9 January
People were free to leave Molly’s Club without explanation or excuses, which is why she had never chased Pete the firefighter to find out why he had stopped attending the sessions last year. But then something had happened to make her change her mind on that and break her own ruling. She’d fallen asleep in front of the TV in her rocking chair when she was rudely awoken by her sister Margaret and brother-in-law Bernard, both in their dressing gowns and slippers, bursting into her front room.
‘Oh thank goodness you’re alive, Molly,’ said Margaret, collapsing onto the sofa. ‘We’ve just sprinted across the lawn like a pair of greyhounds.’
Molly’s small cottage was built in the grounds of her sister and brother-in-law’s much larger house. It felt much further away when running from one to the other at midnight in nightclothes.
Molly, not fully emerged from her deep sleep, initially thought she was dreaming, especially when her twin sister said, ‘I’ve just seen Harvey Hoyland sitting at the end of my bed. I thought he’d come for you.’
Molly went to move the weight of her old cat from her knee then, and realised that she was lifeless. She had slipped away in her sleep.
‘Oh dear girl,’ said Bernard. ‘Well that makes it clear. That’s why Harvey came. To take Queenie.’
‘Oh darling,’ said Molly and stroked the cat’s still-warm fur, feeling the hard pang of loss. She’d miss the creaky-boned Queenie, who had settled with her so easily and gratefully. Pavitar would be upset, she knew. But if Harvey had come for her, she’d be looked after. Molly wished so much that she had her sister’s gift to see those who had moved on. She would have given anything to see her beloved Harvey again, just a glimpse.
‘Bloody old fool, giving me a scare like that,’ growled Margaret angrily, patting her chest. She raised her head and addressed her remark to a place far beyond the ceiling. ‘Wait till I see you again, Harvey Hoyland, I’ll give you what for.’
Bernard lifted Queenie gently into her basket in the corner, tucked her blanket snugly around her. ‘There you go, lass. We’ll see to you in the morning.’ Then he poured out three glasses of sherry from Molly’s drinks cabinet, handed them around. ‘I think we need these for our nerves,’ he said.
‘Clear as day he was,’ said Margaret. ‘Smiling at me, in that way of his, hoping to charm me. Nobody charms me at that time of night, especially not him coming a-visiting and scaring me enough to go back with him.’
‘Dear Harvey,’ said Bernard, nudging his glass upwards. ‘I’m so glad he came back into our lives. For a short but blessed time.’
And that incident set Molly off thinking. Laurie and Peter were right together. She couldn’t explain it, but there was an energy surrounding them, a positive, loving force. She might not have had her sister’s unwonted abilities, but she did have a strong sense that persisted and would not go away that she needed to speak to Peter Moore. He needed help, he had lost his direction. Of that she had no doubt at all.
*
Molly drove to the address Pete had given her when he enlisted into her club. She parked up and knocked on the door and when he answered she saw the shock in his eyes. Not unlike a child opening the door to the truanting officer.
‘Molly. Hello.’
‘Peter. I wonder if I could have a word.’
‘Er . . . yeah, come in. Excuse the mess. I’m just sorting things out. I’ve sold my house.’
The mess that Molly walked into was not moving house mess, she thought. It was ‘my head is a mess’ mess.
‘I don’t usually call unannounced on people who leave the group,’ she said, following him into his lounge, ‘but I’m making an exception in your case.’
‘Sorry I—’ ghosted you too ‘—I . . . I should have phoned and told you I wouldn’t be back.’
Molly moved an empty burger box aside and sat down on the sofa.
‘Is everything all right, Peter? You don’t look it.’
He wondered what she meant. He looked the same as always from the outside, it was on the inside he was different. If she could see into his soul, she might have grounds for saying that.
‘I’m fine,’ he said, a slight bark of annoyance in his voice that she wouldn’t have associated with him.
‘We’ve started another group. Fresh people. Very nice bunch, if you wanted to rejoin. There’s no one who has been before.’
‘I’m all right, thanks, really.’
Pong jumped up on the sofa, made a comical ‘Meow’ at Molly and tried out her knee for size. Molly chuckled.
‘Sorry,’ said Pete and reached over to move him.
‘No, leave him, he’s fine. I lost mine very recently. I miss the warmth.’
So did Pete. He missed the warmth of a woman in his life. He missed the warmth of Laurie pressed against his chest. She was never far from his thoughts, however much he tried to hold her back; she was the sea and he was Canute. He slumped into the armchair. For such a big man, he suddenly looked much smaller than he should, thought Molly.
‘I’m not all right, Molly. I don’t know what I’m doing.’
‘Ah, that’s a shame,’ said Molly. ‘I had hoped my instincts were wrong. Is this anything to do with Laurie?’
‘No,’ said Pete. ‘Yes.’
‘Sometimes when you’re in a vulnerable place people get too close too quickly—’
He cut her off. ‘It’s not that. I wanted to get close to her, I didn’t want to stop getting close to her. But I . . .’ His hand rubbed the back of his neck. ‘I can’t tell you what it was. I can’t risk it getting out.’
‘It won’t,’ said Molly, ‘you can trust me.’
And he knew he could, so he told her.
*
‘So you see why I can’t be with her,’ said Pete. ‘To be honest, Molly, I think she deserves better anyway. I don’t know what I’ve become.’ He sniffed hard, embarrassed at the show of emotion. ‘Since I found out that Tara was having an affair with Alex Wilder, I think my genetic make-up has changed. I’ve become – and you’ll excuse my language – a knob. I’ve treated women badly, I even came on to my sister-in-law. I’ve been so full of bile, I couldn’t keep it in. I don’t recognise myself any more.’
‘Oh Peter, as humans, when we can’t rail against the true culprits, we use ourselves as the target instead,’ said Molly. ‘I think you – perhaps – were expecting your brother to take you to task about coming on to his wife and give you a thump because you want to punish yourself. And you’re alienating your friends and denying yourself a relationship with Laurie because you don’t think you deserve it. You’re carrying on where your wife left off, because you don’t feel worthy of love, and you are, Peter. You’re a good man.’
‘I would destroy Laurie’s memories of Alex if I let it slip that he was planning to leave her, not marry her. I couldn’t do it to her. I really couldn’t. I wish I’d been left with lies. Look what the truth has done to me.’
‘Can I give you a piece of advice from someone who knows?’ asked Molly. He nodded, she began. ‘Once upon a time, I kept something from the man I loved because I was frightened that revealing it would kill us, but not telling it killed us even more. What you think might cause damage could actually bring you closer together, more than you can ever imagine. We wasted so much precious time.’
Molly stood to go then. There was a fine line between advising and lecturing and she didn’t want to cross it.
‘Make amends to the people you hurt, Peter, that’s your starting point. Return to the man you were, but trust me on this most of all – take the first step with Laurie.’
Pete let her words sink in, she was right, he knew she was and he felt a speck of light enter the darkness of his present world, a Molly-shaped lantern to guide him back to himself. ‘I will, Molly, I promise you,’ he said.
*
Laurie had started to wonder about the words and phrases that Bella used in conjunction with Reid West-Hunt: ‘strong-willed’, ‘sweep you off your feet’, ‘masterful’. She’d sigh with regret like a Disney Princess that Stu was more of an ‘I don’t mind if you don’t mind’ sort of guy. It hadn’t got past Laurie that it always seemed to be Reid’s way or the highway, though parcelled in a generous loop of pretty ribbon. ‘Which restaurant would you prefer, X or Y? X? But Y is so much better – I’ll book us a table at Y.’ Y was always a wonderful restaurant, how could she complain?
The changes were subtle when they came, blowing into the relationship like asbestos dust: ‘Why do you plait your hair like that? I mean it’s your choice and I understand it’s practical, but it looks a little childish when it’s so beautiful and womanly loose.’ ‘Why do you never pick up your phone? You can’t always be in meetings?’ He’d laugh, like someone fondly infuriated, but somewhere deep within Laurie De Vere, an alarm bell was softly tinkling.