Читать книгу Ours is the Winter: a gripping story of love, friendship and adventure - Laurie Ellingham, Laurie Ellingham - Страница 11

Chapter 3

Noah

The Tromsø arrivals hall was an enclosed hangar with an empty coffee shop and newsstand in the far corner, a car hire booth with a bright green sign, and several blocks of black plastic chairs in the middle. That was it. Functional was the word that sprung to Noah’s mind as he zipped up his jacket and buried his hands into his pockets.

A functioning shell. He could relate.

Through the curved glass Noah watched two ginormous yellow snowploughs chuntering across an unused runway. A fine spray of powdery snow blew out from either side of the ploughs like a fountain of white fluff.

‘Are you planning to speak at any point during this trip?’ Rachel whispered. Her tone was light, teasing, but when he glanced down at her face the remark took on a pointed feel.

He shrugged. Rachel’s question wasn’t designed to be answered.

‘Are you all right?’ she asked. Her forehead creased, but her blue eyes remained stony. She was pissed. What the hell did she have to be pissed about? He was here, wasn’t he? Noah’s insides clenched like a fist. What more did she want from him?

‘I’m fine.’

Rachel untucked her straight blonde hair from behind her ears and ran her fingers through it, smoothing it into place so that it sat in line with her chin. ‘You don’t seem fine.’

‘I’m just tired,’ he sighed.

She laughed. A tinkling kind of laugh that lacked any ring of humour. It wasn’t her real laugh. Noah couldn’t quite recall what that sounded like. It had been too long, for both of them. But he knew the sound coming from Rachel’s mouth was a try-hard fake, in the same way he knew that this trip would never solve the problems Rachel wanted it to solve.

‘You agreed to do this, Noah,’ Rachel said. ‘There’s no point sulking and making me out to be the bad guy. No one is forcing you to be here.’

Noah shook his head and turned away. No one was forcing him? What did she call the ultimatum then? ‘You need this,’ she’d said one evening, a month ago when she’d dropped the brochure onto his lap and switched off the football he’d been pretending to watch. ‘We need this. When was the last time we had some fun? This will be an adventure.’

The threat had come a week later. ‘Come on this trip with me or there is no wedding; there is no us. I can’t live like this any more, Noah. I’ve tried everything, but this isn’t what I signed up for.’

What was he supposed to do? Rachel had stuck by him through everything, and she might not be happy with the new direction of his life, but she was still here, unlike the majority of his so-called friends.

Noah felt the presence of Rachel’s body behind him. ‘We need to move on,’ she said, placing a hand on his back. ‘We can’t keep allowing the accident to darken our lives.’

Easy for you to say, he thought but didn’t say. Couldn’t say. His throat was closing, squeezing the life right out of him. The darkness was like a poison, paralysing his body but leaving his mind – his thoughts, his fears – to keep spinning. Noah scrunched his eyes shut, just as he’d done that day. Flashes of memories ambushed him, fogging his mind and dragging him down into the depths of the darkness.

The smell of metal and sweat filled his nose. His ears echoed with the shrieking plea for help that hadn’t come. Why had no one come?

Nausea rose to the back of his throat. Noah forced open his eyes, forced himself back. His fingers reached automatically into the furthest corners of his pockets, but all he felt was empty fabric. A tingle of panic ran over his skin. Why had he let Rachel convince him to pack hand luggage only? Why had he let Rachel convince him to come on this trip at all?

There was only one way to survive this trip and the darkness inside him. Without a word to Rachel, Noah strode across the hangar in the direction of the newsstand.

Please have it. Please, please, please have what I need.

Noah’s eyes scanned over the five rows of chocolate bars with their shiny colourful wrappers glinting in the stark strips of light from the ceiling. He recognized the gold of the Twix and a couple of others among the foreign brands. His gaze moved further into the shop. There were stuffed grey and white husky toys beside snow globes and prints of a night sky with the green and blue waves of the Northern Lights above snowy landscapes.

A tremor took hold of his hands as Noah stepped towards the glass countertop beside an ancient-looking beige till. The relief was palpable, like the sweetness of a rich chocolate dessert on his taste buds. Noah jabbed his finger on the glass and nodded at the small dark-haired man behind the counter. The man gave a closed mouthed smile and moved his hand under the glass. He touched a solid silver lighter and looked at Noah.

Noah shook his head and jabbed again. ‘Penknife,’ Noah croaked out the word. The roar of blood in his ears and the distant squeal of the siren drowned out his voice. You’re too late. You’re too late.

The man responded with his own nod and plucked out the red Swiss Army Knife with the distinctive Victorinox white cross logo. It was the exact same pocket-sized knife he had at home – the same one he’d tucked into the top drawer of his nightstand that morning because there was no way in hell he’d have made it through security with it. Noah might be desperate, but he wasn’t stupid.

He dropped two crisp four hundred Norwegian Krone notes on the counter and waved away the black gift box. Noah would have to dump the knife before his next flight, but he didn’t care. He ran his fingers over the smooth metal and slid it into his front right pocket. Just the weight of it tugging on the pocket lining eased the tension knotting his body.

A minute later he stumbled into the toilets and slammed the cubicle door shut. His hands shook with the tremor of a hundred-year-old man as he dug his nails into the metal groove of the penknife and pulled out the spear-point blade.

Flashes of memory strobed in his mind. Wet tarmac and the flicking orange puddles of light from the damaged streetlamp; his own voice echoing into the darkness. Someone help me, please. HELP!

Sirens screeching over the pounding of a fist on flesh and the pain that followed. You’re too late.

The sharp edge of the blade glinted in the light as Noah fumbled one-handed with the button of his trousers. He yanked down the zip and his trousers fell to his shoes and bunched at his ankles.

Noah tightened his grip on the knife, pulled up the material of his boxer shorts exposing the skin at the top of his thigh. Beneath the dark hair of his legs was a lattice of cut marks. The latest one had formed a tight scab that pinched at the leg hair trapped in the wound.

He pressed the blade to his skin until a red dot of blood appeared. The pain was wasp-sting sharp as Noah dragged the blade across his leg.

All of a sudden the sound of a tap dripping from the sinks filtered into his ears, along with the droll rattle hum of the air conditioning system. He held his breath and listened, but the sirens had gone and the only smell was the whiff of ammonia mixed together with a lavender air freshener.

Noah sighed and felt the tension unclench his aching muscles. He grabbed a wodge of toilet paper and covered the fresh cut. Red dots appeared on the white toilet paper, and he added an extra sheet before folding his boxer shorts back into place and pulling up his trousers.

***

The terminal had emptied in the minutes Noah had spent in the bathroom. Only one group of travellers hung by the door. Rachel stood nearby and waved him over. The sting of the cut morphed into a dull throb of pain as he stepped towards her.

Out of the huge glass windowpanes Noah caught sight of the empty runway again and the yellow snowploughs that shone like beacons against the layer of bright white snow. Beacons – sirens – cries for help – the smell of sweat. He could taste the sick now, burning his throat. Noah tried to focus on the pain of the cut but it wasn’t enough. He hadn’t cut deep enough.

His feet faltered as he toyed with the idea of going back to the toilets.

‘Are you all right?’ Rachel asked, closing the gap between them.

He nodded but didn’t trust himself to speak. There had to be something here. Something he could focus on. His eyes roamed the airport hangar and then landed on a face in the nearby group. She was real. Noah fixed on the black curls that bounced around her face. Her skin shone luminous, and her eyes were wide, the darkest brown – staring back at him with the same horror, the same desperation he felt inside.

All of a sudden the pressure in his chest eased and for the first time in who knows how long Noah felt almost normal. Almost. As if that day was the blackest, coldest shadow, and this girl – whoever she was – was the sun. It was corny, it was cheesy, it was downright ridiculous, but it was how he felt in that one long second her dark shining eyes locked on his.

The moment passed in a blink. Then her eyes narrowed and her face transformed into a glare. The kind of look that demanded he find something else, someone else, to focus on.

He did.

Noah dropped an arm around Rachel’s shoulder and pulled her close. ‘I’m trying … I’ll try harder.’

Rachel pressed her body against him, stood onto her tiptoes and looped her arms around his neck. She pulled his head down and kissed his lips. ‘Thank you,’ she said.

Noah breathed in the smell of her perfume, filling his head with memories of the early days in their relationship, of conspiring looks across the office canteen and their bodies tangled together in bed. Could they find their way back to that place? After everything that had happened?

‘Hey look, there’s our minibus.’ Rachel dropped her arms and spun towards the exit. ‘Next stop, the Arctic.’

Noah tried not to stare at the back of the girl’s head as she too moved towards the minibus. He kept his pace the same, ignoring the sudden urge to catch up with her. Whatever had passed between them, it was all in his head. He’d been searching for a distraction, and he’d found her. Like the blade of the knife slicing into his skin and the weight of the penknife in his pocket, now pressing against the fresh cut. It was a distraction from the darkness and memories it brought. It didn’t mean anything.

Maybe Rachel was right. Maybe he did need this trip. Maybe.

Noah gripped Rachel’s hand in his as they found two seats at the back of the minibus, and he tried not to think about how alien her touch felt.