suggestion. It isn’t like I can banish the missing years that Clive’s mind has given him.
‘Is it okay?’ I ask, needing to clarify that we are.
‘My dear Keisha. It may have escaped your attention, but you are the dearest thing to have come into my life for many a year, even if you don’t like pickled onions. I will never be able to thank you enough for everything you have done for me and I need you to understand that for as long as I’m about, I’ll be there for you. Not just in the lab helping out, but in whatever way you need. And while you are doing perfectly fine in most areas of your life, I do rather feel you need me for advice in interior design, in the very least.’
I hug Clive, realising that I haven’t been returning his embrace in the way that I should. It might be crossing all the study–participant boundaries, but he is more than a friend. He’s become my mentor, a father figure in the absence of my own.
‘I’d suggest I should give out tips on dating as well, but as we know, it turns out I’m much worse at it than you. My first one in over fifty years and she ran out on me!’
I pull away from the embrace and clear my face. I blush when I think about the kiss with George.
‘I might not be in need of dating tips any more…’
‘Really?’ Clive clears his eyes with his hankie and the twinkle is back.
The doorbell rings.
‘That’s probably George now. He’ll be wondering if we’re alright.’
I’ve been in the house a whole half hour without realising. I get up and somehow I feel lighter. I’m not about to stop checking my pulse every half hour, but I’m going to try to look to the positive. Look towards the future, rather than focus on the past.
‘I’ll get it,’ Clive says.
‘Don’t say anything,’ I say.
‘I never would. The story of our scars are our secrets. No one else needs to know unless we want them to. Only you get to decide who to tell.’
I contemplate that for a moment while I follow Clive to his front door. Even though I’ve never told anyone else until today, it doesn’t mean that I won’t. When the time is right I will tell George and Lucy and Tess. I know they’ll understand why it’s a part of myself that I find hard to think about. A place where I normally only ever find blame that I’ve laid at my feet. A broken heart that I caused and wasn’t able to save. I need to remember I’ve been trying to make up for it for the rest of my life and every day that I accumulate a set of statistics, I’m helping save someone. It might not be the pounding on the chest or the attaching of probes that George and his many colleagues carry out, but I’m finding out what I can do to help one heart at a time.
‘George and I kissed,’ I whisper to Clive, just as he’s about to open the door. ‘Don’t tell him I told you that either.’
‘I knew it!’ Clive turns and offers me a quick wink. ‘I’m so pleased for you.’
I place a finger on my lips to make sure he knows to keep schtum and I smile, glad to have something to be happy about in amongst our despair.
I smile even more broadly at George once the door is open. Despite all the emotion of the day, I have an overwhelming desire to jump his bones. It’s not my most ladylike thought, but for all the first dates I’ve been on, I’m feeling very ready to dive in at the deep end and hope that it involves a duvet and a bed and some more kissing.
‘I’m rather regretting packing away your tea bags,’ George says to Clive.
‘I could do with a cuppa,’ Clive says in agreement.
‘And you do have a guest,’ George says, as he steps aside to reveal Nancy.
54
Clive
Clive and Nancy were having to make do with water in glasses. For so many years he’d prepared for this moment without realising and when it came to it, he didn’t have a doily in sight. It made him sad to think that the seaside-themed items he’d been collecting weren’t being put to good use at this moment.
George and Keisha had made their excuses and left them to it. Now he was at a loss as to what