by Annie Dalton
The Black Bear where they were having lunch was a few miles from Banbury on the edge of the Cotswolds. They didn’t talk much in the car. Anna was concentrating on driving, and Jake seemed content to look out of the window, enjoying the gently rolling landscape, occasionally asking questions about places they passed.
The Black Bear turned out to be a Virginia creeper covered medieval manor house set in several acres of farmland. Inside it was every bit as sprawling and atmospheric as it had looked from the outside. ‘I could live here!’ Jake said at once.
The dining room was organized so the guests could eat looking out over the orchards and gardens where much of the fresh ingredients for the kitchen were grown. It was too early in the year for there to be a fire burning in the enormous old fireplace, but a whiff of ash and woodsmoke still lingered, contributing to the sense of times and lives gone by.
As usual Anna spotted what she wanted within thirty seconds of scanning the menu. ‘I’m going to go for roast sirloin with Yorkshire puddings,’ she told him. ‘And if you’ve never had a traditional English Sunday roast I advise you to do the same.’
‘I consider myself advised,’ Jake said with a grin.
Anna chose crostini of smoked mackerel for starter, and Jake went for smoked salmon. When the wine waiter arrived, Jake said he didn’t drink these days but Anna must feel free to order wine. She smilingly shook her head. ‘I’m driving, remember.’
The food, when it came, was simple and good, and they were both hungry. Jake ate his food the American way, using his knife to cut everything patiently into small pieces then eating it with his fork. He looked up and caught her watching. ‘What? Oh, you’re observing my alien eating habits!’ he said with a grin.
‘I was actually thinking that I’m too greedy to be an American,’ Anna told him.
He laughed. ‘You don’t think Americans can be greedy? That’s refreshingly novel!’
After they’d finished their main courses, they politely waved the dessert menu away; Jake because, he said, he never really got the point of desserts, and Anna, despite a yearning look at the puddings on offer, because she didn’t think she could squeeze in another mouthful.
‘You know, I still haven’t heard your side of Bonnie’s story,’ Jake said.
‘My side?’
‘Sure.’ Jake’s blue eyes briefly lit up with his here and gone again smile. ‘What made you decide to get a dog?’
It was an innocent question, but her mind refused to go there. It wasn’t that she couldn’t remember those first weeks after her grandfather had moved out, more that she couldn’t bear to relive them – not here, and not with Jake. So she gave him the shorter, saner version. ‘I hadn’t long come back to Oxford,’ she said. ‘My grandmother had become very ill, and I helped my grandfather care for her. After she died, my grandfather decided that he was going to live in a rather wonderful care home in North Oxford. So he signed over the house to me. It was converted into flats a while ago, and I only occupy the bottom two floors, but it’s still a big space.’ She felt her breath catch.
‘Kind of lonely all by yourself,’ Jake suggested.
She pictured herself wandering sleepless through all those rooms that she now officially owned, jumping at every creak, every shadow and being furious because, despite years of therapy and self defence classes, she was still that terrified sixteen year old, running, running through the dark, too traumatized to scream.
But it hadn’t just been Anna’s pathetic need to have another beating heart beside her own, or even the decision to get a large dog for protection that had sent her to the rescue shelter. It was because, when she was alone in the dark, Anna wasn’t always clear exactly why she had to continue to exist. But if she had a dog that needed her to get out of bed and feed it and take it for walks, she thought that her life would have some small but nevertheless real purpose.
‘Also I had always wanted a dog when I was growing up,’ she told Jake truthfully, on safer ground now. ‘And then I saw Bonnie and …’
‘And you fell in love.’
‘I did,’ she said, smiling, then was embarrassed to feel her cheeks go pink because she suddenly felt as if they were having two simultaneous conversations, only one of which was about Bonnie.
If Jake noticed any holes in her story he didn’t mention them, just as he hadn’t asked any follow-up questions about her family. Nor had she asked for any details about his.
He beckoned the waiter to bring him the bill. ‘So, shall we get Bonnie and explore some of these Cotswold lanes?’ he asked her. ‘I mean, assuming you don’t have to rush back.’
‘I don’t have to rush back,’ she told him. ‘Also, I really need to walk off that Yorkshire pudding!’
They walked for over an hour, often in companionable silence, up and down the hilly lanes past rough fields of pasture divided by ancient stone walls. There were sheep grazing in some of the fields, and they set up a nervous bleating at the sight of Anna and Jake with their suspiciously wolf-like dog. Once a pony trotted up to have its nose rubbed over a wooden gate. ‘Why is it you never, ever have an apple with you when you need one?’ Anna said regretfully. ‘Or a carrot?’
‘I think that’s just one of those natural laws, isn’t it?’ Jake said, laughing.
At the top of a steep hill, the breathtaking view of the valley below stopped them in their tracks. Sandstone cottages were dotted about here and there. In one of the gardens a man was tending a bonfire. Anna could hear the snap of burning wood mixed with the cawing of rooks above their heads. They hadn’t seen a single car since they’d started walking. She looked down at Jake, who was pretending to growl at Bonnie as they play-wrestled on the grass verge. It had never occurred to her to play wrestle with Bonnie. She must have missed this kind of rough and tumble, Anna thought, noticing how the sun showed up the tiny fair glints in his hair. He glanced up at her. ‘Walked off that Yorkshire pudding yet, kid?’
‘Kid? What am I, Huck Finn?’ she said in mock outrage, trying not to notice the pleasant confusion that his deep southern voice had set off somewhere in her midriff.
‘I think you’d make a great Huck Finn,’ he said with a grin. ‘But you didn’t answer my question.’
‘I must have walked it off,’ she said, suddenly shy, ‘because I was just wishing we had more time so I could take you to this Chinese restaurant where my grandfather and I like to eat.’
‘I have time,’ he said at once. ‘I’m in no hurry to go back to my hotel, believe me. And by the time we’ve walked back down that long, long lane to your car I’ll be up for three Chinese meals!’
She felt a flash of panic. They’d have to drop Bonnie off first. That meant taking Jake back to her flat, something she’d been determined not to do. But we’re having such a great day together, she thought. She didn’t want it to end, and she sensed that Jake didn’t either. ‘So you’ll get to see my flat,’ she said, as if she invited people to her home every day.
‘I could live here,’ was Jake’s instant response when she let him into her hallway. She showed him around, swiftly bypassing her study, enjoying seeing everything through his eyes. He wanted to know about her lodgers, and so she told him about Dana and her taste in break-up music, and also Tim, who was in international finance and spent most of his time travelling overseas, only occasionally using the Oxford flat for his base. She fed Bonnie, and then unbelievably they were both hungry again, so she drove them to Xi’an in Summertown. On the way she found herself talking about her grandfather and how he was finally, in his late eighties, discovering himself as an artist.
‘You want to invite him to come eat with us?’ Jake asked at once.
She shook her head. ‘He’s out visiting a friend tonight. I’d like you to meet him though if you come again. I think you’d get on.’
They hadn’t booked ahead, but Anna and her grandfather were regular customers at Xi’an, and they were immediately ushered to a table. Jake looked around him with approval. ‘This is a good
place.’
‘I’m starting to think you think everywhere is a good place,’ she teased.
‘Not everywhere, but most places,’ he said. ‘I’ve travelled a fair bit, and I’ve reached the conclusion that most places have something interesting about them if you know where to look.’
‘Home is where you hang your hat?’ she suggested.
‘Mimi used to say you could throw me out of a plane and wherever I landed I would make myself at home!’
They ordered a lot of food, including a fish dish with ginger and chillies that Jake especially liked. While they were eating, Anna remembered something she had meant to ask. ‘Why did you call Bonnie “Bonnie”?’
‘You want some of this fish?’ Jake asked.
She nodded, and he helped her to a portion using his chopsticks.
‘Mimi used to have a dog called Bonnie,’ he explained. ‘I started walking her some days after school. That’s actually how I got to know Mimi. My Bonnie – our Bonnie,’ he corrected swiftly, ‘looked nothing like Mimi’s Bonnie, who looked more like a big old dish mop on legs than any kind of serious pooch. But she’d get this look in her eyes, sometimes, like she was channelling the dog wisdom of ages, you know? And, even as a pup, this Bonnie had just the same look.’
‘I know that look,’ Anna said before she’d thought.
Their eyes met in a moment of such complete understanding that Anna found herself holding her breath. The atmosphere couldn’t have been more intimate if he’d kissed her.
Jake’s mobile started to beep. ‘Excuse me.’ He took out his phone, frowned at the caller display but didn’t answer. ‘Where were we?’ he asked Anna, smiling.
They returned to their meal, but it was obvious that something had changed. A few minutes later, Jake’s phone went again. Again he checked the screen, and again he didn’t answer. The fourth or fifth time this happened, sensing that he was getting stressed, Anna said, ‘I honestly don’t mind if you answer. Someone obviously needs to get hold of you.’
He shook his head. ‘I’ll call her when I’m back at the hotel.’ He picked up his chopsticks then laid them back down. ‘My ex fiancée just split up with the guy she left me for.’
Anna kept her face carefully neutral. ‘Oh?’
‘She’s in a bad place,’ he explained. ‘Everything seemed to be going really well for her. She started a new job, signed a lease for a new apartment – she’s a real high-flyer – finally found her ideal guy, but then the new guy turned out to be a real piece of work and she’s just in pieces.’
Anna thought Jake’s high-flying ex sounded like quite a piece of work herself.
‘I think I should take you back to your hotel so you can sort things out,’ she suggested in her best admin assistant’s voice.
She wasn’t angry with Jake, who after all had never made her any promises. She was furious with herself. Brought together by a dog, she thought bitterly. And she had almost bought that whole ridiculous Disney fantasy.
As she drove him back into the city centre she knew she was acting cold and hostile, but it was the only way she knew to deal with the collapse of her hopes; hopes she hadn’t let herself know she’d been entertaining until Jake’s phone call brought them crashing down. After she’d repeatedly stonewalled his attempts at conversation, Jake gave up and stared silently out of the window. When she dropped him off at the Randolph where he was staying, they both got out of the car, and he said tentatively, ‘I’ll be coming back to Oxford quite soon. I’ve got some legal stuff to sort out with Mimi’s estate. It’d be good to spend some time with you and Bonnie.’
You and Bonnie, she thought, gritting her teeth. ‘I’ll look forward to it,’ she said coolly. ‘That’s assuming I’m around, obviously.’
There was a moment when she thought he might try to kiss her; and then, when he didn’t, she knew for sure that it had all just been in her head. Any attraction had all been on her side, she thought numbly as she drove back to Park Town. It really had been just about Bonnie.
Letting herself into her flat she went straight to the drawer where she kept the key to her cupboard of horrors. She was about to unlock the doors, when her desktop computer pinged with a new Google alert. Anna felt her heart jump into her mouth. Sweet as it had been, her day with Jake had only ever been a fantasy. What had happened to her family was real. Now after all these years the search engine had finally found fresh information.
It was only when she feverishly clicked on the link that she remembered setting up another, more recent, alert for Naomi Evans.
She buried her face in her hands. She knew it was insane to keep on hoping, but the disappointment was always so savage it was like a lightning strike.
‘It will pass, it will pass,’ she whispered, as she had done so many times before.
With an enormous effort of will she made herself turn back to see the latest update on Naomi’s case and felt the last of her hopes unravel as she read: ‘No DNA. Police reach dead end in Port Meadow Murder.’
SIX
It was almost eleven thirty in the morning, and Anna was still sitting at her kitchen table. She had got as far as putting marmalade on her toast, but like her coffee it remained untasted. She had showered, dressed, walked Bonnie, but back at home she’d been overwhelmed by a growing sense of futility. Like an aimless fly, her thoughts went round in fruitless circles as she stared unseeingly into space. Anna had battled depression in the past, and this disgust at her own uselessness felt frighteningly familiar.
Bonnie had come to sit at her feet and was gazing at her with the kind of intense expression normally reserved for marrow bones. Something told Anna that her White Shepherd had been sitting there watching her for some time. Bonnie still maintained a tactful distance between her and Anna, preferring to be invited before she entered Anna’s space. They were still a little shy with each other, Anna realized. On impulse she knelt down, and Bonnie immediately bowed her head so that their two foreheads were lightly touching. Anna’s throat closed as she remembered Bonnie performing this exact tender manoeuvre with Naomi.
‘If it was a work day I could go into the office,’ Anna told her, swallowing. One of her therapists had told her that whenever she felt like this it was always better to do something, however mindless.
‘Scrub the toilet. Pull up weeds,’ Miriam had told her. ‘Something that won’t set your panic sensors screaming. Try it! You just might find out what it is you think you’re not supposed to do, and if you don’t – well, at least you’ll have a clean toilet!’
But it wasn’t a work day, and Anna didn’t want to clean her toilet. She sat back on her heels. She had to do something or she’d go mad.
She jumped up. There was something she could do. She could keep her promise to take her grandfather’s paintings to the framers. ‘Won’t be long,’ she told the dog.
Grabbing her jacket and car keys, Anna ran upstairs to find her grandfather’s portfolio case and flew out of the house.
Someone was backing out of a parking place on St Giles just as she pulled up. She shot into the space, fed coins into the machine and stuck the ticket inside her windscreen. Only as she walked away did she allow herself to wonder why she had paid for two hours’ parking, when it would probably take less than half an hour to get to the framers and back.
It took five minutes to walk to the framers in the Covered Market. In another ten Anna was retracing her steps to St Giles. But at the last minute, she found herself walking right past her car, turning down Little Clarendon Street and then right into Walton Street. You just might find out what it is you think you’re not supposed to do.
She was now on the fringes of Jericho, once an infamous red-light district before the arty media crowd took it over. Anna slipped Tansy’s wilted little card out of her bag, checked the address and kept walking.
Tansy’s cafe occupied a prime position close to the Phoenix Picturehouse and had recently been revamped. Anna had known the building in its former incarnation as Beryl’s
, a popular greasy spoon, where hung-over students breakfasted on bacon and eggs. Now the frontage was painted a chic Farrow and Ball blue-grey and the name had changed to Cafe Marmalade. In the window an earthenware jug held jaunty sunflowers. Inside, a woman behind the counter leaned down into the chill cabinet, refilling the salad bowls.
Anna pushed open the door and went in. The brightly lit space inside smelled of fresh salad stuffs and good coffee. She wondered what Beryl would think of the galvanized bins filled with organic produce and the farmer’s market style baskets piled with artisan breads. At a table by the window, two young men in big boots and skinny jeans had their heads together over a MacBook. A youth in a Pink Floyd T-shirt at the table next to theirs briefly glanced up at Anna then went back to reading a battered copy of Slaughterhouse Five while he sipped his latte, his slightly-squashed pork pie hat tilted towards the back of his head.
She anxiously scanned the cafe. She didn’t even know if this was Tansy’s day to come in.
A teenage boy wearing a Cafe Marmalade tea-towel tied around his narrow hips for an apron was taking a complicated order from two girls. From what Anna could hear they were being sternly specific about their menu choices. One wore a retro floral frock with ankle boots. Her friend had opted for ripped lace and faded denim over wildly patterned leggings. Marmalade’s customers generally seemed to be aiming for a too-cool-to-bother-with-a-consistent-style style: mismatched layers, ironic eyewear. If she hadn’t been so freaked about being here at all, Anna might have appreciated the ambience more.
‘Can I help you?’ The woman behind the counter finally straightened up, having finished with the salads. Her androgynous hairstyle was dyed fuchsia pink. Anna wondered if this was the passive-aggressive Julie.
At that moment a door opened at the back of the cafe and Tansy came out balancing her tray on her hip. She looked as ridiculously young as Anna remembered, wearing a baggy sleeveless white T-shirt over her skinny jeans, her curly hair pulled up into a careless topknot. She spotted Anna, and Anna saw instant shocked comprehension in her eyes.