Closer To You

Chapter 3

3

The Brownlow Arms used to be a dark and dingy country pub, but it’s recently been spruced up to become a light and airy gastropub. It’s not exactly in the country, either, rather nestled in a small hamlet between two smallish towns. It’s the sort of place that’d never survive if it didn’t do food, which I guess is one of the saving graces of the rise of the gastropub.

Tom messaged me again in the afternoon to let me know one half of the pub was for dining only, so he’d meet me in the bar area and we could find a drinks-only table from there.

I get there just over ten minutes early, having called a cab from my house. I definitely need a drink after the day I’ve had. I’m not the sort of person who likes to be late, and I prefer to get my bearings and feel comfortable with my surroundings before things kick off. I’ve not been in here since they’ve done it up. In fact, I don’t think I ever came in here before they did it up. It’s busy for a weekday evening, and I wonder how many of the couples and families will be heading through to the restaurant to eat.

I order a soft drink from the bar — don’t want to be getting too far ahead of myself — and sit down at a small table in the corner by the window. At least this way I’ll be able to see when Tom arrives. He’ll be driving, he said, as he needs to be up early for work in the morning.

After a few minutes, I see a white Audi pull into the car park. PCP White, my dad would call it, referring to the fact that so many people decided to ‘buy’ cars on Personal Contract Purchase plans nowadays, and kept the monthly payments down by choosing the basic white paintwork. I watch as Tom gets out of the car, and I decide I probably won’t tell him that little anecdote.

He’s instantly recognisable from his picture, and that immediately earns him an extra point. Too many people seem to have old photos on their profile, or ones which have been doctored or filtered to make them look better than they actually do. He’s taller than I imagined, but not by much. He’s wearing a smart jumper over a shirt with light-coloured chinos and brown shoes, and seems as though he’d fit in perfectly with the rest of the clientele here. Might have to be careful I don’t lose him in a crowd.

He spots me as soon as he walks in, and I stand up as he makes his way over and plants a kiss on my cheek.

‘How are you?’ he asks.

‘I’m good,’ I reply. ‘Busy in here tonight.’

‘Must have chosen the right place then,’ he says, winking. ‘Would you like a drink?’

I’ve nearly finished my soft drink, so I tell him I’d like a glass of red. I stare absentmindedly out the window until he comes back from the bar with a non-alcoholic beer, and he sits down on the opposite side of the table.

‘So whereabouts do you live?’ he says. ‘I don’t think we ever actually did that bit.’

I laugh and tell him I live in the next town along. He lives in the opposite direction, but only a couple of miles away. I go to say it’s odd we’ve never bumped into each other before, but I’m not originally from round here and, judging by his accent, neither is he.

‘Cornwall,’ he says when I ask him about it. ‘Decided to stop crunching carrots and upped sticks to head here.’

His accent is more rounded than the typical West Country burr, so I ask him how long he’s been up here.

‘Not long,’ he says. ‘Personally I’d love to lose the accent completely. Not exactly got good memories of the place.’

I want to find out more, but can’t exactly ask him to explain what he means. I decide to try another way around it.

‘Not keen to head back, then?’

He lets out a sarcastic chuckle and shakes his head. ‘No I am not. It’s a bit of a long story, but I might as well be open and honest from the start. I was married. We had a daughter. I totally understand if you want to get up and run now. Most do.’

‘Seriously? Why would they do that?’

Tom shrugs. ‘Dunno. I guess they have these ideas about how they’d like things to be. My baggage doesn’t quite fit into those plans.’

‘What happened?’ I ask. ‘I mean, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. I’m just genuinely interested.’

Tom lets out a deep breath. ‘Well, all seemed to be going fine. One day I came home and found a note on the kitchen table saying she wanted a fresh start and they were gone. That was the last I heard from her.’

‘Jesus. And she still lives down there?’

‘So I’m told. But her family won’t tell me a thing, obviously. Looking back, she was always going to self-destruct.’

‘So when was all this?’ I ask, trying to work out the dates in my mind.

‘A couple of years ago now. Seems like an age.’

‘So you don’t see your daughter?’

‘No,’ he says quietly, his face dropping. ‘I shelled out thousands trying to track her down. Hired a private detective, the lot. But she made up a load of stories about me so I couldn’t get joint custody. I almost lost my job. I worked from home most of the time, and obviously after all this I didn’t have a home. I couldn’t afford to keep the house by myself. I travel quite a bit for work anyway, so I knew it’d be handy to be closer to London and the airports and to give me a fresh start. My boss put me up in a flat he owns up here. This was all a little while after, of course. I stayed down in Cornwall for a long time, hoping things might work out. But after a year and a half or so, I was out of money and couldn’t keep the house on. I’ve been up here for three or four months now.’

I wasn’t expecting this. I wasn’t expecting any of this. ‘Wow,’ I say. ‘Sorry to hear that.’

‘The car’s not mine either,’ he says, somehow managing to get there before me. ‘That’s my boss’s too. He gets a company car, so he uses that and lets me use the Audi.’

‘Wow. Sounds like a good friend.’

‘He is, yeah. I’d be lost without him. He’s kept me on my feet.’

‘What about your family? Do you still have them?’

‘No,’ Tom says, his face dropping slightly. ‘My parents died.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘Was it recent?’

‘Fairly. A couple of years back. Car accident. Sorry, you must think I’m some sort of mental case.’

‘No, not at all,’ I say, reaching across the table and putting my hand on his forearm. ‘We’ve all been through things. It doesn’t make you a worse person. It just makes you human.’

We chat for another two hours, mostly about nothing but enough to let me find out more about him. I come to admire his positive outlook. Even after everything he’s been through, after almost losing everything, he still manages to hold a smile and look to the future. There were one or two negative comments, of course, but on the whole he seemed to be determined to make his life better in every way he could. I can’t speak for anyone else, but I always find that to be attractive in a man.

With the time past ten o’clock, we make our way out into the car park, where my taxi’s waiting. Tom offered me a lift, but I insisted he didn’t need to go out of his way. In any case, I wasn’t quite comfortable with him knowing where I live just yet — not that I told him that. A true gentleman, he didn’t push the point and insisted instead that he pay for the taxi.

As we say our goodbyes, I lean in and kiss him.

Later that night, while I’m getting ready for bed, I see another message pop up on my phone. It’s him.

I hope I’m not jumping the gun here, but I really like you. I think you might be the ying to my yang x

I smile, and tap out a reply.