Summer in the Orchard

by Fay Keenan

  ‘I should hate you for what you’ve done,’ Sophie muttered. ‘If you’d kept your mouth shut, I’d be sitting here with Alex completely unaware.’

  ‘Is that what you’d have wanted?’ Mark said. ‘Given that honesty is something you’re constantly banging on about.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ Sophie conceded. ‘But I think I just want an early night.’ She stood up and, to her surprise, didn’t wobble. The wine was obviously wearing off.

  Mark stood, too. Pulling her close in a brief hug, he wandered out to the hallway. ‘Take care of yourself, Soph.’

  ‘I will,’ she replied as he opened the front door. Closing the door behind him a moment later, Sophie didn’t see Alex, who, rather the worse for wear after an afternoon that had extended into an evening dissecting the family history with Jonathan and Matthew, was passing her gate and who had paused, full of new uncertainty, in the shadows. On seeing Mark leaving the house, he turned away, his face stricken in the rapidly brightening moonlight.

  38

  The next morning, Sophie woke with a fuzzy head, but a clearer sense of perspective. She’d slept surprisingly well; perhaps she was glad that for the first time in weeks it was just going to be her and David in the office, now that Alex had been sacked by Jonathan. Just sharing a village with Alex felt overwhelming at the moment. She couldn’t imagine how people who had failed office romances coped when they split up; awkward didn’t even begin to cover it. She definitely needed time to process what she’d found out over the past twenty-four hours. What a fool she’d been to have broken her ‘no romance at work’ rule.

  Over a breakfast that consisted mainly of strong coffee, Sophie decided to drop Lily a text to see if Alex was at home. If he was, she’d stay away, but if he wasn’t, she’d pop round and have a chat with her gran. After all, Lily was going to find out sooner or later what had gone down yesterday, and Sophie wanted her to hear it from her, rather than Alex, if she could manage it. She also texted David and warned him she was going to be a bit late in. She felt slightly guilty about using Lily as an excuse, pretending that her gran had had a bad night, but under the circumstances, it seemed the best solution. As she was pouring the water into her coffee mug, her phone pinged. It was Lily, confirming that Alex wasn’t at home. Weak with relief, but with a nagging sense of disappointment, Sophie decided to head over to Lily’s for breakfast to go with the coffee.

  Opening the front door of Lily’s cottage, she was, once again, kicked in the gut with disappointment that Alex wasn’t around, despite the fact she wouldn’t have known where to start with him if he had been. Lily’s voice floated from the kitchen at the back of the cottage, clearly having anticipated Sophie’s need for a decent breakfast. As she walked into the kitchen, Lily looked up from her chair and gestured to the coffee pot in front of her. ‘I’ve got some homemade strawberry jam in the fridge if you want it on your croissant.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Keen, suddenly, to avoid the moment of revelation, Sophie busied herself with buttering and putting jam on two pastries, before pouring the coffee.

  ‘So…’ she began, before trailing off as Lily raised a hand to silence her.

  ‘You should know, before you tell me your version of what’s happened with Alex, that I am in some way responsible for this current uncomfortable situation,’ Lily said. For the first time ever, or at least since Sophie could remember, the old lady looked uncertain of herself.

  ‘What do you mean, Gran?’ Croissant forgotten, Sophie took a fortifying sip of her coffee.

  ‘I knew who his father was for quite a while before all this came out.’

  ‘What?’ Sophie swallowed too fast, coughed, and then recovered herself. ‘How did you… I mean, why didn’t you say something? Did he tell you?’

  ‘That afternoon when you first brought him round, I began to suspect,’ Lily said quietly. ‘You don’t live to my age without picking up a few things here and there. When he spoke, I was racking my brains, trying to remember what Jack had said about his summer abroad back in the eighties. Could Alex’s mother be the woman he fell in love with back then?’ Lily shook her head. ‘Jack never knew about Alex, of that I’m certain, but before he died he wanted to unburden himself to someone who might understand. I kept the secret about his relationship with Alex’s mother, and I hoped that Alex would find the right time to reveal it to the Carters, and to you, before you all ended up getting hurt.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me all this?’ Sophie asked. ‘You let me get involved with him, fall in love with him, all the while knowing, or at least suspecting, that he wasn’t who he said he was. How could you, Gran?’

  Lily sighed. ‘Believe me, I wanted to tell you, but it wasn’t my secret to tell. Alex is a very honourable person; he helped you to take care of me when I had that fall and he’s done the right thing by you in all respects except for this. He, I think, loves you very, very much. But he’s got to find his own place here, he’s got to make sense of what being Jack’s son means. And he was terrified that, should the secret come out before he was ready to address it, he’d end up getting rejected by Jack’s family, and, ultimately, by you, too.’

  Sophie shook her head. ‘You still should have told me.’

  ‘I could have been wrong.’ Lily sighed. ‘I’m going to be eighty next birthday; old age makes you start to question your own powers of deduction a little.’

  ‘Yeah, right.’ Sophie snorted. ‘Nothing wrong with your brain.’ Despite herself, she smiled. ‘But I guess I can understand why you wanted to wait for Alex to be the one to come clean. I mean, it would have been embarrassing if you were wrong, wouldn’t it?’

  Lily gave a relieved smile. ‘If I remember correctly, you accused me of imagining too much drama when I so much as suggested that Alex was hiding something. Imagine if I’d told you what I really thought! You’d have packed me off to a secure room at the St Monica’s Trust care village in a heartbeat.’ Lily had often joked that the path from her front door to the care home to the cemetery was an unnervingly straight one as the crow flew, and she was determined to skip the middle destination for as long as possible.

  ‘So, where is he?’ Sophie asked.

  ‘He left very early this morning; I heard the front door closing. It looks as though he’s taken all his stuff, too.’ Lily sighed. ‘When I went into my study this morning, I found the printouts he’d done of the details for an early flight to Vancouver via Schiphol in Amsterdam.’ She suddenly looked thoughtful. ‘Matthew came round here yesterday to talk to him and they left together. Perhaps the meeting didn’t go as well as either of them hoped it would.’ Lily sipped her coffee. ‘Despite his subterfuge, I think Alex really did fall for you, darling.’

  Sophie shook her head. ‘He should have come clean with me from the start,’ she said, but even as she said it, her voice lacked conviction.

  ‘In an ideal world, yes, he should have,’ Lily replied. ‘But imagine the pressure it would have put you under. You work for Matthew and Jonathan Carter. You have done for ten years. Could you honestly say that, if Alex had told you who his father was, you’d have been comfortable keeping that secret? Perhaps he was just trying to spare you the heartache.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Sophie said, trying to hide how much her gran’s words jolted her. She’d been so caught up with the fact that Alex hadn’t been entirely honest with her, she’d not considered that if she had known the truth, it would have put her in a very uncomfortable position indeed. Suddenly needing to be close to him, even though she knew he’d gone, she stood up. ‘Can I go and have a look in his room?’ she said softly. ‘I kind of feel like I need to see for myself that he’s gone.’

  Lily nodded. ‘Of course, darling. I’ll get more coffee on.’

  As Sophie headed up the stairs, she was assailed by memories. She pushed open the door to Alex’s room, and gasped. The bed was neatly made, and all of his possessions had gone. Her knees went weak with the reality that he really had left. The silence was deafening as she looked aroun
d, taking in the empty chest of drawers, the neatly washed kettle and mugs on the side table by the double bed; everything was in its place. She was just about to close the door again when she noticed a cream coloured envelope propped against the reading lamp on the desk in the corner of the bedroom, with her name written on it in Alex’s elegant, cursive handwriting.

  With trembling hands, she picked it up and slid a finger under the flap, pulling out the neatly folded letter. Her eyes blurred with tears as she read:

  Sophie,

  I’m so sorry for keeping secrets from you. I should never have allowed us to become so close without telling you the whole truth about my reasons for being in Little Somerby. Please believe me when I say that I never intended to hurt you. You, and your love, mean so much to me, that the thought of never seeing you again is truly breaking my heart. My mother always said that you should seize every opportunity you can to tell the people you care about that you love them, before it’s too late. I’m taking that advice. I love you, Sophie. In time, I’m sure we will both be happy or at least content, apart, but life would be so much more complete if we were able to share it together. If you feel able to respond to this, my phone will be on night and day for as long as it takes. Call me. Please.

  Yours forever,

  Alex.

  ‘Oh, Alex,’ Sophie breathed. Her heart battled with her head; on the one hand, she wanted to get onto the Internet and book the next flight out to Vancouver, but on the other hand, the letter hadn’t really said anything that he hadn’t tried to explain in person the last time they’d been face to face.

  Sophie again looked around the room that Alex had made his own over the time he’d been in Little Somerby. Her grandmother hadn’t yet stripped the bed, and as Sophie sat down on it she had to resist the urge to bury her face in the pillow and smell his scent on the bed linen. They’d never made love here; neither one of them could bring themselves to misbehave in Lily’s house, but she still had an achingly strong sense memory of his touch, his scent and the rich caramel of his voice whispering her name.

  The chat with Lily had given her a bit of much needed perspective. Alex had come to Little Somerby for reasons that she couldn’t hate him for. He’d been a little less than honest, not just with her, but with the Carter family, but for justifiable reasons. Throwing a grenade into such hallowed territory was never going to be easy, and he’d tried his best to keep the damage to a minimum. Yes, of course he should have levelled with them all but there was never going to be a right time to do so. Was the reason she had pushed him away because she didn’t want to be hurt again? That she feared Alex would do what Mark had done to her? Somehow, she just knew he wouldn’t, despite what he’d told her about the flings in his past.

  But it was too late. He’d gone. And chances were, he’d move on and forget about her. There was a continent between them now, and an ocean. It was over. A holiday romance that had got out of hand; it could never be anything other than a memory. There was no changing that. Or was there? Heart thumping, Sophie grabbed her mobile from her pocket and dialled Alex’s number. The phone went straight through to voicemail. In frustration, she nearly crumpled the letter in her other hand. Shoving it, and her phone, in her back pocket, she hurried downstairs.

  ‘Did the paperwork Alex printed say what time the flight is?’ she asked as she came back through to the kitchen.

  Lily passed it over from where she’d left it on the side. ‘Here, have a look.’ She looked hopeful. ‘Does that mean you’re going to go after him?’

  Sophie smiled. ‘Maybe I have been a bit harsh,’ she conceded. ‘And perhaps I shouldn’t let him leave the country thinking I’m still angry with him.’

  ‘You’d better get going, then,’ Lily said. ‘He left a couple of hours ago; even with check-in, you might be cutting things a bit fine.’

  Sophie’s heart hammered. ‘I’ll see you later.’ She leaned forward and kissed her gran on the cheek. ‘Wish me luck.’

  ‘Love will give you all the luck you need.’ Lily smiled.

  *

  ‘Come on!’ Sophie smacked her palm against the steering wheel and slammed on her brakes as the traffic yet again slowed. She was about a quarter of a mile from the airport, and the traffic on the A38 had been crawling along for the past two miles. The plan she’d had to get to Alex before he got through to International Departures was slowly slipping away from her. As the traffic yet again stopped, she pressed redial on her mobile phone on the dashboard. Once again it clicked through to Alex’s voicemail. The signal on her network was pretty appalling, but Sophie kept trying.

  After five minutes of staying still, Sophie’s patience ran out. About fifty yards away was a bus stop, and then it would be another few hundred yards to the airport. Steeling herself, she pulled over to the grass verge and mounted it, ignoring the furious looks of the other stuck motorists as she passed them on the wrong side. As she thumped down into the bus stop, she was out of the car the second the engine stopped. Not even pausing to lock it in her haste, she sprinted down the road, the tall fences of the airport approaching on her left. She had to get to Alex before he got on his flight.

  Ignoring the curious looks of the motorists still sitting in their cars, Sophie kept running, not daring to glance at her watch. She’d have to move faster if she was going to get to him before the gates closed. If he’d already made it through to the departure lounge, she was toast.

  Starting to feel the effects of the sprint, Sophie pushed on, past the curving snake of stationary cars. As the sculpture that was at the centre of the airport roundabout came into view, she took a deep breath and picked up her pace even further. Dashing up the lane to the terminal, she made it through the doors of the glass fronted building and then stopped to get her bearings. Red in the face, and breathing heavily, she swept her fringe from her eyes and looked up at the departures board. There it was: the flight to Amsterdam, which was the first leg on his journey back to Vancouver. With a sinking heart, she saw the words change before her eyes: Gate Closed.

  She was too late. He’d have been through Immigration and Passport Control, and be in the departure lounge by now. And there was no way she’d be able to get through without a valid ticket or her passport. Rushing up to the KLM desk, she stammered out a question. ‘Please… can you tell me if a passenger’s checked in?’

  The attendant at the desk shook her head. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I can’t give you that information.’

  ‘But what if it’s an emergency?’

  ‘I’m sorry. Data protection.’

  Sophie sagged against the desk. That was it, then. The frustration that Alex was likely to be just beyond the escalator bit at her heart like an angry dog, but there was nothing she could do. He was gone. And he might as well be on the plane right now, as close as she could get to him.

  ‘Is there any way of getting a message through to a passenger on a plane?’

  The attendant glanced at her colleague. ‘We can put out a call to the flight team if it’s a genuine emergency.’

  Would declaring that she didn’t think she’d be able to live the rest of her life without him constitute an emergency in airport terms? Even in her current state of mind, Sophie wasn’t sure she could risk it. With a heavy heart, she shook her head. ‘It’s OK. I’ll keep trying to call him.’

  Dejected, she headed away from the desk and contemplated the long trudge back to her abandoned car. Swallowing back the sudden tears, she stepped through the airport doors once again, heart sinking even further as her mobile phone battery finally gave up the ghost as well.

  39

  ‘Sorry, just say that again.’ Meredith sat down hard on the kitchen chair, wincing as the wooden seat jarred her coccyx. ‘He’s what? I mean, who?’

  Matthew gave a wry grin. ‘I guess that means you’ve got another uncle to keep you out of trouble.’

  ‘That’s one way of looking at it, Dad.’ Meredith shook her head. ‘Although, I have to say, if I was going to get
another uncle, there are worse people for the job.’

  ‘I’ve always loved the way you can put a positive spin on things.’ Matthew walked over to his daughter and leaned in to drop a kiss on the top of her head. ‘The facts of the matter are a little complicated, but then you always knew Granddad was a… complicated… man.’

  ‘No kidding,’ Meredith sighed. A look of worry crossed her face as she gazed up at her father, who still had a protective arm around her shoulders. ‘Are you OK?’ She and Matthew had lived on their own for ten years after Meredith’s mother had left, before Matthew had met Anna, and she was still very finely tuned to her father’s feelings. She knew that he would be going through all kinds of emotions about this bombshell, and, as his eldest child, she needed him to know she was there for him.

  ‘I’m fine,’ Matthew said softly. ‘You know Granddad and I didn’t have the easiest of relationships for a long time, and, if I’m being honest, this wasn’t the biggest shock of my life.’ He drew a breath, trying to steady himself. The memories of the different ways his family had nearly been torn apart over the years were still raw. ‘I always sort of knew he’d messed Grandma around, but I had no idea how serious his relationship with Alex’s mother had been. If things had been different…’

  Meredith stood up from the table and snuggled into Matthew’s embrace. ‘So, you’re sure he never knew about Alex?’

  ‘I don’t think he’d have kept him a secret if he did,’ Matthew said. ‘He would have wanted to do right by any child of his, I’m sure.’

  ‘Despite it all, Granddad had a huge heart, didn’t he?’ Meredith broke away from Matthew again. The irony was that in the end, it was his heart that had failed him. ‘The question is, where does that leave us?’

  Matthew smiled. ‘Don’t worry about it all; that’s for me, Uncle Jonathan and Alex to sort out. And it could be worse; at least we know he’s a decent bloke. I think he’s proved as much while he’s been here, even if he didn’t tell us the truth right away.’