Thinking about You
Thank you all for the kind reviews, I hope I can do them justice.
Here's chapter 2 for you. I rushed it a bit and am not sure I have got Camille's voice at all right but then IMO the BBC messed with her character so I guess I could always say I meant to do it!
She was dreaming; caught in a land between sleep and wake where she knew she ought to pull herself out of it. Blink and rub her eyes and stretch. It would do no good to start reliving the past four years when it was just that, past.
On St Marie she had become adept at pushing aside the memories, closing the lid of the box and dealing with living each day one at a time. Going through the motions of accepting the blind dates her mother set up for her in the evenings and working hard during each day. She wasn't totally blind to her behavior though. She knew that her work had suffered, had even noticed Dwayne's odd sideways glances at her when she was too silent during a case. It just didn't seem as important as it used to and if the team missed her intuitive leaps then Humphrey had made up for it with his clumsy genius, Dwayne with his laid back observations and knowledge of the island, and Fidel, and now Florence with their diligence and professionalism.
But here on the plane, the roar and chatter and chink of glasses providing a numbing background, she allowed herself to dream and remember.
"You are a rude man." Finger jabbing at him, her anger barely held in check. She had been so close to physically assaulting him that day; had satisfied herself with merely threatening it instead. "I could almost certainly beat you in a fist fight."
She could see in her minds eye the look of complete shock and horror on his face. He had been so consumed with looking inwardly, so upset at being trapped far from home in the heat and sand, and foreign culture, and combined with his utter focus and determination to do a good job; to prevent another murderer walking free that she realised only later he genuinely hadn't comprehended how offensive he was being.
To his credit, he had taken the verbal battering and altered his behavior almost immediately. And when she had taken the risks she had to extract a confession from the waiter, he had, to her utter surprise been the man to save her. Her unlikely hero.
It was startlingly clear looking back now with the benefit of hindsight but she hadn't admitted it then. Although she was sure she had said Thank you. She hoped she had. Camille frowned, eyes remaining closed. Moments like that shouldn't be important so many years later, but with so few memories to hold onto they had more of a prominence.
Did she know she loved him the last time she saw him?
Did she know now?
Maybe one day the answers would become clearer. The only truth she did know was that she had missed him every day since; had longed for his company and his heartfelt "well done team" when they solved a case. His rare moments of sharing snippets of his early life with her…..or at least initially rare. Moments like those had been steadily increasing in regularity until….
She missed the shy half smile that gently crept across his face. The one he directed at her in particular. She missed him allowing her to clean his face of dust following some criminal investigation or other when he didn't ordinarily let people anywhere near his personal space. She missed his strange homespun science experiments, even stranger given the historical nature of his further education and the self-satisfied smirk that he gave when he got a good result. Hell, she even missed the deep frown that drew his brows together when she wound him up more than was strictly fair.
Would it be the same in another time? In another place? There were too many questions that she couldn't answer.
She was awake now, pupils contracting against the sun that streamed through the small window as she opened her eyes.
She supposed she ought to eat something. No doubt she would be tired when she landed and unlikely to spend time finding food when there were so many other details to sort out. Inflight menus had improved over the years she knew; had enough flight attendant friends who discussed and grumbled and moaned about meal trays that did work and those that were too disgusting to even contemplate. Camille glanced down at the options available to her, one of the choices on the Inbound Caribbean flight catching her eye. Classic English roast beef with potato and some sort of vegetable. It wasn't something she would usually consider eating; too bland for her palate but it certainly called to mind more memories.
The first time she had managed to persuade him to eat at her mothers. A celebration after they had solved the murder of Angelique and her daughter. He had been pleasantly surprised, she had seen it in the set of his shoulders and the smile that had graced his features. And his pleasure had made her happy. At a time when she wasn't sure she liked him at all, the invitation an altruistic one to help him feel less alone and foreign so far from his home. As if eating with the team was ever going to make him appear less foreign!
They had caught one another's eye, raised a glass, and for that tiny moment in time all had seemed right with the world; a moment when she felt that perhaps they could work together effectively and amicably after all.
A polite cough alerted her to the flight attendant stood by her elbow. She rapidly refocused, pointing out the sweet chilli chicken and rice option, dropping her tray to allow them to serve her a drink.
Half an hour later, trolleys still being loaded with detritus; half eaten trays of food, empty juice cartons and shredded bread rolls, the announcement came to refasten seatbelts. Camille clipped herself in. A trip to the bathroom to freshen up, and to stretch her legs would have to wait. She wondered how Richard had found flying back and forth to the Caribbean. She had never thought to ask. Or rather, he had been so wound up by the loss of his baggage, the heat, the flies, the sun, the fat bloke sat next to him on the flight that she had spent far more time either trying to shut him up, change the subject, ignore him or in the latter stages of his posting, simply be so grateful he had once more returned to the Island that she hadn't enquired after his general opinion of long haul flights.
Oh the feelings he had induced on that last trip back to the UK, the look on his face and the sudden tension in his shoulders the day the Commissioner had told him he was needed in London; required to escort Malcolm Powell's assistant back to London for questioning by the Serious Organised Crime Agency. He had looked across at her and she had felt a curious mix of nausea and trepidation swirl in her stomach and she'd known she wasn't going to like what he was about to tell her.
Even then and notwithstanding her own feelings, she'd also realised he was not wholly excited to be going. After all, she'd spent almost two years being bashed over the head with how wonderful London was, how difficult life was here, how much he wanted to go back to England given the chance. And he hadn't reacted like that at all. If anything his reactions had appeared a little forced. That ought to have bolstered her, and truly it had. But there was also an overpowering conviction that once he got back to his beloved home country, once the sand had been washed from his skin and his body had adjusted to the colder climate, that he would forget all about them – her - and never return. And so she had steeled herself; had kissed his unresisting cheek and hugged his motionless body and sent him off with a smile.
Camille shivered. That week of missing him and worrying about his return positively paled into insignificance with the years since then.
Like Pandora's box, now that she had allowed herself to peek inside, the lid was off and the memories were coming thick and fast.
She remembered the childlike joy rushing through her body as he walked back into her Mother's bar, ranting about the state of the airlines and their ability to look after his baggage. She had sworn to herself never again to roll her eyes at his grousing and to merely appreciate every tirade; to try to empathise with the difficult character that was her boss and friend.
Of course promises like those were never destined to last. By the end of that same evening, as delighted as she'd been to see him, she'd still cut him short quite abruptly when he'd started complaining about the lady in charge of lost or damaged luggage at the airport.
And she was sure she'd snapped her fingers at him the following week when he'd been overly brusque with an unusually ailing Dwayne. To give Richard credit, it had taken her a good few minutes herself to ascertain that it wasn't just a hangover and that clicking her fingers had probably been unnecessary. But increasingly she had been suspecting he was no longer offended by the gesture. That he even treasured it. All a part of the steady progression of their relationship or whatever their growing friendship was defined as.
Two months later and he was gone.
Camille bashed the armrest in frustration causing the elderly gentleman sat next to her to start in surprise and then attempt to shift away from her, towards the other side of his seat. She murmured an apology, smiling briefly at him and then placed her head in her hands.