The Faerie Tree

by Jane Cable

  I pushed Robin to the back of my mind; I couldn’t bear to think he was out there, somewhere, living a life without me. Or not living one. Kind of suspended in a place of booze and darkness where I hadn’t wanted to follow and even if I had, I hadn’t been able to reach. It was far better to pretend that nothing had ever happened.

  I managed – kind of. But Connor and I took Claire to see the Faerie Tree when she was just three years old and it all came flooding back. I had nightmares on and off for weeks; dreams where Robin was dragged down into the sludge of the river and all I could see was his hand stretching out towards mine. Luckily Connor was away for most of the time so he never saw me wake, crying and shaking, at two in the morning. Something had to be done before he came back.

  One of my colleagues had used hypnotherapy to give up smoking. One session and he never touched a cigarette again. I went to see the same woman – I can remember very little about it – but it was years before I dreamt about Robin again. Years. Although I avoided any possible triggers; like the Faerie Tree, like Kimmeridge, like walking down the crescent in Southampton where his office used to be.

  I refill my wine glass and sit back on the sofa, my finger smoothing the fabric in figures of eight. It’s been a shitty, shitty week; what with Claire… do all mothers say and do the wrong thing? Of course they don’t… it was Sasha’s mother she turned to, after all. If I knew Angie better I’d ask her: ‘how do I do this right?’ But I can’t. I’m meant to know. Why don’t I?

  I think of Robin as he is now, hair and beard flecked with grey, deep lines around those sun-specked hazel eyes. My female colleagues laugh about how unfair it is men get sexier with age, and in Robin’s case it is true. His hands have been toughened by his work and a scar runs the length of his thumb. How would it be to be touched by him now? I can almost feel the pads of his fingers circle my nipples. Red wine splashes on a discarded newspaper as I reach for a top up.

  This has gone on long enough. I have to know if he feels the same about me; if he doesn’t I will not go on torturing myself and he will have to leave. That’s the end of it. And if I make a fool of myself tonight then at least Claire isn’t here to see it.

  I drain my glass and stand up. I curb my desire to run straight to his bedroom. I need to clean my teeth and check my face – put on some lipstick, at very least. So up the stairs I go, bit slower than I’d planned because my legs aren’t behaving quite as they should. Each step gets bigger and bigger and near the top I miss my footing because they’ve got so huge and I slide back down a few. I cry out in shock and frustration.

  Nothing hurts but I don’t think I can get up. My arm gropes for the banister but can’t find it. Then I hear Robin say, “Izzie, are you alright?”

  “Think so.”

  He comes down a few steps to my level and I reach out for him instead. He crouches next to me, his dressing gown smelling of washing powder. I bury my nose in it.

  “Come on, I’ll give you a hand.” I look at him and there is concern in his eyes, but he is smiling just a little bit. That’s good – he must still like me.

  I put an arm around his shoulder and he hauls me up. I lean on him and he kind of drags me up the last few steps. We reach the landing and he takes me in his arms and carries me to my bedroom – it’s rather romantic really. He’s very strong.

  He puts me down on the bed and takes off my slippers. “Can you manage to undress?” he asks.

  I pout in what I hope is a sexy manner. “I’d rather you did it for me.”

  He smiles and shakes his head. “Oh, Izzie… come on then, sit up, then I can take off your jumper.”

  I do as I’m told then flop back on top of the duvet.

  He stands back. “Are you sure you can’t manage your jeans?”

  I giggle. “Nope.”

  So he undoes the button and unzips the fly. His fingers brush my stomach and thighs and they are softer than I imagined. I don’t want him to stop. But once my jeans are folded on my bedroom chair he pulls the duvet over me.

  I grab his hand. “Robin – please stay.” What’s in his eyes? “I need you – I want you to make love to me.”

  He sits down on the edge of the bed and squeezes my fingers. “No, Izzie – not tonight.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you’re drunk as a skunk and you might regret it in the morning.”

  “I won’t – I know I won’t.”

  “You might, and I couldn’t bear that. Ask me when you’re sober – ask me when I can be sure you mean it – then I won’t turn you down.”

  He stands up to leave, but he is still holding my hand. I try to make sense of his words but they won’t stop spinning around my head. He stoops and kisses the tips of my fingers before tucking them under the duvet. He turns off the light and the click of the door handle tells me he’s gone.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  I deserve a serious hangover – perhaps it is because I slept like a log I don’t have one. I have no idea how long I did sleep; it’s half past seven now but who knows when I went to bed. I think I know how I got here though, but for a moment I wonder if I dreamt it. I raise myself on one elbow; my jeans are folded on my bedroom chair – it isn’t where I’d have left them after a few glasses of wine.

  As well as a hangover I deserve nothing but shame and embarrassment. I feel neither. I feel strangely calm, because the thing I remember most about last night is Robin saying that if I asked him into my bed when I was sober then he wouldn’t turn me down. Perhaps I did imagine that, but no, it is there, along with the memory of his touch on my leg and my jeans on the chair.

  The house is silent – Robin must still be asleep. The pump of my shower might wake him so instead I wash with warm water from the basin, brush my hair to get the tangles out, and clean my teeth. I have to admit that my mouth is not at its best this morning. I gulp two glasses of water from the cold tap, the chill of it gripping my throat.

  I look myself up and down in my bathroom mirror. My buttocks are almost nothing but at least my breasts are pert. Still, it isn’t the greatest of bodies these days – I am forty-four, after all – and I don’t quite have the gall to go to him naked. Instead I pull a candy-striped nightshirt over my head; it looks casual, but it’s short enough to help me to feel sexy. Lord, I need that help right now.

  With every step along the landing I expect to lose my nerve, but the thought of what might happen if I don’t do this is driving me on; at worst, a lifetime of what ifs – at best, a day of not looking each other in the eye.

  Robin is lying on his back with his hands behind his head. He doesn’t move when he sees me, but a muscle under his beard twitches.

  “How are you feeling this morning?” he asks.

  “Better than I deserve really. And I’m sober.”

  The word hangs between us but he says nothing.

  “Did you mean it?” I blurt out.

  His Adam’s apple bobs up and down. “Did you?”

  “Yes.”

  Before he has a chance to reply I slip under the duvet. In a single movement he turns and pulls me to him, holding me as tightly as he can. His naked skin is warm and I sink into him, an enormous sense of safety filling me from head to toe – I have found him, I’ve found my Robin again.

  Of course, we make love. I expected it to feel familiar, but instead it is shiny and new, as if we have never done this before. Robin recognises it too. It must be what prompts him to tell me he has waited a lifetime for this moment. Was it worth the wait? When he tells me yes I purr like a cat and he laughs then starts to kiss me again, his beard a soft tickle on my skin.

  Later, he pulls me out of my reverie by asking what time I have to pick up Claire. We are scarily close to it and he leaps out of bed saying that he will go and I should finish my marking so we can all have an outing this afternoon.

  “Where to?” I ask him.

  He pauses, one leg half way into his jeans. “Not Kimmeridge. That’s just for us.”

  I fee
l myself glowing. “I didn’t understand last night.”

  He frowns. “I’m not sure I understand this morning, either, so let’s hold off on telling Claire until we’ve had time to talk.”

  My glow stops. “You’re not regretting it, are you?”

  He zips his fly and walks back towards the bed, then stoops to kiss me. “My only regret is that we didn’t do it twenty years ago.”

  And that leaves me feeling very puzzled, because we did.

  Robin

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  The day Izzie and I first made love was unreal. I had to keep pinching myself to make sure it was actually happening.

  That afternoon we went to Highcliffe to hunt for shark teeth. Izzie and Claire didn’t believe me, but as we scoured the sand at the edge of the tide I found one within minutes. They gathered close, marvelling at its sharpness, and I told them about the Jurassic Sea and the animals that swam in it fifty million years ago. Izzie’s hand touched mine as she took the tooth from me and slipped it into her pocket.

  Claire and I trawled the beach for more hidden treasure while Izzie sat on a bank of shingle, watching the surfers.

  “I’ve never surfed,” Claire said when we joined her, “but it looks awesome. Have you, Robin?”

  “Yes. When I was a student and then… one summer… I went to Newquay and worked in a surf shop and for a surf school. I was on the beach a lot that year.”

  “Wow – I’d love to go to Newquay.” Claire looked at Izzie from under her fringe. “Actually, Mum, Sasha and some of the others from school are planning a week there after our exams. Do you think I could go with them?”

  I watched Izzie’s fingers clench around the shingle she was sifting. “Who’s organising the trip? Will somebody’s parents be going?”

  Claire shook her head. “We’d be staying in a hostel with other groups and doing a proper surf course, so we’d be supervised, but the idea is that we go on our own.”

  “Oh, I don’t know, Claire. If you want to learn to surf perhaps Robin could teach you instead?”

  “Well I’m very rusty, but whether or not Claire goes to Newquay I’ll certainly take her out a few times to get the feel of it. But not until the weather’s warmer,” I added. “Those guys out there today must be nuts – it’s freezing.”

  “That’s great, Robin. Maybe Mum would worry less if I could already surf.”

  “What I don’t like is the idea of you going away on your own – you’ll only be seventeen, after all.” Izzie wrapped her coat more tightly around her.

  “I bet driving a car’s more dangerous than surfing,” Claire muttered.

  “Then perhaps I won’t let you do that either,” Izzie snapped back. She looked up at me, eyes pleading for support.

  “Listen, Claire, it’s unreasonable to expect your mother to say yes when she knows nothing about this trip and it does all sound a little vague. Why don’t you get some more information together? When do you have to decide?”

  Claire picked up a pebble then dropped it. “Not for a little while – next month probably. But what’s the point if Mum’s going to say no anyway?”

  Izzie sighed. “I’m not going to say no anyway. Robin’s right, I need more information and more time.”

  That pacified Claire – sort of. As we walked up the cliffs to the car park she dragged behind us and kept turning back to watch the surfers.

  Izzie touched my hand. “So when did you go to parenting class?”

  “Did I overstep the mark?”

  “Not at all. I don’t feel such an inadequate lone parent when you’re around.”

  I wanted to hug her but I couldn’t. We would have to tell Claire about us first.

  On Sunday morning we strolled into Bishops Waltham for a coffee while Claire got on with her homework. Over latte and croissants at Josie’s, Izzie’s hand stretched across the table and snuck into mine.

  “I missed you last night.”

  I lifted her fingers to my mouth and kissed them. “I missed you. I want this settled today, Izzie – it’s too hard when we’ve waited this long.”

  “But what is there to settle? We just need to tell Claire and then everything will be fine.”

  “But what do we tell her? What are we, Izzie?”

  Two little furrows appeared between her eyebrows. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  I set her hand free so that she could pick up her mug. “Well, if we weren’t living under the same roof already there would be a period of courtship. We’d go out a few times, then perhaps you’d ask me to stay, and I would, but not every night. Then, after a while, if it was all going well, maybe we’d talk about moving in together. But the reality is that we’re already there.”

  “I don’t see why that’s a problem.”

  “I’m not saying it’s a problem, but we need to know where we are on the continuum.” I grinned at her. “What I really want to know is am I courting you from the spare room or are we going to be tucked under the duvet together every night?”

  She laughed and looked at me in a way that took me straight back to Jennifer’s bathroom in 1986. “You come to my room tonight, mister, and I’m not letting you go. Even if I have to chain you to the bed. But seriously, Robin, it’s not as if we don’t know each other. And Claire likes you so it’s not going to be an issue. I know we can make it work this time.”

  “Last time we didn’t have a chance. Mum died and… it felt as though it was all my fault. I couldn’t cope, Izzie – I ran away. I didn’t deserve you.”

  “Oh, Robin. I was just as much to blame.”

  It was an odd comment but I ignored it – I didn’t want to keep looking back over my shoulder at the past.

  Izzie wanted us to tell Claire together but I was adamant she should do it alone because if I was there it wouldn’t give Claire the opportunity to express her concerns. And she was bound to have them; her father hadn’t been dead six months – this was frighteningly fast by anyone’s standards. So when we got home I put on my gardening trousers and my wellingtons and went outside while Izzie climbed the stairs to Claire’s bedroom.

  It is hard to find things to do in a garden in early February, so I took the bird feeders off the apple tree and gave them a good clean under the outdoor tap. As I was blowing on my fingers to warm them I noticed there was a corner of the lawn which looked particularly damp so I got a fork out of the shed and started to spike it. I was just finishing when I felt someone watching me.

  I turned around. “Well, what do you think, Claire?”

  “You’ve missed a bit – just behind your left foot.”

  I speared the ground again. “You know that wasn’t what I meant.”

  She smiled. “You and Mum? I’m OK about it. No – that’s wrong – I guess I’m really pleased. It’s the best thing for her.”

  “But it’s too soon after your dad?”

  She shook her head. “No, Mum needs you now. Time wouldn’t make any difference. It’s just, well, a bit odd.”

  I folded my hands on my fork. “I will never take your father’s place Claire, nor would I want to.”

  She smiled at me. “No, what’s odd is that I think my father took yours.”

  That took me aback alright. “Oh, come on Claire…”

  “No, really. Mum said you were old flames and the way she lights up around you, the way she looks at you – it was never like that between her and Dad.”

  “That’s just the difference between a new relationship and an old one. Let’s face it, Claire; by the time you were old enough to notice how your parents were with each other they’d have been together more than ten years. Your mother and I have been together about ten minutes.”

  “But what about before?”

  “We never even got off the ground. It was all just starting when my mother died and it pole-axed me completely. I was in no fit state to be any good to anyone.”

  Claire frowned. “That’s funny – Mum gave me the impression it was more.”


  I looked back towards the house. “Inside our hearts I think it probably was. I was head over heels in love with her, Claire, and even if she felt half of that for me it would have been a pretty big thing. But that’s all ancient history now and everything happens for a reason. We’ve been given another chance, that’s the main thing.”

  Out of nowhere, Claire hugged me. “You’re going to be so good for Mum. Thank you, Robin – I’m so happy it’s you.”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  The hiss of tyres stilled on the drive then the engine cut out. But there was a longer than normal pause before the car door slammed and a blast of icy air from the hall heralded Izzie’s arrival.

  “The fairies have got a surprise for you!” I called.

  There was no reply.

  “Izzie?”

  Her briefcase thudded onto the parquet. “What?”

  I was about to repeat myself but one look at her face silenced me. I reached towards her and traced the lines under her eyes with my index finger. “What’s wrong?”

  For a moment I thought she was going to cry but she blinked and shook her head. “Nothing… I mean, I think I might be going down with something.” Her eyes glanced past me and locked onto the coffee table. “Champagne, Robin? Have you won the lottery?”

  “Some days I think I have.”

  She cuffed me on the top of my arm. “Idiot. What’s it in aid of?”

  “A half term safely navigated, a table booked at Regginas for eight… but I can cancel it if you don’t feel well.”

  She looked down at our feet, hers neat in their black court shoes, dwarfed by my sprawling socks.

  “Look, I’ll call them now – we can go another time – it doesn’t matter.”

  “Robin, I’m sorry – it was a lovely thought too.” When she finally looked up her eyes were red rimmed.

  “You do look full of cold.”

  She sniffed. “Yes, that must be what it is. Two of my tutor group have a real stinker and I bet I’ve caught it.”