‘No, it’s not a date, Kate,’ he jokes in return. ‘It’s just two friends who want to meet up in person instead of talking on the phone or online all the time. I can’t wait to see you.’
My stomach flutters at the very idea of being close to him physically again.
‘Ditto,’ I whisper, before I change my mind again. I know this is risky. I know it’s going to be a big test, both of our morals and our self-control. ‘I can’t wait to see you too.’
DAVID
During the short flight from Gatwick to Dublin, I try to stop myself from going over and over in my head that this could be my mother’s last birthday with us. She is still so young at only 57 years old, almost fourteen years younger than my father, and it burns me inside to think that she has given everything to be with him and yet has lived such a sheltered, limited life instead.
‘David, you shouldn’t taunt him like that!’ my mother used to say when I’d tease my father by reminding him of how my mother was once a beauty pageant winner. ‘I sometimes wonder if you think of what buttons to press, knowing which will send him absolutely bananas. You’re a rascal and it really doesn’t help matters around here!’
But I couldn’t help trying to expose his true colours at any opportunity,
Yes, as my mother often reminded me, he did give us a very privileged life; to me Reverend Campbell delighted a little too much in having a picture-perfect wife who served him as she should, and longed for a cardboard cut-out son about whom he could boast in the pulpit. Looking back,I did everything in my power to go against that and show him up. I tried to push the boundaries in school when I could, I was suspended for smoking in the yard and he almost had a heart attack when I dyed my hair purple one summer when I was seventeen and turned up to church, much to the delight of the Sunday School kids I was helping out with but to my father’s utter despair. If he said black, I said white, and vice versa.
Kate tells me I need to learn to accept him as he is, acknowledge our differences and make peace with him once and for all in an ‘agree to disagree’ manner, then focus on my present and look forward to my own future, while Lesley – just like my mother – tries to strike a balance of being gentle and understanding with him and walking a tightrope between us to make each visit or interaction go as smoothly as possible.
I sometimes wish Les was more vocal about her own beliefs, instead of always choosing to sit on the fence, but then I’ve been wishing for lots of ways I’d like things to be different between us lately. We need this break, even if it’s just for a day or two, to let off some steam and release the valve of pressure that has been building up between us.
As the plane touches down, my heart sinks a little as I realize I’m drifting further and further away from the desire to plan any future with Lesley, and I know this has everything to do with Kate. Before she rocked my world I wascruising along on autopilot, but Kate has reignited a fire in me that had been smouldering for far too long.
I know it’s so wrong, but as Lesley becomes more and more embroiled in wedding plans, I become more and more agitated and suffocated, which isn’t her fault at all. I’m distant, I’m distracted, and I fear that I’m settling into a life with someone who ticks every box in my father’s books – the daughter of an army field marshal, a high-flying global marketer, a squeaky clean, beautiful lady who always looks impeccable and is ever so polite. I fell in love with Lesley, yes, and she is a truly kind and wonderful person, but I can’t help but feel as if I’ve had an awakening by meeting Kate again. Or am I making excuses for how I feel? It’s like Kate has come along and peeled back the layers I’ve been hiding under to expose the real me once again.
Because beneath what I’ve been moulded into, I’m still the guy with the purple hair, the smoker in the back yard, the one who wants to challenge the rules and not stick by them. I want to feel the wind in my sails, to push boundaries and fall in love with life again, just like I used to, and like I do when I’m in the classroom, when I can really let my own sense of self shine through. It’s why my students relate to me. I know life can be shit. I know playing by the rules is hard. I want to feel like that all the time, and – well, the truth is, I want to feel like I do when I talk to Kate.
The bomb changed me in many ways, but perhaps mostly in that it made me run away and try to reinventmyself into a different person from the one I was before. I now know that I’ve been hiding my true self for far too long, and very soon I’m going to have to allow the real me to live again in a way that I want to, and not in a way I’m forcing myself to.
My phone bleeps as soon as I turn it on as the plane waits to taxi across from the runway.
‘Look to the left for a hideously bright yellow umbrella when you get to Terminal 1 exit doors.’
I feel my heart lift in my chest and I quicken my step, and sure enough when I walk out into the dark, damp, drizzly Dublin weather, I see her standing beneath what looks like a dazzling yellow sunbeam, waving at me with an enthusiastic welcome which makes me quicken my pace and walk towards her.
‘I couldn’t have you bussing it into town in that weather!’ she says as we huddle beneath the umbrella. ‘Plus, it’s not every day David Campbell unexpectedly comes to town.’
I brighten up from the inside out when I see her, and her electrifying smile makes me stumble.
‘You’re an angel!’ I say, giving her a quick peck on the cheek to say hello. ‘Wow.’
‘Well, I wouldn’t go that far!’ she says to me as we stand there with only the stick of the umbrella between us. ‘You don’t have much time before you head north, so I thought this would be quicker.’
I feel my pulse quicken and can see my chest move up and down as we stare, grinning in wonder. The silence between us is smouldering, deafening almost. It’s like it takes everything in our power to retain some self-control.
‘Where have you parked?’ I ask her, trying to snap out of my daydream.
‘Follow me,’ she says, and she leads us across the zebra crossing to the car park, away from the hustle and bustle of families and couples reunited. I carry my case until we get to the shelter of the car park and her nippy little blue Vauxhall Corsa.
‘Here, put your case in the back seat,’ she tells me. ‘The boot won’t open, and I’ve never needed it enough to have it fixed.’
I do as I’m told, and it’s only when we get into the car and out of the rain at last that we get to look at each other again.
‘Look at you, all smiley!’ she tells me as she takes me in. ‘Ah, this is such a great surprise!’
Her eyes make me dizzy. This is only our third time meeting properly in the flesh, and as always I’m caught under her spell immediately. I need to hold back. I need to respect both our positions.
‘Here, I got you something,’ I say, reminded by the word ‘surprise’.
I rustle in my jacket pockets to find the small gift I picked up at the airport in London.
