by Kate Field
‘Can I talk to her?’
‘Ring her in a couple of hours. I’ll have taken her home by then.’
‘You will? Where’s Leo?’
It was an innocent-sounding question, and I had an innocent answer ready. But I kicked at the gravel under my feet, reluctant to give it.
‘I haven’t been able to speak to him yet. He’s probably at work.’
The silence stretched until I thought we might have been cut off. That ‘probably’ wouldn’t have convinced Ethan; he must know that it was after five over here.
‘Will you look after her?’ Ethan said at last. ‘I know I’ve no right to ask now, but …’
‘You don’t need to ask. She’s my friend. Of course I’m going to look after her.’
‘Let me know if she needs anything.’ He paused. ‘You’re a star, Mary Black. You know that, don’t you?’
I didn’t; I lived with two teenagers. Far from being celestial, most days I felt as important as something they’d trodden in. But Ethan had a way of making the mundane sound extraordinary, and the extraordinary sound magnificent. I had forgotten quite how potent he could be.
We had been home for a couple of hours before Leo called back, and then, at least, he drove straight over. Audrey had fallen asleep, lying on the sofa in front of the television, worn out by the drama of the day and the drugs given to her by the hospital.
‘Where have you been?’ I hissed at Leo, as he hovered in the doorway, looking at Audrey. The irony wasn’t lost on me, that I sounded more like a jealous wife than at any time during our marriage.
‘I had no university work today, and Clark took the day off, so we …’
I held up my hand; I didn’t want to hear what they had been up to.
‘Didn’t you have your phone? What if there had been an emergency with the children?’
He had the grace to look guilty, but I was too highly wound today to let it go.
‘You can’t cut us off completely, Leo. You’ve only loosened the strings, not untied them. You still have a family, and sometimes we need you.’
‘I appreciate that. I’m not trying to cut you off. When I made plans with Clark, I couldn’t have known there would be an emergency today.’
‘There could be an emergency any day. That’s the point. They’re unscheduled. You need to keep your phone on when you’re not teaching, or at least check your messages occasionally. If you’re so keen not to be disturbed, I promise I’ll only ever ring if it’s a matter of life or death.’
‘Life, death, or literature.’ He smiled, trying to make amends by resurrecting an old joke we had shared, but I wasn’t ready to soften yet.
‘Audrey needed you, Leo. She wanted to see you. The fall has shaken her more than you realise. I had no trouble contacting Ethan, and he’s on a different continent and time zone.’
‘Ethan?’ Audrey snuffled and stirred as Leo raised his voice. ‘When did you speak to Ethan?’
‘This afternoon.’
‘Do you often ring him?’
‘No. Why would I?’ I sat down, across the room from Leo, confused by the look he was giving me and the sudden interrogation. ‘I don’t even have his number. I called him because Audrey asked me to. What’s the problem?’
‘There isn’t one.’ Leo sat down next to me. His hair was soft and fluffy, as if he’d recently had a shower, but there was no smell of Johnson’s baby shampoo. Instead, when I leaned closer, pretending to adjust the cushion behind me, I was struck by an exotic aroma that made me think of expensive hotels – not that I had much experience of those. ‘But you’re clearly wound up,’ Leo continued. ‘I hope he hasn’t said anything to aggravate or upset you. At least you won’t have to see him again. Don’t they say that one of the greatest advantages of divorce is being able to drop the in-laws?’
I wouldn’t blame him if Leo thought that: I’d often be happy to drop my mother, preferably from a great height. But while I had rarely seen Ethan over the years of our marriage, it was painful to think that rarely might turn to never. Our connection went beyond my marriage; Ethan had been a good friend, an integral part of my growing up, as essential as Leo, in a different way. We had been in the same year at school, and had almost gone to the same university until Leo had proposed when he graduated from Oxford and persuaded me to change to Manchester so we could stay close together.
‘Ethan’s not the problem,’ I muttered, but Leo was watching Audrey and didn’t appear to be listening.
‘Don’t worry about Ethan,’ he said, patting my hand as if I were his maiden aunt. ‘I’ll speak to him and make sure he leaves you alone.’
Chapter 7
Audrey was a terrible patient, every bit as bad as I expected: not because she was demanding, but because she refused to make any demands. I had to go round earlier and earlier each morning to try to catch her before she attempted to dress herself; if it carried on, there would barely be a gap between putting her to bed and getting her up.
Leo came over on the Friday afternoon following Audrey’s accident, and worked in the study so that I could have the afternoon off to visit a couple of bookshops. I had compiled a list of shops within a thirty-mile radius, and intended to visit them all over the coming weeks to see if any would be interested in an author event with Leo to promote the Alice Hornby biography. My enthusiasm was trampled when the first shop turned me away almost immediately, but the owner of the second shop agreed to attend the Foxwood Farm event the following weekend and meet Leo before deciding whether to invite him to hold a signing. Now I had to hope that Leo rose to the occasion.
Neither of the children would agree to come to the Foxwood Farm Lancashire Evening, and as I still wasn’t used to appearing anywhere on my own, I invited Daisy to join me. The rain of the morning had finally broken to reveal a dazzling blue sky, and the temperature had risen from coat to cardigan warmth, so I walked through the village to collect Daisy at her house. She opened the front door before I was halfway up the path, and quickly pulled it shut behind her.
‘You can’t come in,’ she said, dispensing with the customary ‘hello’ and starting up the path with her bag in tow. ‘The house is a tip. Chloe is at her dad’s this weekend, so I’m having a sneaky sort out of all the old clothes and toys that she’d never let me throw away if she was here.’
‘You should have said. I would have offered to help.’
‘I know you would.’ Daisy followed me through the gate and left it swinging at a forlorn angle. I went back and closed it. ‘But I only really wanted to clear out a few things. You’d have blitzed the house like a military operation. You’d have shot me at point blank range for suggesting something had sentimental value.’
‘That’s unfair. I would have tried diplomatic negotiation first.’ I smiled, but Daisy’s words stung. The ‘efficient and capable’ label was so firmly sewn onto the back of my neck that I couldn’t imagine the world held a pair of scissors sharp enough to cut it out.
Foxwood Farm was situated at the southern edge of the village, a pleasant stroll away in the spring sunshine. The farm was looking magnificent, decorated for the event with flags and bunting showing the red rose of Lancashire. It was too early in the year for real roses, but tubs and flowerbeds filled the farmyard and pansies, tulips, and azaleas danced in a brilliant display of colour. As the weather had turned fair, the cobbled courtyard outside the main barn where the event was taking place had been scattered with bales of hay covered in furry sheepskin rugs to make benches, and old crates covered in crisp white cloths provided makeshift tables. Large braziers stood around the edge of the area, already flickering with flames that would light up the area as darkness crept in. Although we were on time – being efficient and capable, I was never wilfully late – a decent crowd was already milling around in the evening sunshine, colouring the air with conversation and laughter. I reached out and grasped Daisy’s arm, sent off-balance by an unexpected shot of loneliness.
‘Let’s get a drink,’ Daisy said, a
nd dragged me inside. It was quieter here, apart from a small group gathered in front of a table that was set out as a bar. There was an impressive display of Lancashire drinks: real ale with weird and wonderful names from a micro-brewery a few miles away; sloe gin and blueberry vodka from a farm in a nearby village; and a delicious selection of soft drinks from Fitzgerald’s, the famous temperance bar. I picked up a glass of wine.
‘That’s French.’ Daisy pointed disapprovingly at my glass. She had chosen a pint of beer, an incongruous sight in her dainty hands, but she carried it off; she was one of those naturally pretty women who could carry off anything. Beside her petite blonde figure, I looked like the Grim Reaper’s warm-up act. If we weren’t such friends I would never have stood within ten feet of her. ‘You’re not being loyal to the spirit of the evening.’
The glass hovered halfway to my lips, as my values battled with my need for wine. Luckily Lindsay, who had organised the event, was nearby and solved my dilemma.
‘We used a Lancashire wine merchant,’ she said. ‘It was the closest we could get.’ I drank half my glass, conscience clear. Lindsay smiled, and leaned across to kiss my cheek. ‘You deserve that wine after your hard work this afternoon. The display looks great.’
Lindsay gestured over to one corner of the barn. The central space was set out with chairs ready for the entertainment to begin, and each performer – not a word I had dared use to Leo’s face – had been allocated an area to display their work around the sides. Leo’s table was a shrine to Alice Hornby. The famous picture of her stood on an easel in the centre, surrounded by glass boxes containing replicas of some of her personal items: a tiny pair of outdoor shoes, complete with battens; an ivory fan; a purse embroidered with miniature birds, which we believed Alice had sewn herself. One box held a couple of pages of a draft of her most famous novel, The Gentleman’s Daughter; her handwriting was as familiar as my own, and thrilled me every time I saw it. A discreet pile of Leo’s book lay at the rear of the display, along with postcards and bookmarks bearing some of Alice’s most beautiful quotations. I had also added some leaflets about the Alice Hornby Society, which Leo and I had started ten years ago in a bid to connect fans of her work and promote awareness of her writing.
‘Is Leo outside?’ Lindsay asked, glancing at her watch. ‘We’re starting with the rock choir soon, and Leo’s on after that.’
‘I don’t know where he is.’
‘Have you lost him?’
How could I reply to that? I had lost him, but in a more permanent way than Lindsay meant. Amazingly, and despite my conviction that the whole world must be talking about us, it seemed that there was one house in Stoneybrook where the gossip had not yet spread.
‘We’re not …’ Above the chatter around us, the clink of my wedding ring against my glass was deafening. I couldn’t finish the sentence. I finished my wine instead. Daisy gripped my hand.
‘Mary and Leo are divorced,’ she said, leaning towards Lindsay and lowering her voice. ‘Leo lives in Manchester now. He may be delayed by traffic.’
She stopped there, giving only half the news; the rest would be obvious soon enough. And the sympathy in Lindsay’s eyes, when she pulled me into a brief hug, was quite enough to bear without witnessing her reaction to the rest of it. How long would it be before someone looked at me without pity or curiosity? I longed for a life of quiet anonymity again.
The rock choir were halfway through their set of songs by North West artists, and were belting out an arrangement of Elbow’s ‘Open Arms’ which moistened even my stubbornly dry old eyes, when Leo sauntered in with Clark. I slipped out of my seat and met them at the back of the barn, horribly conscious that many members of the audience were watching us.
‘Hello,’ I whispered, dragging up my public smile, and kissing them each in turn. Leo still didn’t smell like my Leo, and he had cut his hair much shorter, losing the fluffiness that had characterised him for the last twenty years. The new look suited him. ‘You’re in perfect time. The choir has one more song after this, and then it’s your turn. I’ve marked the passage that you’re reading.’ I delved into my handbag and pulled out a copy of the book, adorned with Post-it Notes. ‘And try to squeeze in a mention of the Alice Hornby Society. I’ve left some application forms on the display over there.’
Leo turned in the direction I was pointing.
‘It looks wonderful, Mary, well done. You never let me down.’
Those words, which would have once meant so much, could only ever be bittersweet now. Loud applause for the choir shattered the awkwardness of the moment, and I motioned to Leo to go to the front, while I resumed my seat next to Daisy. Clark remained standing, leaning against the wall, his attention wholly on Leo.
Lindsay welcomed Leo, and then Leo made a few opening remarks and began to read from the book. I had chosen a lively passage, describing a prank that Alice and her sister had played on their hated governess, and which had gone on to form the basis of a scene in her most famous book, and the audience laughed as I had hoped. But I was hardly paying attention to the words, too transfixed by Leo. He didn’t smell like my Leo; he no longer looked like my Leo; and he performed for the audience in a way that my Leo would never have done. He was relaxed, smiling, comfortable in himself as he had never been in the days of our marriage. There was no doubting why. Whenever his gaze swept the room, it always lingered over Clark.
The applause when he finished was as rapturous as it had been for the choir, and way beyond anything I had expected. I rose from my seat, propelled by pride, heedless of the fact that no one else was giving a standing ovation until Daisy yanked me back down.
‘He was great,’ Daisy said, with undisguised surprise. ‘He made me want to buy the book, and Lord knows there have been times when I thought I might go insane if I heard the name Alice Hornby again.’
‘You’re a philistine. She is the world’s greatest writer.’
‘Don’t waste your breath on me. I won’t read anything unless it has a glossy cover and celebrity interviews.’ She looked over at Leo, who had now joined Clark. They were talking, heads bent close together, tightly bound to each other even though they weren’t touching. ‘He’s changed. He looks …’ She screwed up her eyes, studying him. ‘Free.’
That was it, exactly. Perhaps because Daisy hadn’t seen Leo for a few months, the alteration was obvious to her. Leo did look free: free of care, free of pretence, free of being someone he was not. Free of me. Our stars had been aligned for so long; but his had now risen to a height that seemed well beyond my reach.
A performance poet came next, entertaining us in a traditional Lancashire dialect, followed by a popular local folk band, before supper was served – Lancashire hotpot, served with pickled red cabbage, which was simple but delicious. I was one of the last to be served, distracted by talking to the bookshop owner who had previously promised to attend, and by that time many of the guests had wandered outside to enjoy their food. Carrying my plate of steaming hotpot, I headed the same way, trying to find Daisy. She was never easy to spot in a crowd, but I located her at last, talking to a tall blond man who had his back to me. His head was tilted down towards her, exposing a stretch of tanned skin between the collar of his shirt and his exceptionally neat hairline – a perfect horizontal line that my finger itched to trace. I must have drunk more than I thought, because as I stared at his neck, my lips tingled with an inexplicable urge to taste that warm skin.
Heat raced through my blood, carrying with it the echo of a long-forgotten memory. My feet wouldn’t move, either forwards or backwards. And then Daisy glanced in my direction, waved, and her companion turned and smiled. My lungs seized with horror, shame, and sheer wrongness as I realised that the stranger who had stirred the unfamiliar desire, reminded me of the passion that I had chosen to live without, wasn’t a stranger at all. It was my brother-in-law, Ethan.
In my frantic haste to return to the barn, I crashed into a man in the doorway, sending a lump of red cabbage somersa
ulting onto his pale shirt. Efficient and capable? I had never felt less.
‘Mary?’ The man took hold of my arm and steadied me. It was Owen. I hadn’t known he was coming tonight. He smiled and I relaxed. ‘What’s the matter? You look like you’ve seen the proverbial ghost.’
‘Sorry,’ I said, fighting to return to normal. ‘Look at your shirt.’ I picked off a clinging shred of cabbage. A pink stain remained. ‘I have something that will get that out, if you let me have it.’
‘Now? You’d like me to take my shirt off here?’
‘No, of course not …’ It took me a moment to realise he was joking.
‘Don’t worry. I can wash my own shirt.’
‘Can you?’ Leo had never touched a washing machine, as far as I knew.
‘Shall we start again?’ Owen let go of my arm. ‘Hello, Mary, it’s good to see you. Come and sit down and eat your hotpot.’
There was something so gloriously mundane about that sentence, that I let him steer me over to some empty chairs. He chatted about Lucilla and school, and the brilliance of the rock choir, while I picked at my food. I thought I’d lost my appetite, but Owen was such restful, easy company that my plate soon emptied. He took if off me and stood up.
‘Another wine or would you like a coffee?’
‘Wine, please.’
He threaded his way to the bar, squeezing past people with polite diffidence. There was something solidly reassuring about his broad back and sturdy waist. Light brown hair lapped over his collar; no sliver of exposed neck there to catch women unawares. Panic fluttered in my chest. It hadn’t been Ethan, surely? He was in New York. Audrey had mentioned him yesterday, doing something or other in New York. He wasn’t supposed to be in the country until July, so he couldn’t be here, right now, at Foxwood Farm, and I couldn’t be fantasising about his neck. It was impossible, and it was wrong. Unnatural. Undesirable. Undesirable desire. I was in danger of becoming hysterical.