by Hilary Boyd
Connie frowned at him. ‘For what?’
Her husband sighed. ‘Honestly, Connie, you’re so bloody stubborn. I don’t know what to say that I haven’t said a million times before.’ He stopped, looking quizzically at her, as if it were her turn to speak, to tell him she really did understand … and was ready to comply. When he saw she wasn’t going to respond, he went on, in a voice full of patience, ‘Surely you agree that we should have made a plan for our future. I couldn’t settle to my life without knowing how things were going to pan out over the next few years. You talk about fairness, but what I was asking wasn’t so unreasonable, was it?’
Although part of her still seethed, she accepted that what he was saying was probably true. But she knew, too, that she’d often tried to help him find something he could settle to, and had not been heard. The fault perhaps lay in lack of communication on both sides … and that he hadn’t taken responsibility for his own life. Instead, he’d made her feel her retirement was the solution to everything. But she was on the back foot, now, weakened by guilt and without the energy for a coherent defence. ‘Please,’ she said, looking him directly in the eye, ‘let’s not do this any more, Devan. If you want me to retire, then I will.’
Her words fell like molten lead in the hot room, shocking her as much as Devan. Connie realized she was trembling. Something had snapped, like the painter on a boat in a storm, wrenching her away from the shore. She knew her guilt over Jared had partly provoked it. But she was also aware of an overwhelming desire to change the narrative, move on from this interminable dichotomy.
Clearly taken aback, Devan was eyeing her suspiciously.
‘Are you serious?’ he asked evenly.
Riley, sensing the tension, came up to her and laid his head in her lap. She stroked him absentmindedly, barely conscious of where this was taking them, but feeling out of control and angry. ‘If that’s what you want,’ she said stiffly.
‘It’s not just about what I want, Connie.’ Devan’s voice was gentle. ‘Don’t say it if you don’t mean it.’
Connie clenched her teeth. But her voice was level as she said, ‘I can’t have this conversation even one more time, Devan. It’s destroying us both.’
The room was very quiet, the impasse rendering them both immobile. Riley had given up and was curled in his bed again. The chicken stew was cold in their bowls. The rain poured down.
Her husband’s hand crept over hers and she allowed it to rest there. But she could not let go inside. In the ensuing silence, she listened to her breath: short, tight little gasps as she realized what she’d just agreed to.
‘I love you, Con,’ she heard Devan say.
That was the tipping point. She closed her eyes and reminded herself that this was home. This was her husband’s hand over hers. This was safety, warmth, familiarity, history. Over thirty years of it. If she had to compromise, she would. She just hoped the resentment would go away.
‘Connie?’ Devan was staring at her. ‘We can sort this out, can’t we?’
She gave a small nod of acknowledgement. Let it go, she urged herself. Accept the olive branch, such as it is. If she didn’t, she realized the chasm between them would widen so much that neither would be able to vault to the other side.
‘You still love me, don’t you?’ His voice was tinged with anxiety now.
‘Of course I love you,’ she whispered, the words springing from somewhere deeper than conscious thought.
The meal she had put together so absentmindedly, her thoughts elsewhere, lay untouched on the table as they sat on in weary silence. Devan got up but seemed not to know what to do next. She saw him eyeing the wasted food. ‘It’ll do for tomorrow,’ she said.
The silence continued as they packed away the stew, cleared the kitchen and made their way slowly up to bed. Connie wanted to cry, but not to have to explain why to Devan: it was for the sheer weight of her betrayal and of everything that had gone wrong between them.
But as Connie climbed into bed, catching her husband’s tentative smile in the half-light, her heart softened. I love him, she reminded herself. As she reached to kiss him, she managed to stop any thoughts of Jared. He was another time, another place. Tonight, she was here in the room with Devan. His embrace was tender and comforting. It was about a long-held familiarity, a potent reminder of all that he meant to her … how precious that was. And Connie gave herself up to it without question.
As she lay sleepily in the darkness, she knew there was still a great deal between them that they needed to face. Lying quietly in each other’s arms, feeling the soft kisses he laid on her forehead – not asking for more – had brought her back to Devan’s side for the first time in months. She hoped they could build on that now.
A few days later, Connie watched as Neil grimaced, his bare feet meeting the cold rock. It was six in the morning and he’d swung by Connie’s house just before five. Although it was early August, the air was cool and the clouds heavy with impending rain. Just how they liked it. There was no adventure to be had plunging into a river in the blazing sun with half the country for company. As usual, Neil had brought coffee in insulated cups and Connie had nursed hers, still half asleep, as Neil drove his 4x4 south along the M5. Neither spoke during the journey to the river, the silence peaceful between friends.
The river, full after a week of rain, was rusty-brown and frothing as it roiled over the rocks that spanned it. This place was called Salmon Leap – for obvious reasons – and was one of their favourite wild-swimming haunts.
‘Looks a bit fierce,’ Connie commented, as she stripped off her clothes and laid them on the grass. They swam naked – one of life’s great pleasures – so they always arrived early, hoping not to put any unsuspecting fisherman off his cheese-sandwich breakfast, but the riverbank was deserted.
Neil went first. ‘Remember the pull at the bottom,’ he warned, as he picked his way across the slippery rock to the natural stone slide – now beneath the water – that delivered them into the calm pool downstream. He wobbled and laughed as he poised at the head of the slide, water gushing round his ankles. Then he sat down and was immediately engulfed, swept the length of the slide as he disappeared from view.
‘Oh my God, oh my God!’ he shouted, head popping up the other side of the rocks. ‘It’s bloody knackering.’
Connie shivered as she followed Neil’s path across the rocks and stood where he had. The morning breeze wafted cool over her skin, and she waited for a moment, savouring her nakedness. ‘Here I come.’ Tensing as the water seized her, she felt the smooth stone beneath her bottom, the fierce tug of the river. Then she let herself go, the cold making her gasp and shout until she was submerged, the rusty water closing over her head as she slid into the pool beyond.
They swam vigorously to and fro across the river, reeds tickling their bellies in the shallows near the bank. As their bodies adjusted to the temperature, they lay on their backs and looked up towards the trees and the sky, listening to the pounding of the water on the weir.
Later, damp and cold but exhilarated, they huddled in the car and drank the last of the coffee, gazing down at the river through the rain. A heron landed on the rocks where they’d just been standing, perching delicately on its spindly legs, its sharp yellow beak swishing slowly from side to side, as if it were surveying its kingdom. They watched in silence. This was what Connie loved about Neil. He knew how to just be.
Draining his mug and slotting it into the well between the seats, Neil turned to her. ‘OK … I’ve been pretty patient,’ he began, ‘but you’re hiding something, Constance McCabe, and I want to know what it is.’ He accompanied his words with a severe flick of his eyebrows. The swim had left his short blond hair sticking up at all angles and softened his handsome, angular face.
Connie, cuddled in a thick wool cardigan, warm and relaxed after the swim, which was like a meditation for her, did not really want to engage with his demand. But she owed him an explanation. ‘I’ve told Devan I’ll retire,’ she said
.
Neil looked shocked. ‘Seriously? But you were so dead against it.’
‘I wasn’t really conscious of what I was saying at the time. I just wanted it all to stop. But since then I’ve come to realize it’s the only way, if I’m not going to waste the rest of my life wrangling with him about it.’ She sighed. ‘Otherwise, it’s stalemate. As I told him the other night, I just can’t do it any more.’
Neil frowned. ‘Me and Brooks thought you were back on track, what with the anniversary dinner and Devan telling us how good things are between you now.’
‘Yes, and he’s been trying really hard, I’ll admit. It’s just he’s rushing me, Neil. He thinks because he’s back onboard with our marriage, I should be too. It’s what I want, of course, but I’m not finding it easy.’
Neil didn’t speak for a moment, just sat staring out of the window. Then he said, ‘You can’t let him railroad you, Con.’
‘I know. But maybe he’s right. Maybe I am being unfair to him.’ She took another sip of lukewarm coffee. ‘I really want us to be OK again. All this sniping and bickering is exhausting.’
Another silence.
‘Yeah, but next spring comes around, and you have no tours, no work.’ He turned his kind blue eyes on her. ‘How are you going to feel?’
Connie shrugged. She’d done the same projection. ‘I’ll feel bereft,’ she admitted. ‘But I’d feel even more so if my marriage fell apart because I was being “stubborn”, as Devan puts it.’
Neil laughed. ‘Men, eh? Can’t live with them, can’t live without them.’ He rubbed his hand over the stubble on his chin as if considering something. ‘Could you perhaps cut down next year, see how it feels?’
‘I’ve thought of that. Part-timers tend not to get the tours they want. Those go to the keen beans, for obvious reasons. But I’ve proved my worth over the years …’ She paused. ‘I could try.’
Neil picked up his phone, checked the time, pulled a face. ‘Sorry, I should get going. Have to be in Bristol by twelve and I need to clean up.’
As they drove home in silence, Connie wished with all her heart she could tell Neil about Jared. What a liar I’ve become. Mum would be horrified, she thought, glad for once that her mother was no longer around to witness her daughter’s shame. Talking to Neil without mentioning the momentous thing that had happened to her these past weeks was like making a cake with one vital ingredient missing. But she knew it would be selfish and pointless to give life to something that was now over. It would expand in the telling, be given a new reality, and colour all her exchanges with her friend – change Neil’s relationship with Devan for ever. Telling Lynne was bad enough. But her sister was discreet to the point of pathology – and not part of Connie’s day-to-day life.
The affair is over. I love Devan. My marriage is the most important thing in my life. She ran these resolutions around her mind, like a playlist on a constant loop, as she stared out of the car window. But she was leaving for Tuscany on Friday and a familiar question had begun to nibble at the edges of her thoughts: If Jared knocks on my bedroom door, will I be strong enough to send him away? If she had her doubts, she was pretty certain Jared would too.
16
Connie thought at first it was the heat. Tuscany was roasting in August. It was day six when she started to notice she wasn’t feeling well. The coach had taken the winding road up to San Gimignano in the morning. It was a spectacular hill town with medieval towers, built by various warring noblemen with the sole purpose of showing off and outdoing their rivals. After a potter round the sights, they’d driven down into the surrounding countryside, arriving at a rambling villa with faded ochre walls, green shutters and a terracotta roof, situated at the end of a long avenue of cypresses.
Two Italian chefs in toques and pristine whites had taken the next two hours showing them how to make ravioli filled with pork and red wine; panzanella – Tuscan bread salad; and custard-filled bomboloni – baby Italian doughnuts.
Connie’s cooking triumphs were sporadic and unpredictable, but she loved cookery programmes and leafing through glossy recipe books, closely scrutinizing the mouth-watering photos for dishes she knew she would probably never make. So she’d been looking forward to the demonstration, which was held under shady trees in the corner of the villa’s extensive vegetable garden.
But by the time the deliciously warm, sugary bomboloni were being handed round, served with a little demitasse of strong espresso, she had a headache and was feeling slightly shivery. A bloody cold in the middle of August? she thought resentfully. But she hadn’t been sleeping.
The tour had gone well, so far. The magic of Tuscany – with its soft light and purple hills, its ancient culture amid such quiet beauty – always seemed to cast a spell over her charges. She felt she was seeing their best selves. One American complained about the lack of handrails on the steep streets of Siena, and she lost some of her group for half an hour during a climate-change protest in Pisa, but otherwise the only problem, with so many older travellers, was the searing heat.
There had been no sign of Jared. He must have meant what he said, Connie thought, as she lay awake night after night. She was ashamed to admit how dismayed she felt. But she knew that now she needed to shut down every thought relating to her time with him. Allow the images to fade, box up the bewildering pleasure she’d experienced in his company and lock it into the attic of her mind where, in years to come, she might bring it out and smile guiltily at the memory.
Life would gradually return to normal. It’s what I want, she told herself repeatedly. Her husband was irritating her at the moment but, then, whose spouse didn’t? She just had to be patient. These exhortations, however, did little good. Through the hot Tuscan nights her faithless body still ached to be lying in Jared’s arms again. But he didn’t come.
By the time Connie was lying sweating in her hotel bed in Turin – their stopover on the journey home – she knew this was more serious than a summer cold. Decongestants and copious quantities of paracetamol from the medicine chest she always carried on tour had staved off the worst during the remaining days in Florence, allowing her to function, just about. But she’d developed a nasty cough and her chest hurt, her head throbbing constantly. A couple of passengers commented that she didn’t seem well, but she brushed off their concern with a smile. She’d purchased hardcore cough mixture from a sympathetic Italian pharmacist near their Florence hotel; he’d also suggested she see a doctor – which she stubbornly felt she didn’t need – but the stuff made her drowsy and increasingly didn’t seem to touch the problem.
Connie made it to St Pancras in a feverish haze, holding on by her fingernails until she’d said goodbye to all her passengers and seen them off on their various journeys home. By now she barely knew who they were, their faces swimming in and out of her vision in a baffling way over which she seemed to have no control. She prayed she wasn’t saying weird or stupid things. But apart from one of her clients who said in farewell, ‘You should get that chest seen to, Connie,’ no one had seemed to notice that anything was wrong.
Scheduled to stay the night in London, because the Eurostar got in too late for the connection home, she only had to make it to the hotel in Great Russell Street and then she could sleep. Sometimes she overnighted with Caitlin when she returned from a trip and couldn’t get back, but she had a meeting with her boss the following morning in the hotel – just a yearly catch-up – so it was easier this way. I’ll be fine tomorrow, she thought. I just need a good night’s rest.
The next thing Connie was aware of was waking up in the bath in her hotel room. She was shivering, her skin blue and mottled, the water long since gone cold. But when she tried to pull herself up, her limbs wouldn’t obey and she thudded back hard on her bottom, chilly water sloshing up and over the side. What’s happening to me? she wondered dizzily. Taking a deep breath, she tried again, but her arms were like string cheese and she failed to get any purchase. She began to panic, her heart thumping double speed in h
er chest. But the adrenalin gave her dazed brain a window of clarity. Must get warm and dry …
Galvanized, she heaved herself head first over the side of the tub, crawling forward until first her torso, then her legs slid onto the bathmat. For a moment she lay there, the effort rendering her wheezy and breathless. She just wanted to stay where she was and sleep. But she knew she couldn’t. Get up, she urged herself. Get up, Connie, you must get up.
Using every ounce of strength left to her, she pushed herself onto her knees, managing to grab the lip of the basin. Muscles screaming, she heaved, flopped back. Tried again. On the third go, she found herself wobbling but upright.
Snatching the large white towel from the rail, she huddled in the folds, feebly rubbing herself dry as best she could before staggering unsteadily through to the bedroom. With shaky hands, she put on all the clothes she must have stripped off earlier – although she had no recollection of doing so – including her jacket. Throwing herself onto the bed, she rolled the duvet round her until there was nothing free but the top half of her head. Then she lay there and shivered until she began to feel the warmth seeping back into her body.
But with the warmth came fever. One minute she thought she might die of cold, the next she was burning up. Think, she exhorted her pitching brain. Think. Do something. But what she should do was not clear. Phone … The word came and went. She knew it was important, really important, but the thought kept slipping away, like soap in the bath, before she had a chance to catch it. She gave up and closed her eyes again.
The next time she opened them and tried to focus, someone was sitting on her bed, a hand on her forehead. She shook it off, irritated by the intrusion.
‘Connie … Connie, wake up …’
The voice was familiar and sounded urgent. She wished it would go away.
‘Connie …’ Now hands were shaking her gently, pulling off the duvet, opening the buttons of her jacket. The weight on the mattress was temporarily absent, then a blessed coolness was being pressed to her forehead. She forced her eyes open. Jared, his face pale with concern, was staring down at her, holding the hotel flannel to her brow.
