by Kate Hewitt
With the tea made, Roger produced a chocolate muffin and banana each, and they ate in comfortable, companionable silence, standing by the counter because the table, one Lindy had sat at hundreds of times, had been hacked at with what she thought was either a machete or a sledgehammer. Maybe both.
“I also bought some bin bags,” Roger said. “And some Marigold gloves.”
“Roger, you are a marvel and a saint.” Lindy shook her head slowly. “I honestly don’t know what I would do without you right now.”
A blush tinted Roger’s cheeks and he buried his nose in his mug of tea. “I suppose it’s a good thing you don’t need to find out,” he said, his voice slightly muffled by his mug.
Lindy had to agree. And, she realised, more and more she was hoping she might never have to find out. But was that too much to wish for?
Chapter Nineteen
“You have a lot of explaining to do.”
Ava started wagging a finger at Lindy as soon as she opened the door. She’d been back from Derbyshire for less than twelve hours; after an endless day of cleaning and lugging bin bags to the tip, talking to the police and trying not to cry, she and Roger had finally driven home at nearly nine o’clock at night. Lindy had been exhausted and emotionally drained, and she suspected Roger was, as well. At least everything had been fine at home; Toby had been ecstatic to see her when they’d stopped by Burford to pick him up, and Ellen had answered the phone call Roger made from a service area on the M40 with surprising and encouraging chirpiness.
Neither of them had said anything about last night; not, Lindy knew, that there was even anything to say. They’d shared a bed. They’d slept. That was it. And yet, to her at least, it had felt like so much more. Still, she was content to wait and see how the next few days and weeks played out; at least that’s what she was telling herself now.
When Roger had dropped her off, she’d barely had the energy to mumble a goodbye before she’d stumbled into her cottage with Toby, and then soon fallen into bed. Now it was Wednesday morning, and she had a full day of phone calls to make to deal with the repairs to her parents’ house, and she wasn’t sure she had the energy to deal with Ava’s good-natured nosiness.
“Explaining?” she repeated a bit warily as she stepped aside so Ava could come in. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Don’t you? Alice stopped by yesterday to ask if you wanted to help put up Christmas decorations at the manor, and Olivia told her that you’d gone to Derbyshire with Roger Wentworth.” Ava raised her eyebrows enticingly. “Do tell.”
“There’s nothing to tell,” Lindy said a bit shortly. “My parents’ house was broken into, and Roger came up to help me sort out the mess. He’s a friend, Ava.”
“Oh no, I’m sorry.” Ava’s teasing expression collapsed as she looked at Lindy in concern. “Are you okay?”
“Yes. Well, sort of.” Lindy tried for a smile. “The house is a disaster, everything basically wrecked.” She sighed heavily. “They even tore out the pages of the photo albums.” Something she hadn’t realised until a few hours into cleaning, when she’d found them blackened and half-burned on the fire.
“It’s almost as if someone has a vendetta against my family,” she’d told Roger, “even though I know that can’t be the case, especially since the same was done to other houses.”
“I think it’s just a vendetta against humanity,” Roger had replied. “Perhaps they’re bitter about their own difficult circumstances.”
“Perhaps,” Lindy allowed. “That’s some bitterness.”
He’d given her that little quirk of a sympathetic smile. “Indeed.”
Now Ava looked at her in wordless shock. “The photo albums—oh, Lindy!”
Before Lindy knew what she was about, Ava had enfolded her in a hug, which Lindy gladly returned.
“I’m so sorry. And here I was, swanning in, demanding the gossip! I’m a cow.”
“No, you’re just nosy,” Lindy answered with a laugh as she stepped back and dabbed at her eyes. “But I don’t mind.”
“So I can ask about you and Roger?”
“No,” Lindy answered, smiling. “But tell me about the Christmas decorations. I thought Alice didn’t want to decorate until December.”
“Well, she’s a bit impatient now. She’s got loads of stuff delivered and she feels like it’s going to take an age to sort out and set up—she was hoping a bunch of us would come over on the weekend and help. Mulled wine and mince pies a must, of course, the first of the season.”
“That sounds fun.”
“You could invite Roger, if you liked,” Ava said rather coyly.
“To a Willoughby Close gathering?” Lindy pretended to shudder, although actually, she didn’t really need to pretend when she imagined the well-meaning questions, the kind curiosity, the incessant avid conjecture, at this stage in her and Roger’s non-relationship. “No thanks.”
“I don’t blame you,” Ava answered with a laugh. “Saturday afternoon sound all right? Alice said everyone can stay for a kitchen supper afterwards.”
“Perfect.”
After Ava had left, Lindy showered and dressed, and armed with her morning can of Coke, she set about making the calls to various builders and handymen to deal with the worst of the damage on the house in Derbyshire. Yesterday she and Roger managed to clear out all the wreckage, and Heloise had come over and helped for a bit, looking distraught.
“I’m so sorry this happened,” she kept saying, even though Lindy assured her it wasn’t her fault.
“What are you going to do?” Heloise asked, wringing her hands.
“Clean up as best as I can,” Lindy replied, “and then get someone to repair the windows and secure the house. After that…” She shook her head slowly. “I don’t know.”
Now, a day later, as she made arrangements for all the repairs, Lindy still didn’t know what she intended to do with the house. Part of her thought it would be best to sell it and invest the money, or even put a down payment on a house in Wychwood. She didn’t have to rent forever. Another, greater part resisted every aspect of that idea entirely.
With a sigh Lindy checked her phone, and of course there were no missed calls or messages. She’d had the phone beside her all morning, so she would have known if anyone had been in touch. If Roger had.
After all the intimacy they’d shared in Derbyshire—and yes, it had been intimate—she’d been hoping, and even expecting, for him to be in touch. To see how she was. To care. The fact that it was already afternoon and there had been radio silence shouldn’t bother her too much—he was at work, after all—but it did.
This was why you didn’t let people in, Lindy thought morosely as she made herself lunch. You gave them the ability to hurt you. Her parents had done that by dying; Roger was doing it in another, albeit much smaller, way. It still hurt, though. Too much for Lindy’s liking.
*
Three days passed without Roger sending so much as a text. Stupidly, perhaps, Lindy didn’t text, either, although she wasn’t sure why. Because she didn’t want to seem desperate? Because she wanted him to make the first move? This was Roger, she reminded herself. He was unlikely to make the first move. And yet still she didn’t call or text, waiting for him.
She was kept busy, anyway, between overseeing the repairs on the house from afar, and also gearing her classes up for the performance in just three weeks. She’d booked in another weekly session with the Year Sixes, who were starting to drag their feet a little.
“It’s just, waltzing’s kind of boring,” Rose, one of the reluctant Year Sixes, told her on Thursday afternoon, when Lindy was trying to rev them all up for a bouncy box step. “It’s so, like, old.”
“Do you know that it was considered scandalous when it was invented?” Lindy countered. “So scandalous that loads of places banned it.” Rose looked unconvinced. “What type of dancing would you rather do?” Lindy asked, and the girl’s face brightened.
“Street dancing. Hip-hop. Som
ething that really makes you move.”
“All right.” Lindy thought for a moment. “What if we did a mash-up? We start with a very sedate waltz, we break out into some hip-hop, and then back to a waltz, but with a bouncier beat?”
Rose looked at her sceptically. “Really? You’d do that?”
“Why not?”
The girl looked even more sceptical, eyes narrowed. “Can you do hip-hop?”
“Of course I can,” Lindy replied. She’d never tried, but with the help of a YouTube video or two she thought she’d be up for the challenge. “Why don’t some of you show me your best hip-hop moves, and I’ll incorporate them into our routine?”
A few pupils were eager to show her their skills, and Lindy watched as they spun and jumped and shook their booties. She decided a few of the less suggestive moves could easily be worked into their routine.
“This will be wicked,” one boy enthused after she’d explained her idea to the whole class. “Everyone will be so surprised when the music changes!”
“Shake them up a bit,” Lindy agreed, smiling. “I love it.”
She was still smiling as she left the school to walk back to Willoughby Close. It was almost the end of November, and winter was definitely in the air. Several shops had already got their decorations out, including Waggy Tails, which had a lovely display of Christmas-themed dog biscuits in the window, among wreaths of holly and evergreen.
Lindy realised, for the first time in a long while, she was actually looking forward to Christmas. Maybe she wouldn’t even spend it alone.
She checked her phone, but there were still no message. Lindy tried not to let it dent her optimistic mood. Roger hadn’t said he’d call her, and in any case, he was probably busy. She’d see him on Monday, and hopefully she’d be able to gauge what was—or wasn’t—going on between them then.
Saturday dawned brilliant and sunny, with a hard frost brushing the world in white. Definitely a Christmassy sort of day, Lindy thought as she headed up to Willoughby Manor that afternoon to help Alice with the decorations. The whole gang was out in full force—Alice and Henry, Ava and Jace, Harriet and Richard, Ellie and Oliver, Simon and Olivia, and Emily and Owen.
Lindy took in all the couples with a slight sinking sensation. Maybe she should have invited Roger. No, that would have been a cringing disaster, the most obvious set-up in the world. Still, she definitely felt like a third, or really, a thirteenth, wheel in this crowd.
Fortunately no one actually made her feel that way. With so many people, it was surprisingly easy to forget they were all couples and simply get into the spirit of the thing—arranging clusters of candles on the deep windowsills, hanging wreaths and ropes of evergreen and holly, and watching in awe as Jace, Henry, and Owen all brought in the enormous Christmas tree, its top brushing the vaulted ceiling high above.
As they trimmed the tree, Henry doled out mulled wine and Alice put on Christmas carols.
“I love Christmas,” she confided in Lindy as they hung star-shaped baubles on the tree. She seemed happier now that she was busy with the decorating, with less of the brittleness Lindy had sensed from her before. “I never had much of one growing up, so I do go a bit overboard here. What were your Christmases like?”
“Oh, they were wonderful.” Lindy scrolled back fifteen years to when she’d had amazing Christmases—either tucked up in Derbyshire or travelling the world. “We spent one Christmas when I was about thirteen watching the sun come up in Tonga. And then we had this amazing singing competition—it’s a Christmas tradition there. And Christmas trees are decorated with balloons and candy. We celebrated with some Tongan people. My parents were brilliant at making friends wherever we travelled.”
“That sounds amazing,” Alice said, looking awed, and Lindy smiled.
“It was,” she said simply. “I was so lucky.” She’d always said that, had always insisted on it, chanted it like a mantra or waved it like a mascot, but she realised now there had always been some dark corner of her heart that had nurtured the bitter root of grief and insisted silently that she hadn’t been lucky at all.
Now she realised she meant it, right down to her toes. She’d been lucky. She’d been blessed. And she still was. It was good to remind herself of it; it was even better to truly feel it, all the way through…and in no small part due to Roger Wentworth. If only he’d call…
*
“So what’s this I hear about you and Roger Wentworth?” Henry asked when they’d all sat down to a supper of beef stew and dumplings in the cosy kitchen.
“Henry, don’t,” Alice shushed him. “You’re being so nosy. Anyway, they’re just friends.”
Henry arched an eyebrow at Lindy, who laughed. “We really are friends,” she told him and then added, with impish emphasis, “Good friends.”
“Ooh, I knew there was a story there,” Harriet said. “But I’ve pressed enough. You’ll tell us when you’re ready, won’t you, Lindy?”
“Maybe.”
“Next time, invite him with you,” Alice insisted. “I’ve never even talked to the man—”
“He’s lovely,” Olivia said. “Truly.”
Lindy sat back and sipped her wine, saying nothing. For once she didn’t mind all their questions, because she knew every single one was motivated by kindness, and even love. How had she landed here in this comfortable kitchen, surrounded by people who knew and liked her? Admittedly, she’d never actually talked to Richard Lang before tonight, and she barely knew Owen, Emily’s fiancé, but she liked them all and she’d count them as friends.
But not good friends. Not yet. Not like Roger.
She was still brimming with a sentimental sort of bonhomie when she tottered home to an undoubtedly anxious Toby a few hours later, under a silver sickle of moon. Simon had offered to walk her home, but Olivia had been deep in a chat with Alice, and Lindy hadn’t wanted to break up the party. Besides, after so much conversation and commotion, she’d had a hankering to be alone, in the quiet of a still winter’s evening.
As she came into the courtyard, she took out her phone. She’d resisted looking at it all afternoon and evening, and now her heart did a little dive as she saw the blank screen. No missed calls. No messages.
“Screw it,” she muttered under her breath and she swiped to make a call. A few seconds later Roger’s phone was ringing.
“Lindy?” He sounded concerned as he answered after the second ring. “Is everything all right?”
“Yes, why wouldn’t it be?” she asked as she fumbled for her house key.
“Because it’s nearly eleven o’clock at night, which I believe is considered an inconvenient time to telephone.”
Oh, but he sounded so much like himself, and Lindy actually liked it. A lot. “True,” she said solemnly as she unlocked her door and stepped inside. Toby skittered up to her and thrust his nose between her knees, as he always did. “Sorry, did I wake you?” she asked.
“No,” he said after a pause. “Was there a reason why you were ringing?”
“Does there have to be one?” Lindy asked, realising as she said the words that she might be a bit tipsier than she’d thought. She had a reckless desire to say something she might regret later—but what if she didn’t regret it?
“Usually there is a reason for someone ringing,” Roger replied. “At least, that has been my experience of exchanges over the telephone.”
“All right, then, the reason I called was because I wanted to hear your voice.” Lindy flung herself onto an armchair and closed her eyes as Toby sprawled happily at her feet, relieved now his mistress was home. Had she really just said that?
“Hear my voice?” Roger repeated after a moment, sounding flummoxed. “Why?”
“Because you haven’t rung or messaged me since we got back from Derbyshire. I was expecting you to.”
“Were you? I don’t believe I had given any indication of intending to do so.”
“Oh, Roger.” Lindy let out a groan. “I know you didn’t say, but I thought yo
u would. Don’t you understand that?”
A long silence while he contemplated her question, or perhaps just stared into space. Who knew? “I suppose,” he said after a moment. “You were hoping I would call to see how you were, after the incident in Derbyshire?”
“What incident are you referring to?”
“The damage done to your house, of course.”
“Oh.” She thought he’d meant their night together. Of course he hadn’t meant that. Suddenly she felt horribly flat. This conversation wasn’t going at all the way she’d been hoping it would.
“What incident did you think I meant?” Roger asked and Lindy opened her eyes to stare out at the dark night, her tiny garden gilded in silver by the slender crescent of moon.
“I just thought,” she began stiltedly, “after everything that happened in Derbyshire, we were—friends. The call-in-the-middle-of-the-night kind.”
A pause that felt horrid. “I see,” Roger said.
“Are we not?” Lindy asked, sounding far too woebegone.
“No—that is—we are. I’d like to think we are.” He released a frustrated breath. “It’s just, I’m not very good at this.”
“At what?”
“Having a conversation on the phone, for a start. I never know what to say. And I can’t see your face, so I don’t know if you mean what you say or something else.”
“I pretty much just told you what I meant,” Lindy pointed out, but she felt a little cheered by his honesty.
“I know you did. I’m sorry, Lindy. I’m just…I’m really no good at this.” He sounded both aggrieved and aggravated by his own failure in this matter, and more het up than she’d ever heard him before.
“Well, why don’t you try to get better?” she suggested.
“How?”
“Well…” Lindy took a deep breath and forced herself onward. “You could ask me out.”
The silence that followed was like a thunderclap. Lindy bit her lip to keep from taking the words back. Still more silence. What on earth was he thinking? Had she appalled him? Wrecked their friendship forever?
