When You Walked Back Into My Life (13 page)

‘Haven’t you? Not yesterday? The report said Pia took you.’

Dorothea raised her eyebrows. ‘Well, she didn’t.’ Her voice was firm. No vagueness. No argument.

‘OK … so you’re saying you didn’t go to church?’

She looked at Flora patiently, as if she were hard of hearing. ‘No … I told you.’

*

Dr Kent said he would drop round late morning. As Flora waited for him, her thoughts returned to Fin. She’d called him on Sunday and they’d talked for hours. He’d wanted to meet up again that afternoon, but she knew he would end up in her flat, and she knew if he did – as night follows day – they would make love. She wasn’t ready for that. Ready physically, yes – her body cried out to be with him again – not ready mentally. But would she ever be? Perhaps she just
had to take the plunge. What good would a bit more time do? she asked herself.

The doctor raised the powder-blue cardigan, and the blouse beneath. He didn’t touch Dorothea, just bent close, then pulled her clothes back into place.

‘It must be sore,’ he said to the old lady.

She raised her hand and waved it dismissively. ‘Not really,’ she replied.

‘Do you remember how you did it?’ he asked.

Dorothea giggled nervously. ‘I … don’t … think so. I bump around a bit these days.’

‘It’s a nasty bruise.’

‘Is it?’ she asked, without much interest.

‘Her skin’s so thin and she’s on the Clopidogrel. It could have been caused by even the slightest bump.’

Flora nodded. ‘I know. I just wonder.’

‘About one of the nurses hurting her?’

They stood in the kitchen, their voices low. The doctor was in casual clothes today, jeans and a light blue shirt. He always smells so clean, Flora thought, as she handed him a cup of coffee.

‘I don’t think you can take the bruise as a sign of it, necessarily. Or wetting the bed, either. She’s old, Flora.’

‘Yeah, I know. I just want to make sure. Sorry to drag you out again.’

‘Always a pleasure to see you both,’ he said, smiling at her, and setting his half-drunk coffee on the draining board. ‘You look a lot happier.’

Flora couldn’t help the blush. ‘I am.’

‘Worked out, did it? With the Mars Bar?’

She laughed. ‘I wish I could answer that. I suppose I’m looking for certainty. I want to know for sure that I’m doing the right thing, but I know that’s dumb.’

‘Weeell … not dumb. A bit unrealistic perhaps.’

‘Are you married?’

‘Was.’

‘Oh … sorry.’

‘Don’t be, we’ve been divorced a year now.’ He shrugged. ‘Not sure you should take my advice though, because at the time I thought Carina was completely the right thing … and she turned out completely not to be.’

‘So if she suddenly came back and said she loved you, would you believe her?’

‘That’s about as likely as me becoming the next Olympic pole-vaulting champion.’

‘That bad.’ She wished she hadn’t asked now. He was almost squirming with discomfort at discussing his private life.

‘But to get back to your dilemma. Obviously, it’s really hard to trust someone again who’s let you down badly. But not impossible, if the will’s there.’

‘I think we both want to make this work.’

‘Well, follow your instincts, Flora. You won’t forgive yourself if you walk away without trying.’

As she opened the door for him, she asked, ‘So you don’t think I should worry … about Dorothea?’

‘I didn’t say that. I just said bruising’s a common side effect of the drugs she’s on, and incontinence, similarly, one of old age.’

‘Thanks. Now I know exactly what to do.’

He grinned. ‘Always glad to be of service.’

*

Fin texted her as she made her way home on the bus:
How was your day?

OK. Usual
, she texted back.

Shall I come round?

She hesitated before replying,
Bit tired. Later in the week maybe?
She waited.

OK, ring me if you like. x

She realised one of the things she missed most about not living with someone was that there was no one to talk to about the day. Even though he was away a lot, when she and Fin had been together, she would come back from the hospital and relate stuff that had happened, good, bad or merely trivial, and listen to his news in return. Since then, she often felt that events at work lay heavy on her, bottled
up, blown up, made worse than they really were – the Pia issue, for instance. She had got used to being alone, but she knew she didn’t want to be by herself any more.

She was looking in the fridge to find something for supper when there was a knock on the door at the top of the stairs, and her niece’s voice called out.

‘Mind if I come down, Flora?’

‘Of course not.’

Bel galloped down the wooden stairs and threw herself onto the sofa. She looked worried.

‘Sorry, sorry … I know you’ve just got in, but I had to talk to you.’

Flora sat down opposite her. ‘It’s fine … Go ahead.’

Bel pulled a face. ‘It’s Mum.’

Flora had known it would be. Bel, over the years, had often confided in her about altercations with her mother. Now her niece hesitated, searching Flora’s face anxiously before speaking.

‘Well, not just about Mum. This Fin business,’ she began, ‘she’s so wound up about it. Keeps banging on about how horrible he is and how he’s going to ruin your life again and how it’s not fair on her. She’s in a vile bait all the time.’

Flora didn’t know what to say.

‘And I’m worried … not just about Mum, but about you. I get that she’s protective about you, but she seems so
certain he’s a bad person. What if she’s right?’ Her brown eyes were round with concern.

‘Listen, Bel, I have no idea what will happen between me and Fin. But I still love him, as I told you before. And I want to give it a go.’

Her niece sighed, drawing up her legs to clutch them to her body. ‘And you’re sure, totally positive, he’s not bad like Mum says?’

‘You’ve met him. Did he seem bad to you?’

Bel shook her head slowly.

‘It’s early days. We’ve met a couple of times for a drink, that’s all. I promise I’ll take it really, really slowly, darling, not rush into anything. Promise.’

‘Do you think he really loves you this time?’ her niece asked.

‘This time … I don’t think I know.’

‘Mum says you can’t tell with people like him. They say one thing and mean another.’

Flora sighed. ‘On paper, Fin
is
a bad bet. But sometimes you have to take risks in life, Bel, because we can never be certain about any outcome.’

‘But you won’t rush?’

‘I won’t. Promise.’

Bel seemed to relax a bit. ‘OK. I guess I’ll just have to wait it out. Hope Mum calms down a bit.’

‘She will.’

Bel raised an eyebrow. ‘OK for you to say. You don’t quite live with her. She’s getting more and more like Chucky every second. I reckon she keeps electrodes in her bag in case she bumps into Fin.’

Flora giggled. She’d watched
Child’s Play
with Bel on sufferance, her head under the cushion.

When Bel said goodbye, she leant against her aunt, unwilling to let go. ‘I just want it all to be OK with everyone,’ she whispered. But as she drew back, both of them heard a noise, something tapping against the window. Bel’s eyes widened in alarm.

Flora moved cautiously towards the barred window and peered out into the darkness. Fin’s face peered back, wreathed in an expectant smile. Flora silently cursed him.

‘It’s OK, it’s just Fin.’

Bel looked hard at her.

‘I didn’t ask him round. I promise I didn’t.’

Her niece just turned and ran for the stairs.

‘Bel?’ Flora called, but she didn’t reply and the door to the main house slammed loudly behind her.

Flora said nothing as she let Fin in. He stood in the middle of the room, looking around, a faint air of satisfaction on his face as if he’d breached the barricades.

‘You sounded a bit down in your text,’ he said, looking
intently at her. ‘Thought you might need some company.’

She glared at him. ‘I said I was tired. I’ve just had Bel down here, worrying about you and me being together. And I said I was taking it really slowly … then you pitch up in the dead of night.’

Fin looked contrite. ‘Oops. Bad timing, eh? Sorry about that.’ He sank down onto the sofa, and patted the brown seat cushion. ‘Recognise this,’ he said.

Flora didn’t reply. She remembered him so well, lounging on that same sofa in the Brighton house, looking up at her just as he was now. And suddenly she was tired of fighting her feelings.

‘Drink?’ she asked.

He nodded.

‘Tea? Wine? There’s some red left … not sure how old it is.’

‘Tea’s good.’

They didn’t talk as she boiled the water.

‘Sit beside me,’ he requested, as she set the mugs on the coffee table.

They sipped their tea, still in silence. But the silence was not quiet to her, it was charged with the pulsing, beating clamour of her desire. She didn’t dare look at him.

Fin put his mug down. He turned to her and took her own mug from her hands, placing it on the table.

Gently tracing his finger across her forehead, moving her hair aside, he bent to kiss her. First just beside her ear, then moving across her skin, with small, delicate kisses, to her mouth. For a second he paused, then laid his lips against hers, this time firmly, fiercely, forcing her mouth open. She could hear her breath, shaky and shallow, feel her body trembling uncontrollably as his hand moved down her neck, his finger exploring briefly the dip of her collar bone before resting familiarly around her breast.

‘Oh, Flora,’ he whispered against her mouth.

The first time they made love it was almost brutal, neither of them able to get enough of the other, each desperate to consume every inch of flesh, taste every drop of pleasure, seize the long-withheld desire – and purge the years of loss. Afterwards, exhausted, they lay apart, only their hands touching, in the light from the bedside table. She rolled over until she was resting her head against his shoulder. Fin pulled the duvet over them, and cradled her body against his own. Neither spoke, and within minutes he was kissing her again.

When she woke in the morning, to the maddening chirrup of her alarm, Fin was already awake, lying on his back looking up at the ceiling. He turned as he heard her stir.

‘Hi,’ he said.

She smiled. ‘Hi.’

‘Did you sleep?’ he asked, drawing her towards him again.

‘Like a log. You?’

‘Yeah, not bad.’ He shifted beside her. ‘My leg aches at night.’

She’d forgotten his injury. ‘Do you take stuff for it?’

‘When I remember. I had other things on my mind last night.’

She laughed. ‘Bloody cheek, I call it. Knocking on a girl’s window in the middle of the night and expecting sex.’

‘If I’d waited for said girl to ask me to bed, I’d have been too old for sex, or anything beyond incontinence.’ He began stroking the skin of her shoulder, but she pulled back.

‘I have to go. I’m late already.’ But she didn’t get up at once. ‘Did you … have you … been out with people … since us?’

Fin laughed. ‘“People”? Not really. Well,’ he paused, ‘the odd girl in a tent I suppose … nothing memorable. Just once or twice.’ He glanced down at her, but she didn’t look up. She was feeling a sudden pang of jealousy, imagining the intimacy and isolation of a base camp somewhere, the adrenalin rush, the shared sense of living on the edge. Not real life, but something she’d never been part of. ‘Nothing that came close to you, Flo.’

‘I’ve got to get up,’ she kissed his cheek, wrenching herself away from his warm body.

He didn’t object, just lay there until she’d returned from her shower, and watched as she pulled on a clean pair of pants, did up her bra, zipped her jeans, poked her head through the neck of a blue T-shirt and laced her trainers over some black socks.

‘Come on, get up,’ she urged. ‘I need to lock up after you.’

Reluctantly, Fin dragged himself out of bed. Not like him, Flora thought. In the past, he would be up before six most mornings and on his bike for an hour or so, coming back with some fresh bread or croissants for breakfast.

‘What are you doing today?’

Fin yawned and stretched, his long arms touching the low ceiling of the basement. ‘Oh, the usual: bugger all.’

‘Won’t be for much longer, will it?’

He just shrugged.

*

‘Hi, Keith.’ Flora went over to the porter’s desk when she arrived at work. Fin had come on the bus with her, walked her to the door of the flats.

‘Meet me in Waitrose at ten-thirty?’ he’d asked.

‘There might be enough food here. I don’t go out every day. And anyway, I don’t know when it’ll be.’

‘OK … well, see you tonight? I can pick you up.’

‘I need to sleep tonight,’ she’d told him. ‘And anyway, we were going to take it slowly, remember?’

‘Can’t bear not to be with you,’ he said, his face a picture of dejection. It’s all or nothing with Fin, she reminded herself, realising too that his own day would be empty of the only thing he wanted to do: climb. She didn’t want to leave him either. It had seemed so natural, waking together, dressing, walking to get the bus. And last night had been extraordinary. She had worried that the sexual chemistry might no longer exist, worn away by all that had happened. She needn’t have worried, but she knew now that everything was different. She could no longer pretend to herself that she had any control over her feelings for him.

‘I’ll call you later,’ she’d told him, almost wanting to pinch herself. Fin McCrea was back in her life. The knowledge created an aura of happiness around her whole body, as if she were floating separate from the world.

Keith dragged his gaze from the computer screen.

‘Morning Florence. You’re looking very gorgeous this morning. Things good?’

‘They are, yes.’ She felt a hotness in her cheeks, unable to divorce herself from the almost tangible feel of Fin’s body against her own, and hurried on. ‘Listen, I just wanted to ask you something, Keith. The CCTV here in the hall. It’s always on, isn’t it?’

Keith raised his eyebrows. ‘Yeah, sure. Why?’