by Cathy Bussey
But Hollyhocks was as still and as golden as if it had been put under an enchantment.
Faith tried the cottage door, praying it would be open. It was locked. She sighed and looked up at Rik’s window. For once, he had drawn the curtains.
She knocked softly at the door.
It opened almost immediately. Minel was wearing a fluffy cream coloured dressing gown and a cup of tea. She blinked several times at Faith.
‘Were we meeting up today?’ she asked blearily. ‘Did I forget again?’
Faith shook her head.
‘Oh right.’ Minel looked a little confused. ‘Is something wrong? Only Paul’s here and I was just going to go back upstairs.’ She gestured at another cup of tea on the side.
‘Actually,’ Faith said, ‘I came to see Rik.’
Minel frowned. ‘At six am?’
‘It’s nearly nine o’clock.’
‘Whatever.’ Minel pulled a face. ‘I’d just assume any bike riding plans you’ve made are cancelled now he’s got a girlfriend.’ She grimaced.
Rik must have told her already. ‘Very funny,’ Faith said. ‘I’m sure you have lots more to come but let’s save it for another time, shall we? I’ll go kick him out of bed.’ That’s the last thing I’m going to do, she thought, and almost giggled.
‘I wouldn’t go up there if I were you,’ Minel warned.
‘It’s nothing I haven’t seen before,’ Faith said teasingly.
Minel looked more confused than ever. ‘Seriously, Faith. He’s got some girl up there — and from the racket that was coming out of that room last night,’ she paled,‘I would not expect him to take kindly to being kicked out of bed by you.’
Faith stared at her blankly. ‘What girl?’
‘That Sophie girl,’ Minel said. ‘The one with the massive,’ she gestured at her chest.
‘Sophie?’ Faith repeated, parrot-like.
‘Huge boobs.’ Minel sounded awestruck.
‘No,’ Faith said.
‘They are,’ Minel insisted. ‘She must be a D-cup at least.’
‘Min!’ Paul’s voice came booming down the stairs. ‘Where’s that tea?’
Minel looked down at the tea again. ‘I need to take this upstairs.’
‘What do you mean, Sophie?’ Faith said. Her voice had begun to waver. ‘You’re not joking?’
‘Of course I’m not joking,’ Minel snapped. ‘Paul and I are exhausted, having to listen to that all night. Must be his twisted idea of revenge.’ She mimed retching. ‘She’s been over here a couple of times this last week. I suppose somebody was always going to take pity on him in the end.’
‘A couple of times,’ Faith was back to her parrot impression.
Minel nodded. ‘I’ve never seen Rik like this before. He’s properly loved-up. Such a relief to have a break from his usual attitude.’
Faith felt a sharp pain in both palms, and realised she had involuntarily clenched her fists so hard her nails were digging in to her own skin.
‘Anyway.’ Minel yawned. ‘I’m going back to bed. You can go up there if you want, but if I were you, I’d steer well clear.’ She disappeared up the stairs, the ancient wood creaking softly beneath her bare feet.
Faith stared after her. Minel must have been joking — she had to be joking. Of course she was joking.
It wasn’t her usual style, admittedly, but there was absolutely no way she couldn’t be joking.
Minel had one lame sense of humour.
Faith nodded decisively and kicked off her trainers to follow her friend up the stairs.
The timber felt hard and smooth beneath her feet, but not cold. The latch of Rik’s door clicked softly as she pushed it open.
The heel of a shoe brushed against her bare foot as she stepped into the room. A high-heeled shoe.
Right next to a red dress, tossed casually across the floor.
Faith’s eyes followed the trail of clothes across the room, to Rik’s bed where two figures were silhouetted by the morning sun blazing determinedly through the thin curtains.
The figure closest to her had long hair, spilling out over the pillow.
Faith clapped her hand over her mouth.
Nobody stirred.
She turned, and ran straight down the stairs and out of the door, not even realising as she did so that her exit from the house was as silent as the entry she had planned.
The loss of Rik as a friend was almost harder to bear than the loss of Rik as a boyfriend, but she told herself they couldn’t have been that good friends in the first place if he was prepared to use her like that, and that she must have imagined them to be closer and more attuned than they actually had been.
With no resistance left in her, she allowed herself to be talked into studying English at university instead of garden design. She’d planned to use the garden at Hollyhocks as part of her portfolio of evidence, showing how she’d transformed it over the last few years, but she could no longer bear to carry around such a strong visual reminder of what she had once had, and so suddenly lost.
If I don’t have to look at anything that even remotely reminds me of Rik, she thought hopefully, maybe I can just forget him.
She purged her room, flinging away anything that might possibly remind her of a ninja boy with soulful brown eyes who had told her he loved her as the sun streamed in through the cracks in the roof of a haybarn.
But she couldn’t forget completely, and she found herself thinking of him at the most inopportune times, reminded by anything and everything, and most poignantly any time she detected just a hint of that earthy magic that occasionally seemed to linger on a particular kind of summer’s day, vibrating on a slightly higher frequency, just out of reach.
Chapter 18
The next day Faith headed straight for Rik, stepping carefully over the paving slabs which were still settling, and greeting him with a warm smile. ‘Morning Rikki,’ she said brightly. ‘Morning big guy,’ she nodded to Paul, then turned back to Rik. ‘Shall we ride at the quarry at lunch?’
He was looking a bit tired, still unshaven, hair still sticking up all over the place, still a bit feral, still unspeakably gorgeous, she thought longingly. GT must have sensed her from the road, because he was already frolicking delightedly at her feet, nosing her ankles and climbing up frantically, desperate for a cuddle. She picked him up and he shoved his little face against hers, resting it on her shoulder. It was cloudier today, the odd cartoonish cumulus drifting across the sky. They would get darker and greyer as the day wore on, she knew. Tomorrow, this place would be drenched. Got to let it clear, Faith thought, ready for the sun again.
‘Yes,’ Rik said eagerly, sounding distinctly teenager-ish despite his rugged appearance.
‘I’ll come back at lunch,’ she said.
‘Four weeks down, three to go,’ Paul shouted after her.
Nobody seemed to have told the garden that. It looked worse than ever, the half-dug new pond still needed hours of labour and the ground was now so dry the impending rain would just roll around on the surface, barely penetrating and softening the earth below, and she’d once again be faced with endless hours of lugging slurry. At least the rockery was all but finished, and she’d planted up some borders and ordered in turf to replace the dismal remains of what had once been a grandly sweeping lawn. She would get there. She would. She pushed aside the very real fear that she might not, and picked up her spade.
The path to the quarry was very overgrown. Nobody must have come here in years. Once so easy to navigate that Rik and Faith could ride down it side by side, it was littered with fallen branches, shifted stones and briars that were creeping inexorably closer together. One day they would just close it off altogether, barring any entry, a tangle of thorns and whiplike branches with serrated leaves and heavy, slowly ripening fruit. Faith felt thorns tearing her bare legs, adding to the carnage from GT. ‘We need to cut this back,’ she shouted up to Rik, who nodded and shoved a gigantic snakelike briar away.
The qua
rry itself lay sleeping like a craggy, gravelly giant. The day had warmed up beautifully and the sun, currently in between the gathering clouds, was streaming through the thick, forest-green canopy, bouncing off the flinty stones and illuminating tiny insects dancing overhead, turning them into little spiralling specks of stardust. It also was very overgrown, ivy was creeping determinedly up the barks of the trees surrounding it, and the splintered trunk of an ancient sycamore, against which she and Rik had often rested, had rotted away almost completely.
New beech saplings, in their infancy when she and Rik had ridden here last, had sprung up and were sporting lighter green, almost transparent leaves. The ground was thick with years of beechnuts, their discarded shells crunching beneath the tyres that passed effortlessly over them.
Faith had only come back to the quarry once since she had ridden here with Rik last, and the lack of his presence had hit her like a physical blow, slamming into her gut, drawing great racking sobs from the very core of her. The silence had been deafening, the loneliness overwhelming, the emptiness engulfing. She had turned her bike immediately and fled, not looking back, half afraid she would see the ghosts of a ninja boy and a fairy girl and a yapping terrier still whirling round and around the pit, their spectral laughter bouncing off the catastrophically silent walls.
Something told her Rik hadn’t been back here either. ‘It looks OK,’ he said. ‘Still rideable. Just.’
‘We’ll have to come and tidy it up,’ Faith said fretfully. ‘Your new niece or nephew won’t be able to hurtle around here on their balance bike if we don’t keep it under control. We need to get rid of some of these saplings, or they’ll obscure too much of the floor and the violets and primroses will have no chance.’
‘The steps are still there,’ he noted. It had taken them all of one of their Easter holidays to carve those out. They, too, were overgrown, the ivy creeping its way relentlessly down to the centre of the pit.
‘Won’t take long to rip that up,’ Faith said. ‘Once you start it comes up easily enough.’
‘I’ll leave you to it.’ Rik swung his bike round and flung it down the steps.
Faith winced. ‘Stones,’ she yelled, ‘remember the stones.’
Rik clearly hadn’t and he hit one dead on, stalling his front wheel instantly and the back rose up, flinging him over his handlebars and sending him crashing down a couple of the steps. Faith yelped and dropped her bike, leaping down the stairs after him. ‘Rik!’
‘It’s OK,’ he said, getting to his feet. He knocked on his helmet. ‘Maybe these things aren’t so pointless after all.’ He picked up his bike again and Faith heaved the offending stone away.
‘You idiot,’ she grumbled. ‘Why didn’t you check it first? Are you sure you’re OK?’ She could see he had cut his knee and crouched down. ‘You’re bleeding.’
‘Just a scratch,’ Rik insisted.
‘There might be gravel in it. I can’t really see.’ She put her hand on his knee and peered a little closer. ‘There’s a fair bit of blood,’ she said. ‘Have you got any tissues?’
‘Do I look like somebody’s grandma?’
She sighed. ‘You pick the weirdest things to get offended about. We need to clear this up, get the stones out.’ She pulled her water bottle from the cage on her bike and poured some over his knee, watching it mingle with the blood and turn it from a dark to a lighter red. He inhaled sharply.
‘That must sting,’ she said sympathetically. ‘Sit down.’ She sat down next to him and took off her trainer. ‘I’ll have to use my sock,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry, they were clean on this morning.’
Rik took off his helmet and put his head in his hands as she pressed lightly on the cut. ‘Yeah, there’s some in it,’ he said, and she stroked his calf soothingly as she pressed harder. ‘This won’t take a moment.’ She twisted the sock and he put his hand over hers, tightening it involuntarily. She worked her fingers over the cut gently, not wanting to hurt him any more, but she could feel one stone was lodged and she would have to pinch it out. ‘Ready?’ she asked.
‘Yep.’
She yanked the stone out in one swift movement and Rik gasped. ‘All gone,’ she said, shaking out the sock and taking off her other trainer. ‘You can use this one until we get back to the house. I’ll patch you up there.’
Rik, who had paled a little, nodded obediently.
Faith folded her sock over and pressed it against his knee again. She remembered the post-fall shock well, the physical impact of all the adrenaline just rushing away and the fear of what might have been and the relief that it hadn’t been so much worse creeping in. It was a horribly vulnerable, isolated feeling — unless you happened to have Rik and a free afternoon to hand, of course. ‘You shouldn’t be such a show-off,’ she said. ‘Are you cold?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Want to wait it out here?’
He nodded and she took his hand and put it over the sock, and put her arm around his shoulders. He breathed a couple of times then put his head between his knees and she stroked his hair, feeling him shivering slightly. ‘It’ll pass,’ she said softly, ‘just keep breathing.’
Rik said nothing and she continued to run her hands over his hair, twining her fingers in the ends, pulling gently, working out some of the cement dust. He shivered again, and she put her arm around him again, pressing her body into him for warmth, then she rubbed her hands up and down his arms, generating friction to help his circulation return to normal. After a couple of minutes his skin became clammy and she reckoned he was probably feeling sick as a dog right about now, so she ran her hand up and down his back, very slowly so as not to distress him, all the way down to the waistband of his shorts and then back up again to the nape of his neck.
Funny, she ruminated, she’d been dying to get her hands on him all summer and now she was actually doing it, all she could think about was calming him down, not working him up. She put her hand on his forehead, feeling it burning and soaked in sweat, and damped her hand with some water and put it back to cool him down. ‘It’ll pass,’ she said again, ‘it’s nearly over.’ He nodded almost imperceptibly and she put her arm around him again. ‘You’re OK, Rikki,’ she said gently. ‘I’m here.’
He took another deep breath and raised his head slowly, and she smiled affectionately. ‘Better?’
‘Much,’ he said, and she saw with relief the colour had returned to his face. ‘Thanks.’
‘No worries.’
‘I haven’t done that in ages,’ he said. ‘I forget every time how horrible it is. I swear it gets worse as I get older.’
‘At least it’s over quickly. You need something to eat,’ she said. ‘Let’s get you up to the house and Minel can make us some lunch.’
‘I need a stiff drink,’ he said, grinning slightly.
‘No you don’t,’ she said. ‘Paul will ban you from riding for the rest of the summer if you come back limping and half-cut. I’ll make you some tea instead. Three sugars.’
Paul was merrily yelling away at Rik when Faith nipped over mid-afternoon to see how he was. ‘You are not going out rampaging with her again,’ he roared, pointing accusingly at Faith, ‘until we’re done here. If you mess yourself up smashing bikes around we won’t finish in time.’
‘Who wants tea?’
‘Ten minutes,’ Paul said, ‘that’s all.’
‘How are you doing?’ Faith asked Rik as he fell into step beside her up to the house.
‘Fine,’ he said. ‘You patched me up a treat.’ GT trotted along next to them, wagging his tail importantly. ‘Shall we go back on Saturday and do something about those stones? Seeing it again has made me itchy for a bit of gravel, preferably not in my knee.’
‘More manual labour? Count me in. Oh, hang on, I can’t,’ Faith sighed regretfully. ‘Sara and I are taking Minel out for afternoon tea to celebrate.’
‘What about Sunday?’
What about Lucinda, Faith wanted to ask. ‘Sunday works,’ she said. ‘Can’t imagi
ne we’ll be getting plastered and staying up late, what with Minel’s condition and all.’ She felt another surge of joy for her friend. ‘I still can’t believe it. Paul seems made up too, I’m so happy for them both.’
Rik touched her hand gently. ‘You and Sara will be fairy godmothers.’
‘I am going to lead that child so far astray,’ she said happily. ‘Even though I’ll be over forty by the time he or she is a teenager.’
‘So will I.’
What would she be like at forty? And him? It felt like ages away, a different era altogether, but time seemed to pass quicker with every coming year and she knew from listening to friends with children that it picked up even more once you had children, they went from tiny babies to tearaway toddlers to schoolchildren in the blink of an eye.
I can’t picture it, she thought, because I have no idea what I’ll be doing then, if I’ll have met anybody I want to marry and start a family with.
Anybody else, that is.
Rik would probably take it in his stride, still confident in his path, whatever that might turn out to be. He’d be married by then, maybe to Lucinda, she hoped not but if that was what he wanted, then that was probably what he would get. Lucinda wasn’t the only one who was focused and ambitious.
Minel was upstairs. ‘She must be having a pregnancy nap,’ Rik said. ‘Best keep the noise down.’
Growing a baby must be hard work, Faith thought. All those tiny miracles happening inside, cells coming together and bonding, fusing and multiplying, slowly but surely building something out of nothing, flesh and blood and bone. Now that was magic. And people thought she was fanciful. You couldn’t make that stuff up, the ability of the female body to create another entirely separate being inside its own self, with no intervention whatsoever other than the initial meeting of egg and sperm. No wonder men used to think women were witches.
I want to do that, she thought. I want to create life. I want to go on that crazy adventure with Rik.
‘Do you ever think about kids?’ she asked as she prepared a tray for the tea.
