In the Still of the Night

5

‘Hello, Annie’, he said, holding out his hand, ‘Long time, no see.’

She was dazed, but she had had years of training in hiding her feelings.

‘Hello, Johnny,’ she said huskily, and put out her hand to meet his.

His hand was cold; that made it real, she wasn’t dreaming. Her body jerked in shock. She was touching Johnny. After eight long years of dreaming about him, mourning for him, she was touching him again. It was like being reconnected to the electric main after being cut off. There was a surge of current so powerful that she couldn’t breath for a second or two.

The PR girl did a double-take. ‘Oh, you’ve met before?’ Her professional smile was in place but her eyes were irritated, reproachful as she glanced at Annie. ‘Annie forgot to tell me that.’

Annie could have pointed out that she hadn’t been told the name of the magazine reporter she was going to see, only the name of his magazine, but she didn’t, because she wasn’t even listening. Nor was Johnny. They stood there, hands clasped, looking at each other without saying a word. Her ears beat with hypertension, a roaring like the sea on a stormy day. How many times in the past eight years had she dreamt of seeing him, looked for him in busy streets, from buses or trains, wondered where he was, what he was doing, and why, why, why, had he walked out on her like that?

The PR girl gave them a sharp, curious stare. ‘Can I get you a drink, then? Coffee, tea?’

‘Tea would be nice,’ Johnny said, finally letting go of Annie’s hand.

The connection broken, she snapped awake, her blue eyes opening wide, dark with shock and disbelief.

Johnny was carrying a black leather briefcase in his other hand; setting it down on the smooth plastic top of the dressing-table, he took out a tape machine and began fiddling with it, his black head bent.

The PR girl asked Annie, ‘Tea for you, too? Or do you want coffee?’

‘Tea, please.’

The girl went out, closing the door quietly behind her.

Annie didn’t even notice her going, she was too busy watching Johnny’s mirrored reflection. He looked so different. But she would have recognised him anywhere. Johnny, she thought. Johnny. He was here, in the same room with her. She couldn’t believe it.

His eyes were still that dark, magnetic blue, his black lashes still as long and thick. He was not a boy any more, though. This was was a man, with a hard, striking face, rawboned and angular, very spare-fleshed, as if he ate very little.

His head lifted, he looked at her, right into her eyes.

‘Where have you been?’ she broke out. ‘Why did you go away without a word? You might at least have told me you were going.’

His voice was harsh. ‘What do you mean, without a word? I got in touch … I told you what had happened …’

She stared blankly at him. ‘You didn’t tell me anything. What are you talking about? You just ran out of the house and never came back. You left all your things upstairs in our spare room, you didn’t pay that last week’s rent, you simply vanished.’

‘I rang to explain and …’

‘Rang? You never rang us.’ She had listened for the phone hour after hour, for what had seemed like eternity, but must have been the next week or so, but he hadn’t rung.

‘Yes, I did – but your mother said –’

‘My mother?’ interrupted Annie, stiffening, alerted by the mention of her mother. Even at the time she had known that Trudie wanted to cut her off from Johnny, but Trudie had been at the shop most of the time, she hadn’t been in the house.

‘Yes, I kept ringing without getting a reply, then I realised you must both be out, you at the school and your mother at the shop, so I rang after six one evening and finally got your mother, but she said you weren’t there.’

‘When was this?’ Annie was trying to think back to that time, but it was as if there was a great stone wall in her memory; something had happened that was too painful to push through or see past. It made it hard to remember the exact sequence of events.

Johnny looked as uncertain as she felt. ‘I can’t remember the date … I was in hospital, I’d been in a crash and I had head injuries, I was still recovering when I rang, I was heavily sedated, and very confused.’

‘But I rang the police and the hospital, they said they hadn’t had any report of an accident that day.’

‘They wouldn’t know anything about it, it didn’t happen up here in London, I crashed on a motorway in the West Country, not far from Salisbury.’

Her eyes widened. ‘What on earth were you doing there?’