by Cathy Bussey
‘I’m pretty sure it shouldn’t be less appealing than doing the washing up.’
‘Did you at least talk about it?’
Faith shook her head. ‘I thought about it but I knew he’d be really hurt and upset and I’d feel too guilty.’ She hung her head. ‘I know it’s cowardly of me but I couldn’t face it and there was really nothing he could suggest that could solve the problem, because it wasn’t that I didn’t want sex, I just didn’t want it with him.’
‘So even if he’d dressed up or something, tried role play?’ Sara was still going.
‘Dress up as what?’ Faith asked. ‘A mountain biking ninja?’ Don’t go there, she warned herself. ‘It wasn’t a visual thing,’ she said. ‘He didn’t put on weight or lose all his hair or dramatically change his appearance. It wasn’t the way he looked, it was just him. He wasn’t the right person for me.’
‘So what attracted you to him in the first place?’ Minel wanted to know.
‘We got along well enough,’ Faith said. ‘He was funny, and sweet, and considerate, and he really seemed to like me. He did all the chasing, and he seemed so keen and so genuine and I had been single for ages and I just thought, why not at least give him a chance?’ She sighed. ‘I can’t say Rob ever really set my world on fire, even right back at the beginning, but at least I knew he’d never…’ she tailed off.
‘Never hurt you,’ Minel finished knowingly.
Faith nodded.
‘Doesn’t sound like the greatest reason to get together with somebody.’ Minel sounded very gentle.
Sara sat back in her chair, looking defeated.
‘Do you think,’ Minel said, still in that gentle tone that made Faith want to lay her head on her shoulder and cry, ‘that you were attracted to Rob because you felt safe with him and knew he’d never do what that awful guy at uni did?’
Faith felt a familiar stab of guilt. Minel and Sara still didn’t know, to this day, that the tale of her great heartbreak over her university boyfriend wasn’t true. Or rather that it was true, but it wasn’t poor Joel, whose name she so easily took in vain, who had shattered her heart into a million tiny pieces and prompted her to vow never to allow anybody to hurt her again.
‘Rob was your first boyfriend since Joel, wasn’t he?’ Sara mused. ‘Your first serious boyfriend full stop.’
‘He was,’ Faith confirmed. ‘There were a few other guys at uni — just flings really. Nothing serious. And then nobody for ages, and then I met Rob.’
That, at least, was true.
‘It sounds like you never really gave Rob a chance,’ Minel was saying. ‘There has to be a spark somewhere, and that only really comes from being prepared to take a risk on somebody. After all,’ she said wisely, ‘if you truly feel they’re not capable of hurting you then you obviously just don’t care about them enough and that’s never going to lead to fireworks.’
Fireworks are all very nice, Faith thought, until they blow up in your face.
Sara was picking at the corner of a sandwich, her face very downcast. ‘So you don’t think you can get that spark back? Once it’s gone, it’s gone?’
‘I’m not saying that,’ Minel said. ‘But if it was never really there in the first place then it’s hard to see how it can suddenly materialise at a later date. Mind you,’ her tone turned gloomy, ‘I’m not really a fountain of wisdom on that topic at the moment.’
Sara patted her on the shoulder. ‘Still struggling with Paul?’
‘I didn’t know you and Paul were struggling,’ Faith said. ‘Other than the baby thing.’ She couldn’t really think of a better way of putting it. ‘Infertility’ sounded so final. So clinical. So real.
‘The baby thing,’ Minel apparently approved of the phrasing, ‘is becoming a bit of an issue elsewhere. I want us to go and have tests. Find out why we don’t seem to be able to get pregnant. Paul doesn’t want to.’ She put her head in her hands. ‘He won’t even consider it. He wants us to just keep trying, he says he’s sure it’ll work one of these days but I think he’s just afraid that if there is a problem, that it might be him.’
Faith could see how for an undisputed alpha male like Paul, the prospect of fertility issues could be daunting. He would undoubtedly see it as a failure, a gigantic dent in his masculinity.
‘I’m so sorry that you’re going through this,’ she said to Minel, wishing she could offer her friend more in the way of comfort.
‘I am too,’ Minel said bleakly.
‘God, aren’t we just a gigantic cloud of doom,’ Minel said.
‘Maybe we’re having mid-twenties crises,’ Faith said.
‘Late twenties, in my case,’ Sara corrected.
‘Well, look on the bright side,’ Minel said hopefully. ‘We can’t stay like this forever. Things have to get better soon.’
Just when things couldn’t get any worse, it rained. Faith watched from the shelter of the greenhouse on Thursday as huge droplets hammered into the half-filled remains of the old pond, slowly but surely pushing the water levels back up. Thanks to the loose earth she had begun to shovel into it, it was now a cocktail of rainwater, sludge and grime. I’ll have to drain it again, she thought, start all over from the very beginning. Oh, why didn’t I cover it with a tarpaulin?
Because that would have involved going to the site to find one, and that would have involved seeing Rik. His blankness was sliding towards open hostility and Faith could no longer bring herself to face him.
You have to, she decided. Cover the pond up now and at least it can’t get any fuller. You can leave it to settle and drain it again at the weekend. Without any more disturbance from the rain the earth will slowly sink back down and you won’t have to siphon pure sludge.
She reached for the battered old Barbour of Helena’s she’d pinched from the house that morning, and tugged it on. She put the hood up, and thought at least she would have no peripheral vision so if she stood directly in front of Paul her eyes wouldn’t be able to hone in on Rik. Faith already knew his rain-soaked clothes would be clinging to his body and his hair would be wet and pushed back out of his face and that would make his high, haughty cheekbones and his eyes, which would no doubt be flashing with outrage at the horrendous conditions, more noticeable and dominant. And of all his many extremely redeeming features, she thought, his eyes are — were — the most irresistible of them all.
Just don’t look at him, she ordered herself. Go and get it over with and don’t let your own eyes wander.
She stomped off towards the site, shoving her hands in the pockets of the coat and shivering. She’d completely forgotten to check the weather forecast that morning, just assuming it would once again be hot and sunny, and she hadn’t bothered bringing a jumper. Underneath the coat, which appeared to no longer be waterproof, she was wearing denim cut-offs and a loose-fitting white vest, which was probably the worst thing she could have chosen. If it weren’t for Helena’s trusty if inadequate Barbour she’d be doing a pretty convincing imitation of a contestant at a wet t-shirt competition.
She rounded the corner and scanned the site for Paul but he was nowhere to be seen. Rik had his back to her and was talking to one of the teenagers, and she completely forgot her resolve and allowed herself a moment to admire the way his soaked t-shirt clung to the outline of the muscles in his back.
‘Looking for something?’ one of the teenagers asked eagerly and Rik, alerted to her presence, turned and saw her shifting from one foot to the other at the edge of the site.
‘What do you want?’
She pushed her shoulders back defiantly, feeling the hairs on the back of her neck beginning to stand on end. He had some nerve talking to her like that.
‘I need a tarpaulin,’ she said, hoping she sounded brisk and businesslike, not soggy and intimidated. ‘To cover the pond. It’s filling back up and I don’t want to drain it again.’
‘Get one from the hay barn,’ Rik said. ‘There’s a few at the back.’
Oh, not the hay barn. Faith q
uailed a little as he shot her another ferocious glare. Grumbling, she stormed off in the direction of the barn. She glanced at the corrugated metal doors and felt a pang of something very bittersweet, and pushed it away. These doors, she remembered, were a nightmare to open at the best of times. She wasn’t even sure she’d be able to manage it with the metal stiffened and soaked by the incessant rain and they looked like they hadn’t been opened in the best part of ten years.
Well, she thought in a pathetic and misguided attempt to rally herself, you know they were opened at least once in that time.
She heaved at the rusting red metal and listened to several ominous creaks. The doors held firm. She tried again, but despite more creaking they still wouldn’t budge. The Barbour was soaked now and the heavy material was clinging to her skin, overheating her as she exerted herself once more. ‘Useless thing,’ she muttered, taking it off and casting it dismissively onto the floor beside her where it lay crumpled and defeated in a soggy heap. ‘Useless doors. Why does nothing around here actually work?’ She gave them one more heave, and when they once again refused to move she lost her patience and delivered a hefty kick to the right-hand door.
There was a deafening, metallic grinding noise, then the door gave way completely and fell off its hinges, toppling with an almighty groan. She had just enough time to leap out of the way with a terrified yelp before it landed, on the exact spot she’d been standing just a fraction of a second ago, with a spectacular crash, sending muddly gravel-flecked water all over her.
‘What’s going on?’ Rik, alerted by the din, had appeared next to her and Faith felt her temperature drop like sand through an egg timer as she realised just how close she’d been to being squashed flat by corrugated iron.
‘Faith?’ Rik looked at the stricken door, then at her pale face. ‘Are you OK?’
She nodded dumbly.
‘What happened?’
‘The door fell off.’ She took a couple of deep breaths and looked around for something to hold on to while she steadied herself. There was only the other door to hand, and something told her it would meet the same fate as its counterpart if it had to take any more strain.
She was suddenly aware she was freezing. Her knees sagged and she lurched a little, desperate to right herself, and looked frantically at Rik.
He shot forwards and put his arms around her and she clung onto him gratefully, feeling the warmth from his body seeping instantly into hers. He pulled her head against his chest and she put her hands up by her ears, burrowing her face into him.
She’d done exactly this the very first time she’d met him and all of a sudden she was seeing it all over again, like a montage in a movie. How she’d come skidding up the gravel drive on her bike to see Minel and almost been knocked flying by a furiously barking Tackle, who had proceeded to mount her leg the second she put her foot on the ground. How she’d been intercepted by a wiry, brown-skinned, black-haired boy who had dissolved into fits of high-pitched, strangely infectious giggles. He had eventually composed himself to apologise for Tackle’s advances and explained the terrier just really liked pretty girls, then introduced himself as Minel’s brother Tariq, or Rik for short. Then he’d admired her bike and somehow talked her into attempting to jump off a makeshift ramp over the largest of the potholes, which she had insisted was impossible until he’d seized her bike off her and proved her wrong, flying over the crater with inches to spare. She, however, hadn’t made the jump and instead crashed heavily to the floor with her bike on top of her, and Rik had pulled her to her feet and put his arms around her while she shook from head to toe with shock and fear and relief. Then he’d taken her up to the house and made her a cup of tea, liberally sweetened with sugar, and watched her through doe-like, chocolate-brown eyes as she’d drunk it and told her he had never met anybody else with the guts to even try a jump like that. And that, she supposed, had been the start of all of it. It certainly had been for Rik, who had told her years afterwards he’d basically fallen in love with her the moment he met her.
And just as his presence had calmed and reassured her that and so many other times before, it was working its magic now and the churning in her stomach and the violent shivering was already lessening. His heart was beating against her right palm, steady and even. He bent his head and his breath was hot against her ear.
‘You’re OK,’ he said.
She could feel the words as well as hear them, they were forming and resonating right beneath her forehead and reverberating through her skull. I know I’m OK, she thought through a swirling haze of overwhelming, poignant relief and recognition, because you’re here.
You’re here, and I’m here, and I’m home.
She tightened her right hand automatically.
His heart paused for a split-second, then it quickened noticeably.
She dropped her hands and stepped away from him, almost losing her balance again in her haste to put some space between them.
‘Do you need to sit down?’ Rik asked.
She shook her head. Her drenched vest was clinging to her front. Oh for god’s sake, she thought, can this get any worse?
She shivered.
‘You’re cold. Where’s your coat?’
She gestured towards the fallen door. ‘Under there.’
‘Do you want my t-shirt? It’s soaking too, but at least it’s not…’ His eyes ran down her and she thought, there goes any chance that he didn’t notice my current completely exposed state. ‘At least it’s not see-through,’ he finished.
‘No,’ she said again, steadily this time. ‘I’ll go back to the house, Minel can lend me something. And make me a cup of tea.’
‘With sugar,’ Rik said.
She smiled. ‘Two spoons and a Kit Kat.’ Sweet tea and chocolate had always been her and Rik’s solution to the post-fall shock. Until they’d found a better one.
He looked at the door again. ‘Looking at the size of that it’s more of a three spoons situation. Did it just come off by itself?’
‘I gave it a few heaves,’ she said, ‘and then a bit of a kick.’ She winced. ‘Sorry. I was just a bit wet and impatient. I’ll pay for the damage.’
‘Don’t be silly.’ He shook his head. ‘I’d forgotten they were so hard to open. We should have replaced them ages ago. I’m just glad you weren’t hurt.’
‘I don’t think that barn likes me very much. It obviously wants to punish me for something,’ she said wryly.
Something flashed in Rik’s eyes and she instantly realised she’d gone too far. She flinched internally as his face slid back into that impassive mask.
‘Go back to the house,’ he said. ‘I’ll sort out the pond for you.’
He turned away, and Faith felt any residual warmth draining away.
‘Thanks,’ she said hopelessly.
But he had already gone into the barn. Faith thought about calling after him, then decided that was quite enough for one day and, crossing her arms firmly over her chest in case she ran into any curious teenage boys, she slunk dejectedly up to the house.
Chapter 5
Thank goodness for manual labour, Faith thought on Friday as she heaved her shovel into the small but growing pit she had begun to dig. She had a huge plastic bucket next to her, slightly floppy with open handles, into which she was hefting wet mud and stones before dragging it across to the bright yellow skip and hauling it up and over, again and again until she felt like her arm muscles were on fire.
The repetitive motion and the almost constant pain were cathartic, and she found the more she dug and flung and shifted and hefted, the calmer and more orderly her mind became. With her whole body otherwise occupied she felt anchored, the aches and pains and sense of satisfaction she was gaining from the digging helping to ground her after the freefall that had been yesterday afternoon.
She had felt so tired by the time she got home she had eaten in stony silence, her mind as exhausted as her body. And then she had gone upstairs to her old bedroom and ransacked th
e drawers and units, scrabbling desperately through old pieces of paper, folders and ring-binders, looking for anything drawn and annotated in a spiky hand. But she’d thrown them all away, she remembered, she had systematically removed any trace of Rik from her life in the foolish hope she could also remove him from her heart.
She’d also thrown away her vast collection of notes about Hollyhocks, including detailed descriptions and classifications of the plant and animal life it hosted. Years of time and effort, a labour of true love, both entirely valueless and worth more than gold. Why hadn’t she kept them? Quite apart from the fact they would have come in extremely useful now she was once again reshaping the landscape to which she had once so irrevocably belonged, surely even at that age she could have visualised a time when she might look back at them fondly?
Maybe I knew more than I thought at seventeen, she mused, because they would still rip my heart out right now.
It was ripping anyway, tears were once again pouring down her cheeks, and she had curled up in her creaky single bed and cried herself to sleep. When she woke she had known, without even looking at her phone, that it would be 3am and she had cursed the insomnia that had plagued her sporadically for near enough the last decade, as the tears began to flow again.
I miss Rik, she thought hopelessly now, as she dug. Having felt that strangely moving connection with him yesterday, that complete peace and rightness when he was holding her close while she was all adrift, knowing he was just round the corner but worlds away, hurt more than ever. I don’t want to think about him, but I can’t stop myself either.
‘I need a distraction,’ she said to Minel’s puppy who seemed to have decided that she was his true mistress and was forever hanging around worrying at her ankles. ‘You’re good company,’ she told him and the puppy sniffed at her ankle approvingly then spied a patch of particularly sloppy mud and pelted off to roll around in it.
‘Thanks for looking after this little guy for me,’ Minal said, walking over and going to pick up the puppy before noticing his mud-plastered coat and recoiling. The puppy sniffed her dismissively then wandered back to Faith. ‘He likes you better than me,’ Minel sighed, then she noticed the devastation around Faith. ‘This is progress, yes?’