30
The following morning, when I wake up, the sun streaming through my bedroom window, I know that not only do I have to say goodbye to Jamie, but to Angus too. I know Laurie will want the three of us to hang out and continue working at the café, but I can’t. It’s too painful. Because the truth is I do love him. Perhaps I love him most for helping me see a point to life again. For helping me believe in love again.
As I said to Laurie, before I began volunteering, I was stuck in a rut. As a child, routine made me feel safe. After Jamie died, I stuck rigidly to one. There weren’t many, if any, shocks or surprises thrown into the mix, and that suited me fine because I couldn’t cope with any more. So long as I knew what was coming next, I felt in control. So, I did all the things I was programmed to do: wake up, coffee, work, home, supper washed down with a bottle of wine, or occasionally an evening out with friends, bed. But slowly this routine made my life shrink. It felt as if I was drowning in my loneliness. Angus entered my world and gave me a life jacket. He shook it up, exploding into my life like fireworks.
And then along came Laurie. Our mission to help her wasn’t entirely altruistic on my part. Both her friendship, and Angus’s, saved me. Before we met, I was dying of loneliness. Angus, too, was on a mission to self-destruct. I guess, in different ways, we all needed each other.
If someone had told me I’d fall in love with a man who reeked of smoke, burped and told me bad knitting jokes, I’d have thought them mad. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I’d fall for him; that wasn’t part of the plan. Yet even if I can’t have my happy ever after with Angus, he allowed me to reconnect with an old part of myself. He enabled me to see I don’t want to live alone for the rest of my life and how I still have a lot to give, and yearn to be loved. He made me see how much I want to fall in love again, only this time with someone who is free to fall in love with me.
As I get out of bed and take a shower, I wish things could be different. I don’t want to say goodbye to him at the hospital today; I don’t want to let our friendship go. It’s like dropping something so precious, so valuable, on to the floor and watching it shatter into tiny pieces. Yet equally I can’t pretend nothing happened. I can’t switch my feelings on and off like a tap. If only I could.
Angus lies in bed, his ankle in a cast, his face bruised. ‘About time I had some attention,’ he says with a small smile, when I sit down in the blue plastic chair beside his bed. He gestures to the grapes and homemade ginger biscuits. ‘Scottie has never been so nice. Want to see something?’
‘Go on.’
He lifts up his T-shirt, and reveals his chest, a lovely deep dark shade of purple.
‘Show-off,’ I say, sensing he’s as nervous as I am. ‘How’s the ankle?’
‘Sore, and it’s going to drive me insane being an invalid for six weeks. What am I going to do with myself? I spilt my lunch over my lap today. A baked potato and cottage cheese. That was exciting.’
‘But you were lucky.’
He nods, slowing down as he says, ‘I was so lucky, Holly.’
We end up talking about yesterday. I get the feeling Angus needs to let it all out, process the trauma of the accident. ‘Can’t have been easy for you either,’ he says finally. ‘I was blissfully unaware of pretty much everything going on around me, pumped full of morphine, while you were left to pick up the pieces.’
‘It wasn’t much fun,’ I admit, though don’t tell him about my panic attack. ‘Don’t ever scare us like that again.’
‘I’ll try not to. How’s Laurie?’ he asks, and I get the sense he wants to talk about anything but us.
‘She’s fine. She said she’d come and visit you later. When will they let you out?’
He tells me he’ll be going home on Monday, once the physio is happy with him walking up and down stairs on crutches. By home, I assume he means back to Sophie.
I steal one of his grapes, along with a ginger biscuit, trying to build up the courage to talk to him about that night.
‘How’s the little girl?’ he asks.
‘Chloe. You saved her life.’
‘At least I’ve done something right,’ he says, unable to meet my eye.
‘Angus.’
‘Holly. I’m sorry things are awkward between us.’ He looks at me. ‘I care, I really care about you.’
‘You said her name,’ I say, knowing if I don’t bring it up now, I never will. ‘The doctor told me you were calling out for Sophie.’
I can’t bear the look of sympathy in his eyes again. I don’t want it.
‘I’m so sorry, I never meant to hurt you. My feelings for you, they were real. Theyarereal.’
‘I know.’ I never doubted that.
‘You’ve been there for me, through so much. I was a sad old excuse of a man before I met you, drowning my sorrows in booze and feeling like the world was against me. Poor old Angus. I was pathetic. You made me see that life is short, that I needed to get a grip and fight for my family. Meeting you, Holly, it’s been—’
‘Angus, don’t,’ I say, on the verge of tears.
