“No, I meant… I didn’t want to make you feel awkward, asking you for dinner and then turning up here after you’d said no. It’s not that I won’t take no for an answer, I promise. I just… really wanted another of your coffees.”
Lee smiled, and couldn’t help but hope coffee wasn’t his only motivation for coming into the café. “Thanks for being so considerate but you’re welcome any time.”
“Good.” He pulled a stool up to the counter so he was sat opposite Lee, and took a seat. “Will you have one with me? I’m buying!”
“Don’t be silly,” Lee said. “We’ll have them on the house.”
It seemed natural to pull a chair behind the counter, so that they were both sat enjoying their coffees together. As they chatted about how quiet town always was at this time of day, Lee remembered that her hair had been falling all over the place first thing that morning - she dreaded to think what it looked like now. She tried to slowly slide her chair so that she could see herself in the mirror above the now-decorative fireplace opposite, but when she nearly toppled over and had to grab the counter for support, she aborted the plan and hoped that she didn’t look too repulsive. Then she chastised herself for even caring; she’d told this poor, gorgeous, funny man that she couldn’t date him - and she knew that was true - so it didn’t matter what she looked like. In fact, the more repulsive the better.
Well, maybe that was taking it a step too far.
“Is there much crime in Totnes today then?” Lee asked, sipping on her sweet coffee topped with cinnamon.
“Oh, plenty. Pulled someone over this morning for having a broken brake light… knocked on some doors in relation to some missing property…”
“Oh, high crime then!”
“Indeed. But I’m glad - gave me time to stop off here.”
Lee blushed and looked down at her coffee, lost for words yet again.
“I’m sorry,” James said, running a hand through his hair a little nervously. “That was too flirtatious. It just slipped out.”
Lee glanced up at his face, chin covered in a hint of light stubble, broad lips that looked like they were just made for- “It’s okay. Honestly,” she said, in a hurry to stop the direction of her thoughts.
“Can I ask you a question? Even though this is only the third time we’ve met?”
“I guess…” Lee said, a little apprehensive. “Although, be warned, I might have a flood of customers in a minute and then I’ll be far too busy for you.”
“Okay, consider me warned. Can I ask - what happened with your marriage? It’s just… oh, I don’t know. I feel like talking to you is so easy, and you seem so sure of what you want in life, and go and grab it when you do - I’m quite envious of that. I’m not sure whether I’m a police officer because I wanted to be, or because I dressed up as a police officer when I was five and it was all my mum ever went on about after that point. I guess what I’m saying is, you impress me, and intrigue me, and I’ve wondered since the other night what caused you to be so definite that you couldn’t date.” He took a pause for breath, and Lee sat quite speechless at his words. “Sorry,” he added. “I babble on a bit when I’m nervous.”
For a moment she considered fobbing him off with some excuse; she felt almost embarrassed to admit that Nathan had cheated on her, as though it reflected badly on her. She felt in some way that it showed she was lacking; that there was something in her that was so awful, Nathan had needed to go elsewhere.
But James had been so open and honest with her about his reasons, and he was right; talking did feel easy with him, when the words found their way from her mouth! And so she took a deep breath, and said the words she had so rarely said out loud:
“He cheated on me. I got home and found him… in bed with another woman.”
“Shit. I’m sorry - that sucks.”
“And I got in a car and… drove here.”
“Seriously?”
Lee gave a wan smile and nodded. “Seriously. Walked in on them together last month, found out she wasn’t the first and got in the car. I haven’t been back since - and somehow I now have a flat and the lease on a café. Believe me, I’m not usually the spontaneous, go and get whatever it is you want type. I’m the sort of girl who has a five year plan, hell a ten year plan, and sticks to it religiously. I’m the woman who thought she had the husband sorted, the house sorted, would tick kids off the list soon - well, I was that sort of woman.” She shrugged, realising all of a sudden that she had shared far more than was appropriate and that tears were welling up in her eyes. She blinked furiously, hoping James hadn’t spotted them. “And now I’m the crazy woman babbling on far too much about her ex to someone she barely knows!”
James shook his head. “Not crazy. I think you’re incredibly brave.” For a moment their eyes met, and Lee couldn’t remember the last time anyone else had called her something as wonderful as ‘brave’. It sounded a whole lot better than ‘stupid’. She felt something crackle between them as their eyes were locked for longer than was strictly comfortable; the tension was almost visible in the air.
James lifted his hand towards her, and as she wondered what he was doing, he murmured: “You’ve got flour on your cheek. Do you mind?” Lee didn’t have the breath to speak, and as his fingers lightly brushed against her cheek she had to tell herself sternly not to close her eyes and melt into him. Without knowing who initiated it, both their heads moved forwards across the counter, almost of their own accord, moved by the magic that was in the air at that moment.
And then the front door opened and two businessmen in smart black suits walked in. James and Lee jumped apart, and, without glancing back at him, Lee hopped up off the stool to serve the men.
Neither said anything about what had passed between them, and as Lee busied herself with the now-familiar tasks of steaming milk and preparing the coffee, James downed the dregs of his drink.
“See you around?” he said softly, his inflection questioning whether this was the end of any sort of friendship with them. It was then that Lee turned and their eyes met for just a second; she nodded with a blush, and was rewarded with a grin from him as he left the building.
Lee was sure her heart didn’t stop hammering until she locked up the shop at closing time.
Chapter 11
The afternoon chat with James had almost made her forget that her mother was in town, doing goodness knows what as she waited for Lee to finish work. She hadn’t reappeared during the day, which Lee had been surprised by but - sure enough - as she exited the building having turned all the lights off and locked up, her mother was stood waiting under an umbrella on the opposite side of the street.
Umbrella-less, Lee pulled the hood of her coat over her head to protect against the drizzle, and dashed across the road at the first available opportunity between the stream of cars heading home for the night.
“Where have you been all day?” she asked her mum, ducking under the umbrella and linking arms with her mum - a definite learned behaviour from Gina.
“Oh you know - a bit of shopping, wandered through the market, had lunch, then booked into that hotel across the road - I don’t feel like a three hour drive tonight. And since I don’t even know where you’re staying down here…”
“The hotel’s probably best mum, I live in a shared flat with no spare bedroom.”
Tina stopped abruptly and turned to face her daughter, annoying the pedestrians behind her who were forced to alter their route to continue up Fore Street. “What has happened to you, Shirley? Shared flats and cafés?”
“My husband cheated on me,” Lee said simply, for the second time that day. “Come on mum, we’re getting soaked, let’s get an early dinner and we can talk then.” They continued up the hill, just as a man in open shoes and what Lee thought were pyjama bottoms pushed his way past them. She grinned slightly as she saw her mum look him up and down, but there was no comment.
The little restaurant half way up the town was not busy due to the early hour, and Le
e and her mum were seated quickly in a cosy table lit with three candles. Feeling like she would probably need it, Lee ordered a large glass of wine despite her mum declining, and they ordered some bread and olives to start.
“Your sister’s worried about you,” Tina threw into the conversation as the wine arrived.
“She is not!” Lee scoffed. “This is exactly the sort of thing she would do, and you know it.”
“Well, she did say it’s very unlike you.”
“Which it is. But I needed a change, and this is it. I don’t know why people can’t just accept that…”
“But you are going back to Bristol? And the law firm?”
“Yes, mother.” She sighed and rolled her eyes, something she didn’t think she’d done since being a teenager. “I spoke to Tania yesterday. They’re holding down the fort quite happily without me and have suggested I extend my… sabbatical until after Christmas. Start fresh in the new year.”
That wasn’t entirely true; while they were coping fine without Lee, they had assumed she would be back before Christmas. It had been Lee who had put them off; Lee who couldn’t imagine Christmas day anywhere but Totnes; Lee who thought that she would cope better if she had a clean slate in a new year.
“I’ll start looking for somewhere to live this week,” she said, feeling slightly sick at the thought.
“How are you affording all this?” her mother asked bluntly as their appetisers arrived.
“I’ve got savings.”
“For a rainy day, Lee, not for buying a café on a whim.”
“I’m only leasing it,” Lee answered, glancing outside and laughing at the irony as rain battered the windows and poured off the guttering. “Besides, I’d say my marriage breaking up is a pretty rainy day. And I will get over it - I just needed some time.” She paused, and the bravado in her voice dropped. “It was a big shock,” she said quietly.
“I know,” Tina said. “I know.” She tapped Lee on the hand, before rattling out her order to the waiting waitress. Lee added hers and hoped that the lecture was over.
“Just promise me, please, that you won’t waste your life down here? You have so much Lee, and I know this has been a setback, but you will recover. You will meet someone else, you will have children…”
The word made tears prick Lee’s eyes for the countless time that day; that was the real sore point, she thought. The fact that there’d been a plan; the fact that she wasn’t getting any younger and now she would have to start all over again with meeting someone, falling in love, marrying, getting them to agree the time was right to have children…
Maybe, she thought, not every man needed persuading. Maybe she could meet someone who was as keen as she was to have kids. Who she also loved. And who understood the number of hours she worked, and wouldn’t use that as an excuse to start sleeping around…
She felt her shoulders slump - it felt like more and more of a tall order as she allowed the requisites to swirl around in her mind.
***
She left her mum in the hotel quite late by her current standards, and began to hike up the hill to her flat as she’d made the decision to walk to work that morning. The Christmas lights glowed bright against their dark and misty background, and Lee found they lifted her spirits a little. She wasn’t sure if seeing her mum had been a good thing or a bad thing; on the one hand, she loved her mum, and she had given her at least a little sympathy. But it had sent her brain down a dangerous path that she’d been trying to block: the path of what if.
What if she gave Nathan another chance? If he swore blind it would never happen again, perhaps she could get past it eventually. She could move back to their home, the house she’d loved so much, put her heart and soul into decorating. They wouldn’t have to go through the messy business (and as a lawyer, she should know) of a divorce; they could discuss kids again, open up the lines of communication, bring back the romance.
She could. It was possible. Yes, the people she’d told about the affair would think she was crazy - but she was fairly sure they thought she was having a breakdown right this minute, so that wouldn’t be so different. It would certainly be easier than starting life all over again when she would be turning 31 the next month and had thought everything was lined up perfectly in front of her.
As she started to run out of breath from the steepness of the hill and the pace at which she was pushing herself to get up it, her thoughts turned to romance. She tried to imagine kissing Nathan, removing his clothes, being naked in front of him - but, try as she might, the images didn’t work in her head. Time and time again she saw the blonde in her place, and when she did succeed in picturing Nathan trying to kiss her, she felt a kind of repulsion that shocked her with its force.
When she put her key into the lock, her brain hadn’t yet sorted out her emotions from the dinner with her mother. It had certainly stirred up all sorts of thoughts and feelings that she’d been fairly successfully repressing. She found herself relieved that Gina either wasn’t up or wasn’t home; she wasn’t in the mood to chat about work, or their now kind of shared friendship group. Exhausted, she put off showering until the next day and slid beneath the cool duvet, shivering slightly despite enjoying the chill of the bedding on her sore and aching muscles - not to mention her confused mind.
***
It was the first fitful night’s sleep she’d had in a couple of weeks, and she found herself awake at 6am, a full hour before her alarm was set to go off. For a while she lay and stared at the ceiling, trying to decide whether to get her shower over and done with or to attempt to get a little more shut-eye. Before she had made her mind up, she decided to check her phone, and the message there sent more sleep straight off the table.
When are you back in Bristol? The text read. It was from Nathan, though he hadn’t signed it. There were also, she noticed immediately, no kisses.
After Christmas.
She didn’t wait long for his reply; she had lost track of his schedule weeks earlier, and so she wasn’t sure if he was just getting up or just getting to bed.
You’re staying down there for Christmas?
Her mind was made up in an instant; she couldn’t picture Christmas elsewhere. She did not want to be surrounded by family and reminders of what her life would have been - that might just drain the Christmas magic, even from Lee. No, here she didn’t really have a past; here she could enjoy the festive spirit, even if it would probably be alone - although she hadn’t discussed Gina’s Christmas plans with her yet.
Yes. Short, simple and to the point - she didn’t see the need to give him any more than that.
Didn’t want to say this by text but you’re not taking my calls. Wanted you to know I’m seeing someone. Will you take care of the divorce? Such simple words, sat there in black and white on her phone screen in front of her - words that, nonetheless, felt like a dagger to her heart. She took a sharp intake of breath as she read them and couldn’t quite believe how harsh they looked in print. No, she hadn’t taken his calls, because she had nothing to say - but to see their marriage ended in the blocky letters of a text message she thought might have broken her heart.
No, her heart had already been broken by his infidelity; this was just rubbing salt in the wound.
I’m seeing someone.
The blonde? The nurse? A doctor? Or someone completely new? Had they overlapped with their marriage? Had they consummated whatever relationship they had in her marital bed?
Questions she didn’t even want to know the answers to buzzed round her head like flies, and the room in front of her began to look a little hazy.
Knowing she needed to calm down a little, she closed her eyes and took several deep breaths, attempting to send those words from her brain.
So this was it. No more options, no more choices; he was done. And as much as she knew that she had been done the moment she saw him and that woman, she still cried her way through the hottest shower she could handle.
***
“Ca
n you open up on your own today?” Lee asked Gina when they met over the toaster an hour later.
“Sure - everything okay? You were late last night.”
“My mum turned up… and Nathan text. My head’s just all over the place - I just need an hour or so to get my head together.”
Gina didn’t push the topic; instead she poured boiling water into both their mugs and said, “If you want to talk, I’m here.”
“I appreciate that,” Lee said, tears prickling in her eyes that she desperately tried to blink away. She waited until Gina had left for them to fall, and tried to accept that she needed to mourn the end of everything she’d thought her life would be for a little while. It was the permanent shutting and locking of a door that she realised she’d always thought was still ajar - if she wanted it to be. Dressed and ready for work, she let herself wallow for a little while, curling up on the sofa and not fighting the tears.
The South West Series Box Set Page 9
