by Kathy Shuker
She glared at him defensively. ‘I was looking for Neil.’
‘And hello to you too, Claire,’ said Tim, not quite smiling. ‘Neil’s not here. He’s out for the day.’
‘Right. What time will he be back?’
‘Late. Anything I can do?’
‘No thanks, Tim. I need to speak to Neil but I’ll see him again.’
‘He’s been very busy lately.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning he’s been very busy lately. Travelling a lot.’
‘I see.’
She left, knowing that Timothy was still standing there, watching her go. He was clearly covering for his brother. Maybe Neil was somewhere nearby, watching her too; maybe those were the instructions he had left to tell her if she came around looking for him.
The following evening she was pulling weeds out of the front garden - while Eddie stood at the fence, watching, occasionally grunting and pointing at one she’d missed - when Neil came to stand at her front gate. She straightened up and stared at him, a trowel in one hand, a tussock of couch grass dangling from the other.
Neil slipped the catch on the gate and came to stand in front of her.
‘I went to see you yesterday,’ Claire said, glancing sideways as Eddie wordlessly shuffled away from the fence. ‘Tim said you weren’t around.’
‘Yes. He told me.’
They faced each other, gaze locked. She couldn’t talk to him here, in the garden. ‘Look, why don’t you come in?’ She dropped the grass and trowel in the trug, peeling off her gardening gloves and throwing them in on top. ‘I’ll put the kettle on.’
Neil wordlessly followed her inside.
‘I didn’t sleep last night,’ he said, closing the back door behind him.
Claire looked up from filling the kettle.
‘Why not?’
‘Because I was thinking about you - and that damn advert. And the very persistent reporter who wanted to know what you’d found exactly, and where. I was cross. And hurt too. And I thought about the party when we really seemed to be…’ He pursed up his lips and shook his head impatiently. ‘I don’t understand what’s going on Claire. Then Tim said you’d come to see me. He said you wouldn’t say why and I fretted over it all night. This afternoon I decided I had to see you and find out.’
She switched the kettle on and turned to face him.
‘I came because I wanted to apologise. I wanted to explain.’ She hesitated; she had rehearsed this. ‘When I came back here I genuinely meant to make a fresh start. I wanted to put it all behind me and sort my head out. I told you that. And it was difficult at first but it seemed to be working. Then something happened which blew my plans away.’
She paused. His expression gave nothing away but his eyes hadn’t left her face.
She told him how she’d found the hair slide and how convinced she was that it was Gilly’s, that it meant their daughter was still in Bohenna.
‘I wanted to believe that she was still alive, perhaps trapped somewhere not far away. It was a chance I couldn’t possibly ignore.’
Neil was frowning now, staring at her lips moving as if she were talking in a foreign language.
She took a deep breath and started again, telling him how she tried to trace who had donated the slide and how Adam Thomas had become involved.
‘He was at a loose end because his girlfriend had walked out. We let people think we were dating because it covered what we were doing.’
Neil snorted sceptically. ‘And what was the upshot of all this grand detective work may I ask?’
‘Nothing. That’s why I ended up putting the advert in the paper. It was desperation. Adam didn’t know anything about it either. As you know, he and Zoe are back together again.’
‘I can’t imagine what you were thinking, Claire. After all the rubbish we got last time. Why on earth would you put yourself up for it again?’
She frowned. ‘So what would you have done?’
‘What do you mean? ’
‘If you’d found something which you thought proved Gilly hadn’t left the village, what would you have done?’
He hesitated, put on the spot. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Exactly. It’s easy to find fault, Neil. Trying to do something positive and knowing what it should be - that’s the hard bit.’
He was unusually silent. ‘What response did you get to the advert then?’
‘Nothing of any use. The usual. Drat, I forgot the tea.’
She turned and quickly poured it into two mugs, slopped some milk in them and put one on the worktop beside him. He didn’t appear to even notice.
‘So where is this slide?’ he was asking. ‘Can I see it?’
‘I haven’t got it any more. I threw it away. Do you want to come through?’
He didn’t move.
‘After all that, you just threw it in the bin? You’d better not tell anyone else or there’ll be journalists rooting through your rubbish.’
‘Don’t make a big thing about it. I threw it outside somewhere. I was cross and upset. It was just a cheap kid’s plastic hair slide. It could have been anyone’s. I should have listened when the policewoman said that in the first place.’
‘You went to the police with it?’ He sounded incredulous. ‘What did they say?’
‘There was a new Family Liaison Officer.’ Claire shrugged. ‘She thought I was mad.’
‘There’s a surprise. So they aren’t pursuing it then?’
‘Do you always have to be sarcastic? This is why I didn’t tell you about it in the first place. You have to be so superior. And no, they aren’t pursuing it. They didn’t think there was any point.’
He nodded, hesitated. ‘I’m sorry, Claire. I know, I can be a bit…pompous sometimes.’
‘A bit?’
‘OK. A lot.’ He smiled apologetically. ‘And I’m sorry you didn’t think you could come to me with it. It must have been tough for you.’
‘Yes. It was. I can’t get away from the feeling that I’ve let Gilly down. I wanted the slide to be hers. I wanted it to be true. And it was all nonsense. All of it.’
She closed her eyes, utterly exhausted. But she could feel Neil prising the mug from her hand and her eyes flicked open to find him putting his arms around her, pulling her close.
‘You haven’t let Gilly down,’ he said, putting one hand to gently press her head against his shoulder, murmuring softly into her hair. ‘No-one could have tried harder. It’s not your fault.’
‘Oh Neil, you know it’s…’
‘Hush. Don’t talk. Let me speak. You know how difficult I find it to talk about stuff like this.’ He paused, still holding her head against him as if he couldn’t bear her to look at him. ‘I know I didn’t support you enough when we moved. I thought the new life in Kent would help us forget and I was so involved in my work, it was easier for me. I know you found it harder to leave Bohenna behind, to leave Gilly behind. Ssh, let me finish. It was me who let you down. I don’t know what I was doing with Samantha. She never meant anything. I’m sorry, Claire. I’ve always loved you. I still do.’
He bent down and kissed her, then pulled away to look at her.
‘I’d really been hoping we could try again,’ he said. ‘Then I heard about the advert and I thought nothing had changed after all. It felt like some sort of recurring nightmare and I didn’t know what to do.’
‘A recurring nightmare? I know all about those.’ She tried a laugh, confused, wanting to lighten the tone. She wasn’t sure she could trust this new Neil.
She eased away from him, picked up her mug and drank a couple of mouthfuls of tea.
Neil picked up his mug too and leaned against the units.
‘Have you heard from Laura recently?’ she asked. ‘Did you know she’s broken up with Travis?’
‘Yes, I rang her a couple of weeks ago. She didn’t sound too bothered though. She’s probably already met someone else.’
‘Do you think so? I thought maybe she
was putting a brave face on it. So I suppose you know she’s going fruit picking when term ends? Her friend Katie lives in the Cotswolds near a fruit farm.’
‘No, I didn’t know that.’
‘She sent me some photos of the village and the farm. It looks lovely. I’ll show you.’ She put the mug down and looked round. ‘My phone must be upstairs. I’ll get it. Won’t be a minute.’
She slipped out of the kitchen and ran upstairs. Her bag was on the bed and she pulled the phone out and turned to find Neil standing in the doorway.
‘Is it OK for me to come in?’ he said.
‘Of course.’
She began searching through her phone, looking for the photos Laura had sent, and felt his hand on her shoulder as he came to stand beside her. The heat of his skin was burning through the cotton of her shirt.
‘See,’ she said, finding them and slowly flicking through the pictures with her thumb, ‘doesn’t it look nice? I’m quite jealous.’
‘We’ll visit it sometime.’ He barely glanced at the screen. ‘Do you still remember the first time we made love?’ He was whispering now, lifting his hand to stroke the hair back from her face.
She looked at him sideways, smiling. ‘Of course I do. In the boathouse. I was scared to death someone would come in and find us at any moment.’
‘That’s flattering.’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘I went back to look at it a few days ago. It’s a mess now but it brought back so many memories.’
‘I went back too. Yes, a lot of memories. Good memories too.’
He turned her to face him and, for a moment, hesitated, looking into her eyes, posing a silent question. He began undoing the buttons of her shirt and she watched his fingers but didn’t move.
‘I meant it, Claire,’ he murmured, ‘when I said I loved it that you were passionate about things. It’s what I always think about you, that everything you do is wholehearted. It’s exciting. And invigorating. You don’t compromise.’
‘I do now. I’ve learnt that you have to if you want to survive.’
She put a hand on his to stop him undoing any more buttons.
‘You know, I’m not the same person any more,’ she said. ‘Are you sure about this?’
‘Yes. Aren’t you?’
‘I’m not sure about anything.’
‘We’ve all changed, Claire. But we’re still us. We just need to give ourselves time to readjust. Don’t you want to give us that chance?’
She hesitated, silently arguing with herself. Pointlessly. She removed her hand.
He undid the last button and pushed the shirt off her shoulders, then kissed her gently first on one eye then the other. It was what he always used to do before they made love.
*
Adam stared at the painting on his table without seeing it. He wasn’t happy. The plans he and Zoe had so carefully and painfully discussed for their future together seemed to be changing again.
It had started with a phone call from one of Zoe’s friends. Fran, a girl who worked at the same leisure complex in Bristol where Zoe had been the receptionist, had rung a few days previously. Apparently the girl who’d replaced her as receptionist had been incompetent and Fergus – the manager - had now sacked her.
‘Fergus told me to persuade you to come back,’ Fran said eagerly. ‘Said he’d happily give you your old job again. He’s got some agency girl in at the moment.’
When Zoe mentioned that she and Adam were looking to move and start a family, Fran had pressed the point again. She and her partner, Tony, already had two small boys.
‘That’s perfect then,’ she said. ‘Adam can work anywhere, can’t he? You don’t have to stay buried down there. We could do all sorts of things together again if you come back to Bristol. Wouldn’t that be great? We could share babysitters. Or we could leave the kids with the guys while we go shopping.’
Watching Zoe’s face while she was having this conversation, Adam had seen her light up as if she had just been plugged into the mains. And even afterwards, even while she was telling him about it and saying, jokily, what a silly idea it was and trust Fran to suggest that, he could tell how the idea still buzzed round her head.
‘You aren’t seriously considering going back to the Leisure Centre, are you?’ he demanded.
‘Of course not,’ Zoe responded briskly. ‘But it’s nice to be missed.’
And she’d given him one of those looks he could never decipher and the conversation had been dropped.
They still searched property in Cornwall - they had even made appointments to look round three houses - but they couldn’t agree on what exactly they wanted to buy. Zoe wanted sleek and modern; she wanted to live on an estate. Zoe liked manicured gardens; she liked regularity; she liked people around her.
‘I can’t live on an estate,’ Adam insisted.
‘Why not?’ she asked.
He didn’t know. But they made him feel claustrophobic. He’d grown up on a suburban housing estate and felt it choked him; he couldn’t wait to leave.
‘It’s like living in a goldfish bowl,’ he offered eventually. ‘Everyone watches what you’re doing. I’d rather live in a flat in town than that.’
‘Don’t give me that, Adam. Everyone knows what you’re doing in Bohenna too and you love it. Anyway, I’m not bringing up children in a flat. What are you thinking? We need a garden and a lawn for them to play on. I don’t see what’s wrong with a decent semi on an estate. That one we looked at yesterday afternoon was really nice. It didn’t need anything doing to it. It was perfect.’
But Adam wasn’t bothered about perfect, he wanted homely. And, more than anything, he wanted to be somewhere that didn’t make him feel constrained. He thought they’d agreed on a compromise: a house on the edge of a town where Zoe had access to facilities and things going on, but from which he could see fields maybe. Somewhere he didn’t feel trapped.
And then she’d dropped in the line which showed that the conversation with Fran had never entirely left her mind.
‘Surely you’d rather live somewhere like that than be back in Bristol, wouldn’t you?’
He was irritated – it sounded like an ultimatum – but it bothered him too that perhaps he was being unfair. Left to her own devices, she would take that job at the Leisure Centre. She would be back with her old friends; she could share shopping trips in the city and the occasional night at the cinema. That’s what would make her really happy. So maybe a neat little semi on an estate wasn’t such a lot to ask of him.
Even so, he thought it would slowly kill him, one neat, perfect room, by one.
‘I’m sensing domestic issues,’ said a voice behind him. He turned and saw Jane Sawdy standing just inside the door of his studio. He’d been leaving the door open again these warmer days but he hadn’t heard her step. She did this sometimes - creeping up on him – and it was unnerving. She took a couple of steps closer.
‘You’ve been sitting staring at that picture for ages and not touched it.’
‘I’m waiting for the muse to wake up,’ he said drily. ‘She’s been sleeping a lot lately.’
‘To judge by your recent activity I’d have thought she’d gone away on holiday.’
‘Yeah. Very funny.’
Jane leaned on the counter that separated the studio space from his tiny gallery.
‘Going to the fête?’ she asked.
‘I suppose. I hadn’t thought much about it.’
He had toyed with going, in fact. He had enjoyed it the year before, the simple, old-fashioned nature of the event, the stalls and the games. Last year, he’d won a stuffed rabbit and he’d given it to Zoe who’d smiled and said the right things but had never really entered into the spirit of the day. It was very ‘rustic’, she’d said. Maybe they wouldn’t go after all.
He turned his head to look at Jane. ‘Are you?’
‘I’ve been asked to run a fortune-telling booth. I don’t like the name but they insisted it was just a
bit of fun. I thought I should show willing.’
‘Very noble.’
Adam returned his baleful gaze to the painting.
‘I might be able to help, you know,’ she said. ‘With Zoe.’
He snapped his head back to look at her.
‘What do you mean?’
‘You’re still not seeing eye to eye with her, are you? Perhaps if you got me something personal of hers to focus on, and something of yours too…’ She looked down at his neck where his gold chain was just visible above his tee shirt. ‘…that chain, for example. Then I could try and feel how compatible you are.’ She hesitated, watching him with what looked like an amused curl to her lip. ‘I might be able to sense how well your personalities gel together. Whether you work as a couple, in fact.’
‘Of course we work as a couple,’ he said crossly. ‘We’ve been together years. You’re talking nonsense. Everyone has issues in relationships. It’s not all sweetness and light.’ He turned back to his painting. ‘Look Jane, I need to get on.’
‘Of course.’ She straightened up but didn’t leave. ‘You know your aura was a much better colour when you were seeing Claire.’
He turned again, eyes narrowed. ‘What? Now you’re trying to tell me I should have stayed with Claire? But it was never like that.’
‘I’m just saying.’
‘You want Neil Pennyman back for yourself,’ he said brutally. ‘That’s why you’re saying that. It’s not for my benefit, it’s for yours. You’ve never got over him dumping you.’
Jane stared at him. If looks could kill, his mother would have said. Jane walked out without another word.
Adam shook his head and tried to put her out of his mind. Jealous women he could do without.
*
No-one can replicate the first sweet stirrings of a love affair; it’s never the same the second time around. Claire knew that; she didn’t expect it. And it wasn’t the same, but as the next days stretched slowly into one week, then into two and three, things seemed to be going well. She and Neil argued - but then they always had - and sometimes she thought they would be wiser to take it more slowly, but no sooner had she thought it than she was agreeing to another dinner with him or a walk along the riverside or lunch in Fowey. Neil came to her house and helped with some of the more mundane tasks - something he had rarely done before - and several times he shared her bed with a passion which seemed to surprise them both in its intensity. They were getting to know each other again.