A Thousand Small Explosions Read online

  ‘Sure,’ she replied, puzzled when the clock on the wall read 3.56am.

  ‘I’ll meet you by your car in fifteen minutes. Bring a jumper, early mornings are cold as hell out here. Oh and your keys of course.’

  Kevin was already standing by the car and leaning against his walking frame when Bethany appeared.

  ‘Let’s go,’ he said chirpily. He directed them as they drove along the dirt track driveway and back on to the highway where they travelled for around ten minutes until they reached a flat region by the side of the road and an area to park.

  ‘You can’t come to Australia without seeing the sun rise,’ Kevin said. ‘It’s like nothing on earth.’

  They sat together listening to a CD of old soul classics as the darkness gradually lifted and was replaced by a purple and orange hew.

  ‘How often do you come out here?’ Bethany asked.

  ‘I used to come quite a bit when I was first diagnosed,’ he began, ‘then I went into a dark place for a while. I was angry at everything, especially thinking that everyone else would have a lifetime of sunrises and sunsets, while mine were limited. Then I began to understand that being here to see any sunrise was a major accomplishment. It means I’ve lived for one more day.’

  Bethany instinctively placed her head on Kevin’s shoulder where it remained until the sun rose and he’d long drifted off to sleep. His hand was cold, his skin parchment-like and she wondered how he might have felt to the touch before cancer started eating away at him.

  While the intense Match Your DNA love was still undoubtedly missing, there was no doubt that she felt at home around him. Maybe that was more important than anything else, she thought. Maybe when you took it back to basics, that’s what love really was, being there for someone when the sun rises and sets.

  Bethany arrived back at the farm with her sleeping passenger and was greeted by his brother Mark who opened the passenger door and unclipped Kevin’s seatbelt. He scooped Kevin into his arms and carried him back into the house as Bethany looked on, suddenly feeling the first pangs of something for her Match that she couldn’t identify.

  CHAPTER 39

  NICK

  Nick nursed a steaming polystyrene cup of hot chocolate he’d bought from the kiosk a safe distance away from the grass pitches.

  He contemplated buying himself a burger too until he saw the filthy fingernails of the man serving behind the counter.

  It was the first rugby game he’d ever attended – his school had been keener to teach hockey than rugby - and it was as cold as hell out there. He pulled the grey cashmere scarf Sally had bought for his birthday tightly around his neck and his hoodie up over his head to keep his ears warm.

  “What am I doing here?” he wondered, having no clue what the game’s rules were or what the state of play was on the pitch. All he knew was that he could barely keep his eyes off the player ahead of him.

  Nick’s eyes moved their way up Alex’s calves to his thick, tree trunk thighs and solid torso. He almost willed himself to be turned on by Alex’s physical appearance so their Match might start making sense, because if they had been pre-determined to be together, surely he’d have felt at least a mild sexual arousal? But there was nothing.

  Nick had decided on a whim to spend his morning watching the game. He recalled a framed photo on the wall of Alex’s office of a team with a Solihull Rugby Club logo on their shirts. He searched online for their fixtures list to see when and where they were playing next. The location was a community rugby pitch in Birmingham’s suburbs, but aware of how creepy it might appear if he suddenly turned up unannounced, Nick stood a distance away from the other supporters on the touchline to watch Alex from afar.

  A week had passed since they’d met at the bar, where they had remained for much of the evening becoming acquainted with one another. They’d both grown steadily drunk, gradually discovering the things they had in common from artists to architecture and travel to rock music. The only subject both were reticent to go into any detail about was their relationships with their partners. And as the conversation flowed, neither of them brought up their Match again although it wasn’t far from their thoughts.

  Their time together was only cut short when Alex’s girlfriend Mary called asking when to expect him home. For the briefest of moments, Nick felt envious of her role in Alex’s life.

  They had parted with a polite but lingering handshake, each secretly fearing that touch might be their last. However neither suggested meeting again or keeping in contact; it seemed to be enough for now to know the other was out there, albeit leading their lives independently of one another.

  But by the eighth day, Nick didn’t just want to see Alex again, he needed to. Suddenly his thoughts were interrupted by a rugby ball flying through the air and smacking him square on the shoulder.

  ‘Shit,’ he yelled in surprise, as the crowd in front of him parted and left him exposed.

  ‘Pass us the ball mate?’ a stocky, shaven headed man yelled through his gum-shield, and just as Nick threw it clumsily in the player’s direction, Alex spotted him. Nick glowered back apprehensively, promptly regretting the decision to have crowbarred his way into Alex’s private world.

  But when Nick saw the smile slowly creeping across Alex’s face, his own wasn’t lagging far behind.

  CHAPTER 40

  ELLIE

  The shock of having a can of paint thrown at her in the street by a screaming stranger rendered Ellie immobile.

  It wasn’t the first time she had been the subject of an attack, although most of the others had been cyber or verbal, with the exception of the religious nut who’d stabbed Andrei, her head of security, with a broken bottle. It was precisely for this reason she had hired him and his team to escort her everywhere she went. Only that evening, she’d needed to remind herself what it felt like to be a normal person going on a regular date. And as she and Tim kissed on the bistro’s doorstep Ellie became lost in the moment.

  Now though, she felt the thick gloopy paint dripping down her face and she knew Tim had just asked her a question, but she was too dumbstruck to acknowledge it. Instead, she stared back at the onlookers who’d stopped to gawp at the spectacle.

  Suddenly Tim leaped into action, pulling her by the arm towards a nearby black cab that’d just dropped a customer off. The driver glared at the paint-splattered pair like he was about to refuse them entry and pull off. Tim grabbed four £50 notes from his wallet and shoved them through the passenger window.

  ‘That’ll pay for the clean-up,’ he said and opened the door, ushering Ellie inside and not giving the driver an opportunity to change his mind.

  ‘Where do you live?’ Tim asked Ellie, but she was still too stunned to respond. ‘Ellie,’ Tim said sternly. ‘I need to get you home, where do you live?’

  ‘345 Eaton Terrace, Belgravia,’ she whispered and Tim repeated it to the driver. Tim pulled out a handkerchief from his pocket and gently wiped away some of the red paint from her cheek and lips.

  ‘Are you okay?’ he asked gently.

  ‘I just want to go home,’ Ellie replied, humiliated, ashamed and unable to make eye contact with him.

  ‘Did you know that woman?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘We need to call the police.’

  ‘No,’ Ellie repeated, more forcefully.

  Tim waited for further explanation from Ellie but none was forthcoming. She could sense his frustration as she looked out from the window so she didn’t have to witness the confusion and disappointment in his face.

  ‘Just who are you Ellie?’ he persisted, ‘And why would someone want to do that to you?’

  Ellie remained silent for the rest of their awkward fifteen-minute journey to her home. As the cab pulled up outside a large, white, three-storey town house, she assumed Tim must have been wondering how a PA could afford to live in such a sought-after postcode. But she was in no mood to admit the truth.

  Instead, she got out of the cab while Tim paid the driver. By t
he time he’d been handed his change, Ellie had rushed up the steps to her front door and held her keycard to it. It opened to Andrei standing on the inside. He eyeballed his emotional employer up and down and was about to launch himself at Tim, still standing on the road, when he noticed he too was covered in paint. As Ellie hurried inside, Andrei shut the door leaving Tim out in the cold.

  CHAPTER 41

  AMANDA

  Many family birthdays, anniversaries, girls’ nights out, leaving parties, restaurant meals and get-togethers passed without the presence of Amanda.

  Each time an invitation came her way by text or by phone call, she mustered up an excuse as to why she was unable to attend, often citing that she had plans or was staying the night or weekend at Richard’s house some forty miles away. She was telling the truth, at least in part, as she was choosing to spend more and more of her time with his family rather than her own.

  She guessed from the tone of their voicemail messages that her mother and sisters were finding it increasingly frustrating trying to pin her down. They had been a tight-knit unit since the death of their father more than a decade ago, but now one of them was trying to pull away and the rest couldn’t understand why, especially at a time when Amanda should have been at her most open.

  But spending time with her family didn’t nourish her in the same way that spending time with Jenny and Emma did. Instead it left her feeling more and more alienated from them. They were all experiencing the love and happiness that had been cruelly taken from her and she doubted they’d be able to understand what she was going through. Richard’s family understood and they filled that void.

  ‘If you want to have a few drinks then why don’t you stay over?’ Jenny had texted the evening before Amanda’s next visit. So with a packed overnight bag, she spent the evening with them watching DVDs, drinking wine and leafing through an album of Richard’s baby photos.

  When they finally retired to bed, Amanda found herself wide-awake in the guest room, unable to sleep. She closed her eyes and tried to picture what it might’ve been like to be childhood friends with Richard, and how his confidence would have made up for her lack of it. She fast-forwarded to a future they could never have and imagined walking through her parents’ front door on Christmas Day with him on her arm and how he’d be the centre of attention with the family. Her fingers clenched the duvet and she squeezed it hard in frustration at the reality of her situation.

  After using the bathroom, Amanda spied Richard’s bedroom door. Hesitantly, she opened it then quietly closed it behind her. She turned on a lamp, sat on the mattress and glanced around the room.

  Curiosity got the better of her so she slid open the drawer of his bedside cabinet and peeked inside. In there were toiletries such as moisturisers, hair products and deodorants, along with an open pack of ten condoms. She flipped the lid and counted just four remaining, then immediately wondered who’d been the lucky girl with whom he’d used the missing ones. She was envious of a woman she couldn’t even put a face to. She looked under his bed and found his threadbare army-green backpack from his travelling days but there was nothing inside.

  She removed occasional pieces of clothing from his chest of drawers to press against her skin or to run her fingertips across and then inhale, and each one made her nerve endings shiver. Then in the bottom drawer, tucked way at the back, she found an old iPhone, several models out of date. Amanda turned it on, assuming the battery would be dead, but there were two bars of power left and the phone required no passcode.

  She was aware that she was invading Richard’s privacy but she didn’t care as her thirst for more knowledge about him was unquenchable. The more she learned, the more she needed to know.

  Most of his text messages were from personal training clients or friends organising nights out. They revealed very little about him, other than he had a wide circle of pals and grateful clients.

  However his photos folder was dominated by images of one person in particular, a young woman, in various states of undress. She was nearer to Richard’s age than Amanda’s and was far prettier than her, she thought. She frowned, wondering who the girl was, and continued to flick through his pictures until she stumbled across a naked selfie of Richard.

  She held her breath and felt her heart racing, unsure of what to do next. Her face flushed as she swiped from right to left to see half a dozen more explicit pictures of her Match. She was surprised at how well endowed he was and pinched the phone’s display to get a closer look, before experiencing a sensation she hadn’t felt in quite some time – arousal.

  Eventually she stumbled across a three-minute video clip of Richard pleasuring himself in that very room on the bed where she sat. Amanda couldn’t control herself any longer. She double checked the bedroom door was closed, turned down the volume on Richard’s phone and lay back, in exactly the same position Richard was when he’d filmed himself. Slowly and silently she slipped her hand down the front of her pyjamas and began to touch herself, closing her eyes and envisaging how it might have felt to have Richard inside her. It wasn’t long before she felt every muscle in her body clench until she erupted at the exact same moment as the ghost of her Match.

  She replaced his mobile back in his drawer and lay on his bed, smiling and waiting for her light-headedness to ease before returning to her own room. But instead, she drifted off into a deep sleep and only awoke to the sound of the bedroom door hinges opening and Jenny’s face appearing.

  ‘Oh I’m so sorry,’ Amanda immediately apologised, ‘I couldn’t sleep so I came in here and must have dropped off.’

  ‘It’s fine darling,’ Jenny replied and gave her a warm smile. ‘You can stay in here as often as you like.’

  *

  ‘You’d like children of your own, wouldn’t you?’

  Jenny’s question caught Amanda off-guard. They’d been sitting in a pocket park close to Jenny’s house looking towards the rolling countryside surrounding them. Amanda had been recollecting how her failed marriage had left her at the brink of despair, when she focused on a young mum with two small children and the conversation tapered off. The excited kids were taking it in turns to throw chunks of bread at the greedy mouthed ducks in the pond, giggling each time the birds quacked.

  ‘Yes, I’d have loved my own family,’ Amanda replied with a resigned smile.

  ‘You mentioned that you have nieces and a nephew? Do you see them often?’

  ‘I see them a lot, well, not so much lately… my sisters say I can spend as much time with them as I want, but it’s not the same when they’re not your own, is it?’

  ‘No, it isn’t.’

  ‘I actually fell pregnant with Sean, my ex-husband, twice, but miscarried both times, the first a few months after we got married and then a couple of weeks after he left me for his DNA Match. I thought that was it for me, that I didn’t stand a chance of being a mum with someone I truly loved until I discovered I had Richard. Then my imagination went into overdrive. We were going to buy a little old cottage in Wollaston – somewhere that needed doing up from scratch that we could work on together – and the first room we’d do up is the nursery. And we’d time it just right so that I’d fall pregnant as we were finishing the place and I’d be the parent I always saw myself being. Now that opportunity has been ripped away from me.’

  Jenny paused before she spoke, choosing her words carefully. ‘Not necessarily,’ she replied. ‘Come with me, I want to show you something.’

  Amanda looked at her quizzically and followed Jenny along a steep path and up a hill. After fifteen minutes or so, Jenny stopped and squinted across the horizon.

  ‘You can see the whole of the town from up here,’ she began. ‘Do you see that steeple right in the distance? That’s the village where Richard Senior and I married - in St Mary’s Church. And down there? That’s where my Richard went to primary school. Then if you look over to the right, next to the large chimneys, that’s the Fox and Hounds pub where Emma got her first weekend job when she
was studying for her A-levels. So much of my family’s life is wrapped up in this one little viewpoint.’

  ‘It must be important to you.’

  ‘It is to all of us. Richard in particular loved it up here; he’d come up on his mountain bike and stay for ages. So this is where we scattered his ashes so they were free to blow across the town that made him. Not all of them though, the rest we scattered at our cottage in the Lake District.’

  ‘That’s lovely,’ said Amanda.

  ‘But just because Richard’s no longer with us doesn’t have to mean the end of my boy,’ Jenny continued.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘As I’ve told you before, Richard always wanted children of his own. Like you, he was great with kids, probably because he was a big kid at heart. When he discovered that he had testicular cancer, we didn’t know how bad it was going to be. So he stored some of his sperm in a bank, just in case further down the line he couldn’t have a family the natural way. He had to give three or four samples – I remember he joked about it being more enjoyable than a visit to Barclays – and the samples are still being stored there.’

  Amanda turned her head to look at Jenny, who continued to stare into the distance.

  ‘I think you understand what I’m offering you,’ she continued. ‘If you would like to have my grandchild – Richard’s baby - then I’m giving you the opportunity to.’

  CHAPTER 42

  CHRISTOPHER

  Christopher watched Amy’s shoulders rise and fall as she slept in his bed.

  He disliked having his personal space intruded with spooning and cuddling, so the moment she drifted off to sleep, he moved his arm from over her waist, slid his body to his side of the mattress and lay on his back with his head turned, surveying her. Observing her as she slept was one of the headiest experiences he’d ever had with another person.