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‘Yeah. Kind of sad... Haunting.’ He added an extra verse and chorus onto the end and then smoothly moved on into another melody that she couldn’t name, but which she recognised from an old film.
‘You like this?’
‘I feel I should be in a cocktail dress and expensive jewellery. Leaning against the piano and sipping... I wonder what they were drinking in Casablanca?’
He chuckled. ‘Champagne?’
‘You remember?’
‘No. Just a guess. I’ve got a bottle somewhere, if you’d like some.’
Charlotte laughed. ‘No. I don’t have the cocktail dress.’ Or the jewellery. Her mother’s ruby necklace, the one that she thought she’d never part with, had been sold and the money spent on the bricks and mortar of her house. The one that she’d been driven out of just a few days ago.
He seemed about to say something, then stopped himself. Moved on to play another song. The soft, melancholy chords filled the air around them.
Suddenly the music stopped. ‘Hey... Hey, what’s the matter?’
She felt him turn, but didn’t raise her head. She didn’t want Edward to see the tears.
Too late.
His fingers touched her arm, hesitantly at first, and then more resolute. She felt his arm around her and, try as she might, couldn’t bring herself to break away from him.
‘It’s nothing. Just the music.’
‘Much as I’d like to think that it was my playing that moved you to tears, I doubt it.’
She wanted to hold on to him. It felt so natural to do so. But she shouldn’t. She’d always been a sucker for the quiet type, and the last one she’d got involved with had almost destroyed her life.
‘I...I’m just afraid that I’m going to lose everything. And you’ve been so kind...’
‘You’re not going to lose anything.’
He hugged her tight and she gave in and buried her face against the protective arc of his chest.
‘Did you ring my father this afternoon?’
‘Yeah. I’ve arranged to leave work early tomorrow and go and see him.’
‘Good. You can stop worrying, then. He’ll sort this out for you.’
‘I know. Thank you. I’m just being silly.’
She felt his fingers stroking her hair. Just for a moment, before he snatched his hand away again. This must be torture for someone like Edward. So self-contained, so controlled. He didn’t really do tears. She tried to move away from him, but his arm kept her firmly in place.
‘You’re not being silly. You lost everything once. It’s natural to fear that it’ll happen again.’ He drew back, holding her shoulders tightly. Bending to capture her gaze in his. ‘It’s not going to. You’re going to fight it.’
‘I haven’t got anything to fight with. All my savings are gone, and...’ She couldn’t even say it. The money was just a number. It was the loss of little things that she’d hoped she’d always keep that hurt the most. Memories...presents that people had given her over the years. The cot which, at one time, she’d hoped might see some more use. All Isaac’s baby stuff. It hadn’t fetched much, but every penny had counted when she’d been trying to put the deposit on the house together.
He shook his head. ‘I wish you’d told someone. The clinic might have arranged an employee loan, or if not...’ He pressed his lips together, apparently not wanting to finish the ‘or if not’.
‘I’d only been there for a couple of months. I was just glad to have the job. The extra income meant I could make the mortgage. Anyway...it would just have been another debt that I couldn’t pay back.’
‘So you sold everything you had?’ His grip on her shoulders relaxed and his hands slid down to her elbows.
‘Pretty much.’ Charlotte put it to the back of her mind. ‘But that’s okay. Things are easier now. I’ve had a pay rise, and the first year’s always the worst with a mortgage.’
‘And I guess the extra shifts come in handy?’
