The Family Remains(4)

It really was time for Rachel to go home now. The summer had been desperate and dirty, and she was used and spent.

The pharmacist pulled a paper bag from a clip on the carousel behind him and peered at the label. ‘Ms Rachel Gold?’ he called out. ‘I have your prescription.’

‘Oh.’ She smiled at Michael. ‘That’s me. Hope you don’t have to wait too long.’

‘Line-jumper,’ said Michael with a sardonic smile.

She typed her PIN into the card reader and took the bag from the pharmacist. When she turned to leave, Michael was still looking at her. ‘Where are you from?’ he asked.

‘England.’

‘Yeah, obviously, but whereabouts in England?’

‘London.’

‘And whereabouts in London?’

‘Do you know London?’

‘I have an apartment in Fulham.’

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Right. I live in Camden Town.’

‘Whereabouts?’

‘Erm.’ She laughed.

‘Sorry. I’m an Anglophile. I’m obsessed with the place. No more questions. I’ll let you get on, Rachel Gold.’

She lifted her other hand in a vague farewell and walked quickly through the shop, through the door, on to the street.

Two months later, Rachel was eating lunch at her desk in her studio when an email appeared in her inbox titled ‘From the American Anglophile to the English Line-Jumper.’

It took her a beat or two, her brain trying to unscramble the sequence of seemingly unconnected words. And then she clicked it open:

Hi Rachel Gold,

This is Michael. We met in a pharmacy in Martha’s Vineyard back in August. You smelled of wood smoke and beer. In a good way. I’m going to be staying in London for a few months and wondered if there was anywhere in Camden you’d recommend for me to explore. I haven’t really been to the area since I was a teenager – I was looking to score some hash and ended up buying a stripy rucksack and a bong instead. I’m sure there’s more to the locale than the market and the drug dealers, though, and I’d love an insider’s point of view. If you are reeling in horror at the appearance of this missive in your inbox, please do delete/ignore/call the police. (No, don’t call the police!) But otherwise, it would be great to hear from you. And my slightly anal knowledge of London postcodes led me to your email address, by the way. I googled ‘Rachel Gold’ then ‘NW1’, and up you popped on your website. How apt that a jewellery designer should have the surname Gold. If only my surname were Diamond we’d make the perfect couple. As it is, it’s Rimmer. Make of that what you will. Anyway, I’ll hear from you if I hear from you, and if I don’t, I’ll buy something from your website and give it to my mother for her birthday. You’re very, very talented.

Yours,

Michael

xo



Rachel sat for a moment, her breath held, trying to decide whether she wanted to smile or grimace. She brought the man’s face back to mind, but she couldn’t find the full extent of it. Michael C. Hall’s face kept appearing and smudging it out. At the bottom of his email though was a company name. MCR International. She googled it and brought up an anonymous-looking website for what appeared to be some sort of logistics/haulage type organisation, with an address in Antibes in the south of France. She googled Michael Rimmer Antibes and after some hunting around, finally found him on a website for local news, clutching a champagne flute at a party to celebrate the launch of a new restaurant. She blew his face up and stared at it for a while on her screen. He looked nothing like Michael C. Hall. He looked … basic handsome is how she would describe it. Basic handsome. But in the way his white T-shirt met the waistband of a pair of blue jeans there was something sexual. Not tucked in. Not pulled down. Just skimming the edges of each other. An invitation of sorts. She found it surprisingly and suddenly thrilling and when her eye returned to his face, he looked more than basic handsome. He looked hard. Almost cruel. But Rachel didn’t mind that in a man. It could work in her favour if she wanted it to.

She shut the email down. She would reply. She would meet him. She would have sex with him. All of this she knew. But not yet. Keep him waiting for a while. She was in no rush, after all.





4




June 2019


I go for a run the following morning. I must be honest and say that I really don’t like running. But then neither do I like going to the gym and seeing all those perfect boys who don’t even glance in my direction. The gym used to be my playground, but no longer. Now I dress down, keep my eyes low, grit my teeth until I feel that comforting, satisfying connection between my feet, the ground, my thoughts and the beat of the music in my ears, and I keep doing that until I’ve done a full circuit of Regent’s Park. Then my day is my own.

But today I can’t find that sweet spot. My breath grinds through my lungs and I keep wanting to stop, to sit down. It feels wrong. Everything has felt wrong since I found out that Phin still exists.

My feet connect with the tarmac so hard I can almost feel the bumps of the aggregate through the soles of my trainers. The sun appears suddenly through a soft curtain of June cloud, searing my vision. I pull on my sunglasses and finally stop running.

I’ve lost my way. And only Phin can guide me back.