Page 67 of The Golden Girls’ Road Trip

‘She is living in Scotland, yes. I remembered what you told me about some of your road trip. I looked up that bar in Preston you talked about and spoke to Rachel. You could have done that Connie; she was easy to find.’

‘I’ve done enough chasing, thank you.’

‘But you and Alex are meant to be together. You told me she was the love of your life. You have to be together.’ Diana looks exasperated, but then concentrates on latching Grace on for a feed and her expression softens. After a moment she continues. ‘I got her new phone number from Rachel.’

I look at her for a moment, sorely tempted to take the number from her and rush from the room to call Alex, but I take a breath and don’t.

‘It’s too late now, Diana. Too much has happened.’ I don’t say what I really want to, that I can’t bear to keep chasing someone who doesn’t want me.

‘What will be, will be,’ she says.

*

Later, back at home, when I finally tear myself away from Grace, Simon and Diana, I make a coffee and sit staring at the space where my painting used to hang. I decorated my Christmas tree last week and the fairy lights cast a glow across the empty wall. I have a horrible empty feeling myself, much worse than the one I’ve carried with me for all these years. Now I have the memory of those days we spent together to miss too.

Baby Grace is what I will centre on: gorgeous Grace and my wonderful family. I’m really very lucky to have them all. I put down the coffee and glance at my watch. It’s six-thirty. In the kitchen I pour a glass of wine and take it back to the living room where I begin to flick through the TV channels. I can’t decide between an animated movie or a Christmas romance. In the end I decide not to bother with either and I turn it off and pick up a book instead. Tucking my feet underneath me, I begin to turn the pages, but I’m not taking in any of the words. I chuck it back onto the coffee table and sigh.

The snow is still falling and I get up to see how deep it is now, in our communal car park. The top of my van has a layer of white covering the raspberry paintwork and I wonder how easy it will be to get to Simon and Diana’s tomorrow. I’m taking Christmas lunch with me. Everything is prepared and all I need to do is chuck it in their oven in the morning. Diana has been given the all clear to go home. After all those agonising attempts to get pregnant and then the worry about her placenta, in the end, she seemed to breeze through labour and birth. Well, that’s Simon’s version. He’s so proud of his wife, but she may have a different take on things.

My neighbour is making his way across the car park with a couple of carrier bags of shopping. He lives alone too and I’m wondering whether to invite him in to share the wine, when I notice someone else trudging through the snow with a large package under their arm. What is it with people and their last-minute Christmas shopping? I’m about to lower the blind when I notice their gait is slightly off, throwing their hip out to one side. I stop with my hand on the cord and watch as my neighbour disappears through the door below, and the other person follows.

I seem to see Alex everywhere I go now: a flash of red hair, a particular walk, her accent. I think I’m going mad.

I continue to lower the blind and turn the table lamp on, then pick my wine back up and take a mince pie out of the packet in the cupboard. And then there’s a knock on my door.

I do know it’s Alex. I knew it as soon as I saw her in the car park, but now I’m not sure I can open the door. I place my wine glass down onto the table and walk into the hallway, then I take a grounding breath and open the door.

‘It’s freezing out there,’ she says, before bustling into my flat. ‘I’ve bought something for you,’ she continues, holding out the package, but I’m too dumbfounded to answer. ‘Well, look I’ll leave it down here for now.’ She props it up against the armchair and begins to take her coat off.

‘So, you just turn up unexpectedly after all these months? Just like that?’

She turns to look at me with sharp eyes, her arm only halfway out of her sleeve.

‘Fifty-one years and six months sooner than you did,’ she says, before throwing her coat over the back of the sofa. ‘Are you going to offer me a glass of that wine?’ Her eyes move to my glass on the table.

I can’t stop the smile stretching across my mouth as I fill her a glass in the kitchen, but I wipe it off before I come back. This is Alex; outwardly confident and untouchable, but there’s always been that little girl inside, desperately hoping someone will want to play with her.

‘Where’s Bardo?’ I ask her.

‘Staying with a friend for the moment. How’s things with you?’ she asks.

‘So, we’re doing small talk, are we?’

‘Yes, it’s seems easy, don’t you think?’

‘No, let’s do big talk,’ I say. ‘Where the hell have you been and where’s my bloody painting?’

‘Cheers,’ she says raising her glass.

I sit down in the armchair and Alex takes the sofa, kicking off her boots as she lifts her legs up onto the coffee table.

‘I had to go back,’ she says. ‘Hank kept on calling; he wasn’t just going to give up. I thought I could run away and take some of the money with me, but he wasn’t going to let that happen. I had to pay back what I owed and now I have. So, I have nothing, but at least I’m not looking over my shoulder all the time.’

‘You could have done that from here. How do you think I felt when I realised you’d gone?’

‘You’re asking me that question? I of all people know full well how you would feel, but I had to come to this as equals. You would have tried to help me and I needed to sort out this mess myself. I really wanted you to be proud of me, Con.’

‘So it wasn’t because you found that photo of me and Leo then?’ I say.