Read Online Crappily Ever After by Louise Burness - Free Book Online

lavender-scented round of applause.
     
    Our evening out goes really well. The restaurant was the perfect setting for a first date and I do manage to actually eat instead of awkwardly pushing food around my plate. Paul pays for everything. We head on to a few pubs along Rose Street, laughing and joking and feeling very comfortable in each other’s company. Paul confesses that he doesn’t have a huge amount of luck in his relationships and tends to get too involved too quickly, which seems to scare off potential girlfriends. OK, so he’s not the best looking guy I’ve dated, but he seems a true gent, attentive too. At the end of the evening Paul walks me home, coyly taking my hand and smiling. At my door he quickly leans over and gives me a peck on the cheek. How sweet. He promises to call again soon to arrange another date – if I’d like to, he anxiously adds. Of course I would, I tell him, putting my key in the lock. Perfect. He didn’t even try it on.
     
    I arrive at work on Monday morning and immediately the ladies in the day room give me the third degree. Having to start again several times as new clients join us, on top of repeating everything twice for Meg, who has lost her hearing aid yet again and is leaning forward, attempting to listen intently from the corner chair. I wander down the hallway and rap my knuckles on Harry’s door.
    ‘Come in,’ is the grumpy reply, quickly followed by a wide smile when he sees it’s me. I give him a hug and after a quick chat, I open his medication cabinet, unscrewing bottles and tipping pills as if by second nature into the little pill cup as we talk. He’s not too interested in my date. Harry is strangely hesitant about Paul.
    ‘Here we go, Harry.’ I hand him the med cup and go to pour him a glass of water from a jug on the side table, with the very un-Harry crocheted doily on it, a gift from one of the well-meaning lady residents. An attempt to bring a woman’s touch to Harry’s barren room, which is sparsely furnished with a three quarter-sized bed, side table, an old tea trolley, with a black and white portable TV on it, and two armchairs. One for Harry and, sadly, a barely used guest one.
    A lone picture hangs on the wall. His niece in London, Kirsty, has a daughter, Emma. She painted a picture of Harry’s old black and white collie, Laddie, from a photograph and sent it to him. Harry was thrilled to bits with the sixteen-year-old’s gesture. Good on the girl! Considering she had never met Harry, it was sweet of her. This was the main reason it seemed to touch Harry. Laddie had meant so much to him. He felt Emma must be a kindred soul. Harry talked proudly of her two letters to him; OK, so not much, but more than her mother did. She had passed nine GSCEs and wanted to study law. She spoke fondly to the elderly man she had never met, discussing her plans to visit her ‘heritage’ and travel around Scotland. She would definitely come and see him. The last time he had seen Kirsty had been at a family party twenty years ago.  
     
    I hold the glass of water out toward Harry. He gently grasps my wrist with one hand as he removes the glass with the other and places it on the table. He opens my hand and looks intently at my palm. I hold still. Looking at the top of his grey tufty head, I think how much he looks like a baby seagull from this angle. Finally, he glances up, eyebrows raised.
    ‘Sit, Lucy.’ I sit down in the armchair opposite, leaning forward. Harry gazes intently into my palm, twisting the ring on my middle finger absent-mindedly.
    ‘Mum is very important,’ he says almost to himself. ’Dad is an enigma. This is why you have such an innocent… what’s the word I’m looking for? Almost, awe of men. That is your downfall, Lucy. Paul isn’t the one. You don’t need me to tell you that. The man you end up with will be the man you see as only him. Not some figment of your imagination of the perfect man – because he doesn’t exist. Don’t