The chair was empty.
Of course it was. Gwynn shook herself, trying to get rid of the prickly feeling on her skin. Her great-aunt was nowhere to be found in this house, because she was dead. Gwynn told herself she was simply becoming infected by the irrationality of others. No ghosts. No.
Martin’s voice: You’ve seen her.
And Colin’s: You might not have a choice.
Gwynn stared at the chair. Floral Chintz. A perfectly normal chair, with antimacassars on the arms. There was no indent in the cushion indicating an occupant, no pressure of an unseen head on the chair back. She could go over and sit there now, now that Martin was gone and would not stop her with his strange urgency.
Yet she wouldn’t. Instead she picked up the tea tray and took it through to the kitchen. She filled the sink and washed the cups and saucers mechanically, listening hard for the sound of anyone else in the house. The footsteps, perhaps, of her first night, after the sound of the door closing.
No.
There was no sound. Of course there was no sound.
Dishes dried and put away, Gwynn hung the dish towel on the rack. The mantle clock rang the hour, and a sudden gust of wind rattled the glass in the window frames. She jumped. She couldn’t help it. Was that the sound of someone at the kitchen door? It was growing dark outside, twilight, the time in between. Resolutely she straightened and wrenched the door open to look into the garden.
There was no one there. Of course there was no one there.
Brambles. Still. Always, she thought in disgust. She’d have to see if Colin would be ready for digging up the entire back garden, to get rid of the roots which she imagined snaked beneath the surface, sending up ten tendrils for every one cut back, a horticultural many-headed hydra. She pushed that idea aside as well: one hired a handyman, but did one hire the handyman who had become a lover?
The gate in the wall was creaking. From here she could see that it was partially open, though she knew she had shoved it as much closed the last time she’d come through there, and she knew she checked it compulsively every time she was in the garden.
“Damn it,” she hissed, ignoring the frisson along her spine, pushing her way out into the brambles.
You opened the gate. You let him in.
“Shut up,” she said aloud.
The thorns caught at her jeans, and tiny knives scraped their way across the back of her hand. She shoved her way through to the gate, pushed at it with all her strength.
It didn’t move.
Gwynn leaned her entire weight into it. The bottom scraped along the ground, but still it refused to close all the way. Of course it did. Eight inches of space, maybe twelve, through which she could make out the shimmering boles of the trees on the hill between her and the ruined dovecote. She pushed again.
Then she heard the doves.
Gwynn stared out into the falling darkness, out there, beyond the wall, for only a moment before turning on her heel and fleeing back into the cottage. In the kitchen she slammed the door and locked it, leaning her back against it, trying to catch her breath.
SHE DIDN’T KNOW how much later the telephone rang.
“The gig’s on,” Colin said, as soon as she picked up. “At the Holly Bush.”
There seemed to be an opening in his pause.
Gwynn looked around the sitting room, feeling panic rise. She hadn’t realized how much she had been looking forward to Colin’s appearance this evening, and now she was faced with several hours filled with only—something she couldn’t quite identify. Something she didn’t want to identify.
The vision of Martin’s photograph rose up in her mind. Of Tommy Chelton, standing in the background, watching with those black pits of eyes. Waiting.
“Come get me,” she whispered quickly.
“Gwynn?” A question. Urgent.
“Just come,” she pleaded.
30
SHE OPENED THE door to him, and he immediately enfolded her in his arms.
“Get your things,” he said into her hair. “Let’s go. Tell me on the way.”
And yet, on the way out of the village on Clear Street, Gwynn could hardly formulate the words. Colin listened without interruption until her voice petered out.
“He left the scrapbook with you?” he asked. “Martin?”
Gwynn nodded, clasping her shaking hands together between her knees. “I hid it. Upstairs. In the bottom drawer of the dresser.”
“I don’t know.” Colin downshifted, turned into a side street, then sped up again. “I don’t want it in your house.”
She glanced over, and in the green light from the dashboard, there was a hard set to the line of his jaw.
“I think—” Gywnn bit her lower lip. “I think you need to look at the pictures. I need to see if you have any reaction to them.” She turned away, caught a glimpse of her white face in reflection in the side window, and clenched her eyes shut against it. “I need to know if I’m crazy.”
Colin took one hand off the wheel to cover both of hers. “You’re not crazy.”
“I heard screaming,” she protested.
“And doves.”
“And doves.”
“You’re not crazy.” His hand remained atop hers and the warmth of his skin slowly seeped into her cold fingers. She couldn’t remember ever being this cold. “Something crazy is happening, but that’s not the same.”
THE HOLLY BUSH filled slowly as the band set up on the miniscule stage at the far end of the low-beamed room.
“We’ll try not to blast you out,” Pete said to her, plucking the strings of his guitar, his head bent to listen. He frowned and adjusted a tuning peg. Gwynn took her pint to the stage corner and slid into a chair at a small table. She watched Colin over the rim of her glass as he bent to some plugs. In the dim light she couldn’t make out his features, but she could imagine them, and the thought was comforting. His gray eyes, plain, honest, watchful. Kind. The way he looked at her, as though offering safety.
Not Tommy Chelton’s eyes. Gwynn wondered what her great-aunt had thought, looking into the eyes of her husband for those seven years. She never laughed again. She thought of the blazing blue of Martin Scott’s eyes, and the tears she saw when he spoke of Gwynn Chelton’s unhappiness. The unhappiness which clung to her throughout her widowhood. Fifty-odd years of widowhood.
Now Colin knelt beside her chair. “You’re not crazy,” he repeated, looking up into her face.
Gwynn reached out a hand and touched his brows, featherlight, and swept from one eye to the other. “I want to believe you,” she said, leaning close so he could hear her above the growing din. She almost did believe him. It was easy to believe his words now she was away from Gull Cottage.
He ran a hand up into her hair and cupped the back of her neck. His kiss was long. He pulled away. “You won’t go back there tonight.” Then he leapt away and took his place behind the other band members at the back of the stage.
Colin read her mind. There was something comforting in that, too.
FOR THE FINAL number of the last set, Pete picked up his melodeon and said, “We’re going to try a new song out on you, never been heard before in public.” He stepped away from his mic, and Colin, much to her surprise, stepped forward. Gwynn did not know he ever sang at these gigs. He looked mildly uncomfortable.
“I wrote this one,” he said. “For somebody. Wish me luck. It’s called ‘No Ghosts.’”
She held her breath and clasped her hands together in her lap.
GWYNN HAD NEVER seen his house, had only the vaguest idea of where it might be in the village, and when he pulled the work truck to a stop in front of his door, she still was unsure, in the dead of night, where she was. She fumbled with her seat belt, then pushed her way out of the truck before Colin could make his way around to help her.
“What do you want me to carry?” she asked.
She saw his quick smile before he turned away to the back of the truck. “Can you take the guitar?” He handed her t
he case, his fingers lingering on the back of her hand. He gathered up an amplifier and a couple of heavy bags, then led the way to a set of stairs climbing the side of what looked like stables or a garage. “Careful,” he said over his shoulder. At the tiny landing, he paused to unlock the door and pressed back to the rail to let her pass.
He flipped the light switch, and she found herself in a single loft room, economically furnished, with a kitchen at one end and a sitting room at the other. “Toilet through that door, if you need it,” he offered, jerking his chin to the left.
Gwynn did need it. She washed up quickly, toweling her wet face, tucking her damp hair behind her ears before emerging to find that Colin had stowed his gig bags and amp on shelves in the corner, leaning the guitar case against the wall.
“A drink?” he offered. “Beer? Wine? Not much else. Ice water?”
Gwynn laughed nervously, moving to sit on the futon beneath the dormer window. “I’m fine.”
He was bent to the refrigerator beneath the counter. “Are you hungry? I can do a cheese sandwich, I think. Or a sausage or two.”
Gwynn suddenly felt an emptiness in her stomach; she couldn’t remember when she had last eaten. “Cheese and crackers, maybe?”
Colin nodded, and economical of movement in the tiny space, pulled a packet from the refrigerator and a box from an overhead cabinet. In a moment he took a seat beside her on the futon, balancing the plate on his knee. His thigh touched hers, and again she felt grateful for his warmth, for the clean scent of his soap.
“Why are you nervous?” He loaded a cracker with cheese and a daub of red relish and handed it to her. She took a bite: cranberry, sweet. The cheese was sharp.
“I’m not nervous,” she said.
He only waited. He fixed himself a cracker, heavily laden with cheese.
“What kind of cheese is this?”
Colin grinned, slowly.
She threw up her hands. “I’m not nervous. This is just—strange for me, that’s all. To be here. With someone who just sang a song to me in public.”
“Did you like it?”
What Gwynn really liked was the way his face was suddenly boyish. Hopeful. Back at the Holly Bush, he had not said a word once the song was over, but had bent to his amplifiers and cords, as though embarrassed. Shy. “I liked it. Very much.”
Colin looked pleased. He smiled, ate another cracker, looking down at the plate.
“And now you’re going to bed with me,” he said.
She opened her mouth, closed it again, and looked away.
“As soon as you finish your midnight snack, because you need your strength.”
Her eyes slewed around quickly.
“Because I can’t open this futon by myself.”
Gwynn burst into laughter. The plate slid to the rug as he caught her face in his hands and kissed her.
LONG AFTER COLIN’S breathing had evened out and deepened, Gwynn lay awake beneath the weight of his arm curing about her waist. With the curtains drawn across the windows, the room was dark, but her eyes slowly grew accustomed to the varying grays. She found her gaze skirting his contours where he lay next to her: his tousled hair, the curve of his cheekbone, his jaw, his shoulder, his flank. It was so strange, and yet how quickly it had become familiar.
Somewhere outside along the road she heard the hush of the incoming tide; a bell rang in the distance. Otherwise, it was quiet, calm. Colin’s house seemed to sleep, without the anxious waiting feeling her own cottage gave out, as though it were breathing, or holding its breath.
“Sleep,” he murmured against her forehead. “Worry about it tomorrow.”
“Yes,” she said, and did.
Part III
Exes
31
IN THE MORNING they made love again, then rose and dressed and slipped out into the cool air that smelled of salt tide. There were a pair of seagulls in the drive next to the truck. They complained loudly before lifting into the sky on their strong white wings.
“ANYWHERE IN PARTICULAR, Penny?” Colin called as they entered the little restaurant at the end of the alleyway.
“Anywhere you can find,” the woman with the long blonde braid behind the counter answered, then returned her attention to the customers seated before her. Fishermen, they looked like.
Two tables at the back were empty, one piled still with dirty dishes. Gwynn slid into a chair at the clean table, but Colin leaned over the end of the counter, pulled out a gray plastic bus tub, and cleared off the dishes from the table across the way. One of the fishermen at the counter nodded to him.
“Can’t take the restaurant out of the boy, then, can you?” he asked genially.
Colin nodded in return. “Not if you yobs insist upon leaving the poor woman a mess like this.”
The fisherman laughed and turned back to his plate. The man beside him elbowed him in the ribs, leaned close to say something. They both glanced quickly back at Gwynn, and then away again. The noise of the breakfast wave rose and fell about her.
Colin wiped the table down, returned the bus pan to its place, and then slipped behind the counter to pour two mugs of coffee. Gwynn saw the waitress throw him a wry but grateful look on her way to the kitchen pass-through.
He slipped into the white chair across from Gwynn and pushed the cup of coffee across the table to her. “I should have got you a menu, but I can never remember where Penny keeps them. Nobody here reads them anyway.” He shot a look back at the fishermen at the counter. Two of them stood, tossing some money down, and made their way to the door. The noise level fell momentarily as people turned from their conversations to wish the two a good day on the water. “Think of something you want for breakfast, and you can probably have it.”
“Eggs Benedict,” Gwynn suggested.
Colin made a face. “You’d do that to a self-respecting egg?”
“No, but I was testing your theory.”
“Thank God. I thought we were going to have to have a break-up when we’ve barely just begun this thing.” His lips quirked.
“This thing?” She laughed. “What the hell is this thing?”
Still the odd smile. “I haven’t got a clue, but so far it’s been rather interesting, wouldn’t you agree?”
Gwynn lifted her coffee cup to her lips. It was scalding hot, but black and fierce, the way she liked it. “I would agree.” She sipped some more. “You’re quite comfortable here.” Of course, he was comfortable everywhere. “Have you worked here before?” Cooking and waiting were probably among his talents, she mused, rather like delivering wood, wielding a crowbar, playing a guitar.
Colin glanced over at the waitress, who now was bent over the table of a wizened old couple, laughing as she wrote their order on a yellow pad. “Penny and I opened the place together. A lot of years ago. She always wanted a little restaurant, hidden someplace where only locals could find it.”
Gwynn leaned back in her chair. “You opened this restaurant.”
Then Penny appeared at their table. “Thanks for that,” she said, indicating the other table with the hand that held the pencil. Her voice was rich with good humor. She bent down to kiss Colin’s cheek. Her smile at Gwynn was wide and welcoming. “I’m glad he finally got around to bringing you along. He’s taken long enough, he has.” She scratched at the order book quickly. “I don’t even know why I’m writing this down—ol’ Bob knows what you’re eating as well as I. And you, Gwynn? What’ll you have this morning?”
“Have the sausage,” Colin suggested. “It’s from Trevelyan’s.”
“Oh, and have you met Giles, then? Did you make it up for the craic?” Penny glanced at Gwynn as she wrote some more.
“I have.”
“He’s already propositioned her.” Colin chuckled. “Maybe twice.”
Penny laughed.
He leaned across the table conspiratorially. “Penny’s probably the only woman in the village he hasn’t propositioned.”
“Neither has he me old Ma,” Penny ret
orted. She leaned in as well. “Ma is his niece, that’s why. It’d be a bit weird, that.” Her smile was wide. “What’ll it be for you, then?”
Gwynn smiled, disarmed. “The sausage, then. And eggs, scrambled? Some toast?”
Penny swung away as the door opened and slapped closed again in its frame.
Gwynn sipped some more coffee. “You know each other well.”
Colin shrugged. “She’s my ex-wife.” He too lifted his cup to his lips.
GWYNN WAS FUMING, angry, and feeling guilt as she ate the breakfast Bob had piled high for them. They ate in silence, and she could feel Colin’s gaze on her, but she kept her attention stubbornly on her plate. He at last gathered their coffee cups and went for more—the tiny restaurant had filled again, conversations roaring about them, punctuated by Penny’s calls to Bob at the pass-through, Bob’s shouts in return—Gwynn sat stiffly at the back table, twisting her napkin between her fingers. Colin had told her, hadn’t he? Some of it, anyway. That there had been a girl, that it hadn’t worked out. She could have pressed him, asked for more. She could have learned his entire history before tumbling into bed with him like a wanton. Gwynn kicked herself for her reticence—for shying away from the conversation when she could imply have asked. You know, she cursed herself idiotically, asked something like hey, did you marry her? Or did you play the guitar for her like you did for me? Or how about that song you played last night at the gig—did you really write it for me, or was it hers first? Then there was always was that just one big pick-up line, one I fell for, hard?
Gwynn bit her lip, feeling unutterably stupid. She watched Colin pause with cups in hand to exchange a quick word with Penny—with his ex-wife—saw Penny toss her blonde braid over her shoulder as she touched his sleeve familiarly, smiling up at him. Suddenly he set the cups on the counter, pulled his mobile phone from his pocket, looked at the screen, and stepped toward the door. Penny shrugged and gathered up the cups. She breezed toward Gwynn’s table.
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