Chapter 21

One Thursday evening there was a gentle knock on my door. I checked my phone, wondering of someone had sent me a text to warn me of their imminent arrival, really not having any opinions as to whom that might be. Cathy maybe, all though that would be very unlike her. She had returned from her holiday, tanned and healthy and fallen in love with her hubby all over again, I didn't have the heart to ruin her high with my tragedies, and had kept everything to myself. Frowning I padded over to the door and had a look through my peephole. What I saw through it made me tear the door open in sheer surprise.

"... Hammond?" I gasped.

"Oh! Hi, Emily! Thank god, right door." He waved, talking fast and shifting restlessly in the hallway, seeming nervous. "Listen, this might seem a bit....- Oh, by the way, am I disturbing you? If this is a bad time I can..." He gestured to the stairs and the exit.

"No, no, it's fine, I'm not doing anything..." I said slowly, looking at him sideways, still surprised.

"Oh good. Right, I know this might seem odd, but... Can I talk to you for a minute? I don't know who else to talk to." My first instinct had been that James had sent him, or at least that this was about him. But Richard seemed so genuinely distressed about something that sheer curiosity got the better of me.

"Yeah, sure.. Come in," I said and took a step back, letting Richard into my apartment. "I was just making tea, want a cuppa?"

"Yes, please, that would be lovely," he said politely, having a quick look around my apartment.

"Sit down," I waved as I headed for the kitchen. "Water is hot, I'll be out in a jiffy." A few moments later I returned and handed him a mug of steaming tea, then sat down on the other half of the corner sofa, looking at him.

"Thank you, Emily," he said sincerely, wrapping his hands around the mug to warm his hands. It was mid-march outside, but London had been rainy and a chilly wind was sweeping through. A silence fell as I patiently waited for him to reveal why he'd suddenly showed up at my door, having never been here before. "Listen, as I said earlier, this might seem very strange, me turning up on your doorstep like this out of nowhere. I realise we don't know each other that well, but to me you just seem like... someone you can talk to, and you're a nurse, and..." His voice trailed off as he considered how to continue. "In short, I like you, I feel like I can talk to you and I trust you." I studied him, frowning. What the hell was going on? If he had turned up here with some embarrassing genital warts I was going to punch him. In the groin. I wondered vaguely if it was something with his kids, something he wanted to talk to a health worker about before daring to mention it to his wife. Or perhaps this was about his marriage?

"Wow, now I'm really...  curious," I admitted and sipped my tea. "So what's up?"

"I'm worried. About James," he said shortly, with a sigh of admittance. My heart sank down into my stomach and I felt that icy cold chill spread through me, but I did my best to seem unperturbed.  So this was about James, after all. Part of me was curious as to what was worrisome about James, part of me genuinely wanted to help Richard as he seemed distressed. I struggled to keep my face neutral when I replied.

"About James? Why?"

"He's... I don't know what's going on with him, he's just not right. Lately he's been sort of... distant, somehow, moody and tetchy and... slow. Slower than usual. When we go out drinking, like while on a shoot or something, he downs alcohol like there's no tomorrow and gets absolutely smashed, but he never seems to have fun, he just turns into a right prick, really. He looks tired and drawn. I tried talking to him once but he just completely bit my head off and after that I've hardly dared talk to him. I'm just... concerned about him, he's just been so unstable lately. He never showed up for that New Year's Eve party, and has never told us why. Sometimes I even wonder if this is some late side-effect of when he hit his head down in Syria, it's not like him to be unstable like this. I think maybe... could he be depressed?" At this Richard looked at me, eyebrows raised, searching for confirmation. Quickly I decided to give my standard health-worker answer, mostly to give myself time to think it over.

"Well, problems concentrating, slow speech or movements, mood-swings, anger, tendency to isolate yourself... those can all be signs of depression. Or other things, it's hard to tell. I really don't think this has anything to do when he hit his head, that would've showed up much sooner and gotten better in that case, not gotten worse. This isn't anything like what you had, Hamster." Richard didn't seem much relieved by this, and I hadn't really meant to soothe him either, I had just told him what I knew to be true.

"Honestly I feel like a bit of a douche going behind James' back like this, but..." Richard squirmed apologetically. "We're good mates and we can talk about serious things sometimes, but now... I can't seem to reach him. Even Jezza has noticed it and he's worried too. He also tried talking to him but he's even worse with emotional things than I am. He didn't do brilliantly."

"I guess manly blokes don't talk about their inner feelings much?" I said dryly. He looked up at me unhappily.

"Such a stereotype, but true in this case. I don't mean to ask you to break any confidences here, but you and James... You've seemed pretty... close."

"Close?" I needed him to clarify what he meant by that. How much did Richard know, or how much had he understood or guessed?

"Yeah, I mean... You seem like pretty good mates, you know, spending time together... Have you noticed anything different about him?" I looked at Richard for a long time, trying to make up my mind about how to reply. The easy answer would just be to pretend like I hadn't seen him much lately, just say that I didn't hear from him anymore and didn't know what was going on. But I was tired of hiding the truth, I felt like I had been hiding the truth and hiding myself along with it. I sighed deeply and looked at Richard, fiddling absentmindedly with my mug.

"To be honest, Richard... I haven't seen or talked to him in over.. five weeks now." At this Richard just stared at me, blinking confusedly for a minute.

"What? Really? I mean, why...? It might not be any of my business, but... I thought you were..." He stuttered, not knowing if he had a right to ask questions. Nervously I fiddled with my mug, staring into the dredges of my tea, thinking over one last time whether or not to tell him everything. After a silence I sighed and straightened up, readying myself to tell someone for the first time.

"About that New Year's Party he never showed up to..." I began.

"Yeah?" Richard nodded, but not impatiently.

"He didn't come because he went to Norway. To see me." I gave these words time to register with Richard. "He... I was restless, and miserable, and let slip mostly by accident that I was missing him when we talked on the phone. So he jumped on a plane, showed up out of nowhere, at midnight. He kissed me." I paused again, trying to fight off vivid memories from that night.

"...James did that?" Richard asked incredulously.

"I know right? Anyway, I came back to London with him the next day. We went for a five day road-trip around England, I wanted to see more of England and we just wanted to be with each other, away from everyone else. We wanted to keep it to ourselves, it was all sudden and new and exciting, you know..." Richard nodded knowingly, urging me on. "So we kept it to ourselves. We had some... fantastic, intense weeks, spending all our free time together when we were off work, I practically lived there." I had to swallow hard. Up until now I had tried to keep detached, but emotions were catching up with me, making it harder to keep talking. Thinking about what to say next, I mobilised some anger again, wanting it to chase away that painful lump in my throat.

"Then what happened?" he urged, already looking concerned, as if he could only imagine what I was about to say.

"But then, he... He started talking about our age difference. He said that we're in different places in life, that it would've never worked out and told me he wanted to end it before it became... too serious." That last word took a lot of effort to repeat. "So I screamed and raged at him and stormed out of there. That was five weeks ago." A long silence fell as I gave Richard time to let it sink in, I could tell he needed it by the startled and confused expression on his face. "So I'm sorry, Richard, but I don't think I'll be able to help you much with this. You managed to pick probably the worst person in the world to talk to about James' problems right now." I said the last bit with a sad smile of irony.

"Oh, Emily, I'm... I'm really sorry," he said, looking at me sympathetically. After another silence he continued. "You have no idea how much of a twat I feel like for coming to talk to you about this, now." He screwed his eyes up in embarrassment and I couldn't help but chuckle.

"Bollocks to that, Richard, you had no way of knowing about any of this. That was sort of the point, that no one was supposed to know. Don't feel bad about it." I shrugged. "As for what is bothering James... I don't know. Maybe he's wallowing in self-pity. Maybe he suddenly found himself alone and feels sorry for himself. Maybe he's just bored," I said savagely. At this Richard shot me a look, as if he thought I was being a bit harsh, but then his expression softened when he realised I had every right to be.

"I don't know either. But if he's is feeling sorry for himself or lonely, he can thank himself for that by the sounds of it," Richard muttered sourly. I took some sort of primitive pleasure in hearing Richard say this, in siding with me, however slightly. Then I instantly felt bad.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to badmouth James or anything," I said. "I'm not trying to turn you against him or anything, you've known James for donkey's years. I just... I haven't told anyone any of this before, and frankly I'm not even sure why I told you. Maybe I just needed to. I wanted you to know why I can't help you. No matter how angry and disappointed I've been with him, how hurt I've felt... That's between me and him. I didn't tell you because I wanted to get back at him, or talk shit about him."

"Oh come on, Emily, I know that wasn't what you..." He waved, brushing it off. He understood. "Seriously, have you not heard anything from him since?"

"No. Well, he's called a few times, but always late at night. I figured he was probably drunk so I didn't pick up. He always called once, and never the next day. So I just... reckoned it couldn't have been that important."

"He might've been drunk, actually, we've done a few Top Gear shoots lately and had a few late night binges...," Richard sighed. "Listen, Emily, if you feel like... you need to get away for a bit, sometime, get out of London, you're welcome to come up to ours for a few days? See the animals, go for walks with the dogs, I know you're a dog person. Play with the kids. Or even better, come play with me, we could go quad-biking in the mud!" He looked at me with child-like eagerness at the prospect of muddy quad-biking and nodded encouragingly.

"Aw, thank you Richard, that's so nice of you. I really appreciate that," I said, and I meant it. "I would've loved to, but I'm leaving London in little over three weeks."

"...What?" Richard said darkly, looking surprised again.

"Yeah, I'm..." I looked down at the floor, feeling a little ashamed. "I'm doing the cowardly thing here, Richard... Running away. That course I came here to take, I had my exam at the end of January so I'm done with that. I really like my job here, but there are hospitals and patients in Norway as well, I could find something similar there. I've signed up for a new stint abroad with a few organisations, too. It might happen tomorrow, or in two months, or not at all. But this place, Richard, this city... It's all just James now, you know?" Suddenly my eyes were brimming with tears and my voice cracked. "I mean, James help me build all this furniture, for god's sake. It's just too much of a reminder, staying here." I realised I was crying for real now, causing Richard to shuffle over and put his arm around me consolingly. "I mean, I... I still love London, I've felt so much at home here, I always have since way before I moved here. And I adore England... but I need to get away. It might not make anything any easier, but I'm hoping it might. I just need some distance."

" I know what you mean, Emily. And I can't blame you for wanting to get leave, really," he said and gave me another little squeeze. "I totally get why you want to. But I'll be sad to see you go."

"Thank you," I sniffed and smiled at him through the tears. Then I straightened up and wiped my face dry. "I'm sorry, you came here for help and end up having me dump all this on you and cry on your shoulder... I'll be fine, I have to finish my contract, which ends next week. My flat contract runs out in two weeks, then I'm out of here."

"You have to come down and see us before you leave, though. Mindy would like seeing you again too."

"Yeah, I'd like that. Maybe best if James don't know about it if I do, don't want him to think I'm moving in on his mates. You guys are his mates, and you are really important to him. He's lucky to have you, Richard, to have mates that care. He just doesn't know it."

"Well I care about you too!" Richard said loudly. "So if you want to come visit, that's up to me and not to him. And right now I'm not sure I feel like being such a mate to him," he added sulkily.

"Whatever James is struggling with right now... It's now he needs his mates. Even if you don't agree with what he said or did. And this might not even have anything to do with me at all, it might be about something totally different."

"Well whatever it is, he doesn't even seem to want any help or support," Richard fretted.

"Maybe he doesn't know he needs help. Or wants to believe that he doesn't need it. You just have to keep trying."

"I can't understand how you can be this mature and good about it," Richard said, shaking his head.

"Secretly I have a need to punch him repeatedly in the nuts," I admitted and Richard laughed loudly.

"We all have that need!" He agreed.

"I haven't been mature or good about this, Richard. I've cried and screamed like a baby throwing a hissy fit, I've been so angry I felt like I could kill him. And now I'm just running away, like a coward. And I'm serious about wanting to punch him in the nuts."

"Personally I think he was the coward," Richard said simply. I didn't know what to answer, so I just clapped my arms around him in a quick, grateful hug.

"Listen, I better get going," Richard said, looking at his watch. "Are you going to be okay?"

"Yeah, I'll be fine," I smiled reassuringly. "I've made it through the past five weeks, so.. I'll be fine. Eventually."

"Good." He got up with a sigh and I followed him.

"Hey, Richard, are you going to see James anytime soon?"

"Yeah, tomorrow in fact. Why?" He said guardedly. "If you are plotting to have him assassinated I'm not telling you when or where." I laughed and quickly popped into the bedroom to pick up a little plastic bag.

"I wanted to return this...It's his t-shirt, I borrowed it once-- oh, it doesn't matter. Could you give it to him? I don't care how, if you just... give it to him or slip it into his bag or.. something, I don't care if he knows I've told you. It's washed and everything." Richard accepted the bag, looking incredulous.

"You washed it? God, you were too good for him," he said with feeling. "Take care of yourself now, okay? And I'll see you before you leave, yeah?"

"I will. And yes, I promise I won't just disappear," I smiled. Richard pulled me in for a lingering hug.

"Emily? I love hugging you, you make me feel tall!" He said, arms still around me, and we both chuckled. Then he let go, said goodbye and was out the door. It had been a strange conversation, and I couldn't quite decide how I felt about having told Richard everything. On the one hand I felt lighter now that I had finally told someone, gotten it off my chest and received some sympathy and comfort. On the other hand Richard was probably one of the last people I should've told, he was James co-worker, and more importantly his best mate. Feeling another stab of bitter and vindictive anger I decided I didn't care, in the end. I'd be gone in a few weeks.

About a week later, as I was packing up some of my stuff to ship back home, my phone lit up. I went ice cold inside when I saw James' name on the screen. Cursing him and what I suspected to be another drunken call, I turned the sound off and let it ring, then went back to my packing. Coming to London I had only brought two huge suitcases with me, but I was amazed at the amount of things I had managed to accumulate over the past 8 months in this city and realised that the suitcases wouldn't do on the return journey. So I'd gotten hold of a huge shipping crate into which I was now stuffing books, summer clothes and all the bits and bobs I knew I wouldn't need for another two weeks in London. To my surprise the phone started buzzing and lit up again shortly after the first call had ended. James again. And it kept calling, over and over. Had he passed out against his redial button? Stubbornly I kept on packing, and kept on ignoring, wishing he'd just give it up. Him calling me always rattled me, just by knowing I could hear his voice by the press of a button. Eventually the buzzing of the phones vibration stopped. Then it buzzed just once, making me look over at it again. A text?

"Emily, please... I need to talk to you. Please pick up."

That was the first words I'd gotten from James in over six weeks. I snorted derisively, thinking that I didn't give a rats ass about what James needed. Then the ringing started up again, and it kept ringing for another hour.

"Oh for godssake!" I shouted at it, finally having run out of patience. As soon as the ringing seized I found Richard's name in my contact list and dialled.

"Yello?"

"Richard? It's me, Emily."

"Emily, hello!" He sounded pleasantly surprised. "What's up?"

"Listen, is James anywhere near you?" I cut to the chase, wanting to get to the point.

"Um, no, he isn't.." he said, sounding nonplussed. "Well, he's in the same building, somewhere, we're doing on a shoot around Cardiff right now, but it's a huge hotel. We do have separate rooms. Why?"

"Because he's been calling me for about two hours now, on and off. He's even sent me a text, saying he needs to talk to me, it's driving me up the wall. Would you know anything about this?"

"Oh.. Ah. I might.. have something to do with that, actually," he began timidly. I sighed audibly before I asked in a resigned voice:

"What did you do?"

"Well, I..." He sounded hesitant. "I went over to return that t-shirt you gave me."
"And? Just tell me everything, ok?"

"Yeah, all right, all right, I will.. Well, I handed him the bag and he asked where I'd gotten it. And then what I'd been doing at your flat in the first place, like he thought I was over there shagging you or something! Anyway, I told him honestly that I'd gone to your place to talk about him because I'd been worried about him, because he'd been such a miserable bastard and everything. And how you told me about what happened between you two. Adding that you talked about him in much nicer terms than I frankly thought he deserved. And I told him I thought he was a massive cock for ever breaking it off with you."

"Harsh, Richard." I muttered.

"Yeah, I know... for a second there I was sure he was going to punch me right in the face, but then he..." Richard's voice trailed off.

"He what?" I urged.

"He... just cracked, right in front of me. He started crying and shouting "don't you think I know that I fucked up the best thing I had in my life?" Complete breakdown. I've never seen him cry before, Emily, it was pretty... awful."

"Oh... okay.." I said stupidly, trying to gauge how I felt about this, my emotions being contradictory and chaotic. I felt a stab of vindictive pleasure about him breaking down, that he was hurting. And it made me confused, and surprised, because this meant he was feeling something. I'd spent the weeks ever since storming out of his house convincing myself that he didn't care and didn't feel, which had made it easier to be angry with him, an emotion I much preferred to disappointment and hurt. Vaguely I wondered if he really had thought Richard and I was having an affair, and if he had - what the hell else was he thinking about me? I felt bad for having put Richard in the middle of this, and regretted asking him to return the t-shirt.  "Was he drunk?"

"No, not at all, we'd just come in from filming."

"Was that it?"
"Um, no.. When he'd calmed down a bit he... asked about you, how you were doing. I decided to be honest and told him "she's leaving, James, that's how she's doing. She's quit her job, she's moving back to Norway. Unless she gets offered to go to Sudan or some such first. She's trying to get as far away from you and the memories of you as possible." Then I told him that if he was ever going to get you back he better stop crying and get a fucking move on, because you'd be gone in a few weeks."

"Oh, Richard.. You shouldn't have-" I began, but he cut me off.

"Listen, Emily, you were the one who told me to go and be his mate. So that's what I did, I decided to be his mate, and as his mate I think he was the biggest twat alive for throwing away what he had with you, and that he should get off his arse and do everything humanly possible to get you back. So that's what I told him to do."

"Okay," I sighed resignedly. "Fair enough. Oh for.. he's calling again." I heard the distant beep notifying me that I had another incoming call.
"Are you ever going to pick up on him?"

"Honestly, I don't know."

"Want me to tell him to stop calling?" Richard asked helpfully.

"I don't.. know..." I repeated, feeling myself being close to tears again.

"All right, Emily. I get it." He sounded understanding, comforting, and again I hated myself for having put him in the middle.

"I should go. Try to.. figure this out," I said weakly. "Thank you, Richard. You're a good mate. To him. And to me." I hung up. James was still calling, and I just stared at the phone. The reason I didn't pick up wasn't anger anymore, or a wish to not talk to him, I was just paralyzed, completely unable to make a choice. So I avoided making one, and stuffed the phone under a pillow on my sofa, where I couldn't see its light or hear its buzzing, and went on packing.