Love is a Four Letter Word

by Zara Stoneley

  “And you’re leaving?”

  Now was the time to say she didn’t want to go, but she couldn’t. The words just wouldn’t come.

  “I thought it was best.” Because you don’t want me, you don’t want a baby. Together we’d be a disaster.

  “So that’s what this is all about.” His voice was dangerously low now, too soft. “You really are going into partnership aren’t you? Pretty good going for a girl who swore to me the other day that she hated babies and didn’t want to settle down.” He shoved his hands deep into his pockets, gave a sharp bark of a laugh and glared. “And you thought you’d give me a nice little leaving present.” Scathing was not the word for it. “So the whole artist retreat thing, helping with the business plan, was that just an excuse to see each other? Or, no—”

  “Jake stop. Just stop it. It’s not like that.”

  “Stop? Why?”

  “You’re being stupid, just listen.”

  “Oh, I’m done with listening. I know, I bet the pair of you were planning on taking over the village, weren’t you? Then you got pregnant and decided to drop the idea. So, the parties over eh? You’ve had your fun and you’re waltzing off somewhere better. What I don’t get is where I fit in.”

  “Jake, you don’t fit in.” She meant there wasn’t anything to ‘fit in’ to. No plan, nothing, but he wasn’t listening.

  “No, I don’t, do I? Oh I remember, I’m just the bit of rough. Well, you bugger off with your artist and enjoy the rest of your life then, but skip the leaving presents, eh? If I want to stay then I’ll work it out myself thank you.”

  Shit, he thought she was back with Sly. He really believed that what he’d seen in the barn was real. Now was the time to say that there was no ‘her and anyone else’. But something stopped her. Something like the shrivelling look he was giving her. The look that said we’re as different as night and day, and I despise you. Getting pregnant was bad, falling for him was worse.

  “It never really did mean anything to you this place did it? For a moment back there I thought it did, but it’s all just a game isn’t it? Including me.”

  “Being with you was never a game.”

  “Oh, I was just handy on the side lines? Someone to fill in the boring bits while you were waiting to hatch your plan.”

  “It wasn’t like that, it isn’t like that.”

  “Well you just tell me how it was then before you go. Or aren’t I worth the explanation?”

  “There wasn’t a plan, you have to believe me Jake.”

  “So why are you going?”

  “I…” What could she say? I’m going because I don’t want to wreck both our lives? I’m going because if I don’t it will be like Mum and Dad all over again. I’m going before I make you hate me?

  “Fine. Have it your way then, you buy the fucking land and keep it for yourself, breed babies on it, seeing as it looks like you’ve already got it all done and dusted. But don’t come back here until you’re giving me my marching orders, okay?” He’d backed away as he spoke, was next to his motorbike, pushing it effortlessly off its stand. Was wheeling it past her as she floundered for words. “Shut the gate when you go.”

  “That’s it, just sod off, run away.”

  He got on the bike. Turned the key.

  “Run away, isn’t that what you always do instead of listening to what anyone is trying to tell you? I didn’t mean to get friggin’ pregnant.” Revved up the engine to drown her out. “Jake, Jake wait, please. I want to buy it for you. I haven’t seen Sly since…” But she was talking to thin air.

  ***

  Georgie jumped at the sound of metal against wood. The mare who’d been disturbed by the noise, or just hungry for more hay was kicking out at her door. Breaking the heavy silence that had replaced the angry roar of the motorbike.

  For a moment she hesitated. It wasn’t her horse, she had no right to be here. Then she wandered over to the stall, let herself in, rested a hand on the dappled grey neck. “I wanted to buy it for him.” She moved in closer, wrapped one hand under the muscled neck, stroked her other along it, leaning in, taking in the smell of warm horse and hay. “Because I love him.” God, she was stupid, so bloody stupid. She closed her eyes, to keep the threatening tears where they belonged.

  The horse rubbed velvet soft lips against the back of her neck, enjoying the closeness. “I wanted to give him the one thing that really meant something to me, not because it was easy, not to buy him off.” Oh, God, she mustn’t cry. The rhythmic motion of her hand seemed to flow through her body, releasing all the useless words she should have said before. “Why didn’t I listen to Rowena?” The horse nibbled at her hair. “Why am I so fucking stupid?”

  “Because you care?”

  Georgie jumped like she’d been stung by a hornet, and spun round so fast that the mare threw her head up then back down, its hard jaw crashing into her head. “Shit.” She rubbed at the tender spot which seemed to have mushroomed out from somewhere on the crown of her head all the way to her teeth. “What are you doing here?”

  He smiled, took the last remaining step to the stall door, holding out a hand to the mare who recognised an apology when she saw one and stepped forward to see if there was food on offer. “Would you rather I wasn’t?” His tone was even, but she could sense the tension, the wait for a rejection he was half expecting.

  “No” She shrugged, felt like a kid caught out behind the bike shed. “It’s just I wasn’t expecting you. Are you looking for Jake? He’s not here right now.”

  “I’m looking for you actually. Not changed much, has it?” He was gazing round, taking in every cobweb that the weak sunlight had picked out. “We had some good times here, didn’t we?”

  For once there wasn’t a note of judgement. None of the guarded tone that she’d come to expect from Alfie, this was more like Dad, the man she’d almost forgotten. She closed her eyes, opened them again and it wasn’t a dream. She hadn’t been whisked back to some perfectly preserved past. Just her father and herself in a dusty cobweb strewn barn.

  “Yes.” She tried it again, louder this time. “Yes, we did.”

  “It used to scare me stiff sometimes, watching you ride that mad horse. I used to have nightmares about what your mother would do to us if anything had happened to you. She hated us coming here you know.” His gaze was flicking between her and the horse, then he straightened up. “I got home from work one day and she’d advertised the horse, had a string of people interested.”

  “She what?” Georgie forgot about keeping her distance.

  “She would have preferred it if you’d taken up ballet.”

  “She tried to sell Salsa? Really?”

  “Just being a protective mother.” He stroked his finger along the door of the stall. “Horses were just big things with teeth at one end and kicking hooves at the other, and we did leave her out a bit.”

  “Oh, but…”

  “I think that’s partly why she found,” he paused, “other interests. She was lonely and I was too busy to notice.”

  “So, it was—”

  “It was my fault, not yours, honey. I was being selfish, keeping you to myself too much. And, at the end of the day your mother and I were two very different people.”

  Just like Jake and me. “How did you know I was here?”

  “Jake told me, at the party, all about how you two had met. He’s an interesting guy.” He looked at her pointedly, so she glared back. He laughed. “Okay, it’s none of my business. But I did like him, not your usual yes man.”

  Nope. “We’re not involved.”

  “I didn’t come here to quiz you about your personal life.” So why did you come? “Carol was worried about you, she does care, you know.”

  “I know.” She did deep down. She’d done a lot of thinking since the party, about the past. About being the step-daughter from hell. Maybe she’d been the problem, not Carol. Okay, they’d clashed. But what mother and daughter didn’t? She couldn’t even begin to imagine
how she’d deal with a daughter of her own that was difficult, but dealing with one that had just been abandoned by her own mother? An involuntary shiver found its way down her spine.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. So you came because Carol wanted you to?”

  He laughed. “Not just because of that, I have always done what I think is right for you, you know.” She shrugged. “To be honest I wanted an excuse to come back and see the old place.” He put his hands in his pockets. “Shame we can’t turn the clock back, eh?”

  She couldn’t remember the last time she’d looked into his eyes, properly. They’d not had the time, or the inclination, for too many years to count. But she was looking now, and he was looking straight back. “We can’t though, can we?”

  “We can’t, no, but maybe we can back track a bit?”

  “I think I’ve been trying to do that.” She opened the door, stepped out of the stall and locked it firmly. Slowly.

  “Dad?”

  “Yep.”

  “Why did you sell up?” Sell out.

  He wandered over to the patch of light that burst through the large open doorway, the one patch of brightness in the gloom of the barn. Stared out at the fields beyond. “This place was all the best bits of your childhood and all the worst bits of my marriage. It was success, the embodiment of our relationship and it was total failure. I didn’t want a reminder.” He spun on his heel and looked back at her. “It’s the hurt that you want to sweep away, and sometimes when you do it you don’t realised what else is getting dumped at the same time.” He shrugged, a gesture she recognised as her own. “At the time I just thought we hadn’t got any horse and there was no reason you’d want to hang on to it. I’m sorry George.” Nobody called her George, but Dad. Georgie, yes, and Georgina, but George was what he used to call her. Or his little Georgie Porgy, as he tossed her in the air, or legged her up into the saddle. Before the horses she’d been George and he’d been the dragon.

  “Does it make you happy or sad being back here?”

  The question caught her by surprise. She wasn’t sure any more. At first she’d been nervous, then it had been a trip down memory lane, nostalgia station first stop. Then she’d been happy, but she could see now that the happiness was more to do with Jake than just the place.

  “Is that offer of a job still open? I mean just as a temporary thing, if I wanted it. But I’m not sure yet.”

  “It is. You know I’d love to have you working for us, you did a solid job when you filled in over your summer break.”

  “It would just be temporary. I don’t want anything permanent.”

  “And?”

  “I can’t live with you, I mean I don’t want to, I want my own place.”

  “We could sort a short term contract, if you’re sure that’s what you want.”

  “I don’t know yet. And I want a proper contract, and no favouritism. And I don’t want you to interfere in my personal life.” She dared to look up, he was smiling, holding his hands up. “Or tell me which men I should be dating.”

  He smiled, the slow, gentle, caring smile that she used to see so often. “Is that what you really want, Georgie? What about this place?” He paused and the question he didn’t ask hung in the air, what about Jake?

  What did she want? That was the, as in capital THE big question. What she wanted and what she’d decided she had to settle for were two very different things.

  She walked over to her father, slipped her hand through his arm and stared out at the trees, the paddocks studded with hoof marks. Whatever she’d been planning originally, it had all changed now. She could see that it was history repeating itself. Her having a baby, it coming here at weekends to see its father, play with the horses. While she waited. Somewhere else. Jealous of a child who saw more of the man she loved than she did. What would happen next, would she be a runaway mother like her mum had been? She couldn’t, she just couldn’t watch the same scene replay here. That wasn’t what was supposed to happen. She could break down and wail like a child, or she could be the independent woman that Jake actually seemed a tiny bit fond of. Or he had been.

  “Can I treat you to a coffee?” Alfie had covered her cold hand with his, snapped her out of her thoughts. “In town?”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  “Don’t rush it, George. Don’t make the same mistake I did.”

  Oh boy, if he knew the mistake she’d made he really wouldn’t be quite as calm, and she sure as hell wasn’t going to spoil the moment and tell him.

  “I just want to leave a note, then I’m ready to go.”

  ***

  Jake was shaking. Tremors rolling down his arms as he revved the bike up and turned onto the lane. This time it was nothing to do with the engine, it was anger, pure anger cascading from him until it hurt.

  He’d not realised just how much of his heart was in this place until she’d blithely told him what she’d done. Until she’d told him she’d broken every rule, cut through their agreement. Set her own rules, like she’d always done. He’d just been a minor obstacle in the way. The road blurred ahead and he pushed the helmet visor up angrily, but the mist didn’t shift. He pulled in, his heart hammering and all he could think was that the girl he’d fallen for had taken him for a fool. Drawn him in and spat him out.

  Yeah, fallen for. It had gradually dawned on him that he missed her when she wasn’t there, he worried about her when she’d looked pale and drawn. Because she was pregnant. With the child of that long haired pretentious old artist she’d been seeing between shags with him. He’d assumed that when she brought that man here it had been a one off, more fool him. He’d obviously been part of the plan from the start, taking the opportunity to have a quick one, in his frigging barn. Helping with the business plan my arse.

  She’d come waltzing in with her eye on the prize, and he’d fallen for every line she’d thrown his way. Let her under his defences and into the place while all the time old Sly was in the background waiting to stake his claim. Yeah, once she’d found out she was pregnant she’d lost interest in reliving her childhood dreams.

  How could she walk in so calmly and tell him that she was going? That it was over and the land was a leaving present, and in the next breath tell him she was pregnant. Ready to start afresh. With someone else. He’d been an idiot to dismiss that lingering moment between her and her artist, a fool to try and ignore the fact that it was common knowledge in the village that she was going into partnership with him. Knowledge that no-one had thought to share with him. Not that he’d have listened.

  He’d fallen for every line about how she didn’t want to settle, didn’t want a family, been blind to the bleeding obvious.

  Jake took his helmet off, wiped his forearm across his eyes. The mist cleared, but the lump in his throat didn’t. Somehow it didn’t add up. She’d loosened up when they’d been working the horses, looked like she was genuinely having fun. That laugh wasn’t fake. It couldn’t have been.

  And at the party she’d been at his side when she didn’t need to be, laughing, joking but catching his eye whenever he looked her way. Okay, her parents hated Sly, so she couldn’t take him. But if they were planning on setting up, having a baby, why pretend?

  Spoilt she might be, but she wasn’t really a wild child, the bad girl she pretended to be. Maybe it was really one last generous gesture before she went. Maybe she had been trying to be nice. She didn’t owe him anything. She was off to get married, forget her little scheme. Move on with her life. And this patch of land suddenly wasn’t as important to her. She was handing it over. Leaving him how she’d found him. But with cash in Rowena’s pocket and the place he wanted in his. Free. Gratis.

  Except it wouldn’t be the same. She’d be gone. And owning this land would tie him to it, take away his freedom for ever. Shackle him, just like his father had been. And a rich girl called Georgie would be responsible. If he could hack it, he’d always feel he owed her, and he didn’t want to owe anyone. If his dad
hadn’t had debts then life would never had got nasty. And if he couldn’t hack it, if it all went wrong he’d hate her for doing it to him.

  Jake stared up at the sky. Did his father hate his mother? He doubted it. They were stuck together like superglue. When they’d committed it had been total, forever. She forgave him his sins, his wandering eye and wandering spirit. And he forgave her for changing his life, trapping him. But maybe he’d never felt trapped.

  He closed his eyes. Took a deep breath. He didn’t want to hate Georgina. He’d grown to like her more than he ever thought he could. Admired her for the way she got stuck in, recognised that she wasn’t being spoiled or grabbing. Misguided maybe. Stupid to hook up with a washed out has been who was old enough to be her father. But hey, who was he to judge?

  He couldn’t leave it like this. He’d reacted from hurt pride, reacted because he didn’t want anyone making decisions for him, forcing his hand. Second guessing what he wanted. He’d been a bastard and he knew it. Lashing out, wanting to hurt her. And the pain he’d barely registered had been real. As real as his. And he knew now why it hurt so much, it was nothing to do with her offer, it was everything to do with the realisation that he’d never see her again. She was somebody else’s. She was moving on. Which should have suited him fine.

  He took the road back home slowly. Relieved when he pulled in the gateway and there was no sign of life. Parking up the bike he tried to decide what to do. Hassling her now wasn’t the way, she needed some space and he had to do it right, even if it damned near killed him. She hadn’t bought into a relationship with him, she’d bought in to a bit of fun. And now she’d walked away from it. He absentmindedly checked on the mare, who had a full haynet and no interest in him at all, then with a final check round he went to flick off the barn lights.

  Then he saw it. A sheet of paper, shining white in the gloom.

  ‘Jake, I’m sorry for coming back. Sorry for interfering in your life. I promise I won’t bother you again. It’s between you and Rowena what happens here, like it always should have been. You’re right, I can’t turn the clock back and I’m not sure I need to any more.