Finding You (24 page)
Authors: Giselle Green
31 - Julia
I don’t know what Alys has done with my little man today, but apparently he ate some tea before I got there and he’s well and truly worn out, ready for bed. A fact for which I am very grateful. I really want to talk to his dad. All the way back home, I’ve been thinking about this and I mean to come out and be open with Charlie: about seeing Lourdes today, about how I felt about the Dr Killman meeting ... everything. And I’m determined he’s going to listen to me, too.
Only, by the time we get home, Charlie appears to have already gone out. He’s been in, I know that, because all the lights in the house are on but his car’s not on the drive. I take Hadyn upstairs, slide off his shoes and his top and put him to bed in his vest, then nip down into the kitchen to see where Charlie could be. He’s left a note,
Gone for petrol, back soon
, and there are a couple of ready-meals warming in the oven, so he must at least suspect that I’m on my way. I tried to text him, but my phone’s being really dodgy now. I’m going to need a new phone, aren’t I? One which I keep well out of Hadyn’s reach for the time being. It’s ironic, really, that my phone decides to give up the ghost just as communication between me and Charlie seems to have hit a new low. Really bad. Until I met with Pippa Killman today and then—
to crown it all, Lourdes
—I hadn’t appreciated quite how bad.
Did you know about me and Charlie
? Lourdes’s voice keeps echoing in my mind, so quiet and yet so sharply edged. She was pretty confident that she still had the power to hurt, wasn’t she?
Did he tell you ...
I slam the oven door shut a little too loudly and straighten, feeling my face burning from the heat that’s just blasted out. She’d wanted to disquiet me; I have no doubt of that. And perhaps ... I turn the oven temperature down a notch ... that is the only card she’s got left to play? The choppy waters card. The card that works purely on insinuation and innuendo, that’ll work its way down deviously to whatever cracks and insecurities already exist in the situation because that’s ... the only weapon she’s got left?
And I mustn’t let her. I must be stronger than that.
Alys warned me, didn’t she? She warned me what to expect, and then Lourdes turned out to be even worse than we’d imagined. Alys was shocked when I recounted what had been exchanged. It’s why I’ve taken a little longer than I would have, getting home.
She’s desperate
, Alys said to me.
Because she knows she’s lost. I warned you not to contact her, Julia. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned ...
And she has been scorned, I console myself. Charlie wouldn’t pick up her calls, would he? He’s doing his part and for that, at least, I should be grateful. It’s been me who’s brought her back into the equation today. Foolishly, perhaps, and maybe I’ll regret it yet, but at least I’ve got a little more information about Illusion after my foray today. Lourdes even agreed with me, I recall, confirmed that Illusion might well have been a very good mama. She gave me her cousin’s number. But now Lourdes, dammit, is back in my mind again. Shall I ask Charlie tonight what she meant?
Hermosa was my idea,
her silky voice slips in again, and I push her out with a shove.
When I pad upstairs, looking for my slippers, Hadyn’s still fast asleep. Even the rabbit and the duck haven’t been ejected from the cot tonight. It’s a good sign. Tonight, asleep in his own cot, Hadyn looks so peaceful. I lean over, taking him in, standing there for a good few minutes, watching the rise and fall of his chest, enjoying watching him, because he really is as lovely as they all say.
Hermoso
, Charlie’s nan Agustina used to call him—beautiful. But then, of course he is, I think fondly. Isn’t every mother’s child?
Watching him, the sting of all of Lourdes’ barbed words begin to subside and I let myself think of other things. Soon, Charlie will be back. We’ll have the opportunity of a long talk and a quiet evening in, and I’ll share everything I felt about that meeting I had with Dr Killman this morning. Charlie is so blessed keen on her methods, I know I’m going to have to tread carefully, but at least I’m not as upset about it as I was when I came out of that consultation this morning. I’ve had a space to calm down. Then there’s what Lourdes and I spoke about today. I’ll give him the papers she brought over for us. I’ll tell him she had not a bad word to say about Illusion, and I won’t even mention Hermosa. Why should I?
It’s a pretty good name for a plastic surgery clinic, I think idly, and I’m pretty sure that’s what it is. I don’t know why she brought it up this afternoon. I hadn’t had the foggiest what she’d been talking about, really. I hadn’t paid her too much attention at the time. It’s probably nothing. While I’m in the bedroom, and seeing as the house is quiet, I head over to the big old chest of drawers where Charlie keeps all his papers. I
know
I spotted a business card for that place—the Hermosa clinic—in amongst his papers the day I went through all the drawers after we first got back to the house.
Before I can go through the relevant envelope, though, Charlie’s open suitcase on the bed draws my attention. I stare at it, a little confused.
Where is he off to, then? He went up to see his dad not so long ago. And he hasn’t mentioned anything that Angus wants him to go on—a training weekend or a golfing type of weekend to meet up with the partners, and anyway, it’s not even the weekend. What’s all this about?
There’s a huge bowl of hand-tied roses on the bedside table, too. More roses for me, from him. Beautiful, fragile pink roses, just exactly how he knows I like them. And then it comes to me: today is the date we’d originally mooted for a getaway, isn’t it? The day we first met, four years back. He’s remembered, when even I have forgotten. I feel my face flush.
My gaze wanders over to the photo I’ve had framed of him and our son, playing at the beach. It’s my favourite photo of the two of them because I’ve caught them both looking peaceful and just ... utterly happy. It reminds me that sometimes in life, we
are
. It reminds me that our little family still works. There’s more to us than just the things that everyone else can see—this beautiful house and his job and the story of the tragedy that happened and its subsequent recovery and the family histories that satellite all around us ... there is more. In amongst the gaps and spaces and quiet moments in our lives, there is also something else. That indefinable us that’s bigger and stronger than all the troubles that may come. There’s the us of our quiet moments, feeling happy. There’s the us when we’re screaming inside—we’ve photos of those moments, too, taken by the photographers. But through it all, what remains?
Still us, I hope.
Even if Charlie and I have our differences, I know we can still thrash out the best way forward for us as a family. We just need ... a mini-vacation, something for the two of us, I daydream. I pull a puzzled smile, turning to take in the suitcase again. Is he covertly planning some kind of secret getaway for the two of us? A romantic weekend, like he’d teased me about the last time he went off to his father’s? If he is, the timing would be perfect. I’m in need of a little love and attention from him right now. Some of Lourdes’ spiky comments have left me feeling a little wobbly. A bit of special time for Charlie and me wouldn’t go amiss. I’m probably building castles in the air, I realise, because there’s no one here on any innocent pretext who’d be able to look after Hadyn, is there? And, anyway, neither of us would want to leave him just now, would we?
My smile broadens nonetheless. I’m enjoying my fantasy and, sitting down on the bed, not paying attention, I somehow find myself emptying out all of Charlie’s business cards onto the duvet. I’d forgotten. I’d already decided I wasn’t going to do that. Still. Now they are out. Am I being a little sneaky, I wonder, searching for this Hermosa place? Perhaps I should just wait and ask him?
Curiosity killed the cat,
I tell myself. I should stop doing this, really. I should. And yet ... I can’t somehow because a strange compulsion, an
intrigue
, has gripped me by the innards. That silly, silly woman. She had to bring up something to disquiet me, didn’t she? Well, I’ll dismiss that poison she planted as easily as I dismissed her, and then it’ll be over with. When Charlie comes back, it’s our anniversary and we’ll concentrate on other, more important things. I need to put it to rest, that’s all. It’ll be
nothing
but until I know, it’ll keep coming back into my mind, bugging me.
I find the Hermosa card without too much trouble. There’s a picture of the clinic on one side. It’s a small place, by the looks of it. Nothing too upmarket. Looks a little shabby, if I’m honest. Maybe he was doing pro bono work here, and that was at her suggestion, seeing as they’re both such do-gooders?
Stop being such a cow, Jules,
I think. You don’t need to turn bitter just because she has. I turn the card over and it has a printed address on it, no further details. Then, hand-written, a date, a time and Charlie’s name—so he knew when he was due in, I suppose, though it’s in the tiniest hand-writing, barely decipherable. So ... what? What’s so special about this? Lourdes is just stupid.
When I sit down at my own laptop a few moments later, telling myself that it’s just to check my emails, I get the strongest urge to Google Hermosa, instead. As the name means
beautiful
in Spanish, I already know it’ll be a plastic surgery clinic for minor procedures, unimportant in the scheme of things and yet ... and yet, somehow, I just want to know. It’ll be nothing, will it, an unimportant thing?
Don’t look
, my common sense warns me.
It’ll be a little barb she threw into the conversation just to sting you because you are the one who’s won Charlie’s heart and she has not,
yet still ... I have to know.
And then, when I find it a few moments later, my heart sinks right down to my slippers on a tide of sorrow and anger and sheer and utter disbelief. This can’t be true. God, it can’t. Charlie would never have done that to me. Would he?
And I wish, with all my heart, oh, how I wish now that I had never looked.
32 - Charlie
Are they home now? Julia’s car is in the drive. Thank God. The petrol pumps were all packed out; I had to wait thirty minutes to fill up. I had no choice. I have to make this trip up to Dad’s tonight, though the timing could not be worse. My stomach clenches. What kind of a mood is J going to be in, I wonder? Mellow, I hope. She went up to see Lourdes without telling me a thing, and I know she asked after Illusion. I’m hoping that’s because Pippa’s started to convince Julia about our treatment plan and Julia just wanted to be sure? I won’t know until I speak with her, but I don’t have too long to stick around doing that, either. Not tonight.
I turn my key in the front door, and the first thing that hits me is the rush of quiet. Just like before, it is too still. Will they be up in the bathroom with the door shut and I can’t hear them splashing? I can see Hadyn’s wet raincoat and J’s jacket hanging up on the pegs, and I know they have not gone out again. The faint smell of the food I left heating in the kitchen reminds me that I was distracted, before; I left the oven on when I went out. It reminds me also that I need to eat something and finish packing and leave as soon as ever I can because the rain has made the traffic slow and it’s going to be a difficult, stressful drive up to Yorkshire. I’ve a long night ahead.
‘J?’ I drop my keys onto the hall table. Can she not hear me, wherever she is?
I’ve news from Pippa Killman for her, too, haven’t I? I have no idea whether J will be feeling relieved after meeting with my colleague earlier today, a little reassured, or if she’ll be even more ill at ease. My schedule today’s been manic, not a moment to ring home and check in with her and ask but then ... Julia wasn’t home this afternoon, I remember.
She was with Lourdes.
To get those papers only, I pray. I know she asked about Illusion, but that’s women, they always gossip. She must have also revealed something to Lourdes about how fragile the situation has been with our son. I wish she hadn’t gone there, really I do, but whatever’s been done now can’t be undone. Whatever’s been said, I need to deal with it.
The bathroom is empty. All tidy and dry. No sign of any splashing fun being had here tonight. The upstairs rooms are silent, too, subdued, though the lights are all on.
‘Julia.’ I tiptoe through into Hadyn’s room, and my darling is asleep. I kiss him softly on the cheek, breathing in the scent of him.
I love you so much
. How is it possible to love someone this much when they never even speak to you, they barely let you know them? But I do. What I feel for my boy is visceral, primal. I love him so much, it hurts. Did my own dear father once feel just this way about me? I suspect he did. I feel my heart swell with a deep tenderness and at the same time, a spike of worry, not just because my father is dying but because Julia for some reason isn’t answering me tonight. I frown. Where can she be?
Where has she gone?
And then in our bedroom, beside the vase of hand-tied flowers that I bought her earlier before Rolli rang me, sitting with her shoulders slumped and her head down, I find her. Not answering me. She hears me, though. She must.
‘J?’ I sit down gingerly on the duvet beside her. What’s happened here? My suitcase from before has made its way onto the floor. My envelope full of business cards and clinic leaflets, the contents, I see ... they’ve been strewn all over the bed.
Why
? I swallow. Was she looking for some info maybe, on the Roseview Clinic? I can give her that, answer anything she wants to know ...
‘Is something the matter?’ My throat feels thick because it is clear that there is something very much the matter. But what? Is it something that Pippa’s said to her? ‘You
okay
?’
‘No.’ Her voice comes muffled and very still from beneath the curtain of her hair. ‘
No!
’
‘Hadyn’s okay?’ A panic suffuses through me suddenly. But he
is
okay. I know he is because I saw him just now. He’s fine. Again, she doesn’t answer me. ‘You saw Pippa today?’ I broach carefully. It’s about this, I am sure. The shadow of another possibility crosses my mind, but I push it away. Please let it be about this and no other matter. ‘She spoke to me, darling. Things went ... look, I know you might not be thrilled with what she had to say to you, but I spoke to her and she is very hopeful, indeed.’
‘Is she?’ Deadpan. So very far away. I might be speaking about a new type of meteorite they’ve discovered, orbiting Mars.
Julia doesn’t care
. But I persevere with it anyway.
‘There’s been a new development, honey. The Atlanta clinic have had a cancellation. Dr Killman’s pulled some strings, and they’ve found a place for us.’
‘Atlanta?’ she laughs, but there is not a shred of humour in her eyes. ‘I don’t think so, Charlie.’
‘We’ll all be flying out together, don’t worry,’ I reassure her. ‘I’ve already
told
Angus that I’m going, even if it costs me the partnership. Hadyn comes first.’
Julia looks up now. Her face looks shocked, pale somehow. And then it hits me. Has she heard something from Rolli while I was out? Some really,
really
bad news that she just can’t bring herself to tell me, about my dad? Oh Lord, no. Let it not be that. If it is, she must tell me, though, she must tell me
now
. I put my hand on her arm.
‘What?’ I ask her. ‘What’s happened? Is there something I should know?’ I can’t bring myself to mention my dad’s name, I can’t. And why is she being so ... so difficult and spiky around me tonight, doesn’t she see how hard I’m trying? I’ve been trying all day to get through to her and when I wasn’t doing that, I was working my butt off, not just to earn us our crust but to get the arrangements made that I needed to do, to secure the Atlanta placement. Hearing Rolli’s news about my dad, it’s been the last straw. I need to get away in a few minutes and we haven’t even spoken about that yet. If this is not about my father, I still need to go to him, so why is she being like this? So ... angry and so hard?
‘Is this about my dad?’ I ask. Julia shakes her head, rapidly. She doesn’t look at me. She’s got a little card in her hands, I see now. It looks like a clinic appointment card. Is she ... ill? ‘What is this all about?’
‘It is about this, you ...
swine.
’ Julia looks up at me now, her eyes wild with hurt, shot through with ... something ... that I have never seen on her face before. ‘What
the hell
is this?’ She places the card on the bed beside her where I will see what it is. When I do, I nearly jump backwards off the bed.
Hermosa.
Julia’s hand reaches over as if she means to steady herself, getting up. The vase of flowers I bought for her to mark our anniversary wobbles precariously. Jeez, why?
Why now, of all times, does this piece of monumental stupidity on my part have to surface?
Her fingers clasp around the neck of the vase and for one crazy moment, I am confused.
Does she mean the flowers
? Is it the flowers she’s got so angry about for some reason? No, of course it is not. I shake my head, feeling suddenly overwhelmed and confused. I don’t want to have to deal with this now. Not tonight, dear God.
‘It’s a ... J ...’ I plead.
So Lourdes told her, then
?
How could she have done that to me, told Julia of all people about that stupid ...
‘I always meant to tell you about this, I swear...’ I duck as she sends the flowers, vase and all, hurtling towards my head.
Christ
. I turn just in time to see it crash, water and flowers and vase, smashed against the edge of the metal footboard behind me, everything soaked, everything covered in petals and foliage and tiny bits of broken glass.
‘You
meant
? You meant to ...?’ She turns on me, full of scorn. ‘You’ve had
six fucking months
, Charlie. Are you telling me that a
little something like this
could just slip your mind?’
‘Where did you even get this?’
Why can’t I think of something better than that to say?
I pick up the card and stare at it forlornly. She came looking for this tonight because Lourdes told her it existed. She had to have. I feel a flash of anger towards my ex, that she did that. But it was my responsibility to have told Julia before. That was always at my door, and I can’t blame anyone else for it now.
‘Why couldn’t you just have told me, Charlie?’ Julia’s voice is choked. I can’t even imagine what she must think. ‘Why did you have to do this to me?’ She picks up some other papers that she’s been looking through. ‘All this ... it’s just a sham, isn’t it?’
‘What’s a sham?’
In response, she throws the papers at me, too. A whole wad of them. Up they go, a fluttering pile of white and grey, to join the petals and the glass already littering the bed. When I catch sight of what they are—forms, the registry office papers—my heart constricts a little further.
‘You wanting to marry me! It is just a sham. Like you are.’ I see her fists clench now. If she’s going to hit me ...
‘What do you mean, Julia?’ But she isn’t listening to me.
‘I
told
you, the day we got back to Blackberry House.’ Her voice is trembling with anger, her face white, but at least she is speaking to me. ‘I told you. I needed there to be an agreement of openness and honesty between us from then on. I told you that and you promised me. You
promised
.’
‘I did,’ I stutter. I have no excuse, no real, valid excuse other than my own cowardice. ‘I was going to tell you, J. I swear I was. I started to say it the night we were at the bistro and then your mum called.’
Her face darkens. ‘I thought we’d already established that was about Illusion having been released? You told me that’s what you’d been about to say ...’
‘Actually, no,’ I say mildly. I never
actually
said that, did I? She inferred it, later on. I hadn’t corrected her. Because ... because it hadn’t been the right time, not after our son had nearly jumped through the window and we were shocked enough as it was and then ... then the days and weeks got away with me. I hang my head, feeling shame. ‘I have been a coward, J. I didn’t want to lose you, can’t you see that? I was afraid that if I told you ...’
The sudden trill of a text message going off on my phone blasts right through us now. I should leave it. I can’t deal with any more trouble from the outside world. It might be Roberto, answering my message from before, about Dad, but still ... I switch it off.
‘That night, when we were at the bistro,’ I tell her gently, ‘I had been about to tell you about
this
. You deserved to know it. And now ... J.’ I look around at the devastation that is our bedroom and suddenly, it all seems too much. I’m supposed to be leaving here tonight and I haven’t even told her that yet, but I can’t leave her like this.
‘If you and Lourdes were trying to get pregnant, then you should have told me that, Charlie,’ Julia’s voice is thin and so angry, I think
she’s never going to get over this, no matter what I say, ever.
‘It wasn’t about that,’ I begin.
‘How can you not have told me?’ She wipes at her eyes fiercely, and I see that the tears are falling thick and fast. So hurt, my darling. I am so sorry. But ... I grasp at the one straw of hope.
‘I was a fool to let myself be persuaded to go there with her. I take responsibility for what I did; I just hope you’ll believe me now when I say we went there because I wanted to ...’
‘Don’t say anything more.’ Julia’s eyes have grown wide and weary. ‘I don’t want to hear anymore. I don’t want to argue anymore.’
‘Please. I need to say it. If you think she and I were trying to get pregnant, you’re wrong. Don’t let me go away tonight without this being cleared between us,’ I beg her. Julia does a sudden flicking movement with her hands, as if dismissing me. When she turns away, her eyes light on my suitcase again and a new thought occurs to her.
‘So—you’re going away?’ She’s breathless now, and I see the thought makes her both sad and panicky. ‘I saw you were packing. You didn’t tell me you were going anywhere tonight.’ She gives a wry laugh that cuts somehow more than if she’d hit me, adding, ‘You know, I actually let myself imagine, when I saw all this ...’ Her hand sweeps over the suitcase, the broken flowers on the bed. ‘I imagined that it might be some romantic weekend break you were going to spring on me, Venice or some such ...’
‘Venice?’ I swallow.
‘If that’s it though, you can just go fuck off by yourself, Charlie Lowerby. You can just ...’
‘It isn’t,’ I tell her and she stops in her tracks, as if I could shock her any more, make her any sadder.
‘So you were just leaving, then. Were you planning to tell me about that at any point, or had that slipped your mind too?’
I bite my lip. ‘J. I had a ... a phone call from Rolli this afternoon. I’m going to my dad’s. He collapsed this afternoon and he’s in hospital.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ she says stiffly.
‘They don’t ... J, they don’t know if he’s going to make it this time.’
She looks at me, some of the anger draining out of her eyes at this new piece of information, but I can see she’s still confused, doesn’t know what to think anymore,
doesn’t know what to feel ...
‘Your father is dying?’ she asks quietly. Beside me, she’s picking up little shards of broken glass, putting them into a small box, the one my shaver normally goes in when I travel. She sniffs, wipes her nose on her sleeve. There’s a good few minutes go by while she takes this in.
