AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She felt hot stinging tears of humiliation and some small part of her wondered how had she turned into such a needy, dependent woman? She shuddered. Rachel would turn in her grave if she could see her bending over backwards to Barbara Quirke, never mind putting up with half of Eddie’s antics. She quickly pushed the thought from her mind. No. This was all her own fault. Why on earth couldn’t she just have saidokay? If she’d just said Anya could stay everything might be fine now. But no. She so badly wanted to get married and have a family – she couldn’t bear the idea of Eddie taking off and leaving her.
What was she turning into? And she knew it was pathetic, but there was no changing that now, was there?
*
The following morning, when she finally woke up back in her bed at the farmhouse, her adventure, if that was the name for it, almost seemed like a dream or a nightmare. Except, she knew it was all too real. Her eyes were sticky with tears that she had a feeling kept on coming long after sleep – however short and unsettled – had finally shrouded her.
Pete’s call at eleven was a pleasant surprise. She needed something, or someone, to distract her from the maelstrom of emotions that Eddie’s worrying silence was evoking in her. She’d tried his mobile several times, sent texts that she’d edited as much as she could to make sure there was no ounce of neediness contained anywhere between the lines. It was simple; she just needed to hear Eddie’s voice. To know that things were okay between them. She needed him to tell her that he loved her, even though part of her wondered if he ever would. But still, just knowing that they were together, even if he couldn’t say the words, was as much as it would take for her to quell this terrible feeling of emptiness within her.
‘Hey, what are you up to?’ Pete sounded good and if she thought there was an undercurrent of worry in his voice, she simply put it down to her own black mood.
‘Not a lot, just hanging about here, quite content and happy with a new book.’ First lie of the day: she felt anything but content or happy.
‘How are those lambs? I thought I might go and see them – if you had time to spare, you might even treat me to a cup of tea?’
‘Sure, not that I’d expect you to know one end of a lamb from the other.’ Pete had grown up in the village – his father was a barber and his mother worked in the local supermarket – but as soon as he moved to the city when he went to college, Pete became a townie.
He arrived within minutes, loaded down with a six-pack of fancy craft beer for her dad and chocolates for her mother, smiling and full of his usual friendly banter, but Liv knew immediately that something was wrong. She dragged him from the warmth of the kitchen out to the little shed where there were now sixteen lambs bleating loudly.
‘What is it? What’s happened?’ Her gut felt heavy with anticipation; she just knew it was bad news.
‘It’s nothing. It’s…’
‘It’s not nothing. I can read you like a book, remember?’ They’d been through too much together watching Rachel die for there to be room left for secrets or half-truths between them.
‘Fine, I just… I don’t know how to say it, but…’ He walked towards the far end of the shed, picking out his steps – she had a feeling he was even more carefully picking out his next words. He seemed to be purposely keeping his silent stare on the ground, as if he couldn’t quite meet her eyes. She knew then it must be really bad, because they’d shared the worst news and never had there ever been a time when they couldn’t just blurt out what they were thinking.
‘Oh, God, it’s Eddie, isn’t it?’ Liv wasn’t sure if she expected him to be dead, or worse. And then she mentally corrected herself, because nothing could be worse than losing someone like she’d lost Rachel.
‘Yes. He’s…’ Pete looked at the ground for a moment, considering the best way to put what he had to say next. When he met her eyes again, she knew this was excruciating for him, as hard for him as anything he’d had to tell her.
‘Just say it,’ she whispered.
‘It’s Eddie. He and Anya, they’re seeing each other. I mean, behind our backs, they’ve been…’
‘No.’ Liv put up her hand to stop him. She didn’t want to hear this. ‘There’s some mistake. I mean, I’d know, wouldn’t I?’ And then she thought about all those times when Eddie had walked out the door, how he’d never once told her he loved her, when he’d joked about never being tied down. Not so funny now. Now maybe, if she let herself, she could see it. It wasn’t what he’d done, was it? It was what he hadn’t done. Liv turned away, tried to focus on the old stone wall opposite, but she couldn’t see anything. Her eyes had filled with tears that she willed not to fall. Everything was a complete blur; every part of her was disintegrating into a maelstrom of emotion; all the pathetic feelings were rising up in her. She didn’t want this to be happening to her; she didn’t want to lose Eddie. She wanted to get married, have a family and a nice house and… She was thirty-six, for heaven’s sake. She felt too old to start over again. ‘No.’ Liv heard her own voice, coming from some resolute part of her. ‘No. I don’t believe it. He wouldn’t. There must be some mistake.’ She turned back towards Pete again.
‘I’m sorry, Liv. I know it’s awful, but… See for yourself. She’s sent me a text by accident… Look, if you don’t believe me. It’s meant to be for Eddie, but… somehow, she must have…’ He held out his phone to her.
‘No. I’m not looking at that. There’s some mistake; it’s another Eddie. I’d know.’ And then, she felt something strange happen to her features. ‘He’d never do this to me.’ Her voice sounded a lot more confident than she felt. She turned away again, not willing to face either Pete or this terrible news. She closed her eyes, fixed her hair and then turned up the corners of her mouth into the nearest she could manage to a smile. Of course, she was smiling; it was an unreal contortion of her features, but she hoped it would be enough to make Pete stop with this thing he thought he was setting in motion. ‘We’re getting engaged, Pete. So, it can’t be real. You’ve gotten him confused with someone else – that’s all, a simple mistake.’ And she started to laugh, because, really, that’s all it was – crossed wires, something innocent that had become all mixed-up.
*
Even though Liv’s mind had been full of that kiss when she’d fallen asleep and when she’d woken in the morning, it was the engagement ring in Eddie’s workshop that filled her dreams. Now, as she picked her way back up the avenue to the hospital, she wondered if she had imagined coming across it that afternoon. But she was quite sure she had seen it. She could remember her surprise, a feeling that mixed up the idea of something she’d always wanted with a nagging doubt that she hadn’t been brave enough to face until now. Eddie had made that ring for someone – the question that she really wondered about now, was if he’d made it for her or for Anya. Of course, the truth was, he could have just made it as a commission, but it was the way he’d hidden it away in a drawer and he’d never once mentioned a commission with emeralds or that unique motif.
The hospital was a little busier today; filling up now with relatives popping in to see patients and no doubt the A&E would be busy with more seasonal-related incidents like ice skaters and new trampoline enthusiasts who had come a cropper over the last few days. Liv was early for her shift, so she decided to check in on Finn before she started. She had almost an hour to spare. Morgan told her he’d been moved to male surgical overnight; apparently, there weren’t enough beds in the general ward at present.
‘Hey,’ he said, smiling when she popped her head around the door. ‘You found me.’
‘It wasn’t that hard. You all but sent me a map and I do work here.’ They’d given him a bed in a room with three others.
‘Come on.’ Finn pushed himself out of the chair. ‘The doctor says I need to get exercise.’ He was walking perfectly – no limp – and he seemed to be back to normal apart from the nasty-looking bruise on his head. He had to be in some pain though, even if they had medicated him to minimise it.
‘Coffee break?’ she asked, looking at her watch. It was just before eleven. She was due on shift at twelve.
‘I was just about to suggest the same thing,’ he said setting off with her at a slow pace.
The coffee shop was busy, but they managed to nab a table near the window and Liv queued for the coffees while Finn looked out at the comings and goings at the front of the hospital. She had a feeling he’d need to catch his breath after the walk, even if it looked as if he wouldn’t admit it. They chatted for a while, easily covering over the daily pleasantries while occasionally dipping into the fabric of each other’s lives. Finn, it turned out, was a writer. He wrote young adult books about witches and warlocks. ‘No. Nothing like Harry Potter, nowhere near as successful, but good enough to allow me to dodge any real work.’ She discovered he had stayed in Ballycove a couple of times; renting a cottage in the winter months, just to write in peace. ‘It’s beautiful there, desolate and thrilling, perfect really for what I’m writing when the wind howls and the mist covers the land for as far as the eye can see.’
