He reached for the story book that was tucked down the side of the sofa, and offered it to Anya. The little girl had become used to the way that Alistair encouraged her to pass all kinds of objects back and forth between them, and she opened the book, giving it back to him so he could read to her.
Heidi nodded her thanks without even looking at Raina as she placed the coffee on her desk. Alistair and Anya seemed unaware that anyone was watching, completely wrapped up in their own world. Alistair dropped the brick on the open pages of the book, and picked it up again.
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake.’ Heidi whispered the words. ‘I wouldn’t have the patience. Is this killing you?’
‘Yep.’ All the same, Raina didn’t move. If she interrupted them now, Alistair would have to start all over again.
He dropped the brick again, and Anya reached for it. But he was too quick for her, picking it up and continuing with the story. When he dropped it again, Anya batted his hand away, and he coiled his fingers gently around her right arm, so that she’d have to use the prosthetic to pick the brick up if she wanted it. His smile indicated that this was all just a game.
Raina felt Heidi’s hand in hers, and she gripped it tightly. Heidi seemed to be holding her breath too as Anya reached with the prosthetic, clumsily moving the thumb, so that she could pick the brick up.
‘Nice one, Anya.’ Heidi murmured the words. Raina heard Alistair’s exclamation of approval, and he hugged Anya.
He held out his hand, and Anya opened her hand to put the brick into his. Then he dropped it, and she picked it up again.
‘She’s got it...’ Raina breathed the words softly.
‘Go in...go in.’ Heidi squeezed her hand.
‘No, I... I don’t want to disturb them.’
‘They’ve done it, Raina. Go and share it.’
The thought that Alistair might want to share this achievement with her, as much as she did with him, brought a lump to Raina’s throat. Suddenly he looked up and saw her, and beckoned her in. Heidi gave her a push, and she hurried into the office, stopping short in front of them.
‘Shall we show Mummy?’ Alistair looked up at her, smiling, and Anya nodded. He held out his hand for the brick and the two of them went through the process of dropping it and picking it up again.
‘That’s so clever of you, sweetie...’ Tears suddenly spilled from Raina’s eyes, and Anya looked at her questioningly.
‘Are you sad, Mummy?’
‘No, Anya. I’m happy to see what a clever girl you are.’ Raina wiped away the tears, and smiled at her daughter. Anya accepted the information as just another random thing that adults did, and went back to playing with the brick, passing it carefully from one hand to the other.
Alistair let her continue with the game for a while, as Raina watched. Then he got to his feet, taking Anya with him and delivering her into Raina’s arms for a hug. For one moment, it seemed as if he was about to put his arms around them both, and it felt like everything she’d ever wanted.
Then he drew back. Collecting up the bricks and the storybook, and putting them on the top of the filing cabinet, next to the castle, which was almost finished now, Raina mouthed words of thanks to him and he smiled, sitting down behind his desk.
‘You want to go home now?’ Anya seemed tired after the afternoon’s session.
‘Are we coming back tomorrow?’
‘No, tomorrow’s Saturday. We’ll come back on Monday.’ Raina set Anya back on her feet. ‘Go and say goodbye to Heidi. I expect she’s got a sweet for you.’
Anya ran out to Heidi’s desk, and Heidi produced two sweets, one for each hand. Raina turned to Alistair, wondering how she was going to resist hugging him.
‘How’s the talk going?’ He was still safely behind his desk and Raina dropped into the chair on the other side.
‘Great. I’ve pretty much finished now. I’ll be looking for someone to try it out on next week.’
Alistair paused then seemed to come to a decision. ‘I’m not doing anything at the weekend. If you and Anya would like to come over for lunch on Saturday, we could have a play session and you could try the talk out on me.’
It was very tempting. ‘But you know it all already.’
‘Yes, and I know the kind of questions that people ask. I can throw those at you and see if I can trip you up. And I don’t know it all, I never did get around to having Ben give me an overview of how the computer system works. I just point at things and he tells me whether he can do it or not.’
‘Oh! So you decided to pass the problem over to me, did you?’
Alistair nodded. ‘I thought you’d make a much better job of it than I can. And you know Ben. He prefers to stare at the computer screen while he’s talking to you.’
‘You could handle that now.’ Alistair had made good progress with the hearing aid, and hardly ever missed what people were saying to him. If he did, it wasn’t a matter of concern to him any more, he just asked them to repeat themselves.
‘I just want to hear it from you.’ He stretched his arms, as if this new ability to reach out had extended to the physical world. ‘You’re the one who’s going to be running the induction course. And you’re a lot prettier than Ben, so I’ll be hanging on every word you say.’
That did it. Practicality was one thing, but she couldn’t resist the look in his eyes.
‘What time?’ Raina pulled out her phone to make a note in her calendar and then quirked her lips down. ‘I’m sorry... I completely forgot it was the third Saturday in the month. Mum has a sleepover for Anya and I’m taking her over there at lunchtime.’
‘Then how about dinner? If you don’t have any plans yourself.’
Alistair had given her a way out. She could say that she was doing something and walk away. But Saturday evening on her own, when she could be spending it with Alistair, sounded impossibly dreary.
‘Dinner would be great, thank you. I’ll bring my visual aids with me and we can see if they pass muster.’
CHAPTER TWELVE
ALISTAIR’S HOUSE WAS in a quiet road in Muswell Hill. Raina’s hand was trembling as she pressed the doorbell, and saw his shadow through the stained glass in the front door.
‘Hi. You made it.’ He opened the door, standing back to let her inside.
There had always been a chance that she wouldn’t. Last night she’d woken up more than once and made the decision that she’d cancel, only to change her mind and decide to go. He seemed to know that.
Raina stepped into the hall, looking around. The house was one of many in the area that dated back to the early nineteen-hundreds, and this one had escaped the over-zealous modifications that had spoiled so many of its type. Floor tiles in terracotta, blue and cream were laid in an intricate pattern of squares and triangles all the way along the hall, and when Alistair led her into the sitting room, a well-polished cast-iron fireplace, framed with a carved wooden surround, caught her eye.
‘This is really nice.’ The room was spacious, with a high ceiling, and decorated in neutral colours to accentuate the grace of the moulded plasterwork and the panelled door. ‘I wish I had some of these period features.’
He winced, as if the comparison between her place and his made him uncomfortable. ‘My wish is that I could make this into a real home. Like yours...’
Raina looked around. ‘Well, maybe it could do with a few finishing touches.’
‘I thought I had finished until I visited you. Then I realised I hadn’t.’
It had been this way before. Alistair’s love of clean lines and hers of clutter had somehow managed to combine into warmth with an air of order and sophistication. Raina had loved the house they’d had when they were married, and had never quite managed to re-create the look in her cottage.
But that had been then. And now they both had to make do with half of a whole that had seemed so per
fect for a while. ‘So tell me. How did you manage to find a place that still had the fireplace and all the plaster mouldings intact?’
‘It took me a while.’ Alistair looked around the room as if he were assessing it for the first time. ‘When I did, it needed a bit of restoration.’
‘You did this yourself?’ Alistair wasn’t a born handyman, but he’d had five years to learn.
‘No.’ He shot her a pained look. ‘I was practically living at work, and I left it to the builders.’
That sounded a bit more like it. ‘So you don’t have any tips on stripping a fireplace?’ Raina ran her hand across the smooth, polished wood of the mantelpiece. It was undoubtedly original, and the small imperfections of age only added to its appeal.
‘Not one. My builder did a great job, and I left him to it. The only thing I’d have contributed to the process would have been unwelcome interference.’
Raina chuckled. ‘Okay. I’m reassured that you haven’t undergone a complete personality transplant.’
‘I haven’t changed that much. Just deafer and with a few more grey hairs...’
If he had any grey hairs, Raina couldn’t see them. Alistair was the picture of a man who was just starting to reach his prime. His polo shirt and jeans did little to conceal the strong lines of his body, and if his face seemed more assured, then his tawny eyes were the same. Capable of an irresistible boyishness when he smiled, even if they did seem to hold a hint of sadness at times. Maybe hers did too. They’d both seen their share of grief.
‘So...’ Alistair rubbed his hands together, seeming to prefer action to speculation. ‘Dinner’s prepared and it won’t take more than twenty minutes to cook. What do you think—we can do the talk now, then eat and discuss it all afterwards?’
‘That sounds perfect. I tell you how things are supposed to work, and then you ask a few awkward questions.’
His grin showed a trace of mischief. ‘Sounds like a plan.’
There was no plan. Just the two of them, and an evening that could finish any way they wanted it to. Whatever it held, she was ready.
* * *
Alistair had brought the data projector home from work, and with a little fiddling around Raina hooked it up to her laptop. He moved the sofa, giving her a blank wall for the projected images, and then closed the curtains and settled himself into an armchair. Raina shot him a slightly embarrassed smile and then began.
She had nothing to be embarrassed about. Her presentation was clear and understandable, and she covered all the issues. When she got to the part about the computer system, Alistair found that Raina had done the impossible and reduced what both he and Gabriel had dismissed as being way above their heads to something that seemed easy.
‘Any questions?’
‘Nope.’
Raina frowned. ‘Is that because you understand everything? Or because it’s all as clear as mud?’
‘I’ve got it. It all makes perfect sense.’ His answer didn’t seem to mollify Raina, and Alistair tried to think of something to say. ‘All right. So the size of the prosthesis is just scaled up or down to fit the individual child, is it?’
‘You know very well that it isn’t, but it’s the kind of question someone might ask...’ Raina smirked with satisfaction and warmth tingled through his chest. He didn’t remember having a crush on any of his teachers when he was a child, but he was making up for it now. The chance to watch her unashamedly, to react to everything she said, was affecting him far more than he’d thought it might.
She pulled up another set of images from her laptop, and launched into an explanation of how each prosthetic was tailored to fit an individual child. This had clearly caught her imagination and her enthusiasm shone through her words. Since Alistair already knew the process, he allowed himself to forget what she was saying and watch Raina.
‘I wouldn’t normally include the part about how the team use the software to do it, but when Ben showed me, it was fascinating. Does it make sense?’
‘Uh...? Yes, I see it.’ The way that Raina moved made sense. He could understand exactly why the shadows in the room would want to caress her face. ‘It’s a beautiful concept.’
She smiled. ‘Yes, it is, isn’t it? That’s the way that Ben sees it, and when he gets cross and waves people away is when he thinks they’re not appreciating it properly.’
Ben could be in love with the concept if he wanted, that was his choice. Alistair preferred to be in love with the teacher.
He dismissed the thought, because being in love with Raina had a lot of complications attached to it, ones that the finest mind wouldn’t be able to make sense of. ‘So is this a good time to break for dinner?’
‘Yes.’ Raina shot him a look of mock solemnity, which made his heart bounce in his chest. ‘Afterwards you can think up a few more tricky questions for me.’
Dinner was a couple of pan-sizzled steaks, done the way that Raina liked them, with peppercorn sauce. Alistair had decided that the table in the breakfast room lent the right amount of informality to the meal, but had made the concession of covering it with a white cloth and adding a couple of candles and a bottle of very good red wine. Two mixed salads were placed on the table, and he dimmed the lights as far as he dared. Nice, but not romantic.
Raina’s presence was something he hadn’t calculated in, though. He’d always felt that she could turn a sandwich on a park bench in November into an intimate, romantic meal for two, and this was no challenge to her at all.
‘Would you like some more wine?’ Alistair didn’t refill his own glass. One had already gone to his head.
‘No, thanks. Half a glass is enough for me. I’m driving, remember...’
Yes, of course. He’d almost forgotten that Raina had her own home and that she’d be going back there tonight. ‘I’ll make some coffee, then.’
He walked through the wide arch and down the step that led into the kitchen. Turning the lights on full to make the coffee didn’t make the slightest difference. Raina was just as beautiful as she’d been by candlelight.
He made the coffee good and strong, to bring him to his senses. There was still work to do this evening. But the spell still lingered, and when he sat back down at the table and poured the coffee, he couldn’t help it. This had been bugging him for too many years.
‘Do you mind if I ask you something?’
‘No, of course not. About the computer system?’
He shook his head. ‘No.’
She took a sip of her coffee and glanced up at him. Maybe she saw Alistair’s hesitancy, because her eyes darkened suddenly. ‘Ask me anything.’
‘It’s about...what happened. Six years ago.’ Maybe Raina had put that in the past now, and she didn’t want to revive it. He should give her the chance to shut him down.
‘Go on.’
‘Did you feel...? Did I make you feel that I didn’t care? When we lost the baby.’
She clasped her hands together, her gaze falling to the tablecloth. ‘You didn’t make me feel anything, Alistair. I felt the things I felt all by myself.’
No. If Raina was blaming herself for anything that had happened then she could stop. Right now.
‘I never told you, Raina. What else could you be expected to think?’
Suddenly her gaze was on him, seeming to devour him in its intensity. ‘You said that you felt guilty...about not being there when I lost the baby. And I told you that there was nothing you could have done.’
That had hurt. The thought that he was of so little use to her that it hadn’t mattered whether he was there or not. Alistair bit back the pain. ‘Yes?’
‘I lied. I needed you there so badly, Alistair. I was just afraid to admit it.’
A feeling of warmth spread across his chest. Raina had wanted him. But then the sick feeling of guilt reasserted itself. ‘I wasn’t there, though.’
‘If you’d known, you would have been. I blamed you for not caring enough about our child, but I know that was wrong of me.’ Raina stretched out her hand, letting her fingertips touch his. ‘I know that you grieved as much as I did.’
Alistair swallowed hard. But this was what he’d done all along, swallowed down his feelings, and it had done them both such damage.
‘I felt...unequal to it all. Helpless. You were so unhappy and I didn’t know how to make things better for you.’ He moved his hand, tangling his fingers with hers. ‘I really wanted our child, but I was just worried. That I’d be a terrible father.’
‘You...?’ Raina looked shocked. ‘What made you think that?’
‘I wanted to give you everything, but we didn’t have much money to spare at that point, and I couldn’t see how I’d be able to provide for you and our child without turning into the kind of father who’s never there.’ Alistair shrugged. ‘Like my father.’
She stared at him uncomprehendingly. ‘You never talked much about your father, Alistair.’
Yeah. One of the many things he’d chosen not to talk about. ‘There isn’t a lot to say. He had his own business, and worked all hours. We had a great childhood, he provided us with everything that money could buy. Apart from himself, that is.’
‘You never saw him?’
Alistair huffed out a laugh that wasn’t really a laugh at all. ‘Put it like this. When we were teenagers, my brother and I had a joke. We reckoned that it was impossible that my father could have been home for long enough to conceive five children, and that at least one of us must owe our existence to our father having...posted his contribution to the process to our mother in an envelope.’
Raina giggled suddenly. ‘I bet you didn’t put it quite so delicately...’
‘No, we didn’t. Rob was fifteen at the time and determined to make it quite clear to me that he knew all about those things.’
‘So...did you ever decide which one of you owed their existence to an envelope?’ Raina was teasing him now and it felt like a cool salve applied to an inflamed nerve.
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