How could I be thinking about another woman when Dawn had died only two and a half years ago? We’d been together since we were sixteen, had both only ever loved each other. Now, here I was, aged thirty-one a widower of less than three years – and thinking about someone else.
‘You know Dawn would want you to be happy, don’t you?’ Andy had said earlier when I told him over the poppadoms how I felt.
I shrugged. ‘Not this soon though.’
Andy pressed his hand against mine. ‘It’s not that soon, Nicky.’
I’d asked if we could talk about something else after that, and sure enough our chat went back to the usual moaning about work, him telling me what my nieces had been up to, and something funny Mum had said last night.
Now, my mind returned to Emma. She was just a sketch in my head at the moment, a pencil drawing, no details defined or filled in. And yet I couldn’t seem to stop thinking about her. About her all-encompassing smile, the way it drew you in no matter how much you resisted; about the way she’d looked when she told me about losing someone, the pain in her eyes a reflection of my own. About the way her gaze burrowed into my soul.
I didn’t know what this meant or whether it would lead anywhere. But I did know that I was glad I’d arranged to see her again.
The weekend dragged by, but by the time Monday arrived I felt energised and giddy in a way I hadn’t for a long, long time. I couldn’t imagine I was ‘over’ losing Dawn, but it felt refreshing not to wake up feeling as though I’d been crushed beneath a heavy blanket of grief.
At five o’clock, however, I started to wonder whether I was simply setting myself up for disappointment. What if Emmadidn’t turn up? What if she’d just been humouring me, and hadn’t given me a single thought all weekend?
But then again, why wouldn’t she have just said so?
Most days when I walked to the bandstand, I was buried so deep inside my memories of Dawn that I barely saw my surroundings. But today, despite low-lying clouds and a hint of damp in the air, I noticed the kids on skateboards, the couple walking hand in hand ahead of me, the dog barking at a pigeon. Blossom had begun to sprinkle the branches of the trees with colour, and snowdrops and daffodils bowed their heads along the edges of the paths. I felt lighter, as though a darkness had lifted and shown me the world again.
Just before I saw the bandstand I stopped dead. My legs felt weak and my belly squirmed with nerves. Would she be there? I closed my eyes, tipped my head up to the clouds, and took a deep breath. This was it, the moment of truth.
I turned the corner.
It was empty.
I knew it had been a possibility that she wouldn’t come, but now that it had come to pass, I didn’t quite know what to do. I glanced around. I was a couple of minutes late, but perhaps she was later. I cast my gaze across the park, hoping I’d spot her scurrying towards me, bag banging against her hip. But there was no sign of her.
I reached the bandstand and lowered myself onto the bench. The trees above my head rustled in the breeze and a leaf blew in and skittered around my feet. And then?—
‘Hello,’ a voice said.
‘Oh, I didn’t see you coming!’
‘I’m so sorry I’m late, I had to finish something for tomorrow and it took longer than expected,’ she said, sweeping towards me in a cloud of musky perfume and sitting on the other end of the bench.
‘It’s fine. I’m glad you’re here.’
‘Of course,’ she said. I looked at her, her hair wild around her face, her cheeks flushed, and the first word that came into my head wasradiant. I looked away.
‘How was your weekend?’
She shrugged. ‘You know. The usual. Theatre with Rachel on Thursday night, sat on my own with a glass of wine andSpin the Wheelon Saturday, farmers’ market on Sunday. Mediocre.’ She looked up. ‘Lonely.’
My belly fizzed. ‘I know what you mean,’ I said. ‘Pretty much the same for me apart from the TV show.Jonathan Creekfor me.’
She frowned. ‘God, I haven’t seen that in years. I didn’t even know it was still on.’
I looked out across the park, watching as a young couple struggled with the rain cover on their pram. I hadn’t even realised it had started to rain.
‘So,’ Emma said.
‘So?’
‘What do you want to talk about?’
‘Oh, I…’ I stopped. What did you talk about with a woman you’d only just met, who you didn’t know, and who you felt guilty about being wildly attracted to?
