‘For someone who isn’t sure if she wants to be a vet any more, you’re awfully bloody good at it,’ David said, sliding Valerie back into her cage to rest after we had removed her blockage. As predicted, someone had been eating acorns and it wasn’t Squirrel Nutkin. ‘And it doesn’t seem as though you hate it.’
‘I never said I didn’t want to be a vet any more.’ I reached in to stroke her sleepy head and quiet a twitchy paw. ‘I felt trapped.’
‘And now you don’t?’ he asked, turning the lights down low and following me out into the breakroom. ‘Five weeks in Japan and poof, everything’s sorted?’
Collapsing onto the settee, I loosened each shoulder and rolled my head around on my neck. We’d been in surgery for almost an hour, followed by a good twenty minutes on the phone to Mr and Mrs Beavis. I was grateful, not just because we’d saved Valerie’s life, but also because I couldn’t begin to imagine what kind of a state they’d have been in if things hadn’t gone so well. Explaining to a grumpy man in his mid-fifties that he could not sleep on the floor of the surgery was not how I’d envisioned spending my first night back at home. Still, I hadn’t planned to spend it sleeping in the same hospital myself but it looked like I was going to have to, at least until Valerie came round from her anaesthetic.
‘I wouldn’t say everything,’ I said, curling up into a little ball on the settee. ‘There’s plenty that still needs sorting out.’
‘Domo arigato,’ he replied. ‘What are you going to do?’
‘I don’t know,’ I took a deep breath. ‘Go and see Mum? Go and see Abi? Make Cass come and see me? Make up the fold-out bed and wait for an anaesthetized cat to wake up?’
‘You can call me crazy, but there seems to be a certain option missing from the list,’ David replied. ‘Go and see Adam isn’t an option this evening?’
I closed my eyes and groaned.
‘Planning to leave that until I’ve had a shower and got changed,’ I said. ‘And you know, worked out exactly what I want to say to him.’
‘Didn’t you have five weeks to do that?’
‘And it was not long enough,’ I opened my eyes to see him brandishing a Penguin above my head. I almost snatched his hand off. ‘The only thing I really worked out was that none of us have any kind of clue what we’re doing.’
David contemplated my wisdom while biting his own Penguin in half. ‘Learn that from a Buddhist monk?’
‘I watched Eat, Pray, Love on the plane over,’ I replied. ‘Turns out Japan’s not really a very good place to find yourself. Getting lost and hanging out in hot springs and being touched up by businessmen on the subway, yes. Finding yourself? Not so much.’
‘Then what took you so long?’ he asked, kicking me in the shin. ‘We’ve been dying over here without you.’
‘It was much easier to pretend all the horrible stuff I left behind never happened from a few time zones away,’ I confessed. ‘When you’re trying to order something to eat that doesn’t have eel in it you don’t have a lot of time to worry about suggesting to the entire village your boyfriend’s brother has a tiny penis.’
‘Point taken,’ David said. ‘And speaking of said boyfriend?’
I closed my eyes and held my hand out for another Penguin.
‘He’s missed you,’ he admitted with great reluctance. ‘He wanted to take Daniel Craig. Cass says he’s barely left the house the whole time you’ve been away and I’ve seen him walking around with a face like a slapped arse.’
‘I want to pretend that makes me happy but it really doesn’t,’ I replied. ‘I still don’t know what to do.’
We sat quietly for a moment.
‘Everyone’s had time to think about stuff while you were away,’ my friend said slowly. ‘Adam included. Go and see him.’
‘Now?’
‘Liv, while you’ve been off on your adventures, I’ve been sitting here for five weeks with no idea when, or even if, you were planning to come back, putting up with your dad, and having to deal with a very nice but – let’s be brutally honest – not especially entertaining new vet. He doesn’t watch telly. At all. We had nothing to talk about. And you haven’t even come to a bloody decision about what you want. So help me god, I’m going to take the endoscope and shove it somewhere very uncomfortable if you don’t go and see Adam Floyd right now.’
David’s threats always carried more weight than they should, ever since he threw Abi’s phone out of a moving car on the way to Glastonbury.
‘I’ll go and see Adam then.’
Standing on unsteady feet I scraped my hair back into a bun and pulled out one of a million lip balms from a drawer underneath the kettle.
‘Go,’ David commanded as I started to mess around with my hair in the mirror. ‘You’re bringing me and the cat down and she’s been unconscious for two hours, so just think about yourself for a minute.’
‘Point taken,’ I said, leaving my phone behind and walking out into the night.
After Cassie and Tom left, I’d rearranged my pasta shack five times over but never managed to make it look any better. Eventually, I just walked away. I didn’t even bother to turn off the light. Without really knowing where I was going, I started walking and before I knew it, I found myself at Liv’s door.
There was a light on in the surgery, even though it was late. It had to be David, I thought, pounding on the door. Her dad always clocked off at six, no matter what. I bounced from foot to foot as a shadowy figure emerged from the back office.
‘Keep your knickers on, I’m coming.’
David opened the door with a surprised look on his face.
‘What are you doing here?’ he asked. ‘Where’s Liv?’
‘In Japan?’ I suggested, bouncing from foot to foot. Even though I’d been walking around for an hour before I ended up here, I felt so restless. ‘I came to see Daniel Craig.’
‘Adam,’ David reached out, placed his hands on my shoulders and held me in one spot until I stopped moving, ‘Liv’s back.’
It was like a kick in the nads with an added slap to the chops on the way down.
‘She’s back?’
David nodded before taking an uncomfortable shuffle backwards. ‘I thought …’
‘Thought what?’
I couldn’t believe she was back. I had to see her.
‘I thought she was going to see you,’ David replied, pulling a shawl-collared cardigan closer around him. ‘She said she was.’
‘When did she leave?’ I asked. Now was not the time to ask him where he got his cardi, however nice it was. ‘Could I have missed her? Did she go home first?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said slowly. ‘Maybe you should go back home, in case she decides to pop round.’
‘Do you think she will?’
He didn’t reply.
‘I like your cardigan,’ I said, waving in his general direction and looking away before I could even think about crying. It hadn’t even occurred to me that Liv might be back; all I’d wanted was to see Daniel Craig and possibly borrow a DVD or two.
David straightened his collar. ‘Topman. It’s new, probably still got them in.’
‘Do you think it’d be all right if I ran upstairs and checked on DC?’ I asked. ‘Maybe I should wait for her here.’
‘I don’t think you should wait for her in the flat,’ he said, pity all over his face. ‘Unless you want to give her a heart attack. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind if you wanted to run in and see the cat though.’
‘Yeah, good point,’ I agreed, already on my way round to the back door. ‘Thanks, David.’
The path from the front of the surgery to the back door of Liv’s flat had to be less than a hundred feet but tonight it felt like a thousand miles. For the first time I felt uncomfortable turning my key in the lock, a stranger on her stairs. It had to have been nearly two months since I’d been in the flat but Daniel Craig was right there, waiting for me as always, sitting with his two front paws neatly together, his single back leg tucked in between.
‘Evening son.’ I reached down and picked him up, holding him on his back like a furry cat baby. ‘You been all right?’
He purred agreeably and I walked around the small living room with him in my arms. Liv hadn’t taken down our photographs or thrown out any of my gifts. That had to be a good sign, didn’t it? Although, she hadn’t been there in a month. Chucking out a Captain America cushion probably wasn’t her top priority before she legged it halfway around the world.
‘I came to see your mum,’ I told the cat. ‘I bet you know where she is, don’t you?’
He wriggled around in my arms, meowing to be put down. Even though the boy only had three legs, he was more than capable of cutting me up when he was in the mood and so I let him go, following him over to the settee.
‘So, did you meet that other bloke?’ I asked, absently opening a ring binder lying on top of the coffee table. ‘I hope you scratched his eyes out.’
I must have leafed through at least five pages before I realized what the binder was. Cakes, rings, big white dresses. It was all wedding stuff. Liv had started collecting wedding stuff. Not only did she know I was going to propose, she actually wanted me to. Daniel Craig meowed loudly, relieved that I was finally catching on.
‘I’m such a bloody idiot,’ I said, falling backwards onto the settee, ring binder in my lap. ‘All of this could have been avoided if I hadn’t been such a massive pussy.’
The cat yowled in agreement.
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘That’s probably an offensive term to you and your people.’
I stared at him as he head-butted me in the stomach. Whatever else she might be doing while she wasn’t at my house, I knew it wouldn’t be long before she came home to Daniel Craig.
‘Do us a favour, DC …’ I reached into my pocket and pulled out my grandmother’s engagement ring. ‘Can you give this to Liv for me?’
Holding him still between my knees, I unfastened his collar and slipped the narrow gold band of the ring onto the stretchy black fabric before clipping it back together. David was right. I couldn’t be here, it wasn’t fair. Besides, Liv hated surprises.
‘Looks good on you,’ I said, kneading him between the shoulders and closing up the binder. ‘Hopefully I’ll see you soon.’
I turned out the lights, half wanting to leave one on for when Liv got home but knowing that she would only panic that someone had been in the flat. Miserable, ringless, and with a head full of pasta recipes, I headed back down the stairs, taking them two at a time before letting myself out for the last time.
‘Oh my god!’
‘Liv, you scared me.’ Six feet four inches of Adam Floyd leapt out of my doorway as I turned the corner and for the first time in my life I understood the phrase to jump out of your skin. I pressed my hand to my pounding heart and Adam dropped his keys to the floor. We both bent down at the same time and our heads clashed.
‘First you try to give me a heart attack and then you head-butt me,’ I muttered, rolling arse backwards into the gravel. ‘Thanks.’
‘Sorry,’ he said, squatting on the front step and rubbing his forehead. ‘You made me jump.’
‘I made you jump?’ I stood up, gravel stuck in my palms, any jet lag fatigue a million miles away. I was more than wide awake. ‘You’re the one creeping around in my flat. What are you doing here?’
He looked at me in the strangest way. Or perhaps it wasn’t that strange. Perhaps I’d just forgotten. I looked back. Had there been flecks of grey at his temples before I left? His stubble was longer than before, almost a beard.
‘You’ve got pink hair?’ he said.
It should have been a statement but instead sounded like a question.
I couldn’t stop staring at him. We hadn’t seen each other for five weeks but it might as well have been a lifetime.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked. ‘Where were you?’
‘Yes,’ I replied, still picking gravel out of my palms. ‘I went to Japan.’
‘I know,’ he said, brushing his hand through his hair. It was definitely longer. ‘I meant, just now. David said you’d gone somewhere.’
‘You were upstairs?’ I deflected, pointing at the door. ‘In the flat?’
‘Yeah.’ Adam ducked his head away from me, seemingly just as embarrassed as I was. ‘I was saying hello to the cat. I didn’t know you were back.’
‘That cat?’ I pointed as Daniel Craig came running down the stairs and pelted past the pair of us, a little tortoiseshell blur.
‘Shit!’ Adam shouted, scrambling to his feet and throwing himself after DC. ‘Where did he go? Can you see him?’
‘Calm down,’ I said, brushing off my knees. ‘He’ll come back.’
‘No!’ Rubbing his hands against his face, Adam shook his head over and over. ‘No, no, no. We’ve got to find him.’
‘He’ll come in eventually,’ I said, watching as he ran off into the car park. ‘Probably as soon as I manage to fall asleep.’
‘He – I – on his collar,’ Adam looked back at me, clawing at his throat. ‘We’ve got to find him.’
‘He’ll come if we shake his food,’ I assured him. ‘You’ll never find a cat in the dark if he doesn’t want to be found.’
‘You’re the expert.’ He put his hands on top of his head and stood next to my car, staring out into the woods. ‘God.’
I trotted upstairs, pulling my jumper down over my bum as I went, too conscious of Adam trailing right behind me.
‘Here.’ I handed him the glass jar of treats I kept on the shelf by the door. ‘Shake this and he’ll be back in two seconds.’
He took the jar and ran back downstairs, shaking it like it was a pair of maracas and he was playing backup for Ricky Martin as I watched from the doorway.
After I left the surgery, instead of walking over to Adam’s, I got straight in my car and drove up and down the A1, blasting my music and trying to clear my head. One thing I’d missed in Japan was my car. Nothing made more sense to me than tearing down country roads with my music blaring. It didn’t matter how many gongs I struck at how many Buddhist temples, nothing ever gave me that kind of clarity. Eventually, when I got back to the village, I drove straight over to Adam’s house.
But he wasn’t there.
Standing at the top of the staircase, I looked down at the man who was patrolling the car park, shaking a jar of cat treats as though his life depended on it.
‘I went to your house,’ I called out. ‘Why is your garage full of pasta?’
He turned and stared up at me, squinting against the bright light of the staircase.
‘You went to my house?’
I nodded.
‘Why?’
‘Why did you come to mine?’ I countered.
‘I told you, to see the cat.’ He spoke stiffly and didn’t bother to turn to face me. ‘Did you have a good time? In Japan?’
‘I did,’ I confirmed. ‘I can see why you love travelling so much. It’s different to going somewhere on holiday, isn’t it?’
‘Totally different,’ he agreed. ‘I’m glad you enjoyed it.’
The strained formality between us kept me pinned to the spot.
‘I missed things, though,’ I said slowly. ‘Being away makes you appreciate what you’ve left behind, I think.’
He shook the treats once more before giving up.
‘I really missed the surgery,’ I explained, taking one small step down the staircase. ‘I was surprised how much, to be honest. And, you know, it’s tough being away from your friends and family for a long time.’
‘And Daniel Craig,’ he suggested, wandering back towards the staircase and sitting on the bottom step.
Two more steps.
‘And Daniel Craig,’ I agreed.
I hopped lightly down the last few steps.
‘And you.’
He was shaking as I sat down beside him.
‘Sometimes,’ I said in a voice so light I was worried my words would float away, ‘you need a break to see what was already broken.’
‘I messed things up.’ Adam’s hands hovered over his kneecaps, the jar of treats tucked in under his legs. ‘I was so scared of getting it wrong, I convinced myself it was better not to do it at all.’
‘I thought everything was fine before Mexico,’ I whispered, picking up the jar and turning it around in my hands. ‘But it went so wrong, so quickly. It shouldn’t have been that easy to ruin what we had. That’s not your fault.’
‘But if I’d got it right the first time round, we would never have gone through all this,’ he argued, emphasizing the last word by waving at the air in front of us with both hands. ‘There was no need for any of it.’
‘There was every need,’ I corrected him gently. ‘If you’d proposed in Mexico and I’d said yes, everything that happened when we got back would still have happened but it would have been even more complicated. Dad would still have caught me off guard with the surgery, you would still have met her.’
‘Nothing ever happened between me and her,’ he said, insistent. ‘I don’t know what Cass and Chris told you but nothing happened at all.’
‘Feels like it doesn’t matter now,’ I replied, looking out into the night and spotting a pair of bright green eyes flashing underneath my car. ‘Anyone else was a symptom of the problem, not the cause.’
‘Liv …’ Adam looked down at me with the saddest eyes. ‘I have been so unhappy.’
‘I haven’t,’ I admitted and Adam wiped a hand over his tired-looking face. ‘I was before I went away, and then the last few weeks were amazing.’
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, head in his hands, took some cat treats from the jar and put them by his feet.
‘But I still missed you so much.’
It was hard to get the words out and I steeled myself for my own reaction to the truth as what I was saying filtered through to Adam. For the first couple of weeks I had written off the sleepless nights and constant aching as homesickness and then just the feeling of being a stranger in a strange land. It was only when I booked my ticket home and I realized I would have to see him eventually that it all came into focus. I wasn’t sad – I was scared. Scared that it was truly over between us.
‘Everything I did, everywhere I went, I wished you were there with me,’ I admitted. ‘Every day.’
‘Oh.’
That was it? Oh? I wet my lips and started again.
‘I didn’t know if you’d want to see me,’ I said, letting go of the glass jar and taking hold of his hand. He kept his eyes straight ahead but he didn’t pull away. ‘I didn’t reply to your emails.’
‘Rude,’ he sniffed and swiped at his eyes with his forearm. ‘I thought you might not have internet or something.’
‘That was only for a week when I was staying with some monks but, trust me, that’s another story,’ I replied, staring at our interwoven fingers. ‘I just didn’t know what to say.’
‘But you do now?’ he asked, turning to face me with tears on his cheeks.
We were both crying but I was smiling. It had been so long since I had looked at his face and seen my Adam looking back. All the fear melted away and all that was left was relief.
‘Before I left, I had a chat with my mum and I didn’t get it at the time,’ I said. ‘She said people run away from things when they’re hard because they want something easier and she was right. It’s so much easier to stay angry than it is to forgive someone. Only, it’s not nearly as important.’
‘So you forgive me?’ Adam’s voice cracked as he spoke.
‘And I really hope you can forgive me,’ I nodded.
The night was still and cool, not quite cold but not nearly warm enough for us to be outside. Even though I knew we were both freezing, neither of us moved.
‘I was wondering,’ I started, my voice thick and stilted and raw, ‘if that offer of yours was still good?’
‘Offer?’ Adam’s mouth hung open for a moment before it turned up into a smile. ‘Really?’
‘Why not?’ I replied with a happy shrug. ‘We can’t make a bigger cockup of things than we already have, can we?’
The green eyes shot out from underneath my car and ran across to the pile of treats by Adam’s feet. Daniel Craig looked up at the pair of us, glancing back and forth, and pulling his treats towards him with one paw.
‘Good timing, son,’ Adam said, picking him up and placing him in my arms, Daniel twisting and yowling and desperate to get back to the treats. He was such a junkie. ‘There’s something you might like on his collar.’
Dodging an attack paw, I ran my finger around the cat’s neck, stopping when I found something that certainly wasn’t there when I went away. It was a gorgeous sapphire and diamond ring.
‘It’s a bit Liberace for him,’ I said, turning it around in my fingers. ‘I don’t think DC is into that much bling.’
‘Is it a bit Liberace for you?’ Adam asked, shuffling off the step and onto one knee. ‘This didn’t go very well last time, but third time’s a charm.’
I opened my mouth to say something funny, but instead, all that came out was an echoing sob. I held Daniel tightly against his will as Adam unhooked the ring from his collar. The second I let go, he tore off upstairs, meowing in dismay at being made an unwitting participant in Adam’s proposal.
‘It’s my grandmother’s ring,’ Adam said, sliding it onto the third finger of my left hand. ‘And even though you never got to meet her, I know she would have loved you. Although I don’t know if you’d have been so keen – she was a bit weird, my nan. Used to think she could control the buses and you know, slightly racist. Other than that, though, really lovely.’
‘You’re really selling this,’ I replied staring down at the ring. ‘Luckily, it’s beautiful.’
‘Every day without you has been horrible,’ he carried on, his smile growing by the second. ‘You make me better, and hopefully I don’t make you worse. Liv, I want to marry you.’
I laughed, the sound bubbling up out of me like a language I didn’t know I knew.
The ring was beautiful, whether it came with some sort of telepathic control over the bus timetable or not. A vintage, oval-shaped dark blue sapphire, flanked by three diamonds on either side, almost like a little bow tie.
‘Adam Floyd,’ I replied, holding his hand tightly. ‘I want to marry you too. Also, no one else has asked me.’
‘Do you want to make a few calls before you commit to anything?’ he asked, tears on his dirty cheeks. ‘I can wait a minute.’
‘I’ll probably just put something on Facebook,’ I said, rubbing my nose against his. ‘So, if I get any messages in the next couple of days, I reserve the right to change my mind.’
‘And that’s why you’re the best.’ He pressed his lips to mine and I felt a welcome, familiar warmth all over my body. ‘You’re so practical.’
‘I try,’ I said, kissing him back with head full of jet lag and a heart full of joy.
‘So,’ Adam said, pulling away and holding my face in his hands. ‘You’ll marry me then? I’m going to need a definite yes.’
Holding out my hand I looked at his grandmother’s ring and then back at him, grubby and messy, wearing a dirty T-shirt and jeans, sitting on the floor outside my flat. It was exactly how I wanted him.
‘Why not?’ I replied. ‘I really hated Tinder.’
‘That’ll do,’ he said, pulling me towards him for another kiss. ‘And I’m holding you to it.’
‘You’d bloody better,’ I threatened, our faces close together, arms around each other’s necks, my lips tingling. ‘Although I have another important question: have you got any food in? I’m starving.’
‘I’ve got pasta,’ he offered, cupping my face in his palms. ‘And nothing but pasta for at least the next six months.’
‘You’re weird,’ I said, laughing.
‘You’re weird,’ he echoed, planting a kiss on the end of my nose.
Sometimes, I realized, life didn’t work out quite how you’d imagined it would.
And sometimes life was all the better for it.