars”,’ she read out. ‘That is so not true! ‘”Number two - I love the way the only shape you ever doodle is a DNA double helix”… where did you get this?’ she asked, pointing to a picture he’d scanned of a doodled page from one of her notebooks. ‘How long did this take you to make?’ she asked.

‘I was struggling to find ten things let alone ninety-five, to be honest,’ he joked. ‘Anyway, don’t let me interrupt.’

Ellie devoured each page, frequently laughing at the pictures Tim chose and wondering how he had noticed so many of her quirks, habits and foibles when others hadn’t. He really
got
her, she realised.

‘”And it’s for all of these reasons that I’d like to ask you...’” Ellie gasped when she turned to reach the final page. ‘”Will you marry me?”’

She drew her hands over her mouth and looked up at Tim. She hadn’t noticed he’d slipped his hand into his pocket and removed a mauve, velvet covered box and opened the lid. Inside, on a chiffon bed, sat an engagement ring with a small, central diamond.

‘I asked your dad’s permission on Christmas Eve and he said yes, but I draw the line at getting down on one knee,’ he smiled, ‘however, I’d love it if my Match would do me the honour of being my wife.’

Ellie threw her arms around Tim and sobbed into his shoulder.

‘Shall I take that as a yes?’ he asked.

‘Yes!’ she bawled and slipped the ring on her finger. ‘Yes, yes, yes!’

CHAPTER 66

AMANDA

Amanda sat in her car outside the café where she had met Richard’s former girlfriend Michelle and wound down the window in the hope the cold air might cool her down.

She’d not suffered a panic attack before but the sudden feelings of intense apprehension, the heart palpitations and dizziness certainly felt like the makings of one. So she tried to calm herself down by remembering her antenatal breathing exercises. And if ever she had wanted to take up smoking again, it was now.

‘Richard is still very much alive,’ Amanda spoke out loud, repeating Michelle’s words from their meeting earlier that day in the café.

‘Are you okay?’ Michelle had asked when she saw the colour drain from Amanda’s face. Amanda nodded but it was clear that she wasn’t.

‘What do you mean Richard is alive?’ she asked eventually. ‘He was hit by a car, wasn’t he? I went to his memorial.’

‘But the accident didn’t kill him,’ Michelle replied. ‘He’s in a private nursing home somewhere in Wellingborough. He’s got severe brain damage so without meaning to sound heartless, the poor boy’s as good as dead.’

‘Then why was there a memorial service for him?’

‘From what I can gather, when his mum and sister knew they weren’t going to get their perfect Richard back, they shipped him off to the home. They told his friends not to visit because it would be too upsetting for them to see him, and said that they’d have a memorial of hope service for him instead. Only when it came down to it, the word ‘hope’ never came into it.’

Amanda racked her brain thinking back over the Facebook messages left after Richard’s accident and to the speeches given at his memorial and it dawned on her that not once had it been mentioned that Richard had died. The only people to have used the word “death” and to let her believe he was no longer with them were Jenny and Emma.

‘I don’t understand, why would they hold a memorial for someone who isn’t dead?’

‘It didn’t make sense to his friends either but who’s going to question a grieving family? Besides, they weren’t allowed to go and see Rich so it was their way of coming together and thinking of him. It was like his family wanted to forget about him and find some poor cow to give them a baby as a replacement. It sure as hell wasn’t going to be me.’

Michelle regretted what she said when Amanda rose to her feet and her coat fell open to reveal her pregnant stomach. ‘Shit,’ Michelle muttered as Amanda hurried out of the café and into her car.

When she finally pulled herself together, she reached inside her handbag for her mobile phone and Googled “private nursing homes” and “Wellingborough”. There were five addresses and telephone numbers, but it was the third one she called that confirmed it did indeed have a patient by the name of Richard Taylor.

She typed the postcode in to the car’s sat nav, put her key in the ignition and set off to meet the man she’d been made for.