Three-And-A-Half Heartbeats (19 page)

Grace remembered the morning before Chloe had gone into hospital; she had wanted something to eat. Tom had reassured her with promises of ice cream when it was all over. She pictured Chloe nodding against her dad’s T-shirt, gripping Dr Panda in her little fist.
And what did you do, Grace? You went to call Jayney. You put work first. She was hungry and a little nervous and you went outside to make a call. Why didn’t you hold her tight, stay with her? Why didn’t you tell her she didn’t have to go? Why didn’t you listen to her, properly listen and keep her home?

Grace watched as the little girl in the buggy began to cry, before defiantly pulling off one of her flashing trainers along with her pink sock and flinging them onto the pavement.

And that was all it took. The sight of a chubby little foot with five perfect toes dangling in the air – it was enough to transport her back to the hall floor in the early morning, where vomit sat in a triangular stain across the wall and Tom was shouting, screaming. She saw the soft edge of Chloe’s nightdress, resting on her shins, and those little feet…

‘I’m sorry, Chloe! I should have just held you and kept you with me, but I didn’t know! I didn’t know!’ Grace was only vaguely aware that she was shouting as she cried. As the strength left her legs, she slid down the side of the car and ended up slumped on the cold pavement with her head leaning towards the front wheel.

The young mother stared at her, then yanked at her little girl’s pushchair to get her away from the strange woman on the ground. Grace placed her head in her hands and sobbed, unable to control the sadness that flowed from her.

She was suddenly conscious of Monty’s soft muzzle against her arm. She opened her eyes as Huw ran towards her.

Huw dropped down onto the ground and placed his arm around her back. ‘Come on, let’s get you into the car. It’s okay.’

He seemed to care little that people had gathered on the pavement, confused and fascinated by the spectacle. Monty barked in concern and backed away from the duo. Huw helped Grace stand and manhandled her up into the passenger seat. Grace flopped over until her head was practically on her knees and continued to cry, oblivious to anything else.

Huw drove steadily without speaking until he turned into Gael Ffydd Cottage and killed the engine. He jumped down and whistled for Monty, who knew the drill. Opening the passenger door, Huw undid the seatbelt and took her arm.

‘Come on, Grace, let’s get you inside.’ He caught her as, with her eyes closed, she almost fell from the cab. With his arm across her back, he guided her along the path towards The Old Sheep Shed one last time. She leant heavily against him as he helped her up the pretty steps and pushed the door.

Stumbling towards the bed, Grace let herself tumble onto the soft mattress. She lay where she fell, uncaring about the hair that spread in a tawny sheet across her face, or the fact the she was still wearing her trainers.

Huw pottered in the kitchen area, putting the cheese in the fridge and the rest of the produce on the sideboard. He fed Bertha with several fat logs and flicked the grate before disappearing outside and returning almost immediately with the fishing stool from the garden. Monty loped in and lay on the floor at the end of the bed and Huw closed the door behind him.

Slowly Huw unfolded the fishing stool by the side of the bed, sat down, leant his back against the wall and stretched out his legs. ‘Go to sleep, Grace. I shall sit here until you wake up.’

She felt her shoulders sink. There was something very comforting about knowing that someone would be watching over her as she slept. ‘I miss her. I miss her so much. And I just can’t accept that I won’t see her again. I can’t!’ she mumbled as hot tears slid across her face and down into the duvet.

‘I know,’ he whispered. ‘I know.’

Grace wasn’t sure how long she’d slept, but as her eyes flickered open, she saw that Huw was dozing, his head resting on his chest, his breath even. Bertha was pushing a soft orange light into the room.

Grace scraped the hair from her eyes and sat up. The bed creaked and woke Huw.

‘How are you feeling?’

‘Bit better.’ She answered honestly and with a clearer head, more than a little embarrassed by the situation in which they found themselves. ‘I’m sorry, Huw. I don’t know what happened. I just suddenly couldn’t cope.’

‘It’s okay. You don’t have to say sorry.’ He took a deep breath.

‘I’m a bit hungry.’

He stood and stretched his arms over his head. ‘I’ll let you get on.’ Monty lifted his head in case they were on the move.

‘Stay and have some cheese. If you’d like to.’ She was suddenly nervous, not wanting to impose her friendship on him, but feeling quite fearful of being alone.

‘Sure,’ he said noncommittally as he made his way over to the kitchen area.

‘Sit yourself down. It feels weird saying that to you in your house on your sofa, but you know what I mean.’

Huw nodded and sat.

Grace walked to the dresser and collected plates, which she placed on the breakfast bar, followed by the wheel of cheese, the sourdough loaf and the muffins. ‘Wine?’ She lifted the bottle of red in his direction.

‘Sure.’ He shrugged.

She plonked two of the fat wine glasses by the plates and fished in the drawer for a corkscrew.

‘Here.’ Huw stood and took the bottle from her. Removing his keys from his pocket, he unfurled a natty penknife and used it to twist and lever the cork. Then he took his place on one of the stools.

Grace sat next to him and cut the bread. ‘Bread and cheese – not much of a supper, I’m afraid.’ She smiled.

‘Do you like to cook?’

‘Not really, I bake occasionally with Chloe…’ She swallowed. ‘Used to bake… but not really. Tom does the cooking and I go to work. At least that’s how it used to be, but I’m not sure now.’ She drank the wine he’d poured for her. ‘I’m sorry about today.’ She stared at her glass.

‘As I said nothing to be sorry about. It can hit you like that, suddenly and without warning, and it can be the smallest thing.’

‘Does that still happen to you?’

‘Yes.’ He raked his beard. ‘Leanne was a stickler for lists, she was always consulting a list, or transferring things to a different list or ticking things off…’ He paused and sipped his wine. ‘I was going through a box of stuff I found in the garage a few weeks ago and I found one of her lists.’ He stopped and briefly clenched his teeth. ‘It was one she’d made for our wedding – you know, check flower ribbon colour, write the table plan, hire cake stand, loads of detail.’ He shook his head, clearly having memorised it. ‘And then the last thing on the list was…’ He paused. ‘Marry Huw and live happily ever after!’ He downed his wine. ‘And it reminded me of how she used to make me feel, how we used to laugh and laugh because we were so happy; how sunny she was, how excited, not just about the wedding, about everything, and how she made
me
sunny and excited. And now I’m not; I’m cloudy and miserable.’

‘I think you’re lucky to have had someone who loved you that much.’

‘As I said before, that’s me – lucky!’ He gave a snort of laughter.

‘Was she a teacher too?’

Huw shook his head and took a slice of bread. ‘No, she was learning about horticulture, she wanted to be a gardener and a florist. She had grand plans to landscape places in the city, make urban environments more beautiful. She replanted the whole garden up here when my nan died – not just shoving plants in to fill gaps, she knew what plants should go where. She put a lot of thought into it. What job do you do?’

‘I work for a marketing agency. I’m on leave – enforced leave, but I didn’t punch anyone—’

‘Good, because punching someone is never the answer.’

‘No. I went to work with no shoes on and practically wearing my pyjamas and I didn’t even notice.’

Huw gave a small laugh. ‘Weren’t your feet cold?’

It was Grace’s turn to smile. ‘No, not really. As I said, I didn’t even notice.’

‘What are we like?’ Huw said, reaching for the bottle and refilling her glass and then his own. ‘It’s not the solution either, getting drunk, but sometimes it sure feels like it!’

They clinked glasses and sipped their medicine.

With half the cheese eaten, a large chunk of the loaf missing, the muffins reduced to crumbs and two empty wine bottles lying in the sink, Huw nipped to the cottage and reappeared with a bottle of port. He sloshed large measures into their wine glasses, then pulled the steamer chairs together on the deck. They sat in one each, with the duvet thrown over their legs.

‘I’ve never done this, never sat outside in the cold and dark and had a drink!’ He lifted his glass to the early evening sky.

‘Me either, but it feels good, like I’m connected to something bigger than this shitty little life.’ She took some more sips.

‘It’s not shitty or little, you’re just at the cliff edge and it’s scary and uncomfortable.’

‘Are you saying I should jump?’ She slurred slightly; the wine and port mixture was doing its job.

‘I guess it’s the only way you’ll know if you can fly.’ He threw his head back and laughed. ‘Why is it so easy to give you advice I can’t take myself!’

‘Ah, well, that’s the million-dollar question. If I was looking at my mates’ lives, looking at their marriages, and they lived like me, I’d know what to say, but I can’t see through the fog. It clouds everything.’

‘Do you love him, Grace? Do you love your husband?’ His inhibitions had departed with the last of the daylight. Sitting in the darkness, he felt comfortable asking.

Her response was slow and considered. ‘I did. I do. I don’t know. It used to be perfect and I thought we were happy. No, that’s not fair, we
were
happy for a very long time. But if I’m being honest, the cracks were there before we lost Chloe. I work so hard, and I guess I resent that sometimes, it doesn’t feel fair. We had a terrible row and we both said some terrible things. Not just heat-of-the-moment stuff, but as though we’d been storing up the bad things and that was the time to say it all. And, boy, did we!’

Grace sipped the warming liquor. ‘It’s as if we’ve been twisted apart and got so badly broken that no matter how hard we try, we can’t fit back together because we’re different shapes now.’

‘Have you tried to fit back together?’ he asked.

She shook her head. ‘No. No, we haven’t. We’ve been avoiding each other and now I’m here, I’ve run away. But there is nowhere else I want to be, Huw. I can cope here, away from everything and with you here to bundle me off the streets when I lose the plot. Thank you for that.’

She put her free hand under the duvet and sought out his fingers. Taking them into her palm, she squeezed them tightly. It felt strangely familiar and comfortable.

He responded by knitting his fingers with hers and laying them entwined against his thigh. ‘I can’t imagine not trying, not fighting for Leanne.’

They sat in silence for a moment, each reflecting on the other’s words and enjoying the physical closeness of their joined hands.

It was nearly midnight when Grace felt her head loll against her chest. ‘I need to go to sleep.’

She jumped up, pulled the duvet from them both and stumbled across the deck. Her feet caught in the quilt cover, which was hanging loosely around her toes, and she pitched forward and hit her head on the handrail for the stairs. Tumbling forward through the dark, with her hands outstretched, she landed in a crumpled heap in the mud.

She truly didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. The alcohol had numbed her sufficiently so that she wasn’t in pain, but when she put her hand to her forehead and pulled it away, it was wet. She sniffed the liquid that was falling in a warm trickle down her face and recognised it as blood.

Monty barked through the French doors, not liking the disturbance outside.

‘Shit! Grace!’ Huw leapt up and hurried to her side. Crouching down, he tried to assess the damage in his slightly sloshed state. ‘Are you okay? Talk to me! Have you broken anything?’

‘I think I’ve cut my face,’ she whispered.

‘Heaven’s above!’ He sighed. ‘Come up to the cottage. I need to look at that in the light – you might need stitches.’

Grace stared to cry. ‘I don’t believe in heaven above. I don’t believe in anything. So where is she, where is she now, if not in heaven?’ She wiped her hand over her nose and face, smearing tears and blood into her hair and over her cheeks and fingers.

‘I don’t know. I don’t know.’ He put his arms around her and cradled her to his chest. ‘But I do know that I need to get you cleaned up. Come on, come up to the cottage, there’s a first-aid kit somewhere.’

Gingerly she stood, clinging on to him for fear of falling again and finding it hard to see through the blood, tears, snot and hair that clogged her eyes.

Monty circled them, sniffing and whining. ‘It’s okay, Mont. Good boy.’ Huw slapped his thigh and the dog stayed close.

The inside of the cottage was very different to The Old Sheep Shed. It wasn’t pretty by intent, there was no particular design to it and nothing matched. It looked like the sagging, cotton-covered furniture, fringed standard lamps and dark-wood bureau had been there since it was built. Large potted plants took up space on the deep window sills and the floral wallpaper had long since faded to sepia, though it remained firmly glued to the thick walls. A large fireplace had coal and ashes spilling from it onto the flagstone hearth and a tarnished companion set stood like a sentinel to the side of the tiled surround. Small watercolours, capturing the bend in the river and the mountain tops, hung in clusters in the wall space between the dado rail and the sloped ceiling. A thick wool rug lay on the flags in front of the fire.

Monty flopped down onto another rug and sighed, indicating that this was his home, taking ownership, as if the carpet of dog hair wasn’t proof enough. Huw lowered Grace gently onto the sofa and thundered up a narrow twist of wooden stairs, only to return minutes later with a tartan wool blanket, a large green first-aid kit and a glass bowl full of water.

‘Lie down,’ he instructed.

Grace did as she was told, twisting on the cushions until her head rested on one arm of the sofa and her feet, from which she had kicked her trainers, on the other. She inched her bottom across the base until she was comfy.