The Catalyst

by Angela Jardine

  He shook his head slightly, a gesture of private annoyance at such thoughts, asking himself why it should matter to him. Unfortunately, just at that moment his brain forgot to communicate with his mouth and it was with surprise that he heard himself say, ‘I saw Jimmy Fisher bring you home …’

  Sunny looked at him, startled, and he felt a confused sense of gratification that his assumption seemed to have been correct. Maybe she did have something to hide after all. Instantly depression set in again.

  ‘Yes, it was very lucky he was walking along the cliff path at the same time as I slipped. It was Jimmy who took me to hospital and brought me home afterwards.’

  She was aware of a certain defensiveness in her answer and wondered why she felt she owed Edward any sort of explanation for her actions. It alarmed her a little to think she was probably under scrutiny although she had always known this was the price one paid for living in a small village. Why should it matter that it was Edward who was watching? Somehow it did and she felt uncomfortable.

  ‘Look ... life is going to be a bit tricky for you for a while and I’d like to help. Why don’t I cook dinner for you? I’m quite a good cook … I think.’ Despite his by now habitual self-doubt surfacing he had had an idea.

  Trying not to be thrown by Edward’s sudden change of tack, she thought for a moment. There was something so touching about his self-deprecation, the gentle hesitation in his manner that she had a sudden insight into the private pain of a crippling lack of self-esteem. Intuitively she now saw how his usual brusqueness covered a deep uncertainty about himself and, moved beyond her own wishes, she accepted his invitation to dinner.

  She instantly regretted her decision but as she watched it dawn on Edward that she had agreed and the expected rejection had not happened, the feeling died and she knew she had been right to let compassion rule her.

  ‘I can cook, really,’ he said with unexpected enthusiasm, ‘it won’t be convenience food … y’know, microwave food. Can you hobble round for about 7 tonight? I’m sure we can find a way of getting you up the steps.’

  His smile suddenly became more relaxed and although fleeting it was wide and his lips had an appealing curve to them. It was unexpectedly attractive and Sunny thought dinner with Edward might not be too bad after all, if only he could remember to stay relaxed.

  However, as if it had been waiting for some hidden cue, the weather took a turn for the worse. Having behaved itself all day the breeze became brisk and purposeful and the villagers, lifting their noses to the wind, knew something was afoot. They had seen it many times before and nothing surprised them about its changeable nature. This narrow peninsula seemed to attract all known types of weather and often all on one day.

  The first dark clouds rumbled in just as Edward arrived back from his grocery shopping in Dehwelyans where he had had a rare interlude of total enjoyment buying wonderful things to cook for his dinner guest that evening. He had spent time and money he could ill afford on things he never usually allowed himself but this was to be a special meal.

  Now he found he really wanted to make a friend of Sunny and, having gained her trust, he could tell her about Jimmy, maybe save her from his advances. Friendship would obviously take more than a shared meal but he had to start somewhere and anyway, she was his employee so this evening would be good for their working relationship.

  He found he was continually explaining his motives to reassure himself that his behaviour was warranted, that it was, above all, normal. Thanks to Francesca he was never really sure what constituted normal any more.

  The wind began to blow harder, ripping at the flimsy plastic carriers in his hands as he struggled across the car park with them. Gratefully he kicked the door shut behind him as a sudden, brash clatter on his windows told him it had started to rain and looking out he could see the sea sending up spumes of lacy spray as it was driven hard against the outside of the harbour wall.

  He watched as a rogue wave hit the wall at a sharp angle and threw a sheet of water high into the air before coming down to land on an unwary couple storm-watching on the quayside. The woman screamed as the cold water poured down in a torrent over her then stood looking down at her sodden clothes. The man with her looked equally stunned before they both burst into fits of laughter. Grabbing her hand, he pulled her along the harbour and they ran off giggling before the next deluge landed.

  Edward watched their intimacy and felt he could have killed for that sort of connection with just one special woman. In that moment he was aware of the depths of his loneliness and felt the stab of it strike at what he supposed was his heart. Hurriedly he turned from the window and started to unpack his groceries.

  Jimmy too, was watching the advancing storm from his cliff top eyrie. He had driven along the promenade at Dehwelyans just as the storm had started. The police had already closed the promenade to traffic as they usually did in these conditions and diverted it through the town instead, but the residents still drove round the ‘Road Closed’ signs to run the gauntlet of airborne spray and flying seaweed on the old road running by the edge of the sea.

  Like all the other locals Jimmy did not consider the police signs as directed at himself so he had driven through the spray and arrived home ignoring the fact that his old pickup had acquired a toupee of seaweed. Now he stood in front of his old farmhouse watching the slate-grey sea boil and writhe at the foot of the cliffs like some sort of enraged dragon.

  He loved the drama of such weather. It excited him, appealing to some wild element in him and he just had to be out in it. Anyone watching might have considered him a suitable case for sectioning as he laughed and threw his head back to feel the salt spray landing on his face, carried to the cliff top by a buffeting wind which stayed just long enough to tangle his hair and then romp on to cause havoc in the hedgerows where the small birds cowered.

  Standing with his head back and his arms outstretched on either side of him, absorbing the feeling of the rain and wind, he knew in this very moment he was truly, vitally, alive. It was also at this precise moment that he knew he would see Sunny Smith again and deep inside himself he acknowledged what he had always known.

  He would see her and it would all begin in earnest. The game was well and truly on.

  Chapter 10

  The storm worsened as dusk fell. The sea threw great white curtains of spindrift so far up into the air that gusts of wind caught the flying spray and whirled it high over the roofs of the low cottages behind the harbour wall before dropping it in the comparative shelter of Sunny’s little street. It clattered against her windowpanes and left them rimed with salt.

  Lighting candles, she watched as the draught from the old sash windows made the flames dance, not wanting to draw the curtains and shut out the excitement of the evening. She loved the contrast of the warmth and safety of the old cottage against the dark wildness outside with its shrieking, latch-rattling wind funnelling down the narrow street.

  Reluctantly she remembered she had promised to go to Edward’s for dinner and although it was only a few steps away she would rather have stayed in her own cottage, curled up by the fire. There was also the problem of what to wear to go out to dinner in a storm.

  The loose linen trousers she was wearing had been the easiest things to get over the cast on her ankle but she knew they were too creased now. Sitting down on the bottom stair she shuffled her way backwards up the stairs one step at a time to her bedroom to see what she could find to take their place.

  The thought of having to make polite conversation with her boss depressed her and nothing in her wardrobe lifted her spirits in the least. A gust of wind rattled her windows, helping her decide to put warmth before glamour. Pulling on some long woolly socks would not just keep her legs warm but would also disguise the plaster cast, and she could hide much of them underneath a long, narrow corduroy skirt.

  Unfortunately the only socks she had were brightly striped over-the-knee socks she had once bought to wear hidden inside her Wellingtons an
d her skirt was not as long as she had thought it was. She frowned at her reflection.

  The outfit looked a lot more ‘bag lady’ than she would have liked but at least she would be comfortable, and anyway it was simply not possible to dress up smartly when her ankle was all strapped up and the weather was so wet. It’ll just have to do she thought with asperity. It’s not as if I’m trying to fascinate Edward or anything. The thought made her smile wryly.

  Edward called to collect her just as she was hopping about the kitchen wielding a Wellington boot. Knocking once and putting his tousled head round the door as she called for him to come in she noticed him grin before he could stop himself. She was not to know he thought her eccentric socks made her look rather cute.

  ‘I thought I should come and help you, it’s going absolutely bonkers out here … and we still have to find a way of getting you up my steps,’ he said with an unusual fluency caused by the large glass of red wine he had enjoyed as he prepared food.

  Producing a large golf umbrella from somewhere he held it over her as they stood outside her door but it was no match for the gale force wind and it had turned inside out before they had hardly moved. Even their waterproof jackets seemed to be useless in the whirling wetness of the evening helping, rather than hindering, the rain find its way down their necks and onto any exposed clothing beneath.

  ‘Oh well, we’ll just have to run for it … or hop for it in your case,’ he said as he took hold of her arm firmly. She giggled at his words and he felt a rush of pleasure at his unexpected ability to make her laugh. There was barely twenty yards between their cottages and in desperation to get her out of the lashing rain Edward practically carried Sunny up the steps to his home.

  Despite the short journey they were both extremely wet as they closed the door behind them and they stood looking at each other as the water dripped off them onto the floor. Edward’s hair stood straight up on end with a tiara of tiny spray droplets while Sunny’s clung to her face as if painted on. A large raindrop ran down her forehead and trickled down her nose before dropping to the floor.

  She knew she looked a mess and there was nothing she could do about it but somehow it really didn’t matter. She started to laugh. This turned out to be infectious and Edward joined in, and although his laughter was hesitant at first it seemed to gather momentum until he couldn’t stop. It was a novel experience for him, a remembering of a distant memory and he was aware of a certain lightening of spirit.

  Even when one of them thought they had got themselves under control, they only had to catch the other’s eye to set them laughing again. Neither of them knew exactly what they were laughing at but that had become irrelevant.

  ‘You really do need to get some dry clothing on …’ he said at last, handing her a towel to dry her hair, ‘shall I slip back to yours and get you something else to put on?’

  ‘Oh no, Edward, you’ll get even wetter! Can’t I just borrow something of yours? I only need something for my top, a jumper or something.’

  She looked down at the damp patch spreading down the front of her blouse and he hurried off downstairs to his bedroom, coming back with a selection of jumpers. Ignoring his raised eyebrows at her choice, she picked out an old, baggy one and, when he had turned away, she stripped off her blouse and slipped it over her head. It smelt of him, a clean scent she found somehow reassuring.

  Her skirt however would just have to do even though it appeared to have rising damp. She thought briefly about removing it but was aware there would be an expanse of bare leg between the bottom of the jumper and the start of her rainbow socks and that was definitely not the right look to go for when having dinner at the boss’s house. So resigning herself to being uncomfortably damp for a while she started to towel her hair and went to see if she could help Edward with the dinner.

  Turning to smile at her as she came up behind him, all tousled hair and drooping sweater, Edward suddenly froze as some strange sensation hit him right in the solar plexus. Instantly he knew, as he looked at her standing there in her stripy socks with that huge jumper hanging down over her damp skirt and her hands hidden by too long sleeves, that he loved her. The thought filled him with horror.

  Whether it was the total contrast with Francesca, who would have rather have been mummified than be seen dressed like that, or whether it was the fact that she looked like some sort of appealing waif he could not say. What felt even more inappropriate was that in spite of the ludicrous clothing and tangled hair, he desired her physically.

  The thoughts that rushed into his head at that moment made him hot with embarrassment and he knew he had been deluding himself with any thoughts of chivalry and altruism. He had disguised his desires so well to himself that he had thought he wanted to protect her from Jimmy Fisher. When what I really wanted, he told himself miserably, was to keep her for myself. I'm no better than he is, I just want her for my own selfish gratification too, just like him.

  It was with these harsh thoughts running through his head that he tried to busy himself with putting the final touches to the meal but he was by now so full of self-loathing he was scarcely aware of the food he was setting out before her, food he had looked forward to preparing for her.

  It was immediately obvious to Sunny that Edward was being odd again. The lighthearted mood of earlier had now gone and she was at a loss to understand why. She had seen him start when he looked at her and realising his mood had changed from that moment she wondered if she had somehow reminded him of someone else.

  Maybe she looked like someone he had once loved ... or loved and lost? Perhaps the jumper had been the trigger or the odd outfit? It could be any of a number of things, she thought uneasily. Once she would have done anything to get out of this situation with Edward but now it was too late.

  She had seen the other side to him and had caught a glimpse of a boyish, fun-loving side. It was well-hidden, that was for sure, and it had certainly never shown when they were at work but now she knew it was there and what woman wouldn’t have found that intriguing?

  She wanted to prise open the Pandora’s Box of Edward Hervey’s psyche and coax out the real man and liberate him from the tyranny of his musty, assumed identity. The tantalising glimpse of who he truly was beneath the staid and crusty exterior he presented to the world had now made him an irresistible challenge to her and in that moment she knew she wanted to make Edward happy.

  It was a common enough instinct with Sunny, the drive to please others. A wish to see other people happy was her default setting, so much a part of who she was she was completely unaware she might be interfering in other people’s lives.

  Now that some abrupt insight had let her see into Edward’s unhappy world she had been touched by the revelation and her usual reaction had been triggered. The problem now was how to start on what could be the monumental task of resetting his happiness register and, just at the moment, she couldn’t think of how to do that.

  They began their meal in silence. The food Edward had prepared was a delicious revelation and she wanted to tell him but was afraid of appearing patronising. Finally she could stay silent no longer.

  ‘Edward, this food is amazing! Who taught you to cook?’ She knew she was gushing, but it was still true.

  Edward however seemed to be pleased with the remark and thankfully took it in the spirit in which she had meant it.

  ‘Well, since Francesca … I mean, living on my own has given me a lot of time to practice so I sort of taught myself by trial and error … and it helps me relax too.’

  Sunny had noticed the slight stumble in his answer and seen fleeting and unreadable expressions cross his face as he mentioned the name ‘Francesca’. It was tantalizing to think she might be the mystery love he had lost. She continued her meal trying to weigh up whether she should ask about this woman before ignoring something telling her not to probe further.

  With deliberate casualness, she asked Edward who Francesca was and knew it was a mistake before she had even finished the sent
ence, but by then there was no way of taking it back.

  ‘She was my wife …’ he said shortly. Sunny waited for him to say ‘she died’ and her heart sank when he said instead, ‘ … she left me.’ Now she knew for sure she had gone too far.

  ‘Oh, Edward ... I’m so sorry, please forgive me...’

  She sat chastened, aghast at her own behaviour. Not only had his revelation startled her but the expression on his face left her in no doubt this was still one very raw nerve.

  ‘That’s okay...’ he said, looking as though it anything but okay, ‘itwas five years ago.’

  His attempt at trying to appear offhand failed. He did not want to talk about Francesca … ever. Why the hell had Sunny asked about her? His emotions were now in the usual turmoil that came at the mention of her name and part of him suddenly wanted Sunny to go so he could be left alone to recover. Another part of him however still remembered the true mission of this little dinner party.

  Sunny’s mind too was a maelstrom of thoughts as she tried to concentrate on her food. Would talking about Francesca somehow release him from the spell she still undoubtedly cast over him? Despite his obvious uneasiness, she found herself unwilling to let the subject drop and wondered why. She flickered a glance at him.

  ‘Has there been anyone since?’ she said, suspecting what the answer would be even as she asked.

  ‘No …’ he said, wanting to add, ‘ … not until now.’ She kept silent, waiting for him to say more.

  ‘I suppose there was nobody I felt I could … confide in. It was just all too painful.’ He broke off, unable to explain why there had been no other woman in the five lonely years since Francesca. How could he explain his inability to trust?

  Now he had got used to the shock of talking about Francesca, he found it wasn’t so bad after all and he read sympathy and kindness in the clear eyes of the woman sitting across from him. If only he dare tell her everything, if only he dare tell her how his marriage had been a sham, how his love had been laughed at and rejected.