‘How old were you both?’
‘I was eighteen and he was nearly twenty.’
Olivia stilled her legs and looked at Victoria. ‘A lad that age either fancies a girl or he doesn’t. He has no time for psychological games, believe me.’
‘So why did he leave the day after we had sex?’
Olivia shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Maybe you should ask him.’
Victoria flopped down onto the stool, sighed, and shook her head. ‘I’m so rubbish at this.’
‘What? Life?’ Olivia smiled. ‘I bet you’d pass with flying colours if there was an exam at the end.’ She slid down from the desk, pulled the creases out of her skirt, and headed for the back room. ‘I’m going to check on Seth.’
She stopped on her way past Victoria and placed a hand on her arm. ‘Talk to Chris. Explain how you feel, but remember, he’s suffered a huge loss. He won’t be thinking straight, not even now. The death of a partner is crippling. The death of your child is paralysing.’ She lifted her hand away. ‘Talk. It’s the only way to sort this out. And now seems like the perfect time.’ She nodded toward the main door, and made a quick exit through to the stock room, closing her and Seth inside.
In anticipation of the shop door opening, Victoria shepherded her rebellious curls behind her ears, wiped her sticky palms over her hips, and squared her shoulders.
The tension increased at the ting of the brass bell.
Chris hovered over the threshold, a scolded dog waiting to be called by his forgiving master. Victoria nodded for him to proceed.
‘We need to talk.’ He pushed the door shut.
His voice was dry – vapourless – but it was soon apparent the moisture had travelled to his eyes, and it was threatening to escape.
‘I don’t think talking will cover it.’ As Victoria spoke, a cloud of overwhelming sadness loomed above her, darkening her thoughts. She stood and retreated behind the counter. Proximity to this man interfered with her thinking and right now clarity was imperative. She waved her hand in the air, as if to disperse the fog. ‘You overreacted.’
‘I did. But with good reason.’
That wasn’t an apology. ‘Go on,’ Victoria said, determined to stay on track.
Chris’s eyes searched the space in front. ‘Until you, the last woman to touch me was Lacey.’
The words ripped through Victoria’s conscience, shredding her preconceived ideas into bloody fragments of guilt. In her misguided effort to comfort Chris, she’d bled over the one remaining trace of his wife.
She slumped against the wall and looked at her hands. Before she had time to respond, Chris appeared at the counter, his fingers raised to his lips.
‘Is there somewhere we can talk?’ he said.
‘The pub would have been my choice.’ Chris peered from the kitchen of Victoria’s cottage, through to the hallway. ‘It’s not safe in here.’
As far as Victoria was concerned, nowhere was safe when Chris was near. She closed the back door. ‘This room’s fine.’ The drone of the dehumidifiers reminded her how far away she was from moving in.
‘Still, I don’t think we should stay long. What did you want to look at?’
Victoria didn’t want to look at anything, especially not Chris’s face across the table in the cosy, snug Harbour Inn – the place he’d suggested. It was too familiar. Too easy to slip back in time. By coming to the cottage, their conversation would be limited. Neither person would want to stay in the dark, damp excuse of a home for any longer than necessary.
‘I wanted to remind myself what a disaster my life is. I leave a trail of devastation.’ She swept an arm through the air. ‘This is a living example.’ It was part truth. She saw Chris’s torso rise and fall as he took a deep breath. His leather jacket creaked with the movement. ‘Rick okay?’
‘Yeah. Well, for him. You know.’ Chris shivered, rubbed his hands together, and turned up his collar. ‘Are you sure we can’t go somewhere warmer? It’s not healthy here. Text Olivia, tell her we’re going to my place.’
‘No!’ Victoria blocked the doorway. ‘No,’ she said, with less insistence. ‘This is neutral ground.’
‘It’s not. It’s your cottage.’
‘It doesn’t feel like mine. There’s nothing of me here, is there? If there was, it’s lying dead among all that rubble.’ Like the piece of me buried on Chesil Beach. ‘I think we should say what we need to, bid our goodbyes, and go our separate ways.’
‘You what?’ Chris took a pace towards her. ‘Is that what you want?’
Victoria inched back until she brushed against the door. ‘You thought I was coming on to you. It proves we don’t know each other anymore.’
Chris scuffed the toe of his boot into a crack in the vinyl flooring. ‘Yeah. About that.’ He looked at Victoria. ‘I’m sorry I blew up. I was caught off guard and I said the first thing that came into my head.’ He tapped his skull. ‘It’s no excuse, but the present sometimes escapes me.’ He came to a halt, and focused on the damaged flooring.
He was still there in body, Victoria could see that, but his spirit had vanished, sucked down through his feet, and jammed between the fractures of the ripped vinyl.
‘I’m trying to hold onto memories of Lacey and Todd. If I forget how they smelled or how they spoke, I’m frightened I’ll lose them forever.’ Chris closed his eyes. ‘It was hard leaving them behind.’
As he opened his eyes again and looked at Victoria, he inclined his head. The intensity of his stare sent a shiver to her stomach. He was back in the room.
‘It was hard leaving you behind, too,’ he said.
‘Then why did you?’ Victoria couldn’t help herself. It was a chemical reaction, the elements – years of conjecture and self-loathing – were carried in her bloodstream. They were an integral part of her, and it was impossible to stay calm.
The air around her stirred as Chris moved closer.
‘I didn’t want to.’ He raised a hand as if to place it on Victoria’s shoulder, but then let it drop. ‘I had no choice.’
Victoria looked up, undecided as to whether or not she believed him. It was a convenient get-out, blaming someone else. She’d perfected the art. ‘There are always choices,’ she heard herself say. Her dad had pointed that out.
Chris acknowledged the remark with a wry smile. ‘But sometimes they’re taken out of our hands.’
So he was blaming someone else. ‘You chose to have sex with me that night. You chose the time, the place … the way.’
The memory stole the strength from Victoria’s legs, and she leaned against the door. It rattled. It shook. It gave in the same way as the metal surround of the sea defences when they’d stumbled and lurched onto them, caught on a tide of desire. She’d never been so completely immersed, nor had she felt so unconfined than when she was entwined with Chris’s body. But that moment was her undoing. That moment had brought her to this.
She locked her knees in position, testing their stability before putting her weight on them, and then, with a less than confident stride, carried herself across the room to the old, ceramic basin. The metal tap, resisting Victoria’s attempt to twist it into life, creaked and groaned, delivering nothing but frustration; a sensation with which Victoria was all too familiar. Of course there was no water, but she needed something to reduce the heat building inside. She clamped her hands around the rim of the washbowl, gratified by the instant chill to her palms. If only she could lay her cheeks there too.
Chris was right. Coming to the cottage was a bad idea. She hadn’t considered how confined the kitchen was, or the fact there was nowhere to run other than the beach, and that raised more issues than it solved.
Gee, what she’d do for a drink. Something to moisten her throat. She whacked the cold tap.
‘I want us to be okay.’
The inadequacy of Chris’s statement cycloned its way into Victoria’s conscience, and she reeled round. ‘I can never be okay. You saw to that. And just so we’re clear, I would never give myself to you a second time after what you did to me.’
A crusty silence, and a moment of mutual glaring followed. Chris took a defensive stance. He rested against the stove, with his ankles crossed and his arms folded. Victoria mirrored him, using the Belfast sink as her support. The worn flooring Chris had scuffed at provided a natural battle line in the war zone that was the cottage kitchen.
Victoria’s supply of ammunition, latent for seventeen years, rallied for position; explosive words, damaging thoughts, and delicate sensibilities were all landmines waiting to be trampled on. All her triggers were primed.
The minute he attacked, she would unleash her arsenal.
Chris raised both hands level with his face.
An act of surrender, so soon?
‘And just so I am clear, tell me what I did to you.’ He threw his arms down and slammed his palms against the metal hob. The bang was deadened by the surrounding debris.
‘You used me,’ Victoria hissed. She pushed away from the basin. ‘I gave you the one thing that was mine. The one thing no one else had or would ever have again. Innocence, virginity, call it what you will, I gave it to you because I thought you loved me. I believed we had a future, but I was a cheap parting gift before you left for America, wasn’t I? You fucked me, and then you fucked off.’
‘No, no, no.’ Chris dragged his fingers through his hair. ‘It wasn’t like that.’ He strode across the kitchen, stretching for the door, but halted and switched back.
Now he was in Victoria’s face, close, tight, his personal heat merging with hers, creating an intense pressure between them. A tornado of wild emotions whipped and swirled around her.
It would be easy to get carried away.
Victoria planted her feet firmly to the floor, and once more anchored herself to the sink. She ordered her oldest memories to the frontline. Remember, he screwed with your life, and he hurt you.
Saint-like in his innocence, with his fingers steepled at his mouth in silent prayer, Chris retreated behind the vinyl line. ‘That’s how you remember it?’
Loaded with self-doubt and apprehension, his question defeated Victoria, and the water welling in his brown eyes diluted her anger. His tears extinguished the fuse he’d lit in her youth. Her bullets of reprisal had backfired. What Victoria believed would bring resolution, brought crushing, crippling pain.
As with her resentment, Chris’s colour drained, leaving him as grey as the rubble strewn around the cottage.
After a moment of uneasy ceasefire, Victoria tested the boundary. ‘See? A trail of destruction.’
Chris pressed his fingers into his eyes, sniffed, and then cuffed his nose. The silvery snail-trail streak on the leather caught Victoria’s attention. She dug into her coat pocket and retrieved a tissue, waving it like a white flag. ‘It’s clean.’
‘Thanks.’ Chris lent forward, accepted the peace offering, and wiped his jacket.
‘It was for your nose.’ Victoria forced a flat-line smile; it was all she could manage. The potency of Chris’s sadness overpowered the room. ‘I think it’s time we got out of here,’ she said.
Firing off a text to Olivia, who was delighted to have Seth to herself for another hour, Victoria closed the rear door to the cottage. As she inhaled, the salty air raced through her, cleansing the grime of the last few minutes. She decided to overlook the nasty stain left behind.
She strode towards the main road, leading Chris away from the beach. They couldn’t lay the past to rest if they were stomping all over it.
Walking was good though. Walking provided both purpose and personal space. The old quarry at the top of the hill wasn’t far – they could be there and back in an hour, and the stone sculptures would fill the awkward silences. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Follow me. We can walk and talk, and admire some culture.’
Halting before reaching the top, Chris listened to Victoria’s footsteps, each heavier than the last. Her breathing was rapid, with a short rasp at every intake. He turned as she drew level. ‘I’m meant to be following you,’ he said.
‘I’d forgotten how steep it is,’ she replied, in between gasps. ‘And how breezy. My ears ache.’ She scraped her hair away from her face, but the disobedient copper spirals resumed their position the moment she removed her hands. She squealed into the wind.
Chris smiled. ‘It’s still rebelling then?’ He’d combed his fingers through those tresses.
‘Bloody hair.’ Victoria continued the climb, passing Chris, and leaving him standing.
He was lost in a memory – he and Victoria skinny-dipping, making love in the dark, and then using his T-shirt to rub her dry. She’d attempted to wrap it around her head, to hide her wilful, wet mess of tangles, but it wasn’t large enough. She’d let out a despairing scream then.
‘Are you coming?’
Victoria’s voice, strengthened by the wind, blew Chris’s thoughts out to sea. It took a moment for him to remember where he was. It took another to send an apologetic prayer to Lacey. The past had a lot to answer for.
As they touched the flat ground of the plateau, the breeze dropped, and the late afternoon sun gave one last valiant burst of winter warmth. Chris removed his jacket, slung it over his shoulder, and surveyed the surrounding area. Some joker had wrapped red and gold tinsel around the neck of a stone bear rearing up on his hind legs. Chris patted its hard, cold nose, and tugged at the decoration. ‘All right, boy?’
He settled on a wooden bench that overlooked the sweep of the bay, and watched the gulls swooping in and out of the waves.
Lacey would have loved the sense of freedom here. She’d have been happy. Safe. He should have brought her home when he had the chance. Introduced her to his father.
Ha. His father. The man who thought no woman was good enough for Chris. The man who’d promised to smooth things over with Victoria. Chris let his jacket drop to the floor. Only now did it occur to him that his father’s statements conflicted. What did that mean?
‘Are you okay?’ Victoria approached the bench and sat down. ‘I recognise that look.’
Aware he was scowling, Chris lifted his eyebrows, and tried to make light of his dark mood. ‘Yeah. I was thinking how much easier life would be if there were no misunderstandings, you know? People should say what they mean, and not imply or infer, or whatever the damn word is. There’s no doubt then, is there?’
Victoria agreed. ‘Computers don’t misconstrue. They process the information fed to them. If we issue ambiguous instructions, it’s our fault. User error.’ She shrugged and then occupied herself tracing the circles of a knot in the seat.
Chris turned his knees in Victoria’s direction, and clasped together his hands. Time to say what he meant. ‘I’m sorry you felt I’d used you. That was never my intention.’
Victoria shuffled to the end of the bench, and cast a look of deliberation across the white ground of the quarry. ‘I don’t suppose it was,’ she said, picking up a shard of shale. ‘But that’s what happened.’ She skimmed the stone along the powdery floor, and it landed with a plop in a small puddle. ‘Perhaps you’d like to feed me the right information so I can process it correctly?’
That didn’t sound like the Vicky Paveley Chris remembered. He checked to see if she was smiling, but her expression was as serious and straight as the blackening horizon. This was Victoria Noble. Controlled. Ordered. Efficient. Her lust for life had gone. If it had vanished along with her virtue, it wasn’t any wonder she felt resentment and anger towards him.
In one swift move, Chris grabbed his jacket, leapt from the seat, and put two metres between him and Victoria. ‘Do you blame me for how you’ve lived your life?’ He looked over his shoulder. She was stari
ng right at him, her lips pursed. ‘Am I responsible?’
‘I thought you loved me.’
‘That’s not an answer.’ He swivelled in the gravel to face her. ‘What did I do that was so wrong?’ He whipped his hand into the air. ‘You led the way, Vicky, with your whispers and touches and kisses. I held back. I wasn’t sure we were ready, but because it was what you wanted, because you told me it would make you the happiest you’ve ever been, we made love. And it was the best feeling in the world. I was totally into you.’ He rubbed the back of his head. ‘Leaving you made me sick. I mean, I actually threw up when I realised what was happening. I loved you.’
He saw Victoria’s eyes narrow as she tried to comprehend. The heat of her gaze made his neck prickle, and his confession made his forehead throb. He ran his fingers around his collar, and then massaged his temples. The word love stirred his stomach, and left his tongue with nowhere to go. He passed it over his lips, tasting the salt the air had deposited there.
Victoria’s mouth tasted of the sea last time they kissed. His tongue had found its way then. They were young, but it hadn’t made the experience less intense.
Snapshots of their last night together flashed through his head, provocative and exciting. ‘I need to walk,’ he said.
He headed for the next set of sculptures, searching for distraction, allowing himself time to calm down. The depth of his emotions shocked him. Scared him. He was thinking of Victoria in a way he reserved for Lacey. She deserved prime position, not his old lover.
But Victoria was a woman now, and it was not only in attitude she’d changed. Where youth had granted her attractiveness, maturity had graced her with timeless beauty. Her body was different too. He imagined her skin beneath his fingers, softer and fleshier than before. And her kiss … Would their mouths still mould to one another, airtight and seamless?
He stopped in front of the first carving, concentrating on admiring the handiwork – anything to take his mind off Victoria. The sculpture was a vertical half of a naked woman. He spread his fingers over the granite. It was cool and smooth and unforgiving. Was that how Victoria would be? Or would she liquefy at his touch, plead for his breath to glide over her breasts? Fall at his request?
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