The Catch Read online

  ‘Poor Ryan!’ Joyce said, a tartan blanket wrapped around her shoulders. ‘I bet he was mortified.’

  ‘I know, Nana! I don’t know why I laughed. Just shock, probably. But he looked absolutely gutted, then asked me again and I was like “Yes yes! Of course!”.’ She extended her finger to look at the big diamond ring again, as if checking it was still there. ‘Then I started crying, and he explained how he was going to ask for your permission when you met tonight.’

  Claire’s head was cocked to one side. She’d changed her contact lenses for her tortoiseshell rimmed glasses and put on her old sheepskin slippers. We still hadn’t had a moment to talk on our own; I couldn’t work out exactly how she felt about everything. If she was as worried as I was, she was putting on a very good show.

  ‘The photobook’s a lovely idea,’ she said. ‘Isn’t it, Ed?’

  I swirled brandy in a glass and took a sip, feeling the burn and rasp in my throat as the liquid slipped down.

  ‘Very thoughtful,’ I said.

  Joyce took Abbie’s hand in both of hers. ‘Well I think we’ve all had a lovely evening, my dear,’ she said. ‘And do you want to know what else I think?’

  ‘Of course, Nana.’

  ‘I think you’ve caught yourself a good ’un there. He reminds me of your grandad when I first met him.’

  ‘Grandad Jim?’ There was a smile in Abbie’s voice. ’How do you mean, Nana?’

  ‘He’s one of the good ones, you can just tell. Jim was a real gentleman, and so is your Ryan. Not in an old-fashioned way, just . . . thoughtful and kind.’

  ‘Aww, thanks. I’m so glad you all like him.’ Abbie hugged her grandmother carefully. ‘It’s such a relief actually, I was a bit nervous about what you’d make of him.’

  ‘He’s definitely a catch,’ Joyce said. ‘Don’t you think?’

  ‘He seems really lovely,’ Claire said, watching me.

  ‘Yes indeed,’ Joyce continued. ‘He’s an absolute catch.’

  *

  I leaned against the kitchen counter, waiting for the kettle to boil for Claire’s camomile tea, scrolling through Instagram until I found Abbie’s post from earlier this evening: holding up her left hand to the camera to show off the big diamond solitaire engagement ring. The post was only a couple of hours old but already had more than 300 likes and seventy-four comments from friends congratulating Abbie, excited messages full of kisses and emojis of rings, champagne bottles and hearts.

  Abbie’s smile was so big and so genuine it would normally have sent a little dart of happiness straight to my heart. But I couldn’t stop looking at Ryan, his practiced smile a pale imitation of hers. Coal-dark eyes. Like a shark. The kettle clicked off and I poured water into the mug as Claire came into the kitchen. She kissed me briefly on the side of my mouth and leaned up against the breakfast bar opposite.

  ‘So,’ my wife said. I watched her, waiting for her true feelings to show, but there was just the slightest smile on her face.

  ‘So,’ I repeated hesitantly.

  ‘That was quite an evening.’

  I nodded slowly. ‘Yes . . . it was.’ I stirred the tea absently, steaming scents of apple and honey rising from the mug. ‘Quite an evening.’

  ‘Are you OK, Ed? You’ve been very quiet.’

  ‘Just trying to get my head around everything, I suppose.’

  ‘That makes two of us,’ she nodded. ‘So what do you think of our future son-in-law?’

  Boiling water splashed over the edge of the mug. I dropped the spoon and shook my hand.

  ‘Ouch,’ Claire said. ‘Did you scald yourself?’

  ‘It’s fine,’ I said, running my hand under the tap, icy cold water numbing the flesh above my thumb that was already turning an angry pink. ‘I don’t know, what did you make of Ryan?’

  ‘He seems perfectly charming. And they’re clearly besotted with each other.’

  I took a towel from the radiator and wrapped it around my hand, feeling the pulse and throb of the scalded skin, then shook my head.

  ‘I just wish there was a bit more time to get used to the idea and . . . find out more about him.’

  ‘Mum doesn’t have time.’ She crossed her arms over her chest. ‘It’s incredibly thoughtful of Abbie and Ryan, making sure she can be part of their big day.’

  ‘I know. But I feel like I want to know more about what’s going on, so I have all the facts, the full picture of—’

  ‘She’s not.’

  ‘Not what?’

  ‘Abbie’s not pregnant.’

  I swallowed hard with relief, thankful there were no more shocks for today.

  ‘Right. That wasn’t quite what I meant, but OK.’

  ‘I asked her just now, before she went up to bed. I said we weren’t judging, we’d be fine with it if she was, but we’d just like to know.’

  ‘And she told you?’

  ‘Of course. She tells me everything.’

  Abbie always found it easier to confide in her mum. I supposed that was natural. And Claire would always listen without judging too, passing on a broad outline to me at some point afterwards – when Abbie wasn’t in the room.

  ‘Now it’s your turn, Ed.’

  ‘My turn?’

  ‘Talk to me,’ she said, cocking her head to the side. ‘What are you thinking? You’ve been a bit intense tonight.’

  I opened the pedal bin and dropped the teabag into it. ‘You used to like me being intense, back when we first met.’

  ‘I did. I do.’

  ‘So this is me.’

  Claire raised an eyebrow. I hesitated. Just saying what was on my mind – I’ve got a seriously bad feeling about our daughter’s fiancé – sounded like paranoia. I needed to take a more oblique approach.

  I handed her the mug of tea, handle first. ‘Everything’s moving so fast, all of a sudden,’ I said. ‘Abbie was in this long distance relationship with some guy, he’s jetting around all over the place, then he’s back to the UK, he moves to Nottingham and wham – we finally meet him and now they’re engaged, they’re moving in together, and they’re getting married. My head hasn’t really stopped spinning, to be honest.’

  As well as everything else, I had only just realised how much I was going to miss my daughter’s presence, her voice in the house, her quirks and the little jokes we shared. How every year she started putting Christmas music on straight after Bonfire Night and I would always groan, even though I secretly liked it that she loved Christmas; it seemed like a sign that me and Claire had done a good job despite everything that had happened. I knew it was coming sooner or later – Abbie had been living with us while she saved for a deposit on a place of her own – just not quite as suddenly as this.

  ‘I know it’s a shock,’ Claire said. ‘For both of us. I’m struggling with how quickly it’s all happened, but we have to put that to one side and just get on with things.’

  Say it, I thought. Say something.

  ‘There’s something else,’ I said finally. ‘I just can’t put my finger on it.’

  ‘About how fast their relationship is going?’

  ‘Not the relationship. Him.’

  Claire sighed. And I realised then that she hadn’t been worried about Ryan at all. Her not meeting my eyes earlier was about something else.

  ‘Ryan? What do you mean?’

  ‘There’s something about him . . . I don’t know what it is.’

  ‘We’ve been here before, Ed, haven’t we?’

  ‘Not like this.’

  ‘OK,’ she sighed. ‘What is it about Ryan you don’t like?’

  ‘Well, he . . .’ I hesitated again. It all sounded so mad, so insubstantial. There’s a void behind his eyes, something hidden there, something bad. I feel it in my gut. ‘You didn’t find him a bit weird? I’ve just got a feeling he’s hiding something.’

  ‘What has he done for you to say that?’

  ‘Tonight, when it was just me and him on the patio,’ I said, feeling sli
ghtly foolish, ‘he kicked Tilly.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He kicked her, I think. Why would a person do that?’

  Claire shook her head. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘When you and Abbie were playing badminton, I looked away and then all of a sudden Tilly’s meowing and limping away, and Ryan had his—’

  ‘Ed, he didn’t kick the cat. She’s just a bit grumpy now she’s so old and he probably didn’t want her on his lap, that’s all.’

  ‘I know what I saw.’

  ‘You saw him do it?’

  ‘Not exactly. I was watching you two play, but—’

  ‘Well then. Sounds like you’re looking for reasons to dislike him.’ She frowned at the mug cupped in her hands. I knew that look and it hurt to see it. She was disappointed in me.

  ‘I should get to bed. It’s late. Let’s talk more in the morning.’

  I nodded.

  ‘Are you coming up?’

  ‘I’ll just lock up and give the cat her supper.’

  ‘OK,’ she said. Then she paused and looked back at me. ‘Give Ryan a chance, please Ed. Just get to know him.’

  She turned and walked across the hall towards the staircase. I listened to her footsteps retreat up to the first-floor landing, the old familiar creak on the third step, and the tenth.

  I whistled softly for Tilly and her grey-whiskered face appeared, peering out through the open door from the cellar into the kitchen. I put her food in the bowl and watched as she moved cautiously over to it and began to eat. She was definitely favouring one of her back legs when she walked. I gave her a quick scratch behind her ears as she tucked into her supper.

  Claire wanted me to get to know our daughter’s new fiancé. And that was exactly what I was going to do. I would find out the truth about this stranger who had swept Abbie off her feet.

  Before it was too late.

  6

  Claire

  SATURDAY

  Thirty-seven days until the wedding

  Claire woke to the smell of bacon frying downstairs, knowing as soon as it hit her nostrils that she wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep. She lay there for a moment, swaddled in the warmth of the duvet, thinking about last night. It was good news, wasn’t it? Abbie was so happy and she deserved to be. Her mind drifted to work for a moment, but she pushed the thought away – it was a Saturday and Abbie needed her to be present, especially if Ed was going to act the way he had last night. The theatre could wait for a day or two.

  She swung her legs out of bed, pulled on her dark frayed towelling dressing gown and slippers and went to the guest room. Put her ear to the door and quietly opened it. Her mum was still asleep, the skin drawn pale across her cheeks in the soft morning light, bottles of pills arrayed on the bedside table in rows. Claire stood in the doorway for a moment, studying the almost imperceptible rise and fall of Joyce’s breathing beneath the sheets, before quietly pulling the door closed again. She moved to the stairs leading up to Abbie’s bedroom door on the second floor. Silence. She could sleep in a little longer, it was only just eight o’clock. Claire padded downstairs.

  The kitchen radio was on low – Bruce Springsteen singing something about Atlantic City – and Ed didn’t hear her as she approached. He stood with his back to her, pans of sizzling bacon, Quorn strips for Abbie and baked beans on the hob, pork and veggie sausages and hash browns in the oven. He used to do this every Saturday morning – until their lives had been shattered – but hadn’t done it for a long time now. She knew, in some way, that preparing a big family breakfast was a part of his reaction to Abbie’s news yesterday.

  Claire put her arms around him, resting her cheek against his broad back and feeling the warmth of his chest under her palms.

  ‘Morning, you,’ she said quietly.

  He tensed for a second, then relaxed.

  ‘Morning,’ he said, putting one of his hands over hers. ‘I was going to bring breakfast up to you.’

  ‘It’s OK,’ she said. ‘It’s good to get an early start, lots to do today.’

  ‘Yup.’

  She pressed herself into him, breathing in the sharp fresh tang of shower gel and aftershave alongside the breakfast smells from the hob.

  ‘Sorry for being short with you last night.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ his voice rumbled through his chest. ‘I was just being grumpy, that’s all.’

  ‘Ed?’ she said. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘What were you dreaming about last night? Do you remember?’

  He tensed again and put down the spatula, turning to face her. He was wearing his black Made in 1971 apron over jeans and a Blade Runner T-shirt, his dark hair still wet from the shower.

  He nodded, slowly. ‘I remember some of it, yes.’

  Claire looked up into her husband’s eyes, ringed with dark shadows. ‘You were shouting out in your sleep,’ she said softly. ‘You haven’t done that for a long time.’

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, kissing her forehead. ‘For waking you.’

  Claire hesitated, taking his hands in hers. ‘You mentioned Joshua,’ she said gently. ‘Was it that nightmare again?’

  He shook his head, looking down at the floor. ‘Different this time,’ he said, his jaw clenching. ‘You don’t want to hear it.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘It felt so real.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  He hesitated. Looked over her shoulder, his face haunted. ‘I was standing on this beach, right at the edge of the water.’

  ‘OK. And what happened?’

  ‘I don’t know where the beach was, but there was nothing behind me and just the sea in front. Abbie was there, in a little rowing boat out on the water, drifting away from the shore. But she didn’t realise what was happening, she was just looking out at the waves. I was on the beach shouting at her to come back but she couldn’t hear me so I waded into the water to get to the boat. I couldn’t get to her though because the boat was drifting further and further away, and it was sinking lower and lower in the water. I couldn’t reach her and I was wading deeper into the waves, moving slower and slower, until the water was in my mouth and then it was over my head.’

  ‘Oh Ed,’ Claire said, squeezing his hands. ‘That’s horrible.’

  ‘And that’s when I saw Joshua,’ he said, his voice almost too quiet to hear. ‘Under the water. I tried to get to him too, I was grabbing for him and I guess that’s when I woke up. But the dream was so real, it felt like . . . they were both gone and I’d failed again.’

  He tailed off and the two of them stood for a moment, adrift in the memory of their shared loss, a wound so savage and so deep it had almost been mortal. A wound they had both somehow survived.

  Claire stroked her husband’s cheek with her fingertips. ‘Do you want to talk about him?’

  Ed’s eyes flicked to a montage of pictures on the wall. A collection of family photographs including two at the centre that were older, more faded than the rest, the colours bleached and muted by the passing of years. The pictures that he chose not to look at, not unless he had to, hoping that one day it would get better, knowing that it never really would. Joshua was ever present but never there. Not any more, not for a long time.

  Ed dodged her question, as she knew he would. She sometimes wanted to talk about Joshua so much that she would say his name out loud in the shower, needing to hear the sound of it, to remember that he was real and that she had loved him so much it was almost unbearable to live without him.

  ‘Better not let this breakfast burn,’ he said, turning back to the hob and picking up the spatula again. ‘Do you want your eggs fried or poached?’

  Claire sighed and moved away. ‘Poached please.’ She went to fill the kettle and fetched mugs from the cabinet. ‘Have you thought any more about Abbie’s news? She’s so desperate for you to, you know . . .’

  Ed cracked eggs into a pan, letting the question linger for a moment before answering. ‘
For me to do what?’

  Claire dropped teabags into four mugs. ‘She wants you to approve.’

  ‘Approve of her getting married?’

  ‘Of him. Of Ryan.’

  He shook his head. ‘Approve of him? I’ve only just met him.’

  ‘So have I. But you could make a few of the right noises, at least. It would mean a lot to her.’

  ‘I know virtually nothing about the guy.’

  ‘Then ask. Be interested. Without it coming across like an interrogation.’

  ‘I am interested. You know I am.’

  ‘And you don’t need to growl when you’re talking to him.’

  ‘Who was growling?’ he said, hands up in mock surrender. ‘I wasn’t growling.’

  ‘Your voice drops an octave. It’s as if you think you’re Liam Neeson in Taken.’

  ‘Now that,’ he said, pointing at her with the spatula, ‘is a good film.’

  ‘You’re not even aware you’re doing it, are you?’

  Ed shrugged. ‘That’s just how my voice sounds. I can’t help it.’

  ‘Twenty-seven years of marriage, Ed, I have a fair idea of what’s going on in your head. You’re doing that frown thing, even just talking about it now!’ She tapped her own forehead with her index finger. ‘The little double line between your eyebrows was in full force whenever you spoke to Ryan last night.’

  ‘I wasn’t frowning.’

  ‘You’re doing it again.’

  He forced a grin, raising his eyebrows. ‘See? Smiling and happy.’ He gave her a double thumbs up. ‘Jolly, friendly, happy husband at your service ma’am.’

  She shook her head at him but couldn’t help smiling back. ‘Silly man,’ she gave him the gentlest of punches on the shoulder. ‘Let’s just give Ryan a fair chance, OK? He’s going to be part of our family soon.’

  ‘Absolutely – everyone should have a fair chance,’ he said. ‘Whether they deserve it or not.’

  ‘Ed!’

  ‘I’m joking. Just a silly joke, dearest wife.’

  She pointed at the sheath knife hanging from the noticeboard on the wall, its wooden handle carved with ‘#1 Dad’.