by Liz Fielding
‘I told you when I called you.’
‘No, you didn’t...’ Or maybe she had. ‘There was a hurricane, all that came through was that you needed me home immediately.’
‘No, not home. I wanted you to meet me at San Francisco. When you didn’t arrive I called again but your assistant said you’d already left. I’ve been worried—’
‘What about the taxman?’ he interrupted. ‘The unpaid bills?’
‘It’s not important. I’ll sort that out when I get home—’
‘Not important? What about Sorrel?’ he demanded, suddenly furious with her. ‘Don’t you ever think? She had a big event today and you left her high and dry to go swanning off to the States.’
‘Today? No... That’s next week... Isn’t it?’
‘Ria! What are you doing in America?’
‘I... It’s Michael,’ she said. ‘Michael’s here. I’ve found my son, Alex. Your brother...’ And then she burst into tears.
She’d found Michael? For a moment he couldn’t speak and Sorrel took the phone from him, talked quietly to Ria, made some notes, took a number.
‘He’ll call you back with his flight number, Ria.’ There was a pause. ‘No... It’s fine, we managed. Really. But can you email me your recipe for the chocolate chilli ice cream...? That would be brilliant... No, take all the time you need. We’ll talk when you get back.’
He heard her replace the receiver. Then she put her arms around him and held him while the tears poured down his cheeks, soaking into her shoulder.
She was smiling when he raised his head.
‘I’m sorry...’
‘No.’ She put her fingers over his lips when he would have tried to explain. Kissed him. ‘Ria has found your brother.’
‘Look at me. I’m trembling. Suppose he doesn’t want to know me?’
‘He must have been looking for his family, Alexander.’
‘Yes...’
She handed him the phone. ‘Book your flight.’ He held it for a moment, not wanting to leave her. ‘Go on,’ she urged.
He dialled the airline, then looked across at her. ‘Seven forty-five tomorrow morning. You could come with me.’
‘No. This is for you and Ria. And I’ve got things I have to do here. Chocolate ice cream to make. A franchise to launch if I’m going to be a millionaire by the time I’m twenty-five.’ She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. ‘Let’s just make the most of tonight.’
* * *
Alexander eased himself out of bed just before five the following morning, dressed quickly and picked up his overnight bag pausing only for one last look at Sorrel.
It was a mistake. Her dark chestnut hair was spread across the pillow, her lips slightly parted in what looked like a smile and he wanted to crawl back in bed with her. Be there when she woke...
She stirred as the driver of the taxi tooted from below. Her eyelids fluttered up and she said, ‘Go or you’ll miss your plane.’
‘Sorrel...’ He was across the room in a stride and he held her for a long moment, imprinting the feel of her arms around him, the taste of her lips, the scent of her hair in his memory.
There was a second, impatient, toot and she leaned back. ‘Your brother is waiting for you.’
‘Yes...’ There was nothing else he could say. They both knew that he wouldn’t ‘see her soon’. He was going to fly west from San Francisco to Pantabalik, not because it made sense, but because if he returned he would have to say goodbye again.
* * *
Sorrel waited until the door closed, then she reached across to the empty side of the bed and pulled Alexander’s pillow towards her, hugging it, breathing in his scent, reliving in her head the night they’d spent together.
They’d hardly slept. They’d talked, made love, got up to scramble eggs in the middle of the night before going back to bed just to hold one another. Be close.
She finally drifted off, waking with the sun streaming in at the window.
Alexander would be in the air by now, on his way to San Francisco to meet a brother he had never known before returning to the life he’d chosen. The life he loved.
She wanted to linger, stay in Alexander’s apartment for a while, but that would be self-indulgent, foolish. She had seized the moment and now it was time to get on with her life, too.
She took clean underwear from the overnight bag she’d packed, had a quick shower and wrapped her hair in a towel while she got dressed. She found her jeans under the bed. Her T-shirt had vanished without trace and instead of wearing the spare she’d packed, she picked up the one that Alexander had been wearing. Then she called a taxi and, torn between a smile and a tear, went home to get on with her life.
A new life. One without a prop.
She stopped the taxi outside the rectory and paid off the driver. Graeme saw her coming and was waiting at the door.
‘Late night?’ he asked, sarcastically.
‘No,’ she said. ‘An early one.’ And he was the one who blushed.
‘Do you want to come in? I’ve just made coffee.’
‘No...I have things to do. I just wanted you to know...’ She swallowed. She didn’t have to tell him. It was written all over her. She was wearing a man’s T-shirt, for heaven’s sake, coming home in a taxi in the middle of the morning. ‘I hate opera.’
‘You could just have said no,’ he said.
‘Yes, I could. I should have done that a long time ago. You’ve been a good friend, Graeme, and I’m grateful for everything you’ve done for me, but I need to move on with my life. And so do you.’
He sighed. ‘You would have made the perfect wife. You’re elegant, charming, intelligent...’
She put her hand on his arm to stop him. ‘Perfect isn’t the answer, Graeme.’
‘No? What is?’
‘If I knew the formula for love, Graeme, I would rule the world. All I can tell you is that it’s kind of magic.’ She kissed his cheek. ‘Thanks for everything.’ She was on the bottom step when she turned and looked back up at him. ‘Did you know that Ria loves opera?’
‘Ria? I’d have thought she was into happy-clappy folk music.’
‘People never fail to surprise you. She’s in San Francisco right now, with her son, but she’ll be home next week. It would be a shame to waste the ticket.’
* * *
There was a long queue in the arrivals hall to get through immigration and Alexander used the time to send Sorrel a text. ‘Flight endless, queue at Immigration endless. I’d rather be making ice cream.’
* * *
Sorrel read his message and hugged the phone to her for a moment. She’d spoken to Ria that afternoon, explained her plans and said hello to a very emotional Michael.
He’d be waiting at the gate to meet his brother. Would they be alike? she wondered. Would they recognise one another on sight?
She took a deep breath then texted back, ‘No, you wouldn’t.’
He came right back with, ‘I’m nervous.’
‘He’ll love you.’ Who wouldn’t? ‘Now stop bothering me while I’m busy building an empire. I have ice cream to make. You have family to meet.’ She resisted adding an x.
‘Are you okay?’ Basil asked, turning from the fridge where he was putting away the ices.
She sniffed. ‘Fine. Bit of hay fever, that’s all. How was business today?’ she asked, before he could argue.
‘Very good. Young Jane is a great find.’
‘I know. I was thinking of asking her if she’d like to manage this place when her course is finished.’
‘What about Nancy?’
‘She doesn’t have the business qualifications.’
‘Maybe she should go back to school and get them. Knickerbocker Gloria could sponsor her.’
‘You are unbelievable, do you know that?’ She gave him a hug. ‘The loveliest man in the world.’
‘On the subject of lovely men,’ he said, ‘when will Alexander be back from the States?’
‘He won’t be
.’ She turned away, so that he wouldn’t see how hard it was to say that. ‘He needs to get back to work and he’s travelling straight on to Pantabalik from San Francisco.’
‘Well, I suppose that makes sense. But Graeme is history?’ She nodded. ‘Well, that’s something, I suppose. I’ve nothing against him,’ he added quickly. ‘I’ll miss his advice. But he was never right for you.’
‘You didn’t say anything.’
‘Some things you have to find out for yourself.’
‘I must be a slow learner.’
‘No, my dear. There was no one else to show you how it should be.’
‘No...’ She swallowed, rather afraid that there would be no one else now she knew... ‘I suggested he take Ria to the opera,’ she said.
‘Did you now?’ He laughed. ‘Well, she’ll certainly shake the creases out of his pants. How’s the ice cream coming along?’
‘It’s just about perfect,’ she replied, offering him a taste.
‘That’ll put some heat into their tango.’
‘You think? Great.’ She swallowed. ‘And I’ve created an ice of my own to go with it.’ She took a fresh spoon and offered it to him. ‘What do you think?’ she asked, watching nervously as he tasted it.
‘Oh, well, that’s fun. What did you put in it?’
‘Popping candy,’ she said.
* * *
Alexander would have loved to find and name an orchid for Sorrel. But he wasn’t in South America so he was searching the Internet for Cattleya walkeriana ‘Blue Moon’, a rare, delicate pale blue orchid.
At the checkout he was asked if he wanted to add a message and typed, ‘I saw this and thought of you.’
A few days later he received a text from her. ‘Thanks, it’s beautiful. Did you know that the next blue moon is only a year away? Or three, depending on how you define it.’
‘Let’s go with the first definition,’ he suggested. ‘How’s the new project?’
‘Keeping me busy, but I thought of you and made this. I think it needs something else—any ideas?’
It was an ice-cream recipe. Milk, cream, sugar, popping candy...
He pulled out the T-shirt she’d been wearing that last night and held it to his face. Grass, fresh air, vanilla, strawberries swamped him with an overload of ideas, none of which he was prepared to commit to the Internet.
‘Passion fruit.’ He added a photograph of a huge blue butterfly sipping nectar from a tropical bloom and tapped, ‘Just so you know that it’s not all mosquitoes.’
* * *
Sorrel spread out Geli’s designs for the new retro-look Knickerbocker Gloria.
‘I’ve gone for classic nineteen-fifties Americana styling,’ she said. ‘Apparently they are the new “cool” in the States. I’ve sent you some URLs to check out.’
She’d put her phone on the table and when it pinged to alert her to an incoming message she stared at it.
‘Do you want to get that?’ Geli asked.
Yes, yes, yes... ‘It will keep,’ she said, turning to her laptop and clicking on the URL to a restored soda bar in New York.
‘They do alcoholic ones?’ she asked, a whole new level of opportunities opening up before her.
‘When I was in Italy last year I was taken to an ice-cream parlour that served up seriously adults-only ices.’
‘If we could get a licence, it would make a great venue for hen nights,’ Elle chipped in.
‘I’ll check it out.’
Once they’d gone, Sorrel read Alexander’s message, touched a silky blue petal on her orchid, held his T-shirt to her face.
She made herself wait two days before she replied. ‘The passion fruit was perfect. How do you do that, Postcard Man? Great butterfly, by the way. If the moths are that big, I’m amazed you have any clothes left.’
‘Let’s just say you wouldn’t want to grow cabbages around here. How is the franchise plan coming along?’
‘That’s for the long term. We have to prove the idea first.’ She attached Geli’s design. ‘This is the image we’re going for.’
‘Pure Norman Rockwell. Does Ria approve?’
‘We’re working on her.’
Alexander eased off his backpack, stretched his muscles, turned on his phone hoping for a message from Sorrel. After a long hard trek, it was like coming home to a kiss...
We’re working on her?
‘Who is we?’ he dashed off and then wished he hadn’t. He sounded jealous. Hell, he was jealous of anyone who was with her. Could Graeme be back on the scene?
He had to wait a day for her reply— ‘Michael came back with her. He wants to see where he came from. Where you come from. He looks a lot like you, only less battered.’
‘The knocks are collisions with experience. Michael is still a baby.’
‘Keep away from experience, Alexander, it’s bad for your health and rots your clothes. Any closer to finding the elusive plant?’
‘Not yet, but there are plenty of others with potential. I sent a package of specimens back to the lab last week.’
‘That’s the way it goes. You’re saving lives, I’m making ice cream.’
‘Every life needs ice cream, Sorrel.’
And so it continued. Every day there was some small thing to make him think, make him smile, make him wish he could reach out and gather her in. Feel her in his arms, smell her hair, her skin, taste her strawberry lips.
He sent her photographs of the plants he’d found, the shy people who lived in the forest, a shack by the river where he’d made camp, the perfect white postcard curve of beach he’d found when they’d been near the coast.
‘Swam, baked a fish I caught over a fire and slept beneath the stars.’ And, instead of simply enjoying the moment as he would have done before he met her, he longel for Sorrel to be there to share it with him.
‘It looks blissful. I’m glad you had a few days out to rest. Michael has taken Ria back to the States for a couple of weeks, lucky thing. It’s raining cats and dogs, here. Very bad for business.’
Julia had only ever asked when he was coming home. Ria only sent him messages when she needed something. Sorrel was different.
She asked what he was doing, what he’d found, how he’d managed to dry out his socks after heavy rain. He’d begun to rely on that moment at the end of a gruelling day when he could put his feet up and be with her for a moment.
‘Make the most of it,’ he suggested. ‘Have a puddle-jumping moment.’ He grinned as he hit send, hoping that she’d send a picture. He’d bet the farm that she wore pink wellington boots.
There was no picture. For the first time in weeks there was no message from Sorrel waiting for him at the end of the day.
It was some hang-up in cyberspace, he knew, and yet the absence of that moment of warmth, of connection when he returned to camp, left him feeling strangely empty. Cold despite the steamy heat...
As if a goose had walked over his grave.
He shook off the feeling. She was busy. KG was being refitted. She had a business to run, a million more important things to do than keep him amused, but sleep, normally not a problem, eluded him.
When there was no message the following day the cold intensified to a small freezing spot deep inside him and he began to imagine every kind of disaster.
He knew it was stupid.
She lived in a quiet village in the softest of English countryside. She wasn’t going to find herself face-to-face with a poisonous snake in Longbourne. The only plant life that could cause her pain would be a brush with a stinging nettle and the mosquitoes weren’t carrying malaria.
She could have had an accident, his subconscious prodded, refusing to be quieted. A multi-car pile-up in bad weather on the ring road—she’d said it had been raining hard.
She could be in a coma in Intensive Care and why would anyone bother to call him?
He tapped in, ‘Missing your messages. Everything okay?’ Then hesitated. He was overreacting. If anything was wrong, Ria would l
et him know.
Maybe.
But no one knew how he felt about her. He hadn’t known himself until the possibility that she might not be waiting for him when he eventually turned up hit him like a hurricane.
No...
He deleted the message unsent; she was probably taking his advice and making the most of the moment. He hadn’t asked her to wait for him. He hadn’t wanted her to. He couldn’t handle the burden of expectation that involved.
He hit the sack, but didn’t sleep and after an hour he checked his inbox, again. Around one in the morning—lunchtime in Longbourne—he gave up and rang her mobile, telling himself that he just wanted to be sure that she was okay.
His call went straight to voicemail and the moment he heard her voice telling him she couldn’t answer right now but if he left a message she’d get back to him, he knew he was kidding himself.
He wanted to hold her, wanted to be with her, wanted to talk to her but he was cut off, disconnected, out on a limb. It was the place he’d chosen to be. Right now, though, it felt as if someone were sawing through the branch and he were falling...
Sorrel had become part of his life and, without noticing, he’d begun to take it for granted that she always would be. The truth, hitting him up the side of the head, was that he couldn’t imagine a day passing without her being a part of it. Couldn’t imagine his life without her...
‘Alex...’ his research assistant, an Aussie PhD student taking a year out to do field work, stuck his head around the hut door ‘...one of the runners has brought in something you’ll want to see.’
It was a leaf from the plant he’d been hunting for three years.
‘It’s not a myth,’ he said, touching it briefly. Then he looked up. ‘Go with him, Peter. You know what to do.’
‘Me? This is your big moment, man!’
‘It doesn’t matter who brings it in,’ he said, throwing his things into a bag. ‘I’m going home.’
‘You’ve got a family emergency?’
‘Something like that.’
* * *
‘I can’t believe you’ve been working here on your own all weekend, Sorrel. What happened to the Jackson brothers?’
Sorrel eased her aching shoulder.
‘Their mother was rushed into hospital on Thursday and I didn’t have anything to do.’ Well, apart from puddle-jumping and that was no fun on your own. ‘It was just the finishing touches.’