Page 106 of Out of the Shadows
DANIEL
“Darling, you look like you’ve not slept for a week. Not sickening for something, are you?”
Geraldine sets down her huge briefcase, and even huger handbag, and flops into the seat opposite me. I’ve picked the gloomiest corner I could find in this anonymous pub near her legal chambers.
“What’s happened?”
She leans forward. Her sharp eyes in her angular face are assessing me. It feels like she’s looking into my soul, and for a second I wonder whether arranging to meet her was a good idea. But the confrontation with Cosmo is burning a hole in my chest. Less than an hour ago, I stood on the street outside the office, anger, upset and frustration a maelstrom inside of me. I need to talk but I need to be listened to more. The irony is acid in my gut.
“I’m sorry to have dumped myself on you like this. I know you’re busy with a case—”
Geraldine waves away my words as though they’re nothing more than irritating flies.
“I’m always busy with a case, you know that, but I’ve always got time for you. And you need time, judging from how manky you look. So, get me a drink and tell me exactly what all this is about.”
Her voice is clipped and her manner brisk. I’ve seen her in court and she’s a force to be reckoned with, and I know I’m going to come under the sharp knife of all her dazzling brilliance.
“I think I can take an educated guess this is about that young man who’s working for you,” she says when I return from the bar. “Am I right?”
“Yes, it’s—”
“You know I’m always happy to give you as much legal advice as you want and need. I said at the beginning that starting a relationship with somebody you work with is a minefield, so let’s see how we can pick around the issue and—”
“It’s got nothing to do with anything professionally compromising.”
“I see.” She puts down her drink, and takes a moment to answer. “So, if it’s not about the legal implications your relationship poses, I assume it’s of a more personal nature.”
Geraldine is one of the few people who has ever been able to stare me down, and she’s doing it now. My gaze drops as I turn my glass of scotch around and around and around.
“There is no relationship, not anymore. We argued, and it was brutal. He doesn’t want anything more to do with me, but he bloody well won’t listen…”
I tell her everything. It all comes spewing out. The fête on the common and my cringing away from introducing Cosmo for who he is, or was. I tell her about what happened today, and the words I flung at him before I left. But that’s not all I tell her.
I tell her about the party and how reluctant I was to go, conscious of the pair of us being an open, recognisable couple.
I tell her about the disagreement over Christmas, and the hurt that dulled his eyes.
I tell her Cosmo’s looking for another job, bitterness burning a hole in my stomach that he’s turned his back on me, on us, and what we could be together.
The words don’t stop as I tell her everything, jumbled and barely coherent. She says nothing, and gives nothing away, as I void it all from my system before at last I come to a stumbling, exhausted halt.
“It’s broken, but he won’t let me try to fix it. I—I feel paralysed. I just don’t know what more I can do.”
“What do you want to do?” Like her gaze, her voice is level and steady.
A spasm of irritation shudders through me.
“Isn’t it obvious? Haven’t you been listening to me? I want to fix it. I want us to go back to where and what we were before all this crap happened.”
“To where and what you were before? That’s never going to happen. Surely you can see that?”
She picks up her glass and takes a sip, her eyes never leaving mine.
“So you think that’s it for us? You think the same as Cosmo?” My voice catches and I tear my eyes away from Geraldine’s piercing gaze.
“I didn’t say that.” My hands lay listless on the table, and she covers them with her own. “Daniel.” The gentleness in her voice reels me in. Her eyes have softened and a smile plays on her lips. “There’s no way back to where you were just days ago. The bridge has burnt, the ship has sailed. In other words, you can’t reinstate the status quo. But why would you want to?”
“I don’t understand. Why wouldn’t I want us to get back to what we were? It was working, it was wonderful, it made me—”
