AFTER DARK DIARIES | ROMANCE

The Woman in Seat 14A

Sometimes the person who changes your life isn’t the person you fall in love with. Sometimes they’re simply the one who puts you in the right place to find them.

The Holiday for Two

Rachel had always thought airports should have a special queue for people regretting their life choices.

It could sit somewhere between Security and Pret A Manger, a discreet little lane marked I Have Made Several Questionable Decisions and Would Prefer Not to Discuss Them.

At thirty-nine, sitting alone at Heathrow with a boarding pass to Lisbon and a glass of wine she hadn’t particularly wanted, Rachel felt she would have qualified for priority access.

The holiday had been booked for two.

Ten days earlier, there had still been two of them.

Then Simon had stood in their kitchen, leaning against the worktop where they’d eaten breakfast together for the past six years, and said the sentence everyone recognised immediately as bad news.

“We need to talk.”

They had talked. For nearly three hours.

Apparently, Simon needed space.

Rachel had pointed out that their two-bedroom flat already contained quite a lot of it.

That hadn’t helped.

By Thursday, Simon was staying with his brother. By Friday afternoon, Rachel had resigned from the marketing job she’d spent four years complaining about but had somehow never quite found the courage to leave.

On Monday morning, she’d woken to the peculiar realisation that she’d managed to dismantle most of her adult life in less than a fortnight.

So naturally, she went on holiday.

She was wondering whether ordering a second glass of wine before midday constituted a cry for help when a voice interrupted her.

“Is anyone sitting there?”

Rachel looked up.

The woman pointing towards the chair beside her was somewhere in her sixties, although she wore her age as if it were merely an administrative detail she couldn’t be bothered correcting.

Silver-blonde hair framed an elegant face. Red lipstick. Cream trousers. Enormous sunglasses pushed onto her head.

And luggage.

An extraordinary amount of luggage.

“No.”

“Excellent.”

The woman dropped into the chair and arranged three bags around herself.

“I’m Maggie.”

“Rachel.”

Maggie studied her for perhaps two seconds.

“Are you running away, Rachel?”

Rachel almost inhaled her wine.

“Sorry?”

“People at airports are usually going towards something or away from something. You look like away.”

Rachel stared at her.

Maggie smiled.

“I’m terribly nosy. You’ll get used to it.”

“I’m hoping we’ll only know each other for twenty minutes.”

“So am I. Imagine the disappointment if we became friends.”

Rachel laughed despite herself.

Twenty minutes became an hour.

Their flight was delayed once, then again. Somewhere between the second announcement and Maggie deciding that buying a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc was considerably more sensible than paying airport prices for individual glasses, Rachel told a complete stranger almost everything.

She told her about Simon, although she left out the embarrassing detail that she’d spent the first two nights after he left sleeping on his side of the bed.

She told her about the flat they would now have to sell, the job she’d walked away from and the frightening absence of any sensible plan for what happened when she returned from Portugal.

Maggie listened in a way Rachel wasn’t used to. She didn’t interrupt with solutions or tell her everything happened for a reason. She simply listened.

When Rachel finally ran out of words, Maggie took a thoughtful sip of wine.

“Good.”

Rachel frowned.

“Which bit? My relationship ending or becoming unemployed?”

“The blank space.”

“That doesn’t feel particularly good.”

“People are terrified of blank pages. They immediately want to fill them with something familiar.”

Maggie poured the last of the wine between their glasses.

“Personally, I think they’re the only interesting ones.”

The Man in the Photograph

Eventually Rachel turned the interrogation around.

“So why Lisbon?”

Maggie had been reaching for her glass. Her hand stopped.

“To meet someone.”

Rachel raised an eyebrow.

“A man?”

“Obviously a man. At my age I’m hardly travelling internationally to collect Pokémon.”

Rachel laughed.

“Someone special?”

Maggie considered the question.

“He was once.”

There was something in the way she said it that made Rachel stop smiling.

Maggie opened her handbag and removed an old photograph, its corners softened from years of handling.

It had been taken beside the sea. A much younger Maggie stood barefoot on a promenade, laughing at whoever held the camera. Beside her was a handsome dark-haired man, his arm loosely around her waist.

There was something unguarded about them.

Not two people posing for a photograph, but two people caught being happy.

“Gabriel,” Maggie said.

“Your husband?”

“God, no.”

“Boyfriend?”

“Once.”

Rachel turned the photograph over. Nothing was written on the back.

“When was this?”

“Thirty-two years ago.”

Rachel looked up.

“And you’re meeting him now?”

“Tomorrow afternoon. Four o’clock.”

“After thirty-two years?”

“Yes.”

Rachel waited for an explanation.

None came.

“Maggie, you can’t tell someone that and then drink your wine.”

“I just did.”

“Why now?”

For the first time since sitting beside her, Maggie seemed uncertain.

“Because eventually you run out of tomorrows.”

The answer stayed between them.

Around them, suitcases rolled over tiled floors, children complained, phones rang and hundreds of people hurried towards departures and reunions.

Maggie seemed suddenly removed from all of it.

Then, almost as if she’d revealed too much, she brightened and reached into her handbag again.

This time she produced a cream envelope.

Gabriel’s name was handwritten across the front.

“If I lose my nerve, will you give him this?”

Rachel laughed.

Maggie didn’t.

“You’re serious?”

“Completely.”

“I don’t know him.”

“That rather makes two of us these days.”

“Maggie.”

“Café Esperança. Four o’clock tomorrow. Near the cathedral.”

“You want me to deliver a love letter to a man I’ve never met?”

“He’s English.”

“That isn’t the problematic part of the sentence.”

Maggie smiled, but she kept hold of the envelope.

“Promise me.”

Rachel should have refused.

Instead, perhaps because of the wine, or because of the fleeting sadness she’d seen behind Maggie’s confidence, she heard herself sigh.

“Fine. If you don’t go, I’ll give it to him.”

“Thank you.”

“But I’m not getting involved.”

“Of course not.”

Maggie’s expression suggested she didn’t believe that for a second.

A few minutes later, Maggie borrowed Rachel’s pen and scribbled something on the back of an old receipt.

“My number,” she explained. “Write yours underneath. Just in case one of us loses the other.”

Rachel did.

Maggie folded the receipt and dropped it into her handbag.

The boarding announcement interrupted them.

Rachel gathered her jacket.

“Where are you sitting?”

Maggie checked her boarding pass.

“Further back. I’ll find you when we land.”

Rachel headed towards the gate.

Her seat was 14A.

She settled beside the window, put on her headphones and watched the remaining passengers squeeze bags into overhead lockers.

She expected to hear Maggie somewhere behind her, charming a flight attendant or complaining about the size of the wine measures.

The doors closed.

Rachel looked down the aisle.

No silver-blonde hair.

No cream trousers.

No Maggie.

The Missing Handbag

At first Rachel wasn’t worried.

Maggie had lost her nerve. That seemed the obvious explanation.

Perhaps she’d looked at Gabriel’s photograph one final time and decided thirty-two years was better left undisturbed.

Rachel understood that more than she cared to admit. There were already things she’d said to Simon that she wished she could put back into her mouth.

It wasn’t until she landed in Lisbon and switched on her phone that things became strange.

Three missed calls.

A voicemail from Heathrow Airport.

Rachel listened to it twice.

A member of staff had found a handbag beneath the chairs near the departure gate. Inside was an old receipt with Rachel’s number written on it.

The member of staff confirmed that the bag contained a passport, phone and purse.

Everything a woman travelling abroad would need.

Everything except, apparently, a cream envelope.

Rachel spent her first evening in Lisbon telling herself none of this had anything to do with her.

She walked through streets glowing gold beneath the late-afternoon sun, ate alone at a small restaurant and returned to a hotel room containing one double bed and two bedside tables.

The second bedside table irritated her.

It seemed unnecessarily judgemental.

At 3:12 the following afternoon, Rachel was still telling herself she wasn’t going to the café.

At 3:47, she was walking towards it.

“This is ridiculous,” she muttered.

The city seemed determined to make her late. Narrow streets twisted unexpectedly, yellow trams rattled past and every hill appeared to conceal another hill.

Then she found Café Esperança.

At exactly four o’clock, she saw him.

Gabriel was unmistakable.

Older, of course. Silver now threaded through the dark hair she’d seen in Maggie’s photograph, and time had drawn lines around his eyes, but Rachel knew immediately.

He was sitting outside.

And he wasn’t alone.

A younger man sat opposite him.

Late thirties, perhaps forty. Dark hair. White shirt with the sleeves rolled casually to his elbows. Sunglasses beside his coffee.

Rachel hesitated.

The younger man noticed her first.

Gabriel followed his gaze.

For several seconds, he simply stared.

Then he stood.

“Rachel?”

She stopped.

“How do you know my name?”

His eyes moved beyond her, searching the street.

“Where’s Maggie?”

Something inside Rachel tightened.

“I don’t know.”

“But you spoke to her?”

“Yesterday.”

“She came to the airport?”

“Yes.”

Gabriel gripped the back of his chair.

The younger man rose.

“Dad?”

Rachel looked between them.

Dad.

Wonderful.

The situation had apparently decided it wasn’t complicated enough.

Gabriel seemed to remember his manners.

“I’m sorry. This is my son, Tom.”

Tom held out his hand.

“You’re Maggie’s daughter?”

“No.”

“Sister?”

“No.”

“Friend?”

Rachel considered that.

“I knew her for approximately ninety minutes.”

Tom stared at her.

“Of course you did.”

Three Versions of the Truth

They ordered coffee, although nobody seemed particularly interested in drinking it.

Rachel told them about Heathrow, the delayed flight and Maggie failing to board.

She didn’t mention the envelope.

Something stopped her.

Gabriel listened quietly.

Tom did not.

“So a complete stranger told you she was meeting my father after thirty-two years?”

“Yes.”

“And gave you no explanation?”

“Very little.”

“Yet you came here anyway?”

“She asked me to.”

Tom leaned back.

“Do you normally follow instructions from strange women in airports?”

“Only on Tuesdays.”

His mouth twitched before he managed to stop it.

Gabriel didn’t notice.

“Maggie left me,” he said.

Rachel turned towards him.

“When?”

“Thirty-two years ago.”

“She didn’t say that.”

“What did she say?”

“Only that you hadn’t seen each other.”

Gabriel stared into his untouched coffee.

“We had plans. I was working in Lisbon temporarily. Maggie was supposed to join me.”

“And?”

“She disappeared.”

Tom shifted in his chair.

“Dad, you don’t have to—”

“She deserves to know if Maggie sent her here.”

Gabriel looked at Rachel again.

“I wrote to her. I telephoned her parents’ house until they stopped answering. Eventually the number changed. I assumed she’d met somebody else.”

Rachel thought about the photograph.

The young couple laughing beside the sea.

“Did you?”

Gabriel gave a small, sad smile.

“Eventually.”

Before Rachel could ask more, her phone rang.

Unknown number.

“Hello?”

“Don’t react.”

Rachel recognised Maggie immediately.

She stood so quickly she knocked the table.

Tom caught her glass before it fell.

“Are you all right?”

She nodded and moved away.

“Where the hell are you?” Rachel whispered.

Maggie ignored the question.

“Is he there?”

Rachel looked back.

Gabriel was watching her.

“Yes.”

There was a pause.

“Did he come alone?”

Rachel looked at Tom.

“No.”

Silence.

“Who is with him?”

“His son.”

Maggie inhaled sharply.

Then the call ended.

A City Full of Questions

Tom caught up with Rachel halfway down the street.

“That was her.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I saw your face.”

Rachel kept walking.

“Fine.”

“Where is she?”

“I don’t know.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

Rachel stopped.

“I met this woman yesterday. Until twenty-four hours ago my biggest problem was deciding whether I could afford my mortgage alone. I don’t know where she is.”

Tom rubbed a hand over his face.

“She’s playing games with my father.”

“Perhaps your father played them first.”

His expression hardened.

“You know nothing about him.”

“And you know nothing about Maggie.”

“Neither do you.”

Rachel opened her mouth.

Closed it again.

Annoyingly, he had her there.

For a moment they simply stood facing one another while tourists flowed around them.

Then Tom laughed.

Not loudly. Just a reluctant surrender to the absurdity of it all.

Rachel frowned.

“What?”

“This is completely insane.”

“Yes.”

“I was supposed to be having a quiet lunch with my father.”

“I was supposed to be here with a man called Simon.”

“Where’s Simon?”

“Needing space.”

Tom glanced around the broad, sunlit square.

“Portugal has loads. You should have brought him.”

Rachel tried not to smile.

She failed.

That was the moment something changed between them.

Not attraction exactly, although she had already noticed his eyes were warmer when he smiled.

It was simply the first moment they stopped regarding each other as obstacles.

They spent the afternoon following possibilities that led nowhere. Gabriel remembered an old address. Tom telephoned somebody who might know somebody else. Rachel checked hotels while becoming increasingly aware that Maggie probably didn’t want to be found.

By early evening, Gabriel was exhausted and returned to his hotel.

Rachel should have done the same.

Instead, she and Tom found a tiny restaurant tucked down a side street where tables spilled onto the pavement.

They ate grilled fish with lemon, warm bread and olives. Somewhere nearby, music drifted from an open window.

“Are you married?” Rachel asked eventually.

Tom glanced at his bare hand.

“Separated.”

“Recently?”

“Eighteen months.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. Clara and I were very good at being married until we weren’t.”

Rachel smiled faintly.

“I understand that.”

“What about Simon?”

“We were very good at not admitting we were miserable.”

Tom lifted his glass.

“To spectacular emotional maturity.”

Rachel touched hers against it.

“To denial.”

They talked long after the plates had been cleared.

About work. Families. The things they’d once thought they’d have achieved by forty.

Tom admitted he’d wanted children.

Rachel admitted she’d never decided whether she did, and now resented the fact that time was beginning to make the decision for her.

There was no flirtation in that moment.

Something more intimate had quietly taken its place.

Rain began beyond the awning, warm drops darkening the pavement.

Neither suggested leaving.

For the first time in months, Rachel realised she hadn’t thought about Simon for hours.

What Maggie Hadn’t Said

Maggie finally agreed to meet the following morning.

Alone.

She chose a bench overlooking the Tagus, where sunlight scattered across the water and ferries moved slowly in the distance.

Rachel spotted her immediately.

Same sunglasses.

Same red lipstick.

None of yesterday’s luggage.

Rachel sat beside her.

“You owe me an explanation.”

“I know.”

“Gabriel thinks you abandoned him.”

Maggie continued staring across the water.

“He abandoned me.”

“No. He wrote to you.”

Maggie’s head turned.

“What?”

“Letters. Phone calls. He tried your parents.”

For the first time since Rachel had met her, Maggie looked genuinely shaken.

“No.”

“He thought you’d met somebody else.”

Maggie stood abruptly.

Rachel caught her arm.

“What happened?”

“I can’t do this.”

“You made me part of it.”

Maggie looked at her.

The confident woman from Heathrow had disappeared. In her place was somebody carrying something she’d kept buried for far too long.

“I was pregnant.”

Rachel slowly released her arm.

Maggie sat again.

“I came to Lisbon because Gabriel was working here. I was going to tell him.”

Rachel waited.

“I lost the baby.”

The sounds around them seemed suddenly distant.

“I was twenty-nine, frightened and completely alone. I couldn’t reach Gabriel, so I telephoned his family.”

“What happened?”

“His sister came.”

“Elena?”

Maggie looked sharply at her.

“You know about Elena?”

“Gabriel mentioned her.”

Maggie’s gaze returned to the river.

“She told me Gabriel didn’t want me anymore. She said he’d met someone else and decided to stay in Portugal.”

“Tom’s mother?”

Maggie nodded.

Rachel felt the story rearranging itself again.

“So you left.”

“I’d just lost our baby and been told the man I loved didn’t want me. What else was I supposed to do?”

“Did Gabriel know you were pregnant?”

Maggie shook her head.

Rachel thought of Gabriel sitting outside the café waiting for a woman he’d once loved.

Thirty-two years.

All those birthdays and Christmases. Houses bought and sold. Parents lost. Grey hairs discovered in bathroom mirrors. Entire lives lived around a conversation that should have happened and never did.

Maggie reached into her coat.

The cream envelope.

“I’ve carried this for three months.”

“What’s inside?”

“Everything I couldn’t say.”

Rachel looked at it.

Then shook her head.

“No.”

Maggie frowned.

“You promised.”

“I promised to deliver it if you couldn’t.”

“I can’t.”

“Yes, you can.”

Rachel stood.

“You’re alive, Maggie. So is he. Don’t give him thirty-two years in an envelope.”

Maggie’s eyes filled.

“You’ve changed since Heathrow.”

Rachel almost laughed.

“I’ve known you three days.”

“Exactly.”

The Woman at Dinner

Tom was waiting outside Rachel’s hotel when she returned.

He had his hands in his pockets and looked as though he’d been pacing.

“Did you find her?”

Rachel hesitated.

“Yes.”

Relief crossed his face, quickly followed by irritation.

“And?”

“She’ll speak to Gabriel when she’s ready.”

“What did she tell you?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s hers to tell.”

Tom exhaled sharply.

“Rachel, my father hasn’t slept properly since she contacted him.”

“And Maggie has been carrying this for thirty-two years.”

“What?”

Rachel realised she’d said too much.

Tom stepped closer.

“You know what happened.”

“Yes.”

“And you won’t tell me?”

“No.”

“Whose side are you on?”

Rachel looked at him.

“That’s the problem, Tom. Everyone in this story keeps choosing sides instead of having conversations.”

He stared at her.

Then his shoulders dropped.

“You’re incredibly annoying.”

“So I’ve been told.”

A moment passed.

“Have you eaten?”

Rachel blinked.

“That was an abrupt change of subject.”

“I’m hungry.”

“So am I.”

They found a restaurant near the river.

Halfway through dinner, Rachel noticed a woman approaching.

Elegant. Dark-haired. Beautiful.

Tom saw her too.

His expression changed instantly.

“Clara.”

Of course.

Because apparently Lisbon contained two million people and Rachel was destined to meet every complicated one of them.

Clara kissed Tom’s cheek before looking at Rachel.

“And you must be Rachel.”

Rachel slowly lowered her fork.

“You know who I am?”

“Tom mentioned you.”

Tom became intensely interested in his wine.

Clara smiled and pulled out the empty chair.

“May I?”

Apparently she could.

Within five minutes she’d ordered wine. Within ten, Rachel liked her.

This was deeply inconvenient.

Later, when Tom went inside to speak to the waiter, Clara leaned towards Rachel.

“You should know something.”

Rachel’s stomach tightened.

“He still loves me.”

Tom returned in time to hear it.

“Clara.”

“What? You do.”

Rachel reached for her wine.

Tom sat down.

“It’s complicated.”

Rachel gave a small laugh.

“Apparently everything in your family is.”

Clara smiled.

“But I’m not telling you because I want him back.”

Tom stopped moving.

“I’ve met someone,” Clara said.

His face changed.

“Oh.”

“His name is Luis.”

Tom looked genuinely surprised, then something softer replaced it.

“Are you happy?”

“Yes.”

He nodded.

“Then I’m happy for you.”

Clara reached across and squeezed his hand.

“Good. Now perhaps you’ll stop using our marriage as somewhere to hide.”

“Clara—”

“You’ve been separated eighteen months. Every time something frightens you, you decide you’re still recovering from me.”

Rachel suddenly wished she could become invisible.

Clara stood and kissed Tom’s cheek.

As she passed Rachel, she smiled.

“Good luck.”

After she’d gone, Rachel stared at Tom.

“What did she say to you?”

He gave a reluctant smile.

“She said don’t mess this one up.”

Neither of them knew quite where to look after that.

The Letter That Never Arrived

Elena arrived the following morning.

Gabriel had called her after speaking to Maggie briefly the previous night. Whatever Maggie had said was enough to convince him that his sister knew far more about the past than she’d ever admitted.

Elena was seventy-two, immaculately dressed and visibly terrified.

The truth emerged slowly.

Thirty-two years earlier, Elena had believed her younger brother was about to destroy his future. Gabriel was twenty-seven, impulsive and deeply in love with Maggie. His career was beginning to take him abroad, while another woman—Sofia, who would eventually become Tom’s mother—was already part of his circle.

Then Maggie lost the baby.

Elena saw grief and uncertainty and convinced herself she knew what was best.

She told Maggie Gabriel had moved on.

Later, when Gabriel’s letters arrived at the family home to be forwarded, Elena hid them.

“I thought it would pass,” she whispered.

Gabriel stared at his sister.

“You thought what would pass?”

“The hurt. The obsession. All of it.”

“You stole thirty-two years.”

“No.”

The voice came from the doorway.

Everyone turned.

Maggie stood there holding the cream envelope.

“No one can steal thirty-two years, Gabriel. We lived them.”

Elena began to cry.

Maggie walked farther into the room and placed the envelope on the table.

Then she looked at Gabriel.

“I was pregnant.”

He didn’t move.

Rachel saw Tom lower his eyes.

Gabriel’s voice was barely audible.

“What?”

Maggie sat opposite him.

Then, after more than three decades, she told him.

There was no shouting.

That somehow made it more painful.

When she described the hospital, Gabriel closed his eyes. When she told him she’d tried to contact him, he looked towards Elena but said nothing.

When Maggie finished, silence filled the room.

Gabriel sat beside her.

Their hands rested on the cushion between them, only inches apart.

Eventually, his little finger touched hers.

Maggie looked down.

“I thought you didn’t want me.”

Gabriel swallowed.

“I thought exactly the same thing.”

Rachel felt Tom’s hand gently touch the small of her back.

They left without speaking.

Outside, Lisbon was almost offensively beautiful.

People drank coffee beneath striped awnings. A tram rattled past. Somewhere, somebody was laughing.

Life had continued for thirty-two years.

It had no intention of stopping now.

The Day They Stopped Searching

Rachel and Tom walked without deciding where they were going.

For the first time since they’d met, there was nothing to investigate.

No Maggie to find. No mystery to solve.

Just the two of them.

They climbed through narrow streets until Rachel complained about her shoes and Tom offered to carry her.

“I’d rather crawl.”

“You’re very stubborn.”

“You’ve known me four days.”

“It’s been an intensive course.”

They stopped for coffee and later shared a bottle of wine overlooking the river.

The afternoon stretched lazily around them.

Rachel told him about the tiny house she’d wanted to buy at twenty-eight but hadn’t because Simon thought it was impractical.

Tom told her he’d once been offered a job in New York and turned it down because Clara hadn’t wanted to leave Lisbon.

“Do you regret it?”

He thought for a moment.

“No. But I regret pretending I didn’t mind.”

Rachel understood.

Perhaps that was the dangerous thing about meeting somebody new. They had no investment in the version of you that everyone else already knew.

Tom didn’t know Rachel as Simon’s partner or the woman from the marketing department.

He simply knew her.

And she wasn’t sure she’d realised how much she’d missed that.

Near sunset, they stopped beside the river.

Tom looked at her.

Rachel knew a second before it happened.

He kissed her slowly, giving her enough time to move away.

She didn’t.

Her hands settled against his chest and the kiss deepened. His arm circled her waist, drawing her closer, and for several wonderful seconds Rachel stopped thinking altogether.

When they parted, she remained against him.

“This is a terrible idea.”

“Almost certainly.”

“I fly home tomorrow.”

“I know.”

“You live here.”

“I know.”

“You’re still technically married.”

“I know.”

“You’re very irritating.”

“That feels less relevant.”

Rachel laughed against his mouth.

Then kissed him again.

They reached her hotel sometime after midnight.

At her bedroom door, Tom stopped.

Rachel could feel the question between them.

She wanted him.

More than she’d expected to.

Perhaps that was precisely why she didn’t reach for the key.

“Not tonight.”

Tom searched her face, then nodded.

“Okay.”

Rachel blinked.

“That’s it?”

“What were you expecting?”

“I don’t know. Persuasion?”

“I’d rather you invited me inside because you couldn’t imagine not doing it.”

Rachel smiled.

“That was annoyingly good.”

“I thought of it in the lift.”

He kissed her forehead.

Then walked away.

Rachel watched until the doors closed behind him.

Only then did she admit how badly she’d wanted him to turn around.

Four O’Clock

On Rachel’s final afternoon, she returned to Café Esperança.

Gabriel was already there.

Alone.

Rachel chose another table and ordered coffee.

At exactly four o’clock, Maggie appeared at the end of the street.

She stopped when she saw him.

Gabriel stood.

Thirty-two years seemed to occupy the few metres between them.

Maggie walked slowly towards him.

When she reached the table, neither seemed to know whether to shake hands, embrace or simply stare.

Two people in their sixties suddenly looked painfully young.

Gabriel spoke first.

“You took your time.”

Maggie’s smile trembled.

“I wasn’t sure you’d wait.”

“I already did.”

He pulled out the chair.

Maggie sat.

Rachel looked away.

Some moments didn’t need an audience.

Tom was waiting farther down the street.

“You’re really leaving.”

It wasn’t a question.

“My flight’s at eight.”

“I could come to London.”

Rachel’s heart gave an inconvenient little leap.

“And then?”

“We find out.”

“Tom…”

“What’s wrong with that?”

She looked back towards Maggie and Gabriel.

“Everything that’s happened here started because two people didn’t say what they wanted. I don’t want to make the same mistake.”

“Then don’t.”

Rachel looked at him.

“I want you.”

His expression softened.

“But?”

“I also want to know who I am when I’m not Simon’s girlfriend. I want to find out whether leaving my job was brave or idiotic. I want to make decisions because they’re mine.”

Tom was quiet.

“And if I come with you?”

“I’ll make you the next decision before I’ve even made the first one.”

He understood.

That made it hurt more.

“So this is goodbye?”

“For now.”

“I don’t like that.”

“Neither do I.”

Tom touched her cheek.

“I could fall in love with you.”

Rachel’s breath caught.

The sensible response would have been to tell him not to say things like that after four days.

Instead, she whispered, “I know.”

Then he kissed her.

Not cautiously this time.

Rachel held onto him and kissed him back with all the feeling she’d spent years being too careful to acknowledge.

When they finally separated, she pressed her forehead briefly against his.

“Goodbye, Tom.”

“Goodbye, Rachel.”

She walked towards the taxi rank.

She didn’t turn around.

She knew that if she did, she wouldn’t leave.

Three Months Later

London looked different when Rachel returned.

Of course, London hadn’t changed.

She had.

She found a smaller flat with enormous windows, unreliable heating and plumbing that made noises during the night like an elderly man clearing his throat.

She loved it.

Instead of finding another corporate job, she began consulting independently. The first month terrified her. The second was slightly better.

She bought three plants.

Killed two.

The third appeared determined to survive out of spite.

Simon telephoned one evening and suggested dinner.

For a few seconds Rachel nearly agreed.

Then she realised she didn’t want to.

There was no anger in that discovery.

That surprised her most.

Maggie sent occasional messages.

Gabriel had visited England. Maggie had returned to Lisbon. They weren’t engaged, moving in together or pretending they were twenty-nine again.

They were simply spending time together and discovering the people they’d become.

Tom didn’t contact her.

Rachel didn’t contact him.

Some evenings she wondered whether she’d made an enormous mistake.

On others, she thought perhaps beautiful things were allowed to remain beautiful precisely because you didn’t demand that they become permanent.

Then, on a wet Thursday afternoon, a parcel arrived.

Inside was Maggie’s handbag.

Rachel stood in her kitchen laughing.

A postcard was tucked into the front pocket.

Lisbon.

On the back Maggie had written:

Gabriel says you were right.

I have informed him this must never happen again.

You kept your promise.

Now keep the other one.

M x

Rachel read it twice.

“What other one?”

The doorbell rang.

She assumed the courier had forgotten something.

Rachel opened the door.

Tom stood in the hallway.

For several seconds neither of them spoke.

He looked exactly as she remembered him.

And somehow not at all.

“Hello,” he said.

Rachel stared.

“What are you doing here?”

“Making a terrible decision.”

He held something towards her.

An airline ticket.

Rachel took it.

Then she saw the seat number.

14A.

She looked at him.

“What is this?”

“Your seat.”

“Where are we going?”

Tom smiled.

“You really haven’t learned anything, have you?”

Rachel looked beyond him.

A small suitcase stood against the wall.

Then she noticed another.

Empty.

Waiting for her.

She started laughing.

“You are unbelievably presumptuous.”

“Yes.”

“I might say no.”

“You might.”

“I have work.”

“Take your laptop.”

“I haven’t packed.”

“I noticed.”

“And I don’t even know where we’re going.”

“No.”

She looked at the ticket again.

Seat 14A.

Three months earlier, she’d sat in that seat believing her life had fallen apart.

Perhaps it had.

But standing there now, Rachel wondered whether falling apart and opening up sometimes looked remarkably similar from the inside.

She looked at Tom.

“How long have I got?”

His smile widened.

“Forty minutes.”

“You’re joking.”

“Thirty-nine now.”

Rachel grabbed the empty suitcase.

Tom stepped into the flat.

She pointed towards the bedroom.

“Don’t just stand there.”

He followed.

“Where are we going?”

“I’ll tell you at the airport.”

“You are incredibly annoying.”

“So I’ve been told.”

Rachel opened her wardrobe and began throwing clothes onto the bed.

For most of her adult life, she’d wanted to know what came next.

She’d wanted plans, guarantees and sensible decisions. She’d wanted to know where she’d be living next year, who she’d be waking beside and what she’d be doing on Monday morning.

Now she had a half-packed suitcase, an airline ticket to somewhere she didn’t know, and a man she’d met because a sixty-four-year-old stranger had once asked if she was running away.

Rachel glanced towards Tom.

He was attempting to fold one of her dresses and doing an appalling job of it.

“Give me that.”

“I was helping.”

“You were murdering it.”

He handed it over.

Then he caught her around the waist and kissed her.

Rachel laughed against his mouth.

“Thirty-eight minutes.”

“I know.”

“We’ll miss the flight.”

“There’ll be another.”

Rachel looked at him.

Three months ago, those words would have frightened her.

There’ll be another.

Another flight.

Another job.

Another home.

Another chance.

Perhaps even another love.

She kissed him once more, picked up the suitcase and headed for the door.

For the first time in her life, Rachel had absolutely no idea what happened next.

And she couldn’t wait to find out.

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