by Cathy Bussey
‘I quite liked it,’ she said absently. ‘Got used to it. It grew on me, much like it grew on you.’ Also she’d definitely started to wonder what it might feel like against her skin — oh not now, she told herself irritably.
They didn’t talk a great deal on the way to the airport and Faith gripped the steering wheel, watching her knuckles turn white, as the Land Rover juddered any time she tried to push it over 40mph. ‘I hope I’m not going to make you late,’ she said, gunning the accelerator furiously, but the Land Rover squealed in protest she thought if she gave it much more grief it might not get them there at all.
She pulled into drop-off and turned off the engine, which let out an audible sigh of relief.
‘Will this thing even get you home?’ Rik asked.
She smiled. ‘I’ll take my chances. Are you OK from here?’
He nodded. ‘Thanks for the lift.’
‘Just text me,’ she said, ‘if you want me to come and pick you up. If you think — if we might — just at least think about it, Rik.’
She yearned to lean over and kiss him, thinking she might never get another chance.
‘Safe trip,’ she said.
‘Faith,’ he said softly and he reached out and took hold of the back of her head. She drew in her breath and wondered if he actually was going to kiss her but instead he just leaned his forehead against hers, and she blinked once or twice, wondering if she was going to cry.
The second hand on the dashboard clicked noisily forwards.
A horn blared behind them, making them both jump, then an angry-looking driver from the car behind, who was waiting for the drop-off bay, rapped sharply on the window. ‘Get on with it,’ he roared through the window. ‘Go and snog somewhere else. That’s what long stay is for.’
‘I should go,’ Rik said.
She nodded, not trusting herself to speak, and he got out and opened the boot. ‘See you soon,’ he said, banging on the top of the Land Rover a few times, and the angry driver, who had got back into his car, revved his engine and hooted again. Faith shook her head, trying to clear it, then gunned the Land Rover and pulled away, forcing herself not to watch Rik through the rear-view mirror.
She looked at the speedometer, then the clock on the dashboard. Time ticked by.
Second, after second, after second.
Chapter 27
If this is Hollyhocks without Rik, Faith thought as she shivered beneath another of Helena’s old Barbours, watching GT lounging contentedly from the shelter of the greenhouse, then I don’t think I like it very much.
It had poured without a break since he left, the sky itself mourning his absence as much as Faith was. All the sunshine and the fun seemed to have melted away, and everything felt heavy and oppressive and impossibly dismal. Paul and the teenagers were in vile moods, soaked and miserable. She was turning into a teenager herself, checking her phone constantly in case Rik had rung or texted her, but she heard nothing.
There were traces of him everywhere, only this time they weren’t distant nostalgic memories, they were very much in the here and now. There was constant empty space, the site without him, the cottage devoid of his presence, the house somehow less full and noisy.
She stayed in the cottage, in Minel’s old room because she couldn’t stand to be in his room by herself. GT moved in with her and kept her company at night, waking her constantly with his demands to be let out to go to the toilet and entertaining her from 3am onwards.
On Wednesday she, Sara and Minel went out for dinner.
‘What’s going on with Rik?’ Sara demanded immediately. ‘Did you tell him?’
‘I told him everything,’ Faith confirmed. ‘Including that I still loved him, and said I’d pick him up from the airport if he wanted and never leave his side again.’ She took a sip of wine. ‘I guess now I just have to see what he makes of it all.’
‘Did he say anything when you told him?’ Minel asked.
Faith shook her head, feeling deeply despairing, ‘I haven’t heard anything from him at all.’ She looked down sadly.
Sara patted her shoulder comfortingly.
‘Anyway, enough about that. What’s the latest on you and the T-bone?’ Faith asked.
‘T-no-bone,’ Sara said and they all giggled again. Then her face fell. ‘I’m going to have to leave him.’
‘Do you think so?’ Minel looked more anxious than ever. She doesn’t like it, all this uncertainty, Faith thought. She wants to make it better for us all. Mother us out of it. This is practice for her too. She can’t fix everything for us, she won’t be able to fix everything for the baby she wants so much. She needs to learn to let us make our own mistakes and live our own lives.
‘I don’t really see what options I have left,’ Sara said. ‘He won’t talk, I’ve tried every which way I can think of, we just plod along.’ She blinked a couple of times. ‘I love him,’ she said, ‘but I can’t live like this. I love myself more.’
‘It’s a bit of a long-shot, but if he realises he’s actually going to lose you he might finally address it, whatever it is,’ Faith said.
Sara nodded. ‘I feel a bit like I’m giving him an ultimatum but I don’t see what other choice I have. If he does agree we have to end it,’ she said vehemently, ‘I am going out and getting laid immediately even if I have to do it with one of those awful teenagers.’
‘I am too,’ Faith said. ‘If Rik doesn’t want to. Got to get over him. Get under somebody else.’ She giggled sadly.
So we’ll all have a resolution one way or another. Sara will either get Tony to talk or she’ll go and get some elsewhere; I will either have a chance of a future with Rik or not. Not all of us, she corrected herself, Minel still doesn’t have her baby but she’s got Paul and they’ll keep trying and isn’t that proof that life doesn’t fit itself into tiny boxes, but that sometimes, you have to get through the hard, complicated, messy, painful stuff and if you have somebody who loves you like Paul loves Minel, or somebody who will cuddle you like Sara and GT cuddle me, you’ll get through it.
Faith didn’t hear anything from Rik on Thursday either and she supposed she had her answer. At least the sun had made a welcome return, drying the sodden ground and warming her skin and everybody’s moods as they toiled away. She’d better pack her things and head home before he got back, just in case he still had Lucinda in tow. Besides, she still needed to talk to her mother.
It feels like the end of the summer holidays, she thought wearily. Back to school. Back to life, back to reality.
Faith texted Judith she’d be home for dinner, before packing up her things from the cottage. If Lucinda was still on the scene she wouldn’t like it if she knew Faith had been staying there so she took care to remove all evidence of her presence, throwing out the spare toothbrush she’d used and replacing it with an identical one.
GT watched her mournfully as she locked the door behind her. ‘You’ll have to go back to the house,’ she said.
He whined plaintively, too miserable to even sniff her leg. She looked at the puppy and thought, sod my mother. I need somebody to hold at night.
‘Come on then,’ she said, scooping him up. He rolled over happily in her arms, exposing his belly in anticipation of a scratch. ‘You can come home with me.’
Her mother looked boot-faced as the yapping puppy bounded eagerly into the house, sniffing madly around the kitchen and lifting his leg against the table. ‘Stop that!’ Faith yelped, grabbing him up and rushing him out to the garden. ‘You know perfectly well you go outside.’
‘Is that a permanent fixture?’ Judith asked, watching GT merrily launch himself at the anemones.
‘Yes,’ Faith said firmly. ‘I’ll have to find somewhere to live where they don’t mind dogs.’
They made stilted conversation over dinner, then Jeff excused himself to go and watch University Challenge. Judith made a pot of tea and sat down at the table, looking at Faith expectantly.
‘What is it?’ Faith said suspiciously.
‘They are,’ Faith confirmed. ‘But not exclusively. I’ve had other things on my mind too.’
‘Such as?’ her mother asked.
‘Such as the realisation that I’ve been in love with Rik Panesar basically my entire adult life,’ Faith said, suddenly feeling despairing and almost unbearably flat. She checked her phone automatically, but there was still nothing. ‘Not that it matters,’ she sniffed, ‘because although he was once most definitely very much in love with me, he doesn’t seem to be any more.’
Judith stared down at her teacup. ‘I never thought much of him.’
‘I noticed.’
‘I saw the way he looked at you.’
And mustn’t that have frightened you, Faith thought. ‘I noticed that too,’ she said. ‘I’m sure the idea of your daughter discovering boys, and sex,’ she ignored her mother’s flinch, ‘was truly terrifying for you but if not Rik, then just who would you have preferred me to have chosen? Somebody like Dad?’
Judith sighed.
‘Somebody I wasn’t attracted to?’ Faith suggested pleasantly.
‘Attraction isn’t everything.’
‘It’s not,’ Faith agreed. ‘But it helps. I would have thought you of all people would realise that.’ She picked up the teapot and poured herself a cup. ‘Dad told me your arrangement.’
‘Yes.’
‘So why didn’t you tell me? Last time, when you were thinking of getting divorced. Why didn’t you say there was more to it than just Dad being unfaithful for no reason?’
‘It’s not an easy conversation to have,’ Judith said.
‘No truly useful conversation is. And it would have been a useful conversation,’ she went on, ‘because it turns out I have been carrying around some pretty misguided opinions about men, and relationships, and life in general thanks not entirely, but definitely in part, to you.’
‘I take medication,’ Judith said, ‘and it has side effects.’
Faith frowned. She’d never noticed her mother popping pills. ‘What kind of medication?’ And then suddenly she knew. ‘Anti-depressants.’
Her mother nodded and took a sip of tea.
‘You had postnatal depression,’ Faith said. ‘After me.’
So it is my fault, she thought. It was my fault all along and I never even knew.
‘I did,’ Judith said. ‘But also my own upbringing wasn’t what you’d call nurturing and I’d certainly had episodes before. And I tried,’ she looked at Faith almost imploringly, ‘to keep it from affecting you, because I wouldn’t change having you for the world, Faith. But I can’t deny I found it hard, and your father found it hard, and I tried coming off the medication because I knew it was affecting our marriage, but the thought of being so out of control of my own emotions when I was trying to raise you.’ She stopped talking and looked back down at the tea cup.
Faith felt a wave of sympathy for her mother and she touched her hand gently.
‘I’m sorry,’ Judith said, ‘if it did affect you. It can be genetic,’ she winced, ‘and you’re very sensitive and you could be so very emotional at times and I worried that meant you would end up like me.’
‘You wanted to protect me,’ Faith said.
Judith smiled weakly. ‘Instead it looks like I drove you away.’ She took another deep breath. ‘I was so grateful to you for your company and your support after your father and I nearly split up.’
‘I didn’t do much,’ Faith said automatically, because she hadn’t, really. But then also she had. She’d thought all the time and concern she’d devoted to her mother was wasted but if it had helped, even in some small way, then that was something.
‘You did more than you know,’ Judith said. ‘You persuaded me to go to counselling with your father, you encouraged me to try and find a way forwards. You stopped me from running away,’ she went on, ‘and although I can see the solution we came to is distasteful to you, it’s also a compromise and that’s what marriage is all about. Compromise.’
Faith wrinkled her nose automatically, but her mother’s expression was similar to the one of resigned conviction she’d seen on her father’s face after she’d confronted him. She eyed Judith for a moment, wondering if she should say any more, but already she could feel her anger at her mother drifting away.
She probably did think she was doing what was best for me, she admitted, trying to protect me from everything. Wrap me up in cotton wool and hope no harm ever came to me.
Just like I’ve been doing to myself all these years instead of living life the way I want to.
‘I’m not going back to work,’ Faith said. ‘I’m going back to college to train in horticulture and then I’m going to set up as a garden designer and if it means I have to live in a caravan, or a shed in a garden, then that’s what I’ll do.’
Judith looked relieved at the change of subject. ‘You can stay here as long as you want,’ she said.
Faith nodded. ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘I’ll think about it. And I appreciate it,’ she added. ‘It means a lot. This really is what I’ve always wanted to do.’
Judith sighed. ‘You’re old enough to make your own choices, Faith. And if that and Rik really are your choices, then your father and I will support you.’
‘That all depends,’ Faith said sadly, ‘on whether I’m still Rik’s choice or not, and right now it’s looking depressingly like I’m not.’ She stood up. ‘I’m off to bed. Busy day tomorrow.’
‘Sleep well,’ Judith said automatically.
I will, Faith thought, until 3am.
She woke at three on the dot. GT stirred instantly and she reluctantly put on a jumper, knowing he would have to go out to the garden and she had no hope of getting back to sleep after that. She made herself a cup of tea as the puppy busied himself in the garden, then she scooped him up and carried him back to her bedroom.
Should she stay here? She would have to pay rent, but it wouldn’t be anything like what it would cost her to rent on the open market and she was pretty sure she could persuade her mother to put up with GT. She noticed a freshly-chewed patch of skirting board and winced.
If she stayed around, she could be there for Sara like her friend had been there for her this summer. They could nurse each other through their heartbreak together.
But if she stayed around here she’d have to get used to Westchester without Rik. She remembered having the same thought at the start of the summer, when Minel had first asked her to come and work at Hollyhocks. Maybe this would be the first step to finally putting him behind him. Maybe now she could look what she’d lost in the eye, she could start to let it all go. And what better place to do it than here, who better to do it with than her best friends?
She picked up her phone, checking it automatically, her eyes sliding away with disappointment, then she stopped and stared. She blinked, and stared again. She had a message.
She opened it, her hands trembling. GT curled himself into her lap supportively.
He had texted her a flight number, the terminal and the time of arrival which was, she squinted, only four hours from now. Early flight. He must be up already. She looked at the time of the message. 3.05am.
And then her heart just exploded in her chest and she thought, he knows. He knows if I really meant it, that I’ll be awake now tearing my heart out over him.
Oh Rik, she thought. This time I won’t let you down.
‘Guess what?’ she said to GT, ecstatic. ‘I think, I just think, he just might love me after all.’
GT sighed and closed his eyes.
Thank god for my predictable insomnia and GT’s diminutive bladder, she thought, and then she texted Rik back quickly saying she’d see him there. She set an alarm for 5am and shut her eyes, knowing she would be back asleep almost instantly.
Chapter
28
Faith woke to the shrilling of her alarm, the excited pounding of her heart, and more snuffling from GT. She would drop him off at Hollyhocks before she left, she decided. She couldn’t handle a car journey with him leaping about all over the back of the Land Rover yapping and chewing her admittedly already battered upholstery.
She showered and put on the nicest vest and shorts combination she owned, because she still had a bit of gardening to do and she and Rik were going to be late by the time they got back to Hollyhocks.
Oh god, what was she going to say to him? What if she was wrong? What if he was going to tell her he’d thought about it and thanks, but no thanks? They would have to drive home in awkward silence. You and him have got through worse than a car journey in awkward silence, she rallied herself.
She booted GT out and shoved him into the haybarn, knowing he would be whining and scrabbling at the front door within minutes and feeling mildly guilty about waking Minel, but not guilty enough to stay a second longer. The Land Rover was obviously in an obliging mood as she managed to scale the dizzy heights of 60mph on the M25, which she thought must be a personal best.
Despite the early hour, Arrivals was packed with yawning, blinking people milling around and watching for flight numbers. Faith saw that Rik’s flight had arrived right on time but there was no sign of him, and she paced around, back and forth until she started to worry she was going to dig a trough with her restless feet.
Travellers were pouring through and Faith heard German accents and assumed they must be from the Hamburg flight, but there was still no sign of Rik and she recommenced her pacing, bobbing her head frantically over the embracing couples and families at the rails in front of her. Oh, where was he?
She checked her messages again. Nothing. She checked the flight number and the terminal for the hundredth time, and still no Rik. It had been forty minutes now. How long should she leave it? What if he hadn’t got her reply and assumed she hadn’t got his message and thought she was still at home and he’d gone and found a taxi and was on his way to Hollyhocks right now?