Page 36 of Elijah

Elijah looked around the room again and then up to the ceiling. “What’s happened there?”

My gaze followed his and I sighed, telling him the story of the light fittings.

“So you’ve got to get the electrician back in?” he asked, arms folded across his chest as he continued looking up.

“Unfortunately. I could do it, he’s done all the wiring and capped it off for now, but I’d rather get the expert back.”

“Yeah, you don’t want to electrocute anyone – again.”

I burst out laughing. “It wasn’t my fault,” I cried.

“Oh come on Amy, you were the one who thought wrapping the bloody plug in Cellotape would be okay.”

I giggled as I remembered the plug on my hairdryer, and how it had cracked when I’d dropped it against the tiled floor in our bathroom. I hadn’t had time to find a new plug and put it on, so had wrapped tape around it, hoping it would be okay, and it had been, for me anyway.

“If you hadn’t felt the need to blow dry your hair,” I teased. “You wouldn’t have used it and so would never have been electrocuted.”

“Hey, now there’s nothing wrong with a man blow drying his hair.”

“Oh and that’s why you have yours so short now is it, because you love blow drying it?”

Elijah grinned and ran a hand over his head. “Maybe. The point is, I almost died because you didn’t use electrical tape.”

“It was the noise you made when it threw you back across the room. I thought you’d sneaked another woman into the flat or something.”

I started to full on laugh, thinking about Elijah’s squeal when he’d turned on the hairdryer. It was loud and high pitched and I really did think there might be another woman in the bedroom with him. That thought then made me think of Lauren and I felt a momentary pain in my chest, but when I heard Elijah laughing again, I let it pass.

“It was a shock – literally.”

“Well I’m sorry, but you’re still here to tell the tale, so it wasn’t that bad.”

The laughter died on his lips, a small smile remaining and he nodded. “Yeah, you’re right.” He paused and looked back at the painting. “Anyway, I’d better get back to work.”

“It’s starting to look good out there,” I said, turning my gaze to the window. “The terraces particularly.”

Elijah had created a beautiful outdoor living space for the family, with lights inlaid in the Italian slate slabs and underneath the L-shaped, cushioned seating areas that he’d built on both terraces. Also, each one had a shaped border, the South full of palms, ferns, and hedging, while the North had a huge Japanese maple tree which had needed to be craned in.

“Yeah, there’s a bit of a way to go with them yet, but they’re getting there.” He ducked his head and brushed his foot against the wooden floor, before looking back up at me. “Well, like I said, I’d better get back outside. You sure you don’t need anything else.”

I shook my head and with a smile he left, and it took everything in me not to shout out ‘yes, I need you to hug me’, but I didn’t, because what was the point – we’d both moved on.