Page 25 of Sunny Sundays at Primrose Hall

‘Are you sure you won’t stay for a coffee?’ she said as she flicked the kettle on. ‘I’m going to make myself one.’

‘Well, as long as I’m not stopping you from getting on, then great, I’d love to.’

With the coffees made, Sophie found a box of unopened chocolates in the cupboard, a moving-in present from one of her friends, and they wandered back into the living room, where she kicked off her slippers and tucked her legs up to one side of her on the sofa. Tom joined her and for a few minutes their attentions were solely focused on the selection of sweet treats inside the box.

‘Which are you favourites?’ Sophie asked him.

‘Definitely the dark ones, and the nut ones. Oh, and the toffees. Although I am partial to a salted caramel too.’ He gave a low warm chuckle. ‘Perhaps it might have been easier if I’d mentioned the ones I’m not so keen on. The soft centres I would leave to last, but you know I’m not going to refuse one if you absolutely insist.’

‘You see, I knew that was why we were destined to be great friends because my favourites are the soft centres so we can happily share this box of chocolates without fighting over the strawberry creme or the hazelnut whirl. You go right ahead.’

They sat in companionable silence, slowly savouring the chocolates and simply enjoying each other’s company. Sophie suspected Tom was thinking about his family and everything he had to do in the coming days, while she was happy enough to let her thoughts relish this moment of unexpected happiness. Spending quality time with a new friend. She was a different person to the woman she was twelve months ago and she was grateful for the people who had come into her life during that period. Greta would be a friend for life now after effectively rescuing her from a situation that she might still be in today if she hadn’t come to her aid. Pia was a supportive andencouraging ally, who always took an interest in Sophie’s life and her fledgling jewellery business, and the two women, of similar ages, had hit it off from the start. They’d discovered a natural and immediate bond so that now, whenever they met, they would immediately pick up their conversation from where they’d last left off, chatting animatedly and laughing over the same things.Tom?Sophie wasn’t sure how she would define her friendship with the man who was currently running an eye over the remaining chocolates in the box.

‘Just one more,’ he said.

‘Famous last words,’ Sophie added, laughing.

All that she knew was that, disregarding his obvious good looks, she was attracted to his humility, his kindness and his vulnerability that he wasn’t afraid to show. He was so easy to be around. She didn’t have to pretend to be someone she wasn’t, he seemed to like her just as she was, and wasn’t that the way real friendships should be?

‘I don’t want to pry,’ said Tom, ‘and tell me to mind my own business if you don’t want to talk about it, but it sounds as though your ex caused you a fair few problems? You seemed quite…’ Tom searched for the right words. ‘…not frightened exactly, but agitated maybe, seeing him the other night?’

She nodded. Tom was much more perceptive than she’d given him credit for.

‘It was unexpected, that was all. I’d been having such a lovely evening up until that point.’

She soon found herself opening up to Tom about the years she spent with Kyle, when it had started to go wrong and how his drinking had impacted on their relationship.

‘The trouble is it happened slowly over a long period of time, years in fact, so that one day you wake up and find yourself in a situation that no longer makes you happy and you’re left wondering when and how it had all gone so wrong. That theperson you’re with isn’t the person you fell in love with. Does that make sense?’

Tom nodded, hanging on to her every word.

‘There’s a part of me that feels bad that I walked away, that I didn’t realise sooner the extent of his problems. Who knows, maybe I could have nipped it in the bud or done something to help, but it was as though the problem crept up on us and then it was too big for us to navigate our way through. He changed and I guess I changed too.’

‘From what I know of these things, and I must admit that’s not a lot, I don’t think it’s a problem you can solve for anyone else. It has to be something they want to change for themselves and if Kyle wasn’t ready to do that, then you were never going to be able to help him to stop drinking.’

‘Yeah, that was the thing, he didn’t see it as a problem. He was great at deflecting the situation onto everyone else, making it their problem and not his. Occasionally he would pay lip service and say he would cut down, and I so wanted to believe him and could imagine how things would be better, but of course it never came to anything.’

‘It must have been so hard for you.’

Sophie nodded. It felt cathartic to talk about it with Tom. Generally, she hadn’t confided in many people as it had been an intensely private matter and she’d felt embarrassed and ashamed, that somehow it reflected badly on her, but now she had a bit of distance from the situation she could see it in a different light.

‘Kyle’s sober now and I’m so proud that he’s done that. I know it can’t have been easy. I suppose some people might think that I should have stayed and supported him through what is effectively an illness, but too much had happened between us. There was too much bad feeling, from my side certainly, and I tried to imagine how I would feel if he did give up the booze.If I would suddenly feel all those emotions that I had in the beginning, but I realised that we’d lost what we had and there was no way of getting it back again. I no longer had feelings for him.’

Just talking about that time made her skin prickle and relief washed over her, knowing that it wasn’t her reality any more.

‘I understand that. I think it takes a lot of strength and courage to walk away from a long-term relationship even if there are strong and valid reasons for doing so.’

She liked that Tom understood, that he got where she was coming from, but then again, he had been through a similar situation.

‘You’ve been through it too?’

‘Yep. And I probably didn’t handle it in the best way, but I can’t change that now. Anna’s a great girl and we got on well, there was no big falling out, but we’d been coasting along for years. Finding out about Dad made me question everything and everyone around me, and sadly that included Anna. She deserved so much more than I was able to give her. Besides,’ his voice brightened, and there was a half-smile on his lips, ‘I’ve heard she’s met someone else now and is really happy, so I like to think I did her a massive favour.’

‘That’s good, and I guess you learn a lot about yourself when you go through something like that. I know I did. It gives you a clearer perspective on what you do and don’t want from your life.’

Sophie shifted in her seat, snuggling up further into the corner of the sofa. Tom turned to look at her, a smile lingering on his lips as though he was about to say something else, but then thought better of it. Suddenly, he jumped up.

‘I must go! It’s been great tonight. Thanks again, Sophie.’

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