‘Chloe, it is not that.’
‘Then what is it?’
Her heart was beating hard in her chest and her emotions were that horrible, groggy mix of frustrated and sick with dread.
‘You must make your own choices, that is all,’ Gunnar said in the most matter-of-fact tone. ‘That is important.’
‘I will make my own choices,’ Chloe said, swallowing a lump in her throat. ‘I just…’ She let the sentence tail off because she didn’t know what to say. This morning they had made love so tenderly, so beautifully that she had had tears in the corners of her eyes which he then kissed away. She didn’t understand.
‘Chloe—’
‘No, it’s OK,’ she said, internally bolstering now. ‘You’re right. I have to board the plane.’ She smiled. Fake.
‘Text me when you land? Let me know you have arrived safely.’
She nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘Good.’
‘OK, well, I guess I will go now.’ She took a step away from him but if felt like it was really a gigantic leap. ‘Bye, Gunnar.’
And then she turned away. She couldn’t look at him any more because leaving was harder than she ever thought it would be. Because now it felt more awkward than ever. It hadn’t been a holiday romance to her, one that ended in a weird conversation at an airport, not when she had been as honest with him as she had ever been with anyone, nor after he had introduced her to his family. As she started to walk, wheeling her case, clutching her bag, the urge to turn around was so strong and all the while of not looking she was wanting him to be there, spinning her around and kissing her hard and telling her how much he wanted her to come back. However, as the seconds ticked by, the journey to the gate had never felt so solitary. Finally, she got to the end of the corridor, where she had to make a turn. There was no denying she needed to see him one more time, commit his face to her memory bank. But, turning her head, all she saw was an empty spot. Gunnar had already gone.
66
KAT’S HOME, WINCHESTER, UK
‘Chloe! You’re shivering! Come in! Quickly! Mum! Get the kettle on!’
Apparently, even though she had spent so much time in Iceland, Chloe was not accustomed to the absolute soul-soaking rain of the UK or the amount of time you had to hang around outside in it for public transport connections. She had been quickly sodden from the moment she left the airport and it had continued on trains, buses and taxis until she arrived here at Kat’s home, with no warning whatsoever, feeling bewildered and completely out-of-sorts.
‘I’m… sorry,’ Chloe said through chattering teeth. ‘I should have called but thinking was hurting so I just… acted.’
‘Oh shit, you’re talking in riddles. What’s happened?’ Kat asked, unzipping Chloe’s coat and taking it from her and then reaching coats down from her rail in the hallway and beginning to layer them up onto her friend.
‘I… don’t know. I got on the plane, but before I got on the plane, things with Gunnar just went wrong and I feel so stupid and I don’t want to feel stupid I want to feel like I felt when things weren’t going wrong with him and I have preparation to do for the Sinclairz Chairs meeting and I can’t focus and?—’
‘OK, I’ve heard more than enough and there is only one cure for this. Mum! Forget the tea! Get the large bottle of Baileys out and three glasses. The big ones!’
* * *
‘So, let me get this straight,’ Kat’s mother, Rula said. ‘He has a son. And a woman he lives with. But she’s not the mother of the son, or the grandmother, and she broke her ankle. But she didn’t break her ankle falling from the roof of the school where she had kidnapped someone. And the son-who-isn’t-the-son was being bullied because he was rescued from a volcano.’ She looked at her half-empty glass of Baileys. ‘Am I drunk, Katherine? Because this sounds like a film.’
‘Don’t forget about the sex in a secluded thermal lagoon,’ Kat said, topping up Chloe’s glass with the creamy alcohol.
‘I didn’t tell your mum that!’ Chloe shrieked.
‘And that I would have been even more interested in. Do you know, I once had sex in an igloo,’ Rula announced.
‘Argh! Stop! La la la la la la!’ Kat said, slapping her hands over her ears.
‘It wasn’t with your father.’
‘Is that supposed to make it better or worse because I don’t know!’ Kat exclaimed.
‘I think the core take away from all this is that you like this guy a lot but you don’t know what to do with that feeling. Am I right, Katherine?’ Rula said, curling her feet up underneath her on the sofa.
‘You are right,’ Kat said, nodding. ‘Chloe, you’re being cautious and I understand why but sometimes you have to let it all out.’
