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‘If I don’t say it now, then when should I? In six weeks, on the day we get married? On our first anniversary? Or in ten years’ time, when you hate me for standing in your way?’
I jerked free of his hold, so sharply that the plates slipped from my hands, shattering noisily around our feet. Neither of us moved. We stood inches and a thousand miles apart, our chests heaving as though we’d run a race and still didn’t know who’d won.
An imperative knocking on his front door broke the spell. ‘Finn? Is everything okay in there? I heard a commotion.’ The voice was surprisingly loud through the thickness of the door.
Finn swore under his breath and strode to where his neighbour, Mrs Barnard, was rapping on the door. He opened it just a crack, using his body to block her view of the kitchen, where I was picking up broken plates as though clearing up a crime scene. By the time Finn had managed to assure her it was a noisy TV programme and a minor kitchen mishap, I had calmed down.
Finn still looked troubled when he returned to the kitchen, but my thoughts were clear. I reached for his hands, winding my fingers through his, like a network of vines. ‘I never knew a love like this before I met you,’ I said shakily. ‘A love so big it fills every corner of my soul. There are many things I can live without in my life… but you’re not one of them. So please don’t ever ask me to do that.’
Finn nodded, his eyes bright with tears as he pulled me, finally, into his arms.
It had been our worst disagreement, but we’d got through it. It was done. Only now I wasn’t so sure whether we’d actually resolved anything.
I strode from the kitchen, but the memory followed me. ‘I need to get out of here,’ I told the haggard-faced woman in the hallway mirror, who looked even worse than my passport photo. Which was saying something.
As I turned to leave, the hall was suddenly cast into stark relief as strobe-like lightning flashed through the window, followed by a clap of thunder. The summer storm, which the weather forecasters had predicted, perfectly suited my mood. But confusingly, long after it should have faded, I could still hear the low, almost rhythmic rumble of thunder. It was there when I turned off the lights in Finn’s flat and opened his front door to leave.
The noise was even louder in the communal hallway, only now I realised it wasn’t the sound of thunder but of wheels trundling over linoleum as Mrs Barnard dragged a shopping trolley loaded with two enormous bags of rubbish. She hadn’t got very far, just a dozen steps from her front door. I must have startled her, for she jerked and then seemed to sway alarmingly for a moment. The stick she usually relied on was nowhere to be seen.
Her eyes narrowed suspiciously as I shut Finn’s door behind me, as though I might be robbing the place.Truly, there’s no need to worry, I almost assured her.He’s left nothing behind to steal.
‘Can I help you with those?’ I asked, my eyes going to the large bin bags, which looked precariously balanced.
‘Do I look like someone who needs help?’ Mrs Barnard’s reply was the snap of an angry terrier.
‘Actually, yes. You do,’ I said, crossing the space between us and reaching for the bin bags. ‘I’m going downstairs anyway, so it’s really no trouble. Besides, it’s pouring out there. You’ll get soaked.’
I glanced down and noticed her footwear. She was in slippers, the old-fashioned granny type, although I could remember Finn saying she had no children. There was a stain on the left slipper that she’d probably be mortified I’d spotted. Perhaps that’s what softened me. ‘Please, Mrs Barnard, it’s horrible out there. There’s no need for you to get wet.’
If I was expecting a miraculous change in attitude, I was in for a long wait. ‘Well, I wouldn’t normally have to do this myself. That young man of yours usually takes out my rubbish on the day before the bin men come.’
‘Does he?’ I said, wondering why he’d never mentioned it. How unfortunate it was to find something new to love about Finn while he was currently busy falling out of love with me.
‘Well, as he’s not here… right now’ –or ever, added a cruel voice in my head – ‘I’m happy to do it for you.’
She stepped back, as though bestowing her two overfilled bin bags into my care was doing me an enormous favour. I wound my hands through the plastic tie handles and headed towards the staircase. My foot was hovering over the topmost tread when her words halted it.
‘I shall miss him popping round with those fancy coffees he kept wanting me to try. What was it he brought me last week, a late mucky something or other.’
‘A latte macchiato,’ I said softly. It was one of Finn’s favourites. For just a moment it felt as though he was standing right there in the hallway with us. The bags were suddenly too heavy to hold. They dropped to the floor, landing at my feet with a resounding thud.
Mrs Barnard tutted expressively. ‘If those bags split open, young lady, I hope you don’t thinkI’mcleaning them up.’
Despite her tough carapace, I’d always believed Mrs Barnard had a soft spot for her neighbour. She’d want to help if she knew he was missing, wouldn’t she?
‘I know this might sound a little strange, Mrs Barnard, but you haven’t heard from Finn in the last day or so, have you?’
The older woman’s eyes were beginning to cloud with cataracts, but they bored into mine with the intensity of a laser.
‘No. Why would you even ask that?’
‘Because Finn never showed up at the church yesterday.’
I couldn’t imagine there were many things that left Mrs Barnard without a cutting retort or render her speechless. But that certainly did.
*
I paused before leaving the building, trying to decide if this was the kind of intense rain that would peter out in a minute or two or whether it was going to continue pounding the pavement like artillery fire for a while yet.
