He screwed up his nose. “I wouldn’t.”
She stood in the garden as he locked his front door. The air was soft – she could smell the jasmine that climbed up the side wall. The sea opposite was oily smooth, the evening sun gleaming on it. All her senses suddenly seemed heightened – colours were vibrant, sounds clear, smells evocative; even her skin felt sensitive. She looked at his fingers as he dropped the keys into his pocket, knowing he couldn’t but wishing he would take her hand. He walked along a yard apart from her, seeming awkward.
“So,” he said as they wound down the path to the jetty, behind knots of holiday-makers, “where are you taking me?”
“There’s a great group on in the Frigate,” she said. “We’ll start there?”
But from the jetty, beyond the Coastguard’s with its crooked walls and beams and white rendering, she heard the dancers. Tinkling bells and mellow chords from the accordion sounded above the large crowd. She glanced up at Sam and saw he was looking that way too.
‘Do you like Morris dancing?” she asked hopefully, already feeling uplifted by the music that floated across.
He nodded thoughtfully. “There’s a sort of innocence to it, isn’t there?”
The jetty was packed. Families sat on benches eating chips in paper, couples wandered entwined, children were pushed in buggies or carried on shoulders, babies slept in slings. Lying the length of one of the benches a huge bearded man was snoring, his pewter pot lying empty on his ample stomach. “He’s had a good day,” said Sam.
Everyone seemed to have done. Gaynor smiled at a toddler shrieking with glee from her father’s shoulders, watched the knots of tanned youngsters with their plastic glasses of beer and Bacardi Breezers. She jerked her head at Sam to follow her and began to edge her way through the crowd until they came to the inner ring surrounding the dancers.
A large woman in a voluminous patchwork dress smiled and pushed her children in front of her so Sam and Gaynor could squeeze in and get a view of the six big men in their baggy white blouses, green neckerchiefs and red trousers. She’d always been taken with Morris dancing. These were big men but they fell lightly on their feet, the bells strung around their knees jangling as they skipped too and fro, the accordion played by an old guy in coat tails, his brown wrinkled face split into a grin beneath his battered top hat.
Gaynor looked happily at Sam, enjoying the familiar scent of sea and beer, watching the dazzle of colours in the evening sunshine.
“And how many years have you been doing this?” he asked as they dropped coins in one of the yellow buckets prominently rattled before them and wandered back along the jetty.
“A fair few. I’ve been in Broadstairs ten this summer.”
“What brought you?”
“Victor. After he rescued me from the gutter.”
Sam raised his eyebrows. “Is that your appraisal of what happened, or his?”
She flushed. “Oh it’s just a joke he makes. I was working part-time in a nightclub, living in a grim old bed-sit in Kilburn. I think he fancied himself as Rex Harrison – whisking me away from it all! The first month I moved down here was August – and Folk Week.”
She remembered how enchanted she’d been. By the beach and the jetty, the little back streets, the white-washed cottages. How lucky she’d felt. How grateful…
They were still some distance from the Tartar Frigate but already she could hear the music pulsating through the open door of the old flint pub. As they reached it, she glanced through at the packed bodies.
She laughed. “Are you ready for this?”
“Mmmn,” he said, uncertainly. “The music sounds good…”
“Come on then. What do you want to drink?”
The heat and noise hit them like a warm wall. Gaynor began to wriggle through the solid mass of drinkers towards the bar. The odours of ale and suntan lotion, sweat and excitement mixed with the cigarette smoke that hung in a blue haze beneath the low beams. Over to her left, a group were belting out an Irish jig. She saw Sam’s head standing out above the crowd but the players were almost hidden from view. Still the music scorched the air, vibrated through the ancient floor boards and up into her feet. She already wanted to dance.
By the time she’d been served, Sam was near the front. He turned and saw her coming, pushing a shoulder and arm towards her, drawing her through to stand beside him. “Look.” He gestured, taking his beer, pointing to where the fiddle player, his eyes closed in some sort of ecstasy, crouched low over his bow, the strings blurring in a dizzying cascade of notes. The guitar man swayed to his strumming and the thud from the bodhran set her body twitching. She moved rhythmically to the music, tapping her foot, rocking gently against Sam.
He appeared transfixed, standing quite still, watching. As the number ended and the pub erupted into fervent applause, he clapped hard, then turned and gave her a huge smile.
“He’s good on that fiddle,” he said when they’d retreated outside for air at the end of the first set.
“I haven’t heard you play your piano yet,” Gaynor said, perching on the wooden railings that edged the jetty and looking out across the beach.
He shook his head dismissively. “Oh, I’m rusty now. I wasn’t bad once but…” He shrugged. “Life goes in other directions. There was never time – always too much else going on with the kids and stuff. I tried to get Debra to play
– she was good when she was young – seven, eight years old. The teacher said she had a real aptitude but she lost interest.” He smiled. “Debra’s very clever but she’s efficient rather than arty. Know what I mean?”
Gaynor fiddled with one of the plastic cups they’d been given to take drinks outside. “I’m neither. I always wished I’d played an instrument. David used to play the violin but my father put him off. Couldn’t stand the sound of him practising.”
“You look artistic to me. Your jewellery, your clothes and things. You strike me as creative.” “No, I’m not really.” “What are you good at, then?”
She flushed again. “Nothing.” She took a swallow of her drink, stung. It sounded like the sort of thing Victor would say.
“Hey!” He touched her arm. “I didn’t mean it like that. I meant, genuinely, tell me about what you are good at, where your talents lie.”
“I don’t have any.”
“I don’t believe that.”
They passed Greens on their way up Harbour Street. Gaynor could see it was filled to bursting point, bodies crammed together behind the glass of the large front window, groups standing on the pavement outside. She felt a moment’s tug of guilt, thinking of Sarah and Claire trying to deal with all those people, but she had phoned Sarah earlier and Sarah had said it was still OK.
“Do you need to go in?” Sam asked. She hesitated for a moment, then shook her head and led him on up the hill to where a duet of keyboard and sax were playing at The Nickleby.
It wasn’t so hot in here but their bodies were still crushed together – the length of her arm was pressed against his. She felt the reverberations of the music run through her. She stole a look at his profile; he was standing very upright, looking directly ahead, watching the group intently. She looked at his strong features, the set of his jaw. There was something very ‘straight’ about him – honest. Like you’d know where you were. Quite different from Victor – she was beginning to wonder if he ever said anything she could believe. She looked at Sam’s fingers curled around his half-full pint of beer. The same pint he’d been holding for the last hour, while she’d had several glasses of vile pub wine.
She found herself thinking of those hands touching her. She realised with a shock how much she wanted him.
When they left, the light was fading but the air was still warm and soft. Gaynor felt strangely cocooned amongst the floods of revellers, hooting and laughing as they jostled for their places on the pavement for the torchlight procession. She watched young girls in minute skirts and loud boys in baggy jeans and yawny-eyed children wearing illuminated head-bands spar
kling red and green and fractious parents trying to keep hold of them. She felt light and happy.
A never-ending stream of people poured along the High Street, holding plastic beer mugs or ice creams, candy floss or burgers. Minute by minute the throng on the pavements grew thicker. Clusters of foil balloons bobbed above the heads and the air was filled with the cries of children either pleading for one or wailing after getting their wish and then letting it slip from their fingers.
Vendors carried armfuls of flashing headgear and pushed trolleys of sticky toffee apples. The air was filled with the smell of fried onions from the hot dog cart. Gaynor felt all at once that stimulation of being part of a crowd and the comfort of being lost in one.
She put a hand on Sam’s arm. “OK?”
He moved aside to let her stand in front of him at the edge of the road, so she’d have a better view, nodding at her.
From the top of the High Street lights shone. “They’re on their way, Mother,” came a loud northern voice a few yards away. A couple of policemen made their way along either side of the road. “Move back, please. Keep in.”
And then the police van with blue lights flashing and reflecting off the shop windows came past, followed by a dragon. Eight feet tall and black-cloaked, it made a show of peering into the crowd, snapping its jaws, stooping down low to bring its long teeth up into children’s faces to much squealing and adult laughter. Coins were slotted down its throat and it swung on, followed by the first of the torch bearers, holding up their flames high into the night.
Troupes of dancers in costume stopped and twirled to the strains of an accordion. A fire-eater slid a burning taper into his mouth and roared out flames, then more Morris dancers, and jesters with bells on their toes, and harlequins, came jauntily down the hill. On the procession swept, full of music and colour and dancing and twinkling lights. Here and there, someone in mufti came by holding a torch and either a self-conscious grin or a slightly bewildered air, as if they weren’t quite sure what they were caught up in.
Finally, too soon, the brass band marched slowly past followed by the surge of the crowd as the people-packed pavements burst back into the road.
Sam was grinning. He took Gaynor’s arm and then dropped it again, as though suddenly embarrassed. Ignoring him, she tucked her arm purposefully back through his. “It’s OK,” she said as they shuffled their way behind a sea of people, along Albion Street where the fish and chip queues stretched for miles and the pubs spilled their drinkers on to the pavement. “Nobody gives a shit.”
The crowd thinned and they left the noise behind as they walked up the path towards his cottage. She wondered if he was going to invite her in. She didn’t want to go home yet. She knew the house would feel big and empty there on her own. Victor had seemed unbothered about missing most of the week – once he had loved it as much as she did, but now he clearly had other preoccupations. She thought of Sam the night before – the way he’d held her and patted her, had made her feel so cared for. She wanted to sit with him again, to talk to him, to feel safe.
They stopped at his gate. He pushed it open and stood there, looking slightly ill at ease. She put a hand back on his arm. “I’ve had a really good time tonight.” She smiled.
He looked at her seriously. “So have I.”
She felt a little drunk and reckless. “Oh, look there’s Brutus.” She used the cat as an excuse to push the gate further open, move past him, cross the front lawn and sweep the cat up into her arms. “How are you, beautiful boy?” She sat down in one of the wooden chairs outside the French doors and put her handbag on the table. “What a fabulous night,” she said, kicking off her shoes and shaking back her hair. Brutus wriggled free of her grasp and leapt gracefully from her arms, winding himself briefly around Sam’s legs and then disappearing around the side of the house.
Sam stood opposite her, his hands leaning against the back of the other chair. “What are you going to do now? How are you getting home? Shall I call you a cab or … I’ll walk you but I don’t want to put you in an awkward position…”
She shook her head. “No need for that – I walk home from the wine bar all the time. You don’t get much safer than Broadstairs, do you?”
“Probably not,” he said. “But lots of women wouldn’t do it.”
Gaynor shrugged. “Sarah worries about it but it never occurs to me to be at all alarmed. It’s funny,” she went on, “because I’m afraid of the dark. But only when I’m inside. Outside I feel alive and sort of filled with positive energy walking alone at night. Indoors, though, I have to have the lights on. When Victor’s away I have lamps lit all over the place. It makes me feel claustrophobic, otherwise. I imagine things leaping on me...” She risked a provocative smile.
He nodded. “I can understand that,” he said straight-faced.
She smiled up at him again. “So I’ll be fine but I thought you might make me a coffee first.”
“Sure. I was just thinking of you. It’s late. Your husband…”
“I’ve told you, he’s away. He won’t know what time I get home.”
He looked at her for a moment then unlocked the door.
“I don’t want to go home at all really,” she said when he returned with two mugs. “Look at all those stars.”
They both looked upwards at the velvety, diamond-studded sky.
“I know,” he said quietly.
She toyed with her teaspoon. “I’d rather stay here with you.”
“I know,” he said again. “But you’re not thinking it through. It’s not a good idea.”
She felt rebuffed. “You didn’t mind last night.”
He stirred his coffee, his voice reasonable. “You were very upset last night – I was looking after you. Doesn’t mean I felt comfortable with it.”
“Oh.” She felt all at once foolish and hurt and quite unable to stop herself pushing on. “Oh, so you didn’t want me here.”
“I didn’t say that,” he said, in the same calm tones. “Look, you’ve had quite a bit to drink and you’re trying to create an argument where there isn’t one. I tried to take care of you last night and I would again. If you really want to stay here you can – the spare bed is made up – but I don’t think you should.”
“I don’t want to stay in the spare bed…” She knew she’d die a thousand deaths in the morning but she was locked into it now. The bold, pushy Gaynor-on-the-pull that sprang to life after a bottle of wine was in full flood, and all sober Gaynor could do was look on and prepare to cringe. “I want to sleep in your bed. I want to make love with you!”
He appeared unfazed. “You feel like that because I’ve looked after you.” He gave a small smile. “A bit like falling for your therapist. It’s not real. And,” he went on, “you’d feel terribly guilty in the morning and so would I. For taking advantage of your emotional state when you’ve been drinking, not to mention sleeping with another man’s wife.”
She glared at him. “Taking advantage of me? How quaint.”
“I’m old-fashioned.”
“And I know my own mind.”
He remained resolute. “And I know mine and I know what would be honourable and what wouldn’t…”
“Honourable?” For a horrible moment she thought she was going to cry. “So you’re kicking me out and you don’t want me.”
“I’m your friend and I’m here for you. Do you want more coffee?”
“No, I’m going home.”
She picked up her denim jacket and pushed her feet back into her shoes. “Goodbye,” she said, as she swung her handbag over her shoulder, knowing she was behaving like a spoiled child, her feelings a mass of hurt rejection and humiliation and a huge, gaping pit of loss.
“I won’t bother you again,” she said over her shoulder, as she prepared to sweep out.
He put out a hand and grabbed her arm, holding her still for a moment. “I’m here for you,” he said. “I’m here and I’m your friend.”
He let her go, adding, almost sadly. “
Remember that if you change your mind.”
11. Chilean Merlot
Powerful-bodied with a mellow aftertaste.
“I am not going to change my mind.”
“But why can’t I?” Charlie glared at Sarah, his bottom lip stuck out in belligerence.
Sarah held his yesterday’s lunch box at arm’s length and turned on the hot tap, sighing in exasperation. “Because you don’t need it.”
“Luke’s got one.”
“Luke’s at high school and travels on the bus. When you’re at secondary school I’ll get you one.” Somehow, she thought. At the moment she could barely keep up with the groceries.
Charlie remained unmoved. “I’m the only person at school who hasn’t got one now.”
She rinsed and scrubbed. “I know that isn’t true.”
“It is true.”
Sarah shook the drips from the plastic and picked up a tea-towel. “Kieran hasn’t got one, nor has Matthew, nor, I am quite sure, has Connor.”
“I was talking, said Charlie, with deep disdain, “about the people I like .”
Sarah packed cling-filmed sandwiches and crisps. Added a Kit-Kat and an apple. Topped it all with a paper napkin that would come back untouched.
“Well, I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to wait. Luke didn’t get one at your age and even if I wanted to buy you one, mobile phones are very expensive.”
Charlie kicked at his school rucksack which was in the middle of the kitchen floor. “That’s what you say about everything.”
“I’m afraid it’s true.” And whose fault is that, she wanted to shriek at him. Who left us with no money and only a third share in the roof over our heads?
“I bet Dad would get me one,” Charlie said, watching her carefully.
She snapped the lid of the lunchbox shut, banged it down on the table with unnecessary force and turned on him. “You ask him, then,” she said, “when you see him.”
She was immediately suffused with shame. Paul had made no effort to get in touch with the kids for three weeks now. She knew she should try and phone him, tell him how Charlie, in particular, was missing him. But she shrank from the call – unsure how well she could cope with hearing his voice. Perhaps if he’d had a good day at the bookies or casino he would buy Charlie a mobile – hell, he might buy them all one – but just as likely he’d be morose and aggressive or full of bluster about tomorrow or next week, how that would be the big one…
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