Читать книгу An Impossible Thing Called Love - Belinda Missen - Страница 10

As I stared aimlessly at the shelves of books before me, I couldn’t decide if I wanted a biography, some new-fangled self-help title from a washed-up celebrity, or the ‘hottest’ novel of the month. I placed all three options back on the shelf and continue browsing.

The thought of leaving had my stomach all twisted in knots, and it wasn’t just because I’d fallen head over heels in love with Europe, but more to do with a certain redhead with piercing blue eyes and a lopsided smile I’d left back in Edinburgh. It’d been almost a full week since we’d said goodbye to the Scottish capital via the rugged Highlands, and it had all passed in a blur of castles and lochs.

‘Have you got what you want?’ Heather idled up beside me, the colours washed out of her hair in favour of her natural mousy brown. She sipped slowly at a can of soft drink and twisted her foot around. ‘There’s a pub down the other end. Want a drink? Josh’s saved us a table.’

‘Sure, sounds great,’ I replied distractedly, flicking through a copy of Empire. With a sigh, Heather took the magazine from my hands, replaced it on the stacks and lead me out of the shop.

‘Come on misery guts, you can pine for him over a drink.’ We skirted past more souvenir shops, Heather stopping me to marvel at suits in the window of a menswear shop, and found Josh breaking off another row of Galaxy and lamenting that we couldn’t get it back home.

‘My shout.’ I pulled my purse out, aware that I had been a wee bit of a Debbie Downer lately. ‘What do you want?’

‘Cider,’ they answered in unison.

‘You two,’ I teased, making my way over to the bar, my gaze wandering around the terminal as I waited for someone to serve me.

Airport terminals were funny places. Time seemed to stand still; ten o’clock in the morning was deemed a respectable hour to drink, mostly because clocks seemed to be hidden. Businesswomen in Ugg boots shopped for perfume and businessmen for alcohol and overpriced shirts. I smiled to myself as a man in the café across the way, with a shock of red hair, fumbled to organise a clothes hanger, carry on suitcase and a coffee cup all at the same time.

I straightened. My head spun so fast I could have been in a Seventies horror film.

‘William!’ I all but shouted his name across the bar. He looked up, head cocked to the side in that way when someone calls your name but you’re not entirely sure that you’ve heard. Though I could see him through the angles of the bar, he clearly couldn’t see me.

I darted towards him, a sense of elation building up in my chest. ‘William!’

He turned again, this time his eyes catching mine. They widened with surprise as he put two and two together, connected the dots, and coloured between the lines.

‘Emmy!’ That wild, cheeky grin that I fell for on Hogmanay spread across his face as I reached up, throwing my arms around him in a hug. With a laugh, he awkwardly hugged me back with just the one arm, before setting me before him.

‘Well, hello to you too, stranger. Of all the gin joints, hey?’ He fiddled with the last of his belongings.

I let out a breathy laugh. My body felt loose with relief, almost like I was floating. I couldn’t feel my legs. ‘What are you doing here?’

He held up the arm with the suit hanger wrapped around it. ‘Heading to France for a late family Christmas-slash-New-Year-slash-I’ve-been-a-terrible-workaholic-son-all-year type of party.’

His eyes narrowed on my clothes, and I suddenly felt self-conscious of the activewear leggings and I HEART SCOTLAND hoodie I’d chosen as my plane outfit, especially when he looked handsome as hell in a buttoned-up navy blue sweater and matching pea coat.

‘Is this it then?’ he asked.

I felt my heart tug a little at his words. Is this it? They stung, and the realisation that I was so close to leaving sat in my stomach like a pit of post-meal acid.

‘This is it.’ I nodded. ‘A thirty-hour flight in two metal tubes forty thousand feet in the air and I’ll be back in Sydney.’

‘God, and here I am internally moaning about my forty-minute flight across the channel.’ He stared at me with those piercing blue eyes. ‘Want to grab a coffee then? How long have you got?’

I angled for a view of the departures board nearby. ‘About an hour or so. You?’

‘A little more than an hour or so. I thought the tube would be busier, so I came early. Just as well.’ He gave me a wink as we slid into a couple of empty chairs facing the window. Outside, planes took off, while others bounced and skidded to a stop, ferrying people to and from all corners of the world. It seemed like, here in our own little bubble, time had stood still.

‘How goes work?’ It was so unfair to be this excited at the mere sight of someone.

‘Good!’ He nodded. ‘Great. Lots of impotence, not me, of course.’ A lanky finger pointed back at himself. ‘Thrush, colds, disease incubators.’

‘Still not you, right?’ I teased.

He crossed his fingers before taking a sip of coffee. ‘Promise.’

‘Busy?’

‘Just the way I like it, keeps me out of trouble.’

I laughed, enjoying the way we fall back into the banter of Hogmanay. He asked about the rest of my trip, quizzing me on favourite landmarks and dropping random factual titbits here and there. I asked about his work and training, and went back and forth as we outlined where we’d like to be in five years.

Slowly, without realising it, I noticed William’s hand on mine, closing his hand around my fingers. ‘Where do you want to go first?’

‘Hey?’ I smiled, distracted by the fact that he was actually here in front of me, holding my hand. This sort of thing did not happen in my life.

He grinned. ‘When we travel the world together – where are we going?’

‘Well.’ I huffed and relaxed back into my seat, almost leaning on him. ‘I thought maybe I’d just take you home first.’

‘Good. Great. I’ve always wanted to go to Sydney. Where’s the first place you’re taking me?’

If I had any doubt about him at all, the fact that he remembered so much detail told me everything I needed to know: that he felt the same.

‘Right. I guess the first place we’d go is the sandwich place near the train station. It’s about ten minutes’ walk from home, in this little huddle of shops, and they make the best roast pork rolls. And breakfast, they do a great breakfast, too.’

‘Brown sauce?’

‘As much as you want.’

‘Excellent.’ He squeezed my fingers gently. ‘I would take you … for a stroll through Soho. There are heaps of bookshops there. Cafés, obviously. We could drink coffee, read books, and duck into the small jazz bars that you don’t know are there until you’re ready for an espresso martini.’

‘Or…’ I poked at his chest. ‘A Fighter.’

‘No, no, no.’ He chuckled. ‘You need to not do that.’

‘After breakfast, we could head to Bondi Beach. We could fail miserably at surfing together.’

‘Ooh.’ William winced. ‘In the summer? Might end up a bit lobster-fied.’ He reached across and pinched at my face with pincer hands.

I angled my face away from his grip, laughing hysterically. ‘Sunscreen is a thing.’

‘All the sunscreen in the world can’t protect this pale English skin, baby. Look at it, it’s…’

‘… alabaster?’ I tried.

‘Well, I was going to say porcelain, but alabaster sounds less like a toilet, doesn’t it?’

I looked away, covering my mouth with the palm of my hand. ‘You are not a toilet.’

He tipped the empty coffee cup in the bin next to us and looked at me. ‘You hungry?’

‘I could eat something.’

Still in a comedic mood, William began prattling on randomly again. I just knew I was about to turn into the human equivalent of a beetroot. My comment might have been a slip of the tongue, but my mind went wandering and my body ached in all the right places.

We wandered the terminal until we snared the last table left in a Lebanese restaurant. No wonder it was full, with the smells wafting from the kitchen. It was brightly decorated with lots of reds, yellows, and mosaic tiles. We ordered a sharing plate of tapas and very responsible pre-flight sodas.

‘You sure you don’t want your own meal? I’m happy to pay.’ William dropped a tattered backpack by his feet.

‘No, it’s fine,’ I said through a yawn. ‘We’re about to be overstuffed with bad aeroplane food anyway.’

‘Speaking of “we”, where is everyone? You were travelling with friends, weren’t you?’

I pointed to some spot in the distance, in the same way a supermarket employee would tell you sugar was in aisle three, while waving in that general direction. ‘They’re back at the pub..’

‘You didn’t want to join them? I don’t want to keep you from them, you know, if you’re all travelling together.’

‘We’re about to spend the next thirty hours together. I’m good.’

‘Okay. Good.’

We spent our remaining time nibbling at tapas and chatting about books, arguing over what we believed was the perfect plane read. He argued thrillers, as long as they weren’t medical in nature, and I was keen on beach romance. When those options were exhausted, we launched into a discussion about what films might be showing on the plane. It was a beautifully easy, rolling conversation. My phone buzzed a few times – Heather, wondering if I’d walked off with their cider. I whipped out a quick response saying I’d meet her at the gate.

Just as a discussion about the universe and godly beings was getting underway, the departures board clicked over to Boarding beside my flight number. It was accompanied with the familiar ding and the professional voiceover of a flight attendant inviting all first-class and frequent flyers to board first.

Reluctantly, and with a shared look of disgust, we gathered our belongings, William slipping my backpack across one shoulder. When he reached out, I gladly took his hand. So comfortable was it that I didn’t let go until we reached the gate, where everyone was waiting, as wide-eyed as they had been that night almost a week ago. I introduced William again, and asked Heather to take a photo. A Polaroid was the one piece of him that I could take home with me. Then William asked for one. Behind us, a stewardess announced our rows were ready for boarding.

‘This is me, I guess.’ I reached for my backpack, our hands grazing at the switchover.

‘Go on and leave me, then,’ he joked. ‘Go.’

‘Do you think we’ll meet again?’ I asked, wondering if this would be it. How often could you say you met the same person three different times? How often does lightning strike the same spot? ‘We will, won’t we?’

‘I should hope so,’ he enthused, his forehead wrinkled as he nodded.

‘Me, too.’ There was a mad rush for tickets and passports and, as I pulled mine from my bag, William took my hand again. He rolled a knuckle between his thumb and forefinger. I would have paid good money to know what he was thinking.

One last time, I checked my ticket and passport; in my hand and ready to go. I looked up to William, ready to impart some final words, but he yanked me into a hug.

‘Em, come on.’ Behind me, Heather was growing impatient.

I wanted to stay, tucked safely inside his jacket, the light scrub of five o’clock shadow against my temple. His aftershave clung to his jacket, and I wanted that scent to hang around, to breathe it in every day, to have it so ingrained in me that I carried it everywhere I went. While I was busy overthinking, he kissed me. What began on my forehead soon travelled to my cheek, and then my mouth. It was warm and solid and turned my poor unforgiving brain to mush as he brushed his fingers against my neck, heavy enough to feel but light enough to tickle like a spring breeze.

One last boarding call rattled from the tannoy.

‘You’d better go.’ William pulled back. I started to turn, but he pulled me back one last time, my heart giddy. Between his lips – lips that had just kissed me – was a pen, and he pulled up the sleeve of my hoodie before writing an email address on the curve of my wrist. The way his fingers grazed that soft spot sent shivers down my spine. I bit down on my bottom lip.

‘Let me know that you get home safe?’ His forehead wrinkled again.

I nodded, grabbing the pen and scribbling my own email on the top of his hand. ‘In case you get bored in France.’ I looked up, giving him one last smile. ‘See you soon?’

‘Speaking of the universe, when you get home, I want you to look up the invisible thread theory. I’m a firm believer, especially after today. Keep in touch.’

‘You, too.’ I pointed at him, voice shaking.

He kissed me again, once more for good luck, before I walked away. He waited until I disappeared down the gantry, my last glimpse of him a lanky ginger with arms waving above his head.

I gave the flight attendant a tight smile as she inspected my ticket, pointing me in the direction of my seat at the rear of the plane. My backpack only just squeezed into the small space beside Heather’s, who was talking to Josh. He’d lucked out with the seat in front of us. I shuffled awkwardly into my seat, fiddling with the straps and unwrapping the small blanket before arranging it around my legs.

It wasn’t until we pushed off the gate, the captain welcoming us on the PA system, that the first uncertain tear fell down my cheek. Next to me, Heather passed over a packet of tissues and squeezed my hand.

I’d been so unsure of myself since I received my rejection letter to study medicine. I hadn’t known what I wanted, past the experience of university, of travelling.

Now I knew what I wanted, and it wasn’t possible.

I wanted to stay.