Page 31 of The Promise of Tomorrow
20
RORY
Damn. Rory hated going to bed on an argument. It was one thing Mum never allowed, according to Dad. Rory shouldn’t have fussed over Elena; she had her own life – they were colleagues, friends. He wasn’t her lover or parent. Now she wasn’t even in her bedroom so they couldn’t clear the air. Elena had done her disappearing act again. Wherever she’d vanished to, it wasn’t his business. Rory cleaned his teeth, pulled on his pyjama bottoms and T-shirt-style top, before crawling under the covers.
Celebrating Christmas, tomorrow? It was too much after a day of putting on a brave face with his dad, after feeling he should have moved on so much further when it came to his mum. Something was holding him back from carving out a full life. It was as if he’d moored himself to her death, with no chance of an Anchor Aweigh! Rory pressed the balls of his hands into his eyes and lay still for a moment.
Sorry Mum. Bit of a pity party here. It’s you who took your last breath, not me. He clenched his fists. He needed to get a grip – especially as a big concern loomed, in the current day.
Whatwasgoing on with Elena?
At first, having the roof down on the car, the sushi, drinking the four-year-old Dom Perignon on a whim and getting drunk on a night out in Cariswell had made Rory chuckle. He’d found Elena’s new, carefree behaviour refreshing. But slowly that had changed, from the moment she took a sickie. It was so out of character, followed by her dismissive attitude over Tim’s bungee jump safety advice, and now going into a complete stranger’s house on a first date.
Worse than all that, what really made him shiver, even though he was snuggled under the covers, was her comment tonight, about not knowing what could happen before the real Christmas Day arrived, almost as if she didn’t expect to be here.
Rory sat bolt upright. The day before they’d gone to the pool for that swim, she’d left work early for a doctor’s appointment. It was a Friday. It had been from that weekend on that her behaviour changed, with the sushi at her parents’ place on the Monday.
He wrapped his arms around his knees and sat in that position for the longest time, until cold ran through his body, like a shard of ice. A deep, dark empty pit formed in his stomach, and Rory reached for his journal.
Saturday 30th November
1 realisation. Elena must be really ill. That’s the only explanation for her behaviour this last week, acting as if she’d got nothing to lose. She doesn’t care what happens any more because her behaviour isn’t carefree… it’s actuallycareless.
Elena is dying.
21
ELENA
Elena pulled up the car boot and heaved out two shopping bags, glad for her scarf and gloves yet hoping snow would soon fall. She’d like to see it one last time. Elena took a moment, indulging in memories of whizzing down a hill with Mum, on a sledge, the two of them laughing every time it bumped over a clump of grass. Even more excited than Elena, at the first sign of snow, Dad would be insisting they needed to build a snowman. As those warm thoughts dissipated, a crisp winter breeze brushed over her again. She was about to dump the shopping on the ground, to look for her keys, when the front door opened. Tinsel draped around his neck, like a cabaret performer’s boa, Rory stood there.
‘You found the Christmas decorations, then?’ She’d got them down from the loft this morning before heading out to the supermarket.
As if doing a striptease, he held each end of the tinsel and tugged it from side to side. Then he gave a little bow, reached forwards and took the bags. He carried them into the kitchen. Elena locked up and followed him.
She stopped in the hallway and stared through the lounge’s glass door. ‘How did you guess that’s the exact spot where I like to set up the tree?’ A naked, plastic pine tree stood to the left of the television. Her chest hitched. It hit home. Christmas was coming and she really might not see it. Might not laugh at Dad, tipsy, doing ‘The Electric Slide’ line dance after his post-dinner Bailey’s. Nor Mum insisting they sit throughIt’s a Wonderful Lifefor the umpteenth time because of her crush on James Stewart.
‘I didn’t dare dress it, though. People can be very possessive of their baubles,’ he said. Rory handed her a mug of coffee. ‘Sorry. You were right. Iwasa dick last night.’
She turned to him. ‘Oh… I’m sorry too. We… were both idiots.’
‘Makes me realise how set in my ways I’ve become – not with my sports, but with the day-to-day. I haven’t shared digs with anyone since uni and back then it was the norm to go out spontaneously, to be more impulsive. Now I even check on Brandy and Snap each night, even though there’s no way they can get out.’
‘I think that’s called love,’ she said.
‘Are you saying I love you?’
‘The heart wants what the heart wants, Bunker.’
As if. Rory and Elena? That would be like bringing together chalk and cheese, night and day, salt and pepper, black and white, oil and water.
Although, lately she had thought of him as more than a colleague. Rory had become a… friend. She’d not held onto many of those, over the years, keeping the past to herself, not wanting to get really close, aware that she might not always be around. Elena held out her free hand. ‘Thanks for caring,’ she mumbled. ‘I do appreciate it.’
He slipped his hand into hers and she squeezed, both of them giving each other an understanding nod. She respected her colleague for several reasons, and one was that he never hesitated to apologise if he knew he was wrong.
‘I’ve got used to living on my own too,’ she said. ‘Not sure I could go back to an interrogation from my parents every time I got in.’
They unpacked the bags and Rory listened, mouth agape, whilst Elena talked about Carl’s J F Kennedy theory and how NASA was supposedly the bad guy. She also showed him the photo she’d taken last night of the pickle stall, and groaned dramatically when he insisted they must find time to visit and buy a selection. When they’d both stopped laughing, she lifted up the chicken.
