Then and Always (25 page)

Oddly, a truly stricken look contorted his face.

“Of course I care. How can you even say that?”

Venom, dark and poisonous, flooded through me.

“Well, I don’t know, let me think … Could it be the fact that less than a minute ago you were screwing someone else?”

His face spasmed at my words and he reached out for me, but I backed away, repulsed.

“Please, Rachel, let me—”

I cut him off. “What, Matt? What is it you want to do? Explain? Is that the word? Because don’t bother. I saw enough of your dirty little movie that no explanations are necessary at all. I understand
perfectly
what’s going on!”

“Nothing is
going on
!” he cried.

“Really?” I snapped. “That’s not what it looked like from where I was standing! And remember, I just got a ringside
seat. I might have amnesia but even
I
can remember that what you and Cathy were up to is definitely not
nothing
!”

He ran his hand through his hair in frustration. “No, I didn’t mean that. What I meant is that it means nothing to me.
She
means nothing to me. It was just sex. That’s all it was.”

I feigned a look of enlightenment before rounding on him angrily like a tiger. “And that’s supposed to make me feel
better
?” He looked helpless, struggling for words, and I took advantage of the moment. “You know what, Matt? I don’t care.”

“No, Rachel, don’t say that. You have to let me explain. You have to let me make this right.”

It was hard not to lash out then, not at his words, but at his failure to understand exactly what he had done.

“There is no ‘making this right,’ Matt. Don’t you get that? Whatever your reason was, it doesn’t matter. Nothing can make this right again.”

“You can’t mean that,” he pleaded, and there was genuine anguish in his voice. But his next words sealed his fate completely. “And then, last week, when you locked your door on me—”

He never got to finish. Fury like molten lava flowed through my veins. “What? Is that it? It’s been two weeks since my accident so that justifies sleeping with someone else? Is that what you’re saying to me? Well, is it?”

He looked worried then, knowing that was possibly the worst thing he could ever have said.

And that’s when Cathy’s words came back to me. The words she’d spoken when I first came upon them.

“And what did Cathy mean up there, when she said this was ‘horribly familiar’?” A slow red flush suffused his cheeks, while the blood drained from mine. “What? This has happened
before? Have you been having an affair with her behind my back? Is that it?”

“No, no. Of course not. I told you, this thing today, it was a one-off. It just … happened.”

There was more going on here than he was admitting to, I could feel it.

“But you’ve been with her before, haven’t you?”

Confession and resignation dulled his eyes.

Inspiration dawned then as the nasty little puzzle pieces all came together. “Oh my God! I found you with her once before, didn’t I? When we were at uni?”

For one moment he actually looked pleased that I’d got my memory back. “You
remember
that?”

“Not entirely,” I hissed. “But that
is
what happened, isn’t it? I found her with you and we broke up?”

He nodded miserably. “But then you forgave me.”

I saw the entreaty in his eyes and I killed that hope before it could even draw breath.

“But not this time, Matt. You don’t get any more chances to do this to me. Not ever again.”

I walked for a long time; walked until the boiling rage had cooled and the humiliation only stung instead of seared through me like a lance. But however far I went, I couldn’t erase the image of their two perfect bodies enmeshed like some erotic piece of art. I didn’t think anything was going to spare me from having that vision stenciled on my memory for a long time to come. Ironic, really, that that would be sticking with me when so much of my life these days was all about the forgetting.

Eventually the cold and exhaustion stopped my restless feet. I looked up at the corner of a busy junction, read a street name I’d never heard of, and realized I had no idea where I was. I’d been walking mindlessly for several hours and, for the first time since bolting out of Matt’s building and into the street, I made myself stop to consider what I was going to do next. The answer came surprisingly easily.

I hailed a cab within a few minutes and gave the driver the
address of the London flat I’d visited with Jimmy one week earlier. I asked him to stop off once on the way so I could purchase a few essentials. My mobile rang continually as we drove through the capital, but I resolutely ignored it, as I had done in the hours since I’d finally torn away from Matt on the stairwell. Eventually he stopped calling, perhaps at last realizing that words were superfluous; there was nothing left to say.

The driver earned his tip by assisting me into my building with the flat-packed storage boxes I had purchased en route. Once inside my own apartment I propped the cardboard containers up against the wall, together with the packing tape, scissors, and string I had bought.

The telephone call to my father was a difficult one. There was no easy way to explain the situation, and even though I played down the explicit nature of what had happened, his paternal instincts had gone straight into overdrive. It took all of my powers of persuasion to prevent him from getting on the next train up to London.

“I don’t like the idea of you being there all alone tonight. You’re just going to dwell on what’s happened.”

“No, I’m not,” I assured him, hoping the answer wasn’t a lie. “I’m going to be far too busy packing to dwell.”

Something in my voice must have convinced him that I was neither depressed nor suicidal, for he stopped trying to change my mind and asked only that I call him in the morning. I hung up the phone, feeling certain that as far as he was concerned, the fact that I’d broken off my engagement and was quitting my London flat to return home was not exactly bad news. It was too early for me to say if I felt the same way.

I began assembling the storage boxes, distributing them in each room of the flat. I worked methodically, emptying cupboards, drawers, and wardrobes as dispassionately as a professional
remover; packing up the belongings I didn’t recognize, from a flat I didn’t remember.

I kept very little for the two containers that were returning with me to Great Bishopsford, filling them only with important-looking documentation or old items I recognized from years before. The charity shops and the local dump could have the rest. I wanted to take as little as possible with me from this unremembered place.

The packing was strangely cathartic, and as box after box was filled and taped shut, it felt as though I was doing more than just getting rid of possessions. Here at last I’d found the only benefit of having amnesia: there was no pain in packing up a life you didn’t remember, no regrets when you were leaving no memories behind.

I lingered only once, over the picture of Matt and me in Paris. It didn’t belong in any of my Great Bishopsford boxes, or the charity shop ones, so I created a new pile of items that I thought might have been gifts from him—all too expensive to discard. They could be parceled up and returned to him sometime soon.

Four hours later I was done. My back was aching, and I was more than a little grubby from my task, but even so I felt for the first time that, despite its horrific revelations, today was the first day I had actually taken a step toward the future and away from the past.

I leaned back against the side of the bed, too exhausted to even get up from the bedroom floor. I just needed to close my eyes for a moment.

HEAVY HAMMERING AND
shouting rumbled from somewhere close by, but not near enough to wake me completely. But
when the door burst open, with enough force to buckle one of the hinges, that
did
wake me. From my prone position on the floor, I looked up, blinking like a myopic owl in the blazing bedroom light. I tried to focus on the large shape filling the bedroom doorway, silhouetted by the host of lights from the rest of the flat: lights I knew I hadn’t left on.

“Thank God!”

I recognized the voice, though my eyes were still too sleep-filled to focus.

“
Jimmy?
What on earth are you doing here?”

He didn’t answer my question, turning instead to a person that was standing slightly behind him. The short, middle-aged stranger looked from me to Jimmy before asking hesitantly, “Is everything all right, Officer?”

I struggled to my feet, rubbing my eyes as though this were all a crazy dream I could brush away with the movement. I lowered my hands. No, they were both still here.

Jimmy, with a firmly guiding hand, was leading the man back out through the flat to the front door, thanking him for his cooperation.

The man allowed himself to be led away, looking both awed and a touch disappointed at being so speedily written out of a potential drama.

“If you need me to make a statement or anything …” His voice trailed off.

“That won’t be necessary at this time, sir. But I’m extremely grateful to you once again for your assistance.”

I waited until Jimmy had shut the door behind the man and walked slowly into the living room. I said nothing as I watched him return his police ID to his jacket pocket, but the inclination of my head and raised eyebrows said it all.

He looked vaguely embarrassed, but not entirely repentant.

“Is that even legal?”

“Is
what
even legal?”

“Using your ID to break into someone’s home?”

His eyes met mine but I couldn’t read his expression.

“I didn’t break in,” he corrected, “I got the supervisor to open your door.”

“By telling him what, exactly? That I’m an international terrorist? A dangerous bank robber? An escaped lunatic?”

He looked chagrined at the last of my suggestions, before covering the distance between us in two short strides and answering in a low voice. “That no one could reach you … That you’d had a recent trauma and then some very bad news. And that you might be … hurt.”

His arms came around me then, and I felt a tremor run through him as he pulled me against him. I saw it all then, through different eyes than mine: why concern had flared so quickly into panic.

“I take it you’ve spoken to my dad?” I asked into his shirtfront, where my face was still pressed.

“I did.”

“Didn’t he tell you I just wanted to stay up here to clear up the flat? That I was coming home tomorrow?”

He sighed deeply, and his voice sounded a little hoarse when he replied. “I just needed to speak to you. To check you were okay. And then, when I tried—God knows how many times—to get through to you on your phone …”

“I’ve been ignoring it. I thought it was Matt.”

He leaned back from me then and studied my face, as though trying to see what it had cost me to speak his name.

“Your dad did mention something about that: that you’d had a disagreement.”

I laughed. “Yeah, you could call it that. He thought it was all right to have sex with Cathy in his flat today, and I disagreed.”

A fleet of emotions crossed Jimmy’s face, too swiftly for me to differentiate one from the other, but I thought I’d glimpsed fury as well as something much more gentle and hopeful.

“Your dad never said that!”

“He got the edited version.”

Taking hold of my hand, Jimmy gently led me over to the settee and settled himself beside me. I thought about taking back my hand but he seemed in no hurry to relinquish it. “Tell me all about it,” he urged. His voice was soft and encouraging, the voice once again of my confidant and friend, but there was something in his eyes, something I scarcely recognized, that was having a disturbing effect on my pulse.

He was silent as I recounted my entire day: from the doctor’s appointment to the discovery of Matt’s betrayal. I watched his face closely as I spoke to read his reaction to my words. The tightening of his jaw when I reached the part when I walked in on Matt and Cathy was the only indication of the anger he was struggling to keep in check.

When at last I was finished, he turned my hand over within his, seeming to take a good deal of time to select exactly the right words.

“I’m so sorry, Rachel; sorry he did that to you. Sorry he’s hurt you like this. I know how much you … love … him. But you deserve so much better than that.”

His face was very close to mine, mere inches apart. I raised my eyes, hoping he could read in them all that I hadn’t been
able to say. He lowered his head and my lips parted as I half closed my eyes in anticipation. He leaned in and gently grazed my forehead with the lightest of kisses.

He got smoothly to his feet then, the atmosphere changing as abruptly as though a switch had been pulled. Not meeting my gaze, he made a deliberate show of consulting his watch.

“Look, it’s getting fairly late. Why don’t I go and get us a take-away or something? I’m sure you’ve not eaten all day, have you?”

I shook my head, not entirely trusting that I’d be able to keep what I was feeling from my voice.

“Okay, I’ll go and get us something to eat. I won’t be long.”

His departure was so hasty it was almost comical. How many more times was I going to misread the signals and have to watch him run from me before I accepted that whatever feelings I had buried deep inside for him weren’t reciprocated?

It didn’t take him very long to find a nearby take-away, and I’d only just finished washing some of the grime of packing from my face and hands before he returned, heavily laden with cartons of Chinese food and two bottles of wine.

“Are we expecting company?” I asked, eyeing the array of fragrant containers he was opening on the coffee table.

“Let’s hope not,” he replied darkly. No doubt he was thinking of Matt. I didn’t think that was even remotely likely, feeling sure Matt would realize that turning up at my door that night was not entirely in his best interests. However, the thought of what might happen between the two men if Matt
was
foolish enough to put in an appearance made me shudder involuntarily.