Closer Than You Think - Darren O’Sullivan

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then come home, cook for us both, and go to bed with the windows wide open once more – oblivious to pain, heartbreak. Evil.

      I knew it wasn’t healthy to reminisce; that wasn’t my life anymore and nothing would bring it back. I turned my attention to the torrent of hot water that ran over my forehead and into my eyes, sticking my lashes together. It stung a little, but that was good. It stopped my dark memories pushing forwards. I stayed there, head against the tiles, until thoughts of what my life had been like a decade ago washed down the plughole.

      Wrapping myself in my dressing gown that I’d brought round to Mum’s a few months ago and left here, I put my necklace back on, comforted by the weight of the four keys, and walked down the narrow corridor of Mum’s bungalow into the kitchen. As I passed her room I could hear Geoff snoring. No sooner had I flicked on the kettle, the cat, Baloo, greeted me. He was named after the bear in The Jungle Book because of his colour and the huge paws he’d had as a kitten. He meowed and stared at me, unblinking.

      ‘Are you hungry, little man?’

      He rubbed himself up against my shin to tell me yes, and acting on cue I rolled up my dressing gown sleeves and took out a pouch of his food from the cupboard beside the bin. As soon as I’d emptied the pouch into his bowl, he dismissed me. The bloody cat didn’t like anyone.

      I made a cup of green tea, adding a slice of lemon, and walked to the back door, needing to take some measured breaths before opening it. With my heart beating faster than before, the door creaked open, letting the rousing spring morning flood in. The air was clean and fresh, making goose bumps rise on my exposed forearms.

      Dawn was my favourite time of the day. The world was still asleep, and felt somehow different. The air smelt cleaner, richer, as if the lack of cars and noise and bustle of people wrapped up in their own sense of importance allowed the trees to sigh. Dawn brought a sense of peace and magic that didn’t exist at any other time in the day and, for a short while every morning, I felt like I had it all to myself. I drank it in, the peace. Again, it was in the small things, things I had only let myself see in recent years.

      I stepped barefoot onto the lawn. The morning had not warmed the dew enough to evaporate it. As I walked towards the bench in the middle of the lawn, I felt the cold creep through my feet, soothing them. Broken blades of grass from yesterday’s cut stuck to my soles. I couldn’t look; the grass cuttings served as a powerful reminder of something I longed to forget.

      I looked back towards the bungalow to see if Mum had come into the kitchen to make sure I was all right. The kitchen was empty. But I could see my footprints in the dew, perfect shapes that caught a glimmer from the rising sun. My eye was drawn to the impressions of my right foot. I had to look away. Then, sitting on the bench under a maple tree, I allowed myself to momentarily forget where I was, letting my thoughts and anxieties dissolve like sugar in hot water. This feeling of serenity wouldn’t last long, so I let myself be wrapped up in it. Although the sun was weak, I could feel it warm my skin. Undoing my dressing gown, I let it touch my neck and collarbones. I focused on what I had been taught by my doctor a long time ago: enjoy the sunshine on your skin. I took a deep breath and focused on my neck which was gently warming, and drew in the smell of morning dew.

      After about five minutes the moment faltered, and without warning my mind drifted back to the thoughts of flying home with Mum in ten days’ time. It had been a long time since I’d last travelled any distance, and I wasn’t sure how I would cope. I felt the small ice-cold hand I’d housed for a decade pluck my diaphragm like a guitar string, making the next few breaths hard to draw. I didn’t want to go, but I knew I needed to. It was the right thing to do. I owed it to him, at the very least. But really, I owed him more than I could ever repay. Sighing, I sipped my now-cool tea and waited for the noise of the day to start. I heard a dog barking a few doors down, then a front door somewhere along the row of houses attached to mine opened and closed.

      The world was awake, and it wasn’t mine anymore. Going back into the bungalow I tried and failed to not look at my footprints.

       Chapter 2

       6th May 2018

      St Ives, Cambridgeshire

      I sat quietly in the kitchen for half an hour, thinking about how I hadn’t been to see my doctor for a very long time. Dr Porter had been great. She listened. She knew how I felt about most things. But the last few visits, we went around in circles, discussing nothing new. And so, I stopped going to see her. Dr Porter knew most of my secrets. Most. But not all. Some things I couldn’t say, and some things I wouldn’t ever say. My thoughts were interrupted when I heard Mum and Geoff moving around their room, and wondered when they’d join me in the kitchen. Eventually, Geoff crossed to the bathroom and called out good morning as he did.

      ‘Morning, I’ll make you both a brew,’ I called back.

      ‘Thanks, love,’ he shouted through the door.

      As the kettle began to boil, I felt my phone vibrate in my dressing-gown pocket. I couldn’t help but smile to see who the message was from.

       So, it turns out I’m not needed on site anymore. I’m coming back later today. Do you fancy a takeaway? No pressure to say yes.

      Paul wasn’t due back till the weekend, and then he was seeing his daughters who lived in Cambridge. With my trip to Ireland in ten days, I wasn’t likely to see him again for another few weeks. I guess that was why our … whatever we were, worked. We were taking things slow, because we had to. Paul was also older than me, quite a few years older. He was divorced and had no intention of having more children, which made things less complicated. At first, knowing his children were adults felt weird. It was one of the first things I had commented on when Mum told me how old they were. But, if we became anything other than two adults getting to know each other, I would cross that bridge when I came to it. With everything else going on – every other bridge I had to cross on a daily basis – it didn’t seem that important.

      We’d been spending time together for a few months now. We’d met online, which was something I wasn’t sure I wanted to do but Mum, the most forward thinking sixty-four-year-old I had ever known, insisted it would do me good to meet new people, get me out and about. She had been trying for years, so, finally I said yes. She crafted my profile, stating I was Claire O’Healy, her new surname after marrying Geoff. If she put my surname it would have undoubtedly drawn the wrong attention. She wrote things in the ‘about me’ section I wasn’t sure were entirely true, things she insisted were accurate but told me I couldn’t see. She cropped a photo of me and her in my garden from last year and then hit complete, making me real in the digital world. I didn’t want to see what was being said, assuming people would be unkind. And if I was honest, meeting someone was so terrifying I convinced myself I was happy on my own. It had taken me a long time to get to a place where I could manage my own company, and I wasn’t sure I was ready to share that with anyone. But still, under the fear, I was also lonely.

      Mum told me she would vet the potential ‘friends’ I would talk to and be discreet in doing so. She told me most were just looking for sex, but this didn’t faze her. There were a few who appeared desperate, and only one she had seen who seemed nice. So, on a wet night a few months ago, both of us sat at my kitchen table between a pot of fresh tea and she told me all about him. A man named Paul.

      When she stated he was forty-eight, I blew on my tea and raised an eyebrow. He was fourteen years older than me, and only fourteen younger than her. But after she read his profile to me, I understood why he’d made the shortlist. He seemed genuine, kind. Devoted to his children. Hard-working. He was a divorcee, but he didn’t seem to have baggage, and I believed it as divorce was so common these days, lots of people didn’t have complications after separation. That was the thing I was most drawn to – Paul appeared to be uncomplicated. Something I wasn’t. With my curiosity piqued, I asked her to show me his message.

       Hello, I’m Paul. I’m new to this so not sure what the right etiquette is. You look nice,

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