In spite of her determination not to think about Aled’s romantic life, living with him over the past six weeks had led Rosie to the conclusion that – if he had one – he kept it safely under wraps.
He’d never mentioned a girlfriend – or a boyfriend for that matter – and he didn’t seem to be dating. Most of his evenings were spent at home: eating, reading, working or watching TV with Rosie. It struck her as implausible that someone this attractive, intelligent and likeable could be single.
She supposed it had taken her a while to see past his reserve and understand that her flatmate’s cool manner was born of good old-fashioned shyness, rather than a superiority complex of the kind James had always suspected. Perhaps the combination of Aled’s diffidence and other people’s feelings of intimidation explained his not being in a relationship.
Now that she saw what lay behind his reticence, however, Rosie almost wished she couldn’t. Her interest in Aled extended well beyond the bounds of what was normal for a flatmate, and convincingly bypassed what would have been appropriate for a friend. She was burning to know who’d sent the mysterious postcard. He’d taken it into his room, rather than pinning it up in the kitchen as Rosie would have done, so she’d had no chance to sneakily glance at it. Who was it from? Had he written back? Rekindled some sort of romance with the woman who’d reached out to him? The idea made her feel strangely nauseous.
She wondered about his family situation, how he’d grown up, where he’d been to university. She wanted to know more about his travels, where he might go next and (although it made her stomach twist) when he might depart. Every time she met Tim, or a member of his building team, in the corridor, she found herself hoping they’d say ‘slowly’ when asked how the top floor renovation was progressing.
Worst of all, she imagined how Aled’s full, soft-looking lips might feel against her skin – what it would be like to be embraced by someone so much taller and larger than herself. Would she feel protected? Impassioned? Overwhelmed? All three, she decided … and no doubt deliciously so.
As if to add to her general sense of confusion, James had been in touch. As Rosie finished her final shift of the week at the deli and prepared to head home for the evening she discovered a missed call and a text from him. His message simply said:
Hey. Just wanted to check in and see how you are. Hope you’re doing OK. X
Fuming, she’d typed and deleted a succession of increasingly snarky responses as she walked home, eventually resolving not to send any of them. She had no idea what his game was, but her best guess was that, almost two months out from finishing with her, he was experiencing an attack of conscience.
In which case, bollocks to him. James hadn’t given a fig for Rosie’s feelings when he’d planned to end their decade-long relationship with a Dear John letter – nor when he’d shacked up with another woman and lied about it. It wasn’t her job to soothe his guilty feelings. On a whim, she blocked his number – and the corresponding high she experienced was the sort she felt sure no drug, legal or illegal, could ever deliver.
To Niamh’s delight, Rosie was more clear-eyed than ever about her tendency to pander to the sensitivities of people who wouldn’t give her the time of day. This included her mum, who had called her several times since their Sunday lunch disagreement to inform her ‘how worried’ the whole family felt about her job/relationship/living situation. Newly impervious to such emotional blackmail, Rosie calmly explained that she was doing well, and that there was no need to be concerned. She also reminded herself that assuaging such concern was not her responsibility.
In what Rosie saw as a bid to raise the stakes, Julie had now changed tack and begun expressing fears for her husband’s health – referencing his high blood pressure, refusal to exercise and enduring love for bacon sandwiches. While Rosie agreed her dad could afford to be more active, she couldn’t bring herself to get wound up about it. Julie’s fatphobia was no doubt at the root of her desire to see Colin take up jogging and shed the (relatively small) spare tyre middle age had bestowed on him – and this fear of excess flesh was something Rosie had no desire to reinforce.
When she got back to the flat Aled was on the sofa, a book on his lap and a glass of red wine in his hand. He was wearing his glasses again, and Rosie berated herself for her immediate, swoony reaction to seeing them.
‘Good day?’ he asked.
‘Busy,’ Rosie said, ‘but fun. It was mostly Tobi and I today. She’s a real sweetheart.’
‘I guess I’ll meet her at the next mandatory karaoke night.’ He rolled his eyes at this affectionate reference to his cousin’s pushiness.
‘I should think so,’ Rosie smiled. ‘I can’t imagine Rhianne letting her skip it, even if she has zero interest in alcohol or singing. What are you reading?’
‘Dylan Thomas – collected poems.’ He held up the book so she could see. It was a battered, well-loved old paperback that Rosie guessed had been all around the world with him. Its cover was faded and wrinkled, and she wondered whether he’d sat by some warm, faraway sea with his dark head bent over it – whether he’d read the verses one balmy night on a balcony beneath the stars. Then her brain supplied the image of the lithe, beautiful woman he might have recited them for, and she felt a little sick.
‘Are you all right there?’ Aled asked. ‘I mean, I know it’s a cliché – Welsh man reads famously Welsh poetry – but you look aghast. Are you that horrified?’
Busted, Rosie thought, as she tried to arrange her face and return his smile.
‘I’m fine!’ she said, her voice tight and shrill. ‘Maybe just hungry. And no, not horrified at all.’
‘I’m thinking of doing some Thomas at school – he’s no relation, by the way.’
‘I didn’t like to ask,’ Rosie said wryly, grateful for the opportunity to lighten the mood.
‘I’m revisiting some favourites and thinking about ways into them that might seem relevant to a bunch of urban sixteen-year-olds,’ Aled explained.
‘Rather you than me,’ Rosie laughed. ‘Though I’m sure it’s great stuff.’
‘It is, and you’ll definitely have heard some of it,’ he assured her.
‘Hmmm, I wouldn’t bank on it,’ Rosie demurred. ‘I love novels but I’m not much of a poetry reader. I think the last time I looked at any was when I studied the stuff in my GCSE anthology, and we both know that wasn’t recent.’
Aled sat up straighter and shook his head at her. ‘You talk like you’re some wizened old woman. What are you, twenty-seven? Twenty-eight?’
‘Thirty-two,’ Rosie said, wincing.
‘Positively ancient, then,’ he said. ‘You’re the same age as me. And regardless of when you did your exams, you must have heard this one:
‘Do not go gentle into that good night
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light …’
Good god. Was he actually trying to kill her?
Rosie was convinced her heartbeat must be audible; it was hammering as though it thought it could thump itself free of her ribcage. This should have been cheesy and embarrassing, but instead it felt poignant. He was showing her yet another side of himself – sharing something that, somehow, she knew was important to him.
Every word Aled read aloud seemed to land on her skin like autumn rain – or maybe like the last rays of a golden afternoon’s sunshine, wrapping her in early-evening warmth. She had heard the poem before, but she’d never felt it. She’d never felt this. The words were magic, or maybe he was.
Rosie didn’t dare speak in case she broke the spell. It was only when Aled cleared his throat that she realised she’d closed her eyes.
‘Well,’ he said, smiling but sardonic. ‘Perhaps I should rethink this idea. You look half asleep … The last thing I need is my Year Twelves reacting to this the way you just did. Half of them might as well be comatose as it is.’
‘No!’ Rosie cried. ‘I wasn’t – it was – I was just listening. It was …’ She fished around in her brain for a word that would imply ‘mildly enjoyable’ rather than ‘intense and intoxicating’. Failing dismally, she finished, ‘… lovely.’
‘OK, all right,’ he said, colouring slightly. He put the book down and asked, ‘What shall we do for dinner?’
Rosie shrugged and said, ‘I’ll see what’s in the fridge. I reckon some sort of pasta might be possible.’
‘Great. Want me to chop?’
‘No, I’m on it – any chance of a glass of that wine, though?’
As she pulled bell peppers, cherry tomatoes and a slightly sad-looking chilli from the fridge, Aled poured her a good-sized glass of red and set it on the counter next to the chopping board.
‘I’m good,’ she told him, ‘honestly – finish your lesson planning while I cook. You can wash up later.’
As he left the kitchen area, something like relief flooded her chest cavity. Being physically close to him right now felt positively terrifying – like standing on a slowly crumbling ledge with no idea what lay beneath, in the full certainty that eventually she’d tumble into the void.
He was right about one thing, she thought, as she glugged olive oil into a pan and watched it start to simmer. If Aled’s students responded to his reading poetry in the same way she had, the consequences would be disastrous. They’d all be half in love with him by the time the bell rang for break.
Rosie’s cobbled-together pasta dish was satisfyingly tasty: a spicy combination of sweet tomato, rich red pepper, chilli and pan-fried bacon.
After eating and pronouncing it delicious, Aled tidied the kitchen while she relaxed on the sofa. Pleasingly full and a little wine-woozy, she flicked through various TV channels, struggling to find anything that wasn’t depressing, half over or dull.
As she happened upon the opening credits of When Harry Met Sally, Aled sank onto the opposite end of the couch and said, ‘D’you know, I’ve never seen this.’
‘You’ve never seen When Harry Met Sally?’ Rosie asked, incredulous. ‘It’s a classic.’
‘So I’m told.’
‘I am shook,’ Rosie said, laughing.
She lifted and pointed the TV remote, keen to change the channel again. She loved this film, but sitting through its romantic ‘friends to lovers’ plot with Aled just inches away was the last thing she needed right now.
‘Whoa, hold your fire,’ he said. ‘Let’s watch it. Assuming it’s not rubbish, of course.’
‘It’s great,’ Rosie admitted, ‘just …’
Just what?
Think!
Find an excuse to switch over.
‘Just …?’ Aled asked.
‘I dunno. It’s a romcom.’
‘So? I’m not some kind of cultural snob, if that’s what you’re thinking. In fact, I’m inclined to think there’s a direct line that leads from Austen to Ephron. Now come on, let’s watch.’
With great reluctance, Rosie set the remote control down on the coffee table and scooched as far back into her corner of the sofa as she could. It was small, and there was barely a foot between them – but it would have to be enough.
Before the film was even halfway through, Rosie felt she could confidently label the evening’s viewing the worst cinematic experience of her life. As Meg Ryan gasped and moaned her way through the most famous fake orgasm in history, she found herself wishing the sofa would transform into some flesh-eating monster and swallow her whole.
While the movie was as good as ever, she lacked the capacity to concentrate on it. Her whole body was humming with a powerful awareness of the person sitting next to her. Illuminated by the dim light of Rosie’s thrifted, 1970s-style lamp and the flickering images from the TV screen, Aled’s face looked like a work of art.
Its clean lines, smooth skin and almost perfect symmetry made Rosie think of the marble busts she’d seen in museums. She could almost believe it would feel like cool, unyielding stone if she touched it, were it not for the warm, clean scent that drifted through the air each time he moved.
It struck her that Aled possessed gravity in both senses of the word. On the surface, he seemed serious – perhaps even solemn on occasion – but the more time they spent together, the more magnetically she was pulled towards him.
Just as a tearful Sally ranted that her ex-boyfriend’s fiancée was supposed to be ‘his transitional person, not the one!’ everything stopped.
The TV went blank, the light from the lamp disappeared and even the street light outside was extinguished.
‘Argh, power cut,’ Rosie said.
‘Shit,’ Aled murmured, shifting uncomfortably and taking a deep breath.
‘Are you OK?’
‘I’m not great with pitch darkness.’
‘Oh. Sit tight, then,’ Rosie said, surprised but sympathetic. ‘There are some candles and matches in the kitchen. I’ll go and get them.’
She fumbled her way to the kitchen, located an ancient bag of tealights, and was back in the sitting room a moment later. She set a line of candles out on the coffee table, then struck a match and lit them.
‘There,’ she said, hoping to reassure him, gesturing at the array of orange flames. ‘This could almost be deliberate, now. Romantic, even.’
Why, why, why had she said that?
Aled managed a short laugh, which made Rosie feel even worse. Clearly, the notion that there could ever be anything between them was absurd to him.
Through the gloaming, Rosie could see he was tense. The stiff set of his shoulders betrayed a visceral reaction to having been plunged into this sudden blackout, and she understood that he was trying to rationalise some long-held fear.
‘You must think I’m ridiculous,’ he said, feeling her eyes on him.
‘Not at all,’ Rosie promised. ‘Is there anything I can do to help?’
‘Nah,’ he said. ‘I’ve tried everything – even had hypnotherapy once. I had a … bad experience when I was a kid,’ he explained. ‘I had the piss taken out of me a lot. I was always a bit different. We were playing a game of hide-and-seek one day – I think I was about nine. The boy who lived next door to us, Robbie … he convinced me to hide in the potting shed on one of the allotments over the road, and they locked me in for a laugh.’
Rosie felt her breath catch in her throat.
‘I was stuck in there for hours,’ Aled continued. ‘It got darker and darker as the day wore on. No windows. I remember freaking out when the last shreds of light disappeared completely. It was pretty melodramatic of me – my overactive imagination, I guess – but I started to feel like I’d never escape. I’ve never quite got over it.’
‘That’s not melodramatic,’ Rosie said hotly. ‘That’s awful. What a bunch of little bastards.’
‘They were just kids,’ Aled said, resigned. ‘And I was an easy target. Scrawny, bespectacled, fatherless … I started reading all the time when I realised that living in my own head was easier than trying to fit in.’
‘Sounds familiar,’ Rosie said. ‘Can I ask … How did you get out of the shed in the end?’
‘Rhianne found me. Heard me yelling, knocked the rusty old padlock off the door with a trowel she found and then threatened to beat the living shit out of Robbie and the others if they crossed me again.’
‘God,’ Rosie said. ‘I wish I’d had a Rhianne in my corner when I was growing up.’
‘How d’you mean?’
‘I was always the butt of the family jokes,’ she told him. ‘My brother was pretty evil to me at times. I remember he nicked my favourite Barbie at one point and made it part of some Action Man war game. He staged an execution – she was court-martialled for espionage, if I remember rightly, on very thin evidence. Anyway, he beheaded her with my mum’s bread knife.’
‘That’s dark.’
‘Yeah. And when I ratted on him I got the usual “it’s just laddish larks” fob-off. I can’t remember him ever being held accountable for crap behaviour. If I’d taken something of his and destroyed it, there would have been hell to pay. When I look back on it we were held to wildly different standards, though I know our parents loved us both.’
‘No wonder things are a bit sticky with your family,’ Aled observed.
‘Nope,’ Rosie said. ‘No wonder at all. What are your lot like? I mean, I know Rhianne, obviously …’
It was a question she’d been burning to put to him for weeks, but something about sitting in near darkness made asking it easier. Moreover, she told herself, moving the conversation on might prove a useful distraction for him.
‘Mam is a bit like Rhi,’ he said fondly. ‘Strong, kind, honest – a little fearsome. She got pregnant with me after a summer fling. My father wanted no part in raising a baby and tried to convince her it was crazy to go through with it – as did her own parents, I think – but she wasn’t having any of it. She stuck to her guns, even though she was young.’
‘What a cool woman,’ Rosie said, shrugging off the thought of a world without Aled in it. ‘What does she do for work, your mum?’
‘She runs a guest house. Rhianne and I grew up by the sea on the north coast, so there were always tourists. I helped out with everything that didn’t involve speaking to scary strangers from the minute I was old enough.’
‘Is that how you learned to cook?’ Rosie asked.
‘Pretty much, yes. But it was only years later that I learned to make massaman curry and all the spicy stuff you like. There wasn’t a lot of call for it in Conwy County in the 1990s …’
‘Shed imprisonments aside, it sounds like a pretty nice way to grow up,’ Rosie said.
‘It was,’ Aled agreed. ‘People thought it was weird, and sometimes took the piss that I didn’t have a dad, but I never felt deprived. I suppose you don’t miss what you’ve never had, and there were enough big personalities in my family that there never seemed to be a father-shaped hole.’
‘I take it Thomas is your mum’s surname? Otherwise you’d be a Bettini.’
‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘She said that if she was bringing a child up alone, he or she would have her family name. I always respected that, and it made me feel closer to Rhianne, too. Her dad was Mam’s brother.’
‘Did your mum never find someone else? Or get married or anything?’ Rosie asked.
‘She did, when I was about thirteen. For years she said she couldn’t be bothered with anyone male except me, until she met Mal. He wooed her like they were in some old Hollywood film, and eventually she let him get close enough that she fell for him, too. They got married a year later and Mam had the twins.’
‘Oh, wow,’ Rosie said, swallowing back the words so they were the kids in your photo before they could incriminate her.
‘Yeah. Gethin and Tiegan. They’re brilliant. I stayed close to home for uni so I could see plenty of them while they were little.’
‘So what made you decide to start travelling?’ Rosie said. It was a bold question – the sort she probably wouldn’t have asked by daylight – but her urge to understand more of him made her reckless.
Aled stared into the candlelight for a moment, then turned to Rosie with a rueful smile and said, ‘The same thing that makes all homely, bookish types resort to drastic action. I had my heart broken.’
‘Oh,’ Rosie said, almost breathlessly. She was desperate to know more but unsure of her permissions. Could she really ask him to elaborate when the story she wanted to hear might cause him pain?
‘It was a long time ago,’ Aled said. ‘She was my girlfriend from our last year of school up until I finished my English degree.’
‘Crikey,’ Rosie said, ‘that’s a long time to spend with someone when you’re so young.’ Involuntarily, she remembered what Rhianne had divulged about teenage Aled: he didn’t get good-looking until we were about sixteen. She found herself wondering – without foundation and very uncharitably – if the girl in question had only deigned to notice him when he became tall and preternaturally handsome.
‘Yeah. Her name was Ceri. I was besotted with her.’ He shook his head, almost embarrassed. ‘We stuck together even though I went off to study. Mam told me I was crazy, of course – that I should have fun, throw myself into uni life, enjoy the independence of living away from home … Honestly, I think she knew Ceri better than I did.’
‘But you were in love,’ Rosie said, her heart squeezing in her chest.
‘I was. Foolishly so. And I thought she was, too, until I graduated. When I was suddenly around all the time, she announced she wasn’t ready to settle down. A week later, I spotted her out on the town with – wait for it – Robbie. Of locking-me-in-the-shed fame.’
Rosie gasped in horror. ‘No way.’
‘Yes, way. In the end, I think she found me interesting and mysterious from a distance but boring up close. I decided then that I had to get away. Going somewhere I’d barely even heard of with nothing more than a backpack was kind of a ‘screw you’ gesture – an attempt to prove I wasn’t the dullard she’d pegged me as. I’ve kind of drifted along from place to place ever since.’
‘She sounds awful,’ Rosie said, ‘and you are not boring. I think you’re one of the most interesting people I’ve ever met.’ She felt herself grow pink and was grateful that he probably wouldn’t notice in the candlelight.
‘Only because you know I’ve lived in Russia and spent a summer at an Italian monastery,’ Aled laughed.
‘Actually, you hadn’t mentioned the monastery,’ Rosie said, arching an eyebrow. ‘But the globe-trotting isn’t what makes you interesting anyway. There’s a lot more to you than that. You have … layers.’
‘Layers, like an onion? Like Shrek?’ he asked, grinning.
Rosie made a face at him. ‘I mean, maybe? What would be wrong with that?’
‘He’s bright green, Rosie. He’s a literal ogre.’
‘He’s the eponymous hero of four films!’ she cried indignantly. ‘And you’ve just proved my point. If someone had told me two months ago that you had a sense of humour, I’d have asked them what they were smoking.’
‘Gee, thanks.’
‘Come on,’ she said. ‘You have to admit you were a bit standoffish.’
‘I’m rubbish at meeting new people,’ he admitted, looking sheepish. ‘Also, your boyfriend hated me from the moment I moved in, and I got the sense he was the jealous type.’
‘Ex-boyfriend. Yeah, so jealous he binned me off for another woman!’ Rosie hooted.
‘He’s an idiot. It’s very much his loss,’ Aled said, with such feeling that Rosie’s stomach seemed to trip over itself.
She didn’t know what to say. Rosie felt the silence between them stretch and grow taut.
Aled’s eyes were ink black in the darkness, and they were fixed on her in a way that made her wonder if he had X-ray vision. She almost wished he could see all the way through her – right down to the part of her that was screaming for him to kiss her senseless.
As though he could read her mind, his eyes dropped to her lips. She pressed them together; a nervous tic she’d never been able to shake.
‘Do you think she was right? In the film, I mean,’ he whispered.
‘Who?’ Rosie asked, her own voice low and confidential. ‘About what?’
‘Sally. About the transitional person. The person who comes after a big relationship being someone who usually doesn’t last.’
‘Oh.’ She frowned, then said: ‘I don’t know. Surely you’re in a better position to answer that one, if you and Ceri broke up years ago.’
‘You’d think. But there’s barely been anyone since then. It’s not often I meet someone I feel at home with.’
The words weighed heavy in the air. They seemed laden with significance, but Rosie couldn’t make full sense of their meaning. The idea that he’d ever be short of female company was ludicrous to her – yet that was what he’d implied.
Unable to resist asking, Rosie said: ‘Was it Ceri who sent you that postcard?’
Even in the dark, she could see Aled’s expression of surprise that she’d remembered it. ‘Yeah,’ he said, a little grudgingly. ‘Her way of making sure I know that she knows I’m back in the country. According to Rhianne, she’s newly single – and considers me significantly less boring than she did ten years ago.’
Before Rosie could organise her thoughts, let alone formulate a response to this, the TV – now showing some late-night news programme – burst back into life. The sitting room lamp lit up and the street light outside glowed yellow.
‘Power’s back,’ she observed, pointlessly. ‘D’you feel better?’
‘Better than in a long time,’ Aled said, smiling at her softly before standing up to take their empty wine glasses to the dishwasher.