Eleanor kept her eyes on the window so he couldn’t see the flush of happiness his words caused.
The Green Man was jammed, both round the bar and in the main dining area, where a shooting party, decked in plus-fours and cartridge belts, was in rowdy form, occupying several tables, laden with plates of food and open wine bottles.
Nick fought his way through the throng to buy two gin and tonics while Eleanor made a beeline for a tiny bench-table next to the fireplace, where several sturdy logs blazed. They bundled their coats at their feet and ordered off the chalkboard of specials, Nick opting for roast beef and Eleanor following suit, though her stomach was too knotted to care.
The bench seat soon grew hot. ‘Can’t exactly ‘turn down’ an open fire, can you?’ Nick joked after a few minutes, peeling off his jumper, a close-fitting bright blue one that Eleanor guessed had been a Christmas present, and managing in the process to give her a glimpse of a dark neat arrow of hair down the centre of his stomach. She looked quickly away. Her own black woollen dress, so apt a choice in the morning chill of her draughty bedroom and an excellent match with the suede boots, had become a slow-cooker. Every inch of her felt as if it was being steadily roasted. ‘Hey, this is good, isn’t it?’ Nick rubbed his hands gleefully.
‘Have you told Tilly?’ she blurted. ‘About today?’ She prayed he would say no. No would mean he harboured feelings that warranted stealth. No would nurture her few tender tendrils of hope.
‘No,’ he confessed, but then quickly ruined the moment by adding, ‘she finds it hard enough, with me being away at university, making new friends.’ He shot Eleanor a pained, rueful look from under the light brown mop of his hair.
‘Yes, yes of course.’ Eleanor chewed her cheeks. ‘I hope you didn’t mind my asking—’
‘No, it’s fine. It’s good to talk… to be open.’
Although awkward, the exchange seemed to clear the air and they chatted more easily when their lunch arrived, Nick doing his usual job of concentrated demolishment of the entire contents of his plate, while Eleanor picked at the slabs of meat and vegetable mounds with a fork, still too tense and hot to muster a genuine appetite. He offered up more tales of the hearty godfather and his dog, while she managed to make him laugh with a couple of anecdotes about her spell at home, including Vincent’s dire, endless Christmas-morning sermon, delivered against a mounting cacophony of mutinous children, and the terrible meal served by Kat to which they had returned afterwards. Left in charge of cooking at her own request, her sister had jettisoned their small supermarket turkey in favour of two packets of fish fingers, mashed potato and mountains of frozen peas and sweetcorn. Vincent, surveying the table, had ignored the flashing defiance in his youngest daughter’s eyes and merely fetched the ketchup, before tucking his napkin deep into the rim of his dog collar and pronouncing the longest grace either of them had ever heard, in Latin.
‘God, my family is so conventional,’ moaned Nick when he had finished laughing. ‘Brussel sprouts, stilton and toasts to the Queen. Yours sounds much more fun.’
‘Believe me, it isn’t,’ Eleanor said stiffly.
‘Not that I’m saying…’ He broke off, looking stricken. ‘I mean, from what you told me… not having your mum around and so on… that must make it hard.’
‘It did. It does. Sometimes. Not always. The thing is…’ Eleanor fought with her paper napkin, tearing it into shreds. She always wanted him to concentrate on her but then found the glare of his attention overwhelming. ‘At home we never talk about anything,’ she admitted dully, ‘not a single thing.’
He laughed. ‘Mine neither. All we ever discuss is bloody doctoring.’
Eleanor smiled, knowing he was trying to be kind. The thing she really wanted to say was jumping inside her head. She needed Nick to know it so that he understood her – more of her than the rest of the world did. ‘But the trouble is,’ she pressed on slowly, ‘with us, there has been some stuff… big stuff that really needed saying. And now it’s too late.’
‘What sort of stuff?’
‘About my mother.’
‘Ah, yes—’
‘She drank, you see.’
Nick had been nodding sympathetically, but he stopped, staring at her in surprise.
Eleanor hesitated, still hating what she had to say, but a part of her also now managing to savour the intensity of the moment, the trust that had brought it into being. ‘She had what is commonly known as a “drinking problem”. Kat and I were too young to realise. It was only after the accident, picking up on the gossip, stuff about the alcohol levels in her blood, whether she had meant to walk in front of the train or not – jolly things like that.’
She tried to smile, but her jaw seemed to have locked. She felt Nick’s hand close round her fingers, sealing them, keeping them safe, it felt like.
‘The point is,’ she pressed on, ‘at the time I would have liked to know more… to understand… more. I waited, but Dad never said a word, not to me or Kat, or anyone. Not one word. He just buried himself in God instead. He still does.’ The heat of Nick’s hand was different from the hotness of the room, dry and warm, like balm. Eleanor could feel it filling her up, making her strong. ‘But don’t think I miss her that much or anything, because I don’t. I mean, I don’t even try to. It was a long time ago and remembering gets you nowhere.’ She shrugged. ‘All I know is that getting away to university has been the best thing that ever happened to me. And Kat will get away too,’ she added with some urgency, ‘if she can just pass a few exams, the idiot.’
Eleanor found herself laughing suddenly, dizzy with relief and incredulity at her own candour. She had never told anyone about the drinking thing, not even Megan. Kat knew, of course, but then Kat was as bad as her father when it came to discussing things.
‘Sorry. None of this was on my list of entertaining conversation for the day.’
‘Don’t apologise.’ He had released her hand and was sitting back in his chair, regarding her solemnly. ‘Friends should be able to tell each other anything. Entertainment doesn’t come into it.’
Eleanor wished she could stretch the moment out, but already the rest of the room was bursting back into focus. Someone in the shooting group had started thumping the table in time to the downing of a drink. It was with a twist of dismay that she caught Nick sneaking a look at his watch.
‘We could have coffee at home,’ she suggested desperately. ‘It would be quieter. Both Dad and Kat are out.’
Nick flexed his eyebrows in a show of mischievous anticipation that made Eleanor’s hopes bounce. But then uncertainty gusted in, taking the lovely look of mischief with it. ‘Tempting, but I’d better not. I’ll drop you wherever you would like first though, of course.’
‘The bus stop would be fine, thanks,’ she said quickly, her courage shrinking.
Once in the car, he fell into a silence that Eleanor found hard to read. He was fighting with himself, she decided, casting glances at the rigidity of his high cheekbones and the fix of his dark blue eyes on the windscreen. He wanted to spend more time with her but felt guilty, and that was understandable. In profile, the length of his eyelashes was astonishing; it made her want to reach out and run the tips of her fingers along them.
But then a hitchhiker came into view, a strikingly attired hitchhiker, clad in high-heeled thigh-high gold boots and the stiff edges of what looked like a pink tutu poking out between the folds of a bright purple cape. She was hopping for warmth, hugging herself with one arm, thumbing madly with the other.
‘Blimey, look at that.’ Nick slowed right down, gawping.
‘That,’ said Eleanor, in a tone of affectionate exasperation, ‘is my little sister.’
Nick shot her a look of disbelief and burst out laughing. ‘Well, had we better pick her up in that case?’
‘Yes, I suppose we had.’
‘And I can drop you both home if you like.’
In spite of being consigned to the back seat, Kat wedged herself as far forwa
rds as she could between them, draping her gold-coated lower legs round the gearbox as she chattered, lighting and relighting her damp roll-ups off the Volkswagen’s temperamental cigarette lighter, and at one stage grabbing each of their hands to study their lifelines – palmistry being a skill she had learnt that very day, she claimed gleefully.
Exultant at the slight extension to Nick’s visit, Eleanor gladly went along with the show, feeling a little proud of Kat’s strangeness – seeing afresh what a cute oddball mix her younger sister was, all sweetness and faux sophistication, a funky kid playing at being a grown-up.
When they got home, Kat continued with the charade, insisting Nick come in for a cup of tea and shooing them both into the sitting room like some fussing middle-aged hostess. She puffed up the old brown sofa cushions and commanded them to do nothing but relax, before tottering off to clatter round the kitchen.
Nick and Eleanor exchanged bemused looks, talking quietly, until she made a re-entrance carrying a big old tray they never used, laden with every possible accoutrement for a formal tea that the vicarage’s jumbled crockery cupboards could provide – including not just a teapot, cups, saucers, teaspoons and the old green jug for milk, but a proper sugar bowl with tongs and a silver dish Eleanor had never seen before, piled high with triangles of toast visibly oozing butter and jam.
Eleanor absorbed the sight in amazement, unable to suppress the hope that instead of being some new, perverse tributary of Kat’s contrariness, a bigger conciliatory avenue in her little sister’s attitude towards her might be opening up. She tried to catch Kat’s eye, wanting her to confirm it, but Kat was too busy concentrating on ‘playing mother’, as she merrily put it, asking for exact instructions from Nick about milk and sugar as she poured and stirred.
‘So, was it a fancy-dress party you’d been to?’ Nick enquired politely, once tea and toast had been distributed.
It occurred to Eleanor in the same instant that, as well as being kind, there was an endearing innocence to him, an uncertainty; demonstrating that, for all the good looks and ability, Nick Wharton was a man still very much feeling his way along the course of his life rather than taking command of it. The thought made her long to take hold of his hand as he had hers in the pub, let him know that her support of whatever he chose to do with his life would be unconditional. She let her gaze settle fondly on her sister instead, curious as to how she would respond to the enquiry. Kat’s clothes, she knew, had nothing whatsoever to do with fancy dress. Her sister made and wore peculiar things that somehow looked tremendous. It was what she did.
Kat was lying on the floor on the hearth rug, her mouth full of toast. ‘What, because of this lot, you mean?’ She tweaked the gauzy skirts of the tutu and lifted one gold-booted leg onto the table next to the tray, showing off badly laddered white tights that managed to highlight the slim sinewy curves of her thighs. ‘It was a sort of party, I suppose. If you can count four people as a party. Then they all got on my wick and I needed to get home. And I didn’t have any money. And luckily you found me.’
‘Do you know when Dad’s getting back? He told me last night that he would be out for most of the day.’ Eleanor threw a glance at Nick who was looking disconcerted.
Kat rolled her eyes at the ceiling. ‘He’s not out, he’s asleep.’ She pulled a face.
‘Dad is a bit of an insomniac,’ Eleanor explained, ‘so he gets very tired.’ Inwardly she fought down dismay that Vincent should have changed his plans, jeopardising the pleasures of the afternoon by threatening the necessity of awkward introductions.
Kat posted a last wedge of toast into her mouth, licking each of her fingers before wiping them in exaggerated swipes on her tights. ‘Oh, and if he comes down, would you mind not mentioning my smoking, Nick? Not that you would. But please don’t. He’s got a bit of a thing about it. So boring.’ She rolled her eyes in such a blatant further attempt to appear grown up that it was all Eleanor could do not to laugh out loud.
‘No, of course I won’t,’ Nick assured her kindly, ‘I wouldn’t dream of it. Your secret is safe with me.’
‘Who has secrets?’ boomed Vincent, appearing in the doorway behind them, making them all jump. ‘Ah, we have guest, I see.’ He strode into the room, his craggy face flexed into the expression of winning interest that he always could manage for people he did not know.
Nick and Eleanor both stood up. ‘Dad – this is Nick.’ Eleanor did her best to sound unflustered. ‘Nick Wharton. A friend from—’
‘Ellie’s friend from university,’ Kat chipped in, pronouncing it yooooniversity as if it was something hilarious.
Nick shook hands with Vincent across the back of the sofa. ‘You are most welcome, young man.’ He clasped both his hands round Nick’s. ‘Most welcome. Do you study with Eleanor?’
‘At the same college, yes, but not the same subject. I’m reading medicine—’
‘Splendid, splendid,’ Vincent interjected, breaking off to glower at Kat, who was still lying flat on her back, one gold-booted foot propped on the table. ‘Sit up properly, child, can’t you?’
‘Sorry, Daddy.’ She swung into a kneeling position with exaggerated speed, prim as a nun. ‘Tea, Daddy?’ She puckered her lips and set about pouring him a cup, holding the spout of the pot at such a great height that tea spattered everywhere. The saucer she handed to him contained a moat of brown liquid.
Vincent took it calmly, tipping the moat into the cup and reaching to the tray for a lump of sugar, using his fingers rather than the tongs. ‘Hardly attire for visitors, my dear,’ he said tersely, turning his back on her.
‘I don’t like the way you dress either,’ she retorted.
‘Kat – don’t.’
Kat turned on her sister. ‘Don’t what? Speak?’ She flashed a smile at Nick. ‘Sorry, Nick, we are good at pretending to be nice, but we aren’t really. Don’t be fooled by any of us.’ She snatched another triangle of toast and stalked out of the room.
Five minutes later, she reappeared as if nothing had happened, her expression serene and wearing a pair of dark blue jeans that gripped the straight lines of her narrow hips before flaring to wide skirts round the base of another pair of very high-heeled shoes, red ones this time, with toes as sharp as pencil-points. She had brushed her hair as flat as it ever went, compressing it into two fat silky plaits that bounced on her shoulders. In her arms she was clutching an old Cluedo box, dusty from the cellar by the look of it. ‘I thought we could play a board game. Daddy would you like to play a bawd game?’
Vincent had been talking to Nick about the ordeal of medical training, with such fluency, such charm that, while glad, Eleanor had experienced a rising anger. Her father was nice. He was normal. And yet she was never on the receiving end of such treats. Kat riled him, but she did the opposite. She tried to be cooperative and nice. Why was that still not enough? To be noticed. Shown some affection. Was that really so much to ask?
‘Not me, I fear, I have work to attend to,’ Vincent replied hastily. He cast an apologetic grimace at the Cluedo box, though it was perfectly clear he was going through the motions.
‘And I too must be on my way.’ Nick stood up.
But Kat stepped forwards in the same instant, tapping him on the chest with a corner of the box so that he promptly sat back down again. ‘We are going to play a game,’ she commanded. ‘Then you must stay for supper. We are going to eat sausages. We have heaps of them. And mash. Daddy would like it, wouldn’t you?’ she called after Vincent’s retreating back. ‘Another man at the supper table. And Nick can stay the night, if he wants, can’t he? In the yellow room. Ellie and I will do the sheets.’
There was a grunt of acquiescence from the corridor and then the sound of retreating footsteps.
Eleanor looked at Nick, her heart racing. It would have been impossible for her to ask him to stay, but coming from Kat it seemed all right… impudent, but all right. For a moment she wondered if she had ever loved her sister more.
Nick was shaking his hea
d, laughing helplessly. ‘Thanks, but no, I couldn’t possibly stay. I’ll play one game and then I really must be on my way.’
But he hadn’t played one game, he had played at least ten: A Cluedo marathon, undertaken in a pedestrian manner until dinner and then rather more riotously afterwards, once Vincent had retreated upstairs and Kat had mixed a syrupy concoction of the limited contents of the drinks cupboard to serve as forfeits for every wrong guess, of which there were many. Nick’s caving in to the invitation to stay overnight had occurred suddenly and easily, aided by another bout of pleading from Kat and perhaps by the smell of frying sausages which she said she would see to while he made up his mind. He asked for permission to use the hall phone and made a couple of calls, first to what sounded like a parent and then to someone who had to be Tilly, Eleanor decided, hovering in the open door of the kitchen to hear what she could of the conversations: …bad news… Harriet has thrown a wobbly… yes, conked out on me… university friend… port in a storm… see what the garage says tomorrow… a real pain… let you know tomorrow… yes, me too.
So a man of integrity could lie. But did that matter if the lying was for you?
Shivering under the bedclothes in the blue-black murk of her bedroom some eight hours later, her head still spinning from Kat’s fiendish cocktails, the question leapt out at Eleanor again. The good and bad of it felt knotted together. Wrong turns in life had to be taken, she reasoned, before the right ones could be found. All that mattered was that Nick Wharton lay, warm and breathing, at the end of the passageway, sheathed between the sheets that she and Kat, giggling and unsteady, had tugged round the thin divan bed mattress in the small yellow room where Mrs Owens had once liked to do her ironing. Nick had watched them, arms akimbo, from the doorway, feigning impatience between fighting yawns and then chivvied them out, saying they were useless domestic slaves and he would finish the task alone. Eleanor had dared to cast a look back as they scurried along the corridor, but seen only the closing door.
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