I vowed to never set foot in The Racehorse again. Never. Bad things had happened there. The worst sort of decisions had gone down inside these old walls. I’d lost so much, and gained so little, from encounters in the little Hampstead pub tucked away in the community where I’d grown up.
I gestured to Bert behind the bar for a refill and drank while waiting for him to show up.
It took a bit of time, but eventually he got there. I heard his motorbike pull up first, and that’s how I knew he’d arrived.
The swagger in his step, the self-satisfied smirk on his face, both were very telling of what he thought my invite was all about. What misconceptions poor Denny was under.
“Hey gorgeous, I have to say that getting your text absolutely topped my day.” He buzzed my cheek and sat down beside me at the bar.
I took a gulp of wine and looked him over. “Really. And why’s that?”
He leaned in close to me, his long hair falling over his forehead in a rakish wave, the looks of which helped to serve his bad boy image, I suppose. Through all the intervening years since my time with Denny, I could say the whole concept he had going on, did absolutely nothing for me anymore.
I smiled a little…and held myself back from reaching out and squeezing my hands around his neck until he choked.
He spoke low and close. “I’ll take you back to my place and show you if you like.”
“Ahh, an invitation…other girls should be so lucky.”
“You can be, baby. Just like old times.”
“Old times, Denny?”
“Yeah, before you ran away, baby.” He wagged a finger at me. “You should have never run away. You made me pretty lost, when you took off for Europe—”
As Denny blabbed and spewed his twisted notion of me out of his too pretty lips, I felt myself centering. All of my energy and focus boiled together into a white hot rage that had to find an outlet somehow. To hold it inside any longer, probably would have killed me. I was able to control the rage initially, waiting for my moment, but once he said those words out loud, you should have never run away, I truly lost my mind.
Denny was right, you see. I should have never run away.
I ran away from Neil when I should have stayed.
An out of body experience is a strange sensation. You feel very detached and the sounds in the room become muted. Your body floats above the ground and you can see everything so clearly. It happened to me at the bar. I knew it was happening and I welcomed the altered state of my reality with open arms.
I watched myself calmly from above as I morphed into something rather animalistic, a demon that resembled me, pounding away on Denny Tompkins. Anywhere on his body where I could make contact was satisfactory. I hit, and slapped, and scratched. I tried to rip his hair out of his scalp. My red wine was thrown, along with my purse, and whatever else I could get my hands on to hurl at him.
I could hear a woman screaming in an otherworldly cry. She didn’t even sound human, but the terrible pain and anguish she felt was clear to anyone that heard it.
Eventually, I realized that the woman was me.
Denny got in one good defense blow, once the surprise of my attack was over. He shoved me off him and sent me sprawling down to the floor, my body sliding backward, taking out chairs and stools from the force of the fall.
“Get off me you crazy cunt!” he screamed, welts from my scratches rising up on his skin, blood trickling the corner of his mouth. “What the fuck is wrong with you, you fuckin’ whore?!”
“You know what it’s for! You earned it for what you paid Cora to do to Neil. You paid her to lie to us about the baby. I hope you rot in hell, you filthy, degenerate, cocksucker!”
He drew his fist back to strike me but he never got the chance. Neil clocked him in the jaw, which took Denny Tompkins down. One punch. Out cold, on the scarred floor of The Racehorse.
Neil scooped me up and carried me out of there. He buckled me into his Rover and drove us away. I cried in the seat beside him and fell into absolute despair.
With each tear that fell, the weight of my anguish grew heavier.
Neil didn’t ask anything of me. He didn’t say anything at all beyond a quick check to see if I was injured. “Are you hurting anywhere?”
Only my heart. “No. I’m fine. The calm after the storm.”
I didn’t say another word to Neil after that, not even a thank you for taking out Denny before he could strike me.
He let me be and drove us to my mother’s house.
When he came around to open my door and helped me out, I was grateful, because I was suddenly so exhausted I wasn’t sure I would make it on my own two feet.
I didn’t have to worry about that, either.
Neil carried me inside my house.
I had to shut my eyes. It hurt too badly to be so close up against him, to feel his muscles, to smell his scent, to look at his beauty, and know that I had given it all away. Given it all away for a lie.
He laid me on my bed after pulling off my jacket and scarf. He took off my boots and tucked a coverlet over me. I allowed Neil to take care of me because I was physically unable to do any of it for myself at that moment.
I rolled onto my side and burrowed under the warm blanket. I slept.
The sound of laughter woke me from my sleep back from the dead. I heard Neil talking with my mother. The smooth deep roll of his voice was unmistakable to me. Just something I knew which was buried deep into my memories of the house and our time spent in it together. He’d been there so many times, and helped cook so many dinners, that hearing him gave me a feeling of nostalgia—comfort, from such long known and welcomed memories.
So, he’d stayed after my meltdown with Denny? I couldn’t imagine why he had. Maybe Mum had pressed him to stay and eat since he wasn’t able to the night before.
Don’t think about that night.
I checked my bedside clock.
I’d been asleep for four hours. What in the hell had they been doing for all of that time I wondered. Well, no, scratch that. I didn’t want to know. The two of them were peas in a pod and they always had been. My mother and Neil had no problem spending time together, period.
I hauled myself out of bed and into the bathroom. Bloody hell, I looked a fright. Like a cross between a bush baby and Lily Munster: my eyes were so wide, and my skin so pale.
This repair job was gonna take an extra minute or two.
I went to work on brushing my teeth, washing my face and combing out the rat’s nest camouflaged within my hair. I decided on some yoga pants, and a long pink jumper with blue piping at the neck, hem and sleeves. It was really soft and I could sort of hide in it which was exactly the look I was going for at that moment. I pulled my hair up into an untidy knot and shoved my feet into my baby-blue UGGs.
In fact, I’d love nothing more than to hide in my room for the next week, but I knew my mother, and she would never allow such a thing. Not when we had a guest in our home. I was surprised she hadn’t already been in to drag me out.
“Elaina?” She tapped on my door and called through.
Think of the devil and she appears as if by magic.
“I’ll be out directly, Mum.” I answered.
I sprayed on a spritz of Light Blue by D&G and took a deep breath.
Time to face the music. Or rather, the Mummy and McManus foodie show.
I followed the sound of their chattering down the hall and into the kitchen. Huge surprise there. My inner sarcasm was going to have to take a back seat for a bit, I realized. This was not the time or place to let loose with it.
I watched them for a moment, working together from the doorway. I had to admit, they were rather adorable as I listened in on their conversation. Neil had called her Mum for years and years, and was as much of a son to her as Ian. This was very apparent to me as I eavesdropped and observed, both of them wearing matching chef aprons, Mum with her hi-ball glass of G&T, and Neil with his Guinness.
I headed for the coffee pot and the cup cupboard.
“How was your sleep?” he asked to my back, as I dumped sweetener into my coffee.
“Very much needed,” I said, shielding myself behind the enormous mug and taking a sip of scalding sweet coffee.
Mum came over and felt my forehead with the back of her hand. “Darling, I hope you’re not ill with some horrible flu. Probably didn’t help you were out walking in the freezing rain last night.”
I ignored her reminder about the very traumatic events of the previous evening. I could only take so much. The night’s revelation had gotten me out onto the proverbial ledge and ready to jump. After what Cora revealed, when we spoke in the park, I was barely clinging on by my fingernails.
“No worse for wear, Mum,” I lied, pressing a kiss to her cheek.
I plastered on my best smile and beamed it in Neil’s direction, faking my cheerfulness all the way.
“What are you two concocting for our dinner? Sounded like quite the party going on in here.” I made a face. “In fact, you woke me up with it.”
Neil leaned up against the butcher block counter and studied me. Totally relaxed in his jeans and long sleeved black shirt with the sleeves pushed up. Such a beautiful man. He’d grown into his big body—even more handsome with the added years of maturity than he’d been when he was younger. His hair was lighter than I remembered though, as if he bleached the ends. He had a new tattoo on his forearm, too. I knew exactly what it was as soon as I saw it. Jimi Hendrix’s signature. So very Neil to get that inked on to his skin.
It wasn’t easy to see him like that and not remember what that body looked like without the clothes. And when he was making love to me with it.
Okay, that hurt. I gave myself an emphatic and harsh mental slap on the hand. No more wandering thoughts about the past or what I’d walked away from. I couldn’t indulge or I’d never make it, and Mum and Ian would be visiting me at Bethlem Hospital where I’d be wearing a tight white coat with a very long belt.
“Well if you didn’t wake up you’d never be able to get to sleep tonight,” he said, taking a drink of his Guinness.
“Right,” I said dismissively. “So what are we having?” I peered toward the oven. “Whatever’s in there smells divine.” I inhaled.
“That’s Mum’s perfect roast beef and potatoes,” Neil told me.
“Oh, but Neil went out and bought the nicest piece of beef while you were sleeping, Elaina. He’s thought of everything, even a lovely dessert he’s going to make for us later,” Mum chattered cheerfully.
“Ahh, nice. What will you make?” I asked.
“Fool.”
“That sounds…umm…interesting? I think.”
He laughed. “A fool is nothing more than cooked fruit stirred into freshly whipped cream. Easy, right? If I can make it, then anyone can.”
“And tell Elaina what the cooked fruit is, dear,” Mum told him with barely suppressed glee.
“Oh, yeah, I thought about it and decided to go with…cherries.” He gave me a boyish grin and pursed his lips together to keep from laughing outright.
I rolled my eyes. “Funny. You two are absolutely hilarious together. Make sure to top my portion of Fool with extra fruit, please.”
The act I was playing would be difficult to maintain for much longer before I snapped. It was all fun and games until somebody got hurt, just as the old saying went. I could only march in step for so long before I fell out of formation. The more attention he paid me—the sweet gentle teasing, the kind remarks, the smiles and winks—the worse I felt. It just taught me more about what I’d left behind. What I’d never really have for myself again.
Oh, it was nice that we could be civil to one another now. The über awkwardness was behind us it seemed, but how was I supposed to just go forward with Neil? Former lovers now friends? And for how goddamn long could I stand it? Working at BSI was going to be torture. I should probably start searching for another job.
The utter emptiness inside me, the lack of motivation to find anything remotely good about this scenario with Neil and me, had just up and died.
Later, after dinner had been cleared away and we were onto our Cherry Fool, which had turned out very nice, the fun and games just got more massively surreal.
“Neil darling, tell Elaina all about your wonderful inheritance.”
“Oh, I’m sure she doesn’t want to hear about that, Mum,” he said, focusing on his creamy dessert as a way to avoid the topic.
My ears perked up instantly. Again, I’m the last person on earth to know things about Neil, and the details of his life. But whom did I have to blame for that? I breathed and told my fluttering heart to settle down and start getting used to it.
“Yes, I do,” I blurted.
“Yes, she does,” Mum said, speaking at the same time as me.
Neil’s eyes softened as he looked up at me and I knew what he was on about.
You’re trying to gentle the blow because you know how badly I’m struggling with this.
He knew me so well.
“You’ve gotten an inheritance? But from whom?”
“A great uncle I’d never met. He was the brother of my gran. No living children and I was his closest blood relative.” He shrugged. “Nobody was more surprised than me.”
“When did this happen?” Stupid question to ask him. You know the answer.
“While I was still deployed.” He shifted his body in the chair. “The solicitors had to wait on me to come home. It was months before I could get up there to see the place.”
If I’d stuck around I could have helped him while he was gone.
“Yes, and Neil has a beautiful house on an estate in Scotland, Elaina. There’s a good deal of land for hunting and a lake where you can fish from a boat. Ian’s been up there with him on hunting weekends before. The land is so stunning in photos…oh, and tell her about the cherry trees, darling.”
He looked uncomfortable while Mum gushed about the lovely Scottish country estate that everyone in the world knew he owned, but me, apparently.
I set down my spoon and focused on him, giving him my full attention and a smile. Somehow, I knew what was coming would be painful to hear. Premonitions happen sometimes and this one was gonna sting.
“There are cherry trees on the property,” he began. “An unusual variety that blooms twice in a year. In the early spring of course, but in autumn, after all the leaves have changed their colours and fallen down…they come into bloom for a second time. They call it Autumn Cherry.”
That’s not fair.
When he finished speaking, I blinked to keep my eyes from flooding. I thought I did a pretty good job considering the words that had just come out of his mouth, and the hidden meaning within them. They come into bloom for a second time.
“It sounds very lovely. I hope to see pictures some time. And congratulations, I’m so happy for your good fortune.”
He nodded his head in acknowledgement.
I pushed my chair out and got up from the table with a smile…I think. I was certainly trying my hardest to pull it off anyway.
“You know…I’m going to have to excuse myself for the night.” I brought my hand up to my temple. “My head is just pounding something awful and I think the best thing for me is to just give it up and get back in bed.”
Neil’s soulful eyes rested on me as I babbled away; no judgment, none of the harsh anger I’d seen in them before, just kindness and acceptance. I couldn’t look into them anymore. Too painful to realize I would never be the recipient of those eyes looking at me out of love.
“Mum, Neil, thank you for the smashing meal. It was superb. Goodnight.”
Neil pulled up to his feet in deference to me standing, his manners still functioning perfectly after all the years of training by his gran.
“It was my pleasure.”
I turned and left the dining room. I held myself together until I was just in the doorway—when I heard him say it.
“Feel better, Cherry.”
My legs actually gave out enough to cause me to lose step when he said it. Like the slice of a blade across the back of my Achilles. Or across my heart.
I would have made it safely out of there if he hadn’t called me Cherry.
Damn you, Neil McManus.
