The Man I Fell in Love With

by Kate Field

  Ethan looked up.

  ‘What happened to falling in love and the great new adventure?’

  ‘Nothing’s happened yet.’

  ‘Really? Not even a teeter?’

  ‘No.’ But it seemed that my body was determined to contradict everything I said, because as Ethan gazed at me, forget-me-not blue eyes like magnets drawing me in, my heart galloped; not so much teetering, as already mid-flight. It was Alice Hornby’s fault: all that passion and longing had stirred me up, made me dissatisfied with being alone. There was nothing more to it than that, nothing deeper. All the same, when Audrey wandered in, it felt like someone had thrown me a rope.

  ‘Have you had a good day?’ I asked, trying to sit up, but Ethan was leaning against my legs and I was stuck.

  ‘Marvellous. I was almost tempted to have a go myself.’ Audrey hovered by an armchair. ‘Am I interrupting something interesting?’

  ‘No.’ I managed to shift my legs at last, and nudged Ethan with my knees. It wasn’t meant to hurt, but he looked unusually grumpy as he stood up. ‘We were talking about this book.’

  ‘Have you read it already? You are clever. And is it what you hoped?’

  ‘Yes, I think it really is Alice’s last novel. The handwriting and the style are right, but we’ll need to see the original, go through the provenance, and have it authenticated.’ I stroked the top page, excitement replacing more unwelcome feelings. ‘I can’t wait to tell Leo. This is going to make his year. His decade, probably.’

  ‘Leo?’ Ethan stared over at me, from where he was now perching on the arm of Audrey’s chair. ‘You’re going to tell Leo?’

  ‘Yes, of course. He’s been looking for this book for years. Why wouldn’t I tell him?’

  Ethan reached forward and picked up the compliments slip that had been attached to the manuscript.

  ‘For your eyes only,’ he read, tapping the paper for emphasis.

  ‘That doesn’t mean I can’t show it to Leo,’ I said. ‘We’ll work on it together.’

  ‘Why? This is your discovery. You deserve the credit for it.’

  ‘And I’m sure Leo will give me credit.’

  ‘Like he did on the biography that you clearly wrote for him? Where was your name on that? You weren’t even in the acknowledgements.’

  The thin sheets of the manuscript crumpled under my fingers. That wound hadn’t scabbed over, even after all these months. I had written the first draft of the acknowledgements, and obviously hadn’t included myself. I had passed the draft to Leo to check before sending it to the publisher. He had tweaked it, moving a few names up the pecking order, but hadn’t included mine – nor was the book dedicated to me. It was only after the book was published that I saw the dedication: ‘To Clark – for showing me how to be myself.’

  ‘Things have changed, Mary,’ Ethan said, in a softer voice. ‘You need to think about your own career now, and stop taking a back seat to Leo. Why can’t you be the one to publish this book, and do whatever you need to do with it?’

  My slouching ambition sat up straight, and waved an eager arm high in the air, desperate to be the one to do it. I would love to edit this book, to tighten up some of the passages and to remove a few clunky phrases and repetitions that I was sure Alice would have changed if she’d revised the book again. I’d love to launch it on the world, to parade it around the country, and to see Alice finally take her place alongside the other great nineteenth-century writers. But it was impossible.

  ‘I couldn’t do that to Leo. He’s waited his whole life for this. I couldn’t be so disloyal.’

  ‘Disloyal?’ Ethan stood up, shaking off Audrey’s restraining hand. ‘Do you really think Leo is so scrupulous about being loyal to you?’

  That was a low blow, and I swung my legs to the floor, so that I could glare at him properly without cricking my neck.

  ‘You don’t need to remind me about Clark. Leo fell in love. I’m not going to punish him for that.’

  ‘I’m not talking about …’

  ‘Ethan, my darling, will you help me with something in my bedroom?’ Audrey spoke over Ethan, and stood up, linking her arm in his. ‘One of the drawers is so stiff that I may have to turn my underwear inside out tomorrow if I can’t open it.’

  ‘Hang on,’ I said, also standing up. ‘I want to know what Ethan was going to say. Are you claiming that Leo has been disloyal before Clark? Prove it. If you’re saying that Leo hasn’t been faithful to me, tell me when. I want the places, dates, and names.’

  I stared at Ethan, holding his gaze, challenging him to finish what he’d started. My blissful day had shattered within the space of a few minutes. I held my breath, hardly knowing what I wanted him to say. There was no right answer here. If he gave me the details I’d asked for, proved Leo’s infidelity went further than I knew, I’d be devastated. If he didn’t – if it was all a petty lie, cooked up to cause trouble as part of the ongoing discord between Ethan and Leo, regardless of the pain it might cause me – then Ethan wasn’t the man I thought he was either. One of the brothers was about to sink in my estimation, but which one would it be? Which would be worse?

  Ethan opened his mouth. Audrey squeezed his arm. He let out a gushing sigh, so strong that it could have blown out a room full of candles, shook his head, and walked out, with Audrey scurrying after him. And there I had my answer to both questions, and flopped back down on to the sofa as unexpected, unwanted disappointment flooded my heart.

  I could hardly believe our three weeks in St Ives were over; it had rushed by, until the last few days – until, within the space of a few seconds, I had realised that I thought more of Ethan than I should, and more of him than he deserved.

  We were an odd group, on that final Saturday morning. Mum was as chirpy as I’d ever seen her, as she loaded up her car, seemingly thrilled to be returning to her mystery man. Audrey bombarded us with cups of tea, unable to appear too sad at our departure when she was looking forward to the arrival of Leo. Ethan was quiet, as he had been ever since our showdown: not sulking – he wasn’t the sulky type – but not his usual sunny self either. Frustration clung to him as tightly as his T-shirt, but in a far less attractive way.

  My own feelings were torn. I’d arranged to meet Jonas for lunch in Manchester tomorrow, and couldn’t wait to see him, but leaving Ava behind for two weeks would be horrendous. Not that the impending separation bothered her; she was more upset that Chloe was leaving than that I was.

  ‘I’ll miss you,’ I said, catching her in a hug. She stiffened and arched backwards away from me, so it felt like I was embracing a bendy plastic ruler that might snap at any point. ‘It will be odd at home without you.’

  Without anyone – I would have the house to myself, apart from Dotty. It would be a taste of the future, of when Jonas and Ava had moved on to university, or to their own houses. I tried to focus on the positive: my time would be my own; I could do whatever I wanted. So why couldn’t I think of a single thing I wanted to do?

  ‘It will be different here without you,’ Ava said, and I smiled – it was as close to a compliment as I’d had from her in a long time. This holiday had worked wonders for our relationship, thanks to one person in particular. ‘For a start, we won’t have to watch your attempts to flirt with Uncle Ethan anymore.’

  ‘What?’ That jerked me out of my complacency. ‘I’ve not flirted with anyone!’

  ‘It’s disgusting,’ Ava said, flicking her hair over her shoulders and sneaking a quick look at herself in the mirror. ‘A teacher was bad enough, but this is worse. I mean, he’s Dad’s brother. It’s weird.’

  I looked at Mum for back-up, but I should have known better. Her lips were so tightly pursed that it was impossible to believe she wouldn’t have to spit out a mouthful of pennies before speaking.

  ‘It would have been better if he hadn’t come,’ she said, folding her arms. ‘You’re clearly feeling needy and have latched on to the only man around. I didn’t bring you up to act like a floozy, Mary. The
poor man probably can’t wait to get away.’

  ‘A floozy?’ With my history, it was hard to imagine a more ill-fitting description. ‘So it’s okay for you to have a man, but not me?’

  ‘Not that man,’ Mum said.

  ‘And it’s different with Gran,’ Ava added, pouting in my direction. ‘She needs a friend at her age. She won’t be, like, having sex.’

  ‘Oh, won’t she! She’s having a lot more of it than I am. Either that or they indulge in naked knitting in her bedroom.’

  ‘Mary!’

  I ignored Mum’s admonishment, but did feel a twinge of guilt when Ava’s face dropped in horror. Perhaps this hadn’t been a suitable conversation for my teenage daughter to hear – even if the teenager daughter was probably a lot more worldly-wise than I was.

  ‘Urgh, you old people are just disgusting,’ Ava said, moving her sunglasses from the top of her head to cover her eyes again, presumably so our gruesome, decrepit bodies couldn’t offend her vision for a second longer.

  ‘This sounds fun, what am I missing?’ Ethan wandered in to the kitchen, and glanced between the three of us. He needn’t look at me – torture wouldn’t drag out of me what he had missed. I was fairly sure that Mum’s lips would be all but sewn up too. Unfortunately that still left us with a blabby teen.

  ‘You don’t want to know,’ Ava said, and I could tell her eyes were rolling behind those dark lenses. ‘Mum and Gran are comparing their sex lives. It’s the grossest thing ever.’

  ‘Well …’ Ethan began, but for once even his legendary teen-taming skills let him down. He caught my eye, and pulled a stricken ‘rescue me’ face. I laughed, and Ava let out an almighty huff and stomped out, slamming the door behind her.

  Leo had new holiday clothes: the scruffy chinos and polo shirts he brought out every summer had been replaced by stylish shorts and a T-shirt, and he was wearing flip-flops despite years of acting as if they were the footwear choice of the devil. With a trendy pair of Tom Ford sunglasses covering his eyes, his transformation was complete: there was nothing left of the man I had married, and in his place stood the man who was going to marry Clark. I watched from the upstairs-landing window as Leo took Clark’s hand and led him across the lawn, to the point where a gap in the trees revealed a swathe of the bay. Everything about their body language marked out their contentment, their complete rightness for each other, and this time it didn’t hurt as much: my response had downgraded from pain to a sort of wistfulness that I thought I could probably live with.

  I hurried downstairs and out into the garden. Never mind the view – I had something much more exciting than that to show Leo.

  ‘Leo!’ I shouted, tearing across the grass, wads of paper flapping in each hand. ‘Look what I have!’

  Leo and Clark turned away from the view, and both took a step back as I hurtled towards them: clearly I resembled a charging heffalump rather than the graceful gazelle of my imagination. I skidded to a sweaty, panting stop in front of them.

  ‘Hello, Mary.’ Leo brushed a kiss on to my cheek. Clark, valiantly overcoming his initial recoil, managed to force himself near enough to give a passable show of an air kiss. ‘Is there an emergency?’

  ‘No. Well, yes, in a way.’ Leo lifted his sunglasses, as if I might make more sense unfiltered. ‘This arrived a few days ago.’

  I thrust the papers into his hand. He lowered the sunglasses again – they must be prescription lenses, as he was practically blind without them, something I’d been glad of as my body aged – and glanced down at the tatty pages. His reaction was all that I’d hoped it would be. His hand shook as he lifted the top page, and glanced at the next and the next one after that. His smile grew with every word he read.

  ‘This is it,’ he said, and there couldn’t have been more joy in his face and his voice if he’d been holding a winning lottery ticket worth fifty million pounds. ‘After all this time, I think this is it. Has this come from the Archers? We’ve done it, Mary! We’ve found Alice’s last work!’

  He hugged me, the manuscript still tightly grasped in his hand. I squeezed him back, brimming with tears over his evident delight, and more than anything, because of that double ‘we’. Ethan was wrong, and I was right: Leo wouldn’t take the credit for this. It was our discovery. We would work on it together, and it would be a huge success. Alice deserved nothing less.

  Mum had already gone, desperate, I presumed, to be reunited with her lover; the idea of what she would be getting up to this afternoon was almost enough to put me off the family lunch that Audrey had organised. Poor Audrey – not even at her most optimistic could she have called it a marvellous gathering. As if the strained relationships around the table weren’t enough to ruin the festivities, Leo and Clark spent the entire meal photographing Alice’s manuscript on their iPads, page by page, after I’d refused to leave my copy with them.

  There was no time to linger after lunch – we had a six-hour journey ahead of us, if the traffic was kind. As soon as the last page of the manuscript was photographed, I tucked it into my bag, bundled Chloe into my car, and said my goodbyes.

  ‘Don’t worry about Ava,’ Audrey whispered, as I clung to her, wondering how I would manage without my daily dose of good cheer from next door. ‘We’ll have a super time. You need to concentrate on yourself for the next two weeks. Do get up to lots of mischief, and tell me all about it when I get back.’

  I prised myself away reluctantly, assaulted Ava with a final hug, and headed over to my car. Ethan was parked behind me, and hovered by his car, ready to move it to let me out.

  ‘Enjoy the rest of your holiday,’ I said, sounding horribly formal, but sure no one could accuse that of being a flirtatious statement.

  ‘I’ll only stay one more night. Leo won’t want me hanging around.’

  He smiled, but newly wary, I couldn’t help dissecting his words for hidden criticism of Leo.

  ‘What are you going to do on your own for two weeks?’ Ethan asked. ‘You should come round to the cottage. It seems daft for each of us to cook for one and eat on our own every night.’

  It did seem daft, and my head filled with an image of lazing in the garden of Waterman’s Cottage, laughing, drinking wine, and watching the sun gild the reservoir as it dropped behind the trees. It was far too appealing an image.

  ‘I won’t be on my own,’ I said, opening the car door and stepping behind it, as if it were a shield. ‘Daisy will be around, and I’m sure Owen will be too.’

  ‘Owen?’ A rare frown puckered Ethan’s forehead. ‘The teacher? You’re going to see him again?’

  I smiled and shrugged, which I hoped covered every possible answer but committed to none, and ducked down into my car, slamming the door shut in a manner I had inherited from my daughter. As I waited for Ethan to move out of the way so I could go, I thought about Owen. Was I going to see him again? I hadn’t heard from him in weeks. Until now, he hadn’t crossed my mind all the time I’d been in St Ives. But perhaps I should think about him. He was interested, eligible, and not a member of the family – all excellent recommendations. What more did I need? I drove past Ethan. He was leaning over his steering wheel, watching me through his windscreen. My heart fluttered, as if it was trying to tell me exactly what else I needed. But I’d had years of practice at ignoring it, and wasn’t going to break the habit now.

  Chapter 20

  I dropped Chloe off at home first; she hugged Daisy with a level of enthusiasm that I could only dream of seeing in Ava after a two-week absence from me.

  ‘She’s been great,’ I said, although Daisy hadn’t asked; in fact, I had the strange impression that I wouldn’t have been invited into the house if I hadn’t been carrying Chloe’s suitcase. ‘What have you been up to?’ I said, as I barged my way into the hall. ‘You can give me some ideas about what I can do for the next two weeks.’

  ‘I’ve been flat out. With work,’ Daisy added, when I wiggled my eyebrows and grinned at her. She didn’t smile back. ‘You know what his lordship
our worshipful MP is like in the summer. Time to remind the voters he exists and pretend he’s interested in village fêtes and squabbles about parking on double yellow lines. It’s been very dull.’

  ‘At least you found time for a manicure.’ I grabbed her hand. Her nails looked incredible, all glossy and pink, with sparkly flowers painted on each one. There wasn’t a chip in sight.

  ‘Just a ten-minute break.’ Daisy pulled her hand back, and self-consciously fluffed up curls that, now I examined her more closely, were blonder and silkier than normal. Her eyebrows were finely shaped too, and generally she had a well-groomed glow about her. I hoped that being childless for two weeks would work the same magic on me.

  I stretched extravagantly, but Daisy didn’t take the hint.

  ‘I could murder a cup of tea,’ I said, going for a less subtle approach.

  ‘Sorry, of course you must be longing to get home.’ Daisy squeezed past me and opened the front door. ‘Thanks for bringing Chloe back.’

  Short of marching into the kitchen and flicking on the kettle, I had little option but to leave.

  ‘Is something wrong?’ She’d barely made eye contact since I arrived. We’d been on excellent terms when she left St Ives, so unless Chloe had spent the last two weeks feeding back tales of me being a terrible hostess, I couldn’t understand why this awkwardness had crept in.

  ‘No, I’d just like to spend some time with Chloe. She’s going off to her dad’s in a few days.’

  That sounded reasonable enough, except that Chloe had vanished upstairs within seconds of returning home, and the noise of her music now thumped around the house. If the last two weeks were any example, she would spend the night in her room, multi-tasking on at least three gadgets at once.

  ‘Is this because of Ethan?’ I touched Daisy’s arm. ‘I’m sorry that didn’t work out as you’d hoped.’