How to Fall in Love (26 page)

‘You do.’ I thought about it. ‘You’re right, you know, if I was in your shoes and if I knew my mum was out there and I had a chance to find her, I’d do whatever it took. I’d do anything to get her back.’

‘I know you would,’ Amelia said, throwing a worried look at Adam before covering her concern with a smile that was too bright and too quick.

I swallowed hard.

‘This is ridiculous,’ Adam said from the door, watching me pack my bag.

Everything had seemed ridiculous to him all day. Pointless, a waste of time, ridiculous.

‘What’s ridiculous?’ I asked, trying not to sound as drained as I felt.

‘Going to Tipperary.’

‘How are you going to
not
take over the company if we don’t go to the company to sort it out?’

‘We can’t sort it out, it’s in my grandfather’s will. There’s no way of changing it. This trip will be a total waste of time.’ His voice was hard.

I didn’t know exactly how we were going to sort this out but where there was a will, there was a way and Adam had to face up to his responsibilities sooner or later. The prospect was making him tetchy, fidgety. He was moody again.

He left the room. ‘So this is my last time here?’ he said from the living area.

Then I got it. He had a problem with people leaving him, and him leaving too. I hurriedly followed his voice.

‘You’re moving on, Adam. This is a good thing.’

He nodded, not believing a word of it.

‘Right now, I’m feeling
…’ I prompted him.

He sighed. ‘Right now I’m feeling
… sentimental.’

I felt it too. Then his phone rang.

‘It’s Maria.’ He handed it to me.

I stared at it, wanting to hang up straight away, but I thought of Leo’s advice. ‘Answer it,’ I swallowed. ‘Invite her to your party. If you want to.’

‘Are you sure?’ He looked uncertain.

‘Of course.’ I was confused by his reaction. ‘Don’t you want her to be there?’

The phone kept ringing.

‘Yeah, only, you know
…’

We stared at each other.

I wasn’t sure what he was thinking, but I knew what I was thinking.
Don’t answer it, don’t fall in love with her, fall out of love with her. Love me.

The phone stopped ringing, leaving a silent room. He didn’t even look at the phone in his hand. He swallowed. He took a step towards me.

The phone rang again and he froze.

Then he answered it and walked out of the room.

While Adam was outside in the car with Pat, I tentatively made my way to Simon Conway’s ward. I was on the lookout for his wife, his children or any member of his family who felt that taking a pop at me would alleviate their pain or bring Simon back to them. The only familiar face I saw – and I cowered away from her as soon as I saw her – was Angela, the nurse who had brought me to Simon’s room the previous week, the night I’d met Adam. I froze when I saw her, but Angela smiled at me warmly.

‘I’m not going to bite,’ she smiled. ‘Family only, but come on.’ She led me along to the room. ‘I heard about what happened the last time you were here. Sorry I wasn’t on duty. I want you not to worry in the slightest about it. She was upset and needed someone to blame. You’re not responsible.’

‘I was there. I was the one who—’

‘You’re not responsible,’ she said firmly. ‘The girls said she felt awful about it after you left. She was so overcome with emotion they had to take the little ones out and calm her down.’

She didn’t paint a pretty picture, but it did a little to relieve my stress.

‘Did you speak to anyone yet?’ Angela asked, and I knew she meant someone professional.

I hadn’t forgotten the advice Leo had given me about Adam, but this was an entirely different problem. All the same, I’d been thinking about it and I’d finally figured out who exactly I needed to talk to.

I was left alone with Simon. The beeping and whooshing were the only sounds in the silence. I sat down beside him.

‘Hi,’ I whispered. ‘It’s me. Christine. Christine Rose, the woman who failed to save you from yourself. I’m wondering if someone should have saved you from me,’ I said, eyes filling as the emotions I had been doing my best to suppress came flooding back to me all at once. ‘I’ve been going over that night over and over again, trying to figure out what happened. I must have said something wrong. I can’t remember. I was so relieved that you’d put that gun down. I’m sorry if whatever I said made you feel that you weren’t important enough, that your life wasn’t worth living. Because it is and you are. And if you’re able to hear me, Simon, then you fight, fight for your life – if not for yourself then do it for your girls because they need you. There is so much of their life that they will need you for. I grew up without a mother, so I know what it’s like to have the ghost of someone permanently in every moment in your life. You always wonder what would they think, what would they do if they were here, whether you’re making them proud …’

I allowed a long silence where I let my tears flow, then I composed myself.

‘Anyway, because of this guilt I feel about what I did to you, I’ve got myself in a whole lot of trouble. I met a man on a bridge and I have to help him see the beauty of life, convince him that life is worth living or else I’ll lose him.’ I wiped my streaming eyes. ‘One of the things I have to do is help him win back his girlfriend. And if I don’t get him back with his girlfriend he will kill himself. Those are the rules. It’s only been a week but sometimes you know, you know? And this week I’ve learned some things.’ I looked down at my fingers, realising it for sure, completely one hundred per cent.

I’d hoped to feel relief. Instead I had a pounding headache, a heavy heart, the whoosh of the ventilator and the beep of the heart monitor my only response. I wanted an encouraging nod, I wanted to hear that I was understood, that it was okay, that it wasn’t my fault, that I would be able to work everything out. I needed to be given
tools
, where were my tools? I needed a good book that would fix everything;
How to Make Absolutely Everything Okay Again
, a simple step-by-step guide to mend hearts, clear consciences and make everybody forget.

Perhaps the realisation wasn’t enough, the silent admission wasn’t enough; I needed to say it out loud. I looked up, fixed my eyes on Simon as though my words of heart-dripping honesty would be powerful enough to make him open his eyes.

‘I’m in love with Adam.’

19

How to Pick Yourself Up and Dust Yourself Off

‘Everything okay?’ the most beautiful man in my world asked me as I got into Dick Basil’s chauffeur-driven car.

I nodded.

He frowned and studied my teary eyes. I had to look away.

‘You’ve been crying.’

I sniffed and stared out the window.

‘How’s he doing?’ he asked gently.

I could only shake my head, not trusting my voice.

‘Did his wife say something to you again? Christine, you know you didn’t deserve that. It was unfair.’

‘Maria could treat me the very same way next week,’ I said suddenly, not knowing that was going to come from my mouth, not really knowing it was on my mind.

Pat turned the radio on.

‘Excuse me?’

‘You heard me. Maria, your whole family, they’ll blame me. They’ll say I spent two weeks swanning about the place with you instead of getting you proper help. Do you ever think of what will happen to me if you go ahead with it?’

‘They wouldn’t blame you. I wouldn’t let them,’ he said, getting upset at how I was being affected by this.

‘You won’t be here to protect me Adam, you won’t be able to defend me. Everything will be my word against theirs. You don’t know the mess that you’ll leave behind,’ I said angrily, barely able to get the words out. And by that I didn’t only mean the situation, I meant myself.

Adam’s phone rang and as soon as I saw the look on his face when he answered, I knew immediately. His dad had passed away.

Adam didn’t want to see his father’s body at the hospital, he didn’t want to deviate from the plan of going to Tipperary, which of course was where we needed to go now anyway to make arrangements for the funeral. So we remained in the car as if nothing had happened, when of course everything had happened: he had lost his father and he was now officially the head of Basil’s.

‘Have you heard from your sister?’ I asked. His phone had remained in his pocket where he’d put it after he received the call. He hadn’t contacted anybody. I wondered if he was in shock.

‘No.’

‘You haven’t checked your phone. Shouldn’t you call her?’

‘I’m sure she’s been informed.’

‘Will she come to the funeral?’

‘I hope so.’

I was relieved by his positive response.

‘And I hope the guards are waiting for her on the runway. In fact, maybe I’ll call them and alert them myself.’

I wasn’t so pleased then.

‘Maybe this means the party won’t go ahead,’ I said quietly, feeling bad at trying to find a silver lining in the death of a loved one, but Adam was clearly in need of one.

‘Are you joking? There’s no way they’d cancel the party now – this is their big chance to prove that we’re as strong and ready as ever.’

‘Oh. Is there anything you’d like me to do?’

‘No, thanks.’

He was silent as he gazed out of the window, grabbing every scene that passed, trying to hold on to being away from the dreaded place we were going to, trying to slow the car in its tracks. I wondered if he wanted me with him at all. Not that it would affect me being there; I was staying with him regardless, especially now, but it would be easier if I knew he wanted me there. I supposed not. He probably would have preferred to be alone with his thoughts, and it was his thoughts that scared me.

‘Actually,’ he said suddenly, ‘will you read the reading from Amelia’s mother’s funeral?’

I was surprised. He hadn’t commented on it much at the funeral, other than to ask me if I’d written it. I was deeply touched. That reading meant the world to me. I looked out of the window, blinked away tears.

We were driving down country lanes, the landscape was rich and green, vibrant, even on the icy morning. It was horse territory, plenty of trainers and stables with some of the best land for feeding their breeds, whether race horses or show horses, it was a big business in these parts – if they weren’t making chocolates, that was. Pat wasn’t taking too much care on the roads, he didn’t pause before rounding sharp corners, took lefts and rights at roads that bore exact resemblance to the last turn we’d taken. I felt my nails digging into the leather seats.

I looked at Adam to see if he looked as nervous as I was. He was looking at me. I’d caught him.

He cleared his throat and looked away. ‘I was
… do you know you’re missing an earring?’

‘What?’ I felt my earlobe. ‘Shit.’ I started searching my body for the earring, shaking my clothes roughly, hoping it would fall out. I had to find it. When I still didn’t find it I got down on my hands and knees in the car.

‘Careful, Christine,’ Adam warned and I felt his hand on my head as I bumped it against the door as Pat rounded another corner sharply.

‘It was my mother’s,’ I said, leaning over on his side and pushing away his feet to check the floor around him.

Adam winced, as though feeling my pain at losing it.

After finding nothing, I sat down, red-faced and flustered. I didn’t want to talk to anyone for a while.

‘Do you remember her?’

I rarely spoke about my mother; not a deliberate decision but because my mother had been in my life for such a short time that I had no references to her. I tried to summon her up now and then but had little to remember and therefore little to say.

‘These earrings are one of the very few memories I have of her. I used to sit on the edge of the bath and watch her when she was getting dressed to go out. I loved watching her put on her make-up.’ I closed my eyes. ‘I can see her now, facing the mirror, her hair back off her shoulders in a clasp. She’d be wearing these earrings – she only ever wore these on special nights out.’ I fingered my naked earlobe. ‘It’s funny the things we remember. I can see from the photographs that we did so much more together, I don’t know why I remember that moment more than anything.’

I was silent for a while, then said, ‘So to answer your question: no. It’s a long way of saying no, I don’t really remember her. I suppose that’s why I wear these earrings every day. I hadn’t figured that out until now. When people comment on my earrings, I know I can say, “Thanks. They’re my mother’s.” It’s a way to creep her into my conversations every day, somehow make her real and a part of my life. I feel like she’s an
idea
, a bunch of other people’s stories, a person who changes all the time in photographs, who looks different in each one, in different lights, different angles. I used to ask my sisters all the time when we’d look through the album: Is that the mum you remember? Or is
that
her? But they’d say no, then describe her in a way that no photograph captured. Even my own image of her at her mirror is of the back of her head, her right ear, her chin. Sometimes I wish that she’d turn around in that memory so I can see her fully; sometimes I make her do that in my imagination. It probably sounds weird.’

‘It’s not weird at all,’ Adam said gently.

‘Do you remember your mother?’

‘Bits and pieces. Small things. Problem was, I didn’t have anybody to talk to about her. I think it helps your memory of a person, when people share stories, but my dad never talked about her.’

‘Wasn’t there anybody else to talk to?’

‘We had a new nanny every summer; the gardener was the closest we had to a regular person about the house, and he wasn’t allowed to talk to us.’

‘Why not?’

‘Dad’s rules.’

We left a long silence.

‘Your earring will turn up,’ he said.

I hoped so.

‘Maria said she’d come to my birthday party.’

I had forgotten to ask him. How had I forgotten that?

‘Good. Great. That’s
… Adam that’s really great.’