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not having kept me informed about Felix. I fingered the screen, uncertain whether to respond or not. The words might have been penned by Debbie, but I could see Stefan’s hand behind the text. He’d spoken with her. The word ‘disrespectful’ rang in my head from the previous evening. I sent a brief acknowledgment telling her not to worry. Deep down, I knew I’d been offended, only now I wasn’t sure if Stefan stepping in made me feel any better. I tossed the phone back in my handbag and went back to Nettie.
The weekend crept up quickly. No work, as I only helped with the odd Saturday when Bridget had a rush of weddings. In the winter months, things eased off until Valentine’s Day. I planned to do the weekly grocery shop then more practicing. Sod the achy arm. Great plans until my mother called and demanded my company.
I groaned. It wasn’t simple. Mum didn’t drive. I had no car. With my bike out of action—not that I fancied pedaling six miles to her village—it meant the cursed bus. No rain, at least. A small mercy, standing at the familiar bus stop. I’d have to change buses. What would have taken fifteen minutes in a car would take nearly an hour on the bus.
Loneliness. I understood the misery it brought. Since I’d broken up with Micah six months earlier, the solitude had crept back into my life. My mother had lived with it for five years, ever since Dad had died. Cancer, people would ask, or heart attack, maybe a stroke? I brushed aside their curiosity. They’d never have guessed that my father died of pneumonia brought on by chicken pox.
It had taken Mum a year to accept that he’d gone. She lived in a cocoon of denial, refusing to dispose of any of his things. My sister, who lived in Scotland, had visited, trying to persuade Mum to move on, then she’d given up and returned to Edinburgh, leaving me to handle Mum’s frequent mini crises.
Today? A trip into the attic to retrieve a suitcase.
“You know I hate confined spaces,” she’d explained over the phone.
“Where are you going, Mum?” I’d asked before heading off to catch the bus.
“Your sister’s. She’s invited me up for the week and a little time with my grandson.”
Charlene, the perfect daughter. An accountant married to a worthy businessman with whom she had a two-year-old son. Me? The florist’s assistant, who had gone to work for the summer, intending to start college, and three years later, was still there. Waiting for what? My pipe dream to study music suspended indefinitely. My music-loving father gone, taking with him his words of encouragement, and my grand plan to apply to the Academy of Music or the Royal Northern College seeping away.
I coasted, drifted uneventfully. Even Micah, my two-year date, hadn’t captured my heart or inspired me. He would stay over, we’d fuck, and he’d leave in the morning blowing me a kiss. Two years of sex with no thrills and mundane conservations over Chinese takeaways or pizzas.
* * * *
The suitcase wouldn’t fit through the loft door. “How long has this been up here?” I shouted down the hatchway.
“Your father put it up there,” Mum called up.
I jammed it, kicked with my feet and finally, it scraped past the ladder and tumbled onto the floor.
“Oh, well done, darling.”
The attic might have been a freezer, but I was sweating. Checking around, I spied many of my father’s relics. His fishing rod and tackle, the cricket bat ‘handed down through the generations’, he’d told me when I was a child, even though I’d been convinced he’d bought it at a Scout jumble sale. My father had liked to tease, embellish life’s minor happenings. I missed his tall tales.
I stayed for tea, listened to the village gossip then caught the bus home.
Clambering up the stairs to my bedroom, I passed Talia’s room. The headboard of her bed rattled rhythmically. Okay, she didn’t always go to his flat. Sometimes, he slept over, and she seemed to like to make a point of fucking loudly. I turned up the television volume and watched the lottery results. I never played the lottery, but that didn’t mean I didn’t believe in luck or fate.
Stefan sprang into my head. I pictured his curly dark hair licking about his face and his graceful conducting. I lay on the bed, crossed my ankles and squeezed my thighs together. Nope. No good. My luck would never take me that far from reality. I doubted I’d made an impression on him. He might have encouraged Debby to text me an apology, but it didn’t mean he’d kept me in his thoughts. Me? A waif, my mum called me. Clumsy, according to my sister, and based on my recent biking accident maybe not too far-fetched. A dreamer, my father’s conclusion. ‘A pretty girl with your head in the clouds,’ he’d remarked not long after my sixteenth birthday. The next day, he’d started coughing. A week later, he’d gone.
Chapter Two
I made use of all my available free time to practice the pieces. I’d passed the sight-reading stage and entered the next phase—repeating tricky phrases ad nauseam. However, my technique for some of the passages lacked confidence. I split a reed by the end of one lengthy practice. Perhaps, subconsciously, I’d been chewing on it.
I walked into the city center, hijacked the free Internet connection in a café and downloaded the pieces onto my iPod. After gulping down my drink, I headed off to walk behind the colleges and across The Backs—the meadows next to the River Cam—listening the whole time to the professional recordings. Cold, frosty air mushroomed my breath into white particles, and I stuffed my frozen hands in my pockets.
I blocked out the sounds of traffic, concentrating on the music in my ears. What was inspiring me to practice so much? I usually did a couple of hours at the weekend, not every day. I hung my head over the edge of the bridge, watching the ducks squawking and dipping their bills underwater. If there was a reason, I ignored it. I convinced myself I was doing this extra work for the good of my sinfonia. The sum of an orchestra was its parts, and I had a responsibility to perform at my best.
One area of vast improvement had been my arm. By the time Wednesday came around, I felt only a dull ache. Progress. I packed Nettie in her case and collected the music. My failure to sort out my bicycle made me wonder if I was too scared to ride it. I’d grown used to the bus timetable, planning my life around routes. Stepping out through the front door, yelling a goodbye to Talia, who’d just got back from her shift, I flung the scarf around my neck and set off for the bus stop only to halt outside the house. Parked right under the streetlight was a silver BMW. A very familiar sporty Z4 BMW.
Idiot. I should never have given him my address. My sensible father would have told me I’d acquired a potential stalker. However, instead of dashing down the street, I shuffled along the cracked paving stone, tripping slightly. I wavered and regained my balance. My legs then refused to move as I fixed my eyes on the person in the car. He opened the door, stood and waved at me.
“Callie. Come on!” he called over the roof of the car.
I crept forward. “What are you doing here?”
“Picking you up.” He gave me a bemused expression, as if it was obvious, which it was, but I didn’t want it to be. “I decided to give you another five minutes, but here you are. Plenty of time. Can’t have you standing in the cold when I drive past the bottom of your road. Come on,” he urged.
My things went in the boot again and, climbing into the passenger seat, I remembered my manners. “Thank you. It’s very kind of you. I wasn’t expecting this. I’m quite happy to catch the bus. I have a pass and—”
