Summer in the Orchard

by Fay Keenan

  ‘Sure about what?’ Alex was beyond angry; with Mark for pushing his luck, and with himself for bottling out of coming clean with Sophie and the rest of them. Whatever Mark had to say to him had better be worth his time, or he really would put the other man on his backside.

  Mark grinned slowly, savagely, and Alex felt ice dripping down his spine. ‘I don’t know why I didn’t realise it before. Seeing you standing next to that photo of him on Saturday night. It was so obvious. You’re not taking the piss, are you? You really are Jack Carter’s son.’

  Alex shook his head, stunned that someone as outwardly clueless as Mark should be the one who finally worked things out and blew his cover. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Don’t I?’ Mark said, taking a step back from Alex’s immediate reach, just in case Alex did decide he wanted to deck him. ‘When I heard you in the museum on Saturday night it all fell into place. Jack was a naughty boy back in the day, wasn’t he?’

  ‘You’re talking bullshit,’ Alex replied, his mind racing.

  ‘No.’ Mark shook his head. ‘No, I’m right. You know I am. I’m surprised no one’s found you out before now. You’ve been here for weeks, sniffing around the Carters and their business, trying to find out about your dead daddy.’ He grinned maliciously. ‘And I suppose Sophie was just a pawn in your little game, was she? Someone to get information out of.’ He paused. ‘Or maybe she was just a fuck buddy to keep you warm at night?’

  Alex’s temper snapped. He lunged forward, pushing Mark back against the railings of the cider farm’s open gate. Seeing the other man wince as the spokes winded him, he raised a fist. ‘You need to shut your mouth, or I’ll shut it for you.’

  Mark, despite being several inches shorter than Alex, was unafraid. ‘Too close to home, was I? Come on, Alex; you know I’m right. Sophie was just a distraction for you. Well, you can leave her alone now. It’s about time she came back to me, anyway.’

  ‘What did you say?’ Alex’s fist trembled where it hovered in the air, waiting to strike.

  Mark let the moment hang in the air before he spoke. ‘You stay away from Sophie, mate, or I will go to her and tell her why you’re really here in Little Somerby, and, if I know Sophie, she’ll kick your arse so hard, you’ll end up back in Canada without having to get on a fucking plane.’

  Alex let his hand drop. ‘She won’t believe you.’

  ‘Oh, she will.’ Alex laughed humourlessly. ‘One close look at you and she’ll put it all together. You’re fucked, mate. And I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes if Matthew or Jonathan Carter find out who you are, either.’

  ‘Find out what?’ At that moment, on his way to his office, Jonathan Carter appeared. Immediately clocking Alex’s fist in the air and Mark up against the gate, he asked, ‘What’s going on here?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Alex muttered, ashamed to have been caught out in such a loss of control. He dropped his arm and released his other hand from where it had balled in the collar of Mark’s grubby polo shirt.

  ‘I wouldn’t say that,’ Mark panted, hauling himself off the gate. Feeling markedly more assured now that Alex had released him, and making the assumption that he’d have Jonathan as back up, whose morals used to be as shady as his sunglasses, he glanced back at Alex, who suddenly looked completely defeated. With a triumphant look in his eye, Mark turned back to Jonathan. ‘Mr Carter, I’d like to introduce you to your long lost brother.’

  32

  Time seemed to slow down, and Alex felt the adrenaline rush of fight or flight kicking in. His legs started to tremble as he stood there, waiting for Jonathan’s response.

  ‘What are you on about?’ Jonathan said. ‘I don’t really have time for jokes right now.’

  ‘I swear I’m not taking the piss,’ Mark insisted. ‘He’s your brother. I heard him say it at the party the other night.’

  ‘Is it true?’ Jonathan said, his face as bleak as Alex’s had been a moment ago as the news started to sink in. ‘Are you my brother?’

  Alex took a deep, steadying breath and made a gargantuan effort to keep his gaze focussed on Jonathan. Suddenly, all of his noble ideas about keeping quiet, about leaving Little Somerby without a fuss at the end of his internship, seemed to fly out of the window. A yearning to be understood, to belong to the family he’d got to know over the past weeks, overwhelmed his more logical instincts. Now was not the time to look away. ‘Yes,’ he said softly. ‘Yes, I am.’

  Jonathan’s head snapped round to where Mark was still standing, a look of triumph etched on his weaselly features. ‘What are you still doing here? Get off this site, now. You don’t work here. You’ve got no reason to be hanging about.’

  Mark’s mouth dropped open, but one look from Jonathan’s set face to Alex’s haunted one convinced him it was better not to hang around. Without another word, he slid out of the gates.

  Jonathan continued to stare at Alex, seeming to take in every detail of the man’s face, his manner, his bearing, which was strangely diminished now the truth was out. ‘I can’t believe I didn’t see it before,’ he said, his voice deceptively soft. ‘It’s so fucking obvious.’ He shook his head. ‘You’re not taking the piss, are you? You really are Dad’s son.’ Half wonderingly, he shook his head. ‘And you’ve been here for weeks. You’ve had free fucking rein of this entire place. Christ only knows what you’ve found out here.’

  Alex just stared at Jonathan, whose eyes were as cold as ice chips. Despite the heat of the summer afternoon, Alex shivered. ‘I should have levelled with you.’

  ‘Yes,’ Jonathan conceded. ‘You fucking should have.’ Then, ultra casually, his tone belying the harshness of his words, he continued. ‘Pack your bags, clear your desk, and get out.’

  ‘Wh-what?’ Alex hated that, at this pivotal moment, this moment of revelation, the stammer that had dogged his early school years seemed to return. He suddenly felt like the child who didn’t quite fit into the family photo; who’d learned to throw a punch to defend, not just himself, but his mother from the sneers and comments of those who judged them both. He hated it. Jonathan had all the self-assurance of the monarch of the glen, and the way he looked at Alex cut straight through him.

  ‘You heard me. Get out of here, and don’t come back. I don’t know what you think you know, but I can tell you this: I don’t care if you’re Dad’s son or not. You’re nothing to do with us and you are not welcome here.’ Jonathan’s voice was still calm, but there was no ignoring the thread of steel that ran through it; he meant business.

  ‘You can’t do that!’ Alex said, all semblance of calm draining away to be replaced by sheer, blind panic. ‘I need answers from you; about Jack, about this place… about everything.’

  ‘You’re not going to get them,’ Jonathan said. ‘You’ve lost the right to any answers by insinuating yourself in here under false pretences, and lying your way into our confidence. I doubt your precious artisan cider farm actually exists at all, does it? Was that all a lie, too?’

  ‘No!’ Alex’s voice rose, partly in panic but mostly in flaring anger. ‘It’s all true. Adelaide’s is my dream. I came here to learn from you. But you’re right, I also came here to find out about my father. I need to know who he really was. And where I fit into all this.’

  ‘You don’t fit into it,’ Jonathan said brutally. He took a step towards Alex. Alex stood his ground, despite the now rising hatred in Jonathan’s eyes. ‘And you never will.’ His voice dropped lower. ‘If you go near any of my family before you leave, I will have you physically removed from this site, and, if I have my way, the whole fucking country.’

  ‘You don’t know what you’re doing.’ Alex’s voice shook. ‘Please, Jonathan…’

  ‘Oh, I do,’ Jonathan snapped. ‘My family and I don’t take kindly to liars. Especially liars who want to blow our lives apart. So you can get your things, and get the hell out of here.’

  Alex thought about arguing, but the look on Jonathan’s face told him it would be usele
ss. Feeling his eyes beginning to burn with shame and frustration to have been so close to finding out the truth, his truth, and then been denied, he nodded. He dropped his gaze. ‘For what it’s worth… I’m sorry. I should have been honest with you from the start.’

  Jonathan nodded curtly. ‘I won’t argue with that. I assume this will be the last I’ll see of you.’

  Alex nodded, not trusting himself to speak, the emotions churning up inside him too powerful to put into words. He wanted so desperately to keep pleading with Jonathan, but Jonathan had walked away, dismissing him as much with his actions as his words. Head down, Alex went to turn around. It was only as he caught sight of the building where Sophie’s office was that it hit him like a brick. How the hell was he going to explain all this to her?

  Before he had time to gather his thoughts, he was jolted to see Sophie herself walking across the courtyard between her office and the vat barns with Laura. Her hair was lit up by the summer sunshine, and her eyes sparkled when she caught sight of him. She’d obviously made it to work a lot sooner than he had. Panic stricken, and completely unsure about how on earth he was going to break the news of his sacking and dismissal from the farm to her, he just stood there.

  ‘Hello, stranger!’ Sophie said as Laura, with a knowing look, peeled off to the vat floor. ‘Where have you been?’

  The look of pleasure in her eyes, of delight at seeing him again, tore into Alex’s soul. For a long moment he couldn’t form the words to tell her.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked, obviously surprised by his reticence. ‘Don’t tell me the old Canadian reserve is kicking in again?’ She laughed nervously. ‘It’s a bit late for that!’

  ‘Can we talk?’ He hated the way his voice sounded.

  ‘Of course. Let me just radio David and let him know I’ll be out and about, and I’m all yours.’

  Without waiting for her to follow, Alex started walking.

  ‘Wait!’ Sophie jogged to reach him. She grabbed his arm, and her touch made him flinch. ‘Alex, what is it? What’s wrong?’ The smile she’d had when she’d first caught sight of him faded as she saw the bereft look on his face. ‘Tell me what’s happened.’

  Alex took a deep breath. ‘I’ve been fired, Sophie.’

  Sophie took a step back. ‘What? By who? Why? What did you do, stick a rat in the Vintage vat or something?’ She searched his face. ‘This isn’t a joke, is it? You’re serious.’

  Alex nodded. ‘Jonathan Carter’s told me to get out.’

  ‘But he can’t!’ Sophie said. ‘Why would he do that? What’s he got against you?’ She began to walk back towards the farm. ‘I’ll see if Matthew’s around. He’ll sort this out and overrule Jonathan.’

  ‘No.’ Alex shook his head. ‘Matthew won’t help, Sophie.’

  Sophie’s brow wrinkled. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I’ve been lying.’ Faced with Sophie’s earnest face, Alex felt his composure starting to fray at the edges. Facing Jonathan was one thing, but facing Sophie felt a hundred times worse. ‘I’ve lied to them, to you, to everyone.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Sophie’s voice was so low, Alex had to strain to hear it. ‘What have you been lying about?’

  ‘Sophie… I’m not who you think I am.’

  Sophie shook her head. ‘No. You are. You’re Alex Fraser, a lawyer turned cider maker from Canada. You’re a kind, decent man with ridiculous manners and too long hair who I’m falling in love with. I know you.’

  Alex bit his lip. ‘I’m so sorry, Sophie.’ He put his hands up to touch Sophie’s shoulders, terrified she’d bolt when she found out the truth. ‘I’m all that, yes, but I’m something else, too.’

  ‘What?’ Sophie suddenly went very still in Alex’s arms. She drew a deep breath and laughed nervously. ‘You’re not married, are you?’

  Alex shook his head. ‘No.’ He steeled himself to keep looking into Sophie’s eyes. ‘Sophie, I’m Jack Carter’s son.’

  The ground started to shift beneath Alex’s feet as he saw the colour drain from Sophie’s face when the true impact of his revelation hit her. ‘Sophie, I’m so, so sorry. I should have been honest with you. I should have told you. I wanted to, but I couldn’t.’ He tried to reach out to her as she stepped away from his grasp. ‘Can we go somewhere and talk? Please.’

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ Sophie whispered. ‘All this time, everything we’ve done and said. You were lying to me. Everything I told you.’ She shook her head, as if trying to clear her vision, to get a clearer picture of the man in front of her. ‘I told you things I haven’t told anyone.’

  Alex swallowed hard, the tears agonisingly close to the surface. ‘I know. And I can’t tell you how much that means to me. It doesn’t change how I feel about you, I swear.’

  Sophie’s voice trembled as she still struggled to process Alex’s revelation. ‘You were just using me for information about Jack.’ She shook her head. ‘That’s all this was, really, wasn’t it? You don’t care about me, or the cider making. You just wanted to find out everything you could about him. About—’ She choked on the phrase. ‘About your father.’

  ‘No!’ Alex was aware his voice was rising, but it was either that or break down. ‘It wasn’t like that. Adelaide’s really does exist. And so do the feelings I have for you. I never intended to hurt you. What I feel for you… the love I have for you… it’s all real, and I want you to know that I intended to level with you as soon as I could. And not like this.’ He tried to touch her, but she stepped out of his reach again. Frustrated, he took a step towards her, but she remained stubbornly out of his grasp.

  ‘You knew how much Mark had hurt me by fucking around and not being honest,’ Sophie said, her own voice dangerously low, ‘and you knew how much I needed you to be honest with me. Christ, Alex, I told you about the miscarriage, how it felt to lose the baby. And you haven’t been honest with me. You’ve been lying to me from the start to get what you wanted.’ Suddenly her eyes blazed with fury as she remembered their wonderful nights together under canvas at the Royal West Country Show. The way Alex had pointed out the constellations and explained how different they looked from how they looked in the British Columbian sky. Was that all part of his plan, too? To gain her trust and get her into bed, just so he could get closer to the truth about his father?

  ‘That’s not true!’ Alex said. ‘At the start I just wanted to learn as much as I could from you about blending, but, yes, I knew you were close to Jack before he died, and I wanted to find out what he was like; what the man who was my biological father was really like. My mother talked about him sometimes when I was little, about how he was a charming Englishman who’d swept her off her feet but how their affair couldn’t last, and I wanted to know if she was just being romantic. She never told me his name until the day she died. When I came here, with what I’d managed to find out about him on my own, I didn’t know what to think. But then I started spending more time with you and I realised it wasn’t just Jack and the business I wanted to know about; it was you. The more we were together, the more I realised that I was falling in love with you; that I wanted to know everything about you. The past was one thing, but I want you to be my future, Sophie. I love you.’

  ‘No.’ Sophie’s anger was rising. ‘No, you don’t love me, Alex. I was convenient. A silly girl who let herself be swept off her feet like a princess in a fairy tale. Well, you and I both know that life doesn’t work like that. You used me to get closer to the Carter family, and now they know who you are, you can leave, can’t you?’

  ‘I don’t want to leave,’ Alex said, trying to take one of Sophie’s hands. She quickly snatched it away before he could. ‘At least, I don’t want to leave without you.’

  ‘Well, you’ll have to,’ Sophie snapped back. ‘I wouldn’t go anywhere with you if you were the last man on earth.’

  ‘Sophie, please.’

  ‘Just go,’ Sophie repeated. ‘I never want to see you again. You used me, you used this place, and for what? Jack
would have been horrified.’

  ‘I doubt it.’ Exasperated and frustrated at not being able to reach her, Alex snapped back. ‘From what I understand of him, he’d have got it completely. I mean, lying must have come naturally to him, too, to have done what he did with my mother.’

  The sound of Sophie’s hand hitting Alex’s cheek resonated in the air. ‘Get out of here,’ she said, ‘before I have someone chuck you out.’

  Eyes watering, not entirely from the slap in the face, Alex stared aghast for a long moment. Then, wearily, he nodded. ‘I understand. Goodbye, Sophie.’

  Turning on his heel, he strode out of the wrought iron gates of Carter’s Cider.

  33

  ‘We need to talk.’

  Matthew was neck deep in paperwork about a potential takeover of a smaller cider maker in Herefordshire when his brother’s voice broke into his thoughts. Frankly, the distraction was welcome, as he’d been hard pushed to see the actual financial sense in it, anyway. It had been something Jack had wanted to do before his death, which had been put on hold for well over a year, and Matthew wasn’t really sure it was worth Carter’s time or capital.

  ‘What is it?’ he said, whipping off his reading glasses and gesturing to the cafetière on his desk. ‘Help yourself if you want one.’

  ‘Have you got anything stronger?’ Jonathan asked. ‘You might need it when you hear what I’ve got to tell you.’

  Matthew blinked and gestured to a sealed wooden crate in the corner of his office. ‘There’s a case of the latest Calvados that the distillery sent over as a taster if you want some. I keep meaning to ask you to take it over to The Cider Kitchen to put on the wine list.’

  ‘That’ll do,’ Jonathan replied, hurrying to the box and snapping open the lid. ‘Glasses?’

  ‘There are some tumblers on the conference table,’ Matthew said, sensing Jonathan’s agitation. ‘What’s this all about, Jonno? Is it Caroline? Is she all right?’