He woke early with a sense of dread. Why had he told Connie about Emma? It was humiliating. She was bound to share it with someone. As his head pounded, he imagined her telling Julian. He avoided breakfast and had two large coffees in his house. After the second one, he walked into the bathroom. He took off his T-shirt and turned to look over his shoulder at his back. At least he hadn’t been drunk enough to show it to Connie.
Connie was absorbed by the book she was reading. Part of him wanted to leave her in peace but his fear of exposure pushed him forward. ‘Connie.’
‘Luke.’ She didn’t look up.
She clearly couldn’t bear to look at him. ‘About last night…’ What a cliché. He was a cliché of a battered man.
She slowly lifted her head from the book. ‘Can I show you something?’
He nodded numbly. He sat down on the edge of the sofa, conscious yet again of her legs. She moved the book on to his lap. It was a photography book open at a page with a large black and white photo. A desolate, neglected African bush scene spread across the page.
‘This was Gae in the 1940s, before my grandfather bought the land.’
‘It’s been totally transformed,’ Luke acknowledged. ‘Was he responsible?’
Connie nodded enthusiastically. ‘The most amazing thing was he bought it as a hunting lodge, but then fell in love with the place. He was one of the first proper conservationists in Africa.’
‘Amazing. Really impressive. Why did he do it? He must have left notes or something.’
‘Yes, I was thinking exactly the same thing. I have asked, but I am going to keep looking through these shelves.’
Luke wondered whether he should pretend that they never had the conversation about Emma. It was perfectly possible. They had shut out most difficult conversations.
‘Luke, I have to tell you something.’ She looked up at him.
Luke was fearful, but he held her gaze.
‘Matt lost his baby. He was going to call her Isobel.’
He was appalled. He hadn’t even thought about Matt. He had only thought about himself. ‘Poor Matt and Katherine.’
She nodded. ‘It’s awful. I’ve been sitting up here trying to distract myself – though I do want to know what drove my grandfather to become a conservationist.’
He waited.
‘I’ve been thinking about poor Matt obviously,’ she continued.
He nodded to acknowledge it.
‘And about your situation.’ There was an uncharacteristic firmness to her tone, which Luke took as a warning.
‘Connie, I don’t know why I told you what I did last night. I was drunk, definitely. I exaggerated. Please, don’t start thinking—’
She held up her hand in a way that she might with one of her children. ‘Don’t insult me.’
Luke decided to come out with it. ‘Please don’t tell anyone, particularly Julian.’
Her expression was pained as if he had slapped her. She uncrossed her legs and quickly stood up.
‘Connie.’ He was pleading with her, but for what?
She obviously thought better of storming off. ‘I was going to say, I was thinking about Matt and you, and reminding myself that you have Ella and Finn. Even Emma’s extreme cruelty cannot take them away from you.’
Luke thought about the children a lot when he was low about Emma. He paused. ‘And you have your children, Connie. Julian’s affairs cannot take them away.’
Connie blushed and walked past him down the stairs. Luke stood there for a few minutes, giving her time to get away. Why did he have to have a dig at Julian? It was becoming a compulsion. Did he selfishly wish Connie’s marriage to be as unhappy as his own?
He sighed, but moved on to the immediate issue: he had to find Matt. As he reached the red brick path leading down to their houses, Julian walked briskly towards him. He didn’t see Luke.
‘Julian?’ Luke was hesitant. It was the first time he had been alone with Julian, even for a brief moment.
Julian looked up, but didn’t slow down.
‘Aren’t you coming riding? We’re both rather late.’
Julian unusually frowned. ‘No, I’m not. Work crisis. Will you relay to the others?’
Luke nodded.
Matt opened their door only because he didn’t want Katherine to be woken by the knocking. He didn’t want to see Connie or Dan, whom he could visualise on the other side of the door. Matt wanted to stay wrapped round sleeping Katherine. She was the only comfort he needed now. But it wasn’t Connie or Dan. It was Luke.
‘Connie told me,’ Luke started. ‘How’s Katherine?’
Matt sighed. ‘Asleep.’ He paused, wanting to get rid of Luke, but then remembered their conversation in the bar last night.
‘Come in.’ He opened the door wider to let him pass.
Luke didn’t move. ‘Would it help, Matt? If not…’
‘No, please stay.’ Matt realised he meant it. Luke’s presence was soothing.
Luke walked as far as the terrace door. ‘Why don’t we sit out here? Then we won’t disturb Katherine?’
Matt appreciated his sensitivity towards her, which he rarely experienced from his friends. ‘Good idea. Coffee?’
‘Yes, but I’ll make it. You go outside.’
Matt watched him quietly busy, opening up the bar and plugging in the kettle. He had always been more at ease in the kitchen than Connie. Luke joined him, bearing two coffee mugs and a pile of biscuits on a tray. He handed Matt a milky coffee. ‘I’ve added three sugars.’
Matt smiled. ‘Katherine has made me cut down to one.’
Luke sat down beside. ‘Well, I’m allowing you three today.’
‘Thanks, mate,’ Matt lifted his mug to clink Luke’s.
‘You must be devastated.’
Matt nodded. ‘We were going to call her Isobel.’
‘A beautiful name,’ Luke said quietly.
‘I’m gutted, Luke. It’s too large, you know, to really process.’
Luke nodded. ‘Too raw.’
‘Do you know, Luke, it’s strange how things work out. We’re going through this terrible ordeal together, but I feel closer to her.’
‘That’s important.’
‘I realise she needs me as much as I need her. A revelation really…’
‘No surprise, Matt. You’re a rock. Any intelligent woman can see that.’
Matt smiled. ‘Thank you, Luke. You are too.’
Luke gave his closed smile and shifted his gaze out to a couple of impalas grazing nearby.
‘Look, I’m sorry about Emma, Luke. Do you want to talk about what happened?’
‘Not now,’ Luke stood up. ‘But I’m happy you found Katherine, Matt. Promise me, you won’t let her go.’
They hardly saw a single animal on their way to the stables, shortly after Luke had made Julian’s apologies. The fall in air pressure had compelled them to crouch low, close to home. All hunting trips cancelled until the storm blew over. The wind was whipping in. There was a warning grey shock of thunder on the far horizon. Gus was confident they would get their ride in before it reached Gae.
Connie explained to the rest of the group what had happened to Matt and Katherine and that they wanted to be left alone at the lodge this morning.
‘Fucking awful,’ Sara said glumly, leaning over their seat.
‘It’s terrible, isn’t it?’ insisted Lizzie, who was sitting beside Luke. ‘Can you imagine? Well, Luke, you probably can’t. You have Ella and Finn.’
Lizzie was right. Luke was lucky to have Ella and Finn. And he was glad he was here for Matt. They had been close at university, but their friendship had drifted as their lives had taken them in different directions. The more successful his company was the more Luke was absorbed by it, while Matt worked methodically but uneventfully through several jobs in City law firms. They had married different kinds of women. Unsurprisingly, Annabel and Emma had disliked each other; Katherine and Emma were even more antagonistic. It made Luke happy to feel c
lose to Matt again.
Gus dropped them at a low, immaculate building with three neat paddocks creating a tight L shape around it. Gus wasn’t riding with them. Instead, he settled into his seat beside Ben, confident to wait in the vehicle with absolutely nothing to do until they returned. Jason was leading their ride. Jason was tall and young. Jason stood too close to Connie and leaned forward too eagerly. ‘Hi, Luke, I’m Jason. More Farmer Brown than City Slicker, I’m afraid.’
Luke smiled tightly. He found himself looking at Connie again. She was wearing tight beige jeans and brown jodhpur boots. Her white cotton blouse was decorated with evenly bunched holes, which exposed a glow of tanned skin.
He looked away too late. Sara was definitely watching him.
A couple of other stable hands emerged. Chaps were found; hats and boots fitted and re-fitted, as the group sat relaxed on two wooden benches, which backed on to the white washed side of the stables. Varying factors of suncream were produced, along with a dripping bottle of water, chilled short of freezing, for each of them. They were ready.
Jason gathered them in a loose circle around him. ‘You are nine?’
Connie replied quickly. ‘No, we are down to six, I’m afraid.’
‘I have your questionnaires on your riding skills,’ Jason gave a slow smile. ‘Interestingly, the men said that they are intermediate or advanced. And the women beginners.’
Riding was an interest that Luke had once shared with Connie. ‘You are certainly not a beginner,’ he said to her.
Connie murmured, ‘It’s been a long time. I don’t think I’ve ridden since I was up at your parents’ in Dartmoor.’
‘Why don’t you ride in Oxfordshire?’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Julian and the kids aren’t keen.’
Luke was chuffed. ‘You won’t have forgotten anything. If you have ridden Sheriff, you can ride any horse.’
‘Unlike this pair of Black Beauties,’ Sara joked, ‘I am an absolute beginner. Nothing understated about my testimony. The truth and nothing but the truth.’
Jason interrupted. ‘Okay, I think that I’ve got the picture and hopefully the right horse for each of you.’
‘A knackered, slow moving beast for me please,’ interjected Sara.
It took quite a while for them to mount, fit their water bottles, cameras and phones in the storage pouches behind the saddle, adjust their stirrups, find their reins, measure them up in length, practise holding them in one hand cowboy style, and move backwards and forwards to get out of their parallel line. They slowly walked, pushing each other’s horses out of the stable.
Sara caught up with Luke, less by design than by luck.
‘We must stop bumping into each other like this,’ she quipped. Her face reddening.
‘Sara, you look like you have been exercising.’
Luke had forgotten how much he loved riding. His horse, Mamello, was almost seventeen hands, but otherwise reminded him of the dark bay Dusty he had had as a child.
‘Ha, ha, gym bunny. I don’t think this is quite the docile nag I had in mind. Do you think that Jason’s got a sense of humour?’
Luke smiled. Sara got her overweight grey’s head out of an acacia tree and once again bounced alongside him. She shot him one of her knowing looks.
‘Luke dearest, please tell me that you are not going to do anything rash?
Luke didn’t say anything. He wasn’t sure that he knew what Sara was talking about.
‘Think pragmatically rather than emotionally,’ Sara urged. ‘I always do. I can highly recommend it as the safest course of action.’
Luke didn’t respond. His default position was saying nothing, particularly with Sara.
Sara quietly eyed him and spoke softly. ‘Oh Luke, the only way is forwards. Going backwards is an act of pure nostalgia. It doesn’t lead anywhere. Believe me.’
‘Why not?’
Sara repeatedly jerked on her reins to try and get her horse’s head out of another bush, but to no avail, except to make her breath laboured and her face close to purple. ‘Connie will never leave Julian. She loves him. He gives her a sense of purpose she doesn’t feel herself. Alpha males do that – they carry you along on their wave.’
Luke was cross with her for ruining his great mood. He didn’t want to think about anything, certainly not Connie. He wanted to ride. ‘I’m not interested in Connie in that way.’
Sara yanked up her horse’s head to stop him from eating and they trotted quickly to catch up with the others who had set off through the deep grasses towards a gentle slope. Neither spoke. Once they were a few metres from the backside of Dan and Alan’s horses, their two rides abruptly slowed to a walk.
Luke tried to focus on the vast, open grassland bare without an animal or mountain in sight, yet rich with the ochre soil and grasses. Only a gentle hill stroked the foreground to their right.
‘Luke, you are cross with me. I don’t want to spoil your ride,’ Sara continued, ‘But remember, I lived with you both in Harley Place, as Lizzie tirelessly reminds me. I know you are both at a crossroads, but running back to each other is not the answer. Who else is going to be frank with you? It’s why you love me.’
‘Do I?’ he joked, before squeezing his horse’s thighs and moving away from her.
Ahead, Jason was busy organising them into two groups. One would canter over the hill with him first while the other waited until he returned to accompany them along the same track. Luke led his horse right up to Connie’s grey. ‘Shall we ask Jason if we can break away for a proper ride?’
He could imagine Sara watching him from further back in the line, but he didn’t care. He wanted to enjoy this wonderful feeling of being out on a ride in Africa. How many more moments like this was he going to have?
Connie smiled silently in agreement. She trotted over to Jason’s side. She talked briefly to him and then rode back to his side, but she didn’t stop. She started cantering off the path ahead. He cantered after her. His horse had an easy stride. As its hoofs hit the ground, Luke felt the joy of that movement, the wind stroking his face. He was utterly free. Connie didn’t slow down to direct him round behind the hillside. She gave a loose wave of a hand as she pulled her horse’s mouth round with the other. He followed her. Once they were out of sight of the others, she accelerated into a gallop. Luke urged Mamello on. Riding was effortless; it made Luke feel light and high. It was his definition of total freedom.
It was Connie who slowed to a trot. Her blouse was wet with sweat. They both started laughing.
‘Whoa,’ Luke heard himself shouting, ‘Bloody marvellous.’
‘Bloody marvellous,’ Connie echoed.
Chapter 18
The sky was shouting with rage. Its charcoal fury was matched by a wind, which whipped over two umbrellas, even a sun lounger. The first fine drops of rain were already cooling the air. Despite the climatic chaos unfolding around them, Matt and Katherine were calm, leaning against one another on the sofa furthest from the terrace. Their own personal storm made this climatic one comforting and an excuse for them to sit and contemplate. They had two separate pots of tea in front of them and a large plate with only two coconut and date balls left.
Matt thought about their honeymoon in the British Virgin Islands. They had spent a whole torrential day inside their beach house. They had made love, talked, read, while watching the rain flood the beach. It was one of the happiest days of Matt’s life.
Their conversation with Dawn had been difficult and painful. Matt and Katherine made a huge effort to be supportive and understanding of her loss; Dawn had been equally sensitive to theirs. It had been uncomfortable all round. Matt realised that they weren’t the best people to comfort Dawn. She needed her family. Matt had been left thinking that they wouldn’t keep in touch with her long term. They weren’t friends, merely drawn together by their shared goal.
As he poured Katherine more tea, Matt tried to share his thoughts with Katherine. ‘It’s strange, isn’t it? We’ve b
een so close to Dawn. Yet she couldn’t wait to get me off the phone once we had sorted out the practical details.’
‘Yeah, but it’s totally understandable. Who are we really to her? We don’t know her. It was an artificial situation.’
‘You’re right, darling,’ Matt sighed, re-wrapping the throw around Katherine’s shoulders. ‘In a strange way, none of it feels real. When we see Isobel, it’s going to hit home.’
Katherine squeezed his hand. ‘You know, I’m really dreading it.’
Matt pulled her close. ‘Yes, me too. Though I think it’s important. I want to see her.’ He paused. There were many thoughts slushing around his head. Matt was finding it difficult to focus on any one. ‘Katherine, are you sure that you are all right about staying out here? We could fly out today. Connie would totally understand. It might be better.’
There was no right or wrong ultimately. Dawn made it clear she didn’t want them to rush back in the UK and bother her.
‘Honey, what can we do at home? Stare at our beautiful nursery?’ she sighed. ‘No, obviously we will be back in time for her funeral, but you know…’ She trailed off.
Matt knew that it hurt Katherine that Dawn insisted that she organise the funeral. It was on her terms, on her territory in Manchester. Whatever the legal rights and wrongs, they had agreed. They were hardly going to fight her over it.
‘We couldn’t easily organise the funeral for Monday from here, Katherine,’ he said gently.
‘Yes, of course. I know you’re right,’ she said hastily.
‘I’m not saying it’s easy. Isobel was our baby.’
Katherine’s eyes watered but she stared fixedly over the overflowing pool as if the storm could renew her strength. ‘Yeah. She was.’
As Matt was trying to pull himself together, his tears welled up again. ‘The funeral is for Isobel. And we are both going to speak at the funeral. You know, it’s all right this way. Really.’
Katherine squeezed herself to him. ‘Oh Matt.’
Matt looked up and saw Connie. She was in her tan jeans, which were dusted in Namibian sand. She hovered a few metres away. She was his closest female friend, and he would never forget the physical support she gave him when he found out. However, Matt wanted to be alone with Katherine. How could anyone else truly understand? Connie had her four teenage children.
The Art of Unpacking Your Life Page 15