‘Asked Brianna what?’ Claire is already pulling the first piece of pizza from the box and working to contain the flow of cheese.
‘I asked her why her dad was single.’
Heather feels mildly victorious until she sees the look on Claire’s face. Has she been rash? She takes a bite of her own pizza and opens her messages to check how she worded her question. But Brianna is already typing.
‘Oh,’ says Heather when the message finally lands in her inbox.
‘What?’ says Claire.
‘Brianna’s answer,’
Brianna has replied with three words:My mum died.
SCOTT
Scott pulls into the car park, thankful to finally find a space to leave his car. He has berated himself precisely six times today: three times on the drive from his Glasgow flat, (why the company couldn’t rent him something with a few bits of basic furnishing, he doesn’t know), and a further three times when driving in circles around the Ikea multi-story.
He’s survived the past few weeks in the apartment with the bare minimum in terms of furnishings, but there’s only so much longevity you can eke out of cardboard packing boxes. One made a very passable bedside table for nearly a month and only let him down when a coffee spill soaked into the structure and reduced it to pulp. But Ikea? On a Saturday? Honestly – what was he thinking?
He isn’t ready for the self-reflection needed to answer that last question. He knows he’s likely to arrive at an unpalatable truth: he was thinking about Heather. He was thinking about the feeling of her fingers on his sternum. If he’s honest, it’s beginning to feel like an unhealthy obsession. A woman, the absolute antithesis of what he wants for himself at this stage in his life, is flooding his thoughts.
So, rather than staying at home, staring at piles of unsorted clothing, overflowing suitcases, bundles of miscellaneous possessions and fixating on Heather, he decides he may as well switch one form of hell for the other. At least this way he gets to achieve something. What has he been instructing himself to do for the past seven years?One tiny thing to move forwards every day.
He walks through the garish yellow and blue doors, grabs himself a supersized plastic shopping bag and immediately questions his judgement. Ikea on a Saturday afternoon might be the worst place in the world for someone outside a relationship. Everywhere he looks, people are paired up: young couples putting together their first joint homes smiling smugly and stopping for a quick grope by the tealights; families with pregnant bellies or kids in tow searching for the perfect crib or cot-bed; elderly couples looking for economy and practicality in light of their decision to downsize. It’s not that Scott has never achieved a connection like theirs. He knows what it’s like to love someone body and soul. To feel as though your minds are intertwined and your dreams meshed. It’s just that he now knows another unpalatable truth: love like that is transient. And when it’s gone, it’s gone and the person left behind is cast completely adrift. Love like that, when it leaves, destroys you. Never again for him. Heather might well be kind and captivating, and, okay, she's rekindled happy memories of belonging to someone again, as he once did, but it can go no further. There’s the small matter of the pledge he made to Lucy, his wife, as she lay dying in his arms. “There’s never going to be another one for me. Ever.”A vow like that cannot be shunned easily, if ever at all.
Scott follows the one-directional walkway through the shop trying to keep his focus. He eventually finds himself standing miserably beside a display of KALLAX modular shelving and willing himself not to cry. It’s only a set of shelves, for fuck's sake, but it represents the first set of shelves he’s ever bought on his own. Perhaps it would be easier if today’s efforts resulted in a flat that reflects his personality, but in all honesty he imagines his Glasgow apartment will end up furnished in the exact same manner as hundreds of thousands, probably millions, ofapartments the world over. He stayed in a condo in Buenos Aires with a KALLAX and a BILLY bookcase, for crying out loud.
Scott’s mobile rings when he’s trying to use the itsy-bitsy pencil on the tiny scrap of paper whilst holding onto an oversized shopping bag in canary yellow.
‘Hello?’ Okay, he’s vexed and it’s coming out in the tone of his voice. But sometimes -
‘Mr Reynolds? Is that you? It’s Theresa Kelly. I wondered if we might talk?’
This woman again! She phoned when he was in Morocco. Hadn’t he blocked her number? Clearly it was time for him to make his situation as clear and transparent as the ice he feels around his heart.
‘Ms Kelly. I don’t know where you got this number?’
There’s a pause on the other end of the line. Ms Kelly wondering how much shit she’s getting herself into due to data protection protocols? Perhaps.
‘Mrs Ah, Mrs Lorraine Adams.’
He might have known it. Lucy’s twin sister. His sister-in-law. Thinking she was doing the right thing. Thinking she knew what was needed to help him. Scott sidesteps a family of five arguing about the dimensions of their lounge. Nobody had thought to measure it before they left home. He drops the silly little pencil and the redundant scrap of paper into his bag. There's no way he's completing the shop now.
‘Look. I know what you’re phoning to offer me. I understand that the boy–man– who killed my wife is due to be released soon. And I understand he wants an opportunity for mediation beforehand. The thing is, Ms Kelly. I. Do. Not.’
Chapter 12
HEATHER
Heatherlooksacrosstheroom. The outfit for tonight’s Hallowe’en party is laid out to smooth the creases from postage. Claire was right. She was a little horrified when she opened the package and matched the ‘sexy Dracula’ outfit against her body. Did she order the children’s size by mistake? Surely not. Because they don’t brand children’s costumes with a sexy theme. Or a detachable garter.
Ordinarily, Heather would opt for home-assembled Hallowe’en attire, so seeing the outfit spread across her bedspread like a photoshoot for an Ann Summers catalogue sort of takes her aback. Gerry has never done more than kiss her onthe cheek. Is wearing this outfit even appropriate? Is she doing this becauseshe’slooking for more?
Memories of that afternoon with Scott have come back to her in dribs and drabs. She knows now that she didn’t kiss him. But she remembers the frisson between them. Will something like that be possible with Gerry if she gives it a chance? Heather shakes her head and laughs at herself. Forty-eight years old and still looking for a frisson with a man. What on earth is she thinking?
But it’s too late now, she needs to embrace the outfit, however it might look, and get herself ready. It’s that or cut some holes in a sheet and go as a ghost, and she’s not doing that.
Heather is showered, dressed and waiting for her lift when Georgia messages in a new group she’s created for Heather, Scott and Bethany, so the three parents can collaborate collectively with their children.
