‘Milk and one sugar, please.’
By the time he’d made two mugs, he was feeling a little more settled. He was learning that grief was an ever-evolving thing. Sometimes it crept up on you and ambushed you when you least expected it. Other times, when you thought you were going to react to something, like when his mother had sent him an old photograph of himself, Joel and Marc in the very garden he’d just been looking at, with his grandfather in the background, waving, he’d been able to smile, and hadn’t been caught at all. Navigating the triggers was tricky, when you didn’t know what a trigger could be.
‘How’s he doing?’
Bella turned and looked at him, and Noah’s breath caught in his throat at the shine in her eyes. She really did have the most gorgeous blue eyes, he thought. It had been a feature of hers that the photographer who’d done the album artwork for the CD in the kitchen had captured, but in person they were even bluer, and much friendlier. He’d snuck another look at the CD while the tea was brewing and resolved to see if Isabella Indigo’s album was available on Spotify for his drive home tomorrow. If Bella wasn’t comfortable with him listening to it while he was here, he’d try to listen to it in his own time.
‘Thanks.’ She gestured to the table, and he put the mug down on it, on one of the bird-patterned coasters his grandfather had used. ‘He’s determined not to come out yet but give him time.’
They sat down in the two armchairs, both transfixed by the creature in the carrier. At first, Monty showed no signs of wanting to come out at all, but gradually, as Noah chatted to Bella, he started to emerge.
‘Don’t make too much of a fuss of him at first,’ Bella murmured as a tentative nose poked its way out. ‘Let him get his bearings.’
‘I’m quite happy to keep my distance!’ Noah joked gently. He didn’t fancy the rough edge of Monty’s claws.
Bella had put a couple of Dreamies cat treats down near to the opening of the carrier, and Monty, driven by the scent, gradually approached one of them, giving it a sniff before devouring it.
‘Good boy!’ Bella soothed. ‘Look, Monty, you’re home.’
They both watched as Monty edged out and sniffed the carpet, and then the air. Padding further away from the carrier, he began to explore the living room, rubbing his cheek against the small table between the two armchairs, and then curling his tail around the edge of Bella’s chair. Monty seemed to be patrolling the room’s perimeter as he strolled to the window, then, with a spring belying his eighteen years, jumped up onto the sill. Sliding between the net curtains that provided a small amount of privacy from people passing the front of the cottages, he tightroped along the windowsill before jumping down again and mooching across the carpet, sniffing in corners and swishing his tail from time to time as he made progress. Noah and Bella looked at each other, and Bella gave Noah a thumbs up. ‘So far so good.’
They both sipped their tea, transfixed by Monty’s journey around the room. Bella, more attuned to cat behaviour, especially Monty’s, than Noah was, caught his eye. ‘I think he’s looking for your grandpa.’
Noah swallowed, that wave-like feeling of loss he’d had in the kitchen catching him off guard again. ‘I think you’re right. Even though Grandpa’s not been here for ages, Monty can probably smell him.’ He blinked hard. This wasn’t the time to lose the plot, not in front of someone he barely knew. Clearing his throat, he added, ‘How’s he doing, in your professional opinion?’
Bella snorted. ‘I’m not really a professional – just a willing employee!’ All the same, she seemed to sense that he wanted to move the conversation on, and added, ‘He’s doing OK. Give him time.’
‘We all need time,’ Noah replied. He caught her eye again, and a kind of understanding passed between them. Noah felt a jolt at the empathy in her eyes. He suddenly found himself wanting to get lost in her comforting gaze.
‘It’s so peaceful here,’ Noah said, to break the subtle tension that had built between them. ‘It must be quite a contrast to life on the road as a musician.’
Bella grinned self-deprecatingly. ‘It’s exactly what I need!’
‘Seriously, though, would you have carried on if, er, things had been different?’
‘You mean if my record label hadn’t dropped me off a cliff?’ Bella, to his relief, was smiling when she said it.
‘Well, yeah.’ Noah smiled back in what he hoped was a supportive way. ‘Would you want to be playing arenas?’
Bella sighed. ‘Nowthat’sa question.’ She glanced towards Monty, who was sniffing about, but seemed to be finding his paws once again. ‘I loved the music, and I loved being onstage, and I suppose, if it had been a few years later, I might have had more of a career. There’s a lot of pull towards nostalgia these days, and Isabella Indigo’s sound was definitely retro. But back then? Wrong vibe, wrong time, wrong person.’ She shook her head. ‘They packaged me as something I could never be, and eventually that took its toll.’
‘Difficult second album syndrome?’
Bella grinned. ‘Yeah. I wanted something more folk and rock – they said they’d only keep me if I delivered something more pop based. I couldn’t face it, so they dropped me.’
Noah noticed how Bella’s eyes lit up when she talked about the music, and he found he liked seeing her like that. ‘Do you still write songs?’
‘Not for ages,’ Bella replied. ‘I liked my old stuff a lot, but I felt as though I needed a different direction. When I stopped working for the label, it was as though my inspiration dried up, too. I finally had the chance to do what I wanted, and I couldn’t write. By the time I worked out that artists were using YouTube to create their own fanbase, I was too late. The market was saturated, and I was out of date again.’
‘So when I popped in to say goodbye to Monty before, well, you know, that song you were singing? Was that one of yours?’
‘Yeah. I thought it might make him feel better, you know.’ Bella blushed.
‘I thought it was beautiful.’ As he said that, his voice caught. He swallowed hard. ‘Sorry,’ he laughed nervously. ‘I’m a bit up and down at the moment.’ It was as close to an examination of his own headspace and emotions as he was going to get.
‘Thank you.’
Bella’s quiet tone made him look directly at her again, and as she raised her eyes from where she’d been watching Monty’s progress, their gaze held. His heart sped up, and he again had the urge to reach out and touch the blush that lingered on her face. He gave himself a mental shake. Proximity didn’t mean attraction; logically, he knew that. It would be more than awkward if he made an approach to her and she brushed him off – they had to share this space, after all.
