by Kate Field
That was it – no hello or goodbye, and no hint of what they wanted, although it wasn’t hard to guess. I’d been on tenterhooks since Leo’s article was published, dreading that they might see it, but also convincing myself that it was highly unlikely they would. As if I didn’t have enough to worry about, having alienated half my family and fallen for the ultimate ineligible man; now we might lose the chance to publish Alice Hornby’s last book too. What had happened to my neat and orderly life?
Once Ava was installed at the stables for the afternoon, I busied myself with the boring jobs – washing, ironing, cleaning the fridge – anything to recapture normal existence, and forget the alternative life I had glimpsed the previous night. But when the front door bell rang, I knew at once who it would be. Sure enough, Jonas soon padded into the kitchen, with Ethan close behind.
‘Didn’t you hear the bell? Ethan’s here,’ Jonas said, clearly thinking my hearing and sight were both impaired. ‘Hangover,’ he muttered as he passed Ethan on his way back upstairs. ‘Watch out.’
I stuffed things back into the fridge, abandoning my usual order, concerned only to avoid looking at Ethan.
‘Will you take those rubber gloves off, Mary?’
I paused.
‘Why?’
‘Because I don’t want you to think I have a fetish when I kiss you.’
‘You weren’t so keen to kiss me this morning.’
I shoved my head into the fridge, but it was too late to be cool. What had I said that for? Hadn’t I decided, after a miserable, sleepless night, that I mustn’t think of Ethan that way? Must never again remember how he had turned me inside out with his kisses?
Ethan drew me away from the fridge and pulled off the rubber gloves.
‘I was very keen to pick you up and carry you back to my room. But I didn’t think you’d want me to do that in front of everyone.’ He placed a gentle kiss on my lips. ‘I’m an expert in hiding my feelings. Don’t forget I’ve had twenty years of practice.’
This was no good at all. Every time he said things like that, or touched me, or kissed me, my heart skipped, my skin burned, and I lost control. I had to conquer it, and until I worked out how to do that, I had to avoid Ethan.
‘I need to take Dotty for a walk,’ I said, bending to tickle her head in apology, as I knew the dog-sitter had already taken her out this morning.
‘Okay.’ Ethan went out into the hall and I relaxed. ‘Joe, we’re taking Dotty for a walk,’ he shouted up the stairs. ‘See you later.’
‘Fine,’ Jonas called back – little traitor.
Mum’s net curtains danced as we walked down the drive, and for a second, I thought I saw a large figure behind them, and a shiver crawled down my spine. The usual car was parked on the road.
‘Does that belong to your mum’s boyfriend?’ Ethan asked, pointing at it.
‘I think so,’ I said, recoiling at the word ‘boyfriend’ and all it implied. Was this how Ava had felt about me and Owen? Perhaps we weren’t so different after all. ‘I haven’t met him yet.’
‘I’m sure I’ve seen it around the village. The driver was a big man, dark hair, about Irene’s age. So not a toyboy.’ He laughed. ‘Actually, he looked like …’ He studied me and smiled. ‘I may be slightly obsessed. He looked like a nice man.’
‘I hope so. Mum deserves to be happy again.’
‘So do you.’ He stroked my arm, and I cursed to myself for walking into that one. We carried on towards the village, Ethan talking and me trying and failing not to laugh, until we passed Daisy’s house. Daisy and Owen were approaching from the opposite direction, Lucilla trailing along behind like a sulky teenager.
‘Hello!’ I cut across Ethan’s story about an elderly hotel guest who had wandered into the wedding reception by mistake – his impression of her trying to find the bride to apologise was making me giggle like a toddler. ‘What are you two up to?’
Daisy immediately looked guilty and wandered away from Owen to talk to me.
‘Sorry,’ she said, lowering her voice. ‘Is it awkward to see us together? We’re trying not to be too obvious.’
‘What?’ It took me a moment to work out what she meant. ‘No, it doesn’t bother me in the slightest. Be as obvious as you like. Within the bounds of public decency.’
Daisy smiled, but faint lines of anxiety still marked her forehead. I didn’t know what more I could say to reassure her. That kissing Ethan last night had made me forget Owen existed? That any other man existed. That life beyond him existed.
‘How are you?’ Daisy asked, scrutinising my face more closely than I’d have liked. ‘It was Leo’s wedding yesterday, wasn’t it? What was it like? Please tell me it was totally camp, with sequins and feather boas, drag queens and songs from the musicals.’
‘That would have been fun, but not very Leo. It was tasteful and romantic, and they looked blissfully happy.’
‘Poor you.’ Daisy hugged me. ‘No wonder you look rough. That must have been horrendous.’
It should have been horrendous: watching the man I’d relied on for twenty-five years marry someone else; finding out that he might have been unfaithful to me before Clark – although I was struggling to believe that was true. But there had been nothing horrendous about those minutes in the garden.
I glanced over at Ethan. He was talking to Owen, which was an unnerving sight. There were three men in the world now who had intimate knowledge of my breasts, and two of them were standing here chatting – about what? Yesterday’s football results? The weather? How saggy my boobs were? It didn’t bear thinking about.
‘Are you taking Lucilla for a walk?’ I asked, shouting so that Owen would hear too. ‘Do you want to join us?’
‘We’ve just been,’ Owen said.
‘And James is bringing Chloe back soon,’ Daisy added.
That scuppered my grand plan to avoid time alone with Ethan. I looked over at him, and he smiled, with so much affection shining from his face that I wondered how I could have missed it before. Hiding his feelings? He might as well have a neon pink sandwich board strapped on him, announcing the news. Daisy turned and followed my gaze.
‘Mary?’ I could tell at once that she had noticed the way Ethan was looking at me. The shock was stark on her face before she tried to brush it away with a weak smile. But I’d seen it, and it confirmed everything that I had told myself a million times last night. If my best friend was scandalised by the hint of something between me and Ethan, what would the rest of the world think?
‘You know where I am if you need me,’ Daisy said. She touched my arm, confusion flickering across her face. ‘Come round if you want to talk. About anything.’
I nodded, and we carried on with our walk, taking the footpath that skirted around the edge of the village and through the fields behind Foxwood Farm. It was one of my favourite walks, as within a few hundred metres all civilisation was lost from view, and there was nothing to be seen but a jigsaw of fields, and the blunt-ended Pendle Hill looming over us in the distance. I paused on the step of a stile to soak it all in – the solid familiarity of it, such a contrast to the unfamiliar feelings that were raging inside me.
‘This is amazing.’ Ethan lifted me off the stile and swung me round, lowering me to the ground with a kiss. ‘You’ve no idea how much I’ve wanted to do this – just to be with you, and hold your hand, and be normal.’
He took my hand, but I pulled away and carried on tramping along the well-worn track through the field. This wasn’t my normal. This was terrifying.
‘I’m sorry about last night,’ Ethan said, striding through the rough grass at my side. ‘It wasn’t great, was it?’
‘Wasn’t it?’ My stupid, treacherous voice trembled, and I couldn’t look at Ethan. It was bad enough that he regretted it enough to apologise, but the damning verdict on my kissing skills brought tears to my eyes – tears that shouldn’t be there. But how could I stop them? My good resolutions were swept away with one huge wave of emotion. He thought l
ast night was ‘not great’. I thought it had been wonderful.
I concentrated on Dotty, trying to blink away the tears, but only succeeded in pushing a few down my cheeks.
‘Mary?’ Ethan pulled me round to face him. ‘Don’t be an idiot. Of course the kissing part was great. Incredible.’ He kissed my eyelids, and the damp trails down my cheeks, with such unmistakeable tenderness that I was close to crying again. ‘But the situation wasn’t as perfect as I’d have liked – the timing, me blurting it all out, getting carried away in a hotel garden … After waiting twenty years, I should have come up with something better.’
It had been perfect to me, but I held my tongue, because I mustn’t encourage him – or encourage myself.
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘It does to me. I wanted it to start right.’
‘Wanted what to start?’ I stepped back, out of reach of his lips. ‘What do you think is going to happen now? That we kissed so I’m going to up sticks and move to New York? It won’t work.’
‘I’ll move back.’
‘And what then? Will you move in with me, and slip into the gap left by Leo? Sit on his chair at the table, drink coffee from his mug? Sleep with me in the bed I shared with your brother, filling the dent he made in the mattress?’ I paused on top of the next stile, and looked down at Ethan. It would be so easy to fall in love with him; impossible to be in love with him. ‘Have you thought about how weird that would be?’
‘Yes. I’ve had years to think about it. I know it would be weird. But if that’s what it takes to be with you, I’ll do it.’
I jumped down from the stile.
‘And if you did, what would people say?’ I dragged Dotty away from a fascinating pile of sheep droppings, and down the hill to where the path followed a stream. ‘Can you imagine the reaction?’
‘What reaction? We’re not living in Alice Hornby’s day. It’s not illegal. It’s not against any religious laws. I don’t care what anyone else thinks.’
‘But I do.’ I stopped and looked at Ethan, because I needed him to understand. ‘You’ve become used to New York, and life on a massive scale. It’s different here. I’ve spent my life in Stoneybrook, and everyone knows me. I’m the girl whose father vanished into thin air one day while she was at school. I’m the woman whose husband turned gay. All that was hard enough to deal with in the public eye. Now you want me to be – what? The woman who moved in her husband’s brother, six months after her divorce? I can’t go through it all again, for what might turn out to be nothing but a few great kisses.’
‘A lot of great kisses. And love. And happiness. We could be incredibly happy, Mary. You know it.’ He trapped my gaze. ‘You’ve always known it.’
It was true. I had known it, since we kissed. Not the kiss last night; our first kiss. Because there had been another one, many years ago, before I married Leo. A kiss that had come from nowhere, in the middle of a public firework display on Ethan’s birthday, one glorious crisp autumn night. A kiss that had been more thrilling and more terrifying than any I’d shared with Leo. And yes, in those moments I’d realised there was a whole dimension of happiness beyond the one I knew; but there was a galaxy of pain there too. I had made my commitment, and nothing could make me let Leo down by breaking it.
We crossed the stream over the narrow, single plank bridge. Ethan trailed behind me, and I could sense his frustration blowing towards me on the wind.
‘There’s only a handful of people whose opinions matter,’ he said, catching up as the path widened. ‘Forget everyone else.’
‘Mum and Ava are against it. Leo doesn’t even like me talking to you, let alone anything else. And Audrey …’ What would she think if I simply swapped one son for the other? ‘I couldn’t bear to damage my relationship with Audrey. I need her.’
‘Mum loves you. She wants us all to be happy.’
‘But for how long would we be happy?’ I turned and looked at him. The wind ruffled his hair, and my fingers longed to join in. ‘All the disruption, all the gossip, all the problems with the family we would have to face – and what if it all went wrong? You have a terrible track record. You’ve always flitted from one girl to the next, with no staying power. I didn’t let a great kiss sway me twenty years ago, and I mustn’t let another one sway me now. What if this is just an amusement because you had to come back home for Audrey?’
‘God, Mary, haven’t you listened to me at all? I came back for Mum. I stayed for you. I would never let you go.’
He was too quick for me. He grabbed my hand, pulled me to him and kissed me so thoroughly that I thought he might literally never let go. But I had to wriggle away. This was temptation, not persuasion. I couldn’t allow it to change my mind.
‘I can’t do this,’ I said. ‘I can’t think about this now. Everything’s turning into such a bloody awful mess …’
I stomped away, not before Dotty had made her own contribution to the mess by rolling in a patch of muddy leaves.
‘What’s bothering you?’ Ethan would not be shaken off. ‘Tell me.’
‘Apart from you?’
Ethan laughed, and the sound calmed me, and punctured the tension that had blown up between us. He wasn’t just an extraordinarily attractive man and an exceptional kisser; he was a friend too.
‘I found a telephone message from the Archers this morning,’ I said. ‘I’ve been summoned to see them.’
‘Isn’t that good? More Alice Hornby talk over tea and biscuits?’
‘It didn’t sound like a friendly summons.’ I sighed. ‘I have a horrible feeling that they might have discovered Leo’s article.’
‘Is that a problem? Won’t the publicity help sales if you publish the new book?’
‘If they’ve seen Leo’s plans to sex up the book, I don’t think they’ll let us publish it at all.’
My voice wobbled, and Ethan caught me in a hug: a perfect, friendly hug, offering comfort not passion. It was exactly what I needed, and I leant my head against his shoulder.
‘If they don’t want Leo to be involved, you know what you have to do, don’t you?’ Ethan’s words rumbled against my hair. I shook my head. I didn’t want to hear it. ‘You have to do it without him.’
‘But …’
Ethan stepped back so he could look at me.
‘No buts. I know you’re going to tell me that you couldn’t be so disloyal.’ That was exactly what I had been going to say. He knew me better than I realised. ‘Wouldn’t it be worse to let the book be forgotten, or be published by people who didn’t care so much? You have the talent, and the passion. You can convince the Archers that you’re the right person to do it.’
I could have kissed him for that – for making me feel, in that moment, that I could do anything. If I could sell myself as well as he sold me, I would have nothing to worry about. As a kiss was out of the question, I took his hand and gave it a quick squeeze before we carried on walking home.
‘I won’t come in,’ Ethan said, as we reached the top of my drive. He handed over Dotty’s lead. Despite the shadow I could see at Mum’s window, despite everything I’d said, and despite the last ten minutes of convincing myself that I shouldn’t invite him in, a hollow of disappointment opened in my chest. ‘I do understand why you’re finding this weird. I’ve had years to get used to the idea. You haven’t. If you need time to work it out, without pressure from me, that’s fine. I can wait a little longer.’
I nodded, though I wasn’t sure which bit I was agreeing to. What was there to work out? And how much time did I have? He was going back to New York in less than three weeks. Three weeks to make my decision … But I’d made it, hadn’t I? Three weeks to stick to it.
‘But as you’re working it out, remember this. We’re not defined by our relationships with other people,’ Ethan said. ‘I’m just a man, and you’re just a woman. I love you, Mary Black, and I hope you might love me. Nothing matters beyond that.’
Chapter 24
It wasn’t a promis
ing start when the Archer’s shop bell jammed as I pushed open the bookshop door. There was no friendly jingle to welcome me this time, and seeing the antagonism on Bridie’s face, I half suspected the bell had been sabotaged on purpose, ready for my arrival.
‘Mum!’ Bridie called, keeping an eye on me as I advanced through the shop. ‘She’s here!’
Mrs Archer wheeled in from the back room. I clearly was no longer welcome there.
‘Hello! I’ve brought you some parkin,’ I said, opening my cake tin and putting it on the desk. If I’d had any thoughts of using it as a bribe, it didn’t work: Mrs Archer peeped into the tin, sniffed, but didn’t take a piece.
‘Too late for soft-soaping,’ she muttered. ‘We’ve seen it. Bridie!’
Bridie moved back to the desk and took a page of newspaper out of a drawer. It was Leo’s article: his publicity photo gazed up at me, with eyes that were steady, serious, and utterly reliable. Or so I’d thought. Totally opposite from the laughing, mischievous blue eyes of his brother … But I mustn’t think of him. I’d spent two days not thinking about him. If only the nights were as easy to control …
‘We didn’t give you permission to talk about the book,’ Bridie said, tapping the article with an accusing finger. ‘For your eyes only, that’s what we said when we sent it to you.’
‘I know, and I didn’t show it to anyone else!’
‘He’s seen it!’ Bridie’s finger stabbed Leo in the face.
‘But that’s Leo. He had to see it. He’s the expert.’
‘We thought you were too, with your book and your Society and all that.’
‘I …’ I hesitated. I had spent years deferring to Leo – but oddly, Bridie’s complaint was one of the best compliments I’d ever received. I was an expert, not only in Alice Hornby, but also in Victorian literature as a whole. It had simply never been my role to stand up and be counted as an expert. I was like those members of a curling team that scrubbed furiously at the ice with a brush, so the puck could glide smoothly to victory. It was the way we’d always worked.
‘Leo’s the professor,’ I pointed out. ‘I’m not.’
