Claire rushed back from a night out at the cinema with Peggy as fast as humanly possible. She left her phone on the passenger seat of her car after dropping Peggy back home and kept glancing over to see if it had sprung to life with a new message. Unfortunately, it stayed depressingly silent.
Was he okay? He said he’d be back at his hotel yesterday at the very latest. She really should have heard from him by now. She pulled over and picked up her phone, opened both her message app and her emails to make sure she hadn’t missed anything, but all she saw was the last email he’d sent almost a week ago:
I’ll miss this … Will tell you all about the mountains when I get back. Next stop, the Yellow River and then on to Xian. Hope you’re not too jealous. Promise you I’m working very hard and it’s actually very boring. It’d be so much more interesting if you were with me. :-) Sleep tight, lovely Claire. Promise you’ll dream of me? N. x
She put her phone down on the passenger seat again and placed her hands back on the steering wheel.
Honestly, Claire, you’re losing it. You couldn’t even wait four more minutes to get inside your front door to check your messages? Just how hung up on this guy are you?
Pretty hung up, she admitted to herself. She hadn’t yet resorted to crossing off the days until he returned on her calendar with red pen, but she was perilously close. Anyway, she didn’t need to. It had been three weeks and one day. In just over a week he’d be home.
She drove home and pottered around her flat aimlessly for a bit before giving up and heading for bed. She wasn’t sleepy, but it was almost around the time Nick might send a message so she decided to get comfy and read while she waited to see if one came.
About an hour later, she yawned and checked her phone again. Still nothing. She hoped that didn’t mean anything. She hoped he was all right. What if something had happened to him?
There was a sudden loud noise from downstairs and she almost jumped out of her skin. Her pulse drummed in her ears, stopping her from listening properly to see if she could hear it again. Was it him? Her neighbour? She hoped so. She’d assumed that he’d shipped out again sometime in the last month, because it had gone awfully quiet. The only other alternative was burglars.
Stop it, she told herself. You’re just letting your imagination run away with you.
She was just settling down again when she heard another noise from the flat below. Was that a hoover she could hear?
She sat there for a moment, listening. Yes, it was a hoover! Thank goodness for that. She’d never have thought she’d be so pleased to hear her neighbour’s night-time wanderings. He must be back from wherever he’d been.
Oh, well, she thought, shrugging her shoulders. Everyone’s got to do their housework some time, and she supposed it was just white noise. It might even lull her off to sleep. That sort of thing worked on babies, didn’t it? He might even be doing her a favour.
She turned off the light, lay her head on the pillow and stretched out, staring into the darkness of her bedroom. Sleep didn’t come, not immediately, anyway. Instead she started thinking about Mr Arden from downstairs, about his documentary that had made her cry and that maybe, just maybe, she’d been a little bit tough on him.
The more she thought about it, the more she realised she was right. The same way she’d done with Maggs the day she’d gone to visit her father, she’d been taking her anger out on the wrong person. Yes, he was annoying occasionally, but he hadn’t really deserved the ticking-off she’d given him, especially in that first note. It was just that once she’d got caught up in all the back and forwards bickering she hadn’t been able to see straight.
Once again, she found couldn’t get the idea of him out of her head. After half an hour of lying there, trying to fight it, she decided to deal with it the only way she knew how. She got up, walked to her kitchen and got out her notepaper and fountain pen.
When she’d finished writing a softer, more conciliatory sort of letter than her others, she folded it, placed it one of her tissue-lined envelopes and licked the flap to stick it down, then she wrote his name on the front and stared at the letter sitting in front of her on her kitchen table.
Unlike her first note, there was no reason to want to call this one back. No sharp words, no misdirected anger. It would be okay to go and deliver it right now, so he’d find it first thing in the morning.
She continued to stare at the letter, wondering if she should just leave it on the table anyway, but in the end reasoned she’d be much more likely to get back to sleep if the whole job was done, so she stood up, shoved her feet in a pair of fluffy slippers so she didn’t make too much noise on the stairs and headed off out of her flat.
She was just stepping onto the tiled hall floor when she heard a noise from his flat and froze. For a moment, she stood there, heart racing, tempted to sprint back up the stairs and dive into her nice warm bed, but she made herself breathe evenly and slowly, waited for her heart rate to slow.
There were no more noises after that. The house was silent, and it would be stupid to go back upstairs, the letter still in her hand, when she was mere feet away from his front door.
Stop being such a wuss, Claire. The only danger you’re facing is accidentally bumping into him in your skimpy love-heart pyjamas. Hardly blood-curdling stuff. Anyway, even if he did hear her and come out to investigate, it would take a short while for him to reach his door, and by then she’d have sprinted up the stairs and be safely back in her flat.
Slowly, working through her feet like a ballet dancer, she crept across the hall, hardly daring to breathe. She was just about there, crouching forward and reaching that last distance to prise the letterbox open with her free hand, when all of a sudden there was light in the hallway of his flat, movement and a strange rustling sound.
Claire tried to reach for the letterbox, but it swung away from her. It took her a split second to realise it was because the door to the downstairs flat was opening.
Oh, heck. No running now.
She closed her eyes momentarily to prepare herself for the awkwardness that was sure to follow and then she stood up straight, opened them again and looked her annoying downstairs neighbour in the face for the very first time.