The Man I Fell in Love With

by Kate Field

  ‘I’ve not been down here for years,’ Ethan said, as we strolled down the lane and the cottage came into view. ‘I’d forgotten this place existed. It’s an idyllic spot, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, but I wouldn’t have thought it would appeal to you. A bit quiet after New York, isn’t it?’

  ‘The New York you’ve seen on TV. There’s much more to it. I love going running in Prospect Park. You can get away from the noise and the crowds, and see nothing but countryside. It reminds me of home.’

  He sounded almost wistful, which was a surprise, because I’d always assumed he disliked living around here. He’d certainly vanished to New York in a hurry; little more than three weeks after announcing his plan, he’d gone. Leo and I had only just made it back from our honeymoon in time to say goodbye.

  ‘I didn’t think you missed it here,’ I said.

  ‘Some things. More than you know.’ He smiled, and the wistfulness was gone. ‘Come on. The agent’s waiting. I hope she doesn’t mind Dotty.’

  The estate agent adored Dotty – she was an irresistible dog when on her best behaviour – and offered to look after her in the garden while we looked around the house. I couldn’t wait to see what it was like inside, and hovered eagerly at her shoulder as she unlocked the front door.

  ‘You’re like a greyhound keening to get out of the trap,’ Ethan murmured in my ear. ‘Steady on. I hope you’re not going to be disappointed.’

  ‘How could there be disappointment behind a door like this?’

  It was an amazing door; an amazing building. The Victorians had clearly believed that even a functional building for a lowly waterman should be beautiful. It was built from huge rectangular stones, blackened with age, and at one end stood a two-storey tower complete with turret. The door itself was a massive wooden arch, with black iron straps. It swung open at last and I charged in.

  It didn’t take long to explore the downstairs, and we wandered around pretty much in silence; mainly because Ethan was busy with the practical man things, looking out for plug sockets and telephone points, and I was stunned into silence by how gorgeous it was inside. It was better than I could ever have expected: all golden oak floors and woodwork, open fires, and an extension made almost entirely of glass offering panoramic views that I could have gazed at all day.

  Without waiting for Ethan, I headed upstairs and found two small but pretty bedrooms, a family bathroom, and the most incredible master bedroom I had ever seen. It was on the top floor of the tower, and glass panels had been placed in the flat ceiling so you could lie in bed and gaze at the stars. There was an open fire in one of the walls, and near it a free-standing roll-top bath.

  ‘Quite a love nest in here, isn’t it?’ Ethan crept up behind me and stole my thoughts.

  ‘I might have known that’s what you were looking for.’

  He grinned, the saucy grin that had won over every girl in our year at school, and I tried to chase away the image of him entertaining in that bath, bare skin against bare skin, glowing in the heat of a crackling fire. He kicked off his shoes and lay on the bed.

  ‘You’ve got to come and look at this,’ he said.

  I perched on the edge of the bed and dropped my head back.

  ‘Not like that.’ Ethan laughed. ‘You need to lie down to get the full effect.’ I didn’t move. Ethan rolled his eyes, grabbed one of the pillows from under his head, and placed it in the middle of the bed. ‘There. Your virtue is totally safe now.’

  ‘I never thought it was in danger!’

  Feeling like an old prude, I pulled off my boots and lay down, being careful to stick close to the edge of the bed. I gazed up through the glass ceiling at the sky: it was like a living water colour painting, splashes of translucent white cloud chasing across a blue backdrop. It was hypnotic, and I felt more relaxed than I had done in weeks.

  ‘Amazing, isn’t it?’ Ethan’s voice broke the spell, and I turned my head to find his eyes fixed on me, such a bright blue that they could have been mirrors reflecting the sky.

  ‘Irritating when the sun comes up at 4 a.m.,’ I said, deliberately shattering the strange mood. Ethan laughed, making the bed vibrate in a disturbing way beneath me.

  ‘Where’s your sense of romance, Mary? Imagine lying here and being kissed awake by the soft touch of the rising sun. What could you do in those extra hours?’

  ‘Clean the oven, scrub the toilets, finish the ironing, walk the dog …’

  At last he looked away, and I watched the clouds again, but struggled to recover the peace I had found before.

  ‘Why has this place been for sale so long?’ Ethan asked. ‘I can’t believe it hasn’t been snapped up.’

  ‘The price, for a start. They wanted three-quarters of a million when it first went on the market.’

  ‘Sounds reasonable, when you look at the location and the quality of the renovation.’

  ‘Reasonable?’ I goggled at him. ‘You’ve lived in New York too long. I don’t call it the fortune house for nothing. But that’s not the only thing. A lot of people in Stoneybrook think it’s an unlucky house. The couple who renovated it so beautifully fell out during the work, and divorced before they ever spent a night here.’

  ‘Not a curse either of us need worry about.’

  There was nothing I could say to that: it was true, and thoroughly depressing. The bed shook as Ethan rolled over and tossed aside the pillow between us.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, putting his hand on my arm. ‘That was tactless.’

  My mobile phone rang, and I leapt off the bed to fish it out of my bag. Owen’s number flashed up. I stepped out onto the landing to answer.

  ‘Hello?’ I whispered.

  ‘Mary? I can barely hear you. Are you in the middle of something?’

  ‘No. Nothing at all.’ I glanced towards the open bedroom door. Ethan hadn’t moved. I could hardly tell Owen that I had been lying on a bed with a man; and not just a man – Leo’s brother. What had come over me? It was those hypnotic clouds: they had raced away with my senses. ‘But shouldn’t you be in the middle of something? Haven’t you a class to teach?’

  ‘It’s a free period.’

  ‘Aren’t they for marking, not ringing me?’

  ‘I don’t set homework so close to exams. The students have enough pressure, don’t they?’ I smiled: it was the sort of thing Leo would say. ‘Besides, I’d rather talk to you than do marking.’

  ‘That’s good,’ I said. It was a fatuous reply, but I wasn’t used to people – men – saying nice things to me, and I was too aware of Ethan’s proximity to say anything more.

  ‘You sound distracted. Are you sure I’m not interrupting?’

  ‘Sorry. I’m taking Dotty for a walk. You know what she’s like.’

  Owen laughed, such a warm, understanding laugh that I felt doubly guilty for lying to him.

  ‘I do. You need all your wits about you. I won’t keep you. I was reminded earlier that there’s a PTA meeting tonight. I’ve been press-ganged to join. Are you going?’

  ‘Yes, I’ll be there.’

  ‘Great. Would you like to go for a drink afterwards?’

  The bed creaked loudly as Ethan moved.

  ‘Yes, I’d love to. I’ll see you later.’

  I returned to the bedroom, my socks skidding on the wooden floor. I sat on the edge of the bed, brushed the dust off the soles of my feet, and put my walking boots on again. The mattress rocked as Ethan sat up. There was an odd atmosphere as we sat on opposite sides of the bed, back to back, putting our shoes on; as if it were the end of an affair, and we were about to return to our ordinary lives. I shook my head, casting off such stupid imaginings.

  ‘Was that Leo on the phone?’ Ethan asked, as we met at the bedroom door. ‘Why didn’t you tell him you were with me?’

  ‘It wasn’t Leo.’

  Ethan paused, as if he were processing that thought.

  ‘Are you seeing someone else? Already?’

  Perhaps I was still feeling gu
ilty about misleading Owen, but something about Ethan’s tone – about that ‘already’ – rubbed me up the wrong way.

  ‘What if I am? It’s none of your business.’

  ‘Perhaps not, but …’

  ‘And what do you mean, already? It’s almost five months since Leo left.’

  ‘I know. I just didn’t think you would have got over him so soon. Who is it?’

  ‘No one you know.’ I couldn’t meet his eye. ‘A teacher at Broadholme.’

  ‘A teacher?’ Ethan shook his head. ‘What did you do, scour the local schools and colleges for a Leo substitute?’

  I pushed past him and stomped off down the stairs, but Ethan ran down behind me and wouldn’t shut up.

  ‘You’re not moving on, you’re moving backwards. You know I’m right – I can see it in your face. You can’t wheel this teacher in to replace Leo and pretend nothing ever happened.’

  ‘It’s nothing to do with replacing Leo! How could I replace him? I was with him for over half my life. No one will ever know me as well as he does.’ Although he didn’t know this me, this grumpy, argumentative me. But that was besides the point. ‘Owen seems a decent, kind man. I like him. He’s good company. What’s wrong with that?’

  ‘Everything! You’re thirty-eight, not ninety! You should be having fun, excitement, adventure – a rich, colourful life, not settling for more beige.’

  ‘How do I have adventures with two children, an ex-husband, a dog, a house, a mother, a mother-in-law, and a huge heap of responsibilities? Real life is beige.’

  ‘And what does Leo think about this teacher? Does he know?’

  ‘No. But as he’s already tried to fix me up with one of Clark’s friends, I shouldn’t think he’ll care. So you’ve no reason to object, have you?’

  It was a rhetorical question, so I hadn’t expected to see such a struggle on Ethan’s face as he tried to work out an answer. He hadn’t given one before the front door opened, and the estate agent tentatively peered in.

  ‘How’s it going?’ she asked. ‘Do you need more time?’

  ‘We’ve had more than enough,’ I said. ‘Thanks for minding Dotty.’ I plucked the lead from her hand and stalked off up the lane, leaving Ethan behind.

  To their great disgust, Mum would be babysitting Jonas and Ava while I attended the PTA meeting; usually I had relied on Leo being home, and although Ava argued vociferously that they were too old to need a minder, I still didn’t feel comfortable leaving them alone. I called at Mum’s garage on my way back from Waterman’s Cottage to check that she wouldn’t mind hanging on a little longer while I met Owen for a drink.

  I knocked on the door as usual and went in without waiting for an answer.

  ‘Mum?’

  The living area, a combined lounge and dining kitchen, was empty. I was about to check the bathroom when the bedroom door opened a sliver, and Mum appeared, wrapped in a silky dressing gown. She pulled the door closed behind her.

  ‘What are you wearing?’ I asked. The dressing gown was plum, with a Japanese-style pattern on it. I’d never seen her wear anything so colourful or so impractical.

  ‘A dressing gown.’

  ‘That’s not the one I bought you for Christmas.’

  ‘No, well, I’m saving that one for best.’

  Now I was suspicious. The one I had bought her for Christmas was a fluffy old-lady affair, with a high neck and big buttons. There was no way anyone would think it better than the slinky number she was wearing.

  ‘Why are you in your dressing gown in the middle of the afternoon? Are you ill?’

  ‘I was having a bath. Stop being so nosy, Mary. I don’t pry into your affairs.’

  She didn’t need to – she simply watched it all from her window. Not that I had affairs – or not the interesting kind, anyway. Mum tightened the belt on her robe, and as she did, the neckline sagged for a moment, revealing more wrinkled cleavage than I could ever have wished to see.

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’ Mum asked. ‘You’ll turn the milk sour with that face.’

  ‘It’s the only one I’ve got.’ I sighed. ‘It’s just something Ethan said.’

  ‘I might have known. He always did stir you up like no one else. I was worried for a while …’ She stopped, which was a rare thing: she didn’t usually hold her opinion back. ‘I mustn’t keep you. Did you want something?’

  ‘Only to see if you’d mind staying with the children for an extra hour or two tonight.’

  ‘I suppose I could do an hour. Are you expecting the meeting to go on?’

  ‘Yes.’ Two lies in an hour! My conscience cracked under the strain. ‘Actually, no. I thought I might go out for a drink afterwards. With one of the teachers,’ I added, giving full disclosure.

  ‘Yes, okay.’ She obviously hadn’t heard me, or else there would have been a million questions. She fiddled with the door handle behind her, and then suddenly she coughed, but it was a fraction too late. I had already heard it – the sound of movement in the bedroom behind her. Dear God, what would I have seen if I had walked in there earlier?

  ‘Are you …?’ What word could I possibly use, that wouldn’t cement the horrific images whisking through my head? ‘Entertaining?’

  ‘Is it so unlikely?’ Frankly, yes it was. Apart from the obvious objections – she was old, and my mother – she had shown no interest in any other man since my dad vanished. What had this mystery man got that had won her over? On second thoughts, perhaps it was better not to know.

  ‘That’s great news,’ I said, because, ignoring the revolting mental images, it could only be a good thing if she had something to occupy her other than finding criticisms of me.

  ‘Yes, it is,’ Mum said, and then she smiled and I caught my breath – because for an instant, this wrinkled, grey-haired woman had the look of the warm-hearted mum from my early childhood that I had all but forgotten about.

  Chapter 12

  We weren’t rumbled until the very end of the PTA meeting, so close to making a successful getaway that I had mentally removed my gloves and balaclava.

  The meeting had droned on for a couple of hours, while simple decisions were broken down into so many unnecessary details that the original question was buried under all the rubble. Our esteemed leader Marissa, never my greatest fan, had been a model of restraint, with only two pointed references in my direction: once when she had mentioned what a gay afternoon she’d had, and once when she had delighted in describing someone as a ‘man’s man’ with an arch look at her cronies.

  When the ‘any other business’ was finally exhausted, Daisy leaned over and whispered in my ear.

  ‘Thank God for that. I think if I’d heard her say ‘but’ one more time, I’d have jumped over the table and head-butted her.’

  I laughed.

  ‘What day is it? I feel like we’ve been here for weeks. I’m desperate for a drink now.’

  ‘Fab idea. Shall we sneak off to the Hat & Feathers? I could furtively round up a few of the others.’

  ‘Oh … well … I suppose you could. I’ve already agreed to go with Owen.’

  ‘You’re going to the pub with Owen?’ I don’t know why I’d bothered lowering my voice; Daisy’s excited shriek caught the attention of the entire room.

  ‘What’s this?’ Marissa turned back from the door. She looked at Owen. ‘Are we adjourning somewhere for drinks, Mr Ferguson?’ She glanced at her watch. ‘I can give you an hour.’

  I couldn’t believe I had risked catching my mother in flagrante just to spend another hour with Marissa.

  ‘It’s not group drinks,’ Owen said. ‘I’m going out with Mary.’

  It was clear from the gasps, wide eyes, and flapping mouths that most of the other members of the PTA took this as a declaration of a relationship rather than of Owen’s plans for the next sixty minutes. Even Daisy nudged me and bulged her eyes in a gruesome way that I took to mean she wanted further information.

  ‘Well!’ I’d never seen Marissa speec
hless before. I didn’t know whether to be relieved or affronted: was it so unlikely that I would have a date? Even my mother had looked less surprised. ‘That is interesting news! Of course we wouldn’t dream of getting in your way.’

  I groaned: the news would be all round school by tomorrow. Ava was going to kill me, unless the embarrassment killed her first.

  ‘It’s a two-minute wonder,’ Owen said, apropos of nothing, after nearly an hour in the pub. I thought I’d hidden my anxiety about being gossiped over, and been a bright and cheery companion; obviously not. ‘We’re not interesting enough to make the headlines for long.’

  That was true, but it was also utterly depressing. I couldn’t help remembering Ethan’s remarks. Were we too beige to be noticed? I glanced down: jeans and a grey jersey top. No colour there either. Had I always been so invisible?

  My bonus hour was up. I picked up my bag and Owen followed me out to the car park. He waited at my side as I unlocked the car.

  ‘Do you think it’s time we tried something more than dog walks and snatched drinks?’ he asked.

  ‘More?’

  ‘Come to my house one night. I’ll cook.’

  ‘One night?’ What did that mean? How much of the night did he have in mind? My fingers were glued so tightly to the key fob that I inadvertently locked the car again.

  ‘The kids are with me this weekend, but what about Friday or Saturday next week?’

  ‘For the night?’ I was being ridiculously skittish, but nerves and uncertainty were making me stupid.

  ‘I hadn’t planned that far ahead.’ Owen’s cheeks darkened, but curiously, instead of feeling more embarrassed, I was relieved and touched that he was finding this as awkward as I was. He was a good and kind man, just as I had told Ethan. I liked him. Perhaps it was time I took the next step – added some colour to my dull life, made myself visible. I could do this, couldn’t I?

  ‘Let’s say Friday,’ I said, and I pressed a kiss to his lips and escaped before I could change my mind.