Disappeared, page 17
He watched her silently but she saw understanding, not condemnation, on his face.
‘I didn’t deal with it very well and I ran away a lot and I did a lot of things I shouldn’t have done.’ She swallowed hard because it was hard to admit this to him. She was terrified that when he knew, that look in his eyes would change, become distant. ‘With a lot of people I shouldn’t have done them with.’
‘It happens,’ he said in that quiet voice that always undid her. ‘It happens a lot. Don’t look like that about it, because kids react like that for a reason when they’re dumped and everyone lets them down. You didn’t do anything wrong.’
She paused, the scissors motionless in her hand. ‘You don’t know what I did.’
‘You didn’t do anything wrong,’ he repeated more firmly. ‘They did, not you.’
Danny had never said that to her. No, he’d make her feel like he was magnanimous for forgiving her for it, like she should be grateful to him for overlooking it all and giving her another chance.
She got the hairdryer and gave his hair a blast dry before getting the styling wax and rubbing just a little in to give it texture. She didn’t want to talk about it any longer because then she’d have to talk about Danny and she didn’t want to this evening.
‘I wish she had wanted me,’ she said. ‘I wish I could have stayed with her because she was the only mum I had and something died in me the day she got rid of me.’
He reached up and held her hand. ‘Don’t blame yourself because other people in your life weren’t enough. You deserve better even if you haven’t had it yet.’
She stared at him, no words to express how that made her feel.
He squeezed her hand. ‘But you will – you will have that one day. You just have to believe in yourself.’
‘Sometimes that’s very hard,’ she said.
‘I know. But I believe in you.’ He laughed suddenly and unexpectedly as something struck him. ‘And you should trust me – I’m a doctor!’ It was as if he knew the tension was too much for her now and he broke off to look in the mirror. ‘Oh! Okay, so I look a lot better. What did you do to me?’
‘Just changed the length through here,’ she said, running her hand through the front part of his hair. ‘It still has a little way to grow to look absolutely right.’
‘I look way less of a geek though,’ he said, looking at his hair and tilting his head to see a different angle.
She laughed and shook her head. She’d never thought he looked geeky anyway but was too embarrassed to say, too aware that she’d had an opinion of his appearance that she had no right to have.
‘Can I buy you lunch tomorrow to say thanks?’ he asked. ‘I’m not on call so I’ve actually got a proper day off.
She chewed her lip. ‘Oh, I don’t get a lunch break now because Angharad’s so far along. I just scoff down a sandwich between clients.’
She could tell he was trying to judge if she regretted having to say no or not. ‘Dinner?’ he asked tentatively. ‘Or will that mess your time up with Drew?’
‘It will but she won’t mind for once as long as I’m back for bedtime.’
‘How about half five and we’ll go to the chippy then?’ he said with a laugh. ‘That’s the fastest service we’ll get round here.’
‘Oh good,’ she said with obvious relief. ‘The restaurants round here scare me – they’re so posh.’ And then she coloured up at revealing how limp she was about things like that. He must think she was an idiot.
‘There’s nothing posh about me,’ he said, grinning. ‘Chippy suits me.’
‘You’re a doctor,’ she protested.
‘But my family is not posh, believe me. I grew up in a little terrace in a hill village. There’s nothing upmarket about us Joneses.’
Again, she spent all of the next day with that sense of nervous anticipation. She told herself it was because it was so long since she’d had a friend. It wasn’t any more than that because she knew fine well that a man like him wasn’t interested in her and never would be, so she wasn’t stupid enough to think of him as anything other than an amazingly kind friend. Or perhaps that’s how normal friends always were, she’d just never had one. Friends had always been people who used her for something.
But Rhys didn’t ask her for anything.
He waited outside the salon for her to finish. It was a dry evening for once although there would be a sharp frost that night. She could already feel it in the air. ‘Good day?’ he asked, and his breath blew clouds.
‘Busy again, but okay.’ She felt less tired already at the sight of him.
‘Do you enjoy it?’ he asked as he began to stroll slowly in the direction of the chippy.
The smile lit her from the inside out. ‘I do, I really do. I trained to do it but then he never let me. But I actually do love it. I feel good when I see how happy it makes people to get a good haircut. I send them out feeling good about themselves and that’s a great feeling.’ She paused. ‘Of course it’s nothing compared to what you do, where you make people better when they’re sick, but still, it feels nice.’
He shook his head determinedly. ‘Not nothing at all. It’s just different.’
‘It’s not an important job though,’ she protested.
‘Well, you made a doctor feel better today so I’d say it is.’ He quirked an eyebrow at her and she couldn’t help but laugh.
In the chippy, he found them a seat and checked what Lily wanted, then went to the counter to order. The restaurant area was still quiet although the takeaway was starting to get busier. They wouldn’t have to wait long but the food was being cooked fresh.
‘You know something?’ he said while they were waiting, and there was nobody at the surrounding tables to hear them. ‘That evening in the hospital when I was being an arse and you got mad at me and showed me your scars to save Drew, I thought that was the bravest thing I’d ever seen.’
She snorted but blushed too. ‘You thought I was going to flash you!’
He gave a rueful grin. ‘I have had that happen actually.’
‘No way!’
‘Yup, people can be weird, especially drunks in A&E. Anyway it was the bravest thing I’ve seen, and now I know you a little better I know how hard it would have been.’
She took a long breath out to prepare herself. ‘He did that, you know, to make sure nobody else would ever go near me. He told me that. Every single time he did it, that’s what he said.’
‘He’s a nut job.’ Rhys’s face was tight and angry. ‘And he’s wrong as well. No man worth anything would be put off by them.’
She couldn’t find any words to answer him so she just stared back.
‘I’m absolutely serious about that and I’m right,’ he said with that quiet firmness that she’d come to associate with him. ‘You need to believe me.’
She nodded, swallowing, not sure what he was really saying to her. She was relieved when the waitress brought their food over and saved her from having to respond. He lightened up then, making her laugh over funny stories of crazy patients in the hospital.
He walked her back to her car, though he was parked at the other end of town. ‘Thanks for hanging out with me,’ he said after she got in and wound the window down to say goodbye. ‘And thank Drew for letting me borrow you for a little while at least.’ He grinned and gave an awkward wave and turned and jogged off.
She shook her head. He does the oddest goodbyes, she thought as she wound the window up and drove off.
All the way home, she remembered the absolute sincerity on his face when he’d told her Danny was wrong, staring at her as if his eyes could expunge the scars from her body. She didn’t doubt he meant it but she had no idea what the maelstrom of emotions she was feeling in response were.
45
Dilys was still grumbling about Cerys interfering when the doctor arrived. ‘I don’t care,’ Cerys told her. ‘You’re not well and sometimes you need to stop being so stubborn and admit it.’ Dilys had used the excuse that it was a January chill for too long now and they were into February with no sign of her self-diagnosed cold improving. She was still frustrated that after the cast had come off her leg was nothing like it used to be, and she didn’t want any more fuss about her chest, but it seemed less of a cold and more like breathing difficulty to Cerys – something she thought was getting worse, not better.
Dilys chuntered a bit more about interference and meddling and then packed Cerys off out of the farmhouse so she could speak to the doctor herself. Cerys smiled and busied herself sweeping the yard until he left. He was in there a good long time and Dilys was subdued when she went back in.
‘Everything all right?’ she asked as she put the kettle on.
‘Just gave me some tablets to help my chest,’ she replied. ‘Told me I’m old and I’ll have to get on with it.’
Cerys rolled her eyes. ‘Pretty sure that’s your interpretation.’
‘It’s what he meant,’ Dilys said with a sardonic quirk of her eyebrows. ‘Anyway he said I have to rest so I’m doing as I’m told and off to do that. And minding my own business.’
She called the last comment over her shoulder in a deliberate barb as she went, Kip trotting after her at her heels.
Cerys ignored the irascibility and got on with cleaning the kitchen. The older woman never liked to accept help and she could sense her frustration at being trapped in a body stopping her from having the independence she’d so fiercely guarded throughout her life.
She was gone a long time. She must have needed the sleep, Cerys thought, which wasn’t like her and did show she’d been right to call the GP. Dilys perked up when Sammy came round but Cerys still kept catching her with an unusually pensive expression in quieter moments. She knew better than to ask her what the doctor had said, especially after it was her fault he’d been called in the first place.
She’d have to get it out of her by more covert means and wait until she had her guard down. No chance of that now for a few days at the very least. She’d have to play the long game.
46
Lily had flipped the sign on the salon door to closed but had not got round to locking it yet as she tended to prop it open to help dry the floor after mopping. She was just filling the bucket with detergent when the doorbell jingled and Rhys came in. He looked agitated somehow but she couldn’t put her finger on what made her think that. It had been a few weeks since they’d gone to the chip shop together that first time and they’d seen each other a few times a week since, even if only for a quick walk by the sea after work before she headed home. Rhys had been covering extra shifts this week though, as the hospital had been short-staffed, so this was the first time he’d been able to get here.
‘Hi,’ she said, surprised. ‘I didn’t know you were coming over.’
He cast his hands up in the air, an expression of frustration or was it confusion, on his face. ‘I missed you,’ he said.
She felt herself flush from head to toe and hoped her face wasn’t burning enough to be obvious. ‘Oh, um, thanks …’ She honestly wasn’t sure how to take this but he didn’t look like he was just being friendly.
But he had to be, right?
‘Um, have you had a bad day?’ Maybe he needed a friend to talk to.
‘Yes,’ he said determinedly, almost forcefully actually. ‘I missed you.’
‘Yes, you said,’ she replied faintly while she tried to process what on earth he was on about. Was he on drugs? No, she didn’t think that seriously, but he was acting so out of character.
‘I’m shit at this,’ he said with a groan as he tried to read her face.
‘At what?’ She had a horrible thought that he might be trying to tell her he’d called the police or social services, but that was just her go-to fear. She didn’t believe he would.
‘Talking to you,’ he said, waving his hands again despairingly.
She screwed up her face in confusion. ‘Well, you’re not usually, or I don’t think you are.’
‘I am. I’ve been trying to tell you this for ages and I can’t.’
‘Can’t tell me what?’ No, it couldn’t be that he’d called the police. It couldn’t, could it?
‘Arrgghhh!’ he growled, grabbing his hair in his hands in frustration.
She flinched back. She couldn’t help herself. And he saw it and his face fell, crumbled, defences down.
Suddenly she understood what he was trying to say. She saw it there in his eyes. She shook her head in confusion.
‘Men like you aren’t interested in someone like me,’ she said slowly, like she was drugged and waking from it.
‘Yes, we are,’ he replied, as if he could get her to understand that with the quiet force of how he said it. ‘Yes, I am.’
She could feel how her face twisted to betray every emotion she was now feeling. Her confusion, her sudden, brief surge of hope, her disbelief because this still couldn’t be.
But his face was telling her it was. And did she dare believe it, believe in this, believe in him? Because men always let her down.
He looked back at her, thinking frantically, trying not to mess this up and to get her to understand.
In the end, he just held his hands out to her.
She wanted him to come to her but then she understood why he couldn’t. That this had to be her choice, her free will. No coercion or control. He understood that.
And when she realised that, she pushed all her confusion and doubts aside and walked towards him.
The second she leaned against him and put her arms round him, his wrapped round her in return.
He brought her into safety, brought her home. A protective force around her, not a trap.
She could feel his warm breath on her hair as he buried his face in it. ‘The most fantastic and bravest person I know,’ he whispered.
She looked up at him, searching to see if he looked as happy as he suddenly sounded and was alarmed for a moment to see that he actually looked worried. Then she worked out from his frown that he was trying to decide if he should kiss her or not. She knew why – he still didn’t want to push her. Her choice. And she found it was an easy one to make. She reached up and pulled his head down and kissed him. In fact, all it took was that brief pressure of her hand on his neck and he did the rest, as if he’d just been waiting for her signal.
It felt as if he’d been waiting a long time to do this, though they hadn’t known each other that long at all. As his arms wrapped tighter round her when their kiss deepened, she realised she’d been waiting for it too. She’d just never believed it could happen.
She looked up. ‘How is this going to work?’
He laughed, a relieved sound. ‘I have no idea,’ he confessed, ‘but it is.’
Hope, she discovered, felt like a spring tree greening itself with fresh leaves. It felt good.
47
Cerys watched Lily and Rhys from the farmhouse kitchen window as they ran through the heavy March rain from the car into the cottage, laughing as the downpour soaked them both. They shook themselves off under the porch and went inside.
She smiled to herself. The pair of them were just glowing. They looked like something from an afternoon feel-good film. Lily didn’t quite understand what a decent relationship was supposed to look like so she often appeared fairly startled by it all. But Cerys loved seeing how she was gradually slipping into understanding what real romantic love was. It was sweet to see her surprised glow as she made that journey.
Cerys looked out at the rain as she continued the washing-up. Dilys napped by the fire. She’d seemed tired today and was still troubled by an annoying cough that hadn’t cleared since her first illness after Christmas. Probably coming down with another cold, but Cerys was a little concerned and if she wasn’t better tomorrow, she’d call the doctor for a visit. When she’d suggested this to Dilys, she’d shook her head furiously. ‘No need to trouble them because I’m old,’ she’d said. ‘Anyway, I’ve got business to do tomorrow and a visitor.’
‘Oh, who’s that?’ she’d asked.
‘Never you mind!’ Dilys had snapped and hobbled off.
Cerys had stared after her, affronted, and then shrugged and gone back to polishing the kitchen table. Probably Dilys really did feel grotty and didn’t want to admit it. She was never usually that crotchety. Maybe a couple of paracetamol would help if she had a bad cold coming on. She’d suggest that with a cup of tea when the old woman had come out of her grumps.
The rain continued falling relentlessly, bouncing off the cobbles.
If things worked out with Lily and Rhys, then Lily would no longer need her. That was the way with daughters. They grew away from you and left.
‘Or do we?’ she whispered to her own mother as if she was there. ‘Do we ever really leave? Did I get it wrong when I thought mine had, when I thought they didn’t need me? Did the blackness tell me lies?’
The weight seemed overwhelming, crushing her down as if she couldn’t breathe under it. The weight of truth, or lies? She didn’t know any longer.
‘What’s up with you?’ Dilys’s gruff voice asked behind her, hoarse with coughing.
‘I don’t know what I’ve done any more,’ Cerys said and she found standing was too difficult so she staggered to a kitchen chair and slumped into it.
‘What do you mean?’ Dilys asked her. ‘Or are you finally going to tell me what you’re doing here?’
Cerys just stared at her.
Dilys gave a harsh laugh that turned into a cough. ‘It’s obvious something went wrong for you. You don’t pitch up here with that girl and her child in tow and live stuck out here for no reason. No contact from friends, no family. You’re running from something so what is it?’
‘Myself,’ Cerys said. And then she looked up. ‘But if you thought that all along, why haven’t you asked me until now?’
