Page 18 of The Promise of Tomorrow
‘One day you’ll meet someone special too, and open up. What’s more, I think you’ll find that means you’re in love.’
‘Mum!’ said Elena, and she rolled her eyes. ‘Please! I’m perfectly happy as I am.’ Elena tilted her head. ‘It can’t have been easy, telling him such a big secret.’
‘No, but what a relief. It made me realise what a burden it had been, not telling a single soul about it.’ Mel rubbed Elena’s arm. ‘Whatever it is, darling, that’s cast a shadow over you when you were ten…’
‘Seriously, do we have to do this?’ Elena got up.
Melanie got to her feet too. ‘There were positives about that time. The doctors had written me off, warned Don that the worst was going to happen. But then, against all the odds, I came back from the brink of death and was rapidly, miraculously, declared out of danger.’
Elena stared passed her mum’s shoulder.
‘What I’m saying, is… there is always hope, and problems tend to work themselves out. You’ll get through, I’ve no doubt about it, like I – we all – did after that traffic accident. However bad things are, trust in time. Don said the doctors’ faces showed they’d given up, but then bang on midnight something changed. What a transformation. I just came round. They couldn’t work out what had saved me.’
Elena bit the insides of her cheeks, like she used to as a little girl when she worried that pent-up words might tumble out. The doctors might have been baffled, but Elena knew exactly what – or ratherwho– had saved her mother.
11
RORY
Rory lay in bed and sank into the mattress, happily sated after the meal at Elena’s parents and a little drunk. He gave a soft burp. When they got back, she’d pulled out a bottle of Dom Perignon champagne, part of her leaving present from her former employer. She hadn’t drunk it for four years – and now she was drinking it on a Monday night, for no good reason. Elena toasted simply being alive, in the spirit of Rory wearing that gold top and not saving things for best.
‘You’ve woken up a different woman today,’ he’d joked, ‘driving with the car roof down, eating sushi, agreeing to bungee jumping.’
Elena had taken another large mouthful of champagne. ‘If you must know – it’s your fault. This last year you’ve made me realise that perhaps I’ve not made the most of my twenties.’
He’d basked in the compliment whilst she’d topped up his glass. Rory had always assumed that she, that everyone, thought him a little crazy.
He stretched out under the covers and closed his eyes.Downstairs he’d put on his favourite Spotify dance playlist and held out his hand. Elena swigged back a mouthful of the Dom Perignon, stood up and took it. Laughing, they’d danced rhythmically, twirling each other around, step to the side, step to the side, hands clapping at one point, lights dimmed, cheeks aching with smiles. They’d done this occasionally whilst out on staff nights, clubbing or singing karaoke, but this felt different.
For sure he’d got to know her better since moving in, surprised how quickly her place felt like home. Despite living more by the rules than Rory, Elena was easy-going and welcoming. A week in, they both began to relax, and boy, was she funny in a spontaneous way he’d never seen in the office! Like the time she’d tickled his foot in the pool, and when she’d put that mud pack on her face. Elena had tapped Rory on the shoulder. The kitchen lights were dimmed and he’d got the shock of his life when he’d turned round. Elena couldn’t stop chuckling, but then the joke backfired and the face pack cracked.
For a large part of the early evening, at her parents’ house, Rory had picked Don’s brains about football. Don was a Blues fan like Elena’s neighbour. As a lad, Rory had known what it was like to be lonely, and he didn’t want that for Tahoor. Maybe he could get into football after all. Rory opened his eyes. Despite Don’s and Melanie’s laughs, and Elena’s obvious pleasure at seeing them, Rory had sensed a darkness within the Swan family – especially when he’d browsed the photos. Pub quiz facts about swans came to mind, about how those birds were devoted partners, how they were over-protective of their offspring, and he reckoned both of those facts applied to Elena’s parents.
Rory’s own dad was a bit of a swan too, in that if a mate of one died, the males tended not to re-pair. Rory didn’t talk about his mum not being alive and if people just assumed he didn’t seeher much, that was easier. Dad had enjoyed relationships over the years but had never found a special someone, not until recently. Seeing Melanie, and the way she was with Elena, made him wish for the millionth time he could remember his mother. Dad had kept her perfume behind their wedding photo, in the lounge, for several years. During his childhood, Rory would sneak it out, close his eyes and sniff the bottle, hoping for a reminder of a maternal hug. Nothing. But then she had passed when he was two. He’d never forget the day he’d found out why exactly she died. He pushed the memory away, like he had so many times over the years. Instead of brooding, Rory opened his mouth and sang ‘Ocean Eyes’ at the top of his voice. Elena joined in too, through the wall. When they stopped, her laughter sounded quite beautiful. Well, he meant it was okay. Rory shook himself and sat up and reached for his journal and pen.
Monday 25th November
13 minutes of our 20-minute coffee break spent with Gary – unlucky number for some, lucky for me. I won this round of our year-long argument, since we first drank coffee together, over which is the best movie – Barbie or Oppie, and it was a debate over fashion this time. Reluctantly, Gary had to concede that Ken’s giant fur coat was far more iconic than Oppenheimer’s brown trench one.
4 hours – the whole afternoon – finding stats about budget biscuits and how competitors had made them appealing. Fun fact – the popular Rich Tea biscuit came about in the seventeenth century when it was just called a Tea biscuit and given to the upper classes to keep them full in between meals. A clever name reinvention later made that simple biscuit sound aspirational.
4 hours wasted because then Elena comes up with the fresh, stupendous idea of broken biscuits.
1,000 butterflies in my stomach at the prospect of this new direction.
5 strange looks from other drivers, on the way home, as Elena and I pass them with the roof of my car down, Elena waving her hands in the air and singing. Love it!
3 misguided attempts by her dad to do the moonwalk.
2 awesome helpings of moussaka that had 2 layers of aubergine and 2 layers of potatoes.
45-minute chat, over champagne, about the bungee jump, and how Elena was determined to fit it in before turning thirty. She looked buzzed. Maybe people really do assess their lives as they approach a big birthday. Bravo, Elena! Perhaps when I hit my big 3-0, I’ll start wearing beige. Ha! Journal, you know me better than that.
1 single tear, just now, about Mum – Linda. 28 when she died, must visit the cemetery again soon, Stockport winter weather obliging. 25 when she and Dad married. 7 years, after leaving school, spent working in a video store. She became its manager. 1000s of times I’ve wondered what she’d make of streaming services. Reckon she’d have loved them and the two of us would have spent many Netflix-and-popcorn nights together. 1 solitary, precious memory from after she’d passed, years later at high school. A teacher, Mrs Norris, recognised my surname, Bunker – not easy to forget. My classmates used to call me Golfie. Mrs Norris said she and my mum had been pregnant at the same time, and gone to the same baby group. According to her, Mum said having me had made her the happiest woman ever, made her life complete, even though she was ill. Mum said she wouldn’t change a thing, given her time again.
1 nose blow. Time for lights out. Sending 100 big kisses to you, Mum. If you’re there, I’m doing another bungee jump this weekend. Elena and I will be hurling ourselves off a bridge on Sunday. I can tell you beforehand, unlike worrywart Dad. I promise to visit Stockport again soon and leave another bar of your favourite chocolate by your headstone.
12
