“Thanks -“
“God - you’re soaked-“
“It doesn’t matter -“
Their eyes met, properly. Mark put his hand out. She felt the warmth of his fingers, the shock of it.
“I can’t believe it,” he said.
“It’s alright,” said Bella, automatically. The same phrase, always.
Mark picked up his pint. Bella looked at his fingers, curled around the glass, and was reminded piercingly of Jake, sat across from her in the Black Horse. She felt her jaw clench. She picked up her cool wine glass, feeling the condensation slip beneath her fingers.
Mark put his glass down.
“I can’t believe it,” he said again. He was looking down at the table but then he raised his gaze to her face. Bella tried to smile. She couldn’t, at that moment, speak.
“I’m sorry I missed you at the funeral. It was a bit of a – well – a bit – “
Bella swallowed painfully.
“It was a bit,” she managed. Then she thought, why am I so worried about crying? Mark will understand. She felt the threatening tears well up and spill over. Mark’s face contracted.
“Bella – “
He moved to sit beside her, perhaps to take her in his arms. She put a hand up to stop him.
“It’s alright,” she said. A tear fell onto her hand, a tiny splash of warmth. “I’m okay. It’s just – I’m still very sad.”
Her voice broke on the last word. She coughed, wiping her face.
Mark was nodding.
“I know you are. I am too. I still can’t believe it.” For a moment, he frowned. “How that bastard Carl is still alive, and Jake’s – “
“Not.” Bella finished the sentence for him. Both of them were silent for a moment. Mark brushed at his eyes.
Bella clasped her hands together in her lap.
“Well, anyway,” said Mark, after a moment’s silence. “He’ll be going to prison for a nice long time, at least.”
“Will he?”
Mark looked appalled. “You don’t he’ll get off?”
Bella sighed.
“He’s got the money to afford a good lawyer.”
“He can’t.” Mark looked close to tears again for a moment. “He can’t. Life wouldn’t be that unfair.”
Bella laughed mirthlessly.
“Wouldn’t it?”
The two of them sat in a bubble of silence. Bella looked down at her glass.
“What about Veronica?”
Bella shrugged. She took another sip of wine, trying to swallow past the knot in her throat. After a moment, she felt calm enough to speak.
"It's funny," she said, looking at the depths of her glass. It felt easier to speak without looking Mark in the face. "The way we met - Jake and I - it threw us together, literally. I mean, he found me in the darkness and he led me out of the tunnels, up into the light. He saved me. And he said I saved him. I didn't understand then that what he meant was I saved him from what he'd done before."
"The murder," said Mark.
"Yes. I didn't understand - how could I? And he was wrong, too. I couldn't save him. How can someone else be the - the solution to that kind of trauma? The only person that could have done anything to make him feel better about himself was Jake himself, but he couldn't see that."
Bella forced herself to look up at Mark, to see how he was taking this. He reached for her hand across the table and for a moment, she allowed him to hold it. Then she pulled her hand away, gently.
"What hurts the most," she said carefully, "Is that it wasn't really me he wanted. Anyone would have done. If he'd latched onto anyone in that train carriage, they would have been the one to save him - that's how he would have seen it. It just happened to be me."
Mark looked troubled.
"That's not true," he said. "He did love you."
Bella stretched her mouth sideways in an attempt at a smile.
"It's nice of you to say that," she said. "But I don't think it's true."
Mark said nothing. He was rolling a beer mat between the fingers of his free hand and Bella watched the cardboard oblong go round and round, half hypnotised by the movement. It helped to distract her.
"Perhaps I didn't love him either," she said, almost to herself. "But I thought I did. I thought I did."
They said goodbye on the pavement outside. The rain had stopped and a watery gleam of sunlight was struggling through the clouds overhead. Mark pulled Bella towards him in a brief, crushing hug. Then he released her.
“Give me a ring sometime. Please?”
Bella smiled crookedly. “I will. I promise.”
“How are you getting back? You’re at your Mum’s at the moment, aren’t you?”
“At the moment. I’ll walk back to the station, it’s alright.”
“It’s a bit of a trek –“
“I’ll be fine.” She stretched up to kiss his cheek. He squeezed her hand.
“Take care of yourself.”
“Yes.”
She watched him walk away from her. Then Bella turned, her cold hands in her pockets. She began the slow walk back to the train station, dodging other pedestrians, trying to keep her shoes out of the puddles of water on the pavements. Ahead of her, a dark gap in the row of shops loomed – the entrance to Goodge Street underground station. Bella felt the familiar sickness surge up, her pulse rate begin to quicken. She clenched her hands into fists.
The bus that would take her to Waterloo was just up ahead. She put her head down and began to walk towards it, looking at her feet on the pavement, the toes of her boots flashing in and out of her vision. Nearly there, now. The entrance to the Underground was there, on her left, and she was walking past it, level with it, nearly past it.
Her footsteps slowed. She came to a halt in front of the entrance. A young couple pushed past her, speaking in Spanish. Bella looked fearfully into the entrance. More people came out, stepping round her as she stood as if turned to stone on the tiles of the entrance hall.
Bella took a deep breath. She took a measured step towards the entrance, another, another. She paused on the tiled floor of inner hall, breathing quickly. She remembered Jake, his face above her as they lay in bed, smiling down at her, his hair falling into his eyes. For a second, she hesitated. Then she walked towards the ticket machines, trying to breath properly, fumbling for coins, saying Jake’s name under her breath, like a talisman. Bella walked through the gates that snapped sharply back to admit her. She walked toward the escalator; shaking, her breath coming in short gasps, her legs weak – but still moving forward, walking toward the trains that rattled and hummed beneath her hesitant feet.
THE END
Enjoyed this story? Read more from Celina Grace at her blog on writing and self-publishing http://www.celinagrace.com
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NEW! Celina’s new psychological thriller, Lost Girls is now available from Amazon:
Twenty three years ago, Maudie Sampson’s childhood friend Jessica disappeared on a family holiday in Cornwall. She was never seen again.
In the present day, Maudie is struggling to come to terms with the death of her wealthy father, her increasingly fragile mental health and a marriage that’s under strain. Slowly, she becomes aware that there is someone following her: a blonde woman in a long black coat with an intense gaze. As the woman begins to infiltrate her life, Maudie realises no one else appears to be able to see her.
Is Maudie losing her mind? Is the woman a figment of her imagination or does she actually exist? Have the sins of the past caught up with Maudie’s present... or is there something even more sinister going on?
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