If Leo got the hidden meaning, he was too polite to mention it. He was quiet as he walked me home, tired after the long day, but he didn’t kiss me again.
I didn’t go into town yesterday as it was Sunday, and this morning, he and Maggie are rushed off their feet. The queue is long and it’s Maggie who serves me, taking my money and handing me a cup without my name written on it. Leo gave me a tight smile when the bell jingled as I came in but hasn’t looked round from the coffee machines since.
I overthink it as I walk down the road towards One Light, sipping my coffee that doesn’t put as much of a spring in my step as it usually does.
Does he know? It doesn’t get much more obvious than ‘Clarence stops people jumping off bridges’, does it? Is he expecting me to explain myself? Does he realize I’ve been lying to him and can’t bear to look at me? Is he just really busy? Maybe his phone is out of battery and that’s why he didn’t text yesterday? Or because we’ve been texting about the windows and the tree and stuff and now tomorrow is Christmas Eve, there’s nothing left to organize. Maybe that’s it …
‘Hi!’ I nearly have a heart attack on the spot as I turn the corner at the bank and find our two most senior managing directors waiting outside One Light’s door, both in smart suits carrying posh briefcases, and both looking like they’ve been waiting a long while.
The lady, who I met years ago during training and now can’t remember the name of, is rubbing her hands together to generate heat, and the man who I’ve never met is checking his wrist in a way that says he hasn’t read the time once but can somehow prompt my arrival by glaring his watch into submission.
‘What are you doing here? I didn’t know you were due today!’ My voice is so unstable it sounds like a 4-year-old picking up an untuned violin for the first time, and if they can’t tell that the smile I’ve forced onto my face is hiding a litany of silent swear words, they’re due an appointment at Specsavers.
All thoughts of my usual shortcut through the bank are forgotten and I’m suddenly thanking whatever lingering Christmas magic it was that made Leo busy this morning so he’s unlikely to be watching. What a mess it would’ve been if he’d walked me to work today.
‘We just popped down as it’s nearly Christmas and we wanted to see the seasonal displays for ourselves and watch how they’re performing,’ the lady says, and I wish I could remember her name. I can’t ask because she’ll know I wasn’t paying attention in those training weeks, and both of them seem to know me well enough to be in no mind for introducing themselves.
‘And it wouldn’t be a spot check if you knew we were coming,’ the man says.
‘Oh, marvellous,’ I squeak. ‘What a wonderful festive surprise.’
‘Things have really picked up lately so you must be doing something right.’
Oh, if you only knew. I realize the noise I can hear is the coffee sloshing inside my latte cup as I wave it around. ‘Oh, sorry! I’d have got you both one if I’d known you were coming.’
‘Well, maybe you can let us in and get the heating on,’ the man says. ‘It’s five to nine. Customers might be along in a few minutes and we don’t want them walking into a cold shop. People spend less when they’re cold, and we don’t want that, do we?’
‘Of course we don’t,’ I say through gritted teeth, debating telling him that we’re trialling a new Arctic experiment so customers come in, realize they’re freezing, and buy all the coats in a mass coat exodus.
‘So…’ he says.
‘Oh, right! Keys!’ I fumble through my bag, wondering if the keys have gone to bloody Narnia via the pocket at the back where you keep a spare tampon.
‘I hope there aren’t any staff waiting around the back. They’ll be frozen into icicles by now,’ the woman says. ‘Staff-cicles!’
I giggle like it’s the funniest thing I’ve heard all year, trying not to think about Mary, who will undoubtedly be waiting patiently in the car park. Volunteers will be off with their families because it’s Christmas week, but Mary’s still in today.
This must look so unprofessional. I’m late, my keys have made a break for freedom, Mary’s probably lost at least one toe to frostbite by now, but I’ve still found the time to nonchalantly stroll down the road with my all-important latte.
‘Keys!’ I screech as my fingers close around cold metal, yank them out in victory, get my glove caught on the bag zipper, and promptly drop said keys onto a frozen puddle, where they slip and slide away from me and straight into the shiny toe of the nameless man’s smart shoes.
He lifts his toe and stops them, pressing them down into the frozen pavement until I’ve managed to free my glove from the bag and skid across to retrieve them. He gives me a look that says he’s seen a more competent shop manager showing its bum to visitors in the baboon enclosure of the local zoo.
My hands are shaking as I try to fit the key into the frozen lock and end up having to crouch down and blow on it in an attempt to defrost it. A customer walking past stops to look in the window, but takes one look at us gathered around the door and walks away.
The man clicks his tongue. ‘Lost trade. Do you realize it’s gone nine?’
‘No, the church bell chiming nine times didn’t give it away,’ I mutter, momentarily forgetting who I’m talking to.
I wish I could momentarily forget the appalled look on his face too.
The key finally crunches through the last of the ice in the lock and turns. ‘Ah, here we are. Just let me go and rescue Mary from the car park and I’ll be with you. Cup of tea?’
Both give me two orders for varying amounts of milk and sugar, which I immediately forget.
Thankfully, Mary has got a bit more experience of managing directors and shakes hands with the man – who loudly laments about how cold she is – and embraces the woman like an old friend. Still no names though.
She saves my life by offering to make the teas and takes their orders again without showing me up for the nervous idiot I am. With Mary upstairs, I can’t leave the shop floor in case a customer comes in, so I stand there like a plum, still in my coat, bag over my arm, coffee cup in hand.
The managers take the opportunity to wander around inspecting everything. I watch the lady pull out a blouse that wasn’t hung properly, tut, undo the buttons and redo them so it sits nicely on the hanger. I want to tell her that I didn’t put it out like that, someone’s obviously tried it on and put it back wonky, and we closed up in a hurry on Saturday for the tree lighting and we clearly didn’t catch it. I keep my mouth shut. The man swipes his fingertip across the top of the rails, inspects it, and clicks his tongue.
The usual Christmas radio station I have playing quietly in one corner is replaced by a cacophony of tuts and tongue clicks.
I sip my coffee and tell myself to calm down. I have nothing to worry about. Sales are stronger this month than they’ve been for years, even a stray dust bunny lurking under the men’s trousers that I must’ve missed when hoovering isn’t enough cause for them to complain. Our double window display is striking, with all the mannequins standing around a Christmas tree, surrounded by balled-up wrapping paper to make it look like they’ve just unwrapped the gifts on show, the selection of clothing is good because our donations have increased as more people have come back to the high street, and the bric-a-brac shelves are miraculously tidy. There’s nothing for them to find fault with.
The man strides past me and stops to give my latte a death glare. ‘Coffee cup on the shop floor. Unhygienic and unprofessional.’
‘There’s no one here!’
His frown doesn’t let up. I’m tempted to mention something about the consequences of the wind changing but I sigh instead. ‘I’ll stash it under the counter if anyone comes in.’
‘You know the rules. You’re meant to be the one enforcing them. If you have drinks on the shop floor then the volunteers have probably got cups of tea and biscuits and God knows what else out here. I fired a volunteer at another branch for eating a pasty on the shop floor last week. A pasty!’
‘Crime of the century,’ I mutter, thinking I just fancy a pasty. I wonder if there’s any hope of the bakery coming back to Oakbarrow, they used to do a gorgeous pasty.
The woman comes to join the man near the counter. ‘We were admiring the artwork on that coffee shop up the street. Looks a bit like the sort of thing you usually do on these windows. Your handiwork?’
‘Me?’ I squeak. ‘What shop was this again?’
She nods to the latte cup in my hand. ‘That shop.’
‘Oh!’ I give the cup an offended look, like it has somehow placed itself in my hand without express permission. ‘No, I don’t know anything about that.’
‘Only it is Bedford Falls, isn’t it? And you are, of course, Georgia Bailey. I thought there might be a connection.’
‘Not at all.’ I give her a smile so falsely sweet that a child would only have to look at me for their teeth to fall out. ‘I only work on our windows. Gotta have something to make us stand out,’ I trill, wondering if the cereal I had for breakfast was actually budgie food by mistake.
Mary rescues me once more by choosing that moment to pop her head round from the back room. ‘Two cups of tea and a packet of choccie biccies we were saving for a special occasion,’ she says, thankfully having the sense not to bring their drinks onto the shop floor like I would have. ‘Shall I take over on the till and you can all go through?’
‘Thanks,’ I mouth to her as they file out the back, only to be met with half the room buried under unsorted black plastic bags full of donations.
‘Not many of the volunteers have been in this week because it’s nearly Christmas,’ I say by way of explanation.
‘Volunteers or not, this is a hazard.’ The man nudges one of the bags with the toe of his polished shoe. ‘I suppose you were just going to leave it all here over Christmas? There could be anything in those bags. If you don’t have volunteers, you do the sorting yourself. You are paid staff, are you not?’
‘I was going to do it today,’ I lie.
‘With only yourself and Mary to cover the shop floor? Who was going to do the take-offs? Who would steam the clothes? Perhaps you were planning to open the door and invite customers to help themselves and pop their own money in the till as a goodwill gesture?’
‘Look, there was this thing on Saturday night for the street, and we left early and –’
The man’s head whips round so fast I’m surprised he won’t need a chiropractor to sort his neck out. ‘Early?’
‘In a hurry!’ I should’ve just given him a shovel and saved myself the trouble of digging this hole. ‘Not early. In a hurry. To get to this Christmas street thing, for community spirit, you know? We were both there, um, promoting the shop.’
‘Did you hand out leaflets?’
‘Er, some,’ I lie again. I try for a swift subject change before they question me any further. ‘Would you like to go upstairs to the office?’
‘No, I think I’ll stay here by this nice warm radiator,’ the lady says, warming her hands above it.
I silently thank Mary for thinking to put the heating on. I had not.
‘Can you bring your paperwork downstairs and we’ll check it over?’ she says. ‘We need to confirm your figures against the ones being reported as there’s been such a spike in sales.’
‘Of course, won’t be a tick,’ I say as I go up the stairs to get it, trying not to watch the man pushing aside piles of unsorted bric-a-brac to make a space on the workbench.
When I get back downstairs with the file of this month’s sales figures and takings, amazingly without dropping the pages all over the place, the woman is still trying to warm her hands up on the radiator and the man is peering critically at the rail of clothes next in line to go out to the shop floor. They’ve both ignored their tea and they haven’t even touched the chocolate biscuits. What is wrong with these people?
‘Here we go,’ I say breezily, putting the file down and opening it out in the empty space that was once my organized chaos workbench. I see an opportunity to find out their names while they’re distracted. ‘I’ll just check Mary’s okay out there. Won’t be a tick.’
Except I don’t get a chance.
‘George!’ Casey bellows, letting herself in the back door.
I flinch at the look the managers’ exchange. It’s easy to see what they’re thinking: security issue.
‘Another Leo situation has arisen in the bank!’ she yells, stopping in her tracks when she comes into the back room and sees the two official-looking people. ‘Oh! I’m sorry, I didn’t realize there was anyone here. I mean, um …’
‘A Leo situation?’
Casey’s eyes meet mine over the rack of clothes, looking for help with an explanation. I wrack my brain trying to think of something. A star sign emergency? An escaped lion?
‘A bloke who brings us regular donations,’ I say in a flurry of inspiration. ‘He gets confused and takes them next door by mistake. Such a silly man!’ I titter. When have I ever tittered in my life?
‘I’ll just go and collect them. Won’t be a tick!’ I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve told them I won’t be a tick now. They’re going to get a complex that I’m trying to get away from them. Would they notice if I left them with the paperwork and just disappeared into the bank until they leave?
‘You’re very squeaky this morning,’ Casey says as I bundle her out the door and shut it behind us. ‘Who are they? Why are there birds outside tweeting in lower pitches than you?’
‘Managing directors,’ I say, trying to regain my normal voice. ‘Unannounced spot check. Did Leo say what he wants?’
‘No, but speaking of managers, Jerry’s off sick and –’
I barely hear her over the rushing in my head. Leo’s come looking for me. Is it to confront me? To say good morning because he didn’t have time earlier? That’s the sort of thing Leo would do – wander down when the shop’s emptier because he was busy before? Maybe all my worrying has been for nothing. Maybe Bernard’s comment on Saturday wasn’t as obvious as I thought.
I yank the back door of the bank open and run headfirst into a man. A very large man. In a very posh suit. Who is glaring at Casey. ‘I was just coming to find out where you’d disappeared to,’ he barks. ‘What is going on in this place? Why am I like a bloody sheepdog having to round up my staff?’
He turns his beady eyes to me. ‘And who the hell are you? You don’t work here.’
‘Who the hell are you? You don’t work here!’ I snap at him, regretting it instantly. What was Casey just saying about managers? His dark blue suit over the familiar light blue shirt of the bank’s uniform says he clearly does work here. Me, on the other hand …
His eyes narrow even further and I do the only thing I can think of. I reach up and pat his shoulder. ‘It’s fine, I have security clearance, I work next door. Won’t be a tick!’
Apparently when in a pickle, telling people you ‘won’t be a tick’ is guaranteed to work.
‘It is not fine!’ the man shouts as I hurry away from him. ‘Call the police! We’ve got a security breach!’
‘It’s honestly fine.’ I hear Casey trying to reason with him. ‘She’s my friend, everyone knows her …’
All I can think about is Leo. Or, more specifically, grabbing Leo by the arm and dragging him halfway up the street before that man shouts any louder.
‘Leo!’ I sound more than a bit hysterical as I barrel headfirst out of the staff door and into the surprisingly crowded bank.
Leo smiles when he sees me and holds a cup of hot chocolate out. ‘My favourite Georgia’ is scrawled on the cup in his looping handwriting. ‘Thought it might be too soon for another coffee, but I wanted to see you. I should’ve said hello to you this morning. Properly.’ He waggles his eyebrows suggestively and no matter what else is going on, my knees still feel a bit jelly-like at the thought of kissing Leo.
‘Who the hell are you?’ the man bellows, the security door slamming as he storms out behind me. ‘What the hell is this about non-staff members having security codes? That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard!’
‘Everything all right?’ Leo asks me.
‘Oh, fine!’ I say, even though I can basically hear the boom of my lies imploding. ‘Utterly fine! Why don’t we go outside for a minute?’
‘Excuse me, Georgia?’ The lady boss from One Light pops her head round the front door of the bank before I have a chance to push Leo through it. ‘If someone’s bringing donations here by mistake, you really must direct them to the correct place. Donations here would be a serious security issue.’
‘She’s a serious security issue,’ the new man yells at her before turning back to me. ‘Who the bloody hell are you and what are you doing in the staff-only area of my bank?’
My eyes flick to Leo as I turn to face the new man. ‘I work here,’ I try, my voice shaking as much as my confidence in this ridiculous plan is.
‘You’ve just told me you work next door. If you work here, why aren’t you on any of the staff rosters? Where’s your staff ID? Why weren’t you here at nine o’clock this morning?’
‘Who are you?’ I counter. ‘You’re the intruder. Why have I never seen you before? Where’s your staff ID?’
He swiftly produces it from his pocket. Hmpf.
All the customers in the bank have turned to look at the source of the yelling, and joy of joys, my managing director didn’t stop at putting her head round the door of the bank but has now come to stand inside, closely followed by the nameless man. They look at each other like they should’ve brought a bucket of popcorn and a large Coke.
‘I was trying to tell you that Jerry’s been signed off for two weeks with tonsillitis,’ Casey says. ‘This is his temporary replacement from another branch, Mr Atherley.’
‘Do you think I don’t know a bank robber when I see one?’ Mr Atherley demands.
‘A bank robber?’ I splutter. ‘Oh, come on. Seriously?’
He crosses his arms and glares at me a bit harder. ‘Behind the counter is strictly off limits to the general public and you’re running around in there willy nilly! What exactly are you doing if not trying to rob the joint? There’s no point playing innocent now you’ve been caught!’
Leo looks like he walked into a bank and ended up in a fridge-freezer.
I give him a smile through gritted teeth. ‘The world has gone nuts. How strong was the mulled wine from The Bum on Saturday? I think people are still drunk!’
‘I’ve clearly come at a bad time,’ he says, gesturing towards the door. ‘I’d best leave you to it.’
Even in the midst of all this, it strikes me how sweet he is. He must have realized what’s going on by now. The replacement manager has just yelled that I’m not staff about twenty times and he’s mentioned me working next door. He knows what’s going on – he’s just making things less awkward for me by disappearing.
Again, I realize how much better he deserves than this.
‘Leo, wait!’ I lean forward to grab his arm just as Mr Atherley grabs mine and curls his fingers around my wrist.
‘Oh no, you’re not going anywhere, Little Miss Thief.’
Leo stops and turns back, half-looking like he wants to run away and half-looking like he wants to lamp Mr Atherley for hurting me.
Which is quite sweet, given the circumstances.
It’s a perfect storm of everything you don’t want to happen happening all at once. All the people you hoped would never be in the same place at the same time are all right there. I can almost hear the Jaws music.
Oh, wait. No, that’s just the police sirens.
‘Yes, you can look worried, girl. “I work next door and someone gave me security codes,”’ Mr Atherley says, putting on a high voice to imitate me. ‘What a lot of nonsense. Casing the joint, more like. The police are on their way. I’m sure they’ll be happy I caught you so early – attempted robbery, trespassing, fraud, and there are many other charges relating to being in the staff-only area of a bank without permission.’
‘This is really just a big misunderstanding. I have permission. This was fine with –’ I cut myself off before I drop Jerry in it. He shouldn’t have ever let me in here, I know that, and I can’t throw him under a bus to save my own skin.
‘I don’t want to hear your excuses. You can explain to the police. Honestly, I don’t know how you ever thought you were going to get away with it.’
‘Me neither,’ I mutter, although I’m not talking about robbing a bank.
‘George …’ Leo starts, but he’s cut off by the flash of blue lights and the slamming of car doors outside.
* * *
Handcuffs are tight, aren’t they?
I’ve been dragged outside into the street to save making a scene in the bank, as if the angry man pacing up and down outside shouting about robberies while a policeman tries to calm him down is making any less of a scene. Except now we’ve got an even bigger audience.
Casey has thrown herself against the door of the police car to stop them taking me away.
‘Oh, come on,’ I say for the millionth time. ‘I’m not a bank robber.’
‘If I had a penny for every time I’ve heard a bank robber say that,’ Mr Atherley scoffs.
‘This is ridiculous.’ I turn to the other policeman who is standing close to me in case I make a run for it despite the handcuffs. ‘Everyone there will vouch for me. I’ve worked next door for years. I know all your staff.’
‘So you’ve used your connections to gain access,’ Mr Atherley sneers.
‘I wasn’t doing any harm. I popped in to see my friend.’ I nod towards Casey who nods emphatically in agreement.
Everyone is looking. The two managing directors are watching with extreme interest, and from the corner by the bank I can see Maggie standing in the doorway of It’s A Wonderful Latte. Mary is in the doorway of One Light, along with every other shop owner standing in their own doorways, and there’s a crowd of people gathered around. But mainly there’s Leo.
He stands out because he’s the only part of this I truly care about.
‘She’s not doing anything wrong,’ Casey says.
‘There’s an innocent, completely reasonable explanation for this,’ I say, hoping no one will actually ask me for it.
The two policemen seem thoroughly bemused by all this. One I recognize from when our charity box was stolen last year; he sat in my office with a cup of tea and did his incident report, and I know he remembers me too. He’s probably trying to work out how I went from charity shop manager to bank robber.
‘I’d love to hear it,’ he says, standing next to Mr Atherley, who is still ranting.
I wonder if distracting them by suggesting anger management therapy for him would help?
I can’t avoid it, can I? There is nothing I can say now except the truth.
I look at Leo, his eyes holding mine across the crowd.
This is it. The truth has to come out. In the most public way possible. I should have been brave enough to tell him before, at least it would’ve been private then.
I go to speak but Leo steps forward before I have a chance.
‘This is all my fault,’ he says. ‘She’s not trying to rob the place.’
‘Maybe you could enlighten us on what exactly is going on here then?’ the policeman next to me asks.
Leo’s eyes don’t leave mine as he speaks. Burning and intense, impossible to look away from no matter how much I want to sink into the ground and never have to face him again.
‘She’s pretending to work there so I don’t find out that she’s the girl who saved my life on the night I tried to kill myself.’
My breath catches in my throat. He knows. I’ve gone from angry at the mistaken robbery accusation to blinking back tears. His eyes still don’t leave mine as he continues.
‘This isn’t a robbery attempt. She isn’t casing the bank. I phoned the charity shop instead of the suicide prevention helpline by mistake, and instead of telling me I was an idiot, she made me want to live again.’
He swallows and I think I’d be able to rip these handcuffs off with the sheer force of how much I want to hug him, but I stay still because Leo would probably rather have a hug from a pissed-off porcupine at the moment.
‘I was a mess, and I opened up to someone I thought was a complete stranger because I thought they were an anonymous stranger,’ he continues. ‘And when she realized, she didn’t want to embarrass me by admitting we knew each other. I wouldn’t mind betting that she told me she worked at the bank on the spur of the moment because she realized I’d figure it out if I knew she worked at One Light, but once it was out there, she couldn’t take it back.’
His mouth curves up into a sad smile and his eyes still haven’t left mine. Everyone else fades away as he speaks. Despite the crowd of onlookers, it’s like me and Leo are the only people here.
‘And I think she’s been hopping back and forth for the past few weeks, pretending to be on a break while someone runs through the back way and tells her I’m waiting in the bank.’
His beautiful blue eyes are earnest now, like he’s waiting for some sort of confirmation from me.
I nod and he nods back, and I can almost see the light go out in his eyes. Maybe it wasn’t confirmation he was looking for. Maybe it was denial. Maybe he wanted me to say he’s got it all wrong.
‘True?’ the policeman next to me asks.
‘Unfortunately,’ I mutter.
‘There we go then. Problem solved. No bank robbers here, Mr Atherley.’
‘You’re not telling me you actually believe that?’ Mr Atherley splutters.
The policeman next to him looks between me and Leo. ‘Oddly enough, I do.’
The other one undoes my handcuffs and gives me a pat on the shoulder. ‘Do yourself a favour, Miss Bailey – stay out of the bank until the other guy comes back. I don’t think this one likes you very much. Can’t imagine why.’
It’s over in a flash. It feels huge and monumental, like there should’ve been a clap of thunder and a strike of lightning or something, but there’s just … emptiness. The police car drives away and everyone disperses. Mr Atherley goes back into the bank and makes the ‘I’m watching you’ gesture at me, before telling Casey she’ll be fired if she doesn’t get back to work immediately. Maggie has disappeared back inside It’s A Wonderful Latte, while some of the gathered crowd have gone into One Light so Mary’s followed them back in. Within a few minutes, the only people still outside are the two nameless managing directors, who are looking aghast and having a hushed conversation with each other.
And Leo.
Who’s just standing there staring at the pavement.
I rub my wrists as I approach him. ‘Leo, I’m so sorr –’
‘Don’t, George. I get it. If you’d said you worked at One Light, I’d have known it was you. I understand why it came to this.’
‘How long have you known?’
He does a self-deprecating laugh that doesn’t sound like he finds anything remotely funny. ‘If I’m honest with myself? Since the day after. You came into the shop and your voice sounded so familiar, and you asked me what I’d done the night before and you bought me a coffee, and I was sure it was you. I saw the moment you realized it was me cross your face, and I’ve only just understood what that look meant. I thought I must be imagining it. Projecting. Wishful thinking. I wanted it to be you, George.’ He kicks at a piece of broken concrete edging. ‘And then we started spending time together and you said so many things that you’d said on the phone, and I kept thinking it was you and then telling myself how stupid I was being, it couldn’t possibly be you.’
I want to say something, do something, march over and pull him into my arms, but he’s tense, his shoulders drawn up, his back hunched over in a harsh curve. He’d look more approachable if he was surrounded by barbed wire and holding a ‘leave me alone’ sign.
‘And, well, we’ve established before that you’re a terrible liar. I knew something was going on with the bank. No one has that many breaks. You don’t know the first thing about banking. Everyone else in the bank wears a uniform. And mainly, I once said to you that someone saved my life, and you didn’t ask me about it. I know you well enough to know that you would’ve pounced on that and not let go until you had an answer – unless you already knew. Bernard calling you Clarence suddenly started to make blinding sense in a way that I understood on some level but I still didn’t make the connection. It was only on Saturday night that I understood what I didn’t know I didn’t understand until then.’
‘Why didn’t you say anything?’
‘I didn’t want to know. I meant what I said on Saturday. I didn’t want this to end. If I knew what I didn’t know then I’d know.’
‘In any other context, that would probably be the strangest sentence you’ve ever uttered.’
He doesn’t smile like I was hoping he would, and I sigh, feeling like the few feet between us on the pavement is six miles wide. ‘I am sorry, Leo. I know you don’t want to hear it but I never meant for it to come to this.’
He goes to speak but nothing comes out. He shakes his head and looks the other way.
I want to touch him. He looks like he always looks when he needs a hug, and every inch of me wants to cross the few steps between us and, at the very least, slide my hand across his shoulder and squeeze. But I know Leo. Sometimes you can get away with pushing him and sometimes you will only succeed in pushing him further away, and I know that if I touch him now, it will be the latter.
‘It’s fine,’ he says eventually. ‘Like I said, I understand why it did. You don’t have to explain yourself.’
This is all so wrong. Everything feels wrong. He says it’s fine but nothing has ever felt less fine than this.
‘Thank you for what you did that night.’ When he turns around again, he’s biting his lip so hard it looks like he’s trying to give himself a new piercing with his teeth. ‘You saved my life. I shouldn’t have asked you not to hang up, but I don’t know what I would have done if you had. You made me feel normal. I’d been feeling alone for a long time and for the first time, I wasn’t alone that night. And I haven’t been since because you made sure I wasn’t.’
He doesn’t seem angry, or hurt, or … anything. His voice is low and monotone, and his face is expressionless.
He looks at my two managers who are now standing to one side and furiously consulting between themselves and a conference call with someone else on a phone the man is holding up. ‘You’ve got the best manager in the business here. Above and beyond. I get that she’s probably going to be in a bit of trouble for all this, but don’t be too harsh. It was my fault, not hers. I phoned the wrong number and begged her not to hang up on me. She saved my life and she’s been working night and day to save my livelihood because of what I told her. She should be rewarded, not punished.’
‘Are you seriously trying to save my job?’ I say in surprise. ‘You must hate my guts right now.’
‘I could never hate you, George. And you saved mine, so tit for tat.’
‘Tit for tat?’ I don’t try to hide the confusion on my face. ‘We’ve come to that now?’
He shrugs.
This is so unlike Leo. He’s cold and emotionless and his smile seems like a distant memory.
‘I don’t care about my job, Leo. I don’t care about the bank or nearly getting arrested. I only care about you. This all got so out of hand. I never meant –’
‘Okay, thanks for all you’ve done.’ He looks me straight in the eyes again and his gaze lingers for so long that I think he’d take less time if one of us was off to the electric chair. ‘Have a nice life.’
Have a nice life?
I don’t think there’s much life left given the way it feels like my heart actually stops beating.
‘That’s it? You’re just going to walk away?’ I shout after him.
He comes back. ‘What did you expect me to do, George? I trusted you more than I’ve ever trusted anyone in my life. I have never opened up to anyone the way I did to you.’
‘But I didn’t use anything you told me. Everything you said on that phone is completely confidential, I didn’t –’
‘I’m not talking about the phone call. I’m talking about you. I held back on the phone. I didn’t hold back with you. I’ve been feeling things for you that I’ve always thought were never going to happen for me. And now I feel like I’ve been conned. You’ve been lying to me for weeks. I thought I felt something special with the girl on the phone but even that was a lie.’
‘How could I tell you I was ten minutes down the road? I wanted you to talk, you needed to talk, and you’d have stopped if I’d said that.’
‘Yeah, and I suppose everything else was just a token agreement too? All that stuff about feeling trapped and being frightened of being alive? Feeling like I felt? Hollow words to prevent another loser on another bridge becoming yet another statistic.’
‘No! My God, Leo, for the first time in my life, someone put into words the feelings I’d had for years and had never had the courage to confront before.’
‘Forgive me for not believing you.’
My breath is coming out in fast, sharp pants, and I can feel myself panicking because he’s going to walk away and there’s nothing I can do about it.
‘This whole thing is an elaborate con. Everyone who I felt comfortable with, people I thought were my friends, our friends who helped us decorate the other night, and everyone knew except me. Everyone was lying for you. Bernard, your dad, Casey, the bank manager, Mary from the shop.’ He glances up towards It’s A Wonderful Latte. ‘I bet even my mum knows, doesn’t she?’
I can’t answer without giving him the answer he doesn’t want to hear.
‘Your silence is enough of an answer.’
I can feel myself losing him and I don’t know what to say to make this better. ‘But no one knew why. I never told anyone that.’
‘I don’t care about that. Let everyone know. Talk about mental health. Suicide is the biggest killer of men under 50. Someone attempts it every forty-three seconds. Even people who are happy and friendly on the surface can be suffering. Anyone can smile in public and in their heads, they’re mapping out where the nearest bridge is. I’m not embarrassed about that. I’m not trying to hide what I nearly did. We shouldn’t be acting like mental health is something to be ashamed of. It affects everyone. No one is immune. Everyone is fighting a battle that we know nothing about.’ He pushes a hand through his hair. ‘I’m not embarrassed because I tried to kill myself. I hope that what happened this morning gets put up online and goes viral so other people see that this can affect anyone. Even people who seem happy on the surface. I hope others see it and know they don’t have to suffer in silence, that there are helplines like yours, that there are people who care, people like you out there who’d go to such extreme lengths to help someone. To save someone.’
‘I didn’t stop you jumping off that bridge, Leo. You stopped yourself. You called me because you wanted to live. I didn’t do that.’
‘You’ve done it every day since. Don’t you get that? You saved my life because I could suddenly picture a future with you. You gave me something to live for, George. Something to look forward to every morning. And I don’t just mean since the phone call. I’ve looked forward to seeing you every day since I opened. For years, I’ve hated Sundays because I don’t get to see you.’
‘Me too,’ I say, feeling abnormally tearful. That’s the kind of thing I’ve wished I could hear Leo saying to me for years, but it’s all so wrong now.
‘I’ve always liked you, and I’ve never had the courage to say anything, and then I got to know you and you were not just my favourite customer, you were my perfect person. I thought you understood me, but it’s easy to “understand” someone when they’ve already told you exactly what they want to hear.’
The tears pooling in my eyes spill over. I try to speak but the only thing that escapes is a huge sob.
‘I understand why you did it,’ he says gently, looking like he’s about to cry himself. ‘But how can I ever trust you again?’
And that says it all, doesn’t it? I know Leo well enough to know that betraying his trust is one of the worst things anyone can do to him. I know he’s shared things with me that he’s never had the courage to tell anyone before, and I’ve just undone all of that.
‘Once again, your silence is answer enough.’ His voice breaks on the final words and he turns around and walks away.
And I don’t know how to stop him. It’s like I’m outside of myself, watching on, unable to do anything to stop it happening. There is nothing I can say to make this better.
No matter the intention, nothing changes the fact that I have broken his heart as much as I’ve broken my own.