When You Walked Back Into My Life Read Free Page B

basement of her sister’s large Cornwall Crescent house near Ladbroke Grove. However irritated Flora got with what she considered her sister’s blunt, pragmatic approach to life, it had been Prue who had scooped Flora up after Fin’s defection and brought her to live with her and Philip. Later, when she fell badly behind with the mortgage payments on the house in Brighton, Prue had suggested she sell up and stay with them, rent the basement flat on a ‘mate’s rates’ basis. Flora had reluctantly agreed, helpless in the face of her incapacity. Her only certainty back then, which had been a steady beacon in her darkness, was the absolute certainty that Fin would come back – today, tomorrow, nextweek … But as the months passed and he didn’t, her depression deepened.
    Up until that September day three years ago, Flora had considered her life a good one. She loved her job in the A&E department, relished the frantic, unpredictable, life-or-death nature of the work – so much more exciting than the more mundane pace of ward life. And she had Fin.
    True, his work – and obsession – was climbing mountains, and there weren’t too many of those in Brighton, so he was away a lot. And when he was home, he was restless from day one, champing to get out of the city again. As soon as she was off duty for a few days, he would whisk her away, both of them astride his sleek Triumph America. They had seen the dawn rise from the top of Mount Snowdon, they had camped out in Swiss mountain huts with the goats, hiked up Kilimanjaro, driven across the desert to Timbuktu, literally. If her duty rota meant they were stuck at home, he would smoke a bit of dope, tinker with the bike and make mostly botched attempts at renovating their tiny terraced house, seven minutes’ walk from the sea. And threaded through all the adventures was that powerful sexual charge, which Flora sometimes felt controlled her as much as any drug. She and Fin might be having supper, getting up in the morning, walking along the seafront, and one look would catapult them both intoan almost unseemly desire to possess each other. When he came back from one of his expeditions, perhaps having been away for a month or two, they would spend whole weekends in bed. Fin wasn’t just a boyfriend: for eight years he had been a way of life for Flora.
    Thankful to be home, away from Prue’s nagging, Flora ran a bath and sank into the too-hot water with relief. She had drunk a lot of red wine but barely touched the butternut ravioli; she felt muddled and a bit queasy. All she could see as she lay still, the water almost up to her neck, was those light grey eyes she knew better than her own, their expression always containing vanity and a certain vagueness, a detachment from the reality around him, but also a balancing humour and charm, which was how he connected with the world.
    She wondered if he had changed. But what does it matter if he has or he hasn’t? she asked herself. I blew him out, he won’t bother to try and find me. And acknowledging that, she felt an almost painful sense of loss.

CHAPTER 2
    11 September
    ‘Would you like to go to the park today?’ Flora asked Dorothea the following morning. ‘It’s so beautiful out there.’ She had just finished giving the old lady a bed bath and was dressing her, pulling on the navy elastic-waisted slacks that Rene bought from Marks and Spencer in bulk, along with cardigans and blouses in beige, and horrible pastel shades of blue, pink and green, which she found at knock-down prices at various outlets of Edinburgh Woollen Mill. ‘Every time I see a branch, I go in. There’s always something on offer,’ Rene told Flora proudly.
    ‘I … might like to,’ the old lady replied uncertainly, struggling weakly with the arm of today’s pink cardigan. Shelooked up at Flora. ‘But … Maybe Dominic said he would come round.’
    ‘Oh, OK.’ Flora suppressed her annoyance. Dominic was Dorothea’s great-nephew and,