Alison. She couldn’t let herself feel jealous because that would be to admit that she cared. Alison had been a sweet and kind person and Lucy had genuinely liked her.
‘Don’t brush me off like that, Gabe.’ She leaned forward in her chair and grabbed his hand impulsively. He looked down at it, concealing his face from her so she couldn’t read any emotion. ‘Don’t you think it’s time you let go?’ she said gently.
He didn’t look up and his voice was mechanically neutral. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ He pulled his hand away from hers and she was suddenly left clutching fresh air. She looked down at her empty fingers and shook her head. No way was she letting this slide now.
‘Yes, you do,’ she said, firmly and deliberately.
He still didn’t look up.
‘You forget, Gabriel, that I knew Alison, too,’ she said softly, as much to herself as to him. ‘She was lovely, Gabe. Women can be really gossipy, you know, really catty sometimes. But not her. And she was never once bothered by me—do you remember that? All your new conquests can’t stand you having a female best mate, but Alison just saw me as someone to go shopping with, who she could moan to about your rugby obsession. I can understand why you were so devastated when she died, but do you really think she’d want this? You, the eternal bachelor, never moving on? The Alison I knew would have wanted more for you.’
She paused, wondering if she’d gone too far. God, Lucy, you never ask him about the girl for nigh on ten years and then put him on the spot. You’ll be lucky if he ever speaks to you again. Is that really what you wanted? For a moment there was silence in the room, and still Gabriel didn’t look up at her. He simply stared down at his glass of wine. But then, just as she was wondering if she really should let the subject drop after all, he spoke.
‘We talked sometimes about having kids,’ he said quietly, almost to himself. She had to strain to pick up on what he was saying because she couldn’t see his lips move. ‘She always used to say she wanted six. A tribe, she called it.’ He uttered a strangled laugh. ‘It sounded a good plan to me. I’d always wanted a big family.’
‘I never knew that,’ Lucy said gently, marvelling that she’d known him most of her life and yet he’d never mentioned it. And worse, she’d never thought to ask him. How shameful that was. ‘You never told me.’
‘Yeah, well, I didn’t want to do any of it without her so there wasn’t much point telling you, was there?’ he said quietly and glanced up at her for the first time since he’d started talking. His eyes were dry and his voice showed no sign of emotion. Lucy tried to put a finger on how he sounded. Empty. He sounded empty.
There was a long pause. Lucy forced herself not to speak, hoping that he would continue. He was looking down at his hands.
‘I didn’t want to do any of it without Alison,’ he said eventually. ‘Without her I’d rather not do it at all. I didn’t even want to think of having a family, being a husband or a dad, because she was always meant to be part of the deal.’
‘And do you still feel like that?’ Lucy asked him, biting her lip. For some reason the question seemed incredibly important to her. Out of concern for him, of course, she told herself. Certainly not for her own information. It had no real impact on her, after all. She was Gabe’s friend, nothing more.
‘I don’t let myself think about it, so I really wouldn’t know.’ He glanced up at her for the briefest moment and his expression was one of such suppressed sorrow that she felt her heart constrict inside her chest. Poor Gabriel. So strong and full of life but never really addressing the feelings at the centre of his soul. He’d put his grief in a box ten years ago and thrown away the key. What an absolute tragedy that after all this time he was no closer to moving on and putting what happened to Alison behind him than he had been at the time.
Lucy couldn’t bring herself to press him any harder. She decided to ease up, change the subject. But this is a breakthrough, she told herself. Just getting him to discuss it. She resolved to find a way to help him get over the past and be the complete person she knew he should be. That was what she should be doing, as his friend. That was where her role was in his life. She stood up.
‘Tell you what, I’ll put some more coffee on.’ She smiled at him supportively. ‘And then I’ll tell you the latest news from Planet Ed. Did I tell you he’s bought me Elvis Presley’s film collection? As if bombarding me with his music isn’t enough, he’s decided we can watch them back to back!’ She felt the tension in the room lift as Gabriel laughed. She could see he was relieved at the shift in subject. That was enough soul-searching for one night. But I’m going to bring it up again soon, she thought. This burial of emotion just wasn’t what she wanted for him.
Gabriel let himself into his house on autopilot three hours later. His mind swam. It was the first time he’d discussed Alison with anyone in at least eight years. During that time he’d built a new normality, he’d become so used to sidestepping conversations about her, to avoiding even thinking about her, that it had become second nature.
This evening all that had changed. He felt… he struggled to find the correct word… exposed was the closest he could get to it. Laid bare. And the person who’d enabled that to happen was the person he was already confused about beyond all reason.
Turning on the lights, he walked purposefully through his sitting room, straight to the desk in the far corner. Opening one of the deep drawers, he rummaged inside it until he found what he was after. He drew out a small book, its slightly rough burgundy cover interrupted by a single word embossed in cream. ‘Photos.’
Not allowing himself to pause, he sat down on the nearest chair and rested his fingertips against the cover for a few moments, steeling himself. It had to be six years at least since he’d opened this book. He knew so well what was inside it but he’d deliberately cut those images from his mind. That was why he’d hidden the book away. He didn’t want or need tangible reminders of the past; he had enough of a battle keeping the memories inside his head at bay. He gripped the book tighter for a moment, forcing himself to recognise that hiding these reminders from himself was not a healthy way to live.
With a small intake of breath he opened the book and stared down at the first picture before him. A smile touched his lips. Alison with her pale blonde hair smiled back. No tears came to his eyes, no lump constricted his throat. He’d shed all his tears the first year or two after she’d gone. Night after night when sleep refused to give him respite and he was totally immersed in his grief. Now, looking down at the picture, he realised that he had moved on in a sense. Not that Lucy would agree, he thought wryly. She seemed to believe that serial dating was symptomatic of long-term grief, but she was wrong. He wasn’t stuck grieving; he knew that. He’d chosen not to get involved with anyone since because he didn’t want to go back to that period of dreadful loss. Not ever again. But the touch of Lucy’s hand tonight, the rush of excitement he’d felt when she’d curled her arms around him and kissed him goodbye on the cheek, made him consider for the first time that maybe in denying that closeness with someone he was only living half a life.
For the last ten years his main thought when he met an attractive woman was how many dates it would take to get her into bed. Now perhaps he could begin to contemplate that there could be more to it than that. The only problem was that his inclination to get any closer than that seemed to be conditional on the particular woman he was thinking of. And ever since he’d taken Lucy shopping there had been no one else for him.
He closed the photo album. Was it possible that he’d had feelings for Lucy even before her recent talk of marriage plans? Perhaps. He just
