The Last Goodbye (3 page)

Ben came up to bed soon after and spooned me from behind. He pushed up my pyjama top to put his two hands on the skin of my stomach and Baby Pip started up again just like she knew that her daddy was there. I turned over to face him and smiled.

“She knows you’re here.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, she’s started kicking again.”

“When will I be able to feel them?”

“Not for a few more weeks according to the books.”

He propped his head up on his elbow. “So when are we going to Ireland?”

“Will you just leave it out, Ben?” I said testily.

“Come on, Kate! When are you going to tell your dad?”

“Soon.”

“You’re nearly five months pregnant – your family don’t even know. You need to tell them – I’ve never even met them for Christ’s sake!”

“I will tell them.”

“When?”

“I’ll ring Dad.”

“You can’t keep on carrying this baggage with you. It’s not good for you or the baby.”

“Will you stop going on about it?”

“You can’t keep running away from it.”

“I’m not running away from anything!”

“Oh Kate – you’re infuriating!”

“Please, can we leave it for tonight? I feel like crap – I’m exhausted.”

“All right, all right, but you need to face up to your demons sooner or later.” He sighed.

Blah, blah, blah.
I turned away so my back was towards him and he did the same on the other side.

Chapter 3

Ben and I had met at the zoo of all places. I’d had a day off so I’d gone for a stroll around Regent’s Park. When I got there I decided to go into the zoo because it had been a while since I’d been in. I’d been watching the meerkats and I was just turning around to go on to the next enclosure when I saw a small boy standing in the middle of the path on his own, crying. He was wearing a navy raincoat, jeans tucked inside wellington boots and he had a small backpack on his back. I guessed he was probably about five or six. He was obviously lost. I looked around to see if his parents were anywhere nearby but there was no-one near us that looked like they had lost a child.

I can still remember getting lost in a department store at Christmas time when I was small. I had been playing with my brothers Patrick and Seán, hiding under rails of clothes, but when I came out again my family had all gone. Even though we were only separated for a few minutes, I’ll never forget that fear. It had felt like hours. It was as though my world had ended and I was going to be the resident orphan of Dunnes Stores. Of course I was too young to realise that a lost child is not the same as a lost glove and that Mam and Dad were in an equally right state looking for me too.

I bent down to the boy and asked him his name. Through snotty tears he told me he was called James. I reached down and held his hand and he had clung on tight. We walked over to a nearby security guard but no-one had reported a missing child. At that stage they probably hadn’t even realised he was missing. The guard escorted us to the coffee shop. While he put a call out over the radio to the other guards, I rooted in my purse for change and bought James a gingerbread man with eyes and a smile made from icing and three Smarties down the front for buttons. He wiped his nose on his sleeve and quickly began to open the cellophane wrapper on the gingerbread man.

Suddenly a man came blustering through the door.

“Oh thank God!” He rushed over and bent down to the little boy. “Where did you go to?”

“I just wanted to see the meerkats’ house.”

“I told you already, you can’t keep wandering off like that, James,” he scolded him gently. He turned to me then. “Thank you, thank you, so much!”

“Don’t mention it. I was at the meerkats and I turned around and just saw him there on his own, crying.”

I had to admit that James’ dad was very good-looking. He was tall and muscular and, judging by the tan on his face and hands, I guessed that he loved the outdoors. He was dressed casually in a pair of Converse trainers, jeans and hoody, with a backpack slung over his back.

I supposed he must have got an awful fright.

“We were doing so well,” he said. “We’d managed to round up the twenty-four of them every time but he must have slipped away between the meerkats and the next enclosure. It was only when we did our head count just there that we realised that we’d lost him.”

“You have twenty-four children?” I said, shocked.

“Not me!” he grinned. “We’re on a school tour – the other teacher is waiting with the rest of the class.”

“Oh, I see . . . of course.” I laughed, feeling a bit stupid then. “Well, it must be hard keeping track of that many.”

“You can’t take your eyes off them for a second! We’re lucky you were right there.”

“Don’t mention it.”

James was happily munching on his gingerbread man – he had devoured both his legs and his right arm. His distress of the last few minutes seemed to be forgotten.

The man and I looked at each other for a fraction too long.

“Well . . . I’d better go,” I said quickly.

“What’s your name?” he asked me then.

“It’s Kate.”

“Kate – I’m Ben.” He stuck his hand out to shake mine. “It’s nice to meet you.”

His handshake was strong around mine. I liked that in a man – there was nothing worse than a watery handshake. By this stage the gingerbread man was decapitated.

“Okay, well, thanks again, Kate.”

I watched him walk off with James – the two of them threw their heads back then and started laughing at something. There was definitely something attractive about a man who was good with kids, I thought.

I decided to grab a take-away coffee while I was there and continue on my way around the zoo. I walked along the path admiring the elegance of the giraffes as they stretched their long necks to reach up to the higher branches. I watched them as they munched on mouthfuls of leaves. Their fawn-coloured markings were like a beautiful mosaic covering their skin. It was just starting to drizzle and as I was taking my umbrella out of my bag I heard a little voice behind me interrupting my thoughts.

“Hi, Kate.”

I turned around to find James standing there, looking up at me. He had his hood pulled up over his head. He was beyond cute with his chubby cheeks.

“Hiya, James.” I looked over and saw Ben, a woman and the rest of the class a short distance away.

“Did you know that giraffes and humans have the same number of bones in their neck?”

“No, I didn’t know that,” I said, laughing.

“Do you know how many bones –”

Ben rushed up beside him then. “James, I told you, you can’t keep on running off on us like that.” He sounded exasperated. “Hi again, Kate.”

“He’s a real handful.”

“You don’t know the half of it!”

“Mr Chamberlain likes you!” James blurted out.

“Sorry?” I wondered if I had heard him right.

“James!” Ben said, looking mortified.

“You do! You said she was a very nice lady!” he protested, his eyes wide with innocence.

“Yeah, but . . .”

“And pretty – you said she was very pretty too.” He went on.

Ben looked at him in horror. Redness crept up along his face.

I have to say I felt sorry for him. “Hey, don’t worry – you know what kids are like.” I laughed nervously. I wanted the ground to swallow me whole. Or James preferably. Either one of us would be fine.

We both stood there awkwardly for a few moments. James was pulling out of Ben’s hand. I could see the other teacher and the rest of the class looking over, wondering what was going on.

“Look, I’d better –”

“God, Kate, this whole thing is well . . . so embarrassing . . . I don’t usually do this, believe me . . . but, well . . . would you like to go for dinner with me?”

James was staring up at me expectantly, waiting for my answer.

“Sure, I’d like that.”

Ben pulled out a sheet of paper from his rucksack and scribbled down my number. And that was it. He called me the next day and we arranged to go for dinner and we’ve been together ever since, all thanks to little James, who probably is not so little any more.

Chapter 4

As soon as I woke the next morning, I reached up onto my locker and felt blindly until my hand came upon my packet of crackers. I had kept a packet on the top of my locker for the last few months now. Eating one before I got out of bed usually helped to settle my stomach and keep the nausea at bay for a little while. When I opened my eyes, I saw that Ben was sitting on the edge of the bed, pulling off his trainers. He stood up again and pulled his sweaty T-shirt off over his head and tossed it onto the floor. Being the health freak he is, he went out for a run most mornings before school while I clung on to my duvet for dear life and put my alarm on snooze for another half an hour.

“Morning. Did you sleep okay?”

“Well, no, thanks to you!”

“Look, I’m sorry about last night.” He stood in front of me, his muscular body toned and tanned. “I just want you to be happy.” He sat down again on the bed beside me.

“I am happy. And I’d be even happier if you left me alone about going back home.”

“C’mere.” He linked his fingers with mine. His naked body was still damp with sweat. He pulled me closer and started to kiss me.

I was still as attracted to him as ever.

“We can’t – I’m going to be late,” I said, pulling back.

“Nat will cover for you for five minutes.” He was kissing my neck, tracing his warm lips against my skin. He knew I could never say no to him.

“Five minutes! Is that all I’m getting?” I put my arms around his neck and pulled his face towards mine.

“Sorry I’m late,” I apologised to Nat who was hunched over the iMac computer, her eyes fixed on the screen. She had a mug of coffee clasped between her hands.

“No worries – you feeling okay?” She turned around to me.

“Yeah, I’m good.” I tried to keep the smile off my face but Nat saw it.

“What’s got into you?”

“Nothing.”

“Okay, weirdo – the kettle’s boiled anyway. Sam Wolfson rang to say he’ll be a little late – there’s a problem with his train.”

Sam Wolfson was a new photographer who was interested in displaying some of his work with us. He was coming in to talk us through his portfolio and we were going to show him around the gallery. An hour later and a blustering Sam came rushing through the doors, apologising for being late and bemoaning line closures. I was taken aback by his age – he looked no more than twenty. I brought him up to the mezzanine to show him the space that we had earmarked for him before bringing him back downstairs where he talked us through his work. His pictures were stark. Urban decay was his thing. I thumbed through his photographs, which mainly featured buildings that had lost their former glory. There were historical houses with cracked plaster walls, neglected factories with crumbling concrete and broken-glass-littered floors, decaying warehouses with peeling steel girders and acres of empty racking. They weren’t pretty but they were real and we had seen a lot more demand for this kind of work lately. Although he was young, it was evident that he was very talented and we knew he would be a good fit with the gallery. We went through the figures with him and we were just agreeing the terms when the bell tinkled and a delivery man came through the door with a huge bouquet of blush-coloured roses. There must have been at least fifty of them. I stood up to take them from him. Ben is so sweet, I thought. A smile crept onto my face again as I thought about that morning.

“Nat Anderson?” the man asked, looking from me to her.

“For me?” Nat was shocked. “Thank you!” She beamed as she got up off her stool and took the flowers from him.

I sat back down again, feeling embarrassed for being so presumptuous.

“Wow, Nat, they’re gorgeous!” I said.

Sam nodded in agreement. “Someone likes you!”

Nat took the card out from its envelope and read it. I peered over her shoulder. There was just one word written on it, followed by three bold exclamation marks: ‘
Amazing!!!’

Nat started to blush and quickly put the card back inside the envelope.

“They’re from him then?” I said.

“Yep!”

I could tell that Nat was thrilled. She went into the kitchen to find a vase to put them in.

After we had firmed things up with Sam, we all shook hands and said goodbye to him.

“Things are going well then?” I said.