Page 11 of The Life We Almost Had

‘I lovedBack to the Futurewith Michael J. Fox,’ I said. ‘Was that the Eighties?’

‘Yep. Everyone loves Marty.’ Unabashed, Adam began to sing ‘The Power of Love’ from the movie. I joined in the chorus, knowing that everyone here was a stranger, probably never to be seen again.

‘So I know where you’d go if you could travel in time. Or what era anyway. The Eighties in…’ I appraised him. ‘America? Hollywood?’

‘Because I have film-star good looks?’ Adam smoothed back his hair.

‘I was thinking more about you seeing where they made movies rather than starring in them,’ I laughed.

‘No offence taken.’ Adam pretended to dab a tear with his napkin. ‘I’d like to see America. I’d like to see all the places I sell tickets to.’ He caught my expression. ‘I’m a travel agent.’

‘That sounds interesting.’

‘It’s a means to an end. I’ve been saving to see the world and working there has meant I can plan it all out properly, and get a staff discount. I leave next month.’

I fixed my smile in place. There was no reason for me to be disappointed. It’s not like I’d see him again after this holiday, but melancholy settled heavily in my stomach once I knew that we wouldn’t even be in the same country.

I stretched my mouth into a smile. ‘Where are you going?’

‘Thailand, Italy, China. India. Everywhere. I want to see it all. Everything. I’m a frustrated Christopher Columbus. Tell me something about you, Anna Adlington.’

‘I can play flute up to Grade 4.’ I watched his face for his reaction. ‘You look underwhelmed. Okay, you’ll be blown away by this one.’

Adam drummed the table with his fingertips.

‘I know the offside rule,’ I said triumphantly.

‘I am impressed!’

I knew he would be; he’d mentioned he loved football. We continued chatting about the superficial. The things that are easy to share. But even then there was something more to us. Something deeper. An affinity I was trying so hard to ignore. My rational mind kept pointing out that he was leaving in a month.

This is not a date.

‘I want to show you something,’ Adam said after we’d split the bill. We left the restaurant and headed away from our resort past various bars. Vendors attempting to entice us inside with promises of half-price pitchers and cheap cocktails.

‘Come, come. Photo. Photo.’ A man ushered us over to a lonely parrot perched inside a cage too small for him to spread his wings. A cage whose stench made my stomach roil. ‘You pay. I take picture.’

‘No.’ How could anyone use an animal this way? The bird had half of his red and green feathers missing. A chain around his ankle. He looked so miserable.

‘I’ll have a photo taken,’ Adam said.

I watched silently. Judgementally. I had thought Adam was kind. The man placed the bird on Adam’s arm and retreated, raising the camera in front of his face.

It was so quick. I barely registered what Adam was doing as his fingers worked at the chain around the bird’s ankles. There was a flapping of wings and a happy squawk as the bird rose into the darkening sky.

Adam grabbed my hand and we ran – the photographer’s angry voice chasing us.

A stitch burned in my side by the time Adam led me down a narrow walkway where I could have stretched out my hands and touched either of the whitewashed buildings that flanked us. At the end, there was a cove guarded by a chain fence. A smattering of padlocks clamped to the links.

‘Love locks!’ I rushed forward, delighted, tilting the padlocks towards the moon to read the names, the initials, the declarations of undying love. It felt good that, despite being dumped, there was still a small ember smouldering inside of me that believed in romance.

Adam strolled onto the beach and by the time I reached him, he’d shrugged off the shirt that had hung open over a T-shirt. He spread it over the sand before gesturing for me to sit. I slipped off my sandals and dug my toes into the damp sand. For a while we sat, listening to the crash of the waves rolling inland until we had caught our breath.

‘That was amazing,’ I said when the burning in my chest had subsided.

‘Maybe not,’ Adam said. ‘The bird is used to being given food and water. Being chained up. There’s a chance he might not survive in the wild but I reckon he’d prefer to take his chances than spend the rest of his days in that small filthy cage.Besides, he can always come back if he wants. If you love someone, set them free and all that.’

I found it impossible to let things go; I was still checking my ex’s Facebook umpteen times a day. Once, when I was younger, I had a cat named Pugwash. He grew old. Sick. When I was sixteen, my mum told me that the kindest thing to do would be to put him to sleep but I shouted and I cried and I wouldn’t agree to it. For days afterwards I watched with shame as Pugwash limped around the house he’d once raced around with ease. My guilty ears listened to his sad mewing as he failed to make the jump onto the windowsill where he liked to watch the traffic. I knew it was best for him. Iknew. And yet I still couldn’t envisage life without him. At the end of that week I came home from school and found Mum had made the decision for me. Letting him go when she knew I wouldn’t. Knew I couldn’t.

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