Page 28 of Gideon (Finding Home #3)

“Can I help you?” I say slowly.

“Thanks, mate” he says in a voice heavily tinged with an Irish accent, and to my amazement he hands me the child and saunters past me.

The child and I look at each other appraisingly. I expect her to cry, but instead she gabbles something and bops me in the face with a tiny fist.

“Ouch!” I say and the stranger turns.

“Cora, we don’t do that to strangers, lovey.” He looks at me appraisingly. “Unless they’re Gideon Ramsay come to cause trouble, my love.” He runs his fingers over the wooden mantle and stares at me unblinkingly.

I feel my lips tugging into a smile, and I settle the little girl onto my hip comfortably and with the ease of practice, relishing the surprise he can’t quite hide.

I’m well used to small children. I was ten when Milo was born, and I’ve worked with many children in my career.

“You must be Oz,” I say, walking through to the kitchen and hearing his footsteps following me.

“I didn’t meet you on my last visit here because you were visiting your mum.

I’ve heard a lot about you, though.” I pause.

“Although the words never quite managed to conjure up what a smart mouth you’ve got. ”

He snorts almost reluctantly. “All the better to lecture you with, Mr Ramsay. I think when you descended on us before, you stayed at Niall’s house and caused a wee bit of trouble.”

His voice is light but there’s an undercurrent of warning there. I try hard to be outraged, but I can’t summon up even a tiny bit. This man is my brother’s best friend, and he’s looking out for him. How could I be annoyed?

I switch the kettle on and turn back to him, shifting his daughter on my hip.

This must be Cora, Silas’s daughter. I feel a sudden sense of shame that I’ve never seen her before.

This is my oldest friend’s child, and I wouldn’t know her if I passed her on the stairs.

I never meant to stay away despite the invitations that Silas sent me.

It just seemed like I was an outsider here the same way I was at home, where everyone seemed to belong to each other and no one to me.

That feeling gets very old, very quickly.

I look at the little girl and she gives me a toothy smile, reaching for my face. I grab her fingers and kiss them soundly, making a smacking sound that makes her chuckle delightedly. I look up and Oz is watching me closely, surprise and something else running across that clever mobile face.

“Let’s get this over with,” I say wryly, handing him his daughter as the kettle boils. “I love to start my day with a lecture. Either that or a big old punch in the face.” He laughs, and I look at him. “I’m not here to make trouble. I know you’re here to warn me.”

He sits down at the table, letting his daughter down to the floor and watching as she toddles around the room, looking at the place appraisingly as if sizing it up for trouble. “That is why I came,” he says slowly. “You caused a lot of trouble last time you were here.”

“And Milo is your best friend, and you want the best for him and Niall, and you don’t need me butting in.”

“You know, a lecture and a warning is much more satisfactory if the recipient doesn’t take over warning himself.”

I laugh suddenly, a harsh bark, and for a second we look at each other before he grins, his face lighting up.

“You don’t need to warn me,” I say steadily. “I love my brother, and I’m ashamed of the way I behaved before.”

“Would you do it again if you had a do-over?”

“Probably,” I say honestly. “Which might make me a bad person, but at least I’m a predictable one.”

“I don’t think you’re predictable at all,” he says, his eyes bright in the sunshine. “But I like honest people.”

“How about grumpy ones, because I can say with certainty that no matter how many epiphanies I have in life, that facet of my personality will never change.”

He laughs suddenly. “Fuck, that’s good to hear. There are far too many Suzy Sunshines on this estate. I like a bit of vinegar with my chips.”

“I’m sorry we haven’t met,” I say. “We would have met before if I’d got my act together.”

He shrugs. “Then or now doesn’t matter. It happens when we’re ready.” He smiles at me. “You know Silas is absolutely fucking cuckoo about this place. Swears it works a magic of its own.”

“Oh God,” I sigh, getting up to pour tea.

“I had enough lectures about that when we were teenagers to last a lifetime. I’d rather do algebra than listen to him talk about his magic house.

Once, I got off a train and stranded myself in Wakefield when he started talking about it.

I can still see his face as I waved him off. ”

He laughs, looking at me appreciatively, and for a second it seems like we’re rival armies who’ve come to a rapprochement that might end up in a permanent ceasefire.

“Some of it makes sense, though,” he says meditatively.

“ Chi an Mor does seem to attract people who need to find a home for a while or permanently.”

“Please don’t say that,” I say wryly. “I came for a break, not to grow a beard down to my ankles and talk in a Cornish accent.”

“At least your feet would be warm.”

Cora grins at us from her place on the floor by a cupboard where she’s occupied in removing some paper plates, and the sunshine fills the room as we settle down for a chat.

ELI

I let myself into my room. The air conditioning is on and the room is thankfully cool, which makes a difference from the heat.

I thought I knew what heat was, having worked in Australia in the summer, but it’s got nothing on Dubai.

Not for the first time, I yearn for the sunny cabin on the ship with the doors open, letting in the sound of the sea and a breeze that would billow the curtains.

For a second I look at my balcony as if expecting to see a tall, dark-haired man with grey eyes and a sharp blade of a nose.

I blink and the vision passes, but I hurry over to the table where I left my laptop charging.

This job is easy, caring for a middle-aged lady who had appendicitis and is rather frail.

She’s friendly and funny and very appreciative, and it seems strange to say that I’d have loved a difficult client this time.

Someone who’d have shouted and demanded.

Someone who would have taken my mind off Gideon and how hard it was to walk away from him that day in Southampton.

I shake my head. “I did the right thing,” I say out loud.

And the thing is, I know I did. It would have been abhorrent for me to have taken advantage of that situation.

Gideon was vulnerable in far more ways than could be explained by the pneumonia.

He was grumpy, demanding, impossible to deal with, and the most fascinating person I’ve ever met.

He was also generous in a manner suggesting he was trying to hide it, soft-hearted, and astonishingly kind.

I knew all that by the end of the trip, but what I didn’t know was how I’d end up feeling like my arm had been cut off when I left him.

A thousand times a day I turn to tell him something, and I find myself thinking about him at random times.

Worrying whether he’s taking care of himself, hoping he’s not drinking or taking drugs again.

Wishing he would find a healthy, safe path for himself and be the person he is underneath the bad-boy reputation that will take him nowhere but an early death.

It’s not just worry though. I want to tell him about the little black and white cat that comes to sit on my balcony in the late afternoon sunshine, and how her slightly disdainful air reminds me of him.

I want to tell him about my dessert tonight of baklava, the crunchy texture of the pastry and sweet honey on my tongue, and how the strong coffee served in tiny cups is sharp and almost shocking.

Somehow sharing those details with him makes them more real and wonderful.

“I did the right thing,” I say again and smile when I open my laptop and see a red number over my email icon.

Gideon. I open the email, and for a second I try to slow my reading so I can savour the words that are so like his way of speaking it’s as if he’s in my room, his face alight with sardonic amusement.

But I can’t restrain myself and I gallop through it.

To: Eli Jones

From: Gideon Ramsay

You would love this house. It’s tiny and already there are certain parts of it that are my favourites. Like the old armchair that nestles in a corner of the room by the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves so I only have to reach over and pluck a book out.

I’m reading like I haven’t done in years.

I used to read voraciously as a child, but I grew out of it when I started acting.

There was always something or someone to do and a great deal of trouble to get into.

Now, at night I sit in the chair and read rather than drinking the night away.

So far I’ve read most of Ruth Rendell’s backlist, and I’m now working my way through the works of PD James.

There’s no drink apart from tea at my side. I’m even drinking that disgusting green-tea shit that you made me drink on board. Is it worrying that I find myself liking it?

There’s a TV, but I haven’t watched it since I got here.

Instead, I’ve been listening to music. There’s a record player on a shelf, as well as a stack of records.

There isn’t a record in there from the current century, but it seems appropriate for the sort of life I’m living at the moment.

It’s actually like becoming a pensioner ahead of time, only without the sciatica, joint pain, and casual rudeness.

It’s actually the first time in my life that I’ve been alone for such a long time. Usually, I’m surrounded by people and noise. It’s one of the reasons why I tend to do films back to back and stay in hotels, because the silence has always seemed so full of noise.