Love at First Fight

by Mary Jayne Baker

  ‘All right, if my body’s so upsetting to you.’ He pulled his T-shirt back on and approached her. ‘There, all covered up. Happy?’

  ‘Ecstatic. Come on, let’s get out of here before people talk. I need breakfast, coffee and a shower before I can function today, in whatever order they happen to present themselves.’

  ‘Hang on.’ He rested a hand on her shoulder. ‘Bridie, before we go back…’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Last night. What we talked about.’

  She turned around to face him. ‘Do we have to go through that again? I’m still trying to process it. There’ll be other times… other places for this conversation.’

  ‘There was something else I didn’t tell you. Something I was too afraid to say, but… I think you deserve to know it.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Back then, when we were kids, I actually think…’ He drew in a deep breath and exhaled slowly before going on. ‘I think… I was kind of falling for you. That’s why I was so afraid of being with you that night. Those feelings were new and frightening, and I didn’t know what to make of them. There’s the whole truth of it.’

  Bridie stared at him. ‘You can’t mean that.’

  ‘I bloody do mean it. That’s what I’ve been working out, these past few weeks since… since I started thinking some stuff through. There were a lot of things I had to dig in deep to find out about myself and that was the biggest one. I didn’t understand it fully at eighteen but I do now.’ He curled one arm around her waist to draw her to him. ‘Bridie, I’m sorry,’ he said softly. ‘Sorry for not telling you then. Sorry for nearly wimping out of telling you now. You deserved to know all this a long time ago.’

  She looked up into his eyes, keen and intense, fixed on her face. ‘Ben, I… I really don’t know what to say,’ she whispered.

  ‘You might tell me you felt the same.’ He trailed his fingertips over her cheek. ‘And that… maybe it’s not too late for us?’

  ‘Us?’ Everything felt dreamlike suddenly, with the little waterfall chattering behind them, the scent of early-blooming heather and the wail of calling curlews in the air. Unreal, weightless, just as it had the night of Hattie’s party, out on the veranda with Bruce…

  ‘Us,’ Ben repeated softly. He bent to connect his lips with hers, and Bridie’s arms snaked around his neck as she allowed herself to kiss him back.

  ‘God, I missed this,’ he whispered when he drew away. ‘You still taste like cherries, Bride.’

  His eyes looked almost liquid this close up: a deep, mellow brown, with that expression in them – that old, familiar expression she remembered so well from schooldays, sort of laughing and sad both at the same time. And that jawline, covered now in Ben’s customary designer stubble rather than clean-shaven as it had been the night… the night of…

  ‘Oh my God!’ She struggled out of his arms and pushed him away.

  He frowned. ‘Bridie? What’s wrong?’

  She shook her head, laughing. ‘Christ, I’ve been blind! It was you, wasn’t it? It was fucking you!’

  ‘What was me?’

  ‘Don’t play dumb. That night at the party. Bruce.’

  He looked taken aback. ‘I… well, yes, all right. I’ll admit it. It was me.’

  ‘So that’s why! That’s why you suddenly decided to rehash all this stuff from the past.’ She put a palm to her forehead. ‘I can’t believe I was that naive. This whole thing, it’s just been one big seduction ploy, hasn’t it? You knew how I felt about what happened at the ball, and so you… you exploited it to make me like you again! Why, Ben? Because I’m the only girl in town you haven’t been to bed with yet? Had to have the full set, did you?’

  ‘Bridie, no! That isn’t it at all. Come here.’

  He tried to embrace her again, but she pushed him away, tears in her eyes.

  ‘For the second time in my life you’ve made me look and feel like a complete fool, Ben Kemp,’ she whispered. ‘You, a virgin, at eighteen! Falling for me!’ She curled her lip in disgust. ‘God, what an utter crock. And despite knowing exactly what you’re like, what you’ve always been like, I went for it just like the stupid, inexperienced girl I was the first time you pulled this crap on me.’

  ‘It wasn’t a crock, Bridie. Honestly, that’s what happened.’

  He rested a hand on her shoulder, but she pushed it away.

  ‘Don’t touch me, Ben. Don’t come near me,’ she said in a choked voice. ‘I might’ve made the mistake of believing you once, I might even have been mug enough to do it twice, but a third time? Not a chance.’

  Shooting him a look that, if there was any justice in the universe, really ought to have the power to strike him stone dead, she marched off back to the camp.

  Eighteen

  Hattie was frowning at her phone when Meg joined her at the fire circle.

  ‘What’s up, Hat?’ she said.

  ‘Just wondering why Cal hasn’t rung me back. He said we could have a chat before bed last night but there was no answer when I called him.’

  ‘Probably nodded off in front of the TV.’

  ‘That’s what I thought, but he ought to be up and on his way to work by now. I left him two voicemails and a text and he hasn’t responded to any of them.’

  ‘Because he knows he’ll see you later. He’s dropping off an extra tent for us at the next site.’

  Hattie brightened. ‘Oh yeah, I forgot about that. Hopefully we can sneak in a cuddle before he has to go home again. I know it’s only been a day, but I’m missing him like mad.’ She cast a glum look at the phone. ‘A fair bit more than he’s missing me, if he can’t even manage to stay awake for my call.’

  ‘Oh, give the lad a break. He’s probably just tired.’ Meg nodded towards Bridie marching in the direction of the cluster of teacher tents in the distance, face like a wet weekend, with a sodden-haired Ben jogging behind her as if trying to get her attention. ‘Looks like there’s trouble in paradise.’

  Hattie frowned. ‘What’s she got that face on her for? They seemed like they were on the verge of being all over each other last night when we left them alone, reminiscing about how much they fancied each other at school. I really thought we’d cracked it.’

  ‘Well, something’s obviously got her back up.’

  Hattie watched as Bridie studiously ignored Ben calling her name.

  ‘She knows,’ she muttered.

  Meg frowned. ‘What, that Ben’s her Batman guy? How would she have found that out? We’ve sworn everyone to secrecy.’

  ‘I don’t know but she does. I can tell.’

  Bridie ducked into her tent, pointedly zipping it up in Ben’s face when he tried to poke his head in after her. He hovered outside for a moment, then, obviously deciding it was best to give her time to cool off, wandered away somewhere else.

  ‘Maybe we shouldn’t have hidden it from her after all,’ Meg said.

  ‘No, this is good, I think.’ Hattie turned to face her. ‘We can use this to our advantage. It’s time for stage two, Meggy, and I reckon I know just how to do it.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Bridie’s not had her shower yet. She’s probably gone into her tent to grab her wash stuff. And I know for a fact that while she’s got five full shampoo bottles in her rucksack, not a single one of them contains any actual shampoo. She forgot to pack any.’

  Meg grinned. ‘Ah. Gotcha.’

  ‘Me, you and Ursula need to lurk somewhere she can’t see us and watch. When she works out she hasn’t got any shampoo, she’ll nip into our tent and help herself to mine, like the thieving mare she is. That’s when we all take our places outside to have The Chat.’

  Meg nodded. ‘Right. Let’s find Ursula and get cracking.’

  Bridie yanked the tent zip down in Ben’s face, only narrowly missing the skin of his stupid freckled nose. Then, when he could no longer see her, she burst into tears.

  She did her best to be quiet, whispering her sobs, while she waited to see if he�
�d try to follow her inside. He didn’t though; she could hear him walking away. Once she was sure he’d gone, she gave in and let herself have the good cry she so badly needed. She seemed to be spending a lot of this trip in tears, for some reason.

  Well, not for some reason. For one specific reason. Ben bloody Kemp, of course. What else?

  This was what happened when you lowered defences. She’d been lulled by exhaustion and vodka and kindness into forgetting the one promise she’d ever made to herself: that she’d never, ever trust Ben Kemp with anything again as long as she lived, least of all her heart. Why had she let herself believe him? She knew he had a line for every woman he met; that when it came to sex he’d say anything to get what he wanted. The nostalgia evoked by finding herself on another expedition with him, reminding her of when they’d first begun a physical relationship – the heady thrill of those early fumbling, exploring touches – had overruled every jot of good sense she had.

  So he’d been laughing at her, had he? This whole time, he’d been laughing in his sleeve at her – and sneering at her too, probably. He’d tricked her into a kiss at the party, when she hadn’t known who he was, and again just now when she’d allowed herself to forget, briefly, that promise she’d made to herself.

  God, the party. Her cheeks burned with humiliation whenever she thought of it. The way he’d let her open up to him, tell him her most painful secret, when at any time he could have revealed who he really was. What for? To score off her? To seduce her? He hadn’t wanted her ten years ago, but that didn’t mean to say he wouldn’t sleep with her now if the chance arose. Bedding her would be the ultimate victory for him, wouldn’t it? Then he could finally declare himself the winner in this little war they’d been trapped in now for nearly a decade.

  ‘Ugh!’ She glared at her washbag, then, on a sudden impulse, picked it up and threw it hard at the side of the tent. It bounced off the canvas and hit her in the face.

  ‘Fucking thing!’ she muttered, rubbing her cheek. ‘He’s even trained his bastard tent to injure me. Stupid tiny bastard fucking stupid Ben tent.’

  She heard a voice shouting outside – Duxbury’s voice.

  ‘Last call for showers!’ he yelled. ‘I want everyone lined up here, washed and fed with their kit packed, in no more than an hour. Spit spot, you lazy sods.’

  Bridie sniffed, wiping her eyes on her sleeve. There was no time for wallowing now. She had to get showered and dressed so she could go do her job. She started pulling out the various bottles of shampoo she’d packed.

  Dry hair, greasy hair, coloured hair, conditioner, heat treatment serum…

  ‘Bollocks,’ she muttered. Every single one of them was filled with booze. How the hell had she managed to forget to bring actual shampoo? She had five bottles of what were ostensibly hair treatment products but not a single one she could actually put on her hair, unless she wanted to spend the day stinking of sauvignon.

  Hat would have some though. She was always the organised one. Bridie unzipped the tent and looked around the campsite for her friend.

  There was no sign of her, or Meg or Ursula either. Where were they? Helping the kids pack up?

  ‘Come on, Ms Morgan, get a shift on,’ Duxbury said sternly, noticing her head poking out. ‘We need to be out of here soon.’

  ‘Yes. I just, um… need to get something I left in Hattie’s tent.’

  ‘Mmm. Need to swap some of your shampoos, do you?’

  ‘No. Er, toothpaste. She’s got our toothpaste.’

  ‘All right, off you go then. Don’t drag your boots.’ He wandered off in the direction of the children’s tents to give any malingerers a poke with a sharpened stick.

  Bridie unzipped Hattie’s tent and crawled in, fastening the door behind her. Her friend wouldn’t mind her going through her stuff, she was sure. They did it all the time at home. Housemates of three years’ standing could have no secrets from each other, just like they couldn’t have any property to call their own.

  At least, for as long as they were housemates. Bridie was currently trying very hard not to think about the fact that in just three weeks’ time, she’d be losing her Hattie when Cal came to take her away. Another Kemp determined to cause trouble for her, she reflected savagely, even though she knew that wasn’t fair.

  Which rucksack was Hat’s? It was a bit dim inside the tent, with the sunlight filtering through the orange canvas to make everything look the same colour. Deciding it was almost certainly the middle one, Bridie started pulling out the shampoo bottles nestled among pairs of walking socks and thermal underwear.

  She popped open the first bottle and gave it a sniff. Nope, that was definitely merlot, not the aloe vera extra moist it claimed to be. The second… pinot noir, she was sure. The third was vodka…

  Hang on, no, that couldn’t be right. Hattie hadn’t packed any spirits. This must be Meg’s bag.

  She turned to the one next to it and started unpacking a liquor cabinet’s worth of shampoo bottles from that instead. God, this was going to take a while…

  Footsteps squelched in the mud outside, and Bridie froze. It wasn’t Ben, was it, come to seek her out again? He was the last person she wanted to talk to now, just when she’d managed to get her emotions back under control before another long day’s walking. She kept completely still, breathing as quietly as she could while she waited for him – if it was him – to go search for her somewhere else.

  ‘Well, our lovesick little puppy looked very cheerful last night, don’t you think, girls?’ a voice said.

  Bridie frowned. That was Ursula, wasn’t it? What was she talking about, lovesick puppies? Not Adrian? Bridie knew things were going well with him and Meg, but it was a bit early for that kind of talk. They’d only had four dates so far.

  ‘I know,’ another voice said with a laugh – Hattie’s voice. ‘He had that dreams-do-come-true look in his eyes when Bridie was being all soft and smiley with him, didn’t he?’

  Bridie stiffened. Her? They were talking about her?

  ‘Cal’s definitely sure, is he?’ Meg asked Hattie. ‘I mean, do you really believe Ben’s feelings for her are as strong as his brother makes out they are?’

  What? Bridie gripped the tent’s groundsheet, her head spinning.

  ‘I don’t need to believe it. Cal had it straight from the horse of a different colour, as Duxbury might say,’ Hattie told her. ‘Ben confided everything to him over a beer two weeks ago. It all just came spilling out: how he’d fallen for her when they were kids; how he went travelling to try and get over it, but as soon as he saw her again it was back as strong as ever. How afraid he was to let her see his feelings because of the way she always is with him.’

  Bridie couldn’t have moved now if she wanted to. She felt numb in every limb. Her breath seemed to be stuck in her throat.

  Fallen for her… when they were kids… the very echoes of Ben’s words at the waterfall, right before he’d kissed her. But that had been a lie, surely. Just a trick, because she’d made the mistake of telling him he’d broken her heart when she’d believed he was Bruce that night.

  ‘She is very hard on him,’ Ursula said. ‘Poor lad, you can see in his eyes how it upsets him.’

  ‘I know,’ Hattie said soberly. ‘Mind you, he did hurt her a lot once. She’s got a right to be sore about it, hasn’t she?’

  ‘That was so long ago though.’

  ‘Yes, but it’s part of her now, that pain. I honestly don’t think she’ll ever be able to put it behind her and trust him again.’ Hattie sighed. ‘Poor Ben. Ten years trying to suppress how he feels; keep it all inside. Cal told me that when Ben confessed it all to him a fortnight ago, it was the first time he’d seen his brother cry since they were kids. I think that was the day Ben finally realised he couldn’t lie to himself about it any more.’

  Bridie felt a twinge in her chest. A fortnight ago – that was when she’d seen Ben at the flat. The day he’d claimed to be ill from some unspecified sickness, when he’d looked so
rough and behaved so strangely towards her.

  Now she thought about it, Bridie wasn’t sure she’d ever seen Ben cry as an adult either. He wasn’t the sort to show emotion easily: he never had been. Had she done that, made him cry? She hadn’t meant to really hurt him when they’d been trading insults. She thought he was impervious to emotional pain: as undentable in that respect as he was shameless. Besides, he’d always seemed to enjoy their sparring, just as she did.

  And yet… no, it couldn’t be true. She didn’t believe it – she wouldn’t. Cal must’ve got the wrong end of the stick somehow. Ben Kemp, in love with her! Ben, who didn’t do marriage or love or relationships or even second dates, sobbing into his pint because he didn’t dare tell her how he felt. It simply wasn’t possible.

  ‘I think you’re right,’ Meg said to Hattie. ‘She really sounds like she hates him when she talks about him. I don’t think she ever will be able to put it behind her, what happened between them.’ Meg fell into thoughtful silence for a moment. ‘It’s a shame, I’ve always liked Ben. He’s got a good heart under that put-on cockiness. I hope he can get over it and meet someone else to make him happy.’

  ‘He’ll have plenty of women who can comfort him in his little black book, I suppose,’ Ursula said.

  ‘I don’t think casual sex is a very healthy way to get over lovesickness, do you?’ Hattie said. ‘Cal reckons all those years sleeping around, never having a proper girlfriend, was just denial about his feelings for Bridie. I doubt yet another one-night stand is going to be anything more than a temporary sticking plaster for him.’

  ‘Does Bridie know it was him who kissed her at your party?’ Meg asked.

  ‘Course she doesn’t. We promised we wouldn’t tell, and there’s no one else who knows about it.’

  ‘Why did Ben swear us all to secrecy like that? Adrian’s not too happy at having to pretend it was another man I was with that night.’

  ‘I guess he was embarrassed. Embarrassed that he’d let his feelings get the better of him and given in to that desire to be close to her. He told Cal it was just so wonderful to see her being sweet to him for a change, he couldn’t help himself.’