‘You don’t weigh an ounce,’ he commented, taking her hand and leading her towards what looked like a copse of trees, which were surprisingly well lit by the moon and starlight. Before long Rose could hear the trickle of water and, watching her feet, she let Ted lead her up a rough staircase of rocks that tumbled alongside the stream, until they came to a kind of plateau cut into the hillside. There amongst the gilt-edged trees, glittering in the moonlight, Rose could see a tiny waterfall, chiming rhythmically as it cascaded down into the stream below.
‘Wow,’ Rose breathed, as Ted spread a blanket out on a rock for her to sit on. ‘This place is beautiful!’
‘I know,’ Ted said softly. ‘When I was a little kid, me and Haleigh used to come here in the holidays. Mum’d pack us a lunch and then send us off for the day. We’d walk here, take us a good hour, stay here all day, just mucking about and that. Haleigh reckoned there were fairies living in the trees, and I used to play commando. Later, when Haleigh got too cool to hang out with me and started getting into lads, I came here on my own, and you know what the funny thing is, it does feel a little bit magical. I mean, I wouldn’t say that to just anyone, sounds a bit mental, but it does, doesn’t it?’
Rose smiled as she watched Ted’s profile, as he leant back on his hands and gazed at the night sky studded with stars, through the canopy of thin, windswept trees.
‘You’re quite a sweet lad really, aren’t you, under all that front and rock-star bluster?’ she asked him softly.
‘Me? Sweet? Never,’ Ted said, directing his gaze to her. ‘I’ve never brought anyone here until now. I don’t know why I’ve brought you, really. I just wanted to see your face when you saw it. I knew it would make you smile. And I don’t know why but I get the feeling you don’t smile nearly enough.’
‘I’ve smiled a lot more since arriving here,’ Rose told him.
‘That’ll be down to meeting me,’ Ted said, his expression hard to read in the darkness, but the sound of his voice light and playful. He was flirting, that was what flirting was, Rose thought, relieved that being alone with Ted out here, with no one around for miles and miles, didn’t make her as frightened as she’d feared, or indeed frightened at all. Ted was right, she knew that he wouldn’t hurt her because she sensed it. She was so used to feeling the exact opposite. Life with Richard had worn away all her instincts except fear. She was glad she’d come here, glad she had this opportunity just to be with another person and know there would be no terrible consequences.
‘Rose, can I ask you something?’ Ted said softly. ‘Not about kissing or anything.’
‘I suppose,’ Rose said.
‘Were things really bad with your husband?’
Rose was surprised by the question, surprised that Ted cared how things were with Richard, assuming that whatever problems Rose had at home, they would be low down on his list of interests.
‘Yes,’ she said bluntly, feeling that here, in the middle of all this beauty, it would be pointless and wrong to lie. ‘Yes, things were very bad. Still are, I suppose, although I haven’t spoken to him since I left.’
‘Do you want to talk about it?’ Ted asked her.
Slowly Rose shook her head. ‘Not here, not in this lovely place. It’s too … special.’
‘Fair enough,’ Ted said with a simple shrug.
‘Do you know what?’ Rose said, touched by his frank concern. ‘You’re OK.’
They sat quietly for a few minutes more, Rose finding that the more she listened to the cascade of the waterfall, the more relaxed she was becoming, approaching something as close to peace as she’d felt in … forever. Suddenly it wasn’t just miles that separated her from Richard, from the life that had imprisoned her, but it seemed like universes too, as though somehow she’d travelled light years through the stars that spun over her head. Perhaps it was possible, her new beginning, her fresh start. It felt possible in that moment, as if really she could wash away the pain and the hurt of the past until she was clean and smooth, like the pebbles in the stream, soothed by the never-ending flow of water. Even with her dreams of Frasier becoming a different reality than she’d hoped for, maybe, even then she could still be happy.
Rose was taken by surprise when Ted suddenly lunged forward and attempted to kiss her, shattering her serenity in a second. Squealing, she scrabbled backwards, away from him.
‘Ted!’ she exclaimed. ‘I thought you –’
‘I know, and I do, I just … I really want to kiss you.’
Rose stared at what she could make out of his expression in the darkness.
‘You don’t just lunge at someone,’ she protested, the fear that had temporarily surged through her dissipating as quickly as it had built up.
‘I know!’ Ted said, rolling his eyes like a teenager. ‘I just … it’s such a pretty night … and … I was just checking that you were completely sure you didn’t want to kiss me.’
‘I’m such a mess, kissing anyone now would be a mistake,’ Rose said. ‘It’s not you, it’s me.’
‘Oh God.’ Ted looked so despondent that Rose almost wanted to reach out to touch him. Almost. They sat there for several moments in the moonlight, in silence, Rose thinking of the look on Richard’s face when she’d last seen him. Of the way her father did his best not to look at her, of how Frasier had so politely shaken her hand and said goodbye, and it was as if, for just that moment, none of it, not a single second of what had come before or what would come afterwards, mattered at all.
‘Kiss me, Ted,’ Rose heard herself saying out loud.
‘What?’ Ted looked sharply at her.
‘Just kiss me, I’m ready,’ Rose said anxiously, before clamping both hands over her mouth. ‘Wait … OK. Ready. Now I’m ready.’
Rose watched warily as Ted took her hand in his and ever so gently tugged her towards him; their eyes met, his shining blackly in the moonlight, at the same moment their lips met. Rose closed her eyes then, feeling the warmth of his lips gently pressing against hers, his fingers sliding up from her wrist to her forearm. After a few seconds more with no obvious signs of protest, he gently opened her mouth with his tongue and Rose felt his fingers tighten around her arm, his other hand resting on her waist as he kissed her properly.
‘OK,’ Rose said, breaking contact as soon as she felt that she might get a little too lost in the moment. ‘OK, great. Thank you.’
‘Thank you?’ Ted said, his face still close to hers, his lips still moist. ‘So how was it so far for you?’
‘Nice, thank you,’ Rose whispered back, caught between wanting to experience that altogether pleasant sensation again, and wanting very much to run in the opposite direction now.
‘Same for me. You are a very good kisser,’ Ted said sweetly, and Rose couldn’t be sure in the half-dark, but she thought he might actually be blushing.
‘Really?’ she asked him. ‘Only … really?’
‘Yeah, a lot of girls are very, you know, full on. Sometimes kissing can be like fighting off a man-eating tiger. But not with you. Kissing you is very lovely.’
‘Lovely,’ Rose said, testing the word on her lips, just as much as she’d tested Ted’s lips. For so very long kissing had been a thing to be endured, a hated thing, an expression quite often of contempt and control. Never, not once, not even at the very beginning, had Rose ever kissed Richard and thought it was lovely. But that is exactly what it was like with Ted. It was soft, sweet, innocent and … lovely.
‘Could we kiss again?’ Rose asked Ted. ‘I mean just kissing. Nothing else, no touching or getting heated. Just like we were before. Just like that. Can we kiss like that, but for longer?’
‘How long?’ Ted asked her, sweetly amused by her list of kissing criteria. ‘Should I set a clock?’
‘Until I want to stop,’ Rose said, suddenly burying her head in her hands. ‘Oh God, I know what I sound like, I sound like a nutter. A grown woman wanting to kiss like a twelve-year-old, but if you knew –’
‘I don’t need to k
now,’ Ted interrupted her. ‘I’m just ridiculously happy that kissing me makes you feel nice. And I’m very, very happy to keep on kissing you until the sun comes up, if that’s what you want.’
Before Rose could think of anything else to say Ted was kissing her again, this time pressing her very gently backwards until she found herself half lying on his blanket. Rose closed her eyes against the starry sky, and felt her skin tingle and fizz with pleasure, her hands lying chastely at her sides, and Ted’s hands holding her ever so lightly. Kissing Richard had never been like this, she thought dimly, and without knowing it would happen she heard a sigh become a tiny moan, and realised that noise had come from her throat.
‘I have to say,’ Ted breathed into her ear, ‘I’m finding kissing you very nice indeed. Say if it gets too nice.’
‘I will,’ Rose whispered back. ‘I think I’m fine for now, though.’
Rose wasn’t sure of how long they went on that way, simply kissing as the stars wheeled above them, the water splashing by, the world as oblivious to them as they were to it, but suddenly from nowhere, she felt something shift inside her, a rush of longing, or desire that she was completely unfamiliar with bubbling up, and for one moment, without her even realising it, her arms had wound themselves around Ted, and she was pulling his body tightly against hers. Panicking as she came to her senses, Rose pushed him away and sat up, catching her breath.
‘Oh,’ Rose said as his lips were about to close over hers again. ‘Oh goodness.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Ted said anxiously. ‘I didn’t mean for that to happen. Have I scared you?’
‘No,’ Rose caught her breath as she looked at him, feeling the heat in her cheeks. ‘I scared myself. I’m sorry, Ted. But I think I need to stop kissing you now.’
‘But not because I’ve done something wrong?’ Ted asked her, genuinely worried. ‘Because, honestly, there’s something about you that makes me feel … stuff I’m not used to. I don’t really know what it is, or why, and at this moment I don’t really care about much, except that … I really, really liked kissing you, Rose.’
Rose shook her head, unable to believe what he was saying, scared by knowing that kissing Ted had stirred her own embers of desire, a feeling that she wasn’t ready to confront yet, not for anyone.
‘That’s so sweet,’ she told him again, a little unsteadily. ‘But now I think I need to go home.’
‘I know,’ Ted said, holding out a hand. ‘And although you are killing me, I can accept that. But, well, if the mood ever strikes you again, if you ever need some more therapeutic kissing, then I’m available.’
Rose looked at him, biting her swollen lip, and wondered what on earth had she done?
Chapter Nine
ROSE WOKE UP early the next morning, along with the first of the dawn light to filter through the thin curtains, with a terribly uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach, as if she had done something really badly wrong. Then the slight tingle in her aching lips, and the sore skin around her chin, made her remember. She’d spent quite a large portion of last night kissing Ted. Catching her lip between her teeth, Rose darted under the covers, fearful that if Maddie caught the expression on her face she would be able to tell instantly that her mother had been kissing inappropriately. Now it seemed like a dream, the long languorous minutes that almost made up an entire night she had spent under the warm night sky, with the sound of the water in the background and Ted’s lips on hers. Ted, it turned out, was an exceptionally good kisser, not that Rose had much to compare him to, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was that between them they’d recreated a part of her past that had never been. Her teenage kisses under the stars, the ones she had never had until the age of thirty-one.
Ted had held her hand all the way down the mountainside, and even on the drive back, steering with one hand at speed through the twist of country roads. As they’d pulled up outside the pub, which was still thriving from a late licence, Ted had turned to her, bending over to kiss her again.
‘I don’t think we should tell anyone about this,’ Rose said, backing away. ‘I just … not because … only because I’ve got Maddie to think of, and your mum.’
‘OK,’ Ted said. ‘I’ll hold off bragging about how I had you in the palm of my hand until after you’ve gone. Look, lighten up, it was a bit of kissing, not the opening scenes to Romeo and Juliet!’
‘Your mum thinks you are secretly vulnerable and likely to get hurt over “a bit of kissing”,’ Rose told him, feeling guilty that she’d forgotten her assurances to Jenny so easily in a moment of madness.
‘My mum still thinks I’m six,’ Ted said, shaking his head. ‘Did she warn you off me, really? That woman …’ He chuckled to himself.
‘Still, we won’t tell anyone and …’ Rose cringed at what she was about to say, ‘… we won’t do it again, will we?’
‘You sound uncertain about that?’ Ted raised an eyebrow.
‘I’m not,’ Rose said determinedly.
‘We’ll see,’ Ted had said. ‘Now come on, let’s go and see if your friend Shona’s scared Andy into snogging her.’
Under her covers Rose decided she would have felt a lot better about letting Ted kiss her if Shona had indeed been snogging Andy, but although her friend was very drunk, and full of fun, the life and soul of the after-show party, she was nowhere near Andy, or any other man, for that matter.
‘Oh!’ she said when she clapped eyes on Rose. ‘Where have you been?’
‘Out for some fresh air,’ Rose said, expecting one of Shona’s typical sarcastic comebacks. Instead her friend grabbed her by the arm.
‘Take me home,’ Shona said. ‘I’ve lost the bleeding key the old witch gave me, and I think I pissed that Andy bloke off by not wanting to cop off with him. Besides, I need to go to sleep in a bed.’
‘You didn’t want to cop off with him after all?’ Rose asked her.
‘I did, but then I didn’t, and then I just couldn’t … Very, very pissed.’
Putting her arm around Shona, Rose guided her through the crowd.
‘Bye, everyone,’ Rose had said, meeting Ted’s eyes briefly as she headed for the door. ‘Thanks for everything.’
The thing was, Rose wondered, touching the slightly inflamed skin around her mouth, what would she do now? How would she look Ted in the eye, or Jenny, or Frasier or Maddie, or anyone now? How would she know how to act the next time she saw Ted, what to do if they were alone together and, most importantly, what not to do? It wasn’t as if she had any real feelings for Ted, not even a little bit, despite his charm and good looks and lips, but it would be very hard to resist the chance to feel the way he’d made her feel last night again, and if she did, did that mean that she wasn’t in love with Frasier after all and that all of everything she had believed in for the last seven years had been swept away with a single kiss, or many kisses and some heavy petting? Rose squirmed further under the cover, screwing up her eyes against the invading sunlight, before she realised that she was smiling. For once Rose was rather enjoying having a complicated life.
‘Good gig, was it?’ Jenny asked her suspiciously when she arrived at eight thirty prompt for breakfast, or at least it seemed suspicious in Rose’s heightened state of awareness.
‘It was great, thank you,’ Rose said, smiling at Maddie, who’d collected together a ramshackle collection of felt pens, biros and coloured pencils from Jenny’s rainy-day box and was carefully copying a colour wheel out of her battered book, in between bites of toast. ‘The band was really good. Your son is a talented young man.’
Rose winced at the matronly expression, especially the ‘young man’ bit.
‘I suppose Ted was surrounded by girls,’ Jenny said, her face hovering between pride and disapproval. ‘He always is. I don’t know what they see in him, myself.’
‘There were hundreds of them,’ Rose assured her, ‘all vying for his attention.’
‘If you ask me, he only had eyes for one,’ Shona, who had lumbered down the
stairs, despite looking ashen, began.
‘In particular,’ Rose said, ‘some young thing really caught his eye. Some slip of a girl.’
‘Sounds like my Ted,’ Jenny said with some satisfaction. As she returned to the kitchen Shona’s eyebrow shot sky high and Rose shook her head in warning, nodding at Maddie.
‘Mum, did you know that red and green are complementary colours, which doesn’t mean that they go well together, it means green makes red look as red as it can be, and red does the same for green. Did you know that?’
‘I did not,’ Rose said, smiling at her.
‘It really is very interesting,’ Maddie said, returning to the book.
‘Tell me!’ Shona hissed at her, but before she could say more the front doorbell sounded. Rose felt her stomach clench, certain that it was Ted, that he wouldn’t be able to keep their liaison to himself after all, and that he was about to waltz in and announce plans for semi-nakedness with her all over again.
But it wasn’t Ted who walked into the dining room, it was John.
‘Oh,’ Rose said, standing up for no apparent reason. ‘What is it?’
‘Nothing,’ John said. He looked supremely awkward, filling the room with his height, all too aware of the burning look of disapproval that Jenny was boring into his back. ‘I thought rather than wait for you to appear, I might come and collect you and the child.’
Rose stared at him, this version of the man who had once been her father standing in front of her, actually seeking her out. He looked strange in the neat homely room, as if he brought the wildness of the landscape in with him, what was left of his hair standing on end, his clothes ingrained with paint.
Dearest Rose Page 17