The Grip Lit Collection: The Sisters, Mother, Mother and Dark Rooms. Koren Zailckas
doors open, letting in a waft of the fresh summer air, the smell of hollyhocks, and I look up, shock searing through me so that my pen and notepad fall to the seagrass carpet. At first I think this must be another optical illusion. But no, it is him. He has a camera slung around his neck, his usual nonplussed expression on his face as he walks over the threshold, as tall and lanky as Ben. I haven’t seen him since that day in hospital, a few months after Lucy died, but his beauty still makes the breath catch in my throat. He hasn’t noticed me.
‘We’re ready for you, Mrs Lipton, if you’re finished in here,’ Callum says in his familiar South London drawl. I stand up and our eyes meet. He hasn’t changed a bit, he’s still as scruffy as a student in the same black leather jacket that he wore when we were together, faded jeans, beat-up retro trainers. His hair is shorter now, a few new lines around his face, his eyes the deep shade of royal blue that haunted me in my dreams and my nightmares for months after we split up.
‘Abi …’ His voice is gentle, our eyes locked. I’m unable to tear my gaze away from him and it’s as though I’m transported back in time, that the last eighteen months have all been a horrible mistake.
I force myself to look away from him, and continue to talk to Patricia, determined not to let the fact that I’m in the same room as Callum stop me from being professional. I thank Patricia for her time, trying to keep my voice level and, ignoring Callum completely, I gather up my notepad and pen and hurriedly stuff them in my bag. Patricia walks me to the front door. If she’s noticed the tension between me and her photographer she does a good job of pretending otherwise.
I wait until I’m safely in the car, and Patricia has gone back into the house, before falling apart. I lean over the steering wheel, gasping for breath, heart hammering. I’m shaking all over. Concentrate on your breathing, I tell myself. I can’t drive in this state, I have to calm down. But seeing Callum again after all this time has given me such a shock I feel physically sick.
Eventually my legs stop trembling and my heart slows. What is Callum doing here? He must have engineered it, it can’t be a coincidence. I look towards the house. There is no sign of him, thankfully. I need to get out of here, I don’t want to talk to him.
I push the key fob into the ignition and start up the car. I’m putting the gearstick into reverse when I hear Callum’s shouts and I see him striding across the gravel, camera slung around his neck. ‘Abi, wait!’ he cries as he reaches the car. I wind my window down.
‘I’ve got nothing to say to you.’ I can’t look at him, I force myself to stare out of the windscreen instead. I have a view of a field of cows.
‘Please, Abi. I was hoping you’d be here. Will you meet me for a drink in half an hour?’
‘I didn’t know you still worked for Miranda,’ I say stiffly, still looking at the cows.
‘I don’t. I’m freelance. But Mike on Picture Desk called me about this job—’
‘There’s no point,’ I cut him off. ‘I’ve got nothing to say to you.’ My voice is cold, steely. I rev the engine pointedly.
‘Please.’ The note of despair I hear in his voice makes me turn towards him and I meet his gaze full on. It still hurts to look at him. To remember …
I swallow, my throat is scratchy and raw. I give the briefest of nods.
His face brightens. ‘There’s a pub on the main road. It’s called the White Hart. Can we meet there in half an hour?’
‘I’ll think about it. You should get back. It’s not professional to keep Patricia waiting,’ I say before winding the window up, shutting him out. I can see him from my rear-view mirror as I pull away, gradually getting smaller and smaller until I round the corner and he’s out of sight.
Against my better judgement I’m sitting at a round table in the pub’s dark, gloomy snug with mahogany wood panelling on the walls, sipping a Coke. Am I doing the right thing? Wouldn’t it be wiser to let the past stay that way, rather than sit here and rehash it, apportioning blame?
I fire off a quick text to Nia, explaining the situation and asking what I should do. She replies within minutes, encouraging me to meet him. Don’t you want answers? I text back that she’s right, I do want answers. I’m at last ready to hear what he’s got to say, however painful. I’ve just dropped my mobile into my bag when I spot Callum walking in. He saunters to the bar, probably ordering his usual pint of Stella, and then he joins me by the square leaded window with the faded red curtains.
‘Do you want to sit outside?’
I shake my head. ‘It’s fine in here.’ I want to snap at him, tell him that this isn’t a date. I don’t want to join everyone else at benches in the beer garden, I want to get this over and done with.
‘So, how have you been?’ His legs are so long that his knees are almost under his chin as he perches on a velvet-topped stool. He places his heavy Canon digital camera on to the table next to his pint.
‘What do you think?’
He sighs. I’m not going to make this easy for him. ‘Nia said you’ve moved out of London,’ he tries again. ‘She didn’t say where.’
‘I told her not to.’
There’s a pause as he takes a swig of his lager, I can tell he’s trying to think what to say next. I remain silent, sullen. He puts his pint down, surveys me. ‘You’re looking well.’ And I know he’s remembering the last time we saw each other. I can remember it too, the shock in his usually laughing eyes as I lay curled up on my side, legs pulled up to my tummy on that narrow bed in that sterile green room with nothing but a sheet over me, a drip in my arm and bandages on my wrists, and I recall how a tear crept out of his eye and snaked its way along his nose; he thought I hadn’t noticed as he quickly wiped it away. Proper men don’t cry, do they, Callum?
The sun streams through the window, illuminating the dust motes floating above our table, before it disappears behind a cloud again, the room gloomy once more.
‘You know …’ He doesn’t look at me, instead he picks up a beer mat, his long fingers working away at the cardboard edges. ‘It’s not such a coincidence that I’m here today. Mike told me you were interviewing Patricia Lipton. I wanted to see you, but I was still surprised you actually came. I know you haven’t been working …’
‘I’ve done the odd piece for Miranda since I moved out of London,’ I say, defensively.
He holds up his hands. ‘Look, I don’t want to argue with you. I wanted to see you, to see if you were okay.’
‘To assuage your guilt.’
He hangs his head and I know it’s a low blow. How can I blame him when it’s my fault too? ‘Does Luke still hate me?’ I say in a small voice.
He lifts his head and a jolt of desire rips through me. I know, in spite of everything that happened, he will always be special to me, my first love.
‘I don’t know, we don’t talk about it. I’ve hardly seen him since he moved out.’
I remember how it was still raining when the ambulance arrived. Luke was cradling her in his arms. He followed the stretcher on to the ambulance as if it was his God-given right, leaving me slumped by the tree, too scared to move while a paramedic checked me over. Lucy never made it as far as the hospital and I wasn’t with her when she died. We entered the world together but she left it without me by her side. Extensive head injuries, they said, while the rest of us escaped the car crash with sprains, cuts and bruises.
‘He said he’d never forgive me,’ I mutter.
‘He didn’t mean it, Abi. He was devastated. His girlfriend had recently died.’
I feel a burst of indignation. ‘He took over, I’ll never forgive him for that. It was his fault I wasn’t there when she died.’ I press my fingers into my palms