What about us? Read Online Free Page B

them every inch of the way.  I wasn’t really surprised
that it was all going wrong, but I was more hurt than I’d expected to be and
unusually, I found it hard to hide my feelings.
    I looked across the short space
between us and his eyes looked as sad and as confused as mine felt to me.
    “Grace...”
    I interrupted him.  “Please
don’t say that it’s complicated.”
    That overused phrase made me
feel stupid, as though everyone else always understood ‘complicated’ things,
only lumpy Grace couldn’t.
    “I wasn’t going to.” he said
slowly.  “The explanation is actually remarkably simple, but that doesn’t make
it any easier, or even right.”
    “Can’t I be the judge of that?”
I asked, “I mean before you disappear again.  Don’t I even get the chance to
understand?”
    It was so easy for me to be
honest with him and just say whatever popped into my mind without having to
think it through first.
    He nodded slowly.  “Yes, you
deserve that.  Actually you deserve much more, but I can’t give you more.”
    “That’s ok Jack,
really it is.  I never expected any of this, but understanding will help.  Then
you can go back to wherever and not feel guilty about anything.”
    And I meant it, really I did.  I knew I had no claim on
him, but I was sure that if I understood something about the life he couldn’t
or wouldn’t share with me, I could just hold onto the memory of this day and
that would be nice.  I mean, it wasn’t as though we’d done anything wrong; we’d
just held hands and spent a day at the seaside together.
    Nothing about him gave me the
impression that he was married; he didn’t wear a ring and he didn’t behave in
the way that the other married men I’d seen with my Nan or my Mum did.  But
maybe he was, or at the very least in a relationship with someone more like him,
someone he didn’t want to give up and that was ok, natural even and I could
handle that.
    The waitress, in her neat black
pinny and white apron, brought a pot of tea and two china cups and saucers.  There
were some slices of what looked like home-made cake on a china plate that was
decorated with tiny blue flowers.  They were almost the same colour as his eyes
and I wondered if they were periwinkles.  It was all so lovely and so unlike
anything in my normal day.
    I poured the tea, the way I’d
seen in films and waited.
    “That first time I met you, I
was there for work.” he said.  “I’m a sort of historian or maybe more a sort of
journalist, the lines get blurred sometimes.  I was just making notes and
taking pictures, that sort of thing, when I saw you walking.  You were lost in
your own world, but there was something about you that made me watch you.  On
the one hand, a bit silly of me really, but a bloody good job on the other that
I did!
    “Anyway, as I told you before,
I thought you had stepped in front of the car on purpose and it just seemed so
senseless.  I acted without thinking.  I ran, grabbed you and knocked you out
of the way.  I’m usually more subtle when introducing myself.”
    He smiled at me ruefully and I
found myself smiling back.
    “Then once we were in the cafe
I found I was enjoying myself.  Actually, you’re very easy to be with Grace.  I
can just be myself and generally speaking, I err, well, I’m a bit shy and
awkward around people I don’t know.”
    “ That I can understand.”
I said, interrupting him.  “Not about you, but about me.  I find it really easy
being with you, too.”
    I looked across at him and saw
that he understood, because he smiled.
    “Well, a cup of tea just to
make sure you were ok turned into dinner and when I left you, I told myself
that I wouldn’t see you again; that it wasn’t fair on you.  I’m not even based
in this country you see.  I spend all of my time travelling; that’s my job and
I rarely go to the same place twice.  For one thing it’s usually against the
rules and for another there’s always so much to