Page 65 of Hearts Colliding
One by one he went through them. Him and his mum. Smiling, laughing, cuddling up together. He brought one nearer to his face to study in detail, and a tiny smile found his lips. Sunlight flooded the drawing room. Like now, it was a mess, but not with half-packed boxes, the detritus of leaving, but with toys and games, the mess of home.
"How old was I?"
Six, seven perhaps, wearing a smock and an oversized beret, holding up a paint brush in front of a child sized easel. But it was his mum who took centre stage, the child who was once him relegated to a support act.
He moved onto the next photo, and the next. So many taken in this room, all by his father. He frowned as the memory surfaced. His father had been a keen photographer. How had he forgotten? But it’d been a long time ago, in the before time, and his father had never picked up a camera again, after the woman they’d both loved so much had died.
Alex closed his eyes and sank back against the cushions, putting the photos aside. Pulling up his legs he wrapped his arms around them as the memories tumbled down over his head. His mother’s light and warmth had been snuffed out, plunging life into darkness and his father’s wild, feral fury. He’d fled from his father’s anger-filled desolation to curl up and hide, nursing his own grief, a frightened teenager who’d never felt so alone.
Alex pressed his forehead to his bent knees, as his tears made their slow and silent journey down his cheeks.
His grief had been a quiet thing, locked away inside as it had eaten away at him, a parasite gnawing from the inside out. His father had raged against the world — had raged against him — because there had been nobody else to be the punch bag for his grief.You look so much like her…Eva’s words, they’d stolen the breath from him. Had that been why his father's heartbreak had turned to hatred, because every time his father looked at him he saw the woman he'd loved and lost?
Alex's phone pinged a message and vibrated against his hip. He’d meant to switch the thing off and keep the world at bay for a few more hours. He fished it from his pocket, ready to power down. His mouth went dry, and his heart stuttered.
He opened up the message with trembling fingers.
The phone slipped from his hands. His heart pounded as he began to shake. No, he hadn't got what he wanted. He hadn't won. And it wasn't over.
CHAPTERTHIRTY-FOUR
Ryan passed the pint across to Declan without a word, who gave a short nod of thanks.
"For goodness sake, boys, can't you two play nicely? You’ve been friends for too long for all this to come between you. Now’s the time to be stronger than ever.” Eva huffed and shook her head before beetling off to collect up glasses.
Ryan didn’t answer. He didn’t feel strong, and he certainly didn’t care; he didn't care about anything much anymore. Alex had got his plans approved, and now he was leaving, so what was there to care about?
Declan put his pint down on the bar. Ryan narrowed his eyes, or as much as he could without wincing, and followed the slow creep of a flush making its way up Declan's face.
"All right. I admit it. I shouldn't have hit you.”
Ryan said nothing as Declan's flush deepened. He was going to wring this moment out, squeeze out every last drop of apology. Placing his finger tips on his puffy eyelid, he gasped.
“I’m sorry, okay? There was no justification for slugging you. Well, I reckoned there was at the time. But I was angry. I mean, finding you there with Alex Love, I thought... You know what I thought. I’m sorry.” Declan sagged on the bar stool, shoulders slumping, and let Charles hug him in close.
Ryan sighed. He was sick of saying it, but one more time wouldn't hurt.
"I never betrayed the war council, or any villager who opposed the application. I'm not a liar, I never have been, and I’ve no plans to start now. Believe me if you want, Declan, but either way I don’t really care anymore.”Because everything I care about is leaving and never coming back.
“I know you’re not a liar, and I should have thought with my head, not my fists. I'm sorry, mate, I really am.”
Ryan accepted Declan’s proffered hand, glad to have his friend back. His nan was right, they were all going to need each other in the coming weeks and months.
“Hallelujah," Charles muttered.
Ryan wiped down the bar, and rearranged the crisps and nuts, then rearranged them back. He wiped down the bar again, before polishing the gleaming glasses, mindless activity that could never be enough to wipe away the last image of Alex, seared on his soul, pale blue eyes filled with ice, his voice colder, as he ordered him to go.
“Can we appeal?”
Ryan jumped at Declan’s sudden question. They’d all been too numb to think about next steps when they’d received the news from the planning committee.
“In theory we can,” Charles said, “if we believe the decision’s unlawful, or that the New House’s listed status hasn’t been properly taken into consideration. But there’s no evidence of anything like that. Alex is smart. Everything that needed to be covered by him has been, all the i’s dotted and the t’s crossed. This is his business, after all. He’s pressed the magic button called ‘affordable homes’. In fact, he’s gone over the quota that’s called for in law. The local authority have been very clear they want more houses built, so—”
“But what’s affordable really mean? Wages all over the West Country are generally on the lower side. Whether they’re officiallyaffordableor not, I bet most people around here wouldn’t be able to find the money to buy one.”
Charles nodded. “I know, we all know, but the council in their infinite stupidity have decided otherwise. The long and short of it is there’s very little, if anything, we can do. We have to be realistic. Like I said, Alex is smart. It’s now up to him about what happens next.”
