There’s a knock on the front door. I’m upstairs having a clear-out. Bunging all my old clothes that don’t fit me any more into black bin bags and I am about to head to the charity shop. I’ve got some fabulous new ‘pieces’ as Ramone calls them, so I don’t need these ‘saggy baggy’ clothes any more. No more zis trackpants! It was Ramone’s idea for a blitz. Plus, half of them don’t fit me. Today, I’m wearing some indigo jeans and a white shirt. I have more time to go to the gym now, fewer cleaning jobs and things have toned up. It feels good. My fresh start, beginning with looking after myself.
I clatter down the stairs humming to myself, and open the door.
There, standing in the early October sunshine holding some ‘L’ plates in his hands is Daniel. ‘Heard someone round here badly needs driving lessons? Her driving’s a bit rubbish.’ Daniel’s looking at me, a deadpan expression on his face.
I want to hit him. I want to run up and scream at him and beat my hands across his chest for making me so miserable. I want to hit, and hit and hit his muscly chest with my bare hands, dig my nails into his skin… But I’m rooted to the spot. And I can’t ignore this explosion of emotions bubbling up inside me, as well as anger – it’s the tiniest bit of joy, that he’d turn up unannounced. Nevertheless, I’m fed up of people walking all over me. I will talk to him when I’m ready. I start to close the door.
‘Whoa, whoa there. Listen, let’s go out. Charlie, OK?’ he says, his arm outstretched to stop the door closing, his eyebrows raised, a smile in his eyes. ‘Shall we drive to Merchant Hills, take a walk – and talk – Charlie? You haven’t been answering my texts.’ He’s looking straight at me. ‘And the last time I tried to call you, you hung up on me.’
Well there’s a reason for that. I don’t know what to say to him. I don’t know how I’m meant to feel. But I suppose I can at least listen to what he’s got to say. I nod and turn to fetch my bag from the hall.
We drive in silence through Chesterbrook towards the turning for Merchant Hills; it seems too hard to speak. Where would we start? There’s oceans of unspoken emotion between us. Rather than ‘water under the bridge’, there are gallons and gallons of feelings, tears, pent-up aggression and God knows what else that I feel right now. Does his girlfriend know he’s here? It’s easier to sit in silence. I feel light-headed, yet so frustrated at the same time.
The keys jangle in the ignition, and I’m acutely aware of Daniel’s hand inches away from me on the gear stick. I glance over at his arms, at his familiar little tattoo, the one he got from a trip to Peru of the Andean Cross (a cross with a circle in the middle), which is poking out from under his rolled-up shirt on his tanned skin.
I look out of the window at the passing cars to stop myself staring any more. Maybe his girlfriend likes it too? Maybe she has traced the outline with her fingers? I imagine her making little circles then following a path up his inner arm, across his strong biceps, over his shoulder, across his collarbone, then along his Adam’s apple and up to his lips. And maybe he’d then let her trace her fingers gently along those lips before taking those fingers in his mouth, sucking them, kissing them, then leaning over, kissing her. I shake myself violently with the thought.
‘You all right?’ Daniel glances at me, his hands firmly on the steering wheel.
‘No,’ I mutter.
We pull into the car park. Daniel steers the car into a spot at the back, and pulls on the handbrake.
‘You look great by the way.’ He turns to smile at me and folds his arms, making his biceps look even bigger. I frown, but feel my cheeks heat up. ‘And you looked stunning at the ball – I didn’t get a chance to tell you.’ He grins at me, as some of my determination to be angry with him melts away and I am cross with myself. ‘Because you won’t take my calls!’
‘That’s because—’ I turn round to face him, but, frustratingly, he’s already turned to the door, opened it and clambered out.
A thousand tiny butterflies start to dance on my heart and I shake myself. No, you don’t, I’m angry with you! And we need to talk.
We take our usual path towards the woods. It’s easy to walk with him and we fall into step together as we wander up to the viewpoint. It’s hard not to remember the magical scene in the winter, with the late afternoon sun shining down on us when I believed all was well with the world, that I’d found my soulmate in him.
We carry on walking. I will just wait for the right moment to talk about Tyler, about his girlfriend. But then why not, why can’t he have a girlfriend? It’s not against the law. A wave of sorrow settles on me. I’m acting like a four-year-old. I glance around: some of the trees are just starting to turn a coppery brown, a few leaves have already fallen leaving an early autumn lace patchwork on the grass, but it’s still warm, about eighteen degrees even though the breeze is cool. The ground underneath is dry and solid. Dust springs up after each footstep. A white terrier runs past and barks, then starts to sniff at a puddle on the ground. It was about here, on Christmas Day, that Pixie had run off into the woods.
‘Let’s wander this way.’ He gestures to another path. ‘I need to talk to you.’
I nod.
‘I found a photo,’ he says, quietly.
‘A photo?’
‘Yes. A photo of you, when you’d sent Lucy a letter – remember, with your photo, seventeen years ago, so she could show me ‘our surrogate’. I was clearing out all the old boxes that were under my bed, the ones I’d been ignoring since I got back to this country – the ones I knew would bring back memories for me, that would be too hard,’ he says and I look up at the path ahead of us, and am acutely aware of my breathing. ‘I’d been putting it off for ages and ages. And then, one day, I was going through them and it hit me like a boomerang: suddenly there you were, with your little dimples and fragile smile – your beautiful hair.’ He stops and reaches out to touch my hair. ‘And I realised it was you. And I put two and two together about you knowing someone on Magnolia Drive, where we used to live.’
I can feel my heart start to beat faster.
He carries on and I walk in step with him. ‘Only Lucy never did show me,’ he continues. ‘She didn’t have the chance. I looked at the date; it was dated the day before she died. All Lucy had told me was that you were a lovely girl, but I had no idea it was you, Charlie. For a long while, I didn’t realise – you have to believe me. When I first met you, I just enjoyed your company. We had fun, didn’t we? And you wouldn’t have known it was my wife as she kept her maiden name when we were married.’
I suddenly do remember the photo. ‘I forgot all about that photo, yes.’ I nod. ‘Lucy said she wanted one of me, just to keep in the “files” – just to have.’
‘It brought back so many memories, seeing that letter, remembering that time with Lucy, how excited we were that we were going to have a baby… after she’d been told she was infertile. The heartache that brought – all the decisions we had to make. And then she found you. She just said she’d sorted it; she was very efficient like that, in control.
‘And I also remember all those years ago that letter you sent to me, after Lucy died, explaining what you were going to do—’ He stops almost as if he can’t bear to say it and looks up to the sky.
I stand next to him as a thought occurs to me. ‘But once you did find that photo of me, Daniel, why didn’t you say anything?’ We both start walking again, and as I turn to look at him, desperate for answers, sunlight is filtering across us both, dancing on his broad shoulders.
I push my hands into my jacket pockets and look at the stones on the path, force my feet to walk one foot in front of the other.
‘Look, when I saw the photo,’ he begins again, ‘and realised it was you, that you had been our surrogate all those years ago, I’d already – well, and then when I saw Tyler, I just— I knew…’
I stop. ‘That I hadn’t gone through with it? The abortion?’ I bite my lip.
He nods and reaches a hand out, holds my arm gently to turn me round to face him.
‘I couldn’t go through with it,’ I say. ‘How could I? I couldn’t let the baby go, even though I’d written that letter saying I was going to…’ I stare at his face, at those crinkles at the edges of his eyes, where the South American sun has made its mark. I’m trying to process it all, the memories of that time washing over me – the sadness, the pain. ‘I was so young, Daniel. Only a year older than Tyler is now; no wonder I was confused.’
‘Of course you were. But Charlie, your – our?’ He smiles and squeezes my upper arm. ‘Our son is a wonderful young man – and talented. You’ve done an amazing job. I can’t believe I didn’t want— wanted to—’
‘Why?’ I’ve been chewing this over more and more recently.
Daniel rubs his forehead distractedly. ‘I was twenty-five, much younger than Lucy. People used to joke that I was her “toy boy”.’ He smiles. ‘I couldn’t handle it, back then. I felt that if I couldn’t have Lucy, then I didn’t want any part of her in a baby. I didn’t realise then how wrong I was. I was all over the place when Lucy died, you’ve got to believe me, I…’
‘But why didn’t you talk to me when you knew, when you’d figured it out?’
‘Because I realised you didn’t have a clue who I was, and I didn’t want to shatter what we had. I was beginning to feel, well, so close to you then.’
‘But why didn’t you tell me, once you knew?’ I hold my breath. My heartbeat is off the scale; surely Daniel can hear it.
‘Because I didn’t know how you’d react to me once you found out: the man who asked you to get rid of the baby – can you imagine? I was in an impossible situation. On the one hand, I was desperate to tell you, on the other, I didn’t want to break it up. I was getting very fond of you.’ He’s staring right at me. ‘But when I found out you were being a surrogate again…’ He shakes his head. ‘Well, it opened up all sorts of old wounds. I felt mixed up and I didn’t want you to feel obliged to me, to feel that you had to see me… I don’t know, I didn’t want you to know the truth, if I’m honest, because I didn’t want you to feel that you needed to see me out of a sense of duty – I wanted you to want to be with me. I was really confused. And then, you stopped answering my texts, you shut me out and I didn’t understand why – after that time at the park, I thought we were getting on – I, I – presumed you’d gone off me, I don’t know. I wanted to talk to you then, but you went all weird on me.’ His eyes look down at the path, as he scuffs the ground with his shoe.
‘So you turned to someone else instead?’ I realise that’s when he must have fallen into someone else’s arms, when he started seeing ‘L’. I need to know if he’s telling the truth about this and everything else, so I take a deep breath and plunge straight in: ‘That’s when you started seeing your girlfriend, “L”?’
His shoe stops mid-scuff and looks up at me. ‘What?’
‘You know, the one who was texting you, her initial was “L” – I’m sorry.’ I squint in the sun and look up at his worried face. ‘I read your text in the car that day when you went to get a drink – I know I shouldn’t have. And that’s when it started. After that you were just kind of “off” with me.’ I look down at my toes, ashamed of what I did. ‘And,’ I quickly blurt out, while I still have the nerve, ‘that’s who you were dancing with at the ball – you don’t have to say anything, it’s OK.’ I shrug and start to walk on.
‘L?’ he says behind me, then suddenly grabs the belt-hoop on the top of my jeans and yanks me back. He scratches his head.
How can it be so hard to recognise your girlfriend’s name, for goodness’ sake!
‘God, no!’ He suddenly looks at me. ‘That was Lucinda, one of my ‘young at heart’ clients. But she’s seventy-nine!’ A grin has spread across his face. ‘I take her to ballroom dancing lessons on a Tuesday evening – that’s how I knew Veronique, Eric’s dancing teacher at the ball. That’s who I was with at the ball, Veronique. Charlie, you stopped answering my texts after that day in the park. I thought you’d gone off me. I was, I don’t know, pissed off, confused.’
A thought suddenly occurs to me. ‘You paid for the damages, to my neighbour’s van?’
‘It’s all I could think of, to do something for you, from me, to get your attention. I thought you’d call me after that.’
My head’s spinning and blood is pounding in my ears. ‘Really?’ Is he telling the truth?
Daniel nods and there’s a peculiar smile on his face. ‘I’m telling the truth, Charlie, why would I lie about that?’ He’s taken a step closer to me. ‘Why would I visit you and come here and go for a walk if I didn’t want to see you?’
He has a point, but I thought he wanted to discuss Tyler. I’m so overwhelmed now I can’t think straight. ‘Well – and, are you, are you still confused?’ I say as I shuffle my feet, then look up at him. ‘I mean, about everything – about – I can barely say it – “us”?’
A red and purple butterfly has just landed on a nearby leaf. It’s fluttering its wings, which have dramatic black eye-spots on them. Slowly, the wings close up together as it stills itself on the leaf. I watch the butterfly behind Daniel, then return my gaze to those chestnut eyes. He is right next to me. I know the details of his face, the way his fringe sometimes goes in his eyes, and he flicks it off absentmindedly. His face is clean-shaven now, so smooth, and there’s a tiny scar just under his chin that I’ve never noticed before. What would his cheek feel like? Silky like a rabbit’s ear?
‘No.’ He interrupts my thoughts and takes my face in his hands as I hold my breath. ‘Not confused at all, Charlie. Will you give me a second chance? I never want to let you go and lose you again.’
‘You didn’t lose me.’ I am shaking.
‘Yes, I did, I lost both you and Tyler. I was young and hurting and I didn’t want to know about a baby and another life, I was left with nothing. Tyler’s such a gift – and you gave him to me without knowing.’ His eyes are filling with tears.
The feelings washing over me right now are overwhelming: elation, happiness, and a surge of something I can’t put a name to. The circle is being closed; it’s relief. Not only have I found my son’s father, I now realise, but he’s the man I have wanted to spend the rest of my life with, but thought I couldn’t. My companion, a soulmate. Someone on my side, for once. But does he feel the same?
And then he leans towards me, puts both hands behind my head, gathers my hair up in one hand, clutches it and pulls me close. And then he’s kissing me. At first, I’m rigid. I still can’t believe it after all these months. He wraps his arm around me and pulls me towards him. All the memories of us being together before come flooding back and I start to melt in his arms. Then all the days and nights of longing, all the evenings sobbing to myself in my bedroom come tumbling across my memory and I kiss him back with such a force that we both nearly topple over.
One of his hands is on the small of my back, the other is firmly holding the back of my head. His fingers are caressing my hair. I can feel his chest beneath mine, his firm muscles underneath. He feels solid and strong and I breathe in that delicious familiar spicy scent of him. Never have I wanted a man so much, and by the feel of Daniel gripping me closer, he feels the same.