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The day after Lucy left, Lockwood put on his liveliest smile and told the remaining members of the agency that it was time to get back to work. Relishing in the post-Chelsea outbreak fame, Holly answered calls, George did research, and Lockwood prepared their equipment bags. It was somewhat understood that Holly would be joining them more often in the field now they were missing one operative, but he couldn’t get himself to say anything beyond asking her if she could work some extra hours.
They now had the fame Lockwood had craved for years. The spotlight he had tried so hard to reach finally got placed on them. It didn’t feel worth it.
He had left Lucy at the café after trying to negotiate with her to stay. He had tried, he had grovelled. Nothing had worked. Her decision was final. Leaving her there felt like a small, pathetic attempt at gaining some control back. He felt childish, an urge to yell, see? I can leave too! rising in his chest. George and Holly had asked him when he got back without her, but all he could say was that Lucy was no longer a part of Lockwood and Co. Dinner had been a pitiful affair. He had to force himself to breathe and cut and chew and swallow and specially to stop looking at her.
After, as he had laid awake in bed, Lockwood had heard Lucy pacing upstairs, probably packing. He imagined what would happen if he went to the loft then. Maybe in the quietness of the night he could convince her to stay. Sitting in her bed with her, holding her hand like he had held her wrist so long ago when she had hurt herself at Kensal Green. Maybe he would lean forward this time, maybe she would do the same. Maybe he would finally learn what Lucy Carlyle’s lips tasted like. He imagined kissing her would crack his chest wide open and make everything he had been holding in spill out. Maybe he would finally tell her all the oppressive feelings he had kept in.
But that would not have been fair. First, he didn’t know how Lucy felt. He had to imagine there was some attraction there maybe, but he couldn’t think of her feeling anything beyond that. Perhaps some loyalty, though that one was hard to believe right now. So no, he wouldn’t go upstairs and kiss lucy and hold her to his chest while he whispered all his feelings in her ear. Knowing her as well he knew her–which didn’t feel like much these days–she would think he was only trying to get her to stay. And it would have been a fair assumption.
Lockwood slept in bits and pieces until early in the morning when he heard the door of the loft close and Lucy’s steps on the stairs. He just laid still, knowing he could go now and catch her before she left, but there was no point. If Lucy wanted to leave them, he would let her. Like many times before, he had tried and failed to keep someone in his life. In the early morning, Lockwood held his breathe as she descended the stairs until he heard the front door lock.
So, Lockwood decided that he could also compartmentalize Lucy’s absence; after all, he had done it with his parents’ deaths and Jessica’s. He had shoved every single feeling of loneliness and inadequacy so far down he doubted he would ever be able to dig them up with a shovel. When he buried his family, he buried it all with them.
A week after Lucy left Portland Row, Lockwood decided it was time to stop thinking about her all the time, of wondering how she was doing. So, when he opened the drawer where he kept his ties and saw the one she got him last Christmas, he had–in childlike fashion–thrown it under his bed and out of his sight. A week later, it had reappeared on top of this chest after Holly had cleaned.
He wished he could store away all his memories. But his brain was a stupid thing that had catalogued even her most minimal interaction and movement. Anything she did, his brain saw as important and worth remembering. Maybe it was trying to make up for his lack of knowledge of her. She was secretive about her past, something he could not recriminate her for. He knew a bit about the Wythburn Mill incident, her ghost-locked friend, and that she had ran away from her family. He wished he had more time to learn her. He wished he had asked.
He wished he wasn’t so full of love and resentment and with nowhere to put them.
Two weeks after she left, George confronted him in the kitchen.
The pre-case late lunch had been subdued, but lately that was the rule at 35 Portland Row, not the exception. Holly had reheated some of George’s eggplant curry for them. As lunch was served, they all focused on different tasks, not interested in maintaining a conversation. George read, Lockwood wrote down notes on the Thinking Cloth, and Holly reviewed their case book. None of them even glanced at the empty seat to George’s left.
Holly had said her goodbyes and rushed to catch the bus after helping Lockwood tidy up.
“Lockwood,” George had started taking off his glasses and cleaning them with a scribble-free section of the Thinking Cloth once they were alone. “We need to talk.”
He had tried to be nonchalant, leaning against the counter and crossing his arms, trying to calm down the part of his brain that was screaming George was also leaving.
“I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but we need to talk about Lucy.”
“What about Lucy? I’m sure she’s fine.”
“And are you? You’re doing a shit job at pretending like you are, by the way. And the way you’ve been acting on every case, Holly and I are worried.”
“Well, it’s been an adjustment having one less agent,” he replied.” And how have I been acting on cases? Efficiently? Getting you and Holly out safe? Finally making something out of this agency?”
“Like you don’t care if you live or die. And it gets worse with every case,” George looked defeated. “Lockwood, you can’t keep pretending like she doesn’t exist.”
God, how he wished he could pretend. Lockwood was not pretending that Lucy didn’t exist, Lockwood thought about her all the time. No amount of scrubbing her from his mind worked because Lucy was still at Portland Row. Some of her clothes were still tucked away in the loft. Her favourite mug still in its perpetual position next to the kettle. Her favourite crisps in the pantry. The book she had been reading was still in the library. Just yesterday, she received a letter from one of her sisters. Lucy Carlyle might’ve left him and Portland Row, but her presence was still all around the house like an exceptionally annoying Visitor.
“I’m not,” he finally answered George. “I can’t pretend she doesn’t exist, but I can do my best to try. She chose this, she left. I didn’t get a say in her decision–none of us did. But I get to decide how I deal with it.”
“This is definitely not healthy.”
Lockwood ignored his comment and took a sip of his tea by the stove. “Can you ask Holly to get a new type of soap for the bathrooms when she goes do the shopping?”
“Why? Does it remind you of Lucy?”
“Nope, I think I’m allergic to it.”
Three weeks after Lucy left Portland Row, Lockwood saw her in the background of a picture on an article detailing the Grimble investigation into the Melrose Murders. It made him nauseous.
Before he could stop himself, he dialled the direct number to Barnes’ office.
“Barnes.”
Lockwood knows the Inspector is immune to his charm, yet he tried anyway. “Good morning, Inspector. I hope you’re having a lovely morning. I was going through my mail and I have been receiving some correspondence for Lucy Carlyle. You remember her? My former associate? I was wondering if you could provide me with her new address and I will have our assistant, Holly Munro–I believe you’ve met her?–She will forward it to Lucy.”
The man on the other side of the line sighed and Lockwood imagined him twirling his moustache and rolling his eyes. “Good morning, Mr. Lockwood. I do know your former associate and I also know your assistant. And my answer is no. I cannot provide you with that address.”
“Well, she’s my former employee and didn’t leave a forwarding address before leaving, I don’t see the issue with–”
“Find someone else to get you the info. Also how did you get this number?”
“Good day, Inspector.” Lockwood hung up.
Sometime later, as he stared at the picture on the newspaper, Holly came into the library and handed him a card.
“It’s her business card with her address,” she said before he could look at it. “I heard you asking Barnes.”
Lockwood didn’t know what to say. He’d avoided speaking about Lucy, but specially around Holly. He knew she felt responsible for Lucy leaving. He had wondered many times if Lucy would’ve still left if he had never hired Holly.
“She’s doing really well, you know?”
“Good,” he answered standing up and hastily tucking the card in his pocket like it had not just become his most prized possession. All he really wanted was to avoid whatever conversation Holly was planning. “I will give you the letter to forward to her.”
Before he could leave, Holly blocked the door. “Lockwood, I love working here. You and George are great and this is the most comfortable and useful I’ve ever felt in a work environment, especially after the way I left Rotwell–“
“Hol, what is this? Are you quitting too?”
“No, but if that’s what will get you Lucy back, I could.”
He had been taken aback by her offer. Especially the getting him Lucy back portion. She didn’t say if that’s what will get Lucy to come back, or what will get them Lucy back. She meant him specifically. He was so fucking transparent and felt pathetic.
“That won’t be necessary,” he answered putting on his charm. “You are now an integral part of this agency–just like me or George. Where did you get the card, anyway?”
“I used to be Rotwell’s assistant, remember? I have my connections. A friend of mine from Tendy’s worked with Lucy on a case last week.”
“Oh, thanks Hol,” he told her before leaving for his room. He needed to figure out what to do now that he knew where to find Lucy.
The easy answer was to go see her. Would she let him in? What if she was out on a job? Maybe she would tell him to get lost. He sat on the floor behind his door and hoped to find the answers there. All he really wanted was to see Lucy. The longest he’d gone without seeing her since she came into his life was the time she went to visit her family. In a way, that was the beginning of the end.
A month after Lucy left them, the card remained untouched in its new place by his table lamp. He had thought of thousands of scenarios where he went to see her or called her. He had even considered hiring her as a freelancer. After all, they had plenty of difficult cases he could have used her help with, but knew she would see through the lie. Perhaps the most terrifying scenario was the one where she would tell him to never speak to her again. Because he still had a glimmer of hope that one day she would come back. Maybe one day she would knock on the door and it would be easy. They’d have tea with George and he would butter her toast while they mocked Holly’s wheat waffles. Maybe one day she would sleep in the loft again. Because maybe one day, Lucy would be back and he wouldn’t feel so fucking lost in his own house all the time.
“It’s our fault.” George had told him. They were sitting together in an iron circle in the conference room of an insurance office. It was one of the lower profile cases they had taken since the Chelsea outbreak. A previous distraught employee who had died in a copy machine accident–it still wasn’t clear to the agents exactly what had happened–had started manifesting by reorganizing all the chairs in the room and turning the tables upside down.
“George,” Lockwood had replied pouring more tea from their shared thermos. “You’re going to need to be a lot more specific. We have a penchant for things being our fault.”
“Lucy leaving Lockwood and Co.”
“Oh, that.”
“Yeah,” his friend continued. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot–I know we all have. We could’ve done better. She said she didn’t leave because of Holly, but that was part of it. It had to be, you know?”
Lockwood had spent the past month wondering the same thing, but now he was tired of trying to figure out Lucy Carlyle’s motives.
“She said it was her Talents being out of control, but think of it, Lockwood. If we had not made her feel like she couldn’t talk to us, she would’ve stayed. It was the two of us she used to rely on. Then we were bad friends to her. It sort of…made me think of the Bone Glass. I don’t blame you and Lucy for my mistake, I know you were both dealing with a lot of shit then, but I did feel…I don’t know…alone? So maybe that’s how we made Lucy feel.”
“I don’t think there’s anything else we could’ve done to make her stay.”
“That’s bullshit. There’s always something else we could’ve done. You were so busy trying to make Holly feel welcomed because Lucy hated her that you ignored Luce–“
“Hey! That’s not fair, I–“
“No, it’s exactly what you did. And I was so self-absorbed in my research of the Chelsea outbreak that I didn’t notice she was how much she was struggling.”
Lockwood knew he was right, but he let his pride win and didn’t reply.
“What happened?” George asked. “At Aickmere’s? She started withdrawing from us after that and I don’t think it was just the issue with her Listening. Did you kiss her or something?”
“What?” Lockwood almost wanted to laugh. “What kind of question is that?”
“Did she try to kiss you and you turned her down, then?”“No, George, there was no kissing. I don’t know why you would even ask that.”
George looked at him like he couldn’t believe Lockwood’s audacity.
“I ask because I have eyes,” George answered. “You two have been doing this stupid dance around each other since the moment she got hired. So, tell me. Did one of you tell the other it wasn’t going to happen and then she left because it was awkward?”
“No, nothing happened,” Lockwood replied averting his eyes from George and playing with the rim of his cup.
He knew he was lying. He told her he would die for her, he made obvious the feelings he’d worked so hard to hide. He selfishly wouldn’t tell George. Lockwood couldn’t afford to open up one more time.
After that, the Visitor finally appeared and they dropped the topic.
***
He’s in the basement with Holly doing inventory, not a task he particularly enjoys, but lately he takes any chance he gets to do extra work and keep himself busy.
“We’re low on magnesium flares and you need a new tool belt,” Holly tells him. “Yours is about to get ripped apart next time you throw yourself at something during a case.”
Lockwood feels the recrimination in her voice. Unlike George, who will outright tell him he’s a reckless prick, Holly takes a more passive aggressive approach. She will leave sleeping pills on his desk and self-help books on his bedside table. It’s very mother-hen of her and Lockwood is both endlessly appreciative and incredibly irritated.
He finally answers her. “Leave a list on my desk of anything else we need.”
Back in his room, he’s taunted by the business card. He sits on the edge of the bed and toys with it, bending it between two fingers until it’s almost folded and then letting it spring back.
Lockwood wishes they were different people. He wishes it could be as simple as calling Lucy and asking her to meet him for tea. Sometimes, Lockwood allows himself to fantasize about a world where she never walked into Portland Row looking for a job. And in his most spiteful moments, he wishes he had never met Lucy Carlyle. But despite the pain and the hole in his chest, he would take the hurt over a world where he didn’t know her.
So six weeks after Lucy leaves, Lockwood has a newfound commitment get over his feelings for her. He can do it. He’s survived worse. The business card is tucked away in a drawer under his ties.