‘Does she know I’m back?’
‘Of course she does.’
‘You told her the minute I touched down, didn’t you?’
‘It would’ve been abnormal if I hadn’t, wouldn’t it?’
‘I guess,’ he confessed.
They sat in silence for a moment and then Georgia spoke again.
‘You never visited once.’
The statement hung in the air a while before Ben responded.
‘What would have been the point of that?’
‘To say hello.’
‘I’d left. What was the point in leaving if I was going to come back every five minutes?’
‘Yes, but you didn’t come back every five minutes. You didn’t come back at all.’
‘You could have come out to me,’ he told her.
‘Oh, yeah. I could have just hopped on a plane to South America with what I’m earning from the NHS.’
‘You’d have loved South America, Georgie. The rivers, the waterfalls, the wildlife –’
‘Don’t change the subject. We’re talking about you going to visit Mum.’
‘No – you’re talking about it. I’m doing my best not to.’
‘Just say hello to her, Ben.’
‘Say hello and leave?’
‘If you need to. But go – and go soon.’
He held up his hand. ‘Don’t push me on this,’ he warned her.
‘Okay, okay,’ she said, visibly backing down, ‘but you really should think about it. Promise me you will.’
‘I’m not going to make promises I can’t keep,’ he told her and then he saw the disappointment flicker in her eyes. ‘I’ll think about it.’
‘That’s all I ask.’
Bryony really couldn’t understand how there was still such a big stigma about internet dating. Or maybe it was just a small town mentality. Maybe places like Castle Clare still believed that you should find a partner down the local pub or by being introduced to somebody – a friend of a neighbour, perhaps, or somebody you’d grown up with. That’s why everybody had expected it to work out between her and Ben, wasn’t it? Theirs had been a good old-fashioned love story. They’d met at school, they’d grown up together, they would get married and have children who would then go to the very same school that they had gone to. That’s the way it worked in small towns. Life was simple and repeated itself over and over again. It was predictable, but oh-so comfortable in its predictability. Until one of you broke the cycle and upped and left.
Bryony clicked and scrolled. There were some pretty decent blokes on the Country Catches dating site like thirty-four-year-old Clive who was pictured holding a muddy Jack Russell Terrier and said he liked ‘Ladies and Land Rovers’. He looked fun. Then there was the handsome Bradley who said he owned a yacht. Bryony bet it was more of a canoe, but he had a nice smile. Andrew looked fun too. Or he did until she read that he liked football and the girl he met had to love the one novel he’d ever read: Tron. Was that even a novel, Bryony wondered? Wasn’t it a novelisation of quite a dull film? What a shame. And he had such a cute face too.
Her mother and Sam had both voiced their opinions about Bryony’s dating agencies calling them dangerous and unnatural, but they were no such thing. Well, she had had her share of weird dates, she had to admit. Even when people put their photograph up online, you could still be taking a terrible gamble. Photos, she had soon found, could be years out of date or tampered with . Filters were used or flattering lighting and weird angles that would make people look much taller than they really were. But how else was she going to meet people? Castle Clare was a small town and she needed to widen her search because she couldn’t help believing and hoping that there was somebody out there for her that could set her pulse racing like it did when she picked up a really good book.
Her mobile rang and she saw Colin’s name flashing up on her screen. She instantly felt guilty for being on the dating site, but then she told herself that she had given things a good go with Colin. It wasn’t her fault that their relationship just didn’t seem to be working for her.
For a moment, she thought about ignoring his call, but that would have been mean and so she picked up.
‘Hello,’ she said, trying to sound more cheerful than she felt.
‘Hi Bryony. This is Colin calling you later.’
‘Pardon?’
‘You told me to call you later.’
‘Oh, I see!’
‘What are you doing?’
‘Oh, nothing,’ she said, closing the browser on her laptop as if he was actually in the room with her.
‘Fancy going out for a drink?’
‘It’s very late.’
‘No it isn’t.’
‘I mean, I’m very tired. Would you mind if we didn’t?’
‘Of course not,’ he said, but she could hear the disappointment in his voice.
She was always disappointing him, wasn’t she? The sweet, kind man who made her cakes and did his very best to make her happy. She took a deep breath. She could either have an evening at home giving herself RSI from scrolling page after page of dating sites or she could stop moping and get up and go out.
‘Okay,’ she suddenly said. ‘Let’s go out.’
‘Really?’ He sounded positively shocked.
‘Yes.’
‘Great!’
She couldn’t believe that she had made him so happy by just agreeing to go out for a drink with him.
‘I’ll pick you up in ten minutes, okay?’
Twenty minutes later, the two of them were in The Happy Hare. The pub was busy for a midweek evening and they were lucky to find a table in the corner where they took their drinks.
‘A bit crowded, isn’t it?’ Colin said, taking a sip of his apple juice. Bryony had permitted herself a white wine, as she wasn’t driving, and was just savouring its warming qualities when the pub door seemed to explode as two men came tumbling in.
‘You idiot!’ one of them called. ‘I nearly got run over by that bike.’
‘You shouldn’t have tried keeping up with me,’ the other one said. ‘You know I’ll beat you every time!’
They walked to the bar, panting slightly after the exertion of their run. Bryony shook her head. Why were men always showing off? Why did they need to be faster, fitter, better than each other? She watched them for a moment. They were laughing at something. The one nearest her was wearing dark jeans and a light shirt in defiance of the cool spring evening. His dark hair was too long and she could just make out a bit of a beard from where she was sitting. Bryony didn’t like beards. They indicated laziness to her.
And then she recognised him. It was funny because she’d always assumed she’d know her Ben anywhere and at any time in their lives, in any room, any country, any situation. Only she hadn’t.
But it was Ben. Her Ben.
He turned around from the bar and she gasped. He looked different and yet the same. The short dark beard made him look so much older than when she’d last seen him. She supposed that shaving wasn’t a priority for someone who was travelling.
She swallowed hard, her focus doing a strange kind of contrazoom. Ben. Right there. After six years of being in some far-flung part of the globe, he was standing just feet away from her and there was a part of her – the twenty-two-year-old woman still somewhere inside her – who longed to shout across the room, to reach out to him.
Hey, Ben! It’s me!
That part of her would have launched herself into his arms and kissed him, her fingers brushing across his beard as she teased him about it. But that part of her had long been replaced by another woman – the woman he’d left behind.
Colin placed his hand over hers.
‘Bryony? Are you okay?’
She nodded, but didn’t look at him. She couldn’t drag her eyes away from Ben. She wasn’t ready for this. She felt panicky – as if she was going to hyperventilate and need a paper bag to breathe into or some smelling salts to rouse her and she certainly wasn�
��t that kind of woman. She refused to make any sort of scene.
They were bound to run into each other sooner or later, she knew that. She just hadn’t banked on it being sooner.
‘Bryony?’
Colin was saying something to her, but she wasn’t hearing him properly because it was then that Ben saw her and their eyes locked.
‘I’ve got to get out of here,’ she told Colin and she was on her feet in an instant.
‘Okay,’ he said, looking around in a startled fashion as if she might have spotted a fire he hadn’t yet seen.
‘Right now!’ she urged him, and they were out of the door of The Happy Hare before he could put his coat on or help her with her own.
Chapter Three
‘Bryony Nightingale – come here!’
Ben Stratton looked up from his exercise book. He was stuck on the third comprehension question, which was asking him to imagine that he was one of the characters in the story they’d just read around the classroom and to write a short diary entry as that character. He’d been staring at his blank page for a good five minutes now and was glad of a distraction.
He watched as Bryony made her way to the front of the classroom and then looked at the thunderous expression on Mrs McKee’s face. She was new to the school and all the pupils hated her because she was so strict and totally devoid of humour. Nothing made her laugh – not the joke dog poo in the desk drawer nor the whoopee cushion slipped onto her chair when Ed Friar was delivering books to her desk. Her stony face never shifted. There was never a sparkle to be seen in the dark eyes behind the black-rimmed glasses.
Bryony had reached the desk now and Mrs McKee thrust a book at her.
‘What is the meaning of this?’
Ben saw Bryony’s eyes widen as she looked at the page before her.
‘I – erm – I don’t...’ Her voice petered out.
‘Is it or is it not a rule that doodling in school books is not allowed?’
Bryony chewed her bottom lip and looked down at the floor as the old witch continued to cross-question her. Ben’s breathing thickened and he could feel his hands clenching into fists.
‘It was me, Miss,’ he blurted, standing up.
Mrs McKee frowned. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I did it. I doodled in Bryony’s book.’
Bryony shook her head in warning which Ben thought was really cute. She didn’t want him to take the rap for her, but he was going to anyway.
‘Come here,’ Mrs McKee said with a twitch of a long bony finger.
Here we go, Ben thought, but he didn’t regret his decision. He’d do anything for Bryony. She was his best friend. His girlfriend.
‘So, Master Stratton,’ Mrs McKee began, ‘you doodled this heart, did you? With your own initials inside it?’
A wave of laughter sounded from the rest of the class.
‘SILENCE!’ Mrs McKee cried.
Ben looked at the drawing in the back of Bryony’s book. The heart was drawn in pink pen with a cupid’s arrow in a lurid purple. His initials were smack bang in the middle of it. He swallowed hard.
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘Yes, what?’
‘It was me. I drew it.’
Mrs McKee’s dark eyes narrowed at him in evil little slits. ‘You honestly expect me to believe that?’
‘I’m not lying. I drew it.’
‘Why on earth would you draw a heart embellished with your own initials in Bryony’s exercise book?’
Ben wasn’t at all sure what the word “embellished” meant, but he thought he could wing it.
‘I thought it would be funny,’ he told her.
‘Sit!’
Ben sat down in the chair at the side of Mrs McKee’s desk. It was the greatest of all punishments to have to sit next to the crabby old teacher for the rest of the day.
She turned her attention to Bryony. ‘Go back to your desk and take your book with you.’
Bryony did as she was told, but not before giving Ben a look which told of her deep gratitude towards him. Ben grinned back at her which earned him a rebuke from Mrs McKee.
Ben had to miss breaktime and was kept back ten minutes at lunch. When he finally made it out into the playground, he saw Bryony sitting on a low wall swinging her legs as she read a book. It was one of the adventures of The Famous Five.
She looked up as he approached her and smiled. A few of his classmates laughed and pointed at him, calling him ‘Love heart Ben’, but he shrugged it off.
‘You shouldn’t have lied like that,’ Bryony told him as he sat on the wall next to her.
‘I wanted to.’
Bryony shook her head, but she was still smiling.
‘I’ll lend you my pink pen if you want to draw me some more hearts,’ she said.
‘Very funny!’
She giggled and then handed him her book. ‘Here.’
‘What’s this for?’
‘To say thank you. I think you’ll like it. It’s the best Famous Five by far.’
‘Five Go to Smuggler’s Top,’ Ben read.
‘I’ve got another copy at home.’
‘You’ve got two copies of the same book?’
‘At least!’
‘Your family’s book crazy.’
‘I know. It’s great. You never get bored because there’s always something to read. You should come over sometime.’
‘Yeah?’
She nodded. ‘You should come to Sunday lunch. Mum likes lots of people around the table and it’s always something really tasty on Sundays.’
Ben frowned. ‘Like what?’
‘Like a roast with all the trimmings.’
‘Trimmings?’
‘Roast potatoes, parsnips, cauliflowers, cabbages, peas, carrots, onions –’
‘You eat all that?’
‘Not all at the same time!’ Bryony said with a laugh.
‘We usually have pizza or some kind of frozen pie with baked beans. My mum doesn’t like cooking.’
‘Then you should definitely come over.’
Ben remembered with fondness that first magical visit to Campion House for Sunday lunch. It was everything Bryony had promised and more. For one thing, he’d never seen so many people around a table, and then there was the immaculate silver cutlery and gleaming white plates. There were glass vases of flowers on the table, linen napkins inside silver rings and endless plates and bowls of food. He’d eaten so much that he felt quite sure he was going to burst. Eleanor Nightingale had hugged him and told him that he must come again which he had of course – over and over again. But that first visit had been particularly special.
His mum had dropped him off at Campion House with a dire warning.
‘You be nice now. Wash your hands and say please and thank you.’
‘Yes, Mum.’
‘The Nightingales are good people. Better than us. Don’t you go breaking anything in there, you hear? That house is probably stacked full of priceless antiques and they’ll be wanting your pocket money for a year at the very least if you do any damage.’
Ben had been terrified when he’d walked inside, his eyes darting around each room he walked into, tucking his elbows close to his body and barely breathing as he noted silver photo frames, china ornaments, beautiful mirrors and fascinating paintings. All horribly breakable if he got too close. But then there’d been the books. In bookcases, on shelves, stacked on tables, heaped on the floor – they were everywhere. Nice, safe books which looked as if they’d been handled for generations. You couldn’t break a book, could you? Not unless you tried really hard. Books were safe even around him.
Bryony had taken him up to her room before lunch and he’d whistled when he’d seen the bookshelves in there. Most girls had rows and rows of toys and dolls, but not Bryony. She had books.
Ben had soon forgotten about the fear his mother had instilled in him. Being with Bryony again and talking about books had calmed him. He felt as if he’d found his natural home. In short, he felt l
ike a Nightingale.
Ben gave a melancholy smile as he remembered that day. He hadn’t thought about it for years, but it was still tucked away in that corner of his mind where happy memories were stored, ready to be relived at a moment’s notice. And then he remembered something else. He still had the old faded copy of Five Go to Smuggler’s Top and he hunted for it now.
His sister had been persuaded to retrieve a box of Ben’s books from their mother’s house when he’d told Georgia he was coming home. He’d missed his books. He had an e-reader loaded with novels and biographies and it was a fantastic lightweight device, which meant he could have a whole library about his person at any time whether he was in a city or up a mountain, but it wasn’t the same as his books – his real books – books you could hold in your hand, which you could feel and hear when you turned the page. He missed their comfortable weight and how they looked on a bedside table.
The box of books was in the bedroom he was using at Georgia’s and he got a penknife out of his jacket pocket and slit the tape, opening up the box and lifting out book after book, smiling as he recognised his old friends: the adventure novels, the spy stories, the memoirs of travellers and mountaineers, the atlases and travel guides to places he’d now been to.
And there it was: the Enid Blyton which Bryony had given him that day when she’d been sitting on the wall, swinging her bare legs as she’d been reading. It was faded with a cracked spine and had dog-eared pages just as a favourite book should have. But there was something else special about it and he opened it and looked at it now. It was a pink heart with a purple cupid’s arrow through it and Ben’s initials in the centre. He thought of when she’d given him the book. She’d asked to have it back for a moment and had turned.
‘What are you doing?’ he’d asked.
‘You’ll see.’ She’d handed it back to him, her smile stretching from ear to ear.
But she hadn’t been smiling at him in The Happy Hare the night before. Her eyes had been so full of pain and confusion that it had knocked the breath out of him and the speed at which she’d fled had hurt him so much.
And who had that guy been? Was she dating him? He didn’t like the idea of that, he had to admit. But he couldn’t expect her to have remained single all the years he’d been away. She would have been getting on with her life – dating men, letting them get close to her.
Natural Born Readers (The Book Lovers 3) Page 3