Breakdown, page 27
“Of course it’s okay.”
“It made me think of you when I saw it.”
She took off the gloves to untie the ribbon, carefully opened the tissue. Inside was a necklace: a slim chain with a little gold heart pendant about the size of her thumbnail. Set into the heart, off-center, glittered a tiny diamond. “Oh! It’s beautiful.”
“I don’t know if it’s a real diamond.”
“I don’t care. I love it.”
Pauline opened the clasp and put it on. He held her hair up off the back of her neck while she hooked it. She adjusted the collar of her jacket and felt for it. It hung just in the hollow of her neck, the perfect length. Chris watched her, smiling.
“Thank you,” she said. “But I didn’t bring anything for you.”
“Yes, you did.” He kissed her again. They sat holding each other for a few more minutes.
“Chris?”
“Hmm…?”
“My butt’s cold,” she said with a little shiver, and he laughed like she’d hoped he would.
When they got back to the house, the boys were home from school and everyone was gathered in the yard.
“We’re just having a game of football,” Simon called out to them. “Would you like to play?”
“Oh, yes!” Pauline said, and they hurried over.
They lined up along the garden wall. Ian and Preston stood out in the yard as captains. Ian picked first.
“Uncle Chris.”
Chris seemed a bit surprised, left Pauline’s side, and trotted over to stand with Ian.
Fiona leaned a bit closer to Pauline. “Ian knows Pres would pout if Ian chose Brian,” she said.
“Dad!” Preston called out with a grin, and Brian went to stand with him.
“Pauline is good,” Chris suggested to Ian, but Ian pulled a face at him.
“Uncle Jon,” Ian said.
Brian was bending over and whispering something in Preston’s ear. Preston looked unconvinced, but finally said, “Pauline.”
Chris gasped and shot an astonished look at Brian as everyone chuckled and Pauline went to stand with Preston and Brian. Chris put a hand to his heart, but she could see he was laughing too. She blew him a little kiss.
“Uncle Simon,” Ian said quickly.
“Mum!” Preston said with a smile.
That left Alan and Vivian. Ian stood chewing his lip. He glanced over at Brian, who looked significantly at him.
“Aunt Vivian,” Ian said after a pause.
Preston excitedly said, “Uncle Alan!” and the teams were complete. Simon put his hand on Ian’s back.
“Good job,” he said, grinning. “We’ve got ’em!”
“I wouldn’t be too sure,” Chris said. “Pauline’s good. She grew up playing with boys.” He looked over at Brian. “No mercy, Brian!”
CHAPTER 28
The game ended in a draw when it was time to get tea. Alan and Vivian went off to the gatehouse while the rest trooped into the kitchen.
“Oh, that was such fun!” Pauline said, hanging her coat on top of Chris’s.
“We used to do that in hotel lobbies if it was raining or cold outside,” Chris said.
Brian laughed. “Remember that one place in Kansas that tried to kick us out?”
“It’s too bad Laura isn’t here. She has great tour stories,” Fiona put in.
“I would have liked to meet her,” Pauline said. She sat down next to Chris at the table.
“Next time,” Chris said.
The boys wanted to hear more about the band and the tour from so long ago. Pauline chimed in with them, so the tea conversation was all about their antics backstage and at hotels. Pauline watched Chris, Brian, and Jon all trying to outdo each other in the eyes of the boys.
“Were you along for the whole tour, Jon?” Pauline asked him.
“Most of it. I was in charge of cleaning up their messes.” He grinned.
“No, no, no.” Chris wagged a finger at him. “We were tame, compared to some bands. We had fun. We were never destructive.”
“The fire extinguisher in the vending machine?” Jon put in.
“That was Stan. He paid for it,” Brian assured Pauline.
“They were out of Hot Tamales,” Chris said.
“What on earth—?”
“A kind of cinnamon-flavored sweet.”
“Is that what those were? I always thought they were foul,” Brian said.
“Did you demand all sorts of odd things in your contract?”
“No, only that we never took our shirts off or kissed gorgeous models in the videos,” Brian said.
“Golly, I hadn’t even considered videos,” Pauline said, eyeing Chris.
“We were tame,” he insisted. “They all had that ‘games and sports’ theme.”
Brian got up from the table and disappeared into the sitting room. He returned in a few minutes with a stack of CDs. He set them in front of Pauline, pushing aside her empty plate.
“Oh, I remember that,” she said, picking up the first one, called Good Match. She smiled at the picture: the two of them—impossibly young—posed as if in the stands of some sporting event, watching intently. “My flatmate owned this, but I don’t think I ever did.”
Brian gasped in mock disappointment. “I’m crushed!”
“This was the big one, right?” Pauline said. She checked the track listing on the back. The two songs that Chris had mentioned to her that day long ago in Breton were there. “Play this one.”
“Later,” Chris said. He turned the CD over to the front again and pointed to one of the other “fans” in the bleachers. “Look, there’s Stan, he was bass. That’s Erik, our drummer, and that’s Wyatt, our manager. And here”—he pointed to two girls who were sitting below them, looking not at the game, but at Chris and Brian, their faces partly obscured—”that’s Fiona and Laura.”
Pauline glanced up at Fiona, who rolled her eyes.
“It was all terribly exciting at the time,” Fiona said.
Pauline picked up the next CD, No More Games. The picture was the two of them on a tennis court, with the net between them. They stood apart, arms crossed, each with a racket, staring at the camera with dark looks on their faces. Instead of tennis whites, they both wore black.
“Hmm, bit of a departure there.”
“There’s an understatement,” Brian said. “Our thinly veiled message.”
“No one got it,” Chris said. “Well, not right away.”
The third CD had only Brian’s name on it. It was titled Divergence. It showed a darkly shadowed road that split off into two directions, with a stone wall between them. One direction led toward the sunset, the other led off into darkness.
“Oh, subtle,” Pauline remarked, and glanced at Brian.
“It didn’t seem so childish at the time. I thought I was being clever.”
“All sorts of people tried to reason with him,” Fiona said, “but he was a stubborn lout.”
Brian put his hands up. “Guilty as charged.”
The next two were rather plain, architectural, devoid of symbolism. One was predominantly white, the other grey.
“Alan’s influence there,” Brian said. “Thank you, Alan.”
Pauline shifted them off the stack. Chris drew a breath, and his arm tightened around her. He glanced up at Brian.
“You’ve got mine?” he said, eyebrows drawn together.
“Of course,” Brian said, leaning back in his chair. “Good stuff. What, you didn’t have mine?”
“I did. They’re excellent.”
Pauline examined the CDs. The first one, Hit the Road, showed a distorted figure on a deserted highway.
“Is that you?” she asked Chris.
He shook his head. “Nah. Just a picture.” He flipped it over. The back showed him on a small stage, lights across the top, the heads of the audience in the foreground. He held his guitar and leaned toward the microphone. His eyes were closed.
“You’re fat,” Pauline said and snorted.
“I was not,” he protested. “I had a little extra padding, maybe. Hell, everyone did. You’re just used to the new and improved version.”
The second one had a close-up of his face. It was called Home.
“That’s the good one,” Chris said.
“I liked ‘Someone for Me’ best,” Brian said.
“Play it,” Pauline said, and tried to hand the CD to Brian, but Chris took it from her.
“No.”
“Play it for her, Chris,” Brian urged. “It’s brilliant.”
“Not right now,” Chris said. He put the CD on the bottom of the stack, his eyebrows drawn down. Brian looked at him strangely but let it go. He went back into the sitting room.
“I’ve never heard any of this, except that first album,” Pauline said to Chris.
He leaned in to kiss her cheek. “Some other time, okay?”
Brian came back with a big photo album. He grinned. “I’ve got pictures!”
* * *
Chris kept hold of Pauline’s hand and led her across the yard in the dark to the gatehouse where Alan and Vivian lived. He knocked on the door.
Alan answered. “Ah, good evening, sir, madam. Your table is ready.”
He stepped aside to let them into the main room of the little house. Only one lamp was lit. Some furniture had been pushed back to make space for a small table with a candle, and cutlery for two. Alan helped Pauline with her coat.
Pauline’s mouth watered at the smell in the air. Chris was grinning.
“What is this?” she asked under her breath.
“You’ll see.”
“Right this way,” Alan said, and ushered them the five paces over to the table. He held the chair for Pauline.
“Thank you,” she said, smiling. “I take it we’re not having supper with the others?”
“Nope. Just us,” Chris said.
Alan produced a bottle of wine and gave it to Chris to pour. He inclined his head. “Your dinner should be ready momentarily.” He turned on his heel and went through another door, presumably into the kitchen.
Chris’s eyes sparkled in the candlelight. “Wine, my dear?”
“What is it I smell? It’s fantastic. What is all this?”
“Do you remember last year, after that disastrous Christmas party at the pub? When I should have kissed you? Hell, I can’t believe how much time I wasted not kissing you.”
“After the party?” Pauline prompted. Bits and pieces of Christmas came to her in a jumble.
“We were walking home, and I asked you what you wanted for Christmas, and you said—”
Pauline laughed. “A pizza!”
“Well, it’s taken me nearly a year, but you’re going to get your pizza. Happy Christmas, Paulie. Early.”
“I can’t believe you remembered that.”
“And no onions, because I plan to breathe on you later, heavily.”
“I’m looking forward to that as much as the pizza.”
“Wow, I’m not used to this,” Chris said and shifted in his seat.
“Used to wha—? Oh.” Pauline put a hand to her mouth. “Sorry.”
“Not at all. Bloody fantastic. I may go insane when you leave tomorrow.”
That made Pauline’s heart lurch. “Let’s not mention that, okay?” She picked up her wineglass and held it up. “To tonight.”
“Tonight,” Chris echoed, and clinked against hers.
* * *
Pauline snuggled closer to Chris under the covers, moved her leg against his, ran her fingers along his chest.
“That was nice, tonight,” she said.
“The pizza?”
“Yes, but I meant tea. The picture album. The stories.”
“Yeah, it was.”
“I could see it, that you two were mates.”
“We were.”
“I can see why you missed him so much.”
“I think I blew all that way out of proportion,” Chris whispered.
“No, you didn’t,” she assured him, and kissed him gently. “Why wouldn’t you play me that song?”
He turned his head toward her in the dark. “It was Sophie’s song. She was in the studio when I recorded it. I never sang it unless she was in the audience.”
“Oh.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, I understand,” Pauline said. “It’s all right. Brian doesn’t know that, does he?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
Chris got his arms around her, held her close.
“Someday I’ll write you a song,” he said.
“And will you sing it to me, too?”
“I’ll try. Don’t know if I still can.”
“I’ll let you practice if you need to.”
“I’d like to practice something else, now.”
“Yes, please. Practice makes perfect,” Pauline murmured.
* * *
Pauline woke up slowly, the crisp white sheet against her cheek, her arm bumping Chris, warm beside her. Enough light found its way past the curtains to illuminate his face. In Breton, she’d grown used to seeing it carefully controlled, masklike in its neutrality. Now, relaxed in sleep, the strong lines of Chris’s face seemed both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time.
She slipped out of bed and went to the loo. The smell of sausage cooking wafted up from the kitchen downstairs along with the faint sound of voices and the scrape of a chair. She tiptoed back across the hall to Chris’s room. He turned his head when she opened the door.
“I didn’t mean to wake you,” she said, sliding back in beside him.
“I expect we’ll have to get up soon.” His hand found hers beneath the covers. His eyes stared into hers. “Michael’s coming today.”
“I know.”
“I don’t want you to go.”
She caressed his face. “They need me at home.”
“I know.”
“Anyway, you seemed quite content before I got here,” she half joked.
“Well, yes, but I didn’t know what I was missing,” he said, pulling her closer, kissing her neck, her shoulder, her throat.
Someone knocked on the door.
“Hey, you two,” came Jon’s voice. “It’s gone seven. Sorry.”
“Yes, thank you very much!” Chris called out, and continued grazing. He unbuttoned her top. Pauline stifled a giggle.
“All right,” she said, “don’t get yourself all in a stew.”
“Too late. I’m thoroughly stewed.”
“We have to get up,” she insisted and tried to roll away from him. He grabbed her tight, threw a leg over her.
“No, wait.” He kissed her lips, pulled her to him. “Ten minutes. We can take ten minutes. Please, don’t get up yet.”
She didn’t really want to get up. Michael likely would be late, anyway. She snuggled against him and kissed him back. They took twenty minutes.
* * *
It was half-eight when they finished a quick breakfast and everyone stood and said their good-byes. Pauline got hugs from everyone, including Ian, who was nudged forward by his mum, but did not seem at all reluctant.
“Come anytime,” Fiona urged her, and Pauline agreed to try. Chris helped Pauline on with her coat, got his own, took her hand. He picked up her bag, and they went outside together to wait for Michael.
She walked close to him on the little garden path, through the gate and across the yard. They went out to stand by the road, out of sight of those in the kitchen, and Chris put her bag down and turned to her. He took both her hands in his, looked into her eyes.
“I’ll come home soon,” he said.
“December.”
He nodded but didn’t say anything.
“And maybe I can come visit again.”
He kissed her. “You’ll be okay?”
“Of course,” she said, putting her face against his jacket. His solid arms went around her and held her, securing her in an embrace that held no uncertainty. She drew in the rich, earthy smell of him. This would soon be a daily occurrence. She sighed in contentment. The fingers of his right hand trailed up her back, caressed her neck, combed through her hair. A tremor shook her, and he gave a soft growl of pleasure and held her tighter.
She became aware of a noise in the distance.
She looked up at him. He kissed her long and hard, keeping his hold on her. She didn’t want it to end, but he broke away from her when the lorry rounded the corner and came into view.
“No reason to cry this time,” she said to him above the noise of the engine as Michael pulled up next to them. He held her hand, looked at her, and he shook his head, smiled just a little.
The lorry squealed to a halt. Chris stepped forward and reached up to open the door.
“I’m a bit late!” Michael called down from his seat. “But I don’t expect you mind, eh?”
Chris helped Pauline up into the cab, then got her bag and stepped up to hand it in. She took it and put it behind her seat. Chris stood there, gripping the handle of the open door, looked at Michael, held out his other hand.
“Thanks, Cooper,” he said, and Michael smiled and leaned over to shake it.
“I reckoned I owed you one,” Michael said lightly.
“Can we do it again?” Pauline asked him.
“We’ll have to see,” Michael said. “I’ll have a word with Kay. She’s pretty accommodating if she’s in a good mood. And of course, she’d do almost anything for you, Price.” He grinned wide and winked at them.
“Tell her thank you, too,” Chris said.
“I will indeed. She has a job for you anytime you want one, you know.”
“Not a chance,” Chris said, and looked at Pauline. He took her hand in his and squeezed it.
“Well, I hate to have to rush, but I do have a schedule to keep,” Michael said then.
Pauline put a hand up to Chris’s face, smiled at him. “I’ll see you soon,” she said, and he nodded, swallowed. His eyes flicked in Michael’s direction briefly. He looked like he wanted to kiss her again, but instead he used his free arm to hug her close.
“I’ll miss you,” he whispered into her ear.
“Me, too. It won’t be too long,” she whispered back.
